time in many years, I felt
relieved of anxiety for those left behind.

New York was in the worst of its subway upheaval when we landed there,
but having secured a small furnished apartment in a new but obscure
hotel on Forty-seventh street, Zulime and I settled down for the winter.
Our tiny three-room suite (a lovely nest for a woman) was not in the
least like a home for an old trailer and corn-husker like myself. Its
gas log and gimcrack mantel, its "Mission" furniture and its "new art"
rugs were all of hopeless artificiality, but our sitting-room (on the
quiet side of the building) received the sun, and there on the lid of a
small desk I took up and carried forward the story of _Hesper_ which my
publishers had asked me to prepare for the spring trade.

Before we had time to unpack, a note came from President Roosevelt
asking me to return to Washington to confer on a phase of the Indian
service with which I was familiar, and I went at once--glad to be of any
service--especially an unofficial service.

It was always a pleasure as well as an honor to meet Roosevelt. He was
our first literary president. His esthetic interests were not only keen,
but discriminating. He knew what each of us had published, and valued
each of us for the particular contributions we were making to American
literature. Each of us gave him something--in my case it was a knowledge
of the West. Notwithstanding the multiple duties of his office, he put
aside a part of each day for reading and when he read, he concentrated
upon his page with such intensity that he remembered all that was
important in the writing.

He knew the masters in the other arts also. If he had a problem in
architecture or medaling or painting to decide, he went to Mead or St.
Gaudens, or Blashfield. Under his administration the White House had
resumed its fine colonial character. At his direction Mead and McKim had
restored it to the noble simplicity of Madison's time. They had cleared
out the business offices and removed the absurd mixture of political
machinery and household furniture which had accumulated under the rule
of his predecessors, most of whom (coming from small inland towns) knew
nothing of any art but government, and in some cases not too much of
that. On this particular visit I recall the fact that repairs were going
on, for the President invited me to take luncheon with his family, and
we ate in a small room on the front of the house for the reason that the