there--a couple of kings, like as not. There will be fried chicken
for dinner and ice-cream--mixed, maybe, chocolate and vanella, and
p'raps a streak of strawb'ry. And there will be enough so's everybody
can have two plates. Marthy will prob'ly bake the cake herself, if she
can get that old White House stove to working right.

Rudd has a great surprise in store for her. He's going to tell a good
one on Marthy. At just the proper moment he's going to lean over--Lord,
he hopes he can keep his face straight--and say, kind of offhand:

"Do you remember, Marthy, the time when you was makin' little
baby-clothes for the President of the United States here, and you says
to me--you see, Eric, she'd made me quit smokin', herself, but she plumb
forgot all about that--and she says to me, s'she, 'Why don't you smoke
your pipe any more, Will?' she says. And I says, 'I'd kind o' got out of
the habit, Marthy,' s'I, 'but I guess I'll git back in,' s'I. I said it
right off like that, 'I guess I'll git back in!' s'I. Remember,
Marthy?"

THE HAPPIEST MAN IN IOWAY

Jes' down the road a piece, 'ith dust so deep
It teched the bay mare's fetlocks, an' the sun
So b'ilin' hot, the peewees dassn't peep,
Seemed like midsummer 'fore the spring's begun!
An' me plumb beat an' good-for-nothin'-like
An' awful lonedsome fer a sight o' you ...
I come to that big locus' by the pike,
An' she was all in bloom, an' trembly, too,
With breezes like drug-store perfumery.
I stood up in my sturrups, with my head
So deep in flowers they almost smothered me.
I kind o' liked to think that I was dead ...
An' if I hed 'a' died like that to-day,
I'd 'a' b'en the happiest man in Ioway.

For what's the use't o' goin' on like this?
Your pa not 'lowin' me around the place ...
Well, fust I knowed, I'd give' them blooms a kiss;
They tasted like Good-Night on your white face.
I reached my arms out wide, an' hugged 'em--say,
I dreamp' your little heart was hammerin' me!
I broke this branch off for a love-bo'quet;
'F I'd b'en a giant, I'd 'a' plucked the tree!
The blooms is kind o' dusty from the road,
But you won't mind. So, as the feller said,
"When this you see remember me"--I knowed
Another poem; but I've lost my head
From seein' you! 'Bout all that I kin say
Is--"I'm the happiest man in Ioway."

Well, comin' 'lon