seemed satisfactory, and off to the busy
presidential desk went the boyish note, full of thanks and assurances
that he would come just as soon as he could, and that Mr. Roosevelt
must not get impatient!

The "soon as he could" time, however, did not come as quickly as all
had hoped!--a little heart pumped for days full of oxygen and
accelerated by hypodermic injections is slow to mend. But the
President's framed letter, hanging on the spot on the wall first seen
in the morning, was a daily consolation.

Then, in March, although four months after the promise--and it would
not have been strange, in his busy life, for the President to have
forgotten or at least overlooked it--on the very day that the book was
published came a special "large-paper" copy of _The Outdoor Pastimes of
an American Hunter_, and on the fly-leaf there greeted the boy, in the
President's own hand:

To MASTER CURTIS BOK,

With the best wishes of his friend,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

March 11, 1908.

The boy's cup was now full, and so said his letter to the President.
And the President wrote back to the father: "I am really immensely
amused and interested, and shall be mighty glad to see the little
fellow."

In the spring, on a beautiful May day, came the great moment. The
mother had to go along, the boy insisted, to see the great event, and
so the trio found themselves shaking the hand of the President's
secretary at the White House.

"Oh, the President is looking for you, all right," he said to the boy,
and then the next moment the three were in a large room. Mr.
Roosevelt, with beaming face, was already striding across the room, and
with a "Well, well, and so this is my friend Curtis!" the two stood
looking into each other's faces, each fairly wreathed in smiles, and
each industriously shaking the hand of the other.

"Yes, Mr. President, I'm mighty glad to see you!" said the boy.

"I am glad to see you, Curtis," returned Mr. Roosevelt.

Then there came a white rose from the presidential desk for the mother,
but after that father and mother might as well have faded away. Nobody
existed save the President and the boy. The anteroom was full; in the
Cabinet-room a delegation waited to be addressed. But affairs of state
were at a complete standstill as, with boyish zeal, the President
became oblivious to all but the boy before him.

"Now, Curtis, I've got some pictures here of bears that a friend of
mine has just shot. Look at t