Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.  Sagamore Hill is one of three neighboring houses in which small cousins spent very happy years of childhood.  In the three houses there were at one time sixteen of these small cousins, all told, and once we ranged them in order of size and took their photograph.  There are many kinds of success in life worth having.  It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions.  But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.  It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching.  And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end—­why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing.  There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener’s Valley, Virginia, which sums up one’s duty in life:  “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”

The country is the place for children, and if not the country, a city small enough so that one can get out into the country.  When our own children were little, we were for several winters in Washington, and each Sunday afternoon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which was then very real country indeed.  I would drag one of the children’s wagons; and when the very smallest pairs of feet grew tired of trudging bravely after us, or of racing on rapturous side trips after flowers and other treasures, the owners would clamber into the wagon.  One of these wagons, by the way, a gorgeous red one, had “Express” painted on it in gilt letters, and was known to the younger children as the “’spress” wagon.  They evidently associated the color with the term.  Once while we were at Sagamore something happened to the cherished “’spress” wagon to the distress of the children, and especially of the child who owned it.  Their mother and I were just starting for a drive in the buggy, and we promised the bereaved owner that we would visit a store we knew in East Norwich, a village a few miles away, and bring back another “’spress” wagon.  When we reached the store, we found to our dismay that the wagon which we had seen had been sold.  We could not bear to return without the promised gift, for we knew that the brains of small persons are much puzzled when their elders seem to break promises.  Fortunately, we saw in the store a delightful little bright-red chair and bright-red table, and these we brought home and handed solemnly over to the expectant recipient, explaining that as there unfortunately was not a “’spress” wagon we had brought him back a “’spress” chair and “’spress” table.  It worked beautifully!  The “’spress” chair and table were received with such rapture that we had to get duplicates for the other small member of the family who was the particular crony of the proprietor of the new treasures.