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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10447-0.txt b/10447-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f4c80b --- /dev/null +++ b/10447-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2857 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10447 *** + +OCTOBER VAGABONDS + +BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + +1911 + + + + + + + + + I The Epitaph of Summer + II At Evening I Came to the Wood + III "Trespassers will be ..." + IV Salad and Moonshine + V The Green Friend + VI In the Wake of Summer + VII Maps and Farewells + VIII The American Bluebird and Its Song + IX Dutch Hollow + X Where They Sing from Morning Till Night + XI Apple-Land + XII Orchards and a Line from Virgil + XIII Fellow Wayfarers + XIV The Old Lady of the Walnuts and Others + XV The Man at Dansville + XVI In which we Catch up with Summer + XVII Containing Valuable Statistics +XVIII A Dithyrambus of Buttermilk + XIX A Growl about American Country Hotels + XX Onions, Pigs and Hickory-nuts + XXI October Roses and a Young Girl's Face + XXII Concerning the Popular Taste in Scenery and some Happy People +XXIII The Susquehanna + XXIV And Unexpectedly the Last + +Envoi + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE EPITAPH OF SUMMER + + +As I started out from the farm with a basket of potatoes, for our supper +in the shack half a mile up the hillside, where we had made our Summer +camp, my eye fell on a notice affixed to a gate-post, and, as I read it, +my heart sank--sank as the sun was sinking yonder with wistful glory +behind the purple ridge. I tore the paper from the gate-post and put it +in my pocket with a sigh. + +"It is true, then," I said to myself. "We have got to admit it. I must +show this to Colin." + +Then I continued my way across the empty, close-gleaned corn-field, +across the railway track, and, plunging into the orchard on the other +side, where here and there among the trees the torrents of apples were +being already caught in boxes by the thrifty husbandman, began to breast +the hill intersected with thickly wooded watercourses. + +High up somewhere amid the cloud of beeches and buttonwood trees, our log +cabin lay hid, in a gully made by the little stream that filled our pails +with a silver trickle over a staircase of shelving rock, and up there +Colin was already busy with his skilled French cookery, preparing our +evening meal. The woods still made a pompous show of leaves, but I knew +it to be a hollow sham, a mask of foliage soon to be stripped off by +equinoctial fury, a precarious stage-setting, ready to be blown down at +the first gusts from the north. A forlorn bird here and there made a thin +piping, as it flitted homelessly amid the bleached long grasses, and the +frail silk of the milkweed pods came floating along ghostlike on the +evening breeze. + +Yes! It was true. Summer was beginning to pack up, the great +stage-carpenter was about to change the scene, and the great theatre was +full of echoes and sighs and sounds of farewell. Of course, we had known +it for some time, but had not had the heart to admit it to each other, +could not find courage to say that one more golden Summer was at an end. +But the paper I had torn from the roadside left us no further shred of +illusion. There was an authoritative announcement there was no blinking, +a notice to quit there was no gain-saying. + +As I came to the crest of the hill, and in sight of the shack, shining +with early lamp-light deep down among the trees of the gully, I could see +Colin innocently at work on a salad, and hear him humming to himself his +eternal "_Vive le Capitaine_." + +It was too pathetic. I believe the tears came to my eyes. + +"Colin," I said, as I at length arrived and set down my basket of +potatoes, "read this." + +He took the paper from my hand and read: + +"_Sun-up Baseball Club. September_ 19, 1908. _Last Match of the Season_" + +He knew what I meant. + +"Yes!" he said. "It is the epitaph of Summer." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AT EVENING I CAME TO THE WOOD + + +My solitude had been kindly lent to me for the Summer by a friend, the +prophet-proprietor of a certain famous Well of Truth some four miles +away, whither souls flocked from all parts of America to drink of the +living waters. I had been feeling town-worn and world-weary, and my +friend had written me saying: "At Elim are twelve wells and seventy +palm-trees," and so to Elim I had betaken myself. After a brief sojourn +there, drinking of the waters, and building up on the strong diet of the +sage's living words, he had given me the key to some green woods and +streams of his, and bade me take them for my hermitage. I had a great +making-up to arrange with Nature, and I half wondered how she would +receive me after all this long time. But when did that mother ever turn +her face from her child, however truant from her care? It had been with a +beating heart that I had passed up the hillside on an evening in early +June, and approached the hushed green temple, wherein I was to take +Summer sanctuary from a wicked world. + +But if, as I hope, the reader has no objection to an occasional interlude +of verse in all this prose, I will copy for him here the poem I wrote +next morning--it being always easier to tell the strict truth in poetry +rather than in prose: + +_At evening I came to the wood, and threw myself on the breast + Of the great green mother, weeping, and the arms of a thousand trees +Waved and rustled in welcome, and murmured: "Rest--rest--rest! + The leaves, thy brothers, shall heal thee; thy sisters, the flowers, +bring peace." + +At length I stayed from my weeping, and lifted my face from the grass; + The moon was walking the wood with feet of mysterious pearl, +And the great trees held their breath, trance-like, watching her pass, + And a bird called out from the shadows, with voice as sweet as a girl. + +And then, in the holy silence, to the great green mother I prayed: + "Take me again to thy bosom, thy son who so close to thee, +Aforetime, filial clung, then into the city strayed-- + The painted face of the town, the wine and the harlotry. + +"Bathe me in lustral dawns, and the morning star and the dew. + Make pure my heart as a bird and innocent as a flower, +Make sweet my thoughts as the meadow-mint + --O make me all anew, +And in the strength of beech and oak gird up my will with power. + +"I have wandered far, O my mother, but here I return at the last, + Never again to stray in pilgrimage wanton and wild; +A broken heart and a contrite here at thy feet I cast, + O take me back to thy bosom ..." And the mother answered, "Child!"_ + +It was a wonderful reconciliation, a wonderful home-coming, and how I +luxuriated in the great green forgiveness! Yes! the giant maples had +forgiven me, and the multitudinous beeches had taken me to their arms. +The flowers and I were friends again, the grass was my brother, and the +shy nymph-like stream, dropping silver vowels into the silence, was my +sweetheart. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"TRESPASSERS WILL BE..." + + +For those who value it, there is no form of property that inspires a +sense of ownership so jealous as solitude. Rob my orchard if you will, +but beware how you despoil me of my silence. The average noisy person can +have no conception what a brutal form of trespass his coarsely cheerful +voice may be in the exquisite spiritual hush of the woods, or what +shattering discomfort his irrelevant presence in the landscape. + +One day, to my horror, a picnic ruthlessly invaded my sanctuary. With a +roar of Boeotian hilarity, it tore up the hillside as if it were a +storming party, and half a day the sacred woods were vocal with silly +catcalls and snatches of profane song. I locked up my hermitage, and, +taking my stick, sought refuge in flight, like the other woodland +creatures; only coming back at evening with cautious step and peering +glance, half afraid lest it should still be there. No! It was gone, but +its voices seemed to have left gaping wounds across the violated air, and +the trees to wear a look of desecration. But presently the moon arose and +washed the solitude clean again, and the wounds of silence were healed in +the still night. + +Next morning I amused myself by writing the following notice, which +I nailed up on a great elm-tree standing guard at the beginning of +the woods: + + SILENCE! + +_Speaking above a whisper in these woods + is forbidden by law_. + +This notice seems to have had its effect, for from this time on no more +hands of marauders invaded my peace. But I had one other case of +trespass, of which it is now time to speak. + +Some short distance from the shack was a clearing in the woods, a +thriving wilderness of bramble-bushes, poke-berries, myrtle-berries, +mandrakes, milkweed, mullein, daisies and what not--a paradise of every +sauntering vine and splendid, saucy weed. In the centre stood a +sycamore-tree, beneath which it was my custom to smoke a morning pipe and +revolve my profound after-breakfast thoughts. + +Judge, then, of my indignant shock, one morning, at finding a stranger +calmly occupying my place. I stood for a moment rooted to the spot, in +the shadow of the encircling woods, and he had not yet seen me. As I +stood, pondering on the best way of dealing with the intruder, a sudden +revulsion of kindness stole over me. For here indeed was a very different +figure from what, in my first shock of surprise, I had expected to see. +No common intruder this. In fact, who could have dreamed of coming upon +so incongruous an apparition as this in an American woodland? How on +earth did this picturesque waif from the Quartier Latin come to stray so +far away from the Boul' Miche! For the little boyish figure of a man that +sat sketching in my place was the Frenchiest-looking Frenchman you ever +saw--with his dark, smoke-dried skin, his long, straight, blue-black +hair, his fine, rather ferocious brown eyes, his long, delicate French +nose, his bristling black moustache and short, sting-shaped imperial. He +wore on his head a soft white felt hat, somewhat of the shape affected by +circus clowns, and too small for him. His coat was of green velveteen +corduroy and he wore knickerbockers of an eloquent plaid. + +He was intently absorbed in sketching a prosperous group of weeds, a +crazy quilt of wildly jostling colour, that had grown up around the decay +of a fallen tree, and made a fine blazon of contrast against the massed +foliage in the background. There was no mistake how the stranger loved +this patch of coloured weeds. Here was a man whose whole soul was +evidently--colour. There was a look in his face as if he could just eat +those oranges and purples, and soft greens; and there was a sort of +passionate assurance in the way in which he handled his brushes, and +delicately plunged them here and there in his colour-box, that spoke a +master. So intent was he upon his work that, when I came up behind him, +he seemed unaware of my presence; though his oblivion was actually the +conscious indifference of a landscape painter, accustomed to the ambling +cow and the awe-struck peasant looking over his shoulder as he worked. + +"Great bunch of weeds," he said presently, without looking up, and still +painting, drawing the while at a quaint pipe about an inch long. + +"O, you are not the Boul' Miche, after all," I exclaimed in +disappointment. + +"Aren't I, though?" he said at last, looking up in interested surprise. +"Ever at--?" mentioning the name of a well-known cafe, one of the many +rally-points of the Quartier. + +"I should say," I answered. + +"Well!" + +And thereupon we both plunged into delighted reminiscence of that city +which, as none other, makes immediate friends of all her lovers. For a +while the woods faded away, and in that tangled clearing rose the towers +of Notre Dame, and the Seine glittered on under its great bridges, and +again the world smelled of absinthe, and picturesque madmen gesticulated +in clouds of tobacco smoke, and propounded fantastic philosophies amid +the rattle of dominoes--and afar off in the street a voice was crying +"_Haricots verts_!" My new friend's talk had the pathos of spiritual +exile, for, as French in blood as a man could be, born in Bordeaux of +Provençal parentage, he had lived most of his life in America. The +decoration of a rich man's house in the neighbourhood had brought him +thus into my solitude, and, that work completed, he would return to his +home in New York. + +Meanwhile the morning was going by as we talked, and, putting up his +sketch-box, he accepted my invitation to join me at lunch. + +Such was the manner of my meeting, in the guise of a trespasser, with the +dear friend to whom I had brought the decisive news of the death of +Summer, as he was innocently making a salad, _in antiquam silvam_, on +that sad September evening. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SALAD AND MOONSHINE + + +"Do you remember that first salad you made us, Colin?" I said, as we sat +over our coffee, and Colin was filling his little pipe. "A daring work of +art, a fantastic _tour de force_, of apples, and lettuce, and wild +strawberries, and I don't know what else." + +"I believe I mixed in some May-apples, too. It was a great stunt ... +well, no more May-apples and strawberries this year," he finished, with a +sigh, and we both sat silently smoking, thinking over the good Summer +that was gone. + +After our first meeting, Colin had dropped in to see me again from time +to time, and when his work at the great house was finished, I had asked +him to come and share my solitude. A veritable child of Nature himself, +he fitted into my quiet days as silently as a squirrel. So much of his +life had been passed out-of-doors with trees and skies, long dream-like +days all alone sketching in solitary places, that he seemed as much a +part of the woods as though he were a faun, and the lore of the elements, +and all natural things--bugs and birds, all wildwood creatures--had +passed into him with unconscious absorption. A sort of boyish +unconsciousness, indeed, was the keynote and charm of his nature. A less +sophisticated creature never followed the mystic calling of art. +Fortunately for me, he was not one of those painters who understand and +expound their own work. On the contrary, he was a perfect child about it, +and painted for no more mysterious reason than that his eye delighted in +beautiful natural effects, and that he loved to play with paint and +brushes. Though he was undoubtedly sensitive somewhere to the mystic side +of Nature, her Wordsworthian "intimations," you would hardly have guessed +it from his talk. "A bully bit of colour," would be his craftsmanlike way +of describing a twilight full of sibylline suggestiveness to the literary +mind. But, strangely enough, when he brought you his sketch, all your +"sibylline suggestiveness" was there, which of course means, after all, +that painting was his way of seeing and saying it. + +The moon rose as we smoked on, and began to lattice with silver the +darkness of the glen, and flood the hillside with misty radiance. Colin +made for his sketch-box. + +"I must make good use of this moon," he said, "before we go." + +"And so must I," said I, laughing as we both went out into the night, he +one way and I another, to make our different uses of the moon. + +An hour later Colin turned in with a panel that seemed made of moonlight. +"How on earth did you do it?" I said. "It is as though you had drawn up +the moon in a silver bucket from the bottom of a fairy well." + +"No, no," he protested; "I know better. But where is your _clair +de lune_?" + +"Nothing doing," I answered. + +"Well, then, say those lines you wrote a week or two ago instead." + +"'Berries already,' do you mean?" + +"Yes." + +Here are the lines he meant: + +_Berries already, September soon,-- +The shortening day and ike early moon; +The year is busy with next year's flowers +The seeds are ready for next year' showers; +Through a thousand tossing trees there swells +The sigh of the Summer's sad farewells. +Too soon those leaves in the sunset sky +Low down on the wintry ground will lie, +And grim November and December +Leave naught of Summer to remember-- +Saving some flower in a book put by, +Secure from the soft effacing snow, +Though all the rest of the Summer go._ + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GREEN FRIEND + + +Though we had received such unmistakable notice to quit, we still +lingered on in our solitude, after the manner of defiant tenants whom +nothing short of corporal ejection can dislodge. The North wind began to +roar in the tree-tops and shake the doors and windows of the shack, like +an angry landlord, but we paid no heed to him. Yet, all the time, both of +us, in our several ways, were saying our farewells, and packing up our +memories for departure. There was an old elm-tree which Colin had taken +for his Summer god, and which he was never tired of painting. He must +make the one perfect study of that before we pulled up stakes. So, each +day, after our morning adoration of the sun, we would separate about our +different ways and business. + +The woods were already beginning to wear a wistful, dejected look. There +was a feeling of departure everywhere, a sense that the year's +excitements were over. The procession had gone by, and there was an +empty, purposeless air of waiting-about upon things, a sort of despairing +longing for something else to happen--and a sure sense that nothing more +could happen till next year. Every event in the floral calendar had taken +place with immemorial punctuality and tragic rapidity. All the +full-blooded flowers of Summer had long since come and gone, with their +magic faces and their souls of perfume. Gone were the banners of blossom +from the great trees. The locust and the chestnut, those spendthrifts of +the woods, that went the pace so gorgeously in June, are now sober-coated +enough, and growing even threadbare. All the hum and the honey and +breathless bosom-beat of things is over. The birds sing no more, but only +chatter about time-tables. The bee keeps to his hive, and the bewildered +butterfly, in tattered ball-dress, wonders what has become of his flowery +partners. The great cricket factory has shut down. Not a wheel is heard +whirring. The squirrel has lost his playful air, and has an anxious +manner, as though there were no time to waste before stocking his +granary. Everywhere berries have taken the place of buds, and bearded +grasses the place of flowers. Even the goldenrod has fallen to rust, and +the stars of the aster are already tarnished. Only along the edges of the +wood the dry little paper immortelles spread long shrouds and wreaths in +the shade. + +Suddenly you feel lonely in the woods, which had seemed so companionable +all Summer. What is it--_Who_ is it--that has gone? Though quite alone, +there was some one with you all Summer, an invisible being filling the +woods with his presence, and always at your side, or somewhere near by. +But to-day, through all the green halls and chambers of the wood, you +seek him in vain. You call, but there is no answer. You wait, but he does +not come. He has gone. The wood is an empty palace. The prince went away +secretly in the night. The wood is a deserted temple. The god has betaken +himself to some secret abode. Everywhere you come upon chill, abandoned +altars, littered debris of Summer sacrifices. Maybe he is dead, and +perchance, deeper in the wood, you may come upon his marble form in a +winding-sheet of drifting leaves. + +Not a god, maybe, you have pictured him, not a prince, but surely as a +friend--the mysterious Green Friend of the green silence and the golden +hush of Summer noons. The mysterious Green Friend of the woods! So +strangely by our side all Summer, so strangely gone away. It is in vain +to await him under our morning sycamore, nor under the great maples shall +we find him walking, nor amid the alder thickets discover him, nor yet in +the little ravine beneath the pines. No! he has surely gone away, and his +great house seems empty without him, desolate, filled with lamentation, +all its doors and windows open to the Winter snows. + +But the Green Friend had left me a message. I found it at the roots of +some violets. "_I shall be back again next year_" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE WAKE OF SUMMER + + +Yes, it was time to be going, and the thought was much on both our minds. +We had as yet, however, made no plans, had not indeed discussed any; but +one afternoon, late in September, driven indoors by a sudden squall of +rain, I came to Colin with an idea. The night before we had had the first +real storm of the season. + +"Ah! This will do their business," Colin had said, referring to the +trees, as we heard the wind and rain tearing and splashing through the +pitch-dark woods. "It will be a different world in the morning." + +And indeed it was. Cruel was the work of dismantling that had gone on +during the night. The roof of the wood had fallen in in a score of +places, letting in the sky through unfamiliar windows; and the distant +prospect showed through the torn tapestry of the trees with a startling +sense of disclosure. The dishevelled world wore the distressed look of a +nymph caught _déshabillée._ The expression, "the naked woods," occurred +to one with almost a sense of impropriety. At least there was a cynical +indecorum in this violent disrobing of the landscape. + +"Colin," I said, coming to him with my idea. "We've got to go, of +course, but I've been thinking--don't you hate the idea of being hurled +along in a train, and suddenly shot into the city again, like a package +through a tube?" + +"Hate it? Don't ask me," said Colin. + +"If only it could be more gradual," I went on. "Suppose, for instance, +instead of taking the train, we should walk it!" + +"Walk to New York?" said Colin, with a surprised whistle. + +"Yes! Why not?" + +"Something of a walk, old man." + +"All the better. We shall be all the longer getting there. But, listen. +To go by train would be almost too sudden a shock. I don't believe we +could stand it. To be here to-day, breathing this God's fresh air, living +the lives of natural men in a natural world, and to-morrow--Broadway, the +horrible crowds, the hustle, the dirt, the smells, the uproar." + +For answer Colin watched the clean rain fleeting through the trees, and +groaned aloud. + +"But now if we walked, we would, so to say, let ourselves down lightly, +inure ourselves by gradual approach to the thought of life once more with +our fellows. Besides, we should be walking in the wake of the Summer. She +has only moved a little East as yet. We might catch her up on her way to +New York, and thus move with the moving season, keeping in step with the +Zodiac. Then, at last, ... how much more fitting our entry into New York, +not by way of some sordid and clangorous depot, but through the spacious +corridors of the Highlands and the lordly gates of the Hudson!" + +When I had thus attained my crescendo, Colin rose impressively, and +embraced me with true French effusion. + +"Old man," he said, "that's just great. It's an inspiration from on high. +It makes me feel better already. Gee! but that's bully." + +French as was his blood, it will be observed that Colin's expletives were +thoroughly American. Of course, he should have said _sacré mille cochons_ +or _nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu_; but, though in appearance, so to say, an +embodied "_sacré"_ he seemed to find the American vernacular sufficiently +expressive. + +"Is it a go, then?" said I. + +"It's a go," said Colin, once more in American. + +And we shook on it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MAPS AND FAREWELLS + + +It was wonderful what a change our new plan wrought in our spirits. + +Our melancholy was immediately dispersed, and its place taken by active +anticipations of our journey. The North wind in the trees, instead of +blustering dismissal, sounded to our ears like the fluttering of the +blue-peter at the masthead of our voyage. Strange heart of man! A day +back we were in tears at the thought of going. Now we are all smiles to +think of it, all impatience to be gone. We quote Whitman a dozen times +in the hour, and it is all "afoot and light-hearted" with us, and "the +open road." + +But there were some farewells to make to people as well as to trees. +There were friends at Elim to bid adieu, and also there were maps to be +consulted, and knapsacks to be packed--exhilarating preparations. + +Our friends looked at us, when we had unfolded our project, with a +mixture of surprise and pity. "Amiable lunatics" was the first comment of +their countenances, and--"There never was any telling what the artistic +temperament would do next!" Had we announced an air-ship voyage to the +moon, they would have regarded us as comparatively reasonable, but to +walk--_to walk_--some four or five hundred miles in America, of all +countries, a country of palace cars and, lightning limited expresses, not +to mention homicidal touring automobiles, seemed like--what shall I +say?--well, as though one should start out for New Zealand in a row-boat, +or make the trip to St. Petersburg in a sedan-chair. + +But there were others--especially the women--who understood, felt as we +did, and longed to go with us. I have never met a woman yet whose face +did not light up at the thought of a walking tour, and in her heart long +to don Rosalind clothes and set forth in search of adventures. We thus +had the advantage, in planning our route, of several prettily coiffed +heads bending over our maps and guide-books with us. + +"Four hundred and thirty miles," said one of these Rosalinds, whose +pretty head was full of pictures of romantic European travel. "Think what +one could do with four hundred and thirty miles in Europe. Let us try, +for the fun of it." + +And turning to a map of Europe, and measuring out four hundred and thirty +miles by scale on a slip of paper, she tried it up and down the map from +point to point. "Look at funny little England!" she said. "Why, you will +practically be walking from one end of England to the other. See," and +she fitted her scale to the map, "it would bring you easily from +Portsmouth to Aberdeen. + +"And now let us try France. Why, see again--you will be walking from +Calais to Marseilles--think of it! walking through France, all vineyards +and beautiful names. Now Italy--see! you will be walking from Florence to +Mount Etna--Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo." + +And so in imagination our fair friend sketched out fanciful pilgrimages +for us. "You could walk from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees," she went on. +"You could walk from Venice to Berlin; from Brussels to Copenhagen; you +could walk from Munich to Budapest; you could walk right across Turkey, +from Constantinople to the Adriatic Sea. And Greece--see! you could walk +from Sparta to the Danube. To think of the romantic use you could make +of your four-hundred-odd-miles, and how different it sounds--Buffalo to +New York!" + +And again she repeated, luxuriating in the romantic sound of the +words: "Constantinople to the Adriatic! Sparta to the Danube!--Buffalo +to New York!" + +There was not wanting to the party the whole-souled, +my-country-'tis-of-thee American, who somewhat resented these European +comparisons, and declared that America was good enough for her, clearly +intimating that a certain lack of patriotism, even a certain immorality, +attached to the admiration of foreign countries. She also told us +somewhat severely that the same stars, if not better, shone over America +as over any other country, and that American scenery was the finest in +the world--not to speak of the American climate. + +To all of which we bowed our heads in silence--but the frivolous, +European-minded Rosalind who had got us into this trouble retorted with a +grave face: "Wouldn't you just love, dear Miss----, to walk from +Hackensack to Omaha?" + +Another voice was kind enough to explain for our encouragement that the +traveller found in a place exactly what he brought there, and that +romance was a personal gift, all in the personal point of view. + +"A sort of cosmetic you apply to the face of Nature," footnoted our +irrepressible friend. + +Still another reminded us that "to travel hopefully is a better thing +than to arrive," and still another strongly advised us to carry +revolvers. + +So, taking with us our maps and much good advice, we bade farewell to our +friends, and walked back to our camp under the stars--the same stars that +were shining over Constantinople. + +The next day, when all our preparations were complete, the shack swept +and garnished, and our knapsacks bulging in readiness for the road, Colin +took his brushes, and in a few minutes had decorated one of the walls +with an Autumn sunset--a sort of memorial tablet to our Summer, he +explained. + +"Can't you think up a verse to put underneath?" he asked. + +Then underneath he lettered: + +_Two lovers of the Sun and of the Moon, + Lovers of Tree and Grass and Bug and Bird, +Spent here the Summer days, then all too soon +Upon the homeward track reluctant fared. + +Sun-up, October 1, 1908._ + +Some apples remained over from our larder. We carefully laid them outside +for the squirrels; then, slinging our knapsacks, we took a last look +round the little place, and locked the door. + +Our way lay up the hill, across the pasture and through the beeches, +toward the sky-line. + +We stood still a moment, gazing at the well-loved landscape. Then we +turned and breasted the hill. + +"_Allons_!" cried Colin. + +"_Allons_!" I answered. "_Allons_! To New York!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AMERICAN BLUEBIRD AND ITS SONG + + +I wish I could convey the singular feeling of freedom and adventure that +possessed us as Colin and I grasped our sticks and struck up the green +hill--for New York. It was a feeling of exhilaration and romantic +expectancy, blent with an absurd sense of our being entirely on our own +resources, vagrants shifting for ourselves, independent of civilization; +which, of course, the actual circumstances in no way warranted. A +delightful boyish illusion of entering on untrodden paths and facing +unknown dangers thrilled through us. + +"Well, we're off!" we said simultaneously, smiling interrogatively at +each other. + +"Yes! we're in for it." + +So men start out manfully for the North Pole. + +Our little enterprise gave us an imaginative realization of the +solidarity, the interdependence, of the world; and we saw, as in a +vision, its four corners knit together by a vast network of paths +connecting one with the other; footpaths, byways, cart-tracks, +bride-paths, lovers' lanes, highroads, all sensitively linked in one vast +nervous system of human communication. This field whose green sod we were +treading connected with another field, that with another, and that again +with another--all the way to New York--all the way to Cape Horn! No break +anywhere. All we had to do was to go on putting one foot before the +other, and we could arrive anywhere. So the worn old phrase, "All roads +lead to Rome," lit up with a new meaning, the meaning that had originally +made it. Yes! the loneliest of lovers' lanes, all silence and wild +flowers, was on the way to the Metropolitan Opera House; or, vice versa, +the Flat Iron Building was on the way to the depths of the forest. + +"Suppose we stop here, Colin," I said, pointing to a solitary, +forgotten-looking little farmhouse, surrounded by giant wind-worn poplars +that looked older than America, "and ask the way to Versailles?" + +"And I shouldn't be surprised," answered Colin, "if we struck some bright +little American schoolgirl who could tell us." + +Although we as yet knew every foot of the ground we were treading, it +already began to wear an unfamiliar houseless and homeless look, an air +of foreign travel, and though the shack was but a few yards behind us, it +seemed already miles away, wrapped in lonely distance, wistfully +forsaken. Everything we looked at seemed to have gained a new importance +and significance; every tree and bush seemed to say, "So many miles to +New York," and we unconsciously looked at and remarked on the most +trifling objects with the eye of explorers, and took as minute an +interest in the usual bird and wayside weed as though we were engaged in +some "flora and fauna" survey of untrodden regions. + +"That's a bluebird," said Colin, as a faint pee-weeing came with a thin +melancholy note from a telegraph wire. And we both listened attentively, +with a learned air, as though making a mental note for some +ornithological society in New York. "Bluebird seen in Erie County, +October 1, 1908!" So might Sir John Mandeville have noted the occurrence +of birds of paradise in the domains of Prester John. + +"That's a silo," said Colin, pointing to a cylindrical tower at the end +of a group of barns, from which came the sound of an engine surrounded by +a group of men, occupied in feeding it with trusses of corn from a +high-piled wagon. "They are laying in fodder for the Winter." Interesting +agricultural observation! + +In the surrounding fields the pumpkins, globes of golden orange, lay +scattered among the wintry-looking corn-stalks. + +"Bully subject for a picture!" said Colin. + +Before we had gone very far, we did stop at a cottage standing at a +puzzling corner of cross-roads, and asked the way, not to Versailles, +indeed, but to--Dutch Hollow. We were answered by a good-humoured German +voice belonging to an old dame, who seemed glad to have the lonely +afternoon silence broken by human speech; and we were then, as often +afterward, reminded that we were not so far away from Europe, after all; +but that, indeed, in no small degree the American continent was the map +of Europe bodily transported across the sea. For the present our way lay +through Germany. + +Dutch Hollow! The name told its own story, and it had appealed to our +imaginations as we had come upon it on the map. + +We had thought we should like to see how it looked written in trees and +rocks and human habitations on the page of the landscape. And I may say +that it was such fanciful considerations as this, rather than any more +business-like manner of travel, that frequently determined the route of +our essentially sentimental journey. If our way admitted of a choice of +direction, we usually decided by the sound of the name of village or +town. Thus the sound of "Wales Center" had taken us, we were told, a mile +or two out of our way; but what of that? We were not walking for a +record, nor were we road-surveying, or following the automobile route to +New York. In fact, we had deliberately avoided the gasoline route, +choosing to be led by more rustic odours; and thus our wayward wayfaring +cannot be offered in any sense as a guide for pedestrians who may come +after us. Any one following our guidance would be as liable to arrive at +the moon as at New York. In fact, we not infrequently inquired our way of +a bird, or some friendly little dog that would come out to bark a +companionable good day to us from a wayside porch. + +As a matter of fact, I had inquired the way of the bluebird mentioned a +little while back, and it may be of interest--to ornithological +societies--to transcribe his answer: + +_The way of dreams--the bluebird sang-- + Is never hard to find +So soon as you have really left + The grown-up world behind; + +So soon as you have come to see + That what the others call +Realities, for such as you, + Are never real at all; + +So soon as you have ceased to care + What others say or do, +And understand that they are they, + And you--thank God--are you. + +Then is your foot upon the path, + Your journey well begun, +And safe the road for you to tread, + Moonlight or morning sun. + +Pence of this world you shall not take, + Yea! no provision heed; +A wild-rose gathered in the wood + Will buy you all you need. + +Hungry, the birds shall bring you food, + The bees their honey bring; +And, thirsty, you the crystal drink + Of an immortal spring. + +For sleep, behold how deep and soft + With moss the earth is spread, +And all the trees of all the world + Shall curtain round your bed. + +Enchanted journey! that begins + Nowhere, and nowhere ends, +Seeking an ever-changing goal, + Nowhither winds and wends. + +For destination yonder flower, + For business yonder bird; +Aught better worth the travelling to + I never saw or heard. + +O long dream-travel of the soul! + First the green earth to tread-- +And still yon other starry track + To travel when you're dead_. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DUTCH HOLLOW + + +The day had opened with a restless picturesque morning of gusty sunshine +and rolling clouds. There was something rich and stormy and ominous in +the air, and a soft rainy sense of solemn impending change, at once +brilliant and mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, +as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on +their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen +creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by evening, and its +mysterious presage had prompted Colin to the furnishing of our knapsacks +with water-proof cloaks, which, as the afternoon wore on, seemed more and +more a wise provision. But the rain still held off, contenting itself +with threatening phantasmagoria of cloud, moulding and massing like +visible thunder in our wake. It seemed leisurely certain, however, of +catching us before nightfall; and, sure enough, as the light began to +thicken, and we stood admiring its mountainous magnificence--vast billows +of plum-coloured gloom, hanging like doomsday over a stretch of haunted +orchard--the great drops began to patter down. + +Surely the sky is the greatest of all melodramatists. Nothing short of +the cataclysmal end of the world could have provided drama to match the +stupendous stage-setting of that stormy sky. All doom and destiny and +wrath of avenging deities and days of judgment seemed concentrated in +that frown of gigantic darkness. Beneath it the landscape seemed to grow +livid as a corpse, and terror to fill with trembling the very trees and +grasses. Oedipus and Orestes and King Lear rolled into one could hardly +have accounted for that angry sky. Such a sky it must have been that +carried doom to the cities of the plain. And, after all, it was only +Colin and I innocently making haste to Dutch Hollow! + +That Teutonic spot seemed hopelessly far away as the rain began to drive +down and the horizon to open here and there in lurid slashings of stormy +sunset; and when the road, which for some time had been one long descent, +suddenly confronted us with a rough, perpendicular lane, overgrown with +bushes, that seemed more like a cart-track to the stars than a sensible +thoroughfare, we realized, with a certain indignant self-pity, that we +were walking in real earnest, out in the night and the storm, far from +human habitation. + +"Nature cannot be so absurd," said I, "as to expect us to climb such a +road on such an evening! She must surely have placed a comfortable inn in +such a place as this, with ruddy windows of welcome, and a roaring fire +and a hissing roast." But, alas! our eyes scanned the streaming copses in +vain--nothing in sight but trees, rain and a solitary saw-mill, where an +old man on a ladder assured us in a broken singsong, like the +Scandinavian of the Middle West, that indeed Nature did mean us to climb +that hill, and that by that road only could we reach the Promised Land of +supper and bed. + +And the rain fell and the wind blew, and Colin and I trudged on through +the murk and the mire, I silently recalling and commenting on certain +passages in certain modern writers in praise of walking in the rain. At +last the hill came to an end--we learned afterward that it was a good +mile high--and we stumbled out on to some upland wilderness, unlit by +star or window. Then we found ourselves descending again, and at last dim +shapes of clustered houses began to appear, and the white phantom of a +church. We could rather feel than see the houses, for the night was so +dark, and, though here was evidently a village, there was no sign of a +light anywhere, not so much as a bright keyhole; nothing but hushed, +shuttered shapes of deeper black in the general darkness. So English +villages must have looked, muffled up in darkness, at the sound of the +Conqueror's curfew. + +"Surely, they can't all be in bed by seven o'clock?" I said. + +"There doesn't seem much to stay up for," laughed Colin. + +At length we suspected, rather than saw, a gleam of light at the rear of +one of the shrouded shapes we took for houses, and, stumbling toward it, +we heard cheerful voices, German voices; and, knocking at a back door, +received a friendly summons to enter. Then, out of the night that covered +us, suddenly sprang a kitchen full of light and a family at supper, kind +German folk, the old people, the younger married couple, and the +grandchildren, and a big dog vociferously taking care of them. A lighted +glimpse, a few hearty words of direction, and we were out in the night +again; for though, indeed, this was Dutch Hollow, its simple microcosm +did not include an hotel. For that we must walk on another half-mile or +so. O those country half-miles! So on we went again, and soon a lighted +stoop flashed on our right. At last! I mounted the steps of a veranda, +and, before knocking, looked in at the window. Then I didn't knock, but +softly called Colin, who was waiting in the road, and together we looked +in. At a table in the centre of a barely furnished, brightly-lit room, an +old woman and a young man were kneeling in prayer. Colin and I stood a +moment looking at them, and then softly took the road again. + +But the inn, or rather the "hotel," did come at last. Alas! however, for +dreams of ruddy welcome--rubicund host, and capon turning on the spit. In +spite of German accents, we were walking in America, after all. A +shabbily-lit glass door admitted us into a dreary saloon bar, where a +hard-featured, gruff-mannered young countryman, after serving beer to two +farm-labourers, admitted with apparent reluctance that beds were to be +had by such as had "the price," but that, as to supper, well! supper was +"over"--supper-time was six-thirty; it was now seven-thirty. The young +man seemed no little surprised, even indignant, that any one should be +ignorant of the fact that supper-time at Sheldon Center was half-past +six; and this, by the way, was a surprise we encountered more than once +on our journey. Supper-time in the American road-house is an hour +severely observed, and you disregard it at the peril of your empty +stomach, for no larders seem so hermetically sealed as the larders of +American country hotels after the appointed hour, and no favour so +impossible to grant as even a ham sandwich, if you should be so much a +stranger to local ordinances as to expect it after the striking of the +hour. Indeed, you are looked on with suspicion for asking, as something +of a tramp or dangerous character. Not to know that supper-time at +Sheldon Center was half-past six seemed to argue a sinister disregard of +the usages of civilization. + +As we ruefully contemplated a supperless couch, a comely young woman, who +had been looking us over from a room in the rear of the bar, came +smilingly forward and volunteered to do the best she could for us. She +was evidently the rough fellow's wife, goddess of the kitchen, and final +court of appeal. What a difference a good-natured, good-looking woman +makes in a place! 