204 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



There was one man that always stirred me through and through. Oh, 

 what a thrill would go through me as I saw him riding a great brown 

 horse, with head up and tail extended, prancing about the grounds. And 

 like a statue on that horse would sit this man, so straight and handsome. 

 He had a big soft hat, and side-whiskers like we used to see Vanderbilt 

 wear, and a curly mustache, and about his waist was a great big red 

 sash that floated and fluttered in the breeze as he dashed about the 

 grounds. And that man was T. D. Doak, who used to attend your asso- 

 ciation. He was always an inspiration to me. 



I want to tell a story, if I may, of what happened out here at the state 

 fair, Charley — your fair and mine. (Laughter.) Up here on Bear Creek 

 — I won't tell you what county Bear Creek is in — lives a lean, wizened, 

 cross-eyed, crooked-back little fellow whom I have visited periodically 

 for a good many years. I wouldn't be surprised some of you men who 

 come here know where he lives down on Bear Creek. When I am down 

 in that locality I go down to see him, and the dinners that Mrs. Nat gets 

 out of their cave-home makes this dinner, good as it is, look like thirty 

 cents. And one day when I was there I conceived an idea, and I asked 

 "Have you ever been down to Des Moines?" and he answered that he had 

 not. And I asked "Have you ever been down to Boone?" arid he said 

 that he had just once. I turned to his wife and said, "Have you ever 

 been out of the county?" and she said, "Never." And so I conceived the 

 idea of having them come down to the state fair, they and their nine 

 children, and I suggested it to them, but with no success. I felt that it 

 would be a great occasion in their lives and begged them to do it, but my 

 only reward was the reply, "I cannot leave, I cannot leave." But about 

 ten days before the fair I sent up ten dollars to bring them down on the 

 Inter-Urban, and urged them to come. I got no answer to my request, and 

 I happened around there a day or so before the fair, and after much urg- 

 ing they finally agreed to come, and I said, "You take the train at 7:37 

 in the morning (some of you will probably recognize the station from 

 that description), and you will be in Des Moines at 8:30," and he said, 

 "No, I don't think I could do that," but he said he could take the train at 

 eight o'clock and get there at nine or take the nine o'clock train and 

 get there at 10:30; so I said "All right, I will be there with my auto and 

 meet you at 10:30." I was at the station at that time, the train came in, 

 but no Nat, and I was just about to turn away in disappointment and 

 return home when I found him standing beside me, and when I asked him 

 when he got in he said, "We got in at 8:30 and we have been waiting for 

 you ever since." And there they were sitting in a row on the depot seat 

 at the Rock Island station waiting for me, not daring to turn a wheel in 

 this great city. So I gathered them together and got them out to my 

 auto, and I said, "What do you want to see?" and he said, "I want to see 

 the chickens" and I took them through the poultry exhibit at the fair, 

 and then we went down and got our dinner, and as we were starting for 

 the grandstand we came upon one of those big, round, cylindrical motor- 

 droms where motor-cyclists ride about the inside of the great bowl. I 

 took them all in and got them around the edge to watch the races, and as 

 the rider started with his motorcycle inside of the bowl and got to going 



