17S IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Chauffeur curses, I scarcely hear, 

 For things I loved as a boy seem near — 

 Scent of meadows at early morn, 

 Miles of waving fields of corn, 

 Lowing cattle and colts at play — 

 Far have I drifted another way! 



Hark, the bell as it calls the noon! 



Boys at their chores, hear them whistle a tune? 



Barn doors creaking on rusty locks, 



Rattle of corn in the old feed box, 



Answering nicker of toss of hay — 



Old, sweet sounds of a far-off day. 



There, my driver stops with' a jerk, ^ 

 Then far aloft to the scene of my work; 

 But all day long 'midst the city's roar 

 My heart is the heart of a boy once more, 

 My feet in old-time fields astray, 

 Lured — by the scent from a load of hay! 



Which reminds me, by the way, when I see one of those Iowa boys 

 who, rather than stay in the place where he belongs, wants to get into 

 town and work in a garage or hotel, or even in a drug store — I guess my 

 friend Cameron isn't in that business any more — I say to myself, "Lord, 

 if I swear a little, write me innocent, having such good cause." 



Rupert Hughes, who was raised at Keokuk, is one of the great story 

 tellers of the country, and he has written about "The Happiest Man in 

 I-o-way." He writes of a boy who had never gone to a consolidated 

 school, and his grammar was a little off, but his heart in the right place. 

 He was talking to his best girl, and remember, this was in the old days 

 long 4)efore the automobile. Here is his poem: 



Jes' down the road a piece, 'ith the 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-fer-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 in my stirrups, 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 today, 



I'd 'a' be'n the happiest man in I-o-way. 



For whut's the us't o' goin' on like this? 



Your pa not 'lowin' me around the place . . . 