'Tis a glimpse into the obvious, but there are +occasions on which such commonplaces shine with a blessed radiance, and +the moment when our attractive hostess flowered out upon us from her +forbidding background was one of them. With her on our side, we forgot +our fears, and, with an assured air, asked her husband to show us to our +rooms. Lamp in hand, he led us up staircases and along corridors--for the +hotel was quite a barracks--thawing out into conversation on the way. The +place, he explained, was a little out of order, owing to "the ball"--an +event he referred to as a matter of national knowledge, and being, we +understood, the annual ball of harvesting. The fact of the lamps not +burning properly, and there being no water or towels in our rooms, was +due, he explained, to this disorganizing festival; as also the +circumstance of our doors having no knobs to them. "The young fellows at +the ball did carry on so," he said, chuckling with reminiscence of that +orgiastic occasion. The Sheldon Center gallants were evidently the very +devil; and those vanished door-knobs provoked pictures in our minds of +Lupercalian revels, which, alas! we had come too late to share. + +We should have found anything good that our hostess cared to set before +us--so potent a charm is amiability--and I am sure no man need wish for a +better supper than the fried eggs and fried potatoes which copiously +awaited us down-stairs. As Colin washed his down with coffee, like a true +Franco-American, and I washed down mine with English breakfast tea, we +pulled out our pipes and smiled contentment at each other. + +"Shall we have a chapter of the wisdom of Paragot before bed?" I said, +and, going to our small, carefully selected knapsack library, I found the +gay-hearted fantastical book we had promised to read together on our +wayfaring; and so the day drew to a good end. + +Over the head of my bed hung a highly-coloured reproduction of Leonardo's +"Last Supper," and stuck in its frame was a leaf of blessed palm--by +which tokens I realized that my slumbers were to be under the wing of the +ancient Mother. As I closed my eyes, the musical chime of a great bell, +high up somewhere in the outer night, fell in benediction upon the +darkness. So I fell asleep in Europe, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +WHERE THEY SING FROM MORNING TILL NIGHT + + +I awoke to the same silvery salutation, and the sound of country boots +echoing across farm-yard cobble-stones. A lantern flashing in and out +among barns lit up my ceiling for a moment, a rough country voice hailed +another rough country voice somewhere outside, and the day slowly coughed +and sneezed itself awake in the six-o'clock grayness. I heard Colin +moving in the next room, and presently we were down-stairs, alertly +hungry. Our hostess, with morning smile, asked if we would mind waiting +breakfast for "the boarders." Meanwhile, we stepped out into the +unfolding day, and the village that had been a mystery to us in the +darkness was revealed; a handful of farmhouses on the brow of a +solitary-looking upland, and, looming over all, a great cathedral-like +church that seemed to have been transported bodily from France. Stepping +out to say good-morning to some young pigs that were sociably grunting in +a neighbouring sty, we beheld the vast landscape of our preceding day +stretched out beneath us, mistily emerging into the widening sunrise. +With pride our eyes traced the steep white road we had so arduously +travelled, and, for remembrance, Colin made a swift sketch of Dutch +Hollow huddled down there in the valley, with its white church steeple +catching the morning sun. And, by this, "the boarders" had assembled, and +we found ourselves at breakfast in a cheery company of three workmen, who +were as bright and full of fun as boys out for a holiday. They were +presently joined by a fourth, a hearty, middle-aged man, who, as he sat +down, greeted us with: + +"I feel just like singing this morning." + +"Good for you!" said one of us. "That's the way to begin the day." His +good nature was magnetic. + +"Yes," he laughed, "we sing in Sheldon from morning till night." + +"Sheldon's evidently a good place to know," I said. "I will make a note +of that for New Yorkers." + +So, reader, sometimes when the world seems all wrong, and life a very +doubtful speculation, you may care to know of a place where the days go +so blithely that men actually sing from morning till night! Sheldon +Center is that place. You can find it on any map, and I can testify that +the news is true. + +And the men that thus sang from morning till night--what was the trade +they worked and sang at? + +We gathered from a few dropped words that they were engaged on some work +over at the church--masonry, no doubt--and, as they left the +breakfast-table, in a laughing knot, to begin the day's work, they +suggested our giving a look in at them on our way. This we promised to +do, for a merrier, better-hearted lot of fellows it would be hard to +find. To meet them was to feel a warm glow of human comradeship. Healthy, +normal, happy fellows, enjoying their work as men should, and taking life +as it came with sane, unconscious gusto; it was a tonic encounter to be +in their company. + +They were grave-diggers, engaged in renovating the village churchyard! + +Yes! and, said our hostess, they were making it like a garden! It had +been long neglected and become disgracefully overgrown with weeds and +bushes, but now they were trimming it up in fine style. They were +cemetery experts from Batavia way, and the job was to cost sixteen +hundred dollars. But it was worth it, for indeed they were making it look +like a garden! + +Presently we stepped over to the churchyard. We should not have been +human if we had not advanced with a Hamlet-Horatio air: "Has this fellow +no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?" We found our +four friends in a space of the churchyard from which the tombstones had +been temporarily removed, engaged, not with mattock and death's head, but +with spirit-level and measuring-cord. They were levelling a stretch of +newly-turned and smoothed ground, and they pointed with pride to the +portion of the work already accomplished, serried rows of spick-and-span +headstones, all "plumb," as they explained, and freshly scraped--not a +sign of caressing moss or a tendril of vine to be seen. A neat job, if +there ever was one. We should have seen the yard before they had taken it +in hand! There wasn't a stone that was straight, and the weeds and the +brambles--well, look at it now. We looked. Could anything be more refined +or in more perfect taste? The churchyard was as smooth and correct as a +newly-barbered head, not a hair out of place. We looked and kept our +thoughts to ourselves, but we wondered if the dead were really as +grateful as they should be for this drastic house-cleaning? Did they +appreciate this mathematical uniformity, this spruce and spotless +residential air of their numbered rectangular rest; or was not the old +way nearer to their desire, with soft mosses tucking them in from the +garish sun, and Spring winds spreading coverlets of wild flowers above +their sleep? + +But--who knows?--perhaps the dead prefer to be up-to-date, and to follow +the fashion in funeral furnishings; and surely such expert necropolitans +as our four friends ought to know. No doubt the Sheldon Center dead would +have the same tastes as the Sheldon Center living; for, after all, we +forget, in our idealization of them, that the dead, like the living, are +a vast _bourgeoisie_. Yes! it is a depressing thought--the _bourgeoisie_ +of the dead! + +As we stood talking, the young priest of the parish joined our group. He +was a German, from Düsseldorf, and his worn face lit up when he found +that Colin had been at Düsseldorf and could talk with him about it. As +he stood with us there on that bleak upland, he seemed a pathetic, +symbolic figure, lonely standard-bearer of the spirit in one of the +dreary colonies of that indomitable church that carries her mystic +sacraments even into the waste places and borders of the world. The +romance of Rome was far away beyond that horizon on which he turned his +wistful look; here was its hard work, its daily prose. But he turned +proudly to the great pile that loomed over us. We had commented on its +size in so remote a parish. + +"Yes, I am proud of our people," he said. "It is greatly to their +credit." One could not help silently wondering that the spiritual needs +of this handful of lonely houses should demand so ambitious a structure. +But the symbols of the soul can never be too impressive. Then we said +good-bye to our friends, and struck out into the morning sunshine, +leaving the village of song behind. + +Yes! in Sheldon Center they sing from morning till night--at +grave-making! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +APPLE-LAND + + +It was a spacious morning of windswept sunshine, with a wintry bite in +the keen air. Meadow-larks and song-sparrows kept up a faint warbling +about us, but the crickets, which yesterday had here and there made a +thin music, as of straggling bands of survivors of the Summer, were +numbed into silence again. Once or twice we caught sight of the dainty +snipe in the meadows, and high over the woods a bird-hawk floated, as by +some invisible anchorage, in the sky. It was an austere landscape, grave +with elm and ash and pine. For a space, a field of buckwheat standing in +ricks struck a smudged negroid note, but there was warmth in the apple +orchards which clustered about the scattered houses, with piles of golden +pumpkins and red apples under the trees. And is there any form of +piled-up wealth, bins of specie at the bank, or mountains of precious +stones, rubies and sapphires and carbuncles, as we picture them in the +subterranean treasuries of kings, that thrills the imagination with so +dream-like a sense of uncounted riches, untold gold, as such natural +bullion of the earth; pyramids of apples lighting up dark orchards, great +plums lying in heaps of careless purple, corridors hung with fabulous +bunches of grapes, or billowy mounds of yellow grain--the treasuries of +Pomona and Vertumnus? Such treasuries, in the markets of this world, are +worth only a modest so-much-a-bushel, yet I think I should actually feel +myself richer with a barrel of apples than with a barrel of money. + +From a corn-growing country, we were evidently passing into a country +whose beautiful business was apples. Orchards began more or less to line +the road, and wagons with those same apple-barrels became a feature of +the highway. + +Another of its features was the number of old ruined farmhouses we came +on, standing side by side with the new, more ambitious homesteads. We +seldom came on a prosperous-looking house but a few yards away was to be +seen its aged and abandoned parent, smothered up with bushes, roof fallen +in, timbers ready to collapse, the deserted hearth choked with débris and +overgrown with weeds--the very picture of a haunted house. Here had been +the original home, always small, seldom more than four rooms, and when +things had begun to prosper, a more spacious, and often, to our eyes, a +less attractive, structure had been built, and the old home left to the +bats and owls, with a complete abandonment that seemed to us--sentimental +travellers as we were--as cynical as it was curiously wasteful. + +Putting sentiment out of the question, we had to leave unexplained why +the American farmer should thus allow so much good building material to +go to waste. Besides, as we also noted much farm machinery rusting +unhoused in the grass, we wondered why he did not make use of these old +buildings for storage purposes. But the American farmer has puzzled wiser +heads than ours, so we gave it up and turned our attention once more to +our own fanciful business, one highly useful branch of which was the +observation of the names on the tin letter-boxes thrusting themselves out +at intervals along the road. + +The history of American settlement could, I suppose, be read in those +wayside letter-boxes, in such names, for instance, as "Theo. Leveque" and +"Paul Fugle," which, like wind-blown exotics from other lands, we found +within a few yards of each other. One name, that of "Silvernail," we +decided could only lawfully belong to a princess in a fairy tale. Such +childishness as this, I may say, is of the essence of a walking trip, in +which, from moment to moment, you take quite infantile interest in all +manner of idle observation and quite useless lore. That is a part of the +game you are playing, and the main thing is that you are out in the open +air, on the open road, with a simple heart and a romantic appetite. + +Here is a little picture of a wayfaring day which I made while Colin was +sketching one of those ruined farms: + +_Apples along the highway strewn, + And morning opening all her doors; +The cawing rook, the distant train, + The valley with its misty floors; + +The hillside hung with woods and dreams, + Soft gleams of gossamer and dew; +From cockcrow to the rising moon + The rainbowed road for me and you. + +Along the highroad all the day + The wagons filled with apples go, +And golden pumpkins and ripe corn, + And all the ruddy overflow + +From Autumn's apron, as she goes + About her orchards and her fields, +And gathers into stack and barn + The treasure that the Summer yield. + +A singing heart, a laughing road, + With salutations all the way,-- +The gossip dog, the hidden bird, + The pig that grunts a gruff good-day; + +The apple-ladder in the trees, + A friendly voice amid the boughs, +The farmer driving home his team, + The ducks, the geese, the uddered cows; + +The silver babble of the creek, + The willow-whisper--the day's end, +With murmur of the village street, + A called good-night, an unseen friend_. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ORCHARDS AND A LINE FROM VIRGIL + + +Orchards! We were walking to New York--through orchards. And we might +have gone by train! A country of orchards and gold-dust sunshine falling +through the quaint tapestry trees, falling dreamily on heaped-up gold, +and the grave backs of little pigs joyously at large in the apple +twilight. A drowsy, murmuring spell was on the land, the spell of fabled +orchards, and of old enchanted gardens-- + +_In the afternoon they came unto a land +In which it seemed always afternoon_-- + +the country of King Alcinous. At intervals, as we walked on through the +cider-dreamy afternoon, thinking apples, smelling apples, munching +apples, there came a mellow sound like soft thunder through the trees. It +was the thunder of apples being poured into barrels, and, as in a sleep, +the fragrant wagons passed and repassed along the road--"the slow-moving +wagons of our lady of Eleusis." + +That line of Virgil came to me, as lines will sometimes come in fortunate +moments, with the satisfaction of perfect fitness to the hour and the +mood, gathering into one sacred, tear-filled phrase the deep sense that +had been possessing me, as we passed the husbandmen busy with the various +harvest, of the long antiquity of these haunted industries of the earth. + +So long, so long, has man pursued these ancient tasks; so long ago was +he urging the plowshare through the furrow, so long ago the sower went +forth to sow; so long ago have there been barns and byres, granaries and +threshing-floors, mills and vineyards; so long has there been milking of +cows, and herding of sheep and swine. Can one see a field of wheat +gathered into sheaves without thinking of the dream of Joseph, or be +around a farm at lambing time without smiling to recall the cunning of +Jacob? Already were all these things weary and old and romantic when +Virgil wrote and admonished the husbandman of times and seasons, of +plows and harrows, of mattocks and hurdles, and the mystical winnowing +fan of Iacchus. + +To the meditative, romantic mind, the farmer and plowman, standing thus +in the foreground of the infinite perspective of time, take on a sacred +significance, as of traditional ministers of the ancient mysteries of +the earth. + +Perhaps it is one's involuntary sense of this haunted antiquity that +gives its peculiar expressiveness to the solemn, almost religious quiet +of barns and stables, the, so to say, prehistoric hush of brooding, +sun-steeped rickyards; and gives, too, a homely, sacerdotal look to the +implements and vessels of the farm. A churn or a cheese-press gives one +the same deep, uncanny thrill of the terrible vista of time as Stonehenge +itself; and from such implements, too, there seems to breathe a sigh--a +sigh of the long travail and unbearable pathos of the race of men. + +You will thus see the satisfaction, in moods of such meditation, of +carrying in one's knapsack a line from Virgil--"the slow-moving wagons of +our Lady of Eleusis"--and I congratulated myself on my forethought in +having included in our itinerant library a copy of Mr. Mackail's +beautiful translation of "The Georgics." Walt Whitman, talking to one of +his friends about his habit of carrying a book with him on his nature +rambles, said that nine times out of ten he would never open the book, +but that the tenth time he would need it very badly. So I needed "The +Georgics" very badly that afternoon, and the hour would have lost much of +its perfection had I not been able to take the book from my knapsack, and +corroborate my mood, while Colin was sketching an old barn, by reading +aloud from its consecrated pages: + +"_I can repeat to thee many a counsel of them of old, if thou shrink not +back nor weary to learn of lowly cares. Above all must the +threshing-floor be levelled with the ponderous roller, and wrought by +hand and cemented with clinging potter's clay, that it may not gather +weeds nor crack in the reign of dust, and be playground withal for +manifold destroyers. Often the tiny mouse builds his house and makes his +granaries underground, or the eyeless mole scoops his cell; and in chinks +is found the toad, and all the swarming vermin that are bred in earth; +and the weevil, and the ant that fears a destitute old age, plunder the +great pile of spelt_." + +Perhaps some reader had been disposed hastily to say: "What did you want +with hooks out of doors? Was not Nature enough?" No one who loves both +books and Nature would ask that question, or need to have explained why a +knapsack library is a necessary adjunct of a walking-tour. + +For Nature and books react so intimately on each other, and, far more +than one realizes without thought, our enjoyment of Nature is a creation +of literature. For example, can any one sensitive to such considerations +deny that the meadows of the world are greener for the Twenty-third +Psalm, or the starry sky the gainer in our imagination by the solemn +cadences of the book of Job? All our experiences, new and personal as +they may seem to us, owe incalculably their depth and thrill to the +ancestral sentiment in our blood, and joy and sorrow are for us what they +are, no little because so many old, far-away generations of men and women +have joyed and sorrowed in the same way before us. Literature but +represents that concentrated sentiment, and satisfies through expression +our human need for some sympathetic participation with us in our human +experience. + +That a long-dead poet walking in the Spring was moved as I am by the +unfolding leaf and the returning bird imparts an added significance to my +own feelings; and that some wise and beautiful old book knew and said it +all long ago, makes my life seem all the more mysteriously romantic for +me to-day. Besides, books are not only such good companions for what they +say, but for what they are. As with any other friend, you may go a whole +day with them, and not have a word to say to each other, yet be happily +conscious of a perfect companionship. The book we know and love--and, of +course, one would never risk taking a book we didn't know for a +companion--has long since become a symbol for us, a symbol of certain +moods and ways of feeling, a key to certain kingdoms of the spirit, of +which it is often sufficient just to hold the key in our hands. So, a +single flower in the hand is a key to Summer, a floating perfume the key +to the hidden gardens of remembrance. The wrong book in the hand, whether +opened or not, is as distracting a presence as an irrelevant person; and +therefore it was with great care that I chose my knapsack library. It +consisted of these nine books: + +Mackail's "Georgics." +Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. +Shakespeare's Sonnets. +Locke's "Beloved Vagabond." +Selections from R.L.S. +Pater's "Marius the Epicurean." +Alfred de Musset's "Premières Poésies." +Baedeker's "United States." +Road Map of New York State. + +And, though my knapsack already weighed eighteen pounds, I could not +resist the call of a cheap edition of Wordsworth in a drug-store at +Warsaw, a charming little town embosomed among hills and orchards, where +we arrived, dreamy with country air, at the end of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FELLOW WAYFARERS + + +With the morn our way still lay among apples and honey, hives and +orchards; a land of prosperous farms, sumptuous rolling downs, rich +woodland, sheep, more pigs, more apple-barrels and velvety sunshine. The +old ruined houses had ceased, and the country had taken on a more +generous, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed aspect. Nature was preparing for +one of her big Promised Land effects. We were coming to the valley of the +Genesee River. We made a comparison of two kinds of prosperity in the +look of a landscape. Some villages and farms suggest smugness in their +prosperity. They have a model-farm, business-like, well-regulated, +up-to-date, company-financed air, suggesting such modern agricultural +terms as "ensilage," "irrigation" and "fertilizer." Other villages and +farms, while just as well-kept and well-to-do, have, so to say, a +something romantic about their prosperity, a bounteous, ruddy, golden-age +look about them, as though Nature herself had been the farmer and they +had ruddied and ripened out of her own unconscious abundance--the +difference between a row of modern box beehives and the old +thatched-cottage kind. The countryside of the Genesee valley has the +romantic prosperous look. Its farms and villages look like farms and +villages in picture-books, and the country folk we met seemed happy and +gay and kind, such as those one reads of in William Morris's romances of +the golden age. As from time to time we exchanged greetings with them, we +were struck with their comely health and blithe ways--particularly with +their fine teeth, as they laughed us the time of day, or stopped their +wagons to gossip a moment with the two outlandish packmen--the very teeth +one would expect in an apple-country. Perhaps they came of so much sweet +commerce with apples! + +The possessor of a particularly fine display hailed us as he drove by in +an empty wagon, at the tail of which trailed a long orchard ladder, and +asked us if we would care for a lift. Now it happened that his +suggestion came like a voice from heaven for poor Colin, one of whose +shoes had been casting a gloom over our spirits for several miles. So we +accepted with alacrity, and, really, riding felt quite good for a +change! Our benefactor was a bronzed, handsome young fellow, just +through Cornell, he told us, and proud of his brave college, as all +Cornell men are. He had chosen apple-farming for his career, and, +naturally, seemed quite happy about it; lived on his farm near by with +his mother and sister, and was at the moment out on the quest of four +apple-packers for his harvesting, these experts being at a premium at +this season. We rattled along gaily in the broad afternoon sunshine, +exchanging various human information, from apple-packing to New York +theatres, after the manner of the companionable soul of man, and I hope +he liked us as well as we liked him. + +One piece of information was of particular interest to Colin, the +whereabouts of one "Billy the Cobbler," a character of the neighbourhood, +who would fix Colin's shoe for him, and, incidentally, if he was in the +mood, give us a musical and dramatic entertainment into the bargain. + +At length our ways parted, and, with cheery good-byes and good wishes, +our young friend went rattling along, leaving in our hearts a warm +feeling of the brotherhood of man--sometimes. He had let us down close by +the "High Banks," the rumour of which had been in our ears for some +miles, and presently the great effect Nature had been preparing burst on +our gaze with a startling surprise. The peaceful pastoral country was +suddenly cloven in twain by a gigantic chasm, the Genesee River, dizzy +depths below, picturesquely flowing between Grand Cañon rock effects, +shaggy woods clothing the precipitous limestone, and small forests +growing far down in the broad bed of the river, with here and there +checkerboard spaces of cultivated land, gleaming, smooth and green, amid +all the spectacular savageness--soft, cozy spots of verdure nestling +dreamily in the hollow of the giant rocky hand. The road ran close to the +edge of the chasm, and the sublimity was with us, laying its hush upon +us, for the rest of the afternoon. Appropriate to her Jove-like mood, +Nature had planted stern thickets of oak-trees along the rocky edge, and +"the acorns of our lord of Chaonia" crunched beneath our feet as we +walked on. + +After a while, sure enough we came upon "Billy the Cobbler," seated at +his bench in a little shop at the beginning of a straggle of houses, +alone, save for his cat, at the sleepy end of afternoon. We had +understood that he had been crippled in some cruel accident of machinery, +and was hampered in the use of his legs. But, unless in a certain +philosophic sweetness on his big, happy face, there was no sign of the +cripple about his burly, broad-shouldered personality. He was evidently +meant to be a giant, and was what one might call the bo'sun type, bluff, +big-voiced and merry, with a boyish laugh, large, twinkling eyes, a +trifle wistful, and the fine teeth of the district. + +"Well, boys," said he, looking up from his work with a smile, "and what +can I do for you? Walking, eh?--to New York!" and he whistled, as every +one did when they learned our mysterious business. + +Then, taking Colin's shoe in his hand, he commenced to pound upon that +instrument of torture, talking gaily the while. Presently he asked, "Do +you care about music?" and on our eagerly agreeing that we did, "All +right," he said, "we'll close the shop for a few minutes and have some." + +Then, moving around on his seat, like some heroic half-figure bust on its +pedestal, he rummaged among the litter of leather and tools at his side, +and produced a guitar from its baize bag, also a mouth organ, which by +some ingenious wire arrangement he fastened around his neck, so that he +might press his lips upon it, leaving his hands free for the guitar. + +Then, "Ready?" said he, and, applying himself simultaneously to the +guitar and the harmonica, off he started with a quite electrical gusto +into a spirited fandango that made the little shop dance and rattle with +merriment. You would have said that a whole orchestra was there, such a +volume and variety of musical sound did Billy contrive to evoke from his +two instruments. + +"There!" he said, with a humorous chuckle, pushing the harmonica aside +from his mouth, "what do you think of that for an overture?" He had +completely hypnotized us with his infectious high spirits, and we were +able to applaud him sincerely, for this lonely cobbler of shoes was +evidently a natural well of music, and was, besides, no little of an +executant. + +"Now I'll give you an imitation of grand opera," he said; and then he +launched into the drollest burlesque of a fashionable tenor and a +prima-donna, as clever as could be. He was evidently a born mime as well +as a musician, and presently delighted us with some farmyard imitations, +and one particularly quaint impersonation, "an old lady singing with +false teeth," sent us into fits of laughter. + +"You ought to go into vaudeville," we both said spontaneously, with that +vicious modern instinct to put private gifts to professional uses, and +then Billy, with shy pride, admitted that he did do a little now and +again in a professional way at harvest balls (we thought of Sheldon +Center) and the like. + +"Perhaps you might like one of my professional letter-heads," he said, +handing us one apiece. I think probably the reader would like one, too. +You must imagine it in the original, with fancy displayed professional +type, regular "artiste" style, and a portrait of Billy, with his two +instruments, in one corner. And "see thou mock him not," gentle reader! + +_King of Them All +BILLY WILLIAMS +THE KING OF ALL IMITATORS +Producing in Rapid Succession +A GRAND REPERTOIRE +of Imitations and Impersonations +Consisting of_: + +Minstrel Bands, Circus Bands, Killing +Pigs, Cat Greeting Her Kitten, Barn-Yard +of Hens and Roosters, Opera +Singers with Guitar, Whistling with +Guitar, Old Lady Singing with False +Teeth, Cow and Calf, Harmonica with +the Guitar, Arab Song, Trombone Solo +with the Guitar. + +Yes! "See thou mock him not," gentle reader, for Billy is no subject for +any man's condescension. We were in his company scarcely an hour, but we +went away with a great feeling of respect and tenderness for him, and we +hope some day to drop in on him again, and hear his music and his quaint, +manly wisdom. + +"All alone in the world, Billy?" + +A shade of sadness passed over his face, and was gone again, as he +smilingly answered, stroking the cat that purred and rubbed herself +against his shoulder. + +"Just puss and me and the guitar," he said. "The happiest of families. +Ah! Music's a great thing of a lonely evening." + +And a sense of the brave loneliness of Billy's days swept over me as we +shook his strong hand, and he gave us a cheery godspeed on our way. I am +convinced that Billy could earn quite a salary on the vaudeville stage; +but--no! he is better where he is, sitting there at his bench, with his +black cat and his guitar and his singing, manly soul. + +The twilight was rapidly thickening as we left Billy, once more bent over +his work, and, the fear of "supper-time" in our hearts, we pushed on at +extra speed toward our night's lodging at Mount Morris. The oak-trees +gloomed denser on our right as we plowed along a villainously sandy road. +Labourers homing from the day's work greeted us now and again in the +dimness, and presently one of these, plodding up behind us, broke forth +into conversation: + +"Ben-a carry pack-a lik-a dat-a--forty-two months--army--ol-a country," +said the voice out of the darkness. + +It was an Italian labourer on his way to supper, interested in our +knapsacks. + +"You're an Italian?" + +"Me come from Pal-aer-mo." + +The little chap was evidently in a talkative mood, and I nudged Colin to +do the honours of the conversation. + +"Pal-aer-mo? Indeed!" said Colin. "Fine city, I guess." + +"Been-a Pal-aer-mo?" asked the Italian eagerly. Colin couldn't say +that he had. + +"Great city, Pal-aer-mo," continued our friend, "great theatre--cost +sixteen million dollars." + +There is nothing like a walking-trip for gathering information of +this kind. + +The Italian went on to explain that this country was a poor substitute +for the "ol-a country." + +"This country--rough country. In this country me do rough-a work," he +explained apologetically; "in Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work." + +And he accentuated his statement by a vicious side spit upon the +American soil. + +It transpired that the "polit-a work" on which he had been engaged in +Pal-aer-mo had been waiting in a restaurant. + +And so the poor soul chattered on, touching, not unintelligently, in his +absurd English, on American politics, capital and labour, the rich and +the poor. The hard lot of the poor man in America, and--"Pal-aer-mo," +made the recurring burden of his talk, through which, a pathetic +undertone, came to us a sense of the native poetry of his race. + +Did he ever expect to return to Palermo? we asked him as we parted. "Ah! +many a night me dream of Pal-aer-mo," he called back, as, striking into a +by-path, he disappeared in the darkness. + +And then we came to a great iron bridge, sternly silhouetted in the +sunset. On either side rose cliffs of darkness, and beneath, like sheets +of cold moonlight, flowed the Genesee, a Dantesque effect of jet and +silver, Stygian in its intensity and indescribably mournful. The banks of +Acheron can not be more wildly _funèbre_, and it was companionable to +hear Colin's voice mimicking out of the darkness: + +"In this country me do rough-a work. In Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work!" + +"Poor chap!" I said, after a pause, thinking of our friend from +Pal-aer-mo. "Do you know Hafiz, Colin?" I continued. "There is an ode of +his that came back to me as our poor Italian was talking. I think I will +say it to you. It is just the time and place for it." + +"Do," said Colin. And then I repeated: + +_"At sunset, when the eyes of exiles fill, + And distance makes a desert of the heart, +And all the lonely world grows lonelier still, + I with the other exiles go apart, +And offer up the stranger's evening prayer. + My body shakes with weeping as I pray, +Thinking on all I love that are not there, + So desolately absent far away-- +My Love and Friend, and my own land and home. + O aching emptiness of evening skies! +O foolish heart, what tempted thee to roam + So far away from the Beloved's eyes! +To the Beloved's country I belong-- + I am a stranger in this foreign place; +Strange are its streets, and strange to me its tongue; + Strange to the stranger each familiar face. +'Tis not my city! Take me by the hand, + Divine protector of the lonely ones, +And lead me back to the Beloved's land-- + Back to my friends and my companions +O wind that blows from Shiraz, bring to me + A little dust from my Beloved's street; +Send Hafiz something, love, that comes from thee, + Touched by thy hand, or trodden by thy feet."_ + +"My! but that makes one feel lonesome," was Colin's comment. "I wonder if +there will be any mail from the folk at Mount Morris." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE OLD LADY OF THE WALNUTS AND OTHERS + + +What manner of men we were and what our business was, thus wandering +along the highroads with packs on our backs and stout sticks in our +hands, was matter for no little speculation, and even suspicion, to the +rural mind. We did not seem to fit in with any familiar classification of +vagabond. We might be peddlers, or we might be "hoboes," but there was a +disquieting uncertainty about us, and we felt it necessary occasionally +to make reassuring explanations. Once or twice we found no opportunity to +do this, as, for instance, one sinister, darksome evening, we stood in +hesitation at a puzzling cross-road--near Dansville, I think--and awaited +the coming of an approaching buggy from which to ask the way. It was +driven by two ladies, who, on our making a signal of distress to them, +immediately whipped up with evident alarm, and disappeared in a flash. +Dear things! they evidently anticipated a hold-up, and no doubt arrived +home with a breathless tale of two suspicious-looking characters hanging +about the neighbourhood. + +On another occasion, we had been seated awhile under a walnut tree +growing near a farm, and scattering its fruitage half across the +highroad. Colin had been anointing his suffering foot, and, as I told +him, looked strongly reminiscent of a certain famous corn-cure +advertisement. Meanwhile, I had been once more quoting Virgil: "The +walnut in the woodland attires herself in wealth of blossom and bends +with scented boughs," when there approached with slow step an old, +white-haired lady, at once gentle and severe in appearance, accompanied +by a younger lady. When they had arrived in front of us, the old lady in +measured tones of sorrow rather than anger, said: "We rather needed those +walnuts--" Dear soul! she evidently thought that we had been filling +our knapsacks with her nuts, and it took some little astonished +expostulation on our part to convince her that we hadn't. This affront +seemed to sink no little into Colin's sensitive Latin soul--and they were +public enough walnuts, anyway, scattered, as they were, across the public +road! But Colin couldn't get over it for some time, and I suspected that +he was the more sensitive from his recently--owing, doubtless, to his +distinguished Gallic appearance--having been profanely greeted by some +irreverent boys with the word "Spaghetti!" However, there was balm for +our wounded feelings a little farther along the road, when a +companionable old farmer greeted us with: + +"Well, boys! out for a walk? It's easy seeing you're no tramps." + +Colin's expression was a study in gratitude. The farmer was a fine, +soldierly old fellow, who told me that he was half English, too, on his +father's side. + +"But my mother," he added, "was a good blue-bellied Yankee." + +We lured him on to using that delightfully quaint expression again before +we left him; and we also learned from him valuable information as to the +possibilities of lunch farther along the road, for we were in a lonely +district with no inns, and it was Sunday. + +In regard to lunch, I suppose that in prosaically paying our way for bed +and board as we fared along we fell short of the Arcadian theory of +walking-tours in which the wayfarer, like a mendicant friar, takes toll +of lunch and dinner from the hospitable farmer of sentimental legend, and +sleeps for choice in barns, hayricks or hedgesides. Now, sleeping out of +doors in October, if you have ever tried it, is a very different thing +from sleeping out of doors in June, and as for rural hospitality--well, +if you are of a sensitive constitution you shrink from obtruding +yourself, an alien apparition, upon the embarrassed and embarrassing +rural domesticities. Besides, to be quite honest, rural table-talk, +except in Mr. Hardy's novels or pastoral poetry, is, to say the least, +lacking in variety. Indeed, if the truth must be told, the conversation +of country people, generally speaking, and an occasional, very +occasional, character or oddity apart, is undeniably dull, and I hope it +will not be imputed to me for hardness of heart that, after some +long-winded colloquy or endless reminiscence, sententious and trivial, I +have thought that Gray's famous line should really have been +written--"the long and tedious annals of the poor." + +But my heart smites me with ingratitude toward some kindly memories as I +write that--memories of homely welcome, simple and touching and +dignified. Surely I am not writing so of the genial farmer on whom we +came one lunch hour as he was stripping corn in his yard. + +"Missus," he called to the house a few yards away, "can you find any +lunch for two good-looking fellows here?" + +The housewife came to the door, scanned us for a second, and replied in +the affirmative. As we sat down to table, our host bowed his head and +said a simple grace for the bacon and cabbage, pumpkin-pie, cheese and +tea we were about to receive; and the unexpected old-fashioned rite, too +seldom encountered nowadays, came on me with a fresh beauty and +impressiveness, which made me feel that its discontinuance is a real loss +of gracious ritual in our lives, and perhaps even more. Thus this simple +farmer's board seemed sensitively linked with the far-away beginnings of +time. Of all our religious symbolism, the country gods and the gods of +the hearth and the household seem actual, approachable presences, and the +saying of grace before meat was a beautiful, fitting reminder of that +mysterious, invisible care and sustenance of our lives, which no longer +find any recognition in our daily routine: _Above all, worship thou the +gods, and bring great Ceres her yearly offerings_. + +Another such wayside meal and another old couple live touchingly in our +memories. We were still in the broad, sun-swept valley of the Genesee, +our road lying along the edge of the wide, reed-grown flats and +water-meadows, bounded on the north by rolling hills. On our left hand, +parallel with the road, ran a sort of willowed moat banked by a +grass-grown causeway, a continuous narrow mound, somewhat higher than the +surrounding country, and cut through here and there with grass-grown +gullies, the whole suggesting primeval earthworks and excavations. So the +old Roman roads run, grassy and haunted and choked with underbrush, in +the lonelier country districts of England. We were curious as to the +meaning of this causeway, and learned at length that here was all that +remained of the old Genesee Canal. Thirty years ago, this moat had +brimmed with water, and barges had plied their sleepy traffic between +Dansville and Rochester. But the old order had changed, and a day had +come when the dike had been cut through, the lazy water let out into the +surrounding flats, and the old waterway left to the willows and the +wild-flowers, the mink and the musk-rat. Only thirty years ago--yet +to-day Nature has so completely taken it all back to herself that the +hush of a long-vanished antiquity is upon it, and the turfy burial mound +of some Hengist and Horsa could not be more silent. + +This old fosse seemed to strike the somewhat forgotten, out-of-the-world +note of the surrounding country. Picturesque to the eye, with bounteous +green prospects and smooth, smiling hills, it was not, we were told, as +prosperous as it looked. For some vague reason, the tides of agricultural +prosperity had ebbed from that spacious sunlit vale. A handsome old +trapper, who sat at his house door smoking his pipe and looking across +the green flats, set down the cause to the passing of the canal. Ah, yes! +it was possible for him, thirty years ago, to make the trip to Rochester +and back by the canal, and bring home a good ten dollars; but now--well, +every one in the valley was poor, except the man whose beehives we had +seen on the hillside half-a-mile back. He had made no less than a +thousand dollars out of his honey this last season. He was an old +bachelor, too, like himself. There were no less than five bachelors in +the valley--five old men without a woman to look after them. + +"--or bother them," the old chap added humorously, relighting his pipe. +Mrs. Mulligan, half a mile farther up the valley, was the only woman +thereabouts; and she, by the way, would give us some lunch. We could say +that he had sent us. + +So we left the old trapper to his pipe and his memories, and went in +search of Mrs. Mulligan. Presently a poor little house high up on the +hillside caught our eye, and we made toward it. As we were nearing the +door, a dog, evidently not liking our packs, sprang out at us, and from +down below in the marshy flats floated the voice of a man calling to us. + +"Get out o' that!" hailed the voice. "There's nothing there for you." + +Poor Colin! We were evidently taken for tramps once more. + +However, undaunted by this reception, we reached the cottage door, and at +our knock appeared a very old, but evidently vigorous, woman. + +"Is this Mrs. Mulligan's house?" + +Her name on the lips of two strangers brought a surprised smile to her +face--a pleasant feeling of importance, even notoriety, no doubt--and she +speedily made us welcome, and, with many apologies, set before us the +cold remains of lunch which had been over an hour or two ago--cold +squash, pumpkin pie, cheese and milk. It was too bad we were late, for +they had had a chicken for dinner, and had sent the remains of it to a +friend down the road,--our trapper, no doubt,--and if the fire hadn't +gone out she would have made us some tea. Now, cold squash is not exactly +an inflammatory diet, but we liked the old lady so much, she had such a +pleasant, motherly way with her, and such an entertaining, wise and even +witty tongue, that we decided that cold squash, with her as hostess, was +better than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. + +Presently the door opened and the good man entered, he who had called to +us from the marsh--a tall, emaciated old man, piteously thin, and old, +and work-weary to look on, but with a keen, bright eye in his head, and +something of a proud air about his ancient figure. It seemed cruel to +think of his old bones having still to go on working, but our two old +people, who seemed pathetically fond of each other, were evidently very +poor, like the rest of the valley. The old man excused himself for his +salutation of us--but there were so many dangerous characters about, and +the old folk shook their heads and told of the daring operations of +mysterious robbers in the neighbourhood. In their estimation, the times +were generally unsafe, and lawless characters rife in the land. We looked +around at the pathetic poverty of the place--and wondered why they should +disquiet themselves. Poor souls! there was little left to rob them of, +save the fluttering remnants of their mortal breath. But, poor as they +were, they had their telephone,--a fact that struck us paradoxically in +many a poor cabin as we went along. Yes! had they a mind, they could +call up the White House, that instant, or the Waldorf-Astoria. + +We spoke of our old trapper, and the old lady smiled. + +"Those are his socks I've been darning for him," she said. So the cynical +old bachelor was taken care of by the good angel, woman, after all! + +Trapping was about all there was to do now in the valley, she said. A +mink brought seven dollars, a musk-rat thirty cents. Our old bachelor had +made as much as eighteen dollars in two days--one day several years ago. +The old man had told us this himself. It was evidently quite a piece of +history in the valley, quite a local legend. