“He was lucky to escape the death penalty. How long has he been in prison?” “Since October it was,” said the mother. “We a’ready been to the governor—him that was governor before you got elected, sir, but he said he couldn’t do nothin’. So I told Clint we’d wait till a new governor got elected and soon as the corn was in we got somebody to tend the place and we come here.” “I fear you had a long, expensive and fruitless trip,” said Roosevelt dubiously, escorting them to the door. “Do you plan to go home tonight?” “Train leaves at midnight and it’s a fur piece from here,” Clint answered. “Come on, Ma, we got to hurry. I told you he wasn’t going to do nothin’, that we was just wastin’ time and money. And a cow home fixing to come fresh any day.” Theodore Roosevelt went back up the stairs feeling heavy and depressed. Edith looked up from the bed as he came into the room with a lighted candle. “You look unhappy,” she said. “More office seekers? But I thought I heard a woman’s voice.” “You did. A poor woman whose husband is in Sing Sing and her son has just been sent there, both for murder. The son killed another man, shot him in the back, but she thought I could do something about it, because she has other children and needs him on the farm. She had a boy with her about fifteen years old, she said he was not right in the head but he seemed shrewd enough, talked as intelligently as his mother and had a clearer idea of the difficulties of doing anything in a case like this than she did.” “Mothers have too tender hearts always to have good sober judgment,” said Edith quietly. “They have a way of letting their emotions obscure their common sense, especially where their children are concerned. Aren’t you coming to bed? You have a hard day tomorrow with Heaven knows how many interruptions to frustrate you in getting things done.” “I think I’ll walk outside a little. I don’t feel like sleeping yet. A bit of exercise will steady my nerves.” “I didn’t know you had that sort of nerves, Theodore.” “Now and then they take possession of me. Do you know, Edie,” he sat on the edge of the bed, “there are times when I shrink a little from this job I have set myself? After all New York is a big state, the most important state in the Union.” “And you are a big man,” she consoled him. “And since San Juan Hill you have been about the biggest man in the Union.”