he way of handling yourself in a wild country, as well as of
managing horses and camp outfits--of dealing with frontiersmen, etc. It
will therefore fit you to go on a regular camping trip next time.

I have sternly refused to allow mother to ride Wyoming, on the ground
that I would not have her make a martyr of herself in the shape of
riding a horse with a single-foot gait, which she so openly detests.
Accordingly, I have had some long and delightful rides with her, she on
Yagenka and I on Bleistein, while Ethel and Kermit have begun to ride
Wyoming. Kermit was with us this morning and got along beautifully till
we galloped, whereupon Wyoming made up his mind that it was a race, and
Kermit, for a moment or two, found him a handful.

On Sunday, after we came back from church and bathed, I rowed mother out
to the end of Lloyds Neck, near your favorite camping ground. There we
took lunch and spent a couple of hours with our books, reading a little
and looking out over the beautiful Sound and at the headlands and
white beaches of the coast. We rowed back through a strange, shimmering
sunset.

I have played a little tennis since you left. Winty Chandler beat me two
sets, but I beat him one. Alex. Russell beat me a long deuce set, 10 to
8. To-day the smaller children held their championship. Nick won a long
deuce set from Archie, and to my surprise Oliver and Ethel beat Kermit
and Philip in two straight sets. I officiated as umpire and furnished
the prizes, which were penknives.

END OF SUMMER AT OYSTER BAY

Oyster Bay, Sept. 23, 1903.

BLESSED KERMIT:

The house seems very empty without you and Ted, although I cannot
conscientiously say that it is quiet--Archie and Quentin attend to that.
Archie, barefooted, bareheaded, and with his usual faded blue overalls,
much torn and patched, has just returned from a morning with his beloved
Nick. Quentin has passed the morning in sports and pastimes with the
long-suffering secret service men. Allan has been associating closely
with mother and me. Yesterday Ethel went off riding with Lorraine. She
rode Wyoming, who is really turning out a very good family horse. This
evening I expect Grant La Farge and Owen Wister, who are coming to spend
the night. Mother is as busy as possible putting up the house, and Ethel
and I insist that she now eyes us both with a purely professional gaze,
and secretly wishes she could wrap us up in a neatly pinned sheet with
camphor balls inside. G