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN AT DANSVILLE + + +At Dansville we fell in with a man after our own hearts. Fortunately for +himself and his friends, he is unaware of the simple fact that he is a +poet. We didn't tell him, either--though we longed to. He was standing +outside his prosperous-looking planing-mill, at about half-past eight of +a dreaming October morning. Inside, the saws were making that droning, +sweet-smelling, sawdust noise that made Colin think of "Adam Bede." The +willows and button-wood trees at the back of the workshops were still +smoking with sunlit mist, and the quiet, massive, pretty water looked +like a sleepy mirror, as it softly flooded along to its work on the big, +dripping wheels. + +To our left a great hill, all huge and damp, glittering with gossamers, +and smelling of restless yellow leaves, shouldered the morning sky. + +Then, turning away from talk with three or four workmen, standing at his +office door, he saluted the two apparitional figures, so oddly passing +along the muddy morning road. + +"Out for a walk, boys?" he called. + +He was a handsome man of about forty-three, with a romantic scar slashed +down his left cheek, a startling scar that must have meant hideous agony +to him, and yet, here in the end, had made his face beautiful, by the +presence in it of a spiritual conquest. + +"How far are you walking?--you are not going so far as my little river +here, I'll bet--" + +And then we understood that we were in the presence of romantic +conversation, and we listened with a great gladness. + +"Yes! who would think that this little, quiet, mill-race is on her way to +the Gulf of Mexico!" + +We looked at the little reeded river, so demure in her morning mists, so +discreet and hushed among her willows, and in our friend's eyes, and by +the magic of his fanciful tongue, we saw her tripping along to dangerous +conjunctions with resounding rock-bedded streams, adventurously taking +hands with swirling, impulsive floods, fragrant with water-flowers and +laden with old forests, and at length, through the strange, starlit +hills, sweeping out into some moonlit estuary of the all-enfolding sea. + +"Aren't you glad we walked, Colin?" I said, a mile or two after. "You +are, of course, a great artist; but I don't remember you ever having a +thought quite so fine and romantic as that, do you?" + +"How strange it must be," said Colin, after a while, "to have +beauty--beautiful thoughts, beautiful pictures--merely as a recreation; +not as one's business, I mean. And the world is full of people who have +no need to sell their beautiful thoughts!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH WE CATCH UP WITH SUMMER + + +Some eminent wayfarers--one peculiarly beloved--have discoursed on the +romantic charm of maps. But they have dwelt chiefly on the suggestiveness +of them before the journey: these unknown names of unknown places, in +types of mysteriously graduated importance--what do they stand for? These +mazy lines, some faint and wayward as a hair, and some straight and +decided as a steel track--whence and whither do they lead? I love the map +best when the journey is done--when I can pore on its lines as into the +lined face of some dear friend with whom I have travelled the years, and +say--here this happened, here that befell! This almost invisible dot is +made of magic rocks and is filled with the song of rapids; this +infinitesimal fraction of "Scale five miles to the inch" is a haunted +valley of purple pine-woods, and the moon rising, and the lonely cry of a +sheep that has lost her little one somewhere in the folds of the hills. +Here, where is no name, stands an old white church with a gilded cross, +among little white houses huddled together under a bluff. In yonder +garden the priest's cassock and trousers are hanging sacrilegiously on a +clothes-line, and you can just see a tiny graveyard away up on the +hillside almost hidden in the trees. + +Even sacred vestments must be laundered by earthly laundresses, yet +somehow it gives one a shock to see sacred vestments out of the +sanctuary, profanely displayed on a clothes-line. It is as though one +should turn the sacred chalice into a tea-pot. A priest's trousers on a +clothes-line might well be the beginning of atheism. But I hope there +were no such fanciful deductive minds in that peaceful hamlet, and that +the faithful there can withstand even so profound a trial of faith. If it +had been my own creed that those vestments represented, I should have +been shaken, I confess; and, as it was, I felt a vague pain of +disillusionment, of an indignity done to the unseen; as, whatever the +creed, living or dead, may be, I always feel in those rooms often +affected by artistic people, furnished with the bric-a-brac of religions, +indeed not their own, but, none the less, once or even now, the living +religions of other people--rooms in which forgotten, or merely foreign, +deities are despitefully used for decoration, and a crucifix and a Buddha +and an African idol alike parts of the artistic furniture. But, no doubt, +it is to consider too curiously to consider so, and the good priest whose +cassock and trousers have occasioned these reflections would smilingly +prick my fancies, after the dialectic manner of his calling, and say that +his trousers on the clothes-line were but a humble reminder to the +faithful how near to the daily life of her children, how human at once as +well as divine, is Mother Church. + +A cross, naturally, marks the spot where we saw those priest's trousers +on the line; but there are no crosses for a hundred places of memorable +moments of our journey; they must go without memorial even in this humble +record, and Colin and I must be content to keep wayside shrines for them +in our hearts. + +How insignificant, on the map, looks the little stretch of some seventeen +miles from Dansville to Cohocton, yet I feel that one would need to erect +a cathedral to represent the perfect day of golden October wayfaring it +stands for, as on the weather-beaten map spread out before me on my +writing-table, as Colin and I so often spread it out under a tree by some +lonely roadside, I con the place-names that to us "bring a perfume in the +mention." It was a district of quaint, romantic-sounding names, and it +fully justified that fantastic method of choosing our route by the sound +of the names of places, which I confessed to the reader on an earlier +page: Wayland--Patchin's Mills--Blood's Depôt--Cohocton. And to north and +south of our route were names such as Ossian, Stony Brook Glen, Loon +Lake, Rough & Ready, Doly's Corners, and Neil Creek. I confess that there +was a Perkinsville to go through--a beautiful spot, too, for which one +felt that sort of aesthetic pity one feels for a beautiful girl married +to a man, say, of the name of Podgers. Perkinsville! It was as though you +said--the beautiful Mrs. Podgers. But there was consolation in the sound +of Wayland, with its far call to Wayland's smithy and Walter Scott. +And--Cohocton! The name to me had a fine Cromwellian ring; and Blood's +Depôt--what a truculent sound to that!--if you haven't forgotten the +plumed dare-devil cavalier who once made a dash to steal the king's +regalia from the Tower. Again--Loon Lake. Can you imagine two more +lonesome wailing words to make a picture with? But--Cohocton. How oddly +right my absurd instinct had been about that--and, shall we ever forget +the unearthly beauty of the evening which brought us at dark to the +quaint little operatic-looking village, deep and snug among the solemn, +sleeping hills? + +The day had been one of those days that come perhaps only in +October--days of rich, languorous sunshine full of a mysterious +contentment, days when the heart says, "My cup runneth over," and happy +tears suddenly well to the eyes, as though from a deep overflowing sense +of the goodness of God. It was really Summer, with the fragrant mists of +Autumn in her hair. It had happened as we had hoped on starting out. We +had caught up with Summer on her way to New York, Summer all her golden +self, though garlanded with wreaths of Autumn, and about her the swinging +censers of burning weeds. + +It was a wonderful valley we had caught her in, all rolling purple hills +softly folding and unfolding in one continuous causeway; a narrow valley, +and the hills were high and close and gentle, suggesting protection and +abundance and never-ending peace. Here and there the vivid green of +Winter wheat struck a note of Spring amid all the mauves and ochres of +dying things. + +It was a day on which you had no wish to talk,--you were too +happy,--wanted only to wander on and on as in a dream through the mellow +vale--one of those days in which the world seems too good to be true, a +day of which we feel, "This day can never come again." It was like +walking through the Twenty-third Psalm. And, as it closed about us, as we +came to our village at nightfall, and the sunshine, like a sinking lake +of gold, grew softer and softer behind the uplands, the solid world of +rock and tree, and stubble-field and clustered barns, seemed to be +growing pure thought--nothing seemed left of it but spirit; and the hills +had become as the luminous veil of some ineffable temple of the +mysterious dream of the world. + +"Puvis de Chavannes!" said Colin to me in a whisper. + +And later I tried to say better what I meant in this song: + +_Strange, at this still enchanted hour, + How things in daylight hard and rough, +Iron and stone and cruel power, + Turn to such airy, starlit stuff! + +Yon mountain, vast as Behemoth, + Seems but a veil of silver breath; +And soundless as a flittering moth, + And gentle as the face of death, + +Stands this stern world of rock and tree + Lost in some hushed sidereal dream-- +The only living thing a bird, + The only moving thing a stream. + +And, strange to think, yon silent star, + So soft and safe amid the spheres-- +Could we but see and hear so far-- + Is made of thunder, too, and tears._ + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CONTAINING VALUABLE STATISTICS + + +And the morning was like unto the evening. Summer was still to be our +companion, and, as the evening of our coming to Cohocton had been the +most dreamlike of all the ends of our walking days--had, so to say, been +most evening-spiritual, so the morning of our Cohocton seemed most +morning-spiritual of all our mornings, most filled with strange hope and +thrill and glitter. We were afoot earlier than usual. The sun had hardly +risen, and the shining mists still wreathed the great hill which +overhangs the village. We were for calling it a mountain, but we were +told that it lacked fifty feet of being a mountain. You are not a +mountain till you grow to a thousand feet. Our mountain was only some +nine hundred and fifty feet. Therefore, it was only entitled to be called +a hill. I love information--don't you, dear reader?--though, to us +humble walking delegates of the ideal, it was all one. But I know for +certain that it was a lane of young maples which made our avenue of +light-hearted departure out of the village, though I cannot be sure of +the names of all the trees of the thick woods which clothed the hillside +beneath which our road lay, a huge endless hillside all dripping and +sparkling, and alive with little rills, facing a broad plain, a sea of +feathery grass almost unbearably beautiful with soft glittering dew and +opal mists, out of which rose spectral elms, like the shadows of gigantic +Shanghai roosters. All about was the sound of brooks musically rippling +from the hills, and there was a chaste chill in the air, as befitted the +time of day, for + +_Maiden still the morn is, and strange she is, and secret, +Her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells_. + +It was all so beautiful that an old thought came back to me that I often +had as a child, when I used to be taken among mysterious mountains, for +Summer holidays: Do people really live in such beautiful places all the +year round? Do they live there just like ordinary people in towns, go +about ordinary businesses, live ordinary lives? It seemed to me then, as +it seems to me still, that such places should be kept sacred, like +fairyland, or should, at least, be the background of high and romantic +action, like the scenery in operas. To think of a valley so beautiful as +that through which we were walking being put to any other use than that +of beauty seems preposterous; but do you know what that beautiful valley +was doing, while Colin and I were thus poetizing it, adoring its +outlines and revelling in its tints? It was just quietly growing +potatoes. Yes! we had mostly passed through the apple country. This +garden of Eden, this Vale of Enna, was a great potato country. And we +learned, too, that its inhabitants were by no means so pleased with +beautiful Cohoctori Valley as we were. Here, we gathered, was another +beautiful ne'er-do-well of Nature, too occupied with her good looks to be +fit for much else than prinking herself out with wild-flowers, and +falling into graceful attitudes before her mirror--and there were mirrors +in plenty, many streams and willows, in Cohocton Valley; everywhere, for +us, the mysterious charm of running water. Once this idle daughter of +Ceres used to grow wheat, wheat "in great plenty," but now she could be +persuaded to grow nothing but potatoes. + +All this and much more we learned from a friend who drew up beside us in +a buggy, as I was drinking from a gleaming thread of water gliding down a +mossed conduit of hollowed tree-trunks into an old cauldron sunk into the +hillside, and long since turned in ferns and lichen. Colin was seated +near by making a sketch, as I drank. + +"I wouldn't drink too much of that water, lads," said the friendly voice +of the dapper little intelligent-faced man in the buggy. + +What! not drink this fairy water? + +"Why, you country folk are as afraid of fresh water as you are of fresh +air," I answered, laughing. + +"All right, it's up to you--but it's been a dry Summer, you know." + +And then the little man's attention was taken by Colin. + +"Sketching?" he asked, and then he said, half shyly, "Would you mind my +taking a look how you do it?" and, climbing down from his buggy, he came +and looked over Colin's shoulder. "I used to try my hand at it a bit when +I was a boy, but those blamed trees always beat me ... don't bother you +much, seemingly though," he added, as he watched Colin's pencil with the +curiosity of a child. + +"I've a little girl at home who does pretty well," he continued after a +moment, "but you've certainly got her skinned. I wish she could see you +doing it." + +His delight in a form of skill which has always been as magical to me as +it seemed to him, was charmingly boyish, and Colin turned over his +sketch-book, and showed him the notes he had made as we went along. One +of a stump fence particularly delighted him--those stump fences made out +of the roots of pine trees set side by side, which had been a feature of +the country some miles back, and which make such a weird impression on +the landscape, like rows of gigantic black antlers, or many-armed Hindoo +idols, or a horde of Zulus in fantastic war-gear drawn up in +battle-array, or the blackened stumps of giants' teeth--Colin and I tried +all those images and many more to express the curious weird effect of +coming upon them in the midst of a green and smiling landscape. + +"Well, lads," he said, after we had talked awhile, "I shall have to be +going. But you've given me a great deal of pleasure. Can't I give you a +lift in exchange? I guess there is room for the three of us." + +Now Colin and I, on the occasion of our ride with the apple-farmer, +awhile back, had held subtle casuistical debate on the legitimacy of men +ostensibly, not to say ostentatiously, on foot to New York picking up +chance rides in this way. The argument had gone into pursuit of very fine +distinctions, and almost rivalled in its casuistry the famous old Duns +Scotus--or was it Thomas Aquinas?--debate as to how many angels can dance +on the point of a needle. Once we had come to a deadlock as to the kind +of vehicle from which it was proper to accept such hospitality. Perhaps +it was a Puritan scrupulousness in my blood that had made me take the +stand that four-wheeled vehicles, such as wagons, hay-carts and the like, +being slow-moving, were permissible, but that buggies, or any form of +rapid two-wheeled vehicle, were not. To this Colin had retorted that, on +that basis, a tally-ho would be all right, or even an automobile. So the +argument had wrestled from side to side, and finally we had compromised. + +We agreed that an occasional buggy would be within the vagabond law and +that any vehicle, other, of course, than an automobile, which was not +plying for hire--such as a trolley or a local train--might on occasion be +gratefully climbed into. + +Thus it was that we hesitated a moment at the offer of our friend, a +hesitancy we amused him by explaining as, presently, conscience-clear, we +rattled with him through the hills. He was an interesting talker, a +human-hearted, keen-minded man, and he had many more topics as well as +potatoes. Besides, he was not in the potato business, but, as with our +former friend, his beautiful business was apples. Still, he talked very +entertainingly about potatoes; telling us, among other things, that, so +friendly was the soil toward that particular vegetable that it yielded as +much as a hundred to a hundred and fifty bushels to the acre, and that a +fair-sized potato farm thereabouts, properly handled, would pay for +itself in a year. I transcribe this information, not merely because I +think that, among so many words, the reader is fairly entitled to expect +some little information, but chiefly for the benefit of a friend of mine, +the like of whom, no doubt, the reader counts among his acquaintances. +The friend I mean has a mind so quaintly voracious of facts that, often +when we have been dining together at one of the great hotels, he would +speculate, say, looking round the room filled with eager diners, on how +many clams are nightly consumed in New York City, or how many millions +of fresh eggs New York requires each morning for breakfast. So when next +I dine with him I will say, as he asks me about my trip: + +"Do you know that in the Cohocton Valley they raise as much as one +hundred to one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes to the acre?" And +he will say: + +"You don't really mean to say so?" + +I have in my private note-book much more such tabulated information which +I picked up and hoarded for his entertainment, just as whenever a letter +comes to me from abroad, I tear off the stamp and save it for a little +girl I love. + +But, as I said, our friend in the buggy was by no means limited to +potatoes for his conversation. He was learned in the geography of the +valley and told us how once the Cohocton River, now merely a decorative +stream among willows, was once a serviceable waterway, how it was once +busy with mills, and how men used to raft down it as far as Elmira. + +But "the springs were drying up." I liked the mysterious sound of that, +and still more his mysterious story of an undercurrent from the Great +Lakes that runs beneath the valley. I seemed to hear the sound of its +strange subterranean flow as he talked. Such is the fun of knowing so +little about the world. The simplest fact out of a child's geography thus +comes to one new and marvellous. + +Well, we had to say good-bye at last to our friend at a cross-road, and +we left him learnedly discussing the current prices of apples with a +business acquaintance who had just driven up--Kings, Rambos, Baldwins, +Greenings, and Spigs. And, by the way, in packing apples into barrels, +you must always pack them--stems down. Be careful to remember that. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A DITHYRAMBUS OF BUTTEEMILK + + +One discovery of some importance you make in walking the roads is the +comparative rarity and exceeding preciousness of buttermilk. We had, as I +said, caught up with Summer. Summer, need one say, is a thirsty +companion, and the State seemed suddenly to have gone dry. We looked in +vain for magic mirrors by the roadside, overhung with fairy grasses, +littered with Autumn leaves, and skated over by nimble water-bugs. As our +friend had said, the springs seemed to have dried up. Now and again we +would hail with a great cry a friendly pump; once we came upon a +cider-mill, but it was not working, and time and again we knocked and +asked in vain for buttermilk. Sometimes, but not often, we found it. Once +we met a genial old man just leaving his farm door, and told him that we +were literally dying for a drink of buttermilk. Our expression seemed to +tickle him. + +"Well!" he said, laughing, "it shall never be said that two poor +creatures passed my door, and died for lack of a glass of buttermilk," +and he brought out a huge jug, for which he would accept nothing but our +blessings. He seemed to take buttermilk lightly; but, one evening, we +came upon another old farmer to whom buttermilk seemed a species of the +water of life to be hoarded jealously and doled out in careful quantities +at strictly market rates. + +In town one imagines that country people give their buttermilk to the +pigs. At any rate, they didn't give it to us. We paid that old man +twenty cents, for we drank two glasses apiece. And first we had knocked +at the farm door, and told our need to a pretty young woman, who +answered, with some hesitancy, that she would call "father." She seemed +to live in some awe of "father," as we well understood when a tall, +raw-boned, stern, old man, of the caricature "Brother Jonathan" type, +appeared grimly, making an iron sound with a great bunch of keys. On +hearing our request, he said nothing, but, motioning to us to follow, +stalked across the farmyard to a small building under a great elm-tree. +There were two steps down to the door, and it had a mysterious +appearance. It might have been a family vault, a dynamite magazine, or +the Well at the World's End. It was the strong-room of the milk; and, +when the grim old guardian of the dairy unlocked the door, with a sound +of rusty locks and falling bolts, there, cool and cloistral, were the +fragrant pans and bowls, the most sacred vessels of the farm. + +"_She bathed her body many a time +In fountains filled with milk_." + +I hummed to Colin; but I took care that the old man didn't hear me. And +we agreed, as we went on again along the road, that he did right to guard +well and charge well for so noble and so innocent a drink. Indeed, the +old fellow's buttermilk was so good that I think it must have gone to my +head. In no other way can I account for the following dithyrambic song: + +_Let whoso will sing Bacchus' vine, +We know a drink that's more divine; + +'Tis white and innocent as doves, +Fragrant and bosom-white as love's + +White bosom on a Summer day, +And fragrant as the hawthorn spray. + +Let Dionysus and his crew, +Garlanded, drain their fevered brew, + +And in the orgiastic bowl +Drug and besot the sacred soul; + +This simple country cup we drain +Knows not the ghosts of sin and pain, + +No fates or furies follow him +Who sips from its cream-mantled rim. + +Yea! all his thoughts are country-sweet, +And safe the walking of his feet, + +However hard and long the way-- +With country sleep to end the day. + +To drain this cup no man shall rue-- +The innocent madness of the dew + +Who shall repent, or frenzy fine +Of morning star, or the divine + +Inebriation of the hours +When May roofs in the world with flowers! + +About this cup the swallows skim, +And the low milking-star hangs dim + +Across the meadows, and the moon +Is near in heaven_--_the young moon; + +And murmurs sweet of field and hill +Loiter awhile, and all is still. + +As in some chapel dear to Pan, +The fair milk glimmers in the can, + +And, in the silence cool and white, +The cream mounts through the listening night; + +And, all around the sleeping house, +You hear the breathing of the cows, + +And drowsy rattle of the chain, +Till lo! the blue-eyed morn again_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A GROWL ABOUT AMERICAN COUNTRY HOTELS + + +Though Colin and I had been walking but a very few days, after the first +day or two it seemed as though we had been out on the road for weeks; as +though, indeed, we had spent our lives in the open air; and it needed no +more than our brief experience for us to realize what one so often reads +of those who do actually live their lives out-of-doors, gypsies, sailors, +cowboys and the like--how intolerable to them is a roof, and how +literally they gasp for air and space in the confined walls of cities. + +Bed in the bush with stars to see, +Bread I dip in the river-- + +There's the life for a man like me, +There's the life forever. + +The only time of the day when our spirits began to fail was toward its +close, when the shadows of supper and bed in some inclement inn began to +fall over us, and we confessed to each other a positive sense of fear in +our evening approach to the abodes of men. After a long, safe, care-free +day, in the company of liberating prospects and sweet-breathed winds, +there seemed a curious lurking menace in the most harmless village, as +well as an unspeakable irksomeness in its inharmonious interruption of +our mood. To emerge, saturated, body and soul, with the sweet scents and +sounds and sights of a day's tramp, out of the meditative leafiness and +spiritual temper of natural things, into the garishly lit street of some +little provincial town, animated with the clumsy mirth of silly young +country folks, aping so drearily the ribaldry, say, of Elmira, is a +painful anticlimax to the spirit. Had it only been real Summer, instead +of Indian Summer, we should, of course, have been real gypsies, and made +our beds under the stars, but, as it was, we had no choice. Or, had we +been walking in Europe ... yes, I am afraid the truth must out, and that +our real dread at evening was--the American country hotel. With the best +wish in the world, it is impossible to be enthusiastic over the American +country hotel. How ironically the kindly old words used to come floating +to me out of Shakespeare each evening as the shadows fell, and the lights +came out in the windows--"to take mine ease at mine inn;" and assuredly +it was on another planet that Shenstone wrote: + +_Whoe'er hath travelled life's dull round, +Whate'er his fortunes may have been, +Must sigh to think he still has found +His warmest welcome at an inn_. + +Had Shenstone been writing in an American country hotel, his tune would +probably have been more after this fashion: "A wonderful day has come to +a dreary end in the most sepulchral of hotels, a mouldy, barn-like place, +ill-lit, mildewed and unspeakably dismal. A comfortless room with two +beds and two low-power electric lights, two stiff chairs, an +uncompanionable sofa, and some ghastly pictures of simpering naked women. +We have bought some candles, and made a candlestick out of a soap-dish. +Colin is making the best of it with 'The Beloved Vagabond,' and I have +drawn up one of the chairs to a table with a mottled marble top, and am +writing this amid a gloom which you could cut with a knife, and which is +so perfect of its kind as to be almost laughable. But for the mail, which +we found with unutterable thankfulness at the post-office, I hardly dare +think what would have happened to us, to what desperate extremities we +might not have been driven, though even the possibilities of despair seem +limited in this second-hand tomb of a town...." + +Here Colin looks up with a wry smile and ironically quotes from the +wisdom of Paragot: "What does it matter where the body finds itself, so +long as the soul has its serene habitations?" This wail is too typical +of most of our hotel experiences. As a rule we found the humble, cheaper +hotels best, and, whenever we had a choice of two, chose the less +pretentious. + +Sometimes as, on entering a town or village, we asked some passer-by +about the hotels, we would be looked over and somewhat doubtfully asked: +"Do you want a two-dollar house?" And we soon learned to pocket our +pride, and ask if there was not a cheaper house. Strange that people +whose business is hospitality should be so inhospitable, and strange that +the American travelling salesman, a companionable creature, not averse +from comfort, should not have created a better condition of things. For +the inn should be the natural harmonious close to the day, as much a part +of the day's music as the setting sun. It should be the gratefully sought +shelter from the homeless night, the sympathetic friend of hungry +stomachs and dusty feet, the cozy jingle of social pipes and dreamy +after-dinner talk, the abode of snowy beds for luxuriously aching limbs, +lavendered sheets and pleasant dreams. + +But, as people without any humour usually say, "A sense of humour helps +under all circumstances"; and we managed to extract a great deal of fun +out of the rigours of the American country hotel. + +In one particularly inhospitable home of hospitality, for example, we +found no little consolation from the directions printed over the very +simple and familiar device for calling up the hotel desk. The device was +nothing more remarkable than the button of an ordinary electric bell, +which you were, in the usual way, to push once for bell-boy, twice for +ice-water, three times for chambermaid, and so on. However, the hotel +evidently regarded it as one of the marvels of advanced science and +referred to it, in solemnly printed "rules" for its use, as no less than +"The Emergency Drop Annunciator!" Angels of the Annunciation! what a +heavenly phrase! + +But this is an ill-tempered chapter--let us begin another. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ONIONS, PIGS AND HICKORY-NUTS + + +One feature of the countryside in which from time to time we found +innocent amusement was the blackboards placed outside farmhouses, on +which are written, that is, "annunciated," the various products the +farmer has for sale, such as apples, potatoes, honey, and so forth. On +one occasion we read: "Get your horses' teeth floated here." There was no +one to ask about what this mysterious proclamation meant. No doubt it was +clear as daylight to the neighbours, but to us it still remains a +mystery. Perhaps the reader knows what it meant. Then on another occasion +we read: "Onions and Pigs For Sale." Why this curious collocation of +onions and pigs? Colin suggested that, of course, the onions were to +stuff the pigs with. + +"And here's an idea," he continued. "Suppose we go in and buy a little +suckling-pig and a string of onions. Then we will buy a yard of two of +blue ribbon and tie it round the pig's neck, and you shall lead it along +the road, weeping. I will walk behind it, with the onions, grinning from +ear to ear. And when any one meets us, and asks the meaning of the +strange procession, you will say: 'I am weeping because our little pig +has to die!' And if any one says to me, 'Why are you grinning from ear to +ear?' I shall answer, 'Because I am going to eat him. We are going to +stuff him with onions at the next inn, and eat roast pig at the rising of +the moon.'" + +But we lacked courage to put our little joke into practice, fearing an +insufficient appreciation of the fantastic in that particular region. + +We were now making for Watkins, and had spent the night at Bradford, a +particularly charming village almost lost amid the wooded hills of +another lovely and spacious valley, through which we had lyrically walked +the day before. Bradford is a real country village, and was already all +in a darkness smelling of cows and apples, when we groped for it among +the woods the evening before. At starting out next morning, we inquired +the way to Watkins of a storekeeper standing at his shop-door. He was in +conversation with an acquaintance, and our questions occasioned a lively +argument as to which was the better of two roads. The acquaintance was +for the road through "Pine Creek," and he added, with a grim smile, "I +guess I should know; I've travelled it often enough with a heavy load +behind"; and the recollection of the rough hills he had gone bumping +over, all evidently fresh in his mind, seemed to give him a curious +amusement. It transpired that he was an undertaker! + +So we took the road to Pine Creek, but at the threshold of the village +our fancy was taken by the particularly quaint white wooden +meeting-house, surrounded on three sides with tie-up sheds for vehicles, +each stall having a name affixed to it, like a pew: "P. Yawger," "A.W. +Gillum," "Pastor," and so on. Here the pious of the district tied up +their buggies while they went within to pray, and these sacred stalls +made a quaint picture for the imagination of outlying farmers driving to +meeting over the hills on Sabbath mornings. + +It was a beautiful morning of veiled sunshine, so warm that some hardy +crickets chirped faintly as we went along. Once a blue jay came and +looked at us, and the squirrels whirred among the chestnuts and +hickories, and the roadsides were so thickly strewn with fallen nuts that +we made but slow progress, stopping all the time to fill our pockets. + +For a full hour we sat down with a couple of stones for nut-crackers, and +forgot each other and everything else in the hypnotizing occupation of +cracking hickory-nuts. And we told each other that thus do grown sad men +become boys again, by a woodside, of an October morning, cracking +hickory-nuts, the world well lost. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +OCTOBER ROSES AND A YOUNG GIRL'S FACE + + +The undertaker was certainly right about the road. I think he must have +had a flash of poetic insight into our taste in roads. This was not, as a +rule, understood by the friendly country folk. Their ideas and ours as to +what constituted a good road differed beyond the possibility of +harmonizing. When they said that a road was good they meant that it was +straight, level, and businesslike. When they said that a road was bad +they meant that it was rugged, rambling and picturesque. So, to their +bewilderment, whenever we had a choice of good or bad roads, we always +chose the bad. And, to get at what we really wanted, we learned to +inquire which was the worst road to such and such a place. That we knew +would be the road for us. From their point of view, the road we were on +was as bad as could be; but, as I said, the undertaker evidently +understood us, and had sent us into a region of whimsically sudden hills +and rock and wooded wilderness, a swart country of lonely, rugged +uplands, with but a solitary house here and there for miles. It was +resting at the top of one of these hard-won acclivities that we came +upon--and remember that it was the middle of October--two wild roses +blooming by the roadside. This seems a fact worthy the attention of +botanical societies, and I still have the roses pressed for the +inspection of the learned between the pages of my travelling copy of Hans +Andersen's "Fairy Tales." + +A fact additionally curious was that the bush on which the flowers grew +seemed to be the only rose-bush in the region. We looked about us in +vain to find another. How had that single rose-bush come to be, an +uncompanioned exotic, in the rough society of pines and oaks and +hickories, on a rocky hill-top swept by the North wind, and how had those +frail, scented petals found strength and courage thus to bloom alone in +the doorway of Winter? And, why, out of all the roses of the world, had +these two been chosen, still, so late in the year, to hold up the +tattered standard of Summer? + +_Why, in the empty Autumn woods, + And all the loss and end of things, +Does one leaf linger on the tree; + Why is it only one bird sings? + +And why, across the aching field, + Does one lone cricket chirrup on; +Why one surviving butterfly, + With all its bright companions gone? + +And why, when faces all about + Whiten and wither hour by hour, +Does one old face bloom on so sweet, + As young as when it was a flower_? + +The same mystery was again presented to us a little farther along the +road, as we stopped at a lone schoolhouse among the hills, the only house +to be seen, and asked our way of the young schoolmarm. The door had been +left half open, and, knocking, we had stepped into the almost empty +schoolroom, with its portrait of Lincoln and a map of the United States. +Three scholars sat there with their kindly-faced teacher, studying +geography amid the silence of the hills, which the little room seemed to +concentrate in a murmuring hush, like a shell. A little boy sat by +himself a desk or two behind two young girls, and as we entered, and the +studious faces looked up in surprise, we saw only the pure brows and the +great spiritual eyes of the older girl, almost a woman, and we thought of +the lonely roses we had found up on the hillside. Here was another rose +blooming in the wilderness, a face lovely and beautiful as a spring +reflecting the sky in the middle of a wood. How had she come there, that +beautiful child-woman in the solitude? By what caprice of the strange law +of the distribution of fair faces had she come to flower in this +particular waste place of the earth?--for her face had surely come a long +way, been blown blossom-wise on some far wandering wind, from realms of +old beauty and romance, and it had the exiled look of all beautiful +things. Could she be a plain farmer's daughter, indigenous to that +stubborn soil? No, surely she was not that, and yet--how had she come to +be there? But these were questions we could not put to the schoolmarm. +We could only ask our road, and the prosaic possibilities of lunch in the +neighbourhood, and go on our way. Nor could I press that rose among the +pages of my book--but, as I write, I wonder if it is still making sweet +that desolate spot, and still studying irrelevant geography in the +silence of the hills. + +However, we did learn something about our young human rose at a farmhouse +a mile or so farther on. While a motherly housewife prepared us some +lunch, all a-bustle with expectancy of an imminent inroad of harvesters +due to thresh the corn, and liable to eat all before them, a sprightly +young daughter, who attended the same school, and whom we had told about +our call at the schoolhouse, entertained us with girlish gossip of the +neighbourhood. So we learned that our fancies had not been so far wrong, +but that our beautiful young face had indeed come from as far as France, +the orphaned child of a French sailor and an English mother, come over +the seas for a home with a farmer uncle near by. Strange are the +destinies of beautiful faces. All the way from France to Pine Creek! Poor +little world-wandered rose! + +And while we ate our lunch, the mother had a sad, beautiful story of a +dead son and a mother's tears to tell us, too sacred to tell again. How +many beautiful faces there are hidden about the world, and how many +beautiful sad stories hidden in the broken hearts of mothers! + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONCERNING THE POPULAR TASTE IN SCENERY AND SOME HAPPY PEOPLE + + +We had somewhat scorned the idea of Watkins, as being one of Nature's +show-places. In fact, Watkins Glen is, so to say, so nationally beautiful +as latterly to have received a pension from the Government of the United +States, which now undertakes the conservation of its fantastic chasms and +waterfalls. Some one--I am inclined to think it was myself--once said +that he never wished to go to Switzerland, because he feared that the +Alps would be greasy with being climbed. I think it is clear what he +meant. To one who loves Nature for himself, has his own discovering eyes +for her multiform and many-mooded beauty, it is distasteful to have some +excursionist effect of spectacular scenery labelled and thrust upon him +with a showman's raptures; and, in revulsion from the hypocritical +admiration of the vulgar, he turns to the less obvious and less +melodramatic beauty of the natural world. The common eye can see Nature's +beauty only in such melodramatic and sentimental forms--dizzy chasms, +foaming waterfalls, snow-capped mountains and flagrant sunsets, just as +it can realize Nature's wildness of heart only in a menagerie. That a +squirrel or a meadow-lark, or even a guinea-pig, is just as wild as the +wild beasts in a travelling circus is outside the comprehension of the +vulgar, who really hunger after mere marvels, whatever they may be, and +actually have no eyes for beauty at all. + +Thus really sublime and grandiose effects of Nature are apt to lose their +edge for us by over-popularization, as many of her scenes and moods have +come to seem platitude from being over-painted. Niagara has suffered far +more from the sentimental tourist and the landscape artist than from all +the power-houses, and one has to make a strenuous effort of detachment +from its excursionist associations to appreciate its sublimity. + +Thus Colin and I discussed, in a somewhat bored way, whether we should +trouble to visit the famous Watkins Glen, as we sat over supper in a +Watkins hotel, one of the few really comfortable and cordial hotels we +met in our wanderings, and we smiled to think what the natives would have +made of our conversation. Two professional lovers of beauty calmly +discussing whether it was worth while walking half a mile to see one of +the natural, and national, wonders of America! Why, last season more than +half a million visitors kodaked it, and wrote their names on the face of +the rocks! However, a great natural effect holds its own against no +little vulgarization, and Watkins Glen soon made us forget the trippers +and the concrete footpaths and iron railings of the United States +government, in the fantasies of its weirdly channelled gorge and +mysterious busy water. + +Watkins itself, despite its name, is sufficiently favoured by Nature to +make an easy annual living, situated as it is at the south end of the +beautiful Seneca Lake, and at the head of a nobly picturesque valley some +twenty miles long, with a pretty river spreading out into flashing +reed-grown flats, sheer cliffs and minor waterfalls, here and there a +vineyard on the hillside, or the vivid green of celery trenches in the +dark loam of the hollows, all the way to--Elmira! The river and the +trolley run side by side the whole charming way, and, as you near +Elmira, you come upon latticed barns that waft you the fragrance of +drying tobacco-leaves, suspended longitudinally for the wind to play +through. On the morning of our leaving Watkins, we had been roused a +little earlier than usual by mirthful sounds in the street beneath our +hotel windows. Light-hearted voices joking each other floated up to us, +and some one out of the gladness of his heart was executing a spirited +shake-down on the sidewalk--at six o'clock of a misty October morning. +Looking out, we caught an endearing glimpse of the life of the most +lovable of all professions. It was a theatrical company that had played a +one-night stand at the local opera-house the evening before, and was now +once more upon its wandering way. They had certainly been up till past +midnight, but here they were, at six o'clock of the morning, merry as +larks, gay as children, waiting for the Elmira trolley. Presently the car +came clanging up, and alongside drew up a big float, containing baggage +and rolls of scenery--all of which, to our astonishment, by some miracle +of loading known only to baggagemen, was in a few moments stowed away +into the waiting car. When the last property was shipped, the conductor +rang his bell, by way of warning, and the whole group, like a flight of +happy birds, climbed chattering into the car. "All aboard," called the +conductor, once more ringing his bell, and off they went, leaving a trail +of laughter in the morning air. + +"'Beloved Vagabonds!'" said Colin, as we turned away, lonely, from our +windows, with, I hardly know why, a suspicion of tears in our eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE SUSQUEHANNA + + +Here for a while a shadow seemed to fall over our trip. No doubt it was +the shadow of the great town we were approaching. Not that we have +anything against