The jungle trail wasn't really wide enough. Almost immediately I bumped against some branches, which jerked away like live things. I slowed down and bumped something else; slowed further, bumped still more. The other animals were getting restless. If I didn't hurry, I would be discovered. The lion would be in peril. I sped up, crawling faster, until I reached a pair of delicate shoes I recognized: Sister's.
I couldn't help myself. I stopped and leaned against her knees. She kicked me. I pinched her ankle, gently. She pushed her napkin to the ground. “Oh, my,” I heard her say. (Sister was a bird, not a monkey.) “How clumsy of me.” Gracefully, she bent at the waist, picked up the edge of the tablecloth along with her napkin, and popped a piece of her dinner roll into my mouth.
I was so surprised I nearly fell over backward. I chewed the roll and swallowed. Sister tapped me with her foot. Time to move on.
If there were forty guests at the table, and Father and Mother were at the ends, then there were only nineteen people down each side, but it felt like hundreds. Every time I slowed down I bumped into more people, but when I sped up I fancied everyone could hear me scrambling.
Maybe not. The talk at the table went on without ceasing. The clinks of china and silver continued, and no one but Sister reached under the table.
Father's feet, so small given how large he was, just poked beneath the cloth. I listened for his voice. When I heard him start to speak, I lifted the edge of the cloth, stuck my note on top of his napkin, and let the cloth fall back down.
I'm here on a dare, it read. Don't tell. Love, Ethel.
I heard the paper crinkle as he unfolded it. Then Father himself lifted the tablecloth and looked me in the eye. “If you're playing hide-and-seek, I think Kermit will have given up by now,” he whispered. His face was solemn, but his eyes twinkled. “You've been under there for the entire soup course.”
“Yes, Father,” I whispered.
“Hold on—your mother's looking this way. All right— now skedaddle!”
I skedaddled out the East Room door. I'd done it. I'd saved the lion. Sister owed me her secret now.
Sister slept late, and later. When I put my ear to the door between our bedrooms, I could hear her snore. I went down to lunch. Afterward, Father suggested a scramble. While I was upstairs changing my clothes, I suddenly couldn't bear waiting anymore.
I banged into Sister's room. She was sleeping with the sheets pulled over her head. Her maid tidied her room every day, but Sister always managed to untidy it by evening—the dress she'd worn to the dinner the night before was thrown half across a chair, half on the floor, and her shoes and stockings, handkerchief and headdress were strewn at the foot of the bed. Her dressing table was covered with little glass bottles of perfume. The whole room smelled like flowers.
I tiptoed toward her. She'd nailed the photograph of her mother by the headboard of her bed just where she had kept it at Sagamore. Sister's mother was lovely. I looked at the photo and ran my fingers over the top of the frame. Then I pulled the sheets back from Sister's head.
“Go away,” she said.
“No,” I said. “You owe me. I want to know the secret right now.”
She opened her eyes and pulled herself up onto her elbows. “Morning,” she said.
“It's not. It's past lunch.”
Sister smiled. “You should have seen their faces when you ran out from under that table!” she said. “My! That old judge—what's his name—I thought his false teeth were going to hit the floor!”
Neither Mother nor Father had said a word to me about it, at breakfast or at lunch. I'd told the story to the boys so well that they were all keen to try it at the next big dinner. “Mother didn't scold me,” I said.
“I saw her see you,” Sister said. “She's just decided to pretend she didn't. It was good fun, wasn't it?”
“Yes, but—”
“And I believe I've got them all talked into buying us a dance floor. Now if we can only get it installed before my debut!”
“But—”
Sister put her finger on the tip of my nose. “You already know the secret, honey,” she said. “Any girl who will crawl the length of the table at a dinner given by the president of the United States knows every secret to bravery and friendship I possess.”
“I don't,” I said. “You have to tell me. You promised.”
