Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [73]
Ovenbirds fluted too, in the heat, but more frequently after dark, when the whippoorwills were calling. Roosevelt spent many moonlit evenings on the piazza in his rocking chair, with Edith beside him, listening to this “night-singing in the air.” Despite his mature preoccupation with politics, he was still susceptible to poetic impressions. Musing on the behavior of screech owls, he produced one extraordinary, if ungrammatical, image:
They come up to the house after dark, and are fond of sitting in the elk-antlers over the gable. When the moon is up, by changing one’s position, the little owl appears in sharp outline against the bright disk, seated on his many-tined perch.
To the west, beyond Hell Gate, he could see the nimbus of New York City, and, northeast across the Sound, the twinkling lights of Connecticut. At regular intervals, Fall River Line steamers en route to Massachusetts drew chains of gold across the water.
No matter how beautiful the night, the President could never relax entirely, knowing that William “Big Bill” Craig, his bodyguard, lurked in some nearby bush, while other large men prowled the lawns and driveway. Secret Service protection had become a full-time nuisance since McKinley’s assassination. Roosevelt disliked it, but the agents were inexorable. They checked their watches when he went upstairs, stared at his window while he slept, and hung yawning around the kitchen at breakfast time. They webbed the estate with trip wires, and treated all visitors as potential anarchists, even a party of dowagers from the Oyster Bay Needlework Guild. On afternoons off, they wandered around town looking for “cranks,” their knobby pockets and patent-leather shoes infallibly identifying them as plainclothesmen.
Roosevelt gave up protesting that he could adequately defend himself. (The sight of a gun butt protruding from the presidential trouser-seat caused some consternation in Christ Episcopal Church.) Instead, he used his familiarity with the landscape to shake off his escort as often as possible. One day he managed to escape Big Bill Craig for two hours by galloping Bleistein into the woods. Another of his tricks was to lead unwary officers to Cooper’s Bluff, the almost vertical, 150-foot sand cliff at the end of Cove Neck. Talking casually, Roosevelt would arrive at the brink, then drop out of sight like a plummet. The Secret Service men would instinctively follow, and, losing their footing, somersault to the bottom in a choking avalanche. Meanwhile, the President, striding off unscathed, could enjoy a few moments of peace.
Yet had it not been for the cordon that Craig threw about Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt would have enjoyed no peace at all. Every train from “York,” as Oyster Bay natives called the metropolis, brought delegations of politicians, office-seekers, and sycophants bent on disturbing his leisure. “I never seed the like of it,” said Si Josslyn, veteran clam digger of Cove Neck, “and it ain’t no wonder the President has to stan’ most of ’em off.” Only pilgrims on urgent public business, with a pass signed by Cortelyou, were permitted up the private road.
Cabinet officers and Congressmen found that strange rules of protocol applied in the President’s house:
SMALL BOY (reproachfully) Cousin Theodore, it’s after four.
ROOSEVELT By Jove, so it is! Why didn’t you call me sooner? One of you boys get my rifle. (Apologetically) I must ask you to excuse me.… I never keep boys waiting.
Rough Riders, accustomed to instant access to their Colonel, found Sagamore Hill harder to take than the heights of San Juan. They joined the crowds of other rejectees in town, gazing in frustration at the big house and windmill across the bay.
Most disappointed of all were members of the press, who could not reconcile Roosevelt’s availability in the White House with his refusal to receive them at home. Starved of news, they mooched unhappily