Elmira, though possibly its embattled reformatory, +frowning from the hillside, contributed its gloomy associations to our +spirits. It was against towns in general that our gorge rose. Did our +vagabond ethics necessitate our conscientiously tramping every foot of +these "gritty paving-stones," we asked each other, as we entered upon a +region of depressing suburbs, and we called a halt on the spot to discuss +the point. The discussion was not long, and it was brought to a +cheerful, demoralized end by the approach of the trolley, into which, +regardless of right or wrong, we climbed with alacrity, not to alight +till not only Elmira was left behind, but more weary suburbs, too, on the +other side. That night, as old travellers phrase it, we lay at Waverly, +on the frontier of Pennsylvania, a sad, dirty little town, grotesquely +belying its romantic name, and only surpassed in squalor by the +classically named Athens--beware, reader, of American towns named out of +classical dictionaries! Here, however, our wanderings in the +brick-and-mortar wilderness were to end, for by a long, romantic, old, +covered bridge we crossed the Chemung River, and there once more, on the +other side, was Nature, lovelier than ever, awaiting us. Not Dante, when +he emerged from Hades and again beheld the stars, drew deeper breaths of +escape than we, thus escaping from--Athens! + +And soon we were to meet the Susquehanna--beautiful, broad-bosomed name, +that has always haunted my imagination like the name of some beautiful +savage princess--_La belle sauvage_. Susquehanna! What a southern +opulence in the soft, seductive syllables! Yes, soon we were to meet the +Susquehanna. Nor had we long to wait, and little did we suspect what our +meeting with that beautiful river was to mean. + +The Chemung, on whose east bank we were now walking, seemed a noble +enough river, very broad and all the more picturesque for being +shallow with the Summer drought; and its shining reaches and wooded +banks lifted up our hearts. She, like ourselves, was on her way to +join the Susquehanna, a mile or two below, and we said to ourselves, +that, beautiful as the land had been through which we had already +passed, we were now entering on a Nature of more heroic mould, +mightier contours, and larger aspects. We were henceforth to walk in +the company of great rivers: the Susquehanna, like some epic goddess, +was to lead us to the Lehigh; the Blue Mountains were to bring us to +the Delaware; and the uplands of Sullivan County were to bring us +to--the lordly gates of the Hudson. + +Our chests expanded as imagination luxuriated in the pictures it made. +Our walk was only just beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AND UNEXPECTEDLY THE LAST + + +We had seen the two great rivers sweep into each other's arms in a broad +glory of sunlit water, meeting at the bosky end of a wooded promontory, +and yes! there was the Susquehanna glittering far beneath--the beautiful +name I had so often seen and wondered about, painted on the sides of +giant freight-cars! Yes, there was actually the great legendary river. It +was a very warm, almost sultry noonday, more like midsummer than +mid-October, and the river was almost blinding in its flashing beauty. +Loosening our knapsacks, we called a halt and, leaning over the railing +guarding the precipitous bank, luxuriated in the visionary scene. So +high was the bank, and so broad the river, that we seemed lifted up into +space, and the river, dreamily flowing beneath a gauze veil of heat-mist, +seemed miles below us and drowsily unreal. Its course inshore was dotted +with boulders, in the shadows of which we could see long ghostly fishes +lazily gliding, and a mud-turtle, with a trail of little ones, slowly +moving from rock to rock. + +Suddenly Colin put his hand to his head, and swayed toward me, as though +he were about to faint. + +"I don't know what's the matter, old man," he said, "but I think I had +better sit down a minute." And he sank by the roadside. + +Unlike himself, he had been complaining of fatigue, and had seemed out of +sorts for a day or two, but we had thought nothing of it; and, after +resting a few minutes, he announced himself ready for the road again, +but he looked very pale and walked with evident weariness. As a roadside +cottage came in sight, "I wonder if they could give us a cup of tea," he +said; "that would fix me up, I'm sure." So we knocked, and the door was +opened by a pathetic shadow of an old woman, very poor and thin and +weary-looking, who, although, as we presently learned, she was at the +moment suffering from the recent loss of one eye, made us welcome and +busied herself about tea, with an unselfish kindness that touched our +hearts, and made us reflect on the angelic goodness of human +nature--sometimes. + +She looked anxiously, mother-like, at Colin, and persuaded him to lie +down and rest awhile in her little parlour, and, while he rested, she and +I talked and she told me how she had come by her blind eye--an odd, +harmless-sounding cause. She had been looking up into one of her +apple-trees, one day, a few weeks ago, and an apple had fallen and struck +her in the eye. Such innocent means does Nature sometimes use for her +cruel accidents of disease and death! Just an apple falling from a +tree,--and you are blind! A fly stings you, on a Summer day, and you die. + +Colin, rested and refreshed, we once more started on our way, but, +bravely as he strode on, there was no disguising it--my blithe, +happy-hearted companion was ill. Of course we both assured the other that +it could be nothing, but privately our hearts sank with a vague fear we +did not speak. At length, after a weary four miles, we reached Towanda. + +"I'm afraid," said poor Colin, "I can walk no more to-day. Perhaps a good +night's rest will make me all right." We found an inn, and while Colin +threw himself, wearied, on his bed, I went out, not telling him, and +sought a doctor. + +"And you've been walking with this temperature?" said the learned man, +when he had seated himself at Colin's bedside and felt his wrist. "Have +you been drinking much water as you went along? ... H'm--it's been a very +dry Summer, you know." + +And the words of our friend in the buggy came back to us with sickening +emphasis. O those innocent-looking fairy wells and magic mirrors by the +road-side! And I thought, too, of the poor old blinded woman and the +falling apple. Was Nature really like that? + +And then the wise man's verdict fell on our ears like a doom. + +"Take my advice, and don't walk any more, but catch the night train for +New York." + +Poor Colin! But there was no appeal. + +The end of our trip had come, suddenly, unreasonably, stupidly, +like this. + +"So we've got to be shot into New York like a package through a tube, +after all!" said Colin. "No lordly gates of the Hudson for us! What a +fool I feel, to be the one to spoil our trip like this!" + +And the tears glistened in our eyes, as we pressed each other's hand in +that dreary inn bedroom, with the shadow of we knew not what for Colin +over us--for our comradeship had been very good, day by day, together on +the open road. + +Our train did not go till midnight, so we had a long melancholy evening +before us; but the doctor had given Colin some mysterious potion +containing rest, and presently, as I sat by his side in the gray +twilight, he fell into a deep sleep--a sleep, alas! of fire and wandering +talk. It was pitiful to hear him, poor fellow--living over again in +dreams the road we had travelled, or making pictures of the road he +still dreamed ahead of us. Never before had I realized how entirely his +soul was the soul of a painter--all pictures and colour. + +"O my God!" he would suddenly exclaim, "did you ever see such blue in +your life!" and then again, evidently referring to some particularly +attractive effect in the phantasmagoria of his fever, "it's no use--you +must let me stop and have a shot to get that, before it goes." + +One place that seemed particularly to haunt him was--Mauch Chunk. He had +been there before, and, as we had walked along, had often talked +enthusiastically of it. "Wait till we get to Mauch Chunk," he said; "then +the real fun will begin." And now, over and over again, he kept making +pictures of Mauch Chunk, till I could have cried. + +"Dramatic black rocks," he would murmur, "water rushing from the hills +in every direction--clean-cut, vivid scenery--like theatres--the road +runs by the side of a steel-blue river at the bottom of a chasm, and +there is hardly room for it--the houses cling to the hillside like +swallows' nests--here and there patches of fresh green grass gleam among +the rocks, and, high up in the air on some dizzy ledge, there is a wild +apple-tree in blossom--it is all black rocks and springs and moss and +tumbling water--" + +Then again his soul was evidently walking in the Blue Mountains, and +several times he repeated a phrase of mine that had taken his fancy: "And +now for the spacious corridors of the Highlands, and the lordly gates of +the Hudson." + +Then he would suddenly half awaken and turn to me, realizing the +truth, and say: + +"O our beautiful journey--to end like this!" and fall asleep again. + +And once more I fell to thinking of fairy springs by the roadside, and +apples falling innocently from the bough, and how the beautiful journey +we call life might some day suddenly end like this, with half the +beautiful road untravelled--the rest sleep and perchance dreams. + + * * * * * + +But Colin did not die. He is once more painting out in the sun, and next +year we plan to stand again on that very spot by the Susquehanna, and +watch the shadows of great fishes gliding through the dreamy water, and +the mud-turtle with her trail of little ones moving from rock to +rock--and then we shall strike out on the road again, just where we left +off that October afternoon; but the reader need not be afraid--we shall +not write a book about it. + + + + +_ENVOI_ + + +_And now the merry way we took +Is nothing but a printed book; + +We would you had been really there, +Out with us in the open air-- + +For, after all, the best of words +Are but a poor exchange for birds. + +Yet if, perchance, this book of ours +Should sometimes make you think of flowers, + +Orchards and barns and harvest wain, +"It was not written all in vain--" + +So authors used to make their bow, +As, Gentle Reader, we do now_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10447 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73a2e90 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10447 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10447) diff --git a/old/10447-8.txt b/old/10447-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50e9701 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10447-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3285 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, October Vagabonds , by Richard Le Gallienne + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: October Vagabonds + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: December 13, 2003 [eBook #10447] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCTOBER VAGABONDS *** + + +E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +OCTOBER VAGABONDS + +BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + +1911 + + + + + + + + + I The Epitaph of Summer + II At Evening I Came to the Wood + III "Trespassers will be ..." + IV Salad and Moonshine + V The Green Friend + VI In the Wake of Summer + VII Maps and Farewells + VIII The American Bluebird and Its Song + IX Dutch Hollow + X Where They Sing from Morning Till Night + XI Apple-Land + XII Orchards and a Line from Virgil + XIII Fellow Wayfarers + XIV The Old Lady of the Walnuts and Others + XV The Man at Dansville + XVI In which we Catch up with Summer + XVII Containing Valuable Statistics +XVIII A Dithyrambus of Buttermilk + XIX A Growl about American Country Hotels + XX Onions, Pigs and Hickory-nuts + XXI October Roses and a Young Girl's Face + XXII Concerning the Popular Taste in Scenery and some Happy People +XXIII The Susquehanna + XXIV And Unexpectedly the Last + +Envoi + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE EPITAPH OF SUMMER + + +As I started out from the farm with a basket of potatoes, for our supper +in the shack half a mile up the hillside, where we had made our Summer +camp, my eye fell on a notice affixed to a gate-post, and, as I read it, +my heart sank--sank as the sun was sinking yonder with wistful glory +behind the purple ridge. I tore the paper from the gate-post and put it +in my pocket with a sigh. + +"It is true, then," I said to myself. "We have got to admit it. I must +show this to Colin." + +Then I continued my way across the empty, close-gleaned corn-field, +across the railway track, and, plunging into the orchard on the other +side, where here and there among the trees the torrents of apples were +being already caught in boxes by the thrifty husbandman, began to breast +the hill intersected with thickly wooded watercourses. + +High up somewhere amid the cloud of beeches and buttonwood trees, our log +cabin lay hid, in a gully made by the little stream that filled our pails +with a silver trickle over a staircase of shelving rock, and up there +Colin was already busy with his skilled French cookery, preparing our +evening meal. The woods still made a pompous show of leaves, but I knew +it to be a hollow sham, a mask of foliage soon to be stripped off by +equinoctial fury, a precarious stage-setting, ready to be blown down at +the first gusts from the north. A forlorn bird here and there made a thin +piping, as it flitted homelessly amid the bleached long grasses, and the +frail silk of the milkweed pods came floating along ghostlike on the +evening breeze. + +Yes! It was true. Summer was beginning to pack up, the great +stage-carpenter was about to change the scene, and the great theatre was +full of echoes and sighs and sounds of farewell. Of course, we had known +it for some time, but had not had the heart to admit it to each other, +could not find courage to say that one more golden Summer was at an end. +But the paper I had torn from the roadside left us no further shred of +illusion. There was an authoritative announcement there was no blinking, +a notice to quit there was no gain-saying. + +As I came to the crest of the hill, and in sight of the shack, shining +with early lamp-light deep down among the trees of the gully, I could see +Colin innocently at work on a salad, and hear him humming to himself his +eternal "_Vive le Capitaine_." + +It was too pathetic. I believe the tears came to my eyes. + +"Colin," I said, as I at length arrived and set down my basket of +potatoes, "read this." + +He took the paper from my hand and read: + +"_Sun-up Baseball Club. September_ 19, 1908. _Last Match of the Season_" + +He knew what I meant. + +"Yes!" he said. "It is the epitaph of Summer." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AT EVENING I CAME TO THE WOOD + + +My solitude had been kindly lent to me for the Summer by a friend, the +prophet-proprietor of a certain famous Well of Truth some four miles +away, whither souls flocked from all parts of America to drink of the +living waters. I had been feeling town-worn and world-weary, and my +friend had written me saying: "At Elim are twelve wells and seventy +palm-trees," and so to Elim I had betaken myself. After a brief sojourn +there, drinking of the waters, and building up on the strong diet of the +sage's living words, he had given me the key to some green woods and +streams of his, and bade me take them for my hermitage. I had a great +making-up to arrange with Nature, and I half wondered how she would +receive me after all this long time. But when did that mother ever turn +her face from her child, however truant from her care? It had been with a +beating heart that I had passed up the hillside on an evening in early +June, and approached the hushed green temple, wherein I was to take +Summer sanctuary from a wicked world. + +But if, as I hope, the reader has no objection to an occasional interlude +of verse in all this prose, I will copy for him here the poem I wrote +next morning--it being always easier to tell the strict truth in poetry +rather than in prose: + +_At evening I came to the wood, and threw myself on the breast + Of the great green mother, weeping, and the arms of a thousand trees +Waved and rustled in welcome, and murmured: "Rest--rest--rest! + The leaves, thy brothers, shall heal thee; thy sisters, the flowers, +bring peace." + +At length I stayed from my weeping, and lifted my face from the grass; + The moon was walking the wood with feet of mysterious pearl, +And the great trees held their breath, trance-like, watching her pass, + And a bird called out from the shadows, with voice as sweet as a girl. + +And then, in the holy silence, to the great green mother I prayed: + "Take me again to thy bosom, thy son who so close to thee, +Aforetime, filial clung, then into the city strayed-- + The painted face of the town, the wine and the harlotry. + +"Bathe me in lustral dawns, and the morning star and the dew. + Make pure my heart as a bird and innocent as a flower, +Make sweet my thoughts as the meadow-mint + --O make me all anew, +And in the strength of beech and oak gird up my will with power. + +"I have wandered far, O my mother, but here I return at the last, + Never again to stray in pilgrimage wanton and wild; +A broken heart and a contrite here at thy feet I cast, + O take me back to thy bosom ..." And the mother answered, "Child!"_ + +It was a wonderful reconciliation, a wonderful home-coming, and how I +luxuriated in the great green forgiveness! Yes! the giant maples had +forgiven me, and the multitudinous beeches had taken me to their arms. +The flowers and I were friends again, the grass was my brother, and the +shy nymph-like stream, dropping silver vowels into the silence, was my +sweetheart. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"TRESPASSERS WILL BE..." + + +For those who value it, there is no form of property that inspires a +sense of ownership so jealous as solitude. Rob my orchard if you will, +but beware how you despoil me of my silence. The average noisy person can +have no conception what a brutal form of trespass his coarsely cheerful +voice may be in the exquisite spiritual hush of the woods, or what +shattering discomfort his irrelevant presence in the landscape. + +One day, to my horror, a picnic ruthlessly invaded my sanctuary. With a +roar of Boeotian hilarity, it tore up the hillside as if it were a +storming party, and half a day the sacred woods were vocal with silly +catcalls and snatches of profane song. I locked up my hermitage, and, +taking my stick, sought refuge in flight, like the other woodland +creatures; only coming back at evening with cautious step and peering +glance, half afraid lest it should still be there. No! It was gone, but +its voices seemed to have left gaping wounds across the violated air, and +the trees to wear a look of desecration. But presently the moon arose and +washed the solitude clean again, and the wounds of silence were healed in +the still night. + +Next morning I amused myself by writing the following notice, which +I nailed up on a great elm-tree standing guard at the beginning of +the woods: + + SILENCE! + +_Speaking above a whisper in these woods + is forbidden by law_. + +This notice seems to have had its effect, for from this time on no more +hands of marauders invaded my peace. But I had one other case of +trespass, of which it is now time to speak. + +Some short distance from the shack was a clearing in the woods, a +thriving wilderness of bramble-bushes, poke-berries, myrtle-berries, +mandrakes, milkweed, mullein, daisies and what not--a paradise of every +sauntering vine and splendid, saucy weed. In the centre stood a +sycamore-tree, beneath which it was my custom to smoke a morning pipe and +revolve my profound after-breakfast thoughts. + +Judge, then, of my indignant shock, one morning, at finding a stranger +calmly occupying my place. I stood for a moment rooted to the spot, in +the shadow of the encircling woods, and he had not yet seen me. As I +stood, pondering on the best way of dealing with the intruder, a sudden +revulsion of kindness stole over me. For here indeed was a very different +figure from what, in my first shock of surprise, I had expected to see. +No common intruder this. In fact, who could have dreamed of coming upon +so incongruous an apparition as this in an American woodland? How on +earth did this picturesque waif from the Quartier Latin come to stray so +far away from the Boul' Miche! For the little boyish figure of a man that +sat sketching in my place was the Frenchiest-looking Frenchman you ever +saw--with his dark, smoke-dried skin, his long, straight, blue-black +hair, his fine, rather ferocious brown eyes, his long, delicate French +nose, his bristling black moustache and short, sting-shaped imperial. He +wore on his head a soft white felt hat, somewhat of the shape affected by +circus clowns, and too small for him. His coat was of green velveteen +corduroy and he wore knickerbockers of an eloquent plaid. + +He was intently absorbed in sketching a prosperous group of weeds, a +crazy quilt of wildly jostling colour, that had grown up around the decay +of a fallen tree, and made a fine blazon of contrast against the massed +foliage in the background. There was no mistake how the stranger loved +this patch of coloured weeds. Here was a man whose whole soul was +evidently--colour. There was a look in his face as if he could just eat +those oranges and purples, and soft greens; and there was a sort of +passionate assurance in the way in which he handled his brushes, and +delicately plunged them here and there in his colour-box, that spoke a +master. So intent was he upon his work that, when I came up behind him, +he seemed unaware of my presence; though his oblivion was actually the +conscious indifference of a landscape painter, accustomed to the ambling +cow and the awe-struck peasant looking over his shoulder as he worked. + +"Great bunch of weeds," he said presently, without looking up, and still +painting, drawing the while at a quaint pipe about an inch long. + +"O, you are not the Boul' Miche, after all," I exclaimed in +disappointment. + +"Aren't I, though?" he said at last, looking up in interested surprise. +"Ever at--?" mentioning the name of a well-known cafe, one of the many +rally-points of the Quartier. + +"I should say," I answered. + +"Well!" + +And thereupon we both plunged into delighted reminiscence of that city +which, as none other, makes immediate friends of all her lovers. For a +while the woods faded away, and in that tangled clearing rose the towers +of Notre Dame, and the Seine glittered on under its great bridges, and +again the world smelled of absinthe, and picturesque madmen gesticulated +in clouds of tobacco smoke, and propounded fantastic philosophies amid +the rattle of dominoes--and afar off in the street a voice was crying +"_Haricots verts_!" My new friend's talk had the pathos of spiritual +exile, for, as French in blood as a man could be, born in Bordeaux of +Provençal parentage, he had lived most of his life in America. The +decoration of a rich man's house in the neighbourhood had brought him +thus into my solitude, and, that work completed, he would return to his +home in New York. + +Meanwhile the morning was going by as we talked, and, putting up his +sketch-box, he accepted my invitation to join me at lunch. + +Such was the manner of my meeting, in the guise of a trespasser, with the +dear friend to whom I had brought the decisive news of the death of +Summer, as he was innocently making a salad, _in antiquam silvam_, on +that sad September evening. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SALAD AND MOONSHINE + + +"Do you remember that first salad you made us, Colin?" I said, as we sat +over our coffee, and Colin was filling his little pipe. "A daring work of +art, a fantastic _tour de force_, of apples, and lettuce, and wild +strawberries, and I don't know what else." + +"I believe I mixed in some May-apples, too. It was a great stunt ... +well, no more May-apples and strawberries this year," he finished, with a +sigh, and we both sat silently smoking, thinking over the good Summer +that was gone. + +After our first meeting, Colin had dropped in to see me again from time +to time, and when his work at the great house was finished, I had asked +him to come and share my solitude. A veritable child of Nature himself, +he fitted into my quiet days as silently as a squirrel. So much of his +life had been passed out-of-doors with trees and skies, long dream-like +days all alone sketching in solitary places, that he seemed as much a +part of the woods as though he were a faun, and the lore of the elements, +and all natural things--bugs and birds, all wildwood creatures--had +passed into him with unconscious absorption. A sort of boyish +unconsciousness, indeed, was the keynote and charm of his nature. A less +sophisticated creature never followed the mystic calling of art. +Fortunately for me, he was not one of those painters who understand and +expound their own work. On the contrary, he was a perfect child about it, +and painted for no more mysterious reason than that his eye delighted in +beautiful natural effects, and that he loved to play with paint and +brushes. Though he was undoubtedly sensitive somewhere to the mystic side +of Nature, her Wordsworthian "intimations," you would hardly have guessed +it from his talk. "A bully bit of colour," would be his craftsmanlike way +of describing a twilight full of sibylline suggestiveness to the literary +mind. But, strangely enough, when he brought you his sketch, all your +"sibylline suggestiveness" was there, which of course means, after all, +that painting was his way of seeing and saying it. + +The moon rose as we smoked on, and began to lattice with silver the +darkness of the glen, and flood the hillside with misty radiance. Colin +made for his sketch-box. + +"I must make good use of this moon," he said, "before we go." + +"And so must I," said I, laughing as we both went out into the night, he +one way and I another, to make our different uses of the moon. + +An hour later Colin turned in with a panel that seemed made of moonlight. +"How on earth did you do it?" I said. "It is as though you had drawn up +the moon in a silver bucket from the bottom of a fairy well." + +"No, no," he protested; "I know better. But where is your _clair +de lune_?" + +"Nothing doing," I answered. + +"Well, then, say those lines you wrote a week or two ago instead." + +"'Berries already,' do you mean?" + +"Yes." + +Here are the lines he meant: + +_Berries already, September soon,-- +The shortening day and ike early moon; +The year is busy with next year's flowers +The seeds are ready for next year' showers; +Through a thousand tossing trees there swells +The sigh of the Summer's sad farewells. +Too soon those leaves in the sunset sky +Low down on the wintry ground will lie, +And grim November and December +Leave naught of Summer to remember-- +Saving some flower in a book put by, +Secure from the soft effacing snow, +Though all the rest of the Summer go._ + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GREEN FRIEND + + +Though we had received such unmistakable notice to quit, we still +lingered on in our solitude, after the manner of defiant tenants whom +nothing short of corporal ejection can dislodge. The North wind began to +roar in the tree-tops and shake the doors and windows of the shack, like +an angry landlord, but we paid no heed to him. Yet, all the time, both of +us, in our several ways, were saying our farewells, and packing up our +memories for departure. There was an old elm-tree which Colin had taken +for his Summer god, and which he was never tired of painting. He must +make the one perfect study of that before we pulled up stakes. So, each +day, after our morning adoration of the sun, we would separate about our +different ways and business. + +The woods were already beginning to wear a wistful, dejected look. There +was a feeling of departure everywhere, a sense that the year's +excitements were over. The procession had gone by, and there was an +empty, purposeless air of waiting-about upon things, a sort of despairing +longing for something else to happen--and a sure sense that nothing more +could happen till next year. Every event in the floral calendar had taken +place with immemorial punctuality and tragic rapidity. All the +full-blooded flowers of Summer had long since come and gone, with their +magic faces and their souls of perfume. Gone were the banners of blossom +from the great trees. The locust and the chestnut, those spendthrifts of +the woods, that went the pace so gorgeously in June, are now sober-coated +enough, and growing even threadbare. All the hum and the honey and +breathless bosom-beat of things is over. The birds sing no more, but only +chatter about time-tables. The bee keeps to his hive, and the bewildered +butterfly, in tattered ball-dress, wonders what has become of his flowery +partners. The great cricket factory has shut down. Not a wheel is heard +whirring. The squirrel has lost his playful air, and has an anxious +manner, as though there were no time to waste before stocking his +granary. Everywhere berries have taken the place of buds, and bearded +grasses the place of flowers. Even the goldenrod has fallen to rust, and +the stars of the aster are already tarnished. Only along the edges of the +wood the dry little paper immortelles spread long shrouds and wreaths in +the shade. + +Suddenly you feel lonely in the woods, which had seemed so companionable +all Summer. What is it--_Who_ is it--that has gone? Though quite alone, +there was some one with you all Summer, an invisible being filling the +woods with his presence, and always at your side, or somewhere near by. +But to-day, through all the green halls and chambers of the wood, you +seek him in vain. You call, but there is no answer. You wait, but he does +not come. He has gone. The wood is an empty palace. The prince went away +secretly in the night. The wood is a deserted temple. The god has betaken +himself to some secret abode. Everywhere you come upon chill, abandoned +altars, littered debris of Summer sacrifices. Maybe he is dead, and +perchance, deeper in the wood, you may come upon his marble form in a +winding-sheet of drifting leaves. + +Not a god, maybe, you have pictured him, not a prince, but surely as a +friend--the mysterious Green Friend of the green silence and the golden +hush of Summer noons. The mysterious Green Friend of the woods! So +strangely by our side all Summer, so strangely gone away. It is in vain +to await him under our morning sycamore, nor under the great maples shall +we find him walking, nor amid the alder thickets discover him, nor yet in +the little ravine beneath the pines. No! he has surely gone away, and his +great house seems empty without him, desolate, filled with lamentation, +all its doors and windows open to the Winter snows. + +But the Green Friend had left me a message. I found it at the roots of +some violets. "_I shall be back again next year_" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE WAKE OF SUMMER + + +Yes, it was time to be going, and the thought was much on both our minds. +We had as yet, however, made no plans, had not indeed discussed any; but +one afternoon, late in September, driven indoors by a sudden squall of +rain, I came to Colin with an idea. The night before we had had the first +real storm of the season. + +"Ah! This will do their business," Colin had said, referring to the +trees, as we heard the wind and rain tearing and splashing through the +pitch-dark woods. "It will be a different world in the morning." + +And indeed it was. Cruel was the work of dismantling that had gone on +during the night. The roof of the wood had fallen in in a score of +places, letting in the sky through unfamiliar windows; and the distant +prospect showed through the torn tapestry of the trees with a startling +sense of disclosure. The dishevelled world wore the distressed look of a +nymph caught _déshabillée._ The expression, "the naked woods," occurred +to one with almost a sense of impropriety. At least there was a cynical +indecorum in this violent disrobing of the landscape. + +"Colin," I said, coming to him with my idea. "We've got to go, of +course, but I've been thinking--don't you hate the idea of being hurled +along in a train, and suddenly shot into the city again, like a package +through a tube?" + +"Hate it? Don't ask me," said Colin. + +"If only it could be more gradual," I went on. "Suppose, for instance, +instead of taking the train, we should walk it!" + +"Walk to New York?" said Colin, with a surprised whistle. + +"Yes! Why not?" + +"Something of a walk, old man." + +"All the better. We shall be all the longer getting there. But, listen. +To go by train would be almost too sudden a shock. I don't believe we +could stand it. To be here to-day, breathing this God's fresh air, living +the lives of natural men in a natural world, and to-morrow--Broadway, the +horrible crowds, the hustle, the dirt, the smells, the uproar." + +For answer Colin watched the clean rain fleeting through the trees, and +groaned aloud. + +"But now if we walked, we would, so to say, let ourselves down lightly, +inure ourselves by gradual approach to the thought of life once more with +our fellows. Besides, we should be walking in the wake of the Summer. She +has only moved a little East as yet. We might catch her up on her way to +New York, and thus move with the moving season, keeping in step with the +Zodiac. Then, at last, ... how much more fitting our entry into New York, +not by way of some sordid and clangorous depot, but through the spacious +corridors of the Highlands and the lordly gates of the Hudson!" + +When I had thus attained my crescendo, Colin rose impressively, and +embraced me with true French effusion. + +"Old man," he said, "that's just great. It's an inspiration from on high. +It makes me feel better already. Gee! but that's bully." + +French as was his blood, it will be observed that Colin's expletives were +thoroughly American. Of course, he should have said _sacré mille cochons_ +or _nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu_; but, though in appearance, so to say, an +embodied "_sacré"_ he seemed to find the American vernacular sufficiently +expressive. + +"Is it a go, then?" said I. + +"It's a go," said Colin, once more in American. + +And we shook on it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MAPS AND FAREWELLS + + +It was wonderful what a change our new plan wrought in our spirits. + +Our melancholy was immediately dispersed, and its place taken by active +anticipations of our journey. The North wind in the trees, instead of +blustering dismissal, sounded to our ears like the fluttering of the +blue-peter at the masthead of our voyage. Strange heart of man! A day +back we were in tears at the thought of going. Now we are all smiles to +think of it, all impatience to be gone. We quote Whitman a dozen times +in the hour, and it is all "afoot and light-hearted" with us, and "the +open road." + +But there were some farewells to make to people as well as to trees. +There were friends at Elim to bid adieu, and also there were maps to be +consulted, and knapsacks to be packed--exhilarating preparations. + +Our friends looked at us, when we had unfolded our project, with a +mixture of surprise and pity. "Amiable lunatics" was the first comment of +their countenances, and--"There never was any telling what the artistic +temperament would do next!" Had we announced an air-ship voyage to the +moon, they would have regarded us as comparatively reasonable, but to +walk--_to walk_--some four or five hundred miles in America, of all +countries, a country of palace cars and, lightning limited expresses, not +to mention homicidal touring automobiles, seemed like--what shall I +say?--well, as though one should start out for New Zealand in a row-boat, +or make the trip to St. Petersburg in a sedan-chair. + +But there were others--especially the women--who understood, felt as we +did, and longed to go with us. I have never met a woman yet whose face +did not light up at the thought of a walking tour, and in her heart long +to don Rosalind clothes and set forth in search of adventures. We thus +had the advantage, in planning our route, of several prettily coiffed +heads bending over our maps and guide-books with us. + +"Four hundred and thirty miles," said one of these Rosalinds, whose +pretty head was full of pictures of romantic European travel. "Think what +one could do with four hundred and thirty miles in Europe. Let us try, +for the fun of it." + +And turning to a map of Europe, and measuring out four hundred and thirty +miles by scale on a slip of paper, she tried it up and down the map from +point to point. "Look at funny little England!" she said. "Why, you will +practically be walking from one end of England to the other. See," and +she fitted her scale to the map, "it would bring you easily from +Portsmouth to Aberdeen. + +"And now let us try France. Why, see again--you will be walking from +Calais to Marseilles--think of it! walking through France, all vineyards +and beautiful names. Now Italy--see! you will be walking from Florence to +Mount Etna--Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo." + +And so in imagination our fair friend sketched out fanciful pilgrimages +for us. "You could walk from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees," she went on. +"You could walk from Venice to Berlin; from Brussels to Copenhagen; you +could walk from Munich to Budapest; you could walk right across Turkey, +from Constantinople to the Adriatic Sea. And Greece--see! you could walk +from Sparta to the Danube. To think of the romantic use you could make +of your four-hundred-odd-miles, and how different it sounds--Buffalo to +New York!" + +And again she repeated, luxuriating in the romantic sound of the +words: "Constantinople to the Adriatic! Sparta to the Danube!--Buffalo +to New York!" + +There was not wanting to the party the whole-souled, +my-country-'tis-of-thee American, who somewhat resented these European +comparisons, and declared that America was good enough for her, clearly +intimating that a certain lack of patriotism, even a certain immorality, +attached to the admiration of foreign countries. She also told us +somewhat severely that the same stars, if not better, shone over America +as over any other country, and that American scenery was the finest in +the world--not to speak of the American climate. + +To all of which we bowed our heads in silence--but the frivolous, +European-minded Rosalind who had got us into this trouble retorted with a +grave face: "Wouldn't you just love, dear Miss----, to walk from +Hackensack to Omaha?" + +Another voice was kind enough to explain for our encouragement that the +traveller found in a place exactly what he brought there, and that +romance was a personal gift, all in the personal point of view. + +"A sort of cosmetic you apply to the face of Nature," footnoted our +irrepressible friend. + +Still another reminded us that "to travel hopefully is a better thing +than to arrive," and still another strongly advised us to carry +revolvers. + +So, taking with us our maps and much good advice, we bade farewell to our +friends, and walked back to our camp under the stars--the same stars that +were shining over Constantinople. + +The next day, when all our preparations were complete, the shack swept +and garnished, and our knapsacks bulging in readiness for the road, Colin +took his brushes, and in a few minutes had decorated one of the walls +with an Autumn sunset--a sort of memorial tablet to our Summer, he +explained. + +"Can't you think up a verse to put underneath?" he asked. + +Then underneath he lettered: + +_Two lovers of the Sun and of the Moon, + Lovers of Tree and Grass and Bug and Bird, +Spent here the Summer days, then all too soon +Upon the homeward track reluctant fared. + +Sun-up, October 1, 1908._ + +Some apples remained over from our larder. We carefully laid them outside +for the squirrels; then, slinging our knapsacks, we took a last look +round the little place, and locked the door. + +Our way lay up the hill, across the pasture and through the beeches, +toward the sky-line. + +We stood still a moment, gazing at the well-loved landscape. Then we +turned and breasted the hill. + +"_Allons_!" cried Colin. + +"_Allons_!" I answered. "_Allons_! To New York!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AMERICAN BLUEBIRD AND ITS SONG + + +I wish I could convey the singular feeling of freedom and adventure that +possessed us as Colin and I grasped our sticks and struck up the green +hill--for New York. It was a feeling of exhilaration and romantic +expectancy, blent with an absurd sense of our being entirely on our own +resources, vagrants shifting for ourselves, independent of civilization; +which, of course, the actual circumstances in no way warranted. A +delightful boyish illusion of entering on untrodden paths and facing +unknown dangers thrilled through us. + +"Well, we're off!" we said simultaneously, smiling interrogatively at +each other. + +"Yes! we're in for it." + +So men start out manfully for the North Pole. + +Our little enterprise gave us an imaginative realization of the +solidarity, the interdependence, of the world; and we saw, as in a +vision, its four corners knit together by a vast network of paths +connecting one with the other; footpaths, byways, cart-tracks, +bride-paths, lovers' lanes, highroads, all sensitively linked in one vast +nervous system of human communication. This field whose green sod we were +treading connected with another field, that with another, and that again +with another--all the way to New York--all the way to Cape Horn! No break +anywhere. All we had to do was to go on putting one foot before the +other, and we could arrive anywhere. So the worn old phrase, "All roads +lead to Rome," lit up with a new meaning, the meaning that had originally +made it. Yes! the loneliest of lovers' lanes, all silence and wild +flowers, was on the way to the Metropolitan Opera House; or, vice versa, +the Flat Iron Building was on the way to the depths of the forest. + +"Suppose we stop here, Colin," I said, pointing to a solitary, +forgotten-looking little farmhouse, surrounded by giant wind-worn poplars +that looked older than America, "and ask the way to Versailles?" + +"And I shouldn't be surprised," answered Colin, "if we struck some bright +little American schoolgirl who could tell us." + +Although we as yet knew every foot of the ground we were treading, it +already began to wear an unfamiliar houseless and homeless look, an air +of foreign travel, and though the shack was but a few yards behind us, it +seemed already miles away, wrapped in lonely distance, wistfully +forsaken. Everything we looked at seemed to have gained a new importance +and significance; every tree and bush seemed to say, "So many miles to +New York," and we unconsciously looked at and remarked on the most +trifling objects with the eye of explorers, and took as minute an +interest in the usual bird and wayside weed as though we were engaged in +some "flora and fauna" survey of untrodden regions. + +"That's a bluebird," said Colin, as a faint pee-weeing came with a thin +melancholy note from a telegraph wire. And we both listened attentively, +with a learned air, as though making a mental note for some +ornithological society in New York. "Bluebird seen in Erie County, +October 1, 1908!" So might Sir John Mandeville have noted the occurrence +of birds of paradise in the domains of Prester John. + +"That's a silo," said Colin, pointing to a cylindrical tower at the end +of a group of barns, from which came the sound of an engine surrounded by +a group of men, occupied in feeding it with trusses of corn from a +high-piled wagon. "They are laying in fodder for the Winter." Interesting +agricultural observation! + +In the surrounding fields the pumpkins, globes of golden orange, lay +scattered among the wintry-looking corn-stalks. + +"Bully subject for a picture!" said Colin. + +Before we had gone very far, we did stop at a cottage standing at a +puzzling corner of cross-roads, and asked the way, not to Versailles, +indeed, but to--Dutch Hollow. We were answered by a good-humoured German +voice belonging to an old dame, who seemed glad to have the lonely +afternoon silence broken by human speech; and we were then, as often +afterward, reminded that we were not so far away from Europe, after all; +but that, indeed, in no small degree the American continent was the map +of Europe bodily transported across the sea. For the present our way lay +through Germany. + +Dutch Hollow! The name told its own story, and it had appealed to our +imaginations as we had come upon it on the map. + +We had thought we should like to see how it looked written in trees and +rocks and human habitations on the page of the landscape. And I may say +that it was such fanciful considerations as this, rather than any more +business-like manner of travel, that frequently determined the route of +our essentially sentimental journey. If our way admitted of a choice of +direction, we usually decided by the sound of the name of village or +town. Thus the sound of "Wales Center" had taken us, we were told, a mile +or two out of our way; but what of that? We were not walking for a +record, nor were we road-surveying, or following the automobile route to +New York. In fact, we had deliberately avoided the gasoline route, +choosing to be led by more rustic odours; and thus our wayward wayfaring +cannot be offered in any sense as a guide for pedestrians who may come +after us. Any one following our guidance would be as liable to arrive at +the moon as at New York. In fact, we not infrequently inquired our way of +a bird, or some friendly little dog that would come out to bark a +companionable good day to us from a wayside porch. + +As a matter of fact, I had inquired the way of the bluebird mentioned a +little while back, and it may be of interest--to ornithological +societies--to transcribe his answer: + +_The way of dreams--the bluebird sang-- + Is never hard to find +So soon as you have really left + The grown-up world behind; + +So soon as you have come to see + That what the others call +Realities, for such as you, + Are never real at all; + +So soon as you have ceased to care + What others say or do, +And understand that they are they, + And you--thank God--are you. + +Then is your foot upon the path, + Your journey well begun, +And safe the road for you to tread, + Moonlight or morning sun. + +Pence of this world you shall not take, + Yea! no provision heed; +A wild-rose gathered in the wood + Will buy you all you need. + +Hungry, the birds shall bring you food, + The bees their honey bring; +And, thirsty, you the crystal drink + Of an immortal spring. + +For sleep, behold how deep and soft + With moss the earth is spread, +And all the trees of all the world + Shall curtain round your bed. + +Enchanted journey! that begins + Nowhere, and nowhere ends, +Seeking an ever-changing goal, + Nowhither winds and wends. + +For destination yonder flower, + For business yonder bird; +Aught better worth the travelling to + I never saw or heard. + +O long dream-travel of the soul! + First the green earth to tread-- +And still yon other starry track + To travel when you're dead_. