THE PRESIDENCY: Up & Around

A squeaky version of The Ballad of Davy Crockett, with an obbligato of booming laughter, rang out from the room at Denver's Fitzsimons Hospital last week and echoed down the corridor outside. In side the room a mirthful President of the United States was listening to a special recording made by his grandchildren at their home in Fort Belvoir, Va. and flown to Denver in the care of their father, Major John Eisenhower.

After a musical introduction, the piping voice of Anne Eisenhower, 6, was heard singing Mary Had a Little Lamb. She got through four stanzas, faltered on a few words, but quickly recovered. Then grandson David shouted "Hello, Ike!" and the bashful, singsong voice of baby Susan, 3, came on: "This is Susan. We're sorry you're sick. Hope you get well soon and come back to Gettysburg. Bye, bye."

With some prompting from father John, David reappeared: "I hope you get well, Ike. This is David. Ike, do you know something? Tomorrow I'm going with the den meeting, going on a barge down the Potomac. And also after that, we're going fishing for a while. And after that, we're going to a football game. Goodbye, Ike."

After more greetings from daughter-in-law Barbara Eisenhower, the three grandchildren joined voices in the Davy Crockett ballad, with David soloing the second stanza in a loud voice after his sisters had run out of words. Finally each child took the mike in turn, to greet their grandmother :

Anne: Hello, Mamie, I hope you're feeling fine. I hope you'll hurry up and go to Gettysburg so we can come up and maybe we can come out for Thanksgiving. This is Anne. Here comes David.

David: I'm David, Mamie. I would like it when you get out to Gettysburg. Then we can do many things like riding Tony, golf practice. I miss you very much. I'll see you. Here comes Susie.

Susan: Hello, Mamie. I hope you can go to Gettysburg to see us. Maybe we could go there and see you on Halloween and play trick or treat. Goodbye.

Stars & Calories. Their grandfather's laughter was another sign of President Eisenhower's continuing recovery from the heart attack that bedded him six weeks ago. One morning last week the President kept an appointment with ten photographers, a lone reporter and Press Secretary James Hagerty,* on the sun deck outside his hospital room. It was the first direct, close-up look the press and the public had had of him since his illness, and even in a wheelchair he looked sturdy. He was dressed in the gaudy, dark-red pajamas that the White House press had given him for his birthday (TIME, Oct. 24), and his accessories were suitably loud, too: a black, sequin-sprinkled western-type necktie and a pair of snappy Argyle slipper socks. A circlet of five gold stars adorned each collar tab and in the center of the left circlet was a sixth star—presented by Dr. Paul Dudley White for Ike's "good conduct" as a patient.