“One day after Mr. Kern had spoken at an afternoon meeting we drove to another town some twelve or fifteen miles distant, where he was scheduled to speak at night. Upon our arrival he went directly to the hotel to arrange for accommodations for the night. The office, which was dingy and cheerless, offered anything but encouraging prospects for the night. It was a typical country town hotel of the period with three or four of the proverbial loafing cronies of the landlord in evidence. When Mr. Kern registered the landlord looked at the name over his spectacles, and then at Mr. Kern, and no doubt hoping to create a laugh at Kern’s expense, said, ‘So you’re the feller what’s goin’ to make a Democratic speech here to-night. Well, you fellers may be Democrats, but I tell ye right now yer stoppin’ at a Republican hotel.’ Kern in a droll manner that was ridiculously funny replied, ‘I suspected as much; the Republican hostelries this fall are very gloomy places.’ “It became our custom before going to bed to gather in Kern’s room and spend an hour or two in smoking, reviewing the events of the day, and singing, and those preslumber occasions I shall ever hold as cherished memories. They were indeed pleasant hours, and I am sure Mr. Kern enjoyed them as much as did we boys, for the gatherings were invariably held at his suggestion. He was fond of sentimental ballads and simple melodies, and I recall two songs which he often asked us to sing, and to which he always listened with profound attention. Of one of these songs I can recall but one verse and the chorus: “I am longing so sadly, I’m longing For the days that have vanished and fled, For the flowers that around us were blooming That, alas, are all withered and dead. Tints that of all the rarest Fade as upon them we gaze And the hours that are brightest and fairest Soon are hid with the lost yesterdays. Flitting, flitting away, All that we cherished most dear. There is nothing on earth that will stay; Roses must die with the year.” “Another song of which he was especially fond was ‘The Little Old Church on the Hill.’ “One night in Kern’s room when we finished that song he said: ‘Boys, that song tells a story and paints a picture of simple rural life that all men should reverence. It is the story of the people who are the bulwark of the nation’s life.’” It is on just such occasions as are herein described that the real character of a man asserts itself. No one who ever knew Mr. Kern at any period of his life will fail to recognize the fidelity of the portrait painted from memory by a man who was scarcely more than a boy when he knew the original. III