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DUTCH HOLLOW + + +The day had opened with a restless picturesque morning of gusty sunshine +and rolling clouds. There was something rich and stormy and ominous in +the air, and a soft rainy sense of solemn impending change, at once +brilliant and mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, +as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on +their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen +creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by evening, and its +mysterious presage had prompted Colin to the furnishing of our knapsacks +with water-proof cloaks, which, as the afternoon wore on, seemed more and +more a wise provision. But the rain still held off, contenting itself +with threatening phantasmagoria of cloud, moulding and massing like +visible thunder in our wake. It seemed leisurely certain, however, of +catching us before nightfall; and, sure enough, as the light began to +thicken, and we stood admiring its mountainous magnificence--vast billows +of plum-coloured gloom, hanging like doomsday over a stretch of haunted +orchard--the great drops began to patter down. + +Surely the sky is the greatest of all melodramatists. Nothing short of +the cataclysmal end of the world could have provided drama to match the +stupendous stage-setting of that stormy sky. All doom and destiny and +wrath of avenging deities and days of judgment seemed concentrated in +that frown of gigantic darkness. Beneath it the landscape seemed to grow +livid as a corpse, and terror to fill with trembling the very trees and +grasses. Oedipus and Orestes and King Lear rolled into one could hardly +have accounted for that angry sky. Such a sky it must have been that +carried doom to the cities of the plain. And, after all, it was only +Colin and I innocently making haste to Dutch Hollow! + +That Teutonic spot seemed hopelessly far away as the rain began to drive +down and the horizon to open here and there in lurid slashings of stormy +sunset; and when the road, which for some time had been one long descent, +suddenly confronted us with a rough, perpendicular lane, overgrown with +bushes, that seemed more like a cart-track to the stars than a sensible +thoroughfare, we realized, with a certain indignant self-pity, that we +were walking in real earnest, out in the night and the storm, far from +human habitation. + +"Nature cannot be so absurd," said I, "as to expect us to climb such a +road on such an evening! She must surely have placed a comfortable inn in +such a place as this, with ruddy windows of welcome, and a roaring fire +and a hissing roast." But, alas! our eyes scanned the streaming copses in +vain--nothing in sight but trees, rain and a solitary saw-mill, where an +old man on a ladder assured us in a broken singsong, like the +Scandinavian of the Middle West, that indeed Nature did mean us to climb +that hill, and that by that road only could we reach the Promised Land of +supper and bed. + +And the rain fell and the wind blew, and Colin and I trudged on through +the murk and the mire, I silently recalling and commenting on certain +passages in certain modern writers in praise of walking in the rain. At +last the hill came to an end--we learned afterward that it was a good +mile high--and we stumbled out on to some upland wilderness, unlit by +star or window. Then we found ourselves descending again, and at last dim +shapes of clustered houses began to appear, and the white phantom of a +church. We could rather feel than see the houses, for the night was so +dark, and, though here was evidently a village, there was no sign of a +light anywhere, not so much as a bright keyhole; nothing but hushed, +shuttered shapes of deeper black in the general darkness. So English +villages must have looked, muffled up in darkness, at the sound of the +Conqueror's curfew. + +"Surely, they can't all be in bed by seven o'clock?" I said. + +"There doesn't seem much to stay up for," laughed Colin. + +At length we suspected, rather than saw, a gleam of light at the rear of +one of the shrouded shapes we took for houses, and, stumbling toward it, +we heard cheerful voices, German voices; and, knocking at a back door, +received a friendly summons to enter. Then, out of the night that covered +us, suddenly sprang a kitchen full of light and a family at supper, kind +German folk, the old people, the younger married couple, and the +grandchildren, and a big dog vociferously taking care of them. A lighted +glimpse, a few hearty words of direction, and we were out in the night +again; for though, indeed, this was Dutch Hollow, its simple microcosm +did not include an hotel. For that we must walk on another half-mile or +so. O those country half-miles! So on we went again, and soon a lighted +stoop flashed on our right. At last! I mounted the steps of a veranda, +and, before knocking, looked in at the window. Then I didn't knock, but +softly called Colin, who was waiting in the road, and together we looked +in. At a table in the centre of a barely furnished, brightly-lit room, an +old woman and a young man were kneeling in prayer. Colin and I stood a +moment looking at them, and then softly took the road again. + +But the inn, or rather the "hotel," did come at last. Alas! however, for +dreams of ruddy welcome--rubicund host, and capon turning on the spit. In +spite of German accents, we were walking in America, after all. A +shabbily-lit glass door admitted us into a dreary saloon bar, where a +hard-featured, gruff-mannered young countryman, after serving beer to two +farm-labourers, admitted with apparent reluctance that beds were to be +had by such as had "the price," but that, as to supper, well! supper was +"over"--supper-time was six-thirty; it was now seven-thirty. The young +man seemed no little surprised, even indignant, that any one should be +ignorant of the fact that supper-time at Sheldon Center was half-past +six; and this, by the way, was a surprise we encountered more than once +on our journey. Supper-time in the American road-house is an hour +severely observed, and you disregard it at the peril of your empty +stomach, for no larders seem so hermetically sealed as the larders of +American country hotels after the appointed hour, and no favour so +impossible to grant as even a ham sandwich, if you should be so much a +stranger to local ordinances as to expect it after the striking of the +hour. Indeed, you are looked on with suspicion for asking, as something +of a tramp or dangerous character. Not to know that supper-time at +Sheldon Center was half-past six seemed to argue a sinister disregard of +the usages of civilization. + +As we ruefully contemplated a supperless couch, a comely young woman, who +had been looking us over from a room in the rear of the bar, came +smilingly forward and volunteered to do the best she could for us. She +was evidently the rough fellow's wife, goddess of the kitchen, and final +court of appeal. What a difference a good-natured, good-looking woman +makes in a place! 'Tis a glimpse into the obvious, but there are +occasions on which such commonplaces shine with a blessed radiance, and +the moment when our attractive hostess flowered out upon us from her +forbidding background was one of them. With her on our side, we forgot +our fears, and, with an assured air, asked her husband to show us to our +rooms. Lamp in hand, he led us up staircases and along corridors--for the +hotel was quite a barracks--thawing out into conversation on the way. The +place, he explained, was a little out of order, owing to "the ball"--an +event he referred to as a matter of national knowledge, and being, we +understood, the annual ball of harvesting. The fact of the lamps not +burning properly, and there being no water or towels in our rooms, was +due, he explained, to this disorganizing festival; as also the +circumstance of our doors having no knobs to them. "The young fellows at +the ball did carry on so," he said, chuckling with reminiscence of that +orgiastic occasion. The Sheldon Center gallants were evidently the very +devil; and those vanished door-knobs provoked pictures in our minds of +Lupercalian revels, which, alas! we had come too late to share. + +We should have found anything good that our hostess cared to set before +us--so potent a charm is amiability--and I am sure no man need wish for a +better supper than the fried eggs and fried potatoes which copiously +awaited us down-stairs. As Colin washed his down with coffee, like a true +Franco-American, and I washed down mine with English breakfast tea, we +pulled out our pipes and smiled contentment at each other. + +"Shall we have a chapter of the wisdom of Paragot before bed?" I said, +and, going to our small, carefully selected knapsack library, I found the +gay-hearted fantastical book we had promised to read together on our +wayfaring; and so the day drew to a good end. + +Over the head of my bed hung a highly-coloured reproduction of Leonardo's +"Last Supper," and stuck in its frame was a leaf of blessed palm--by +which tokens I realized that my slumbers were to be under the wing of the +ancient Mother. As I closed my eyes, the musical chime of a great bell, +high up somewhere in the outer night, fell in benediction upon the +darkness. So I fell asleep in Europe, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +WHERE THEY SING FROM MORNING TILL NIGHT + + +I awoke to the same silvery salutation, and the sound of country boots +echoing across farm-yard cobble-stones. A lantern flashing in and out +among barns lit up my ceiling for a moment, a rough country voice hailed +another rough country voice somewhere outside, and the day slowly coughed +and sneezed itself awake in the six-o'clock grayness. I heard Colin +moving in the next room, and presently we were down-stairs, alertly +hungry. Our hostess, with morning smile, asked if we would mind waiting +breakfast for "the boarders." Meanwhile, we stepped out into the +unfolding day, and the village that had been a mystery to us in the +darkness was revealed; a handful of farmhouses on the brow of a +solitary-looking upland, and, looming over all, a great cathedral-like +church that seemed to have been transported bodily from France. Stepping +out to say good-morning to some young pigs that were sociably grunting in +a neighbouring sty, we beheld the vast landscape of our preceding day +stretched out beneath us, mistily emerging into the widening sunrise. +With pride our eyes traced the steep white road we had so arduously +travelled, and, for remembrance, Colin made a swift sketch of Dutch +Hollow huddled down there in the valley, with its white church steeple +catching the morning sun. And, by this, "the boarders" had assembled, and +we found ourselves at breakfast in a cheery company of three workmen, who +were as bright and full of fun as boys out for a holiday. They were +presently joined by a fourth, a hearty, middle-aged man, who, as he sat +down, greeted us with: + +"I feel just like singing this morning." + +"Good for you!" said one of us. "That's the way to begin the day." His +good nature was magnetic. + +"Yes," he laughed, "we sing in Sheldon from morning till night." + +"Sheldon's evidently a good place to know," I said. "I will make a note +of that for New Yorkers." + +So, reader, sometimes when the world seems all wrong, and life a very +doubtful speculation, you may care to know of a place where the days go +so blithely that men actually sing from morning till night! Sheldon +Center is that place. You can find it on any map, and I can testify that +the news is true. + +And the men that thus sang from morning till night--what was the trade +they worked and sang at? + +We gathered from a few dropped words that they were engaged on some work +over at the church--masonry, no doubt--and, as they left the +breakfast-table, in a laughing knot, to begin the day's work, they +suggested our giving a look in at them on our way. This we promised to +do, for a merrier, better-hearted lot of fellows it would be hard to +find. To meet them was to feel a warm glow of human comradeship. Healthy, +normal, happy fellows, enjoying their work as men should, and taking life +as it came with sane, unconscious gusto; it was a tonic encounter to be +in their company. + +They were grave-diggers, engaged in renovating the village churchyard! + +Yes! and, said our hostess, they were making it like a garden! It had +been long neglected and become disgracefully overgrown with weeds and +bushes, but now they were trimming it up in fine style. They were +cemetery experts from Batavia way, and the job was to cost sixteen +hundred dollars. But it was worth it, for indeed they were making it look +like a garden! + +Presently we stepped over to the churchyard. We should not have been +human if we had not advanced with a Hamlet-Horatio air: "Has this fellow +no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?" We found our +four friends in a space of the churchyard from which the tombstones had +been temporarily removed, engaged, not with mattock and death's head, but +with spirit-level and measuring-cord. They were levelling a stretch of +newly-turned and smoothed ground, and they pointed with pride to the +portion of the work already accomplished, serried rows of spick-and-span +headstones, all "plumb," as they explained, and freshly scraped--not a +sign of caressing moss or a tendril of vine to be seen. A neat job, if +there ever was one. We should have seen the yard before they had taken it +in hand! There wasn't a stone that was straight, and the weeds and the +brambles--well, look at it now. We looked. Could anything be more refined +or in more perfect taste? The churchyard was as smooth and correct as a +newly-barbered head, not a hair out of place. We looked and kept our +thoughts to ourselves, but we wondered if the dead were really as +grateful as they should be for this drastic house-cleaning? Did they +appreciate this mathematical uniformity, this spruce and spotless +residential air of their numbered rectangular rest; or was not the old +way nearer to their desire, with soft mosses tucking them in from the +garish sun, and Spring winds spreading coverlets of wild flowers above +their sleep? + +But--who knows?--perhaps the dead prefer to be up-to-date, and to follow +the fashion in funeral furnishings; and surely such expert necropolitans +as our four friends ought to know. No doubt the Sheldon Center dead would +have the same tastes as the Sheldon Center living; for, after all, we +forget, in our idealization of them, that the dead, like the living, are +a vast _bourgeoisie_. Yes! it is a depressing thought--the _bourgeoisie_ +of the dead! + +As we stood talking, the young priest of the parish joined our group. He +was a German, from Düsseldorf, and his worn face lit up when he found +that Colin had been at Düsseldorf and could talk with him about it. As +he stood with us there on that bleak upland, he seemed a pathetic, +symbolic figure, lonely standard-bearer of the spirit in one of the +dreary colonies of that indomitable church that carries her mystic +sacraments even into the waste places and borders of the world. The +romance of Rome was far away beyond that horizon on which he turned his +wistful look; here was its hard work, its daily prose. But he turned +proudly to the great pile that loomed over us. We had commented on its +size in so remote a parish. + +"Yes, I am proud of our people," he said. "It is greatly to their +credit." One could not help silently wondering that the spiritual needs +of this handful of lonely houses should demand so ambitious a structure. +But the symbols of the soul can never be too impressive. Then we said +good-bye to our friends, and struck out into the morning sunshine, +leaving the village of song behind. + +Yes! in Sheldon Center they sing from morning till night--at +grave-making! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +APPLE-LAND + + +It was a spacious morning of windswept sunshine, with a wintry bite in +the keen air. Meadow-larks and song-sparrows kept up a faint warbling +about us, but the crickets, which yesterday had here and there made a +thin music, as of straggling bands of survivors of the Summer, were +numbed into silence again. Once or twice we caught sight of the dainty +snipe in the meadows, and high over the woods a bird-hawk floated, as by +some invisible anchorage, in the sky. It was an austere landscape, grave +with elm and ash and pine. For a space, a field of buckwheat standing in +ricks struck a smudged negroid note, but there was warmth in the apple +orchards which clustered about the scattered houses, with piles of golden +pumpkins and red apples under the trees. And is there any form of +piled-up wealth, bins of specie at the bank, or mountains of precious +stones, rubies and sapphires and carbuncles, as we picture them in the +subterranean treasuries of kings, that thrills the imagination with so +dream-like a sense of uncounted riches, untold gold, as such natural +bullion of the earth; pyramids of apples lighting up dark orchards, great +plums lying in heaps of careless purple, corridors hung with fabulous +bunches of grapes, or billowy mounds of yellow grain--the treasuries of +Pomona and Vertumnus? Such treasuries, in the markets of this world, are +worth only a modest so-much-a-bushel, yet I think I should actually feel +myself richer with a barrel of apples than with a barrel of money. + +From a corn-growing country, we were evidently passing into a country +whose beautiful business was apples. Orchards began more or less to line +the road, and wagons with those same apple-barrels became a feature of +the highway. + +Another of its features was the number of old ruined farmhouses we came +on, standing side by side with the new, more ambitious homesteads. We +seldom came on a prosperous-looking house but a few yards away was to be +seen its aged and abandoned parent, smothered up with bushes, roof fallen +in, timbers ready to collapse, the deserted hearth choked with débris and +overgrown with weeds--the very picture of a haunted house. Here had been +the original home, always small, seldom more than four rooms, and when +things had begun to prosper, a more spacious, and often, to our eyes, a +less attractive, structure had been built, and the old home left to the +bats and owls, with a complete abandonment that seemed to us--sentimental +travellers as we were--as cynical as it was curiously wasteful. + +Putting sentiment out of the question, we had to leave unexplained why +the American farmer should thus allow so much good building material to +go to waste. Besides, as we also noted much farm machinery rusting +unhoused in the grass, we wondered why he did not make use of these old +buildings for storage purposes. But the American farmer has puzzled wiser +heads than ours, so we gave it up and turned our attention once more to +our own fanciful business, one highly useful branch of which was the +observation of the names on the tin letter-boxes thrusting themselves out +at intervals along the road. + +The history of American settlement could, I suppose, be read in those +wayside letter-boxes, in such names, for instance, as "Theo. Leveque" and +"Paul Fugle," which, like wind-blown exotics from other lands, we found +within a few yards of each other. One name, that of "Silvernail," we +decided could only lawfully belong to a princess in a fairy tale. Such +childishness as this, I may say, is of the essence of a walking trip, in +which, from moment to moment, you take quite infantile interest in all +manner of idle observation and quite useless lore. That is a part of the +game you are playing, and the main thing is that you are out in the open +air, on the open road, with a simple heart and a romantic appetite. + +Here is a little picture of a wayfaring day which I made while Colin was +sketching one of those ruined farms: + +_Apples along the highway strewn, + And morning opening all her doors; +The cawing rook, the distant train, + The valley with its misty floors; + +The hillside hung with woods and dreams, + Soft gleams of gossamer and dew; +From cockcrow to the rising moon + The rainbowed road for me and you. + +Along the highroad all the day + The wagons filled with apples go, +And golden pumpkins and ripe corn, + And all the ruddy overflow + +From Autumn's apron, as she goes + About her orchards and her fields, +And gathers into stack and barn + The treasure that the Summer yield. + +A singing heart, a laughing road, + With salutations all the way,-- +The gossip dog, the hidden bird, + The pig that grunts a gruff good-day; + +The apple-ladder in the trees, + A friendly voice amid the boughs, +The farmer driving home his team, + The ducks, the geese, the uddered cows; + +The silver babble of the creek, + The willow-whisper--the day's end, +With murmur of the village street, + A called good-night, an unseen friend_. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ORCHARDS AND A LINE FROM VIRGIL + + +Orchards! We were walking to New York--through orchards. And we might +have gone by train! A country of orchards and gold-dust sunshine falling +through the quaint tapestry trees, falling dreamily on heaped-up gold, +and the grave backs of little pigs joyously at large in the apple +twilight. A drowsy, murmuring spell was on the land, the spell of fabled +orchards, and of old enchanted gardens-- + +_In the afternoon they came unto a land +In which it seemed always afternoon_-- + +the country of King Alcinous. At intervals, as we walked on through the +cider-dreamy afternoon, thinking apples, smelling apples, munching +apples, there came a mellow sound like soft thunder through the trees. It +was the thunder of apples being poured into barrels, and, as in a sleep, +the fragrant wagons passed and repassed along the road--"the slow-moving +wagons of our lady of Eleusis." + +That line of Virgil came to me, as lines will sometimes come in fortunate +moments, with the satisfaction of perfect fitness to the hour and the +mood, gathering into one sacred, tear-filled phrase the deep sense that +had been possessing me, as we passed the husbandmen busy with the various +harvest, of the long antiquity of these haunted industries of the earth. + +So long, so long, has man pursued these ancient tasks; so long ago was +he urging the plowshare through the furrow, so long ago the sower went +forth to sow; so long ago have there been barns and byres, granaries and +threshing-floors, mills and vineyards; so long has there been milking of +cows, and herding of sheep and swine. Can one see a field of wheat +gathered into sheaves without thinking of the dream of Joseph, or be +around a farm at lambing time without smiling to recall the cunning of +Jacob? Already were all these things weary and old and romantic when +Virgil wrote and admonished the husbandman of times and seasons, of +plows and harrows, of mattocks and hurdles, and the mystical winnowing +fan of Iacchus. + +To the meditative, romantic mind, the farmer and plowman, standing thus +in the foreground of the infinite perspective of time, take on a sacred +significance, as of traditional ministers of the ancient mysteries of +the earth. + +Perhaps it is one's involuntary sense of this haunted antiquity that +gives its peculiar expressiveness to the solemn, almost religious quiet +of barns and stables, the, so to say, prehistoric hush of brooding, +sun-steeped rickyards; and gives, too, a homely, sacerdotal look to the +implements and vessels of the farm. A churn or a cheese-press gives one +the same deep, uncanny thrill of the terrible vista of time as Stonehenge +itself; and from such implements, too, there seems to breathe a sigh--a +sigh of the long travail and unbearable pathos of the race of men. + +You will thus see the satisfaction, in moods of such meditation, of +carrying in one's knapsack a line from Virgil--"the slow-moving wagons of +our Lady of Eleusis"--and I congratulated myself on my forethought in +having included in our itinerant library a copy of Mr. Mackail's +beautiful translation of "The Georgics." Walt Whitman, talking to one of +his friends about his habit of carrying a book with him on his nature +rambles, said that nine times out of ten he would never open the book, +but that the tenth time he would need it very badly. So I needed "The +Georgics" very badly that afternoon, and the hour would have lost much of +its perfection had I not been able to take the book from my knapsack, and +corroborate my mood, while Colin was sketching an old barn, by reading +aloud from its consecrated pages: + +"_I can repeat to thee many a counsel of them of old, if thou shrink not +back nor weary to learn of lowly cares. Above all must the +threshing-floor be levelled with the ponderous roller, and wrought by +hand and cemented with clinging potter's clay, that it may not gather +weeds nor crack in the reign of dust, and be playground withal for +manifold destroyers. Often the tiny mouse builds his house and makes his +granaries underground, or the eyeless mole scoops his cell; and in chinks +is found the toad, and all the swarming vermin that are bred in earth; +and the weevil, and the ant that fears a destitute old age, plunder the +great pile of spelt_." + +Perhaps some reader had been disposed hastily to say: "What did you want +with hooks out of doors? Was not Nature enough?" No one who loves both +books and Nature would ask that question, or need to have explained why a +knapsack library is a necessary adjunct of a walking-tour. + +For Nature and books react so intimately on each other, and, far more +than one realizes without thought, our enjoyment of Nature is a creation +of literature. For example, can any one sensitive to such considerations +deny that the meadows of the world are greener for the Twenty-third +Psalm, or the starry sky the gainer in our imagination by the solemn +cadences of the book of Job? All our experiences, new and personal as +they may seem to us, owe incalculably their depth and thrill to the +ancestral sentiment in our blood, and joy and sorrow are for us what they +are, no little because so many old, far-away generations of men and women +have joyed and sorrowed in the same way before us. Literature but +represents that concentrated sentiment, and satisfies through expression +our human need for some sympathetic participation with us in our human +experience. + +That a long-dead poet walking in the Spring was moved as I am by the +unfolding leaf and the returning bird imparts an added significance to my +own feelings; and that some wise and beautiful old book knew and said it +all long ago, makes my life seem all the more mysteriously romantic for +me to-day. Besides, books are not only such good companions for what they +say, but for what they are. As with any other friend, you may go a whole +day with them, and not have a word to say to each other, yet be happily +conscious of a perfect companionship. The book we know and love--and, of +course, one would never risk taking a book we didn't know for a +companion--has long since become a symbol for us, a symbol of certain +moods and ways of feeling, a key to certain kingdoms of the spirit, of +which it is often sufficient just to hold the key in our hands. So, a +single flower in the hand is a key to Summer, a floating perfume the key +to the hidden gardens of remembrance. The wrong book in the hand, whether +opened or not, is as distracting a presence as an irrelevant person; and +therefore it was with great care that I chose my knapsack library. It +consisted of these nine books: + +Mackail's "Georgics." +Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. +Shakespeare's Sonnets. +Locke's "Beloved Vagabond." +Selections from R.L.S. +Pater's "Marius the Epicurean." +Alfred de Musset's "Premières Poésies." +Baedeker's "United States." +Road Map of New York State. + +And, though my knapsack already weighed eighteen pounds, I could not +resist the call of a cheap edition of Wordsworth in a drug-store at +Warsaw, a charming little town embosomed among hills and orchards, where +we arrived, dreamy with country air, at the end of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FELLOW WAYFARERS + + +With the morn our way still lay among apples and honey, hives and +orchards; a land of prosperous farms, sumptuous rolling downs, rich +woodland, sheep, more pigs, more apple-barrels and velvety sunshine. The +old ruined houses had ceased, and the country had taken on a more +generous, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed aspect. Nature was preparing for +one of her big Promised Land effects. We were coming to the valley of the +Genesee River. We made a comparison of two kinds of prosperity in the +look of a landscape. Some villages and farms suggest smugness in their +prosperity. They have a model-farm, business-like, well-regulated, +up-to-date, company-financed air, suggesting such modern agricultural +terms as "ensilage," "irrigation" and "fertilizer." Other villages and +farms, while just as well-kept and well-to-do, have, so to say, a +something romantic about their prosperity, a bounteous, ruddy, golden-age +look about them, as though Nature herself had been the farmer and they +had ruddied and ripened out of her own unconscious abundance--the +difference between a row of modern box beehives and the old +thatched-cottage kind. The countryside of the Genesee valley has the +romantic prosperous look. Its farms and villages look like farms and +villages in picture-books, and the country folk we met seemed happy and +gay and kind, such as those one reads of in William Morris's romances of +the golden age. As from time to time we exchanged greetings with them, we +were struck with their comely health and blithe ways--particularly with +their fine teeth, as they laughed us the time of day, or stopped their +wagons to gossip a moment with the two outlandish packmen--the very teeth +one would expect in an apple-country. Perhaps they came of so much sweet +commerce with apples! + +The possessor of a particularly fine display hailed us as he drove by in +an empty wagon, at the tail of which trailed a long orchard ladder, and +asked us if we would care for a lift. Now it happened that his +suggestion came like a voice from heaven for poor Colin, one of whose +shoes had been casting a gloom over our spirits for several miles. So we +accepted with alacrity, and, really, riding felt quite good for a +change! Our benefactor was a bronzed, handsome young fellow, just +through Cornell, he told us, and proud of his brave college, as all +Cornell men are. He had chosen apple-farming for his career, and, +naturally, seemed quite happy about it; lived on his farm near by with +his mother and sister, and was at the moment out on the quest of four +apple-packers for his harvesting, these experts being at a premium at +this season. We rattled along gaily in the broad afternoon sunshine, +exchanging various human information, from apple-packing to New York +theatres, after the manner of the companionable soul of man, and I hope +he liked us as well as we liked him. + +One piece of information was of particular interest to Colin, the +whereabouts of one "Billy the Cobbler," a character of the neighbourhood, +who would fix Colin's shoe for him, and, incidentally, if he was in the +mood, give us a musical and dramatic entertainment into the bargain. + +At length our ways parted, and, with cheery good-byes and good wishes, +our young friend went rattling along, leaving in our hearts a warm +feeling of the brotherhood of man--sometimes. He had let us down close by +the "High Banks," the rumour of which had been in our ears for some +miles, and presently the great effect Nature had been preparing burst on +our gaze with a startling surprise. The peaceful pastoral country was +suddenly cloven in twain by a gigantic chasm, the Genesee River, dizzy +depths below, picturesquely flowing between Grand Cañon rock effects, +shaggy woods clothing the precipitous limestone, and small forests +growing far down in the broad bed of the river, with here and there +checkerboard spaces of cultivated land, gleaming, smooth and green, amid +all the spectacular savageness--soft, cozy spots of verdure nestling +dreamily in the hollow of the giant rocky hand. The road ran close to the +edge of the chasm, and the sublimity was with us, laying its hush upon +us, for the rest of the afternoon. Appropriate to her Jove-like mood, +Nature had planted stern thickets of oak-trees along the rocky edge, and +"the acorns of our lord of Chaonia" crunched beneath our feet as we +walked on. + +After a while, sure enough we came upon "Billy the Cobbler," seated at +his bench in a little shop at the beginning of a straggle of houses, +alone, save for his cat, at the sleepy end of afternoon. We had +understood that he had been crippled in some cruel accident of machinery, +and was hampered in the use of his legs. But, unless in a certain +philosophic sweetness on his big, happy face, there was no sign of the +cripple about his burly, broad-shouldered personality. He was evidently +meant to be a giant, and was what one might call the bo'sun type, bluff, +big-voiced and merry, with a boyish laugh, large, twinkling eyes, a +trifle wistful, and the fine teeth of the district. + +"Well, boys," said he, looking up from his work with a smile, "and what +can I do for you? Walking, eh?--to New York!" and he whistled, as every +one did when they learned our mysterious business. + +Then, taking Colin's shoe in his hand, he commenced to pound upon that +instrument of torture, talking gaily the while. Presently he asked, "Do +you care about music?" and on our eagerly agreeing that we did, "All +right," he said, "we'll close the shop for a few minutes and have some." + +Then, moving around on his seat, like some heroic half-figure bust on its +pedestal, he rummaged among the litter of leather and tools at his side, +and produced a guitar from its baize bag, also a mouth organ, which by +some ingenious wire arrangement he fastened around his neck, so that he +might press his lips upon it, leaving his hands free for the guitar. + +Then, "Ready?" said he, and, applying himself simultaneously to the +guitar and the harmonica, off he started with a quite electrical gusto +into a spirited fandango that made the little shop dance and rattle with +merriment. You would have said that a whole orchestra was there, such a +volume and variety of musical sound did Billy contrive to evoke from his +two instruments. + +"There!" he said, with a humorous chuckle, pushing the harmonica aside +from his mouth, "what do you think of that for an overture?" He had +completely hypnotized us with his infectious high spirits, and we were +able to applaud him sincerely, for this lonely cobbler of shoes was +evidently a natural well of music, and was, besides, no little of an +executant. + +"Now I'll give you an imitation of grand opera," he said; and then he +launched into the drollest burlesque of a fashionable tenor and a +prima-donna, as clever as could be. He was evidently a born mime as well +as a musician, and presently delighted us with some farmyard imitations, +and one particularly quaint impersonation, "an old lady singing with +false teeth," sent us into fits of laughter. + +"You ought to go into vaudeville," we both said spontaneously, with that +vicious modern instinct to put private gifts to professional uses, and +then Billy, with shy pride, admitted that he did do a little now and +again in a professional way at harvest balls (we thought of Sheldon +Center) and the like. + +"Perhaps you might like one of my professional letter-heads," he said, +handing us one apiece. I think probably the reader would like one, too. +You must imagine it in the original, with fancy displayed professional +type, regular "artiste" style, and a portrait of Billy, with his two +instruments, in one corner. And "see thou mock him not," gentle reader! + +_King of Them All +BILLY WILLIAMS +THE KING OF ALL IMITATORS +Producing in Rapid Succession +A GRAND REPERTOIRE +of Imitations and Impersonations +Consisting of_: + +Minstrel Bands, Circus Bands, Killing +Pigs, Cat Greeting Her Kitten, Barn-Yard +of Hens and Roosters, Opera +Singers with Guitar, Whistling with +Guitar, Old Lady Singing with False +Teeth, Cow and Calf, Harmonica with +the Guitar, Arab Song, Trombone Solo +with the Guitar. + +Yes! "See thou mock him not," gentle reader, for Billy is no subject for +any man's condescension. We were in his company scarcely an hour, but we +went away with a great feeling of respect and tenderness for him, and we +hope some day to drop in on him again, and hear his music and his quaint, +manly wisdom. + +"All alone in the world, Billy?" + +A shade of sadness passed over his face, and was gone again, as he +smilingly answered, stroking the cat that purred and rubbed herself +against his shoulder. + +"Just puss and me and the guitar," he said. "The happiest of families. +Ah! Music's a great thing of a lonely evening." + +And a sense of the brave loneliness of Billy's days swept over me as we +shook his strong hand, and he gave us a cheery godspeed on our way. I am +convinced that Billy could earn quite a salary on the vaudeville stage; +but--no! he is better where he is, sitting there at his bench, with his +black cat and his guitar and his singing, manly soul. + +The twilight was rapidly thickening as we left Billy, once more bent over +his work, and, the fear of "supper-time" in our hearts, we pushed on at +extra speed toward our night's lodging at Mount Morris. The oak-trees +gloomed denser on our right as we plowed along a villainously sandy road. +Labourers homing from the day's work greeted us now and again in the +dimness, and presently one of these, plodding up behind us, broke forth +into conversation: + +"Ben-a carry pack-a lik-a dat-a--forty-two months--army--ol-a country," +said the voice out of the darkness. + +It was an Italian labourer on his way to supper, interested in our +knapsacks. + +"You're an Italian?" + +"Me come from Pal-aer-mo." + +The little chap was evidently in a talkative mood, and I nudged Colin to +do the honours of the conversation. + +"Pal-aer-mo? Indeed!" said Colin. "Fine city, I guess." + +"Been-a Pal-aer-mo?" asked the Italian eagerly. Colin couldn't say +that he had. + +"Great city, Pal-aer-mo," continued our friend, "great theatre--cost +sixteen million dollars." + +There is nothing like a walking-trip for gathering information of +this kind. + +The Italian went on to explain that this country was a poor substitute +for the "ol-a country." + +"This country--rough country. In this country me do rough-a work," he +explained apologetically; "in Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work." + +And he accentuated his statement by a vicious side spit upon the +American soil. + +It transpired that the "polit-a work" on which he had been engaged in +Pal-aer-mo had been waiting in a restaurant. + +And so the poor soul chattered on, touching, not unintelligently, in his +absurd English, on American politics, capital and labour, the rich and +the poor. The hard lot of the poor man in America, and--"Pal-aer-mo," +made the recurring burden of his talk, through which, a pathetic +undertone, came to us a sense of the native poetry of his race. + +Did he ever expect to return to Palermo? we asked him as we parted. "Ah! +many a night me dream of Pal-aer-mo," he called back, as, striking into a +by-path, he disappeared in the darkness. + +And then we came to a great iron bridge, sternly silhouetted in the +sunset. On either side rose cliffs of darkness, and beneath, like sheets +of cold moonlight, flowed the Genesee, a Dantesque effect of jet and +silver, Stygian in its intensity and indescribably mournful. The banks of +Acheron can not be more wildly _funèbre_, and it was companionable to +hear Colin's voice mimicking out of the darkness: + +"In this country me do rough-a work. In Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work!" + +"Poor chap!" I said, after a pause, thinking of our friend from +Pal-aer-mo. "Do you know Hafiz, Colin?" I continued. "There is an ode of +his that came back to me as our poor Italian was talking. I think I will +say it to you. It is just the time and place for it." + +"Do," said Colin. And then I repeated: + +_"At sunset, when the eyes of exiles fill, + And distance makes a desert of the heart, +And all the lonely world grows lonelier still, + I with the other exiles go apart, +And offer up the stranger's evening prayer. + My body shakes with weeping as I pray, +Thinking on all I love that are not there, + So desolately absent far away-- +My Love and Friend, and my own land and home. + O aching emptiness of evening skies! +O foolish heart, what tempted thee to roam + So far away from the Beloved's eyes! +To the Beloved's country I belong-- + I am a stranger in this foreign place; +Strange are its streets, and strange to me its tongue; + Strange to the stranger each familiar face. +'Tis not my city! Take me by the hand, + Divine protector of the lonely ones, +And lead me back to the Beloved's land-- + Back to my friends and my companions +O wind that blows from Shiraz, bring to me + A little dust from my Beloved's street; +Send Hafiz something, love, that comes from thee, + Touched by thy hand, or trodden by thy feet."_ + +"My! but that makes one feel lonesome," was Colin's comment. "I wonder if +there will be any mail from the folk at Mount Morris." