Books: The Bear at Home

THE ROOSEVELT FAMILY OF SAGAMORE HILL (435 pp.)—Hermann Hagedorn—Macmillan ($5).

Theodore Roosevelt's house in Long Island's Oyster Bay is now a national shrine. But on a windy March day in 1887, Sagamore Hill was just a large, rambling house young Teddy had built, with twelve bedrooms for foreseen eventualities. That March day Teddy brought his bride home in a surrey with a fringe on top; soon enough the eventualities came too. The house with its 80 acres was plenty of home, but not too much, for the two girls, four boys and their innumerable cousins. Teddy thought it was bully, and the...