“You do,” she said. “You might not know you do, but that's not my fault. Now go away. I'm going to give you my necklace of pearl beads, because you're such an awfully sweet naughty child, but you have to let me sleep.” She lay back and closed her eyes.
“Tell me!” I pummeled her shoulder.
She opened one eye. “Trust me, you know. Isn't there somewhere you're supposed to be?”
The scramble! I'd forgotten. I rushed out of the room. “You have to tell me later!” I shouted as I ran down the hall.
Three miles into the wildest part of Rock Creek Park Father could find, I heard Archie behind me, panting, “Over and under, but never around.” I stopped so suddenly that Kermit tripped over me. That was it. The secret. Over and under, but never around.
Sister was right. Father had taught us all. I already knew.
On Monday Arthur and I left for school a few minutes earlier than usual. “I'm always in such a rush that I get into trouble,” I explained. Besides, I had something I needed to do.
Arthur let me drive the whole way there, even along the tricky turn to the bridge, despite the traffic that clogged the streets in the morning. We saw another motorcar—black, not bright red like Margot Cassini's—sputtering in the distance. “Would you like to drive a car someday?” I asked him.
“Sure would,” he said. “Wouldn't you?”
“Yes,” I said, “but I think I like horses better.”
“Me too,” he said. “Nothin’ beats a good horse.” He smiled at me. “You're looking perky today, Miss Ethel. First time you've looked perky on a Monday morning.”
“I still hate school,” I said. The difference was, I had my feet back under me. I knew better than to be quiet. I had remembered who I really was. Not just the president's daughter. I was Ethel Roosevelt, daughter of Edith and Theodore, sister of Alice, Ted, Kermit, Archie, and Quentin. I was independent and strong. I was me.
After I dropped my things off in my room, I walked down the hall and knocked on Emily's door. I knew exactly which one it was. “Come in,” she said.
I walked in. Emily and Sophie were sitting on Emily's rug, giggling over a piece of paper they held. They stared at me. “Oh,” said Emily, sounding surprised. “Hello.”
“Hello,” echoed Sophie.
“Hello,” I said. I sat down on the rug as if I walked into Emily's room every morning. “Did you have a good weekend? What's that?”
Sophie handed me the paper. It was a drawing of a circle of girls on chairs holding things in their laps. The middle girl was on her feet shrieking, with her hand in the air and several large drops of ink falling from her fingers. The drawing was captioned An account of the disaster Saturday morning.
“Did you draw it?” I asked Emily.
“Sophie did,” Emily said. She held up her hand, which had one bandaged finger. “They make us learn mending and plain sewing on Saturday mornings, you know.”
I nodded. I was not sorry I missed that.
“I think I'm just not cut out for sewing.”
“Me either,” I said. “It's the only reason I go home on weekends.”
Emily looked solemn for a moment, then snorted with laughter when she realized I was joking.
“Well, I'm planning to make my living as a seamstress,” Sophie said. She gave a whoop and Emily laughed harder. I grinned.
“You have to see her seams,” Emily said. “They're the worst things imaginable. Miss Bangs has fits.”
“I'll show you,” Sophie promised me. “I'll show you tonight.”
At noon Harriet asked me whether Father had had any unusual guests to dinner over the weekend. Everyo
ne else had let the matter of Booker T. Washington die down, but not Harriet. I looked her in the eye. “Harriet,” I said, “don't you think asking that kind of question is terribly ill-mannered?”
Truthfully, I didn't know if it was ill-mannered or not.
Perhaps polite young ladies always inquired about the president's dinner guests. But Harriet flushed and looked uncertain. Over and under, I thought. Never around.
“Did you go riding this weekend?” Emily asked me.
“Some. Yesterday we had a big walk in Rock Creek Park.”
“I'm sure you enjoyed that,” Miss Mallett said.
“I did,” I said. “My brother Archie fell into the creek and we had to pull him out. He got awfully cold. One of Father's policemen gave him his jacket, though.”
