THE STAR

EPIPHANY, i9I9

Great soul, to all brave souls akin,

High bearer of the torch of truth, Have you not gone to marshal in

Those eager hosts of youth?

Flung outward on the battle's tide,

They met in regions dim and far; And you, in whom youth never died,

Shall lead them, as a star.

-MARION COUTHOUY SMITH.

MY BROTHER THEODORE ROOSEVELT
I

THE NURSERY AND ITS DEITIES

THE first recollections of a child are dim and hazy, and so the nursery at 28 East loth Street, in New York City, does not stand out as clearly to me as I wish it did-but the personality of my brother overshadowed the room, as his personality all through life dominated his environment.

I suppose I must have been about four, and he about seven, when my first memory takes definite form. My older sister, Anna, though only four years older than my brother Theodore, was always mysteriously classed with the "grown people," and the "nursery" consisted of my brother Theodore, my brother Elliott, a year and a half younger than Theodore, and myself, still a year and a half younger than Elliott.

In those days we were "Teedie," "Ellie," and "Conie," and we had the most lovely mother, the most manly, able, and delightful father, and the most charming aunt, Anna Bulloch, the sister of my Southern mother, with whom children were ever blessed.

Theodore Roosevelt, whose name later became the synonym of virile health and vigor, was a fragile, patient sufferer in those early days of the nursery in zoth Street. I can see him now struggling with the effort to breathe-for his enemy was that terrible trouble, asthma-but always ready to give the turbulent "little ones" the drink of water, book, or plaything which they vociferously demanded, or equally ready to weave for us long stories of animal life-stories closely resembling the jungle stories of Kipling-for Mowgli had his precursor in the brain of the little boy of seven or eight, whose knowledge of natural history

I