re wuzn't many round when I
hearn some workmen passin' along say, "There is the President."

And lookin' round eagerly and anxiously I see a good-lookin' man with
eye glasses settin' on a bench readin' a paper. And I knowed to once
that it wuz our Teddy, so dear to the heart of them that set store by
manliness, fearlessness, bravery, bright badges from Heaven's mint
shinin' on the breast of a man faithful to wife, children and country.
He didn't look exactly like his pictures, but I knowed pictures didn't
always favor their originals, specially in newspapers. I wuz highly
tickled to see him, for I had some errents for him, and wanted to advise
him for his good, and I advanced with outstretched hand and sez "Mr.
President, I am delighted to see you!"

He shook hands and said polite, "You have the advantage of me, mom."

"Yes," sez I, "folks see your face in the papers." I mentioned my name
and then went right on to say, "I wanted to tell you the first thing, I
hadn't nothin' to do with that slightin' piece about you you probable
read in the Jonesville Auger. The Nation knew I had writ for it, and for
the Gimlet, and I wuz awful afraid you'd think it wuz me, and be mad at
me, but I'm as innocent as a infant babe. Keturah Snyder writ it, and
she's been through with trials enough to make her bitter but bein' so
mad she sez things she can't prove. Now she thinks you could kep' her
from bein' turned out of the Jonesville post-office and you could keep
the price of meat down. No use arguin' with her, she sez you had it in
your power to squelch some of the Trusts, and didn't do nothin' but
talk.

"And that Post-Office scandal, she said she spozed you wuz goin' to make
public samples of them stealers, but it all squizzled out, nothin' done
about it, only jest talk. And you remember she said in her piece, 'she
wuz turned out of the post-office for borryin' five cents from the
Government, and bein' backward with another five, ten cents in all, and
them post-office clerks in Washington stealin' hundreds of thousands and
nothin' done.'" Here Theodore tried to say sunthin', and knowin' he wuz
such a fluent talker I wuz bound to git my explanation in before he
begun, for I wouldn't interrupted him for the world after he got to
goin'.

Sez I, "I wanted you to know jest what reason she had for bein' so mad
and writin' it, for I knowed you wouldn't feel so mortified about it.
The way on't wuz, she wuz in the Office, and hadn't baked