By WALTER C.ABBOTT, Jr.

The two men who came into the store wanted four nickel cans of sardines in olive oil, one large red onion, a hunk of hoop cheese, a dime's worth of soda crackers, and two Nehi orange soda pops. My friend, E.D. Dixon, got the order together and told the men, "That'll be sixty cents." The big man paid, and they walked across to the other side of the store to a long counter that had at one time been used to display dry goods, but was now empty and not in use. The big man called to Dixon and asked for a piece of paper to put the food on. They spread the paper and took a pocketknife to the onion and reduced it to slices and cut the cheese in small hunks. Then they opened the sardines and started eating. They ate the sardines right out of the can. What they's do is cut one in half then spear the portion to be eaten with the sharp point of the pocketknife and take it from the knife with their teeth. You could tell they were hungry and you could tell they enjoyed the food by the way they wolfed it down. A half a sardine, a hunk of cheese, a cracker, a slice of onion, and a swig of orange pop, and soon it was all gone. The gathered up the trash, put it in a can for refuse at the end of the counter, said it sure was good and left. I walked to the door and was them get in a big car and leave with the smaller man driving.

"Who were those people?" I asked E.D.

"Didn't' you know that big man?" he asked. I told him the man looked familiar, but I couldn't name him. "That was Governor Huey P. Long," he said. "They stop by here quite often and always eat sardines and crackers. He went on to tell me about the governor's political differences with the "Old Regular" organization in New Orleans, Louisiana, and also with a politician named T. Simmes Walmsley. I can't remember what Walmsley's title was, but E.D. said Huey and his bodyguard drove down to have conferences with the bunch in New Orleans.

As I look back and remember Huey P. Long when he was alive, and what I heard about him after his death, there are a few things that stand out in my memory. The day I saw him eating sardines out of the can with his pocket knife was quite a different person from the Huey Long I saw leading the L.S.U. marching band in a serenade at a stopover on the trip the Cadet Corps made to Shreveport when the Tiger football team played Centenary College. That day he was decked out in a starched and ironed white linen suit. His shoes were shined, and he wore a white hat and a bright red tie.

The other memory of Long that will always be with me was the day in 1935 when my wife and I stood in line about three hundred yards long to see him when he was lying in state in the new capitol building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.