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE OLD LADY OF THE WALNUTS AND OTHERS + + +What manner of men we were and what our business was, thus wandering +along the highroads with packs on our backs and stout sticks in our +hands, was matter for no little speculation, and even suspicion, to the +rural mind. We did not seem to fit in with any familiar classification of +vagabond. We might be peddlers, or we might be "hoboes," but there was a +disquieting uncertainty about us, and we felt it necessary occasionally +to make reassuring explanations. Once or twice we found no opportunity to +do this, as, for instance, one sinister, darksome evening, we stood in +hesitation at a puzzling cross-road--near Dansville, I think--and awaited +the coming of an approaching buggy from which to ask the way. It was +driven by two ladies, who, on our making a signal of distress to them, +immediately whipped up with evident alarm, and disappeared in a flash. +Dear things! they evidently anticipated a hold-up, and no doubt arrived +home with a breathless tale of two suspicious-looking characters hanging +about the neighbourhood. + +On another occasion, we had been seated awhile under a walnut tree +growing near a farm, and scattering its fruitage half across the +highroad. Colin had been anointing his suffering foot, and, as I told +him, looked strongly reminiscent of a certain famous corn-cure +advertisement. Meanwhile, I had been once more quoting Virgil: "The +walnut in the woodland attires herself in wealth of blossom and bends +with scented boughs," when there approached with slow step an old, +white-haired lady, at once gentle and severe in appearance, accompanied +by a younger lady. When they had arrived in front of us, the old lady in +measured tones of sorrow rather than anger, said: "We rather needed those +walnuts--" Dear soul! she evidently thought that we had been filling +our knapsacks with her nuts, and it took some little astonished +expostulation on our part to convince her that we hadn't. This affront +seemed to sink no little into Colin's sensitive Latin soul--and they were +public enough walnuts, anyway, scattered, as they were, across the public +road! But Colin couldn't get over it for some time, and I suspected that +he was the more sensitive from his recently--owing, doubtless, to his +distinguished Gallic appearance--having been profanely greeted by some +irreverent boys with the word "Spaghetti!" However, there was balm for +our wounded feelings a little farther along the road, when a +companionable old farmer greeted us with: + +"Well, boys! out for a walk? It's easy seeing you're no tramps." + +Colin's expression was a study in gratitude. The farmer was a fine, +soldierly old fellow, who told me that he was half English, too, on his +father's side. + +"But my mother," he added, "was a good blue-bellied Yankee." + +We lured him on to using that delightfully quaint expression again before +we left him; and we also learned from him valuable information as to the +possibilities of lunch farther along the road, for we were in a lonely +district with no inns, and it was Sunday. + +In regard to lunch, I suppose that in prosaically paying our way for bed +and board as we fared along we fell short of the Arcadian theory of +walking-tours in which the wayfarer, like a mendicant friar, takes toll +of lunch and dinner from the hospitable farmer of sentimental legend, and +sleeps for choice in barns, hayricks or hedgesides. Now, sleeping out of +doors in October, if you have ever tried it, is a very different thing +from sleeping out of doors in June, and as for rural hospitality--well, +if you are of a sensitive constitution you shrink from obtruding +yourself, an alien apparition, upon the embarrassed and embarrassing +rural domesticities. Besides, to be quite honest, rural table-talk, +except in Mr. Hardy's novels or pastoral poetry, is, to say the least, +lacking in variety. Indeed, if the truth must be told, the conversation +of country people, generally speaking, and an occasional, very +occasional, character or oddity apart, is undeniably dull, and I hope it +will not be imputed to me for hardness of heart that, after some +long-winded colloquy or endless reminiscence, sententious and trivial, I +have thought that Gray's famous line should really have been +written--"the long and tedious annals of the poor." + +But my heart smites me with ingratitude toward some kindly memories as I +write that--memories of homely welcome, simple and touching and +dignified. Surely I am not writing so of the genial farmer on whom we +came one lunch hour as he was stripping corn in his yard. + +"Missus," he called to the house a few yards away, "can you find any +lunch for two good-looking fellows here?" + +The housewife came to the door, scanned us for a second, and replied in +the affirmative. As we sat down to table, our host bowed his head and +said a simple grace for the bacon and cabbage, pumpkin-pie, cheese and +tea we were about to receive; and the unexpected old-fashioned rite, too +seldom encountered nowadays, came on me with a fresh beauty and +impressiveness, which made me feel that its discontinuance is a real loss +of gracious ritual in our lives, and perhaps even more. Thus this simple +farmer's board seemed sensitively linked with the far-away beginnings of +time. Of all our religious symbolism, the country gods and the gods of +the hearth and the household seem actual, approachable presences, and the +saying of grace before meat was a beautiful, fitting reminder of that +mysterious, invisible care and sustenance of our lives, which no longer +find any recognition in our daily routine: _Above all, worship thou the +gods, and bring great Ceres her yearly offerings_. + +Another such wayside meal and another old couple live touchingly in our +memories. We were still in the broad, sun-swept valley of the Genesee, +our road lying along the edge of the wide, reed-grown flats and +water-meadows, bounded on the north by rolling hills. On our left hand, +parallel with the road, ran a sort of willowed moat banked by a +grass-grown causeway, a continuous narrow mound, somewhat higher than the +surrounding country, and cut through here and there with grass-grown +gullies, the whole suggesting primeval earthworks and excavations. So the +old Roman roads run, grassy and haunted and choked with underbrush, in +the lonelier country districts of England. We were curious as to the +meaning of this causeway, and learned at length that here was all that +remained of the old Genesee Canal. Thirty years ago, this moat had +brimmed with water, and barges had plied their sleepy traffic between +Dansville and Rochester. But the old order had changed, and a day had +come when the dike had been cut through, the lazy water let out into the +surrounding flats, and the old waterway left to the willows and the +wild-flowers, the mink and the musk-rat. Only thirty years ago--yet +to-day Nature has so completely taken it all back to herself that the +hush of a long-vanished antiquity is upon it, and the turfy burial mound +of some Hengist and Horsa could not be more silent. + +This old fosse seemed to strike the somewhat forgotten, out-of-the-world +note of the surrounding country. Picturesque to the eye, with bounteous +green prospects and smooth, smiling hills, it was not, we were told, as +prosperous as it looked. For some vague reason, the tides of agricultural +prosperity had ebbed from that spacious sunlit vale. A handsome old +trapper, who sat at his house door smoking his pipe and looking across +the green flats, set down the cause to the passing of the canal. Ah, yes! +it was possible for him, thirty years ago, to make the trip to Rochester +and back by the canal, and bring home a good ten dollars; but now--well, +every one in the valley was poor, except the man whose beehives we had +seen on the hillside half-a-mile back. He had made no less than a +thousand dollars out of his honey this last season. He was an old +bachelor, too, like himself. There were no less than five bachelors in +the valley--five old men without a woman to look after them. + +"--or bother them," the old chap added humorously, relighting his pipe. +Mrs. Mulligan, half a mile farther up the valley, was the only woman +thereabouts; and she, by the way, would give us some lunch. We could say +that he had sent us. + +So we left the old trapper to his pipe and his memories, and went in +search of Mrs. Mulligan. Presently a poor little house high up on the +hillside caught our eye, and we made toward it. As we were nearing the +door, a dog, evidently not liking our packs, sprang out at us, and from +down below in the marshy flats floated the voice of a man calling to us. + +"Get out o' that!" hailed the voice. "There's nothing there for you." + +Poor Colin! We were evidently taken for tramps once more. + +However, undaunted by this reception, we reached the cottage door, and at +our knock appeared a very old, but evidently vigorous, woman. + +"Is this Mrs. Mulligan's house?" + +Her name on the lips of two strangers brought a surprised smile to her +face--a pleasant feeling of importance, even notoriety, no doubt--and she +speedily made us welcome, and, with many apologies, set before us the +cold remains of lunch which had been over an hour or two ago--cold +squash, pumpkin pie, cheese and milk. It was too bad we were late, for +they had had a chicken for dinner, and had sent the remains of it to a +friend down the road,--our trapper, no doubt,--and if the fire hadn't +gone out she would have made us some tea. Now, cold squash is not exactly +an inflammatory diet, but we liked the old lady so much, she had such a +pleasant, motherly way with her, and such an entertaining, wise and even +witty tongue, that we decided that cold squash, with her as hostess, was +better than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. + +Presently the door opened and the good man entered, he who had called to +us from the marsh--a tall, emaciated old man, piteously thin, and old, +and work-weary to look on, but with a keen, bright eye in his head, and +something of a proud air about his ancient figure. It seemed cruel to +think of his old bones having still to go on working, but our two old +people, who seemed pathetically fond of each other, were evidently very +poor, like the rest of the valley. The old man excused himself for his +salutation of us--but there were so many dangerous characters about, and +the old folk shook their heads and told of the daring operations of +mysterious robbers in the neighbourhood. In their estimation, the times +were generally unsafe, and lawless characters rife in the land. We looked +around at the pathetic poverty of the place--and wondered why they should +disquiet themselves. Poor souls! there was little left to rob them of, +save the fluttering remnants of their mortal breath. But, poor as they +were, they had their telephone,--a fact that struck us paradoxically in +many a poor cabin as we went along. Yes! had they a mind, they could +call up the White House, that instant, or the Waldorf-Astoria. + +We spoke of our old trapper, and the old lady smiled. + +"Those are his socks I've been darning for him," she said. So the cynical +old bachelor was taken care of by the good angel, woman, after all! + +Trapping was about all there was to do now in the valley, she said. A +mink brought seven dollars, a musk-rat thirty cents. Our old bachelor had +made as much as eighteen dollars in two days--one day several years ago. +The old man had told us this himself. It was evidently quite a piece of +history in the valley, quite a local legend. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN AT DANSVILLE + + +At Dansville we fell in with a man after our own hearts. Fortunately for +himself and his friends, he is unaware of the simple fact that he is a +poet. We didn't tell him, either--though we longed to. He was standing +outside his prosperous-looking planing-mill, at about half-past eight of +a dreaming October morning. Inside, the saws were making that droning, +sweet-smelling, sawdust noise that made Colin think of "Adam Bede." The +willows and button-wood trees at the back of the workshops were still +smoking with sunlit mist, and the quiet, massive, pretty water looked +like a sleepy mirror, as it softly flooded along to its work on the big, +dripping wheels. + +To our left a great hill, all huge and damp, glittering with gossamers, +and smelling of restless yellow leaves, shouldered the morning sky. + +Then, turning away from talk with three or four workmen, standing at his +office door, he saluted the two apparitional figures, so oddly passing +along the muddy morning road. + +"Out for a walk, boys?" he called. + +He was a handsome man of about forty-three, with a romantic scar slashed +down his left cheek, a startling scar that must have meant hideous agony +to him, and yet, here in the end, had made his face beautiful, by the +presence in it of a spiritual conquest. + +"How far are you walking?--you are not going so far as my little river +here, I'll bet--" + +And then we understood that we were in the presence of romantic +conversation, and we listened with a great gladness. + +"Yes! who would think that this little, quiet, mill-race is on her way to +the Gulf of Mexico!" + +We looked at the little reeded river, so demure in her morning mists, so +discreet and hushed among her willows, and in our friend's eyes, and by +the magic of his fanciful tongue, we saw her tripping along to dangerous +conjunctions with resounding rock-bedded streams, adventurously taking +hands with swirling, impulsive floods, fragrant with water-flowers and +laden with old forests, and at length, through the strange, starlit +hills, sweeping out into some moonlit estuary of the all-enfolding sea. + +"Aren't you glad we walked, Colin?" I said, a mile or two after. "You +are, of course, a great artist; but I don't remember you ever having a +thought quite so fine and romantic as that, do you?" + +"How strange it must be," said Colin, after a while, "to have +beauty--beautiful thoughts, beautiful pictures--merely as a recreation; +not as one's business, I mean. And the world is full of people who have +no need to sell their beautiful thoughts!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH WE CATCH UP WITH SUMMER + + +Some eminent wayfarers--one peculiarly beloved--have discoursed on the +romantic charm of maps. But they have dwelt chiefly on the suggestiveness +of them before the journey: these unknown names of unknown places, in +types of mysteriously graduated importance--what do they stand for? These +mazy lines, some faint and wayward as a hair, and some straight and +decided as a steel track--whence and whither do they lead? I love the map +best when the journey is done--when I can pore on its lines as into the +lined face of some dear friend with whom I have travelled the years, and +say--here this happened, here that befell! This almost invisible dot is +made of magic rocks and is filled with the song of rapids; this +infinitesimal fraction of "Scale five miles to the inch" is a haunted +valley of purple pine-woods, and the moon rising, and the lonely cry of a +sheep that has lost her little one somewhere in the folds of the hills. +Here, where is no name, stands an old white church with a gilded cross, +among little white houses huddled together under a bluff. In yonder +garden the priest's cassock and trousers are hanging sacrilegiously on a +clothes-line, and you can just see a tiny graveyard away up on the +hillside almost hidden in the trees. + +Even sacred vestments must be laundered by earthly laundresses, yet +somehow it gives one a shock to see sacred vestments out of the +sanctuary, profanely displayed on a clothes-line. It is as though one +should turn the sacred chalice into a tea-pot. A priest's trousers on a +clothes-line might well be the beginning of atheism. But I hope there +were no such fanciful deductive minds in that peaceful hamlet, and that +the faithful there can withstand even so profound a trial of faith. If it +had been my own creed that those vestments represented, I should have +been shaken, I confess; and, as it was, I felt a vague pain of +disillusionment, of an indignity done to the unseen; as, whatever the +creed, living or dead, may be, I always feel in those rooms often +affected by artistic people, furnished with the bric-a-brac of religions, +indeed not their own, but, none the less, once or even now, the living +religions of other people--rooms in which forgotten, or merely foreign, +deities are despitefully used for decoration, and a crucifix and a Buddha +and an African idol alike parts of the artistic furniture. But, no doubt, +it is to consider too curiously to consider so, and the good priest whose +cassock and trousers have occasioned these reflections would smilingly +prick my fancies, after the dialectic manner of his calling, and say that +his trousers on the clothes-line were but a humble reminder to the +faithful how near to the daily life of her children, how human at once as +well as divine, is Mother Church. + +A cross, naturally, marks the spot where we saw those priest's trousers +on the line; but there are no crosses for a hundred places of memorable +moments of our journey; they must go without memorial even in this humble +record, and Colin and I must be content to keep wayside shrines for them +in our hearts. + +How insignificant, on the map, looks the little stretch of some seventeen +miles from Dansville to Cohocton, yet I feel that one would need to erect +a cathedral to represent the perfect day of golden October wayfaring it +stands for, as on the weather-beaten map spread out before me on my +writing-table, as Colin and I so often spread it out under a tree by some +lonely roadside, I con the place-names that to us "bring a perfume in the +mention." It was a district of quaint, romantic-sounding names, and it +fully justified that fantastic method of choosing our route by the sound +of the names of places, which I confessed to the reader on an earlier +page: Wayland--Patchin's Mills--Blood's Depôt--Cohocton. And to north and +south of our route were names such as Ossian, Stony Brook Glen, Loon +Lake, Rough & Ready, Doly's Corners, and Neil Creek. I confess that there +was a Perkinsville to go through--a beautiful spot, too, for which one +felt that sort of aesthetic pity one feels for a beautiful girl married +to a man, say, of the name of Podgers. Perkinsville! It was as though you +said--the beautiful Mrs. Podgers. But there was consolation in the sound +of Wayland, with its far call to Wayland's smithy and Walter Scott. +And--Cohocton! The name to me had a fine Cromwellian ring; and Blood's +Depôt--what a truculent sound to that!--if you haven't forgotten the +plumed dare-devil cavalier who once made a dash to steal the king's +regalia from the Tower. Again--Loon Lake. Can you imagine two more +lonesome wailing words to make a picture with? But--Cohocton. How oddly +right my absurd instinct had been about that--and, shall we ever forget +the unearthly beauty of the evening which brought us at dark to the +quaint little operatic-looking village, deep and snug among the solemn, +sleeping hills? + +The day had been one of those days that come perhaps only in +October--days of rich, languorous sunshine full of a mysterious +contentment, days when the heart says, "My cup runneth over," and happy +tears suddenly well to the eyes, as though from a deep overflowing sense +of the goodness of God. It was really Summer, with the fragrant mists of +Autumn in her hair. It had happened as we had hoped on starting out. We +had caught up with Summer on her way to New York, Summer all her golden +self, though garlanded with wreaths of Autumn, and about her the swinging +censers of burning weeds. + +It was a wonderful valley we had caught her in, all rolling purple hills +softly folding and unfolding in one continuous causeway; a narrow valley, +and the hills were high and close and gentle, suggesting protection and +abundance and never-ending peace. Here and there the vivid green of +Winter wheat struck a note of Spring amid all the mauves and ochres of +dying things. + +It was a day on which you had no wish to talk,--you were too +happy,--wanted only to wander on and on as in a dream through the mellow +vale--one of those days in which the world seems too good to be true, a +day of which we feel, "This day can never come again." It was like +walking through the Twenty-third Psalm. And, as it closed about us, as we +came to our village at nightfall, and the sunshine, like a sinking lake +of gold, grew softer and softer behind the uplands, the solid world of +rock and tree, and stubble-field and clustered barns, seemed to be +growing pure thought--nothing seemed left of it but spirit; and the hills +had become as the luminous veil of some ineffable temple of the +mysterious dream of the world. + +"Puvis de Chavannes!" said Colin to me in a whisper. + +And later I tried to say better what I meant in this song: + +_Strange, at this still enchanted hour, + How things in daylight hard and rough, +Iron and stone and cruel power, + Turn to such airy, starlit stuff! + +Yon mountain, vast as Behemoth, + Seems but a veil of silver breath; +And soundless as a flittering moth, + And gentle as the face of death, + +Stands this stern world of rock and tree + Lost in some hushed sidereal dream-- +The only living thing a bird, + The only moving thing a stream. + +And, strange to think, yon silent star, + So soft and safe amid the spheres-- +Could we but see and hear so far-- + Is made of thunder, too, and tears._ + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CONTAINING VALUABLE STATISTICS + + +And the morning was like unto the evening. Summer was still to be our +companion, and, as the evening of our coming to Cohocton had been the +most dreamlike of all the ends of our walking days--had, so to say, been +most evening-spiritual, so the morning of our Cohocton seemed most +morning-spiritual of all our mornings, most filled with strange hope and +thrill and glitter. We were afoot earlier than usual. The sun had hardly +risen, and the shining mists still wreathed the great hill which +overhangs the village. We were for calling it a mountain, but we were +told that it lacked fifty feet of being a mountain. You are not a +mountain till you grow to a thousand feet. Our mountain was only some +nine hundred and fifty feet. Therefore, it was only entitled to be called +a hill. I love information--don't you, dear reader?--though, to us +humble walking delegates of the ideal, it was all one. But I know for +certain that it was a lane of young maples which made our avenue of +light-hearted departure out of the village, though I cannot be sure of +the names of all the trees of the thick woods which clothed the hillside +beneath which our road lay, a huge endless hillside all dripping and +sparkling, and alive with little rills, facing a broad plain, a sea of +feathery grass almost unbearably beautiful with soft glittering dew and +opal mists, out of which rose spectral elms, like the shadows of gigantic +Shanghai roosters. All about was the sound of brooks musically rippling +from the hills, and there was a chaste chill in the air, as befitted the +time of day, for + +_Maiden still the morn is, and strange she is, and secret, +Her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells_. + +It was all so beautiful that an old thought came back to me that I often +had as a child, when I used to be taken among mysterious mountains, for +Summer holidays: Do people really live in such beautiful places all the +year round? Do they live there just like ordinary people in towns, go +about ordinary businesses, live ordinary lives? It seemed to me then, as +it seems to me still, that such places should be kept sacred, like +fairyland, or should, at least, be the background of high and romantic +action, like the scenery in operas. To think of a valley so beautiful as +that through which we were walking being put to any other use than that +of beauty seems preposterous; but do you know what that beautiful valley +was doing, while Colin and I were thus poetizing it, adoring its +outlines and revelling in its tints? It was just quietly growing +potatoes. Yes! we had mostly passed through the apple country. This +garden of Eden, this Vale of Enna, was a great potato country. And we +learned, too, that its inhabitants were by no means so pleased with +beautiful Cohoctori Valley as we were. Here, we gathered, was another +beautiful ne'er-do-well of Nature, too occupied with her good looks to be +fit for much else than prinking herself out with wild-flowers, and +falling into graceful attitudes before her mirror--and there were mirrors +in plenty, many streams and willows, in Cohocton Valley; everywhere, for +us, the mysterious charm of running water. Once this idle daughter of +Ceres used to grow wheat, wheat "in great plenty," but now she could be +persuaded to grow nothing but potatoes. + +All this and much more we learned from a friend who drew up beside us in +a buggy, as I was drinking from a gleaming thread of water gliding down a +mossed conduit of hollowed tree-trunks into an old cauldron sunk into the +hillside, and long since turned in ferns and lichen. Colin was seated +near by making a sketch, as I drank. + +"I wouldn't drink too much of that water, lads," said the friendly voice +of the dapper little intelligent-faced man in the buggy. + +What! not drink this fairy water? + +"Why, you country folk are as afraid of fresh water as you are of fresh +air," I answered, laughing. + +"All right, it's up to you--but it's been a dry Summer, you know." + +And then the little man's attention was taken by Colin. + +"Sketching?" he asked, and then he said, half shyly, "Would you mind my +taking a look how you do it?" and, climbing down from his buggy, he came +and looked over Colin's shoulder. "I used to try my hand at it a bit when +I was a boy, but those blamed trees always beat me ... don't bother you +much, seemingly though," he added, as he watched Colin's pencil with the +curiosity of a child. + +"I've a little girl at home who does pretty well," he continued after a +moment, "but you've certainly got her skinned. I wish she could see you +doing it." + +His delight in a form of skill which has always been as magical to me as +it seemed to him, was charmingly boyish, and Colin turned over his +sketch-book, and showed him the notes he had made as we went along. One +of a stump fence particularly delighted him--those stump fences made out +of the roots of pine trees set side by side, which had been a feature of +the country some miles back, and which make such a weird impression on +the landscape, like rows of gigantic black antlers, or many-armed Hindoo +idols, or a horde of Zulus in fantastic war-gear drawn up in +battle-array, or the blackened stumps of giants' teeth--Colin and I tried +all those images and many more to express the curious weird effect of +coming upon them in the midst of a green and smiling landscape. + +"Well, lads," he said, after we had talked awhile, "I shall have to be +going. But you've given me a great deal of pleasure. Can't I give you a +lift in exchange? I guess there is room for the three of us." + +Now Colin and I, on the occasion of our ride with the apple-farmer, +awhile back, had held subtle casuistical debate on the legitimacy of men +ostensibly, not to say ostentatiously, on foot to New York picking up +chance rides in this way. The argument had gone into pursuit of very fine +distinctions, and almost rivalled in its casuistry the famous old Duns +Scotus--or was it Thomas Aquinas?--debate as to how many angels can dance +on the point of a needle. Once we had come to a deadlock as to the kind +of vehicle from which it was proper to accept such hospitality. Perhaps +it was a Puritan scrupulousness in my blood that had made me take the +stand that four-wheeled vehicles, such as wagons, hay-carts and the like, +being slow-moving, were permissible, but that buggies, or any form of +rapid two-wheeled vehicle, were not. To this Colin had retorted that, on +that basis, a tally-ho would be all right, or even an automobile. So the +argument had wrestled from side to side, and finally we had compromised. + +We agreed that an occasional buggy would be within the vagabond law and +that any vehicle, other, of course, than an automobile, which was not +plying for hire--such as a trolley or a local train--might on occasion be +gratefully climbed into. + +Thus it was that we hesitated a moment at the offer of our friend, a +hesitancy we amused him by explaining as, presently, conscience-clear, we +rattled with him through the hills. He was an interesting talker, a +human-hearted, keen-minded man, and he had many more topics as well as +potatoes. Besides, he was not in the potato business, but, as with our +former friend, his beautiful business was apples. Still, he talked very +entertainingly about potatoes; telling us, among other things, that, so +friendly was the soil toward that particular vegetable that it yielded as +much as a hundred to a hundred and fifty bushels to the acre, and that a +fair-sized potato farm thereabouts, properly handled, would pay for +itself in a year. I transcribe this information, not merely because I +think that, among so many words, the reader is fairly entitled to expect +some little information, but chiefly for the benefit of a friend of mine, +the like of whom, no doubt, the reader counts among his acquaintances. +The friend I mean has a mind so quaintly voracious of facts that, often +when we have been dining together at one of the great hotels, he would +speculate, say, looking round the room filled with eager diners, on how +many clams are nightly consumed in New York City, or how many millions +of fresh eggs New York requires each morning for breakfast. So when next +I dine with him I will say, as he asks me about my trip: + +"Do you know that in the Cohocton Valley they raise as much as one +hundred to one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes to the acre?" And +he will say: + +"You don't really mean to say so?" + +I have in my private note-book much more such tabulated information which +I picked up and hoarded for his entertainment, just as whenever a letter +comes to me from abroad, I tear off the stamp and save it for a little +girl I love. + +But, as I said, our friend in the buggy was by no means limited to +potatoes for his conversation. He was learned in the geography of the +valley and told us how once the Cohocton River, now merely a decorative +stream among willows, was once a serviceable waterway, how it was once +busy with mills, and how men used to raft down it as far as Elmira. + +But "the springs were drying up." I liked the mysterious sound of that, +and still more his mysterious story of an undercurrent from the Great +Lakes that runs beneath the valley. I seemed to hear the sound of its +strange subterranean flow as he talked. Such is the fun of knowing so +little about the world. The simplest fact out of a child's geography thus +comes to one new and marvellous. + +Well, we had to say good-bye at last to our friend at a cross-road, and +we left him learnedly discussing the current prices of apples with a +business acquaintance who had just driven up--Kings, Rambos, Baldwins, +Greenings, and Spigs. And, by the way, in packing apples into barrels, +you must always pack them--stems down. Be careful to remember that. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A DITHYRAMBUS OF BUTTEEMILK + + +One discovery of some importance you make in walking the roads is the +comparative rarity and exceeding preciousness of buttermilk. We had, as I +said, caught up with Summer. Summer, need one say, is a thirsty +companion, and the State seemed suddenly to have gone dry. We looked in +vain for magic mirrors by the roadside, overhung with fairy grasses, +littered with Autumn leaves, and skated over by nimble water-bugs. As our +friend had said, the springs seemed to have dried up. Now and again we +would hail with a great cry a friendly pump; once we came upon a +cider-mill, but it was not working, and time and again we knocked and +asked in vain for buttermilk. Sometimes, but not often, we found it. Once +we met a genial old man just leaving his farm door, and told him that we +were literally dying for a drink of buttermilk. Our expression seemed to +tickle him. + +"Well!" he said, laughing, "it shall never be said that two poor +creatures passed my door, and died for lack of a glass of buttermilk," +and he brought out a huge jug, for which he would accept nothing but our +blessings. He seemed to take buttermilk lightly; but, one evening, we +came upon another old farmer to whom buttermilk seemed a species of the +water of life to be hoarded jealously and doled out in careful quantities +at strictly market rates. + +In town one imagines that country people give their buttermilk to the +pigs. At any rate, they didn't give it to us. We paid that old man +twenty cents, for we drank two glasses apiece. And first we had knocked +at the farm door, and told our need to a pretty young woman, who +answered, with some hesitancy, that she would call "father." She seemed +to live in some awe of "father," as we well understood when a tall, +raw-boned, stern, old man, of the caricature "Brother Jonathan" type, +appeared grimly, making an iron sound with a great bunch of keys. On +hearing our request, he said nothing, but, motioning to us to follow, +stalked across the farmyard to a small building under a great elm-tree. +There were two steps down to the door, and it had a mysterious +appearance. It might have been a family vault, a dynamite magazine, or +the Well at the World's End. It was the strong-room of the milk; and, +when the grim old guardian of the dairy unlocked the door, with a sound +of rusty locks and falling bolts, there, cool and cloistral, were the +fragrant pans and bowls, the most sacred vessels of the farm. + +"_She bathed her body many a time +In fountains filled with milk_." + +I hummed to Colin; but I took care that the old man didn't hear me. And +we agreed, as we went on again along the road, that he did right to guard +well and charge well for so noble and so innocent a drink. Indeed, the +old fellow's buttermilk was so good that I think it must have gone to my +head. In no other way can I account for the following dithyrambic song: + +_Let whoso will sing Bacchus' vine, +We know a drink that's more divine; + +'Tis white and innocent as doves, +Fragrant and bosom-white as love's + +White bosom on a Summer day, +And fragrant as the hawthorn spray. + +Let Dionysus and his crew, +Garlanded, drain their fevered brew, + +And in the orgiastic bowl +Drug and besot the sacred soul; + +This simple country cup we drain +Knows not the ghosts of sin and pain, + +No fates or furies follow him +Who sips from its cream-mantled rim. + +Yea! all his thoughts are country-sweet, +And safe the walking of his feet, + +However hard and long the way-- +With country sleep to end the day. + +To drain this cup no man shall rue-- +The innocent madness of the dew + +Who shall repent, or frenzy fine +Of morning star, or the divine + +Inebriation of the hours +When May roofs in the world with flowers! + +About this cup the swallows skim, +And the low milking-star hangs dim + +Across the meadows, and the moon +Is near in heaven_--_the young moon; + +And murmurs sweet of field and hill +Loiter awhile, and all is still. + +As in some chapel dear to Pan, +The fair milk glimmers in the can, + +And, in the silence cool and white, +The cream mounts through the listening night; + +And, all around the sleeping house, +You hear the breathing of the cows, + +And drowsy rattle of the chain, +Till lo! the blue-eyed morn again_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A GROWL ABOUT AMERICAN COUNTRY HOTELS + + +Though Colin and I had been walking but a very few days, after the first +day or two it seemed as though we had been out on the road for weeks; as +though, indeed, we had spent our lives in the open air; and it needed no +more than our brief experience for us to realize what one so often reads +of those who do actually live their lives out-of-doors, gypsies, sailors, +cowboys and the like--how intolerable to them is a roof, and how +literally they gasp for air and space in the confined walls of cities. + +Bed in the bush with stars to see, +Bread I dip in the river-- + +There's the life for a man like me, +There's the life forever. + +The only time of the day when our spirits began to fail was toward its +close, when the shadows of supper and bed in some inclement inn began to +fall over us, and we confessed to each other a positive sense of fear in +our evening approach to the abodes of men. After a long, safe, care-free +day, in the company of liberating prospects and sweet-breathed winds, +there seemed a curious lurking menace in the most harmless village, as +well as an unspeakable irksomeness in its inharmonious interruption of +our mood. To emerge, saturated, body and soul, with the sweet scents and +sounds and sights of a day's tramp, out of the meditative leafiness and +spiritual temper of natural things, into the garishly lit street of some +little provincial town, animated with the clumsy mirth of silly young +country folks, aping so drearily the ribaldry, say, of Elmira, is a +painful anticlimax to the spirit. Had it only been real Summer, instead +of Indian Summer, we should, of course, have been real gypsies, and made +our beds under the stars, but, as it was, we had no choice. Or, had we +been walking in Europe ... yes, I am afraid the truth must out, and that +our real dread at evening was--the American country hotel. With the best +wish in the world, it is impossible to be enthusiastic over the American +country hotel. How ironically the kindly old words used to come floating +to me out of Shakespeare each evening as the shadows fell, and the lights +came out in the windows--"to take mine ease at mine inn;" and assuredly +it was on another planet that Shenstone wrote: + +_Whoe'er hath travelled life's dull round, +Whate'er his fortunes may have been, +Must sigh to think he still has found +His warmest welcome at an inn_. + +Had Shenstone been writing in an American country hotel, his tune would +probably have been more after this fashion: "A wonderful day has come to +a dreary end in the most sepulchral of hotels, a mouldy, barn-like place, +ill-lit, mildewed and unspeakably dismal. A comfortless room with two +beds and two low-power electric lights, two stiff chairs, an +uncompanionable sofa, and some ghastly pictures of simpering naked women. +We have bought some candles, and made a candlestick out of a soap-dish. +Colin is making the best of it with 'The Beloved Vagabond,' and I have +drawn up one of the chairs to a table with a mottled marble top, and am +writing this amid a gloom which you could cut with a knife, and which is +so perfect of its kind as to be almost laughable. But for the mail, which +we found with unutterable thankfulness at the post-office, I hardly dare +think what would have happened to us, to what desperate extremities we +might not have been driven, though even the possibilities of despair seem +limited in this second-hand tomb of a town...." + +Here Colin looks up with a wry smile and ironically quotes from the +wisdom of Paragot: "What does it matter where the body finds itself, so +long as the soul has its serene habitations?" This wail is too typical +of most of our hotel experiences. As a rule we found the humble, cheaper +hotels best, and, whenever we had a choice of two, chose the less +pretentious. + +Sometimes as, on entering a town or village, we asked some passer-by +about the hotels, we would be looked over and somewhat doubtfully asked: +"Do you want a two-dollar house?" And we soon learned to pocket our +pride, and ask if there was not a cheaper house. Strange that people +whose business is hospitality should be so inhospitable, and strange that +the American travelling salesman, a companionable creature, not averse +from comfort, should not have created a better condition of things. For +the inn should be the natural harmonious close to the day, as much a part +of the day's music as the setting sun. It should be the gratefully sought +shelter from the homeless night, the sympathetic friend of hungry +stomachs and dusty feet, the cozy jingle of social pipes and dreamy +after-dinner talk, the abode of snowy beds for luxuriously aching limbs, +lavendered sheets and pleasant dreams. + +But, as people without any humour usually say, "A sense of humour helps +under all circumstances"; and we managed to extract a great deal of fun +out of the rigours of the American country hotel. + +In one particularly inhospitable home of hospitality, for example, we +found no little consolation from the directions printed over the very +simple and familiar device for calling up the hotel desk. The device was +nothing more remarkable than the button of an ordinary electric bell, +which you were, in the usual way, to push once for bell-boy, twice for +ice-water, three times for chambermaid, and so on. However, the hotel +evidently regarded it as one of the marvels of advanced science and +referred to it, in solemnly printed "rules" for its use, as no less than +"The Emergency Drop Annunciator!" Angels of the Annunciation! what a +heavenly phrase! + +But this is an ill-tempered chapter--let us begin another. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ONIONS, PIGS AND HICKORY-NUTS + + +One feature of the countryside in which from time to time we found +innocent amusement was the blackboards placed outside farmhouses, on +which are written, that is, "annunciated," the various products the +farmer has for sale, such as apples, potatoes, honey, and so forth. On +one occasion we read: "Get your horses' teeth floated here." There was no +one to ask about what this mysterious proclamation meant. No doubt it was +clear as daylight to the neighbours, but to us it still remains a +mystery. Perhaps the reader knows what it meant. Then on another occasion +we read: "Onions and Pigs For Sale." Why this curious collocation of +onions and pigs? Colin suggested that, of course, the onions were to +stuff the pigs with. + +"And here's an idea," he continued. "Suppose we go in and buy a little +suckling-pig and a string of onions. Then we will buy a yard of two of +blue ribbon and tie it round the pig's neck, and you shall lead it along +the road, weeping. I will walk behind it, with the onions, grinning from +ear to ear. And when any one meets us, and asks the meaning of the +strange procession, you will say: 'I am weeping because our little pig +has to die!' And if any one says to me, 'Why are you grinning from ear to +ear?' I shall answer, 'Because I am going to eat him. We are going to +stuff him with onions at the next inn, and eat roast pig at the rising of +the moon.'" + +But we lacked courage to put our little joke into practice, fearing an +insufficient appreciation of the fantastic in that particular region. + +We were now making for Watkins, and had spent the night at Bradford, a +particularly charming village almost lost amid the wooded hills of +another lovely and spacious valley, through which we had lyrically walked +the day before. Bradford is a real country village, and was already all +in a darkness smelling of cows and apples, when we groped for it among +the woods the evening before. At starting out next morning, we inquired +the way to Watkins of a storekeeper standing at his shop-door. He was in +conversation with an acquaintance, and our questions occasioned a lively +argument as to which was the better of two roads. The acquaintance was +for the road through "Pine Creek," and he added, with a grim smile, "I +guess I should know; I've travelled it often enough with a heavy load +behind"; and the recollection of the rough hills he had gone bumping +over, all evidently fresh in his mind, seemed to give him a curious +amusement. It transpired that he was an undertaker! + +So we took the road to Pine Creek, but at the threshold of the village +our fancy was taken by the particularly quaint white wooden +meeting-house, surrounded on three sides with tie-up sheds for vehicles, +each stall having a name affixed to it, like a pew: "P. Yawger," "A.W. +Gillum," "Pastor," and so on. Here the pious of the district tied up +their buggies while they went within to pray, and these sacred stalls +made a quaint picture for the imagination of outlying farmers driving to +meeting over the hills on Sabbath mornings. + +It was a beautiful morning of veiled sunshine, so warm that some hardy +crickets chirped faintly as we went along. Once a blue jay came and +looked at us, and the squirrels whirred among the chestnuts and +hickories, and the roadsides were so thickly strewn with fallen nuts that +we made but slow progress, stopping all the time to fill our pockets. + +For a full hour we sat down with a couple of stones for nut-crackers, and +forgot each other and everything else in the hypnotizing occupation of +cracking hickory-nuts. And we told each other that thus do grown sad men +become boys again, by a woodside, of an October morning, cracking +hickory-nuts, the world well lost. