Отрывок из книги
Theodore Roosevelt
Published by Good Press, 2021
.....
Father himself was our companion whenever he could get away from his work. Many times he camped out with us on Lloyd's Neck, the only "grown-up" of the party. We always regarded him as a great asset at times like these. He could think up more delightful things to do than we could in a "month of Sundays." In the evening, when the bacon that sizzled in the frying-pan had been eaten, we gathered round the fire. The wind soughed through the marsh grass, the waves rippled against the shore, and father told us stories. Of the children who composed these picnics, two died in service in this war, two were wounded, and all but one volunteered, regardless of age, at the outbreak of hostilities.
When we were all still little tadpoles, father went to the war with Spain. We were too little, of course, to appreciate anything except the glamour. When he decided to go, almost all his friends and advisers told him he was making a mistake. Indeed, I think my mother was the only one who felt he was doing right. In talking it over afterward, when I had grown much older, father explained to me that in preaching self-defense and willingness to fight for a proper cause, he could not be effective if he refused to go when the opportunity came, and urged that "it was different" in his case. He often said, "Ted, I would much rather explain why I went to the war than why I did not."
.....