The girls at the table looked interested enough but didn't say anything. I'd hoped they would respond.
After a moment's pause, Gertrude leaned across the table to a girl named Carrie, who was a few years older than I. “Have you heard anything else about Charlie?” she asked.
Carrie's smile trembled. Tears filled her eyes. “Mother sent a telegram this morning,” she said. “The doctor says he got the bone set properly. She said Charlie is going to be fine.”
Around the table, everyone grinned. Emily squeezed Carrie's hand. Even Harriet looked relieved.
But I didn't know who Charlie was or what had happened to him. Emily must have seen my confusion, because she leaned forward and said, “Charlie's her little brother. He was in an accident.”
“Father's carriage overturned,” Carrie said. “Charlie broke his leg. He's only three.”
“Oh, how awful,” I said. I could imagine how miserable Quentin would be, stuck in bed with a broken leg.
“We've been praying for him all weekend,” Miss Mallett said.
“If I had known,” I said, “I would have prayed for him too.”
Then it struck me: I should have known. If I hadn't known Charlie was hurt, at least I should have known who Charlie was. Even if I wasn't here on weekends like most of the girls, I ate meals here five days a week. I'd sat across the table from Carrie for six weeks without knowing she had a brother. I belonged to this school whether I liked it or not, but up until now I had let myself stay apart.
I'd never lived anyplace where the six most important things weren't Sister, Ted, Kermit, Ethel, Archie, and Quentin. I'd never thought about what was important to the other girls.
Dessert came—pudding—and everyone fell to eating it. I looked around the room. Six weeks, I thought, and I still wasn't sure of everyone's name. I knew the girls my age, but I didn't know them well. I had some catching up to do.
That night I finished my schoolwork at my desk. My room wasn't as plain as it had been. I had a rug and a bright coverlet, my Yale banner, and some drawings Miss Young had given me. I need a photograph, I thought. One of all of us.
Someone knocked on the door. I jumped. Whoever it was knocked again. “May I come in?”
“Sure!” I yelled.
It was Emily. “My mother sent cookies. Want one?”
“Thanks,” I said. I shut the book on my desk and helped myself to a cookie from the tin she held out to me.
“Want to sit down?” I asked.
“Sure.” She perched on the edge of the bed. “Want another cookie?”
“Thanks.” I nibbled this one more slowly. We sat looking at each other. Emily smiled. I did too, and then plunged ahead.
“I've been thinking,” I said. “I'll bet you'll be awful lonely on Thanksgiving. Would you like to come home with me?”
Emily's eyes lit up, but she shook her head. “Thanks, but I'm going home with Sophie. She asked me already.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my hands. “I'm sorry. I mean, I bet you'll have fun with Sophie, but—”
“I'd love to come some other time.”
I looked up. “Would you really?”
“Of course,” said Emily.
Happiness bubbled up from my stomach and came out as a laugh. “Good! How about—how about this weekend?”
“I'd love to,” Emily said. “Only Miss Bangs will have to write my mother first to get permission. That's what she had to do for Thanksgiving.”
“I'll have to ask my mother too,” I said. “But maybe we could telephone. That would be faster.”
“We have a telephone at home,” Emily said.
“We can tell Miss Bangs it's an emergency,” I said.
“Yes,” said Emily, “because another sewing lesson will kill me.”
“You'll die if you don't get away from school.”
“Absolutely,” said Emily. We laughed.
“You laugh like my mother,” I said.
“Is that good?”
“Of course,” I said. “How can a laugh be bad?”
“Can I meet your horses?” Emily asked. “I love to ride. Can I meet your brothers and sister?”
“You can ride Algonquin,” I said. “I'll introduce you to the guinea pigs. Bring your skates, we can roller-skate in the basement. I'll show you how we go out on the roof.” I took a deep breath. “On Sunday sometimes Father takes us on a walk.” I wondered if Emily was up to a full scramble. Father would be gentle with her if I asked him to.