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +OCTOBER ROSES AND A YOUNG GIRL'S FACE + + +The undertaker was certainly right about the road. I think he must have +had a flash of poetic insight into our taste in roads. This was not, as a +rule, understood by the friendly country folk. Their ideas and ours as to +what constituted a good road differed beyond the possibility of +harmonizing. When they said that a road was good they meant that it was +straight, level, and businesslike. When they said that a road was bad +they meant that it was rugged, rambling and picturesque. So, to their +bewilderment, whenever we had a choice of good or bad roads, we always +chose the bad. And, to get at what we really wanted, we learned to +inquire which was the worst road to such and such a place. That we knew +would be the road for us. From their point of view, the road we were on +was as bad as could be; but, as I said, the undertaker evidently +understood us, and had sent us into a region of whimsically sudden hills +and rock and wooded wilderness, a swart country of lonely, rugged +uplands, with but a solitary house here and there for miles. It was +resting at the top of one of these hard-won acclivities that we came +upon--and remember that it was the middle of October--two wild roses +blooming by the roadside. This seems a fact worthy the attention of +botanical societies, and I still have the roses pressed for the +inspection of the learned between the pages of my travelling copy of Hans +Andersen's "Fairy Tales." + +A fact additionally curious was that the bush on which the flowers grew +seemed to be the only rose-bush in the region. We looked about us in +vain to find another. How had that single rose-bush come to be, an +uncompanioned exotic, in the rough society of pines and oaks and +hickories, on a rocky hill-top swept by the North wind, and how had those +frail, scented petals found strength and courage thus to bloom alone in +the doorway of Winter? And, why, out of all the roses of the world, had +these two been chosen, still, so late in the year, to hold up the +tattered standard of Summer? + +_Why, in the empty Autumn woods, + And all the loss and end of things, +Does one leaf linger on the tree; + Why is it only one bird sings? + +And why, across the aching field, + Does one lone cricket chirrup on; +Why one surviving butterfly, + With all its bright companions gone? + +And why, when faces all about + Whiten and wither hour by hour, +Does one old face bloom on so sweet, + As young as when it was a flower_? + +The same mystery was again presented to us a little farther along the +road, as we stopped at a lone schoolhouse among the hills, the only house +to be seen, and asked our way of the young schoolmarm. The door had been +left half open, and, knocking, we had stepped into the almost empty +schoolroom, with its portrait of Lincoln and a map of the United States. +Three scholars sat there with their kindly-faced teacher, studying +geography amid the silence of the hills, which the little room seemed to +concentrate in a murmuring hush, like a shell. A little boy sat by +himself a desk or two behind two young girls, and as we entered, and the +studious faces looked up in surprise, we saw only the pure brows and the +great spiritual eyes of the older girl, almost a woman, and we thought of +the lonely roses we had found up on the hillside. Here was another rose +blooming in the wilderness, a face lovely and beautiful as a spring +reflecting the sky in the middle of a wood. How had she come there, that +beautiful child-woman in the solitude? By what caprice of the strange law +of the distribution of fair faces had she come to flower in this +particular waste place of the earth?--for her face had surely come a long +way, been blown blossom-wise on some far wandering wind, from realms of +old beauty and romance, and it had the exiled look of all beautiful +things. Could she be a plain farmer's daughter, indigenous to that +stubborn soil? No, surely she was not that, and yet--how had she come to +be there? But these were questions we could not put to the schoolmarm. +We could only ask our road, and the prosaic possibilities of lunch in the +neighbourhood, and go on our way. Nor could I press that rose among the +pages of my book--but, as I write, I wonder if it is still making sweet +that desolate spot, and still studying irrelevant geography in the +silence of the hills. + +However, we did learn something about our young human rose at a farmhouse +a mile or so farther on. While a motherly housewife prepared us some +lunch, all a-bustle with expectancy of an imminent inroad of harvesters +due to thresh the corn, and liable to eat all before them, a sprightly +young daughter, who attended the same school, and whom we had told about +our call at the schoolhouse, entertained us with girlish gossip of the +neighbourhood. So we learned that our fancies had not been so far wrong, +but that our beautiful young face had indeed come from as far as France, +the orphaned child of a French sailor and an English mother, come over +the seas for a home with a farmer uncle near by. Strange are the +destinies of beautiful faces. All the way from France to Pine Creek! Poor +little world-wandered rose! + +And while we ate our lunch, the mother had a sad, beautiful story of a +dead son and a mother's tears to tell us, too sacred to tell again. How +many beautiful faces there are hidden about the world, and how many +beautiful sad stories hidden in the broken hearts of mothers! + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONCERNING THE POPULAR TASTE IN SCENERY AND SOME HAPPY PEOPLE + + +We had somewhat scorned the idea of Watkins, as being one of Nature's +show-places. In fact, Watkins Glen is, so to say, so nationally beautiful +as latterly to have received a pension from the Government of the United +States, which now undertakes the conservation of its fantastic chasms and +waterfalls. Some one--I am inclined to think it was myself--once said +that he never wished to go to Switzerland, because he feared that the +Alps would be greasy with being climbed. I think it is clear what he +meant. To one who loves Nature for himself, has his own discovering eyes +for her multiform and many-mooded beauty, it is distasteful to have some +excursionist effect of spectacular scenery labelled and thrust upon him +with a showman's raptures; and, in revulsion from the hypocritical +admiration of the vulgar, he turns to the less obvious and less +melodramatic beauty of the natural world. The common eye can see Nature's +beauty only in such melodramatic and sentimental forms--dizzy chasms, +foaming waterfalls, snow-capped mountains and flagrant sunsets, just as +it can realize Nature's wildness of heart only in a menagerie. That a +squirrel or a meadow-lark, or even a guinea-pig, is just as wild as the +wild beasts in a travelling circus is outside the comprehension of the +vulgar, who really hunger after mere marvels, whatever they may be, and +actually have no eyes for beauty at all. + +Thus really sublime and grandiose effects of Nature are apt to lose their +edge for us by over-popularization, as many of her scenes and moods have +come to seem platitude from being over-painted. Niagara has suffered far +more from the sentimental tourist and the landscape artist than from all +the power-houses, and one has to make a strenuous effort of detachment +from its excursionist associations to appreciate its sublimity. + +Thus Colin and I discussed, in a somewhat bored way, whether we should +trouble to visit the famous Watkins Glen, as we sat over supper in a +Watkins hotel, one of the few really comfortable and cordial hotels we +met in our wanderings, and we smiled to think what the natives would have +made of our conversation. Two professional lovers of beauty calmly +discussing whether it was worth while walking half a mile to see one of +the natural, and national, wonders of America! Why, last season more than +half a million visitors kodaked it, and wrote their names on the face of +the rocks! However, a great natural effect holds its own against no +little vulgarization, and Watkins Glen soon made us forget the trippers +and the concrete footpaths and iron railings of the United States +government, in the fantasies of its weirdly channelled gorge and +mysterious busy water. + +Watkins itself, despite its name, is sufficiently favoured by Nature to +make an easy annual living, situated as it is at the south end of the +beautiful Seneca Lake, and at the head of a nobly picturesque valley some +twenty miles long, with a pretty river spreading out into flashing +reed-grown flats, sheer cliffs and minor waterfalls, here and there a +vineyard on the hillside, or the vivid green of celery trenches in the +dark loam of the hollows, all the way to--Elmira! The river and the +trolley run side by side the whole charming way, and, as you near +Elmira, you come upon latticed barns that waft you the fragrance of +drying tobacco-leaves, suspended longitudinally for the wind to play +through. On the morning of our leaving Watkins, we had been roused a +little earlier than usual by mirthful sounds in the street beneath our +hotel windows. Light-hearted voices joking each other floated up to us, +and some one out of the gladness of his heart was executing a spirited +shake-down on the sidewalk--at six o'clock of a misty October morning. +Looking out, we caught an endearing glimpse of the life of the most +lovable of all professions. It was a theatrical company that had played a +one-night stand at the local opera-house the evening before, and was now +once more upon its wandering way. They had certainly been up till past +midnight, but here they were, at six o'clock of the morning, merry as +larks, gay as children, waiting for the Elmira trolley. Presently the car +came clanging up, and alongside drew up a big float, containing baggage +and rolls of scenery--all of which, to our astonishment, by some miracle +of loading known only to baggagemen, was in a few moments stowed away +into the waiting car. When the last property was shipped, the conductor +rang his bell, by way of warning, and the whole group, like a flight of +happy birds, climbed chattering into the car. "All aboard," called the +conductor, once more ringing his bell, and off they went, leaving a trail +of laughter in the morning air. + +"'Beloved Vagabonds!'" said Colin, as we turned away, lonely, from our +windows, with, I hardly know why, a suspicion of tears in our eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE SUSQUEHANNA + + +Here for a while a shadow seemed to fall over our trip. No doubt it was +the shadow of the great town we were approaching. Not that we have +anything against Elmira, though possibly its embattled reformatory, +frowning from the hillside, contributed its gloomy associations to our +spirits. It was against towns in general that our gorge rose. Did our +vagabond ethics necessitate our conscientiously tramping every foot of +these "gritty paving-stones," we asked each other, as we entered upon a +region of depressing suburbs, and we called a halt on the spot to discuss +the point. The discussion was not long, and it was brought to a +cheerful, demoralized end by the approach of the trolley, into which, +regardless of right or wrong, we climbed with alacrity, not to alight +till not only Elmira was left behind, but more weary suburbs, too, on the +other side. That night, as old travellers phrase it, we lay at Waverly, +on the frontier of Pennsylvania, a sad, dirty little town, grotesquely +belying its romantic name, and only surpassed in squalor by the +classically named Athens--beware, reader, of American towns named out of +classical dictionaries! Here, however, our wanderings in the +brick-and-mortar wilderness were to end, for by a long, romantic, old, +covered bridge we crossed the Chemung River, and there once more, on the +other side, was Nature, lovelier than ever, awaiting us. Not Dante, when +he emerged from Hades and again beheld the stars, drew deeper breaths of +escape than we, thus escaping from--Athens! + +And soon we were to meet the Susquehanna--beautiful, broad-bosomed name, +that has always haunted my imagination like the name of some beautiful +savage princess--_La belle sauvage_. Susquehanna! What a southern +opulence in the soft, seductive syllables! Yes, soon we were to meet the +Susquehanna. Nor had we long to wait, and little did we suspect what our +meeting with that beautiful river was to mean. + +The Chemung, on whose east bank we were now walking, seemed a noble +enough river, very broad and all the more picturesque for being +shallow with the Summer drought; and its shining reaches and wooded +banks lifted up our hearts. She, like ourselves, was on her way to +join the Susquehanna, a mile or two below, and we said to ourselves, +that, beautiful as the land had been through which we had already +passed, we were now entering on a Nature of more heroic mould, +mightier contours, and larger aspects. We were henceforth to walk in +the company of great rivers: the Susquehanna, like some epic goddess, +was to lead us to the Lehigh; the Blue Mountains were to bring us to +the Delaware; and the uplands of Sullivan County were to bring us +to--the lordly gates of the Hudson. + +Our chests expanded as imagination luxuriated in the pictures it made. +Our walk was only just beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AND UNEXPECTEDLY THE LAST + + +We had seen the two great rivers sweep into each other's arms in a broad +glory of sunlit water, meeting at the bosky end of a wooded promontory, +and yes! there was the Susquehanna glittering far beneath--the beautiful +name I had so often seen and wondered about, painted on the sides of +giant freight-cars! Yes, there was actually the great legendary river. It +was a very warm, almost sultry noonday, more like midsummer than +mid-October, and the river was almost blinding in its flashing beauty. +Loosening our knapsacks, we called a halt and, leaning over the railing +guarding the precipitous bank, luxuriated in the visionary scene. So +high was the bank, and so broad the river, that we seemed lifted up into +space, and the river, dreamily flowing beneath a gauze veil of heat-mist, +seemed miles below us and drowsily unreal. Its course inshore was dotted +with boulders, in the shadows of which we could see long ghostly fishes +lazily gliding, and a mud-turtle, with a trail of little ones, slowly +moving from rock to rock. + +Suddenly Colin put his hand to his head, and swayed toward me, as though +he were about to faint. + +"I don't know what's the matter, old man," he said, "but I think I had +better sit down a minute." And he sank by the roadside. + +Unlike himself, he had been complaining of fatigue, and had seemed out of +sorts for a day or two, but we had thought nothing of it; and, after +resting a few minutes, he announced himself ready for the road again, +but he looked very pale and walked with evident weariness. As a roadside +cottage came in sight, "I wonder if they could give us a cup of tea," he +said; "that would fix me up, I'm sure." So we knocked, and the door was +opened by a pathetic shadow of an old woman, very poor and thin and +weary-looking, who, although, as we presently learned, she was at the +moment suffering from the recent loss of one eye, made us welcome and +busied herself about tea, with an unselfish kindness that touched our +hearts, and made us reflect on the angelic goodness of human +nature--sometimes. + +She looked anxiously, mother-like, at Colin, and persuaded him to lie +down and rest awhile in her little parlour, and, while he rested, she and +I talked and she told me how she had come by her blind eye--an odd, +harmless-sounding cause. She had been looking up into one of her +apple-trees, one day, a few weeks ago, and an apple had fallen and struck +her in the eye. Such innocent means does Nature sometimes use for her +cruel accidents of disease and death! Just an apple falling from a +tree,--and you are blind! A fly stings you, on a Summer day, and you die. + +Colin, rested and refreshed, we once more started on our way, but, +bravely as he strode on, there was no disguising it--my blithe, +happy-hearted companion was ill. Of course we both assured the other that +it could be nothing, but privately our hearts sank with a vague fear we +did not speak. At length, after a weary four miles, we reached Towanda. + +"I'm afraid," said poor Colin, "I can walk no more to-day. Perhaps a good +night's rest will make me all right." We found an inn, and while Colin +threw himself, wearied, on his bed, I went out, not telling him, and +sought a doctor. + +"And you've been walking with this temperature?" said the learned man, +when he had seated himself at Colin's bedside and felt his wrist. "Have +you been drinking much water as you went along? ... H'm--it's been a very +dry Summer, you know." + +And the words of our friend in the buggy came back to us with sickening +emphasis. O those innocent-looking fairy wells and magic mirrors by the +road-side! And I thought, too, of the poor old blinded woman and the +falling apple. Was Nature really like that? + +And then the wise man's verdict fell on our ears like a doom. + +"Take my advice, and don't walk any more, but catch the night train for +New York." + +Poor Colin! But there was no appeal. + +The end of our trip had come, suddenly, unreasonably, stupidly, +like this. + +"So we've got to be shot into New York like a package through a tube, +after all!" said Colin. "No lordly gates of the Hudson for us! What a +fool I feel, to be the one to spoil our trip like this!" + +And the tears glistened in our eyes, as we pressed each other's hand in +that dreary inn bedroom, with the shadow of we knew not what for Colin +over us--for our comradeship had been very good, day by day, together on +the open road. + +Our train did not go till midnight, so we had a long melancholy evening +before us; but the doctor had given Colin some mysterious potion +containing rest, and presently, as I sat by his side in the gray +twilight, he fell into a deep sleep--a sleep, alas! of fire and wandering +talk. It was pitiful to hear him, poor fellow--living over again in +dreams the road we had travelled, or making pictures of the road he +still dreamed ahead of us. Never before had I realized how entirely his +soul was the soul of a painter--all pictures and colour. + +"O my God!" he would suddenly exclaim, "did you ever see such blue in +your life!" and then again, evidently referring to some particularly +attractive effect in the phantasmagoria of his fever, "it's no use--you +must let me stop and have a shot to get that, before it goes." + +One place that seemed particularly to haunt him was--Mauch Chunk. He had +been there before, and, as we had walked along, had often talked +enthusiastically of it. "Wait till we get to Mauch Chunk," he said; "then +the real fun will begin." And now, over and over again, he kept making +pictures of Mauch Chunk, till I could have cried. + +"Dramatic black rocks," he would murmur, "water rushing from the hills +in every direction--clean-cut, vivid scenery--like theatres--the road +runs by the side of a steel-blue river at the bottom of a chasm, and +there is hardly room for it--the houses cling to the hillside like +swallows' nests--here and there patches of fresh green grass gleam among +the rocks, and, high up in the air on some dizzy ledge, there is a wild +apple-tree in blossom--it is all black rocks and springs and moss and +tumbling water--" + +Then again his soul was evidently walking in the Blue Mountains, and +several times he repeated a phrase of mine that had taken his fancy: "And +now for the spacious corridors of the Highlands, and the lordly gates of +the Hudson." + +Then he would suddenly half awaken and turn to me, realizing the +truth, and say: + +"O our beautiful journey--to end like this!" and fall asleep again. + +And once more I fell to thinking of fairy springs by the roadside, and +apples falling innocently from the bough, and how the beautiful journey +we call life might some day suddenly end like this, with half the +beautiful road untravelled--the rest sleep and perchance dreams. + + * * * * * + +But Colin did not die. He is once more painting out in the sun, and next +year we plan to stand again on that very spot by the Susquehanna, and +watch the shadows of great fishes gliding through the dreamy water, and +the mud-turtle with her trail of little ones moving from rock to +rock--and then we shall strike out on the road again, just where we left +off that October afternoon; but the reader need not be afraid--we shall +not write a book about it. + + + + +_ENVOI_ + + +_And now the merry way we took +Is nothing but a printed book; + +We would you had been really there, +Out with us in the open air-- + +For, after all, the best of words +Are but a poor exchange for birds. + +Yet if, perchance, this book of ours +Should sometimes make you think of flowers, + +Orchards and barns and harvest wain, +"It was not written all in vain--" + +So authors used to make their bow, +As, Gentle Reader, we do now_. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCTOBER VAGABONDS *** + + +******* This file should be named 10447-8.txt or 10447-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/4/10447 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10447-8.zip b/old/10447-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd4e741 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10447-8.zip diff --git a/old/10447.txt b/old/10447.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8718234 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10447.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3285 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, October Vagabonds , by Richard Le Gallienne + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + + + + +Title: October Vagabonds + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: December 13, 2003 [eBook #10447] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCTOBER VAGABONDS *** + + +E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +OCTOBER VAGABONDS + +BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + +1911 + + + + + + + + + I The Epitaph of Summer + II At Evening I Came to the Wood + III "Trespassers will be ..." + IV Salad and Moonshine + V The Green Friend + VI In the Wake of Summer + VII Maps and Farewells + VIII The American Bluebird and Its Song + IX Dutch Hollow + X Where They Sing from Morning Till Night + XI Apple-Land + XII Orchards and a Line from Virgil + XIII Fellow Wayfarers + XIV The Old Lady of the Walnuts and Others + XV The Man at Dansville + XVI In which we Catch up with Summer + XVII Containing Valuable Statistics +XVIII A Dithyrambus of Buttermilk + XIX A Growl about American Country Hotels + XX Onions, Pigs and Hickory-nuts + XXI October Roses and a Young Girl's Face + XXII Concerning the Popular Taste in Scenery and some Happy People +XXIII The Susquehanna + XXIV And Unexpectedly the Last + +Envoi + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE EPITAPH OF SUMMER + + +As I started out from the farm with a basket of potatoes, for our supper +in the shack half a mile up the hillside, where we had made our Summer +camp, my eye fell on a notice affixed to a gate-post, and, as I read it, +my heart sank--sank as the sun was sinking yonder with wistful glory +behind the purple ridge. I tore the paper from the gate-post and put it +in my pocket with a sigh. + +"It is true, then," I said to myself. "We have got to admit it. I must +show this to Colin." + +Then I continued my way across the empty, close-gleaned corn-field, +across the railway track, and, plunging into the orchard on the other +side, where here and there among the trees the torrents of apples were +being already caught in boxes by the thrifty husbandman, began to breast +the hill intersected with thickly wooded watercourses. + +High up somewhere amid the cloud of beeches and buttonwood trees, our log +cabin lay hid, in a gully made by the little stream that filled our pails +with a silver trickle over a staircase of shelving rock, and up there +Colin was already busy with his skilled French cookery, preparing our +evening meal. The woods still made a pompous show of leaves, but I knew +it to be a hollow sham, a mask of foliage soon to be stripped off by +equinoctial fury, a precarious stage-setting, ready to be blown down at +the first gusts from the north. A forlorn bird here and there made a thin +piping, as it flitted homelessly amid the bleached long grasses, and the +frail silk of the milkweed pods came floating along ghostlike on the +evening breeze. + +Yes! It was true. Summer was beginning to pack up, the great +stage-carpenter was about to change the scene, and the great theatre was +full of echoes and sighs and sounds of farewell. Of course, we had known +it for some time, but had not had the heart to admit it to each other, +could not find courage to say that one more golden Summer was at an end. +But the paper I had torn from the roadside left us no further shred of +illusion. There was an authoritative announcement there was no blinking, +a notice to quit there was no gain-saying. + +As I came to the crest of the hill, and in sight of the shack, shining +with early lamp-light deep down among the trees of the gully, I could see +Colin innocently at work on a salad, and hear him humming to himself his +eternal "_Vive le Capitaine_." + +It was too pathetic. I believe the tears came to my eyes. + +"Colin," I said, as I at length arrived and set down my basket of +potatoes, "read this." + +He took the paper from my hand and read: + +"_Sun-up Baseball Club. September_ 19, 1908. _Last Match of the Season_" + +He knew what I meant. + +"Yes!" he said. "It is the epitaph of Summer." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AT EVENING I CAME TO THE WOOD + + +My solitude had been kindly lent to me for the Summer by a friend, the +prophet-proprietor of a certain famous Well of Truth some four miles +away, whither souls flocked from all parts of America to drink of the +living waters. I had been feeling town-worn and world-weary, and my +friend had written me saying: "At Elim are twelve wells and seventy +palm-trees," and so to Elim I had betaken myself. After a brief sojourn +there, drinking of the waters, and building up on the strong diet of the +sage's living words, he had given me the key to some green woods and +streams of his, and bade me take them for my hermitage. I had a great +making-up to arrange with Nature, and I half wondered how she would +receive me after all this long time. But when did that mother ever turn +her face from her child, however truant from her care? It had been with a +beating heart that I had passed up the hillside on an evening in early +June, and approached the hushed green temple, wherein I was to take +Summer sanctuary from a wicked world. + +But if, as I hope, the reader has no objection to an occasional interlude +of verse in all this prose, I will copy for him here the poem I wrote +next morning--it being always easier to tell the strict truth in poetry +rather than in prose: + +_At evening I came to the wood, and threw myself on the breast + Of the great green mother, weeping, and the arms of a thousand trees +Waved and rustled in welcome, and murmured: "Rest--rest--rest! + The leaves, thy brothers, shall heal thee; thy sisters, the flowers, +bring peace." + +At length I stayed from my weeping, and lifted my face from the grass; + The moon was walking the wood with feet of mysterious pearl, +And the great trees held their breath, trance-like, watching her pass, + And a bird called out from the shadows, with voice as sweet as a girl. + +And then, in the holy silence, to the great green mother I prayed: + "Take me again to thy bosom, thy son who so close to thee, +Aforetime, filial clung, then into the city strayed-- + The painted face of the town, the wine and the harlotry. + +"Bathe me in lustral dawns, and the morning star and the dew. + Make pure my heart as a bird and innocent as a flower, +Make sweet my thoughts as the meadow-mint + --O make me all anew, +And in the strength of beech and oak gird up my will with power. + +"I have wandered far, O my mother, but here I return at the last, + Never again to stray in pilgrimage wanton and wild; +A broken heart and a contrite here at thy feet I cast, + O take me back to thy bosom ..." And the mother answered, "Child!"_ + +It was a wonderful reconciliation, a wonderful home-coming, and how I +luxuriated in the great green forgiveness! Yes! the giant maples had +forgiven me, and the multitudinous beeches had taken me to their arms. +The flowers and I were friends again, the grass was my brother, and the +shy nymph-like stream, dropping silver vowels into the silence, was my +sweetheart. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"TRESPASSERS WILL BE..." + + +For those who value it, there is no form of property that inspires a +sense of ownership so jealous as solitude. Rob my orchard if you will, +but beware how you despoil me of my silence. The average noisy person can +have no conception what a brutal form of trespass his coarsely cheerful +voice may be in the exquisite spiritual hush of the woods, or what +shattering discomfort his irrelevant presence in the landscape. + +One day, to my horror, a picnic ruthlessly invaded my sanctuary. With a +roar of Boeotian hilarity, it tore up the hillside as if it were a +storming party, and half a day the sacred woods were vocal with silly +catcalls and snatches of profane song. I locked up my hermitage, and, +taking my stick, sought refuge in flight, like the other woodland +creatures; only coming back at evening with cautious step and peering +glance, half afraid lest it should still be there. No! It was gone, but +its voices seemed to have left gaping wounds across the violated air, and +the trees to wear a look of desecration. But presently the moon arose and +washed the solitude clean again, and the wounds of silence were healed in +the still night. + +Next morning I amused myself by writing the following notice, which +I nailed up on a great elm-tree standing guard at the beginning of +the woods: + + SILENCE! + +_Speaking above a whisper in these woods + is forbidden by law_. + +This notice seems to have had its effect, for from this time on no more +hands of marauders invaded my peace. But I had one other case of +trespass, of which it is now time to speak. + +Some short distance from the shack was a clearing in the woods, a +thriving wilderness of bramble-bushes, poke-berries, myrtle-berries, +mandrakes, milkweed, mullein, daisies and what not--a paradise of every +sauntering vine and splendid, saucy weed. In the centre stood a +sycamore-tree, beneath which it was my custom to smoke a morning pipe and +revolve my profound after-breakfast thoughts. + +Judge, then, of my indignant shock, one morning, at finding a stranger +calmly occupying my place. I stood for a moment rooted to the spot, in +the shadow of the encircling woods, and he had not yet seen me. As I +stood, pondering on the best way of dealing with the intruder, a sudden +revulsion of kindness stole over me. For here indeed was a very different +figure from what, in my first shock of surprise, I had expected to see. +No common intruder this. In fact, who could have dreamed of coming upon +so incongruous an apparition as this in an American woodland? How on +earth did this picturesque waif from the Quartier Latin come to stray so +far away from the Boul' Miche! For the little boyish figure of a man that +sat sketching in my place was the Frenchiest-looking Frenchman you ever +saw--with his dark, smoke-dried skin, his long, straight, blue-black +hair, his fine, rather ferocious brown eyes, his long, delicate French +nose, his bristling black moustache and short, sting-shaped imperial. He +wore on his head a soft white felt hat, somewhat of the shape affected by +circus clowns, and too small for him. His coat was of green velveteen +corduroy and he wore knickerbockers of an eloquent plaid. + +He was intently absorbed in sketching a prosperous group of weeds, a +crazy quilt of wildly jostling colour, that had grown up around the decay +of a fallen tree, and made a fine blazon of contrast against the massed +foliage in the background. There was no mistake how the stranger loved +this patch of coloured weeds. Here was a man whose whole soul was +evidently--colour. There was a look in his face as if he could just eat +those oranges and purples, and soft greens; and there was a sort of +passionate assurance in the way in which he handled his brushes, and +delicately plunged them here and there in his colour-box, that spoke a +master. So intent was he upon his work that, when I came up behind him, +he seemed unaware of my presence; though his oblivion was actually the +conscious indifference of a landscape painter, accustomed to the ambling +cow and the awe-struck peasant looking over his shoulder as he worked. + +"Great bunch of weeds," he said presently, without looking up, and still +painting, drawing the while at a quaint pipe about an inch long. + +"O, you are not the Boul' Miche, after all," I exclaimed in +disappointment. + +"Aren't I, though?" he said at last, looking up in interested surprise. +"Ever at--?" mentioning the name of a well-known cafe, one of the many +rally-points of the Quartier. + +"I should say," I answered. + +"Well!" + +And thereupon we both plunged into delighted reminiscence of that city +which, as none other, makes immediate friends of all her lovers. For a +while the woods faded away, and in that tangled clearing rose the towers +of Notre Dame, and the Seine glittered on under its great bridges, and +again the world smelled of absinthe, and picturesque madmen gesticulated +in clouds of tobacco smoke, and propounded fantastic philosophies amid +the rattle of dominoes--and afar off in the street a voice was crying +"_Haricots verts_!" My new friend's talk had the pathos of spiritual +exile, for, as French in blood as a man could be, born in Bordeaux of +Provencal parentage, he had lived most of his life in America. The +decoration of a rich man's house in the neighbourhood had brought him +thus into my solitude, and, that work completed, he would return to his +home in New York. + +Meanwhile the morning was going by as we talked, and, putting up his +sketch-box, he accepted my invitation to join me at lunch. + +Such was the manner of my meeting, in the guise of a trespasser, with the +dear friend to whom I had brought the decisive news of the death of +Summer, as he was innocently making a salad, _in antiquam silvam_, on +that sad September evening. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SALAD AND MOONSHINE + + +"Do you remember that first salad you made us, Colin?" I said, as we sat +over our coffee, and Colin was filling his little pipe. "A daring work of +art, a fantastic _tour de force_, of apples, and lettuce, and wild +strawberries, and I don't know what else." + +"I believe I mixed in some May-apples, too. It was a great stunt ... +well, no more May-apples and strawberries this year," he finished, with a +sigh, and we both sat silently smoking, thinking over the good Summer +that was gone. + +After our first meeting, Colin had dropped in to see me again from time +to time, and when his work at the great house was finished, I had asked +him to come and share my solitude. A veritable child of Nature himself, +he fitted into my quiet days as silently as a squirrel. So much of his +life had been passed out-of-doors with trees and skies, long dream-like +days all alone sketching in solitary places, that he seemed as much a +part of the woods as though he were a faun, and the lore of the elements, +and all natural things--bugs and birds, all wildwood creatures--had +passed into him with unconscious absorption. A sort of boyish +unconsciousness, indeed, was the keynote and charm of his nature. A less +sophisticated creature never followed the mystic calling of art. +Fortunately for me, he was not one of those painters who understand and +expound their own work. On the contrary, he was a perfect child about it, +and painted for no more mysterious reason than that his eye delighted in +beautiful natural effects, and that he loved to play with paint and +brushes. Though he was undoubtedly sensitive somewhere to the mystic side +of Nature, her Wordsworthian "intimations," you would hardly have guessed +it from his talk. "A bully bit of colour," would be his craftsmanlike way +of describing a twilight full of sibylline suggestiveness to the literary +mind. But, strangely enough, when he brought you his sketch, all your +"sibylline suggestiveness" was there, which of course means, after all, +that painting was his way of seeing and saying it. + +The moon rose as we smoked on, and began to lattice with silver the +darkness of the glen, and flood the hillside with misty radiance. Colin +made for his sketch-box. + +"I must make good use of this moon," he said, "before we go." + +"And so must I," said I, laughing as we both went out into the night, he +one way and I another, to make our different uses of the moon. + +An hour later Colin turned in with a panel that seemed made of moonlight. +"How on earth did you do it?" I said. "It is as though you had drawn up +the moon in a silver bucket from the bottom of a fairy well." + +"No, no," he protested; "I know better. But where is your _clair +de lune_?" + +"Nothing doing," I answered. + +"Well, then, say those lines you wrote a week or two ago instead." + +"'Berries already,' do you mean?" + +"Yes." + +Here are the lines he meant: + +_Berries already, September soon,-- +The shortening day and ike early moon; +The year is busy with next year's flowers +The seeds are ready for next year' showers; +Through a thousand tossing trees there swells +The sigh of the Summer's sad farewells. +Too soon those leaves in the sunset sky +Low down on the wintry ground will lie, +And grim November and December +Leave naught of Summer to remember-- +Saving some flower in a book put by, +Secure from the soft effacing snow, +Though all the rest of the Summer go._ + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GREEN FRIEND + + +Though we had received such unmistakable notice to quit, we still +lingered on in our solitude, after the manner of defiant tenants whom +nothing short of corporal ejection can dislodge. The North wind began to +roar in the tree-tops and shake the doors and windows of the shack, like +an angry landlord, but we paid no heed to him. Yet, all the time, both of +us, in our several ways, were saying our farewells, and packing up our +memories for departure. There was an old elm-tree which Colin had taken +for his Summer god, and which he was never tired of painting. He must +make the one perfect study of that before we pulled up stakes. So, each +day, after our morning adoration of the sun, we would separate about our +different ways and business. + +The woods were already beginning to wear a wistful, dejected look. There +was a feeling of departure everywhere, a sense that the year's +excitements were over. The procession had gone by, and there was an +empty, purposeless air of waiting-about upon things, a sort of despairing +longing for something else to happen--and a sure sense that nothing more +could happen till next year. Every event in the floral calendar had taken +place with immemorial punctuality and tragic rapidity. All the +full-blooded flowers of Summer had long since come and gone, with their +magic faces and their souls of perfume. Gone were the banners of blossom +from the great trees. The locust and the chestnut, those spendthrifts of +the woods, that went the pace so gorgeously in June, are now sober-coated +enough, and growing even threadbare. All the hum and the honey and +breathless bosom-beat of things is over. The birds sing no more, but only +chatter about time-tables. The bee keeps to his hive, and the bewildered +butterfly, in tattered ball-dress, wonders what has become of his flowery +partners. The great cricket factory has shut down. Not a wheel is heard +whirring. The squirrel has lost his playful air, and has an anxious +manner, as though there were no time to waste before stocking his +granary. Everywhere berries have taken the place of buds, and bearded +grasses the place of flowers. Even the goldenrod has fallen to rust, and +the stars of the aster are already tarnished. Only along the edges of the +wood the dry little paper immortelles spread long shrouds and wreaths in +the shade. + +Suddenly you feel lonely in the woods, which had seemed so companionable +all Summer. What is it--_Who_ is it--that has gone? Though quite alone, +there was some one with you all Summer, an invisible being filling the +woods with his presence, and always at your side, or somewhere near by. +But to-day, through all the green halls and chambers of the wood, you +seek him in vain. You call, but there is no answer. You wait, but he does +not come. He has gone. The wood is an empty palace. The prince went away +secretly in the night. The wood is a deserted temple. The god has betaken +himself to some secret abode. Everywhere you come upon chill, abandoned +altars, littered debris of Summer sacrifices. Maybe he is dead, and +perchance, deeper in the wood, you may come upon his marble form in a +winding-sheet of drifting leaves. + +Not a god, maybe, you have pictured him, not a prince, but surely as a +friend--the mysterious Green Friend of the green silence and the golden +hush of Summer noons. The mysterious Green Friend of the woods! So +strangely by our side all Summer, so strangely gone away. It is in vain +to await him under our morning sycamore, nor under the great maples shall +we find him walking, nor amid the alder thickets discover him, nor yet in +the little ravine beneath the pines. No! he has surely gone away, and his +great house seems empty without him, desolate, filled with lamentation, +all its doors and windows open to the Winter snows. + +But the Green Friend had left me a message. I found it at the roots of +some violets. "_I shall be back again next year_" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE WAKE OF SUMMER + + +Yes, it was time to be going, and the thought was much on both our minds. +We had as yet, however, made no plans, had not indeed discussed any; but +one afternoon, late in September, driven indoors by a sudden squall of +rain, I came to Colin with an idea. The night before we had had the first +real storm of the season. + +"Ah! This will do their business," Colin had said, referring to the +trees, as we heard the wind and rain tearing and splashing through the +pitch-dark woods. "It will be a different world in the morning." + +And indeed it was. Cruel was the work of dismantling that had gone on +during the night. The roof of the wood had fallen in in a score of +places, letting in the sky through unfamiliar windows; and the distant +prospect showed through the torn tapestry of the trees with a startling +sense of disclosure. The dishevelled world wore the distressed look of a +nymph caught _deshabillee._ The expression, "the naked woods," occurred +to one with almost a sense of impropriety. At least there was a cynical +indecorum in this violent disrobing of the landscape. + +"Colin," I said, coming to him with my idea. "We've got to go, of +course, but I've been thinking--don't you hate the idea of being hurled +along in a train, and suddenly shot into the city again, like a package +through a tube?" + +"Hate it? Don't ask me," said Colin. + +"If only it could be more gradual," I went on. "Suppose, for instance, +instead of taking the train, we should walk it!" + +"Walk to New York?" said Colin, with a surprised whistle. + +"Yes! Why not?" + +"Something of a walk, old man." + +"All the better. We shall be all the longer getting there. But, listen. +To go by train would be almost too sudden a shock. I don't believe we +could stand it. To be here to-day, breathing this God's fresh air, living +the lives of natural men in a natural world, and to-morrow--Broadway, the +horrible crowds, the hustle, the dirt, the smells, the uproar." + +For answer Colin watched the clean rain fleeting through the trees, and +groaned aloud. + +"But now if we walked, we would, so to say, let ourselves down lightly, +inure ourselves by gradual approach to the thought of life once more with +our fellows. Besides, we should be walking in the wake of the Summer. She +has only moved a little East as yet. We might catch her up on her way to +New York, and thus move with the moving season, keeping in step with the +Zodiac. Then, at last, ... how much more fitting our entry into New York, +not by way of some sordid and clangorous depot, but through the spacious +corridors of the Highlands and the lordly gates of the Hudson!" + +When I had thus attained my crescendo, Colin rose impressively, and +embraced me with true French effusion. + +"Old man," he said, "that's just great. It's an inspiration from on high. +It makes me feel better already. Gee! but that's bully." + +French as was his blood, it will be observed that Colin's expletives were +thoroughly American. Of course, he should have said _sacre mille cochons_ +or _nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu_; but, though in appearance, so to say, an +embodied "_sacre"_ he seemed to find the American vernacular sufficiently +expressive. + +"Is it a go, then?" said I. + +"It's a go," said Colin, once more in American. + +And we shook on it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MAPS AND FAREWELLS + + +It was wonderful what a change our new plan wrought in our spirits. + +Our melancholy was immediately dispersed, and its place taken by active +anticipations of our journey. The North wind in the trees, instead of +blustering dismissal, sounded to our ears like the fluttering of the +blue-peter at the masthead of our voyage. Strange heart of man! A day +back we were in tears at the thought of going. Now we are all smiles to +think of it, all impatience to be gone. We quote Whitman a dozen times +in the hour, and it is all "afoot and light-hearted" with us, and "the +open road." + +But there were some farewells to make to people as well as to trees. +There were friends at Elim to bid adieu, and also there were maps to be +consulted, and knapsacks to be packed--exhilarating preparations. + +Our friends looked at us, when we had unfolded our project, with a +mixture of surprise and pity. "Amiable lunatics" was the first comment of +their countenances, and--"There never was any telling what the artistic +temperament would do next!" Had we announced an air-ship voyage to the +moon, they would have regarded us as comparatively reasonable, but to +walk--_to walk_--some four or five hundred miles in America, of all +countries, a country of palace cars and, lightning limited expresses, not +to mention homicidal touring automobiles, seemed like--what shall I +say?