The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-07-06

guide for pilgrims: Theodore
Roosevelts grave and how to
get there, with the names OF some of
the notable recent visitors. But every
one knows how TO get there appar-
emily. and almost from the moment I
left the train the good people Of Oyster
Bay, who loved the Colonel. and the
people OF the United States at large
and several other nations took the
Assignment into their own hands
they are writing the STORY"
AS for visitors names, there is
book at the grave which they may
sign, but only a fraction do, because
often it takes half an hour to reach
ones turn. waited nearly that long
for a chance to examine the pages,
went away, came back at shutdown and
waited again. 1t would not have been
decent to hold up the others for more
than rapid glimpse.
His grave is we'll up from the good
Cove road, on the ridge of a knoll
that commands the inner bay. II the
leaves were off you could see all the
landlocked cove from where he lies.
This time OF year, standing at the
head of the grave, you get its blue and
simmer through the locust trees on
your left; a slender one that Is dying
holds a thin canopy over you. and the
sun sinks behind your left shoulder.
Haunted by Birds.
The little cemetery is as bird
haunted" almost as Sycamore Hill
itself. The birds do not seem to mind
the continual coming and going Of
humans.
Twenty-Five automobiles in line have
been counted at the entrance. Even
on that wide thoroughfare they some
times amount to a block. and Oyster
Bay folks, glad enough to see them
there. think a traffic officer on duty
Sundays and holidays might help. The
cars range from big six cylinders to
the fiivver taxis from the station-it
Is a mile to the cove, a fact that sur
priSes some visitors. Many walk 1t.
As walked back in the evening three
touring cars stopped me to ask where
the Colonel was buried. I saw others
do the same with other people walking
my way.
His fellow townsmen wondered a
little that he had chosen this spot.
Some OF them would have thought
Sycamore hilltop, his home, the nat
ural choice. 1t Is two miles beyond by
the same road. II he were there. be-
sides the constant refreshment OF the
grief OF those he left there would be
the constant intrusion OF the public,
10 which he also belongs. The Saga
more Hill gates stand open, and peo-
pie do go in and up the drive for a
look at the house. No one is on guard.
but so far as I could see the souvenir
hunting species had respected trees
and flowers. His mulberry. magnet for
birds, was loaded with green fruit.
Already venturesome orioles were
sampllng.
Not Lonely Vow,
Reporters at the burial wrote of the
cemetery as a lonely place. 1t may
have seemed one then, on a drizzly
winter day with bare trees and a wet
wind blowing. The day / went was
still and crystalline. a piece OF some
September dropped in June. and moth
nG suggested loneliness. He really lies
In state on the knoll-it is as II a
Dag draped casket were on view In a
capitol building. People come week
days. even In bad weather. though not
Of course in such numbers as on Sun
days and when II is fine.
Fifty in day Is the lowest number
reckoned. Last Sunday when l left
1913 had registered. which the day
guard said represented 1000 and more,