coin: “Here's three dollars, friend. Bury six saxophone players!”

   Absent-mindedly recalling this story I reached out my hand with a five-dollar bill in it, as I saw a quiet-looking gentleman passing by with a hat in his hand.

   “Bury ten saxophone players,” I hissed through my set lips. He turned to me mildly.

   “Excuse me sir,” said he, “I am not an undertaker. I am only the Secretary of the Interior.”

   Of course one will make mistakes. Still, under our form of government methinks the Secretary of the Interior really is responsible for the existence of saxophone players within the limits of the park.

   In common with Maw and others, I realized that in many ways the park might be better. It might be far more practicably administered. This morning I met a procession

   of fifty women, all in overalls, who all looked precisely alike. Maw was at their head.

   “We're going over to the store to get a loaf of bread,” said she, “and a picture of Old Faithful Geyser and a burnt-leather pillow. And lookit here, mister, here is a book I bought for Roweny to read. I can stand for most of it. But here it says that the geysers is run by hot water, and when they freeze up in the winter the men that live in the park cut the ice and use it for foot warmers, it's so hot. That might be true, and then again it might not. If it ain't, why should they try to fool the people?”

   I referred Maw to the superintendent of the park, with the explanation that he has full control over all the natural objects, and that if any geyser proves guilty of obnoxious conduct he is empowered to eject it.

   “I dunno but what that would be the best way to do,” said she. “If these places

   ain't fit to walk on, summer or winter neither one, something ought to be done about it.

   “But lookit here,” she went on, “if you want to see people busy, come down to our camp, some sundown. There ain't that many mosquitoes in all Ioway, and they call this place a national playground. It ain't no such place. And yet, when I go to the post office, store, or the superintendent's office, or the head clerk's house, or the curio store to get some mosquito dope to rub on myself, they ain't got no mosquito dope; but for four dollars you can buy a lovely leather pillow with 'Mother' 

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