In addition to the streets of New York beautiful Long Island was his for roving, for here his family spent the summer. He ran races with his chums; stole rides on his father’s mounts; swam, rowed and sailed on Long Island Sound. He explored the hills, caves and woods of his country home. He had sisters, and, of course, his sisters had girl companions, and of course he had his special friend among this group of girl playmates. Naturally, his Southern mother made it her rule to promote chivalry in her son, and so Ted played the gallant on many a picnic or horseback ride. Soon his parents saw what the doctors had failed to do the great outdoors was doing. Strong muscles came to him. He lost the fatigue which accompanied his first exertions. His young frame broadened and grew stout enough to stand the rigors of outdoor life. Nature had had little chance with him when he was shut up in New York among his books, but now that he had come to her she gave him the rich blood and the strong nerves which later furnished him the strength to attain the fulfilment of his ambitious plans. Ted was a sheer boy in these days, and a sheer boy he remained until he went to college. Concerning him an old Long Island stage-driver, in whose stage Ted often rode, remarked to Henry Beech Needham: “He was a reg’lar boy. Always outdoors, climbin’ trees and goin’ bird-nestin’! I remember him particular, because he had queer things alive in his pockets. Sometimes it was even a snake!” Roosevelt met “Bill” Sewall for the first time when he was eighteen years old. This was when he first came to Sewall’s hunting-camp in Maine, which is still in existence. “Be very careful with him,” Arthur Cutler, his tutor, warned Sewall. “Don’t take him on such tramps as you take yourself. He couldn’t stand it. But he wouldn’t let you know that for a minute. He’d go till he dropped rather than admit it. He isn’t strong, though. You must watch him carefully.” TOOK A LOT OF WATCHING “I did watch him carefully,” said “Bill” Sewall. “He took a lot of watching,” he added. “Yes, a lot of watching. He’d never quit. I remember the time we set out from my place up at Island Falls to climb Mount Katahdin. That’s the tallest mountain we have in Maine. We were crossing Wissacataquoik Creek. The current is very swift there. Somehow Theodore lost one of his shoes. Away it went downstream. All he had with him to take the place of shoes was a pair of thin-skinned moccasins. The stones and crags on the way up cut his feet into tatters. But he kept on, with never a murmur of complaint. That’s a little thing, perhaps; but he was that way in all things--always.”