Underwood, Leola, Menden, Avoca, Walnut, Marno, Atlantic, Wyoto, Anita, Adair, Adam, Casey, Stuart, Dexter, Carlham, De Soto, Van Meter, Booneville, Commerce, Valley Junction—­how the names of the towns come back to me as I con the map and trace our route through the fat Iowa country!  And the hospitable Iowa farmer-folk!  They turned out with their wagons and carried our baggage; gave us hot lunches at noon by the wayside; mayors of comfortable little towns made speeches of welcome and hastened us on our way; deputations of little girls and maidens came out to meet us, and the good citizens turned out by hundreds, locked arms, and marched with us down their main streets.  It was circus day when we came to town, and every day was circus day, for there were many towns.

In the evenings our camps were invaded by whole populations.  Every company had its campfire, and around each fire something was doing.  The cooks in my company, Company L, were song-and-dance artists and contributed most of our entertainment.  In another part of the encampment the glee club would be singing—­one of its star voices was the “Dentist,” drawn from Company L, and we were mighty proud of him.  Also, he pulled teeth for the whole army, and, since the extractions usually occurred at meal-time, our digestions were stimulated by variety of incident.  The Dentist had no anaesthetics, but two or three of us were always on tap to volunteer to hold down the patient.  In addition to the stunts of the companies and the glee club, church services were usually held, local preachers officiating, and always there was a great making of political speeches.  All these things ran neck and neck; it was a full-blown Midway.  A lot of talent can be dug out of two thousand hoboes.  I remember we had a picked baseball nine, and on Sundays we made a practice of putting it all over the local nines.  Sometimes we did it twice on Sundays.

Last year, while on a lecturing trip, I rode into Des Moines in a Pullman—­I don’t mean a “side-door Pullman,” but the real thing.  On the outskirts of the city I saw the old stove-works, and my heart leaped.  It was there, at the stove-works, a dozen years before, that the Army lay down and swore a mighty oath that its feet were sore and that it would walk no more.  We took possession of the stove-works and told Des Moines that we had come to stay—­that we’d walked in, but we’d be blessed if we’d walk out.  Des Moines was hospitable, but this was too much of a good thing.  Do a little mental arithmetic, gentle reader.  Two thousand hoboes, eating three square meals, make six thousand meals per day, forty-two thousand meals per week, or one hundred and sixty-eight thousand meals per shortest month in the calendar.  That’s going some.  We had no money.  It was up to Des Moines.