le-cakes a hour
later--you know! The thought of all that money going on arches that
after they was once marched under was no good to anybody but the ones
which built them and the ones which carted them away, had me worried.
Think of all the soup that glass and plaster would of made! Do you get
me? You do or you're a simp! And it also besides struck me that while
the incoming boys would undoubtedly enjoy them city frostings, them
which had already marched under them and was now in the bread-line must
be kind of fed up with it. Then I thought of the ten thousand intrusted
to me to spend which had been gladly given in small sections by willing
citizens who wanted to do some little thing to show appreciation to the
boys which had went over there, and I begun to realize I had been told I
could spend it anyways I wanted to.

And when I thought of that pink arch and roses I blushed, although
nobody had, fortunately, heard me mention it, except the two fool dogs,
aloud.

Believe you me, I then see like a bolt from the blue, as the poet says,
that arches was all right in their way but they was in the traffic's way
at best and made mighty poor eating. And so naturally with Ma having it
continually before me, I thought of ten thousand dollars worth of eats,
because while there is quite a lot of red X canteens for men in uniform,
how about the poor birds which had just got out of a uniform and not yet
got into a job? Besides there is something kind of un-permanent about
food unless a salary to get more with follows it as a chaser.

And so I lay there in comfort all but for the thought of Maude, and
figured and figured what would I do. It seemed it was a cinch to get
money from people to give the boys a welcome but what to spend it on was
certainly a stiff one. But after a while I commenced to get a idea.
Which it's a fact I am seldom long without one when needed which
together with my great natural talent is what has made me the big
success I am.

Work! That was the welcome the boys needed. Work and a little something
substantial to start on. So this is what I figured. Suppose we was to
divide up that ten thousand, how many boys would it take care of, and
how?

Say we had ten men. A thousand each. Too much, of course. Twenty men.
Five hundred per ea. Still too much. Well, then forty men. Two fifty.
Well, they could use it of course, but it was not a constructive idea.
It was too much for a present and not enough to invest.