--well, as though one should start out for New Zealand in a row-boat, +or make the trip to St. Petersburg in a sedan-chair. + +But there were others--especially the women--who understood, felt as we +did, and longed to go with us. I have never met a woman yet whose face +did not light up at the thought of a walking tour, and in her heart long +to don Rosalind clothes and set forth in search of adventures. We thus +had the advantage, in planning our route, of several prettily coiffed +heads bending over our maps and guide-books with us. + +"Four hundred and thirty miles," said one of these Rosalinds, whose +pretty head was full of pictures of romantic European travel. "Think what +one could do with four hundred and thirty miles in Europe. Let us try, +for the fun of it." + +And turning to a map of Europe, and measuring out four hundred and thirty +miles by scale on a slip of paper, she tried it up and down the map from +point to point. "Look at funny little England!" she said. "Why, you will +practically be walking from one end of England to the other. See," and +she fitted her scale to the map, "it would bring you easily from +Portsmouth to Aberdeen. + +"And now let us try France. Why, see again--you will be walking from +Calais to Marseilles--think of it! walking through France, all vineyards +and beautiful names. Now Italy--see! you will be walking from Florence to +Mount Etna--Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo." + +And so in imagination our fair friend sketched out fanciful pilgrimages +for us. "You could walk from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees," she went on. +"You could walk from Venice to Berlin; from Brussels to Copenhagen; you +could walk from Munich to Budapest; you could walk right across Turkey, +from Constantinople to the Adriatic Sea. And Greece--see! you could walk +from Sparta to the Danube. To think of the romantic use you could make +of your four-hundred-odd-miles, and how different it sounds--Buffalo to +New York!" + +And again she repeated, luxuriating in the romantic sound of the +words: "Constantinople to the Adriatic! Sparta to the Danube!--Buffalo +to New York!" + +There was not wanting to the party the whole-souled, +my-country-'tis-of-thee American, who somewhat resented these European +comparisons, and declared that America was good enough for her, clearly +intimating that a certain lack of patriotism, even a certain immorality, +attached to the admiration of foreign countries. She also told us +somewhat severely that the same stars, if not better, shone over America +as over any other country, and that American scenery was the finest in +the world--not to speak of the American climate. + +To all of which we bowed our heads in silence--but the frivolous, +European-minded Rosalind who had got us into this trouble retorted with a +grave face: "Wouldn't you just love, dear Miss----, to walk from +Hackensack to Omaha?" + +Another voice was kind enough to explain for our encouragement that the +traveller found in a place exactly what he brought there, and that +romance was a personal gift, all in the personal point of view. + +"A sort of cosmetic you apply to the face of Nature," footnoted our +irrepressible friend. + +Still another reminded us that "to travel hopefully is a better thing +than to arrive," and still another strongly advised us to carry +revolvers. + +So, taking with us our maps and much good advice, we bade farewell to our +friends, and walked back to our camp under the stars--the same stars that +were shining over Constantinople. + +The next day, when all our preparations were complete, the shack swept +and garnished, and our knapsacks bulging in readiness for the road, Colin +took his brushes, and in a few minutes had decorated one of the walls +with an Autumn sunset--a sort of memorial tablet to our Summer, he +explained. + +"Can't you think up a verse to put underneath?" he asked. + +Then underneath he lettered: + +_Two lovers of the Sun and of the Moon, + Lovers of Tree and Grass and Bug and Bird, +Spent here the Summer days, then all too soon +Upon the homeward track reluctant fared. + +Sun-up, October 1, 1908._ + +Some apples remained over from our larder. We carefully laid them outside +for the squirrels; then, slinging our knapsacks, we took a last look +round the little place, and locked the door. + +Our way lay up the hill, across the pasture and through the beeches, +toward the sky-line. + +We stood still a moment, gazing at the well-loved landscape. Then we +turned and breasted the hill. + +"_Allons_!" cried Colin. + +"_Allons_!" I answered. "_Allons_! To New York!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE AMERICAN BLUEBIRD AND ITS SONG + + +I wish I could convey the singular feeling of freedom and adventure that +possessed us as Colin and I grasped our sticks and struck up the green +hill--for New York. It was a feeling of exhilaration and romantic +expectancy, blent with an absurd sense of our being entirely on our own +resources, vagrants shifting for ourselves, independent of civilization; +which, of course, the actual circumstances in no way warranted. A +delightful boyish illusion of entering on untrodden paths and facing +unknown dangers thrilled through us. + +"Well, we're off!" we said simultaneously, smiling interrogatively at +each other. + +"Yes! we're in for it." + +So men start out manfully for the North Pole. + +Our little enterprise gave us an imaginative realization of the +solidarity, the interdependence, of the world; and we saw, as in a +vision, its four corners knit together by a vast network of paths +connecting one with the other; footpaths, byways, cart-tracks, +bride-paths, lovers' lanes, highroads, all sensitively linked in one vast +nervous system of human communication. This field whose green sod we were +treading connected with another field, that with another, and that again +with another--all the way to New York--all the way to Cape Horn! No break +anywhere. All we had to do was to go on putting one foot before the +other, and we could arrive anywhere. So the worn old phrase, "All roads +lead to Rome," lit up with a new meaning, the meaning that had originally +made it. Yes! the loneliest of lovers' lanes, all silence and wild +flowers, was on the way to the Metropolitan Opera House; or, vice versa, +the Flat Iron Building was on the way to the depths of the forest. + +"Suppose we stop here, Colin," I said, pointing to a solitary, +forgotten-looking little farmhouse, surrounded by giant wind-worn poplars +that looked older than America, "and ask the way to Versailles?" + +"And I shouldn't be surprised," answered Colin, "if we struck some bright +little American schoolgirl who could tell us." + +Although we as yet knew every foot of the ground we were treading, it +already began to wear an unfamiliar houseless and homeless look, an air +of foreign travel, and though the shack was but a few yards behind us, it +seemed already miles away, wrapped in lonely distance, wistfully +forsaken. Everything we looked at seemed to have gained a new importance +and significance; every tree and bush seemed to say, "So many miles to +New York," and we unconsciously looked at and remarked on the most +trifling objects with the eye of explorers, and took as minute an +interest in the usual bird and wayside weed as though we were engaged in +some "flora and fauna" survey of untrodden regions. + +"That's a bluebird," said Colin, as a faint pee-weeing came with a thin +melancholy note from a telegraph wire. And we both listened attentively, +with a learned air, as though making a mental note for some +ornithological society in New York. "Bluebird seen in Erie County, +October 1, 1908!" So might Sir John Mandeville have noted the occurrence +of birds of paradise in the domains of Prester John. + +"That's a silo," said Colin, pointing to a cylindrical tower at the end +of a group of barns, from which came the sound of an engine surrounded by +a group of men, occupied in feeding it with trusses of corn from a +high-piled wagon. "They are laying in fodder for the Winter." Interesting +agricultural observation! + +In the surrounding fields the pumpkins, globes of golden orange, lay +scattered among the wintry-looking corn-stalks. + +"Bully subject for a picture!" said Colin. + +Before we had gone very far, we did stop at a cottage standing at a +puzzling corner of cross-roads, and asked the way, not to Versailles, +indeed, but to--Dutch Hollow. We were answered by a good-humoured German +voice belonging to an old dame, who seemed glad to have the lonely +afternoon silence broken by human speech; and we were then, as often +afterward, reminded that we were not so far away from Europe, after all; +but that, indeed, in no small degree the American continent was the map +of Europe bodily transported across the sea. For the present our way lay +through Germany. + +Dutch Hollow! The name told its own story, and it had appealed to our +imaginations as we had come upon it on the map. + +We had thought we should like to see how it looked written in trees and +rocks and human habitations on the page of the landscape. And I may say +that it was such fanciful considerations as this, rather than any more +business-like manner of travel, that frequently determined the route of +our essentially sentimental journey. If our way admitted of a choice of +direction, we usually decided by the sound of the name of village or +town. Thus the sound of "Wales Center" had taken us, we were told, a mile +or two out of our way; but what of that? We were not walking for a +record, nor were we road-surveying, or following the automobile route to +New York. In fact, we had deliberately avoided the gasoline route, +choosing to be led by more rustic odours; and thus our wayward wayfaring +cannot be offered in any sense as a guide for pedestrians who may come +after us. Any one following our guidance would be as liable to arrive at +the moon as at New York. In fact, we not infrequently inquired our way of +a bird, or some friendly little dog that would come out to bark a +companionable good day to us from a wayside porch. + +As a matter of fact, I had inquired the way of the bluebird mentioned a +little while back, and it may be of interest--to ornithological +societies--to transcribe his answer: + +_The way of dreams--the bluebird sang-- + Is never hard to find +So soon as you have really left + The grown-up world behind; + +So soon as you have come to see + That what the others call +Realities, for such as you, + Are never real at all; + +So soon as you have ceased to care + What others say or do, +And understand that they are they, + And you--thank God--are you. + +Then is your foot upon the path, + Your journey well begun, +And safe the road for you to tread, + Moonlight or morning sun. + +Pence of this world you shall not take, + Yea! no provision heed; +A wild-rose gathered in the wood + Will buy you all you need. + +Hungry, the birds shall bring you food, + The bees their honey bring; +And, thirsty, you the crystal drink + Of an immortal spring. + +For sleep, behold how deep and soft + With moss the earth is spread, +And all the trees of all the world + Shall curtain round your bed. + +Enchanted journey! that begins + Nowhere, and nowhere ends, +Seeking an ever-changing goal, + Nowhither winds and wends. + +For destination yonder flower, + For business yonder bird; +Aught better worth the travelling to + I never saw or heard. + +O long dream-travel of the soul! + First the green earth to tread-- +And still yon other starry track + To travel when you're dead_. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DUTCH HOLLOW + + +The day had opened with a restless picturesque morning of gusty sunshine +and rolling clouds. There was something rich and stormy and ominous in +the air, and a soft rainy sense of solemn impending change, at once +brilliant and mournful; a curious sense of intermingled death and birth, +as of withered leaves and dreaming seeds being blown about together on +their errands of decay and resurrection by the same breath of the unseen +creative spirit. Incidentally it meant a rain-storm by evening, and its +mysterious presage had prompted Colin to the furnishing of our knapsacks +with water-proof cloaks, which, as the afternoon wore on, seemed more and +more a wise provision. But the rain still held off, contenting itself +with threatening phantasmagoria of cloud, moulding and massing like +visible thunder in our wake. It seemed leisurely certain, however, of +catching us before nightfall; and, sure enough, as the light began to +thicken, and we stood admiring its mountainous magnificence--vast billows +of plum-coloured gloom, hanging like doomsday over a stretch of haunted +orchard--the great drops began to patter down. + +Surely the sky is the greatest of all melodramatists. Nothing short of +the cataclysmal end of the world could have provided drama to match the +stupendous stage-setting of that stormy sky. All doom and destiny and +wrath of avenging deities and days of judgment seemed concentrated in +that frown of gigantic darkness. Beneath it the landscape seemed to grow +livid as a corpse, and terror to fill with trembling the very trees and +grasses. Oedipus and Orestes and King Lear rolled into one could hardly +have accounted for that angry sky. Such a sky it must have been that +carried doom to the cities of the plain. And, after all, it was only +Colin and I innocently making haste to Dutch Hollow! + +That Teutonic spot seemed hopelessly far away as the rain began to drive +down and the horizon to open here and there in lurid slashings of stormy +sunset; and when the road, which for some time had been one long descent, +suddenly confronted us with a rough, perpendicular lane, overgrown with +bushes, that seemed more like a cart-track to the stars than a sensible +thoroughfare, we realized, with a certain indignant self-pity, that we +were walking in real earnest, out in the night and the storm, far from +human habitation. + +"Nature cannot be so absurd," said I, "as to expect us to climb such a +road on such an evening! She must surely have placed a comfortable inn in +such a place as this, with ruddy windows of welcome, and a roaring fire +and a hissing roast." But, alas! our eyes scanned the streaming copses in +vain--nothing in sight but trees, rain and a solitary saw-mill, where an +old man on a ladder assured us in a broken singsong, like the +Scandinavian of the Middle West, that indeed Nature did mean us to climb +that hill, and that by that road only could we reach the Promised Land of +supper and bed. + +And the rain fell and the wind blew, and Colin and I trudged on through +the murk and the mire, I silently recalling and commenting on certain +passages in certain modern writers in praise of walking in the rain. At +last the hill came to an end--we learned afterward that it was a good +mile high--and we stumbled out on to some upland wilderness, unlit by +star or window. Then we found ourselves descending again, and at last dim +shapes of clustered houses began to appear, and the white phantom of a +church. We could rather feel than see the houses, for the night was so +dark, and, though here was evidently a village, there was no sign of a +light anywhere, not so much as a bright keyhole; nothing but hushed, +shuttered shapes of deeper black in the general darkness. So English +villages must have looked, muffled up in darkness, at the sound of the +Conqueror's curfew. + +"Surely, they can't all be in bed by seven o'clock?" I said. + +"There doesn't seem much to stay up for," laughed Colin. + +At length we suspected, rather than saw, a gleam of light at the rear of +one of the shrouded shapes we took for houses, and, stumbling toward it, +we heard cheerful voices, German voices; and, knocking at a back door, +received a friendly summons to enter. Then, out of the night that covered +us, suddenly sprang a kitchen full of light and a family at supper, kind +German folk, the old people, the younger married couple, and the +grandchildren, and a big dog vociferously taking care of them. A lighted +glimpse, a few hearty words of direction, and we were out in the night +again; for though, indeed, this was Dutch Hollow, its simple microcosm +did not include an hotel. For that we must walk on another half-mile or +so. O those country half-miles! So on we went again, and soon a lighted +stoop flashed on our right. At last! I mounted the steps of a veranda, +and, before knocking, looked in at the window. Then I didn't knock, but +softly called Colin, who was waiting in the road, and together we looked +in. At a table in the centre of a barely furnished, brightly-lit room, an +old woman and a young man were kneeling in prayer. Colin and I stood a +moment looking at them, and then softly took the road again. + +But the inn, or rather the "hotel," did come at last. Alas! however, for +dreams of ruddy welcome--rubicund host, and capon turning on the spit. In +spite of German accents, we were walking in America, after all. A +shabbily-lit glass door admitted us into a dreary saloon bar, where a +hard-featured, gruff-mannered young countryman, after serving beer to two +farm-labourers, admitted with apparent reluctance that beds were to be +had by such as had "the price," but that, as to supper, well! supper was +"over"--supper-time was six-thirty; it was now seven-thirty. The young +man seemed no little surprised, even indignant, that any one should be +ignorant of the fact that supper-time at Sheldon Center was half-past +six; and this, by the way, was a surprise we encountered more than once +on our journey. Supper-time in the American road-house is an hour +severely observed, and you disregard it at the peril of your empty +stomach, for no larders seem so hermetically sealed as the larders of +American country hotels after the appointed hour, and no favour so +impossible to grant as even a ham sandwich, if you should be so much a +stranger to local ordinances as to expect it after the striking of the +hour. Indeed, you are looked on with suspicion for asking, as something +of a tramp or dangerous character. Not to know that supper-time at +Sheldon Center was half-past six seemed to argue a sinister disregard of +the usages of civilization. + +As we ruefully contemplated a supperless couch, a comely young woman, who +had been looking us over from a room in the rear of the bar, came +smilingly forward and volunteered to do the best she could for us. She +was evidently the rough fellow's wife, goddess of the kitchen, and final +court of appeal. What a difference a good-natured, good-looking woman +makes in a place! 'Tis a glimpse into the obvious, but there are +occasions on which such commonplaces shine with a blessed radiance, and +the moment when our attractive hostess flowered out upon us from her +forbidding background was one of them. With her on our side, we forgot +our fears, and, with an assured air, asked her husband to show us to our +rooms. Lamp in hand, he led us up staircases and along corridors--for the +hotel was quite a barracks--thawing out into conversation on the way. The +place, he explained, was a little out of order, owing to "the ball"--an +event he referred to as a matter of national knowledge, and being, we +understood, the annual ball of harvesting. The fact of the lamps not +burning properly, and there being no water or towels in our rooms, was +due, he explained, to this disorganizing festival; as also the +circumstance of our doors having no knobs to them. "The young fellows at +the ball did carry on so," he said, chuckling with reminiscence of that +orgiastic occasion. The Sheldon Center gallants were evidently the very +devil; and those vanished door-knobs provoked pictures in our minds of +Lupercalian revels, which, alas! we had come too late to share. + +We should have found anything good that our hostess cared to set before +us--so potent a charm is amiability--and I am sure no man need wish for a +better supper than the fried eggs and fried potatoes which copiously +awaited us down-stairs. As Colin washed his down with coffee, like a true +Franco-American, and I washed down mine with English breakfast tea, we +pulled out our pipes and smiled contentment at each other. + +"Shall we have a chapter of the wisdom of Paragot before bed?" I said, +and, going to our small, carefully selected knapsack library, I found the +gay-hearted fantastical book we had promised to read together on our +wayfaring; and so the day drew to a good end. + +Over the head of my bed hung a highly-coloured reproduction of Leonardo's +"Last Supper," and stuck in its frame was a leaf of blessed palm--by +which tokens I realized that my slumbers were to be under the wing of the +ancient Mother. As I closed my eyes, the musical chime of a great bell, +high up somewhere in the outer night, fell in benediction upon the +darkness. So I fell asleep in Europe, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +WHERE THEY SING FROM MORNING TILL NIGHT + + +I awoke to the same silvery salutation, and the sound of country boots +echoing across farm-yard cobble-stones. A lantern flashing in and out +among barns lit up my ceiling for a moment, a rough country voice hailed +another rough country voice somewhere outside, and the day slowly coughed +and sneezed itself awake in the six-o'clock grayness. I heard Colin +moving in the next room, and presently we were down-stairs, alertly +hungry. Our hostess, with morning smile, asked if we would mind waiting +breakfast for "the boarders." Meanwhile, we stepped out into the +unfolding day, and the village that had been a mystery to us in the +darkness was revealed; a handful of farmhouses on the brow of a +solitary-looking upland, and, looming over all, a great cathedral-like +church that seemed to have been transported bodily from France. Stepping +out to say good-morning to some young pigs that were sociably grunting in +a neighbouring sty, we beheld the vast landscape of our preceding day +stretched out beneath us, mistily emerging into the widening sunrise. +With pride our eyes traced the steep white road we had so arduously +travelled, and, for remembrance, Colin made a swift sketch of Dutch +Hollow huddled down there in the valley, with its white church steeple +catching the morning sun. And, by this, "the boarders" had assembled, and +we found ourselves at breakfast in a cheery company of three workmen, who +were as bright and full of fun as boys out for a holiday. They were +presently joined by a fourth, a hearty, middle-aged man, who, as he sat +down, greeted us with: + +"I feel just like singing this morning." + +"Good for you!" said one of us. "That's the way to begin the day." His +good nature was magnetic. + +"Yes," he laughed, "we sing in Sheldon from morning till night." + +"Sheldon's evidently a good place to know," I said. "I will make a note +of that for New Yorkers." + +So, reader, sometimes when the world seems all wrong, and life a very +doubtful speculation, you may care to know of a place where the days go +so blithely that men actually sing from morning till night! Sheldon +Center is that place. You can find it on any map, and I can testify that +the news is true. + +And the men that thus sang from morning till night--what was the trade +they worked and sang at? + +We gathered from a few dropped words that they were engaged on some work +over at the church--masonry, no doubt--and, as they left the +breakfast-table, in a laughing knot, to begin the day's work, they +suggested our giving a look in at them on our way. This we promised to +do, for a merrier, better-hearted lot of fellows it would be hard to +find. To meet them was to feel a warm glow of human comradeship. Healthy, +normal, happy fellows, enjoying their work as men should, and taking life +as it came with sane, unconscious gusto; it was a tonic encounter to be +in their company. + +They were grave-diggers, engaged in renovating the village churchyard! + +Yes! and, said our hostess, they were making it like a garden! It had +been long neglected and become disgracefully overgrown with weeds and +bushes, but now they were trimming it up in fine style. They were +cemetery experts from Batavia way, and the job was to cost sixteen +hundred dollars. But it was worth it, for indeed they were making it look +like a garden! + +Presently we stepped over to the churchyard. We should not have been +human if we had not advanced with a Hamlet-Horatio air: "Has this fellow +no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?" We found our +four friends in a space of the churchyard from which the tombstones had +been temporarily removed, engaged, not with mattock and death's head, but +with spirit-level and measuring-cord. They were levelling a stretch of +newly-turned and smoothed ground, and they pointed with pride to the +portion of the work already accomplished, serried rows of spick-and-span +headstones, all "plumb," as they explained, and freshly scraped--not a +sign of caressing moss or a tendril of vine to be seen. A neat job, if +there ever was one. We should have seen the yard before they had taken it +in hand! There wasn't a stone that was straight, and the weeds and the +brambles--well, look at it now. We looked. Could anything be more refined +or in more perfect taste? The churchyard was as smooth and correct as a +newly-barbered head, not a hair out of place. We looked and kept our +thoughts to ourselves, but we wondered if the dead were really as +grateful as they should be for this drastic house-cleaning? Did they +appreciate this mathematical uniformity, this spruce and spotless +residential air of their numbered rectangular rest; or was not the old +way nearer to their desire, with soft mosses tucking them in from the +garish sun, and Spring winds spreading coverlets of wild flowers above +their sleep? + +But--who knows?--perhaps the dead prefer to be up-to-date, and to follow +the fashion in funeral furnishings; and surely such expert necropolitans +as our four friends ought to know. No doubt the Sheldon Center dead would +have the same tastes as the Sheldon Center living; for, after all, we +forget, in our idealization of them, that the dead, like the living, are +a vast _bourgeoisie_. Yes! it is a depressing thought--the _bourgeoisie_ +of the dead! + +As we stood talking, the young priest of the parish joined our group. He +was a German, from Duesseldorf, and his worn face lit up when he found +that Colin had been at Duesseldorf and could talk with him about it. As +he stood with us there on that bleak upland, he seemed a pathetic, +symbolic figure, lonely standard-bearer of the spirit in one of the +dreary colonies of that indomitable church that carries her mystic +sacraments even into the waste places and borders of the world. The +romance of Rome was far away beyond that horizon on which he turned his +wistful look; here was its hard work, its daily prose. But he turned +proudly to the great pile that loomed over us. We had commented on its +size in so remote a parish. + +"Yes, I am proud of our people," he said. "It is greatly to their +credit." One could not help silently wondering that the spiritual needs +of this handful of lonely houses should demand so ambitious a structure. +But the symbols of the soul can never be too impressive. Then we said +good-bye to our friends, and struck out into the morning sunshine, +leaving the village of song behind. + +Yes! in Sheldon Center they sing from morning till night--at +grave-making! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +APPLE-LAND + + +It was a spacious morning of windswept sunshine, with a wintry bite in +the keen air. Meadow-larks and song-sparrows kept up a faint warbling +about us, but the crickets, which yesterday had here and there made a +thin music, as of straggling bands of survivors of the Summer, were +numbed into silence again. Once or twice we caught sight of the dainty +snipe in the meadows, and high over the woods a bird-hawk floated, as by +some invisible anchorage, in the sky. It was an austere landscape, grave +with elm and ash and pine. For a space, a field of buckwheat standing in +ricks struck a smudged negroid note, but there was warmth in the apple +orchards which clustered about the scattered houses, with piles of golden +pumpkins and red apples under the trees. And is there any form of +piled-up wealth, bins of specie at the bank, or mountains of precious +stones, rubies and sapphires and carbuncles, as we picture them in the +subterranean treasuries of kings, that thrills the imagination with so +dream-like a sense of uncounted riches, untold gold, as such natural +bullion of the earth; pyramids of apples lighting up dark orchards, great +plums lying in heaps of careless purple, corridors hung with fabulous +bunches of grapes, or billowy mounds of yellow grain--the treasuries of +Pomona and Vertumnus? Such treasuries, in the markets of this world, are +worth only a modest so-much-a-bushel, yet I think I should actually feel +myself richer with a barrel of apples than with a barrel of money. + +From a corn-growing country, we were evidently passing into a country +whose beautiful business was apples. Orchards began more or less to line +the road, and wagons with those same apple-barrels became a feature of +the highway. + +Another of its features was the number of old ruined farmhouses we came +on, standing side by side with the new, more ambitious homesteads. We +seldom came on a prosperous-looking house but a few yards away was to be +seen its aged and abandoned parent, smothered up with bushes, roof fallen +in, timbers ready to collapse, the deserted hearth choked with debris and +overgrown with weeds--the very picture of a haunted house. Here had been +the original home, always small, seldom more than four rooms, and when +things had begun to prosper, a more spacious, and often, to our eyes, a +less attractive, structure had been built, and the old home left to the +bats and owls, with a complete abandonment that seemed to us--sentimental +travellers as we were--as cynical as it was curiously wasteful. + +Putting sentiment out of the question, we had to leave unexplained why +the American farmer should thus allow so much good building material to +go to waste. Besides, as we also noted much farm machinery rusting +unhoused in the grass, we wondered why he did not make use of these old +buildings for storage purposes. But the American farmer has puzzled wiser +heads than ours, so we gave it up and turned our attention once more to +our own fanciful business, one highly useful branch of which was the +observation of the names on the tin letter-boxes thrusting themselves out +at intervals along the road. + +The history of American settlement could, I suppose, be read in those +wayside letter-boxes, in such names, for instance, as "Theo. Leveque" and +"Paul Fugle," which, like wind-blown exotics from other lands, we found +within a few yards of each other. One name, that of "Silvernail," we +decided could only lawfully belong to a princess in a fairy tale. Such +childishness as this, I may say, is of the essence of a walking trip, in +which, from moment to moment, you take quite infantile interest in all +manner of idle observation and quite useless lore. That is a part of the +game you are playing, and the main thing is that you are out in the open +air, on the open road, with a simple heart and a romantic appetite. + +Here is a little picture of a wayfaring day which I made while Colin was +sketching one of those ruined farms: + +_Apples along the highway strewn, + And morning opening all her doors; +The cawing rook, the distant train, + The valley with its misty floors; + +The hillside hung with woods and dreams, + Soft gleams of gossamer and dew; +From cockcrow to the rising moon + The rainbowed road for me and you. + +Along the highroad all the day + The wagons filled with apples go, +And golden pumpkins and ripe corn, + And all the ruddy overflow + +From Autumn's apron, as she goes + About her orchards and her fields, +And gathers into stack and barn + The treasure that the Summer yield. + +A singing heart, a laughing road, + With salutations all the way,-- +The gossip dog, the hidden bird, + The pig that grunts a gruff good-day; + +The apple-ladder in the trees, + A friendly voice amid the boughs, +The farmer driving home his team, + The ducks, the geese, the uddered cows; + +The silver babble of the creek, + The willow-whisper--the day's end, +With murmur of the village street, + A called good-night, an unseen friend_. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ORCHARDS AND A LINE FROM VIRGIL + + +Orchards! We were walking to New York--through orchards. And we might +have gone by train! A country of orchards and gold-dust sunshine falling +through the quaint tapestry trees, falling dreamily on heaped-up gold, +and the grave backs of little pigs joyously at large in the apple +twilight. A drowsy, murmuring spell was on the land, the spell of fabled +orchards, and of old enchanted gardens-- + +_In the afternoon they came unto a land +In which it seemed always afternoon_-- + +the country of King Alcinous. At intervals, as we walked on through the +cider-dreamy afternoon, thinking apples, smelling apples, munching +apples, there came a mellow sound like soft thunder through the trees. It +was the thunder of apples being poured into barrels, and, as in a sleep, +the fragrant wagons passed and repassed along the road--"the slow-moving +wagons of our lady of Eleusis." + +That line of Virgil came to me, as lines will sometimes come in fortunate +moments, with the satisfaction of perfect fitness to the hour and the +mood, gathering into one sacred, tear-filled phrase the deep sense that +had been possessing me, as we passed the husbandmen busy with the various +harvest, of the long antiquity of these haunted industries of the earth. + +So long, so long, has man pursued these ancient tasks; so long ago was +he urging the plowshare through the furrow, so long ago the sower went +forth to sow; so long ago have there been barns and byres, granaries and +threshing-floors, mills and vineyards; so long has there been milking of +cows, and herding of sheep and swine. Can one see a field of wheat +gathered into sheaves without thinking of the dream of Joseph, or be +around a farm at lambing time without smiling to recall the cunning of +Jacob? Already were all these things weary and old and romantic when +Virgil wrote and admonished the husbandman of times and seasons, of +plows and harrows, of mattocks and hurdles, and the mystical winnowing +fan of Iacchus. + +To the meditative, romantic mind, the farmer and plowman, standing thus +in the foreground of the infinite perspective of time, take on a sacred +significance, as of traditional ministers of the ancient mysteries of +the earth. + +Perhaps it is one's involuntary sense of this haunted antiquity that +gives its peculiar expressiveness to the solemn, almost religious quiet +of barns and stables, the, so to say, prehistoric hush of brooding, +sun-steeped rickyards; and gives, too, a homely, sacerdotal look to the +implements and vessels of the farm. A churn or a cheese-press gives one +the same deep, uncanny thrill of the terrible vista of time as Stonehenge +itself; and from such implements, too, there seems to breathe a sigh--a +sigh of the long travail and unbearable pathos of the race of men. + +You will thus see the satisfaction, in moods of such meditation, of +carrying in one's knapsack a line from Virgil--"the slow-moving wagons of +our Lady of Eleusis"--and I congratulated myself on my forethought in +having included in our itinerant library a copy of Mr. Mackail's +beautiful translation of "The Georgics." Walt Whitman, talking to one of +his friends about his habit of carrying a book with him on his nature +rambles, said that nine times out of ten he would never open the book, +but that the tenth time he would need it very badly. So I needed "The +Georgics" very badly that afternoon, and the hour would have lost much of +its perfection had I not been able to take the book from my knapsack, and +corroborate my mood, while Colin was sketching an old barn, by reading +aloud from its consecrated pages: + +"_I can repeat to thee many a counsel of them of old, if thou shrink not +back nor weary to learn of lowly cares. Above all must the +threshing-floor be levelled with the ponderous roller, and wrought by +hand and cemented with clinging potter's clay, that it may not gather +weeds nor crack in the reign of dust, and be playground withal for +manifold destroyers. Often the tiny mouse builds his house and makes his +granaries underground, or the eyeless mole scoops his cell; and in chinks +is found the toad, and all the swarming vermin that are bred in earth; +and the weevil, and the ant that fears a destitute old age, plunder the +great pile of spelt_." + +Perhaps some reader had been disposed hastily to say: "What did you want +with hooks out of doors? Was not Nature enough?" No one who loves both +books and Nature would ask that question, or need to have explained why a +knapsack library is a necessary adjunct of a walking-tour. + +For Nature and books react so intimately on each other, and, far more +than one realizes without thought, our enjoyment of Nature is a creation +of literature. For example, can any one sensitive to such considerations +deny that the meadows of the world are greener for the Twenty-third +Psalm, or the starry sky the gainer in our imagination by the solemn +cadences of the book of Job? All our experiences, new and personal as +they may seem to us, owe incalculably their depth and thrill to the +ancestral sentiment in our blood, and joy and sorrow are for us what they +are, no little because so many old, far-away generations of men and women +have joyed and sorrowed in the same way before us. Literature but +represents that concentrated sentiment, and satisfies through expression +our human need for some sympathetic participation with us in our human +experience. + +That a long-dead poet walking in the Spring was moved as I am by the +unfolding leaf and the returning bird imparts an added significance to my +own feelings; and that some wise and beautiful old book knew and said it +all long ago, makes my life seem all the more mysteriously romantic for +me to-day. Besides, books are not only such good companions for what they +say, but for what they are. As with any other friend, you may go a whole +day with them, and not have a word to say to each other, yet be happily +conscious of a perfect companionship. The book we know and love--and, of +course, one would never risk taking a book we didn't know for a +companion--has long since become a symbol for us, a symbol of certain +moods and ways of feeling, a key to certain kingdoms of the spirit, of +which it is often sufficient just to hold the key in our hands. So, a +single flower in the hand is a key to Summer, a floating perfume the key +to the hidden gardens of remembrance. The wrong book in the hand, whether +opened or not, is as distracting a presence as an irrelevant person; and +therefore it was with great care that I chose my knapsack library. It +consisted of these nine books: + +Mackail's "Georgics." +Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. +Shakespeare's Sonnets. +Locke's "Beloved Vagabond." +Selections from R.L.S. +Pater's "Marius the Epicurean." +Alfred de Musset's "Premieres Poesies." +Baedeker's "United States." +Road Map of New York State. + +And, though my knapsack already weighed eighteen pounds, I could not +resist the call of a cheap edition of Wordsworth in a drug-store at +Warsaw, a charming little town embosomed among hills and orchards, where +we arrived, dreamy with country air, at the end of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FELLOW WAYFARERS + + +With the morn our way still lay among apples and honey, hives and +orchards; a land of prosperous farms, sumptuous rolling downs, rich +woodland, sheep, more pigs, more apple-barrels and velvety sunshine. The +old ruined houses had ceased, and the country had taken on a more +generous, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed aspect. Nature was preparing for +one of her big Promised Land effects. We were coming to the valley of the +Genesee River. We made a comparison of two kinds of prosperity in the +look of a landscape. Some villages and farms suggest smugness in their +prosperity. They have a model-farm, business-like, well-regulated, +up-to-date, company-financed air, suggesting such modern agricultural +terms as "ensilage," "irrigation" and "fertilizer." Other villages and +farms, while just as well-kept and well-to-do, have, so to say, a +something romantic about their prosperity, a bounteous, ruddy, golden-age +look about them, as though Nature herself had been the farmer and they +had ruddied and ripened out of her own unconscious abundance--the +difference between a row of modern box beehives and the old +thatched-cottage kind. The countryside of the Genesee valley has the +romantic prosperous look. Its farms and villages look like farms and +villages in picture-books, and the country folk we met seemed happy and +gay and kind, such as those one reads of in William Morris's romances of +the golden age. As from time to time we exchanged greetings with them, we +were struck with their comely health and blithe ways--particularly with +their fine teeth, as they laughed us the time of day, or stopped their +wagons to gossip a moment with the two outlandish packmen--the very teeth +one would expect in an apple-country. Perhaps they came of so much sweet +commerce with apples! + +The possessor of a particularly fine display hailed us as he drove by in +an empty wagon, at the tail of which trailed a long orchard ladder, and +asked us if we would care for a lift. Now it happened that his +suggestion came like a voice from heaven for poor Colin, one of whose +shoes had been casting a gloom over our spirits for several miles. So we +accepted with alacrity, and, really, riding felt quite good for a +change! Our benefactor was a bronzed, handsome young fellow, just +through Cornell, he told us, and proud of his brave college, as all +Cornell men are. He had chosen apple-farming for his career, and, +naturally, seemed quite happy about it; lived on his farm near by with +his mