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how to designate this creature. Of course, they would say “The Madam Secretary.” They would say “Madam Perkins.” They would all kinds of combinations which pained me frightfully. I thought that I exhibited, for the years that I have endured this, considerable Christian forbearance. I never brained anybody and I was tempted to more than once.

Then I began to see things like “Ma Perkins” and “Frances the Perk” in print. I wasn't angered at this. I just felt a little embarrassed for my fellow countrymen that there were such dumb and ignorant and discourteous people abroad in the land. I thought it was too bad. I was astonished at “Ma Perkins.” I never had heard such an appellation for anybody. That was explained to me by John Garner. He said there had been a Mrs. Ferguson who had been Governor of Texas. She was the wife of James E. Ferguson who had previously been Governor. They were both very well-known ranchers in Texas. They had been early pioneer ranchers in the days when Texas was rough and open and everybody had been everybody's friend. Mrs. Ferguson had lived on a ranch and she had been awfully amiable and nice to all comers, to the cowboys and the other ranchers. As a term of affection, the called her “Ma,” which was apparently not disrespectful in the Texas cowboy language. It was a term of a kind of affection. In New England many