Emily's eyes widened. She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Your father!” she said. “I forgot! He's the president.”
“He's mostly just my father,” I said. “You'll like him.”
Emily wrinkled her nose. “I'll have to dress up.”
I thought of the scramble, the creeks, the mud. “Dress up for my mother,” I said. “For my father you'll need old clothes. Trust me.”
Emily giggled. “All right,” she said. “I do.”
I slipped my arm through Emily's as we ran down the stairs. I'd done it, I thought. I'd made a friend. Over, under, or through, but never around.
I was so pleased. Father would be too.
This book is a work of fiction, but Ethel Roosevelt really was ten years old when McKinley's death made her father, Theodore Roosevelt, the president. Her life, and the lives of all of her family, changed dramatically in an instant.
In my earliest research into the Roosevelt family, the glimpses I saw of Ethel as a child intrigued me; I felt sure I would have liked her very much. So in this book I've imagined what Ethel Roosevelt's life might have been like in the first few months after her father became president.
Ethel is less well known than other members of her family. Though many of her private letters have been preserved, no book focuses solely on her life. Her father wrote thirty-five books, including an autobiography and many volumes of personal essays, and several excellent biographies have been written about him. Edith, Alice, Ted, and other more distant family members also either published memoirs or were the subject of biographies, or both.
Nevertheless, I have made this book as true and accurate as I could. The Roosevelts were indeed staying at the remote Tahawus Club when they received the news that President McKinley had died; the descriptions of their various journeys to Washington, of President McKinley's funeral, and of the White House as they first entered it are based on first-person accounts. The uproars over Theodore Roosevelt's dinner with Booker T. Washington, Sister's friendship with Margot Cassini, the scrambles in Rock Creek Park, Sister's creating imaginary dresses for the press, the games of “bear” before state dinners, and many other details are part of the historical record.
While facts stay the same, our opinions of them can change over time. Thus, Roosevelt forbade his daughter to smoke because it was considered rude and unladylike—not, as he might today, because of the health hazards associated with smoking. Also, it seems odd today that there was once such controversy over Roosevelt's dinner with Booker T. Washington. Before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, racial prejudice and segregation were entrenched and widespread across America. Roosevelt's attitude toward race was very enlightened for his time, but his overall views were not as prog
ressive as most people's are today. Never again in his seven-year presidency did he invite Booker T. Washington—or any other African American— to dinner.
By any account, Theodore Roosevelt's achievements were remarkable. In 1906 he became the first U.S. citizen to win a Nobel Peace Prize, for his efforts to resolve the Russo-Japanese War. He is the only president to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his heroism in the Spanish-American War. An ardent conservationist, he created five national parks and eighteen national monuments (including the Grand Canyon) and put more than 230 million acres of land under federal protection. He filed more than fifteen antitrust suits to break up trade monopolies. He authorized the building of the Panama Canal. He was the first president to ride in an automobile, a submarine, and an airplane.
The National Cathedral School, which Ethel attended for five years beginning in October 1901, generously shared with me primary source material from that time. However, I don't know what Ethel's first weeks at the school were like. She was a boarder during the week and went home on weekends; her father's published letters contain repeated references to her unhappiness every Monday morning when she had to go back. On the other hand, published accounts of the school's early days describe Ethel as a happy, bubbly child. I felt that Ethel probably did learn to enjoy her life at school—she seems to have been happy by na-ture—but that given the choice, she would have been taught at home. She loved being with her family, and as she grew older she loved to help take care of them.
I've described the National Cathedral School itself as accurately as I could. I've kept the real names of the principals, Miss Bangs and Miss Whiton, but all of Ethel's classmates, including Emily and Harriet, are wholly fictional. Because the school still protects the records of its students, I don't know exactly what Ethel studied or how well she did. The classes mentioned in this book are taken from the school's standard curriculum; Ethel's singing and piano lessons are mentioned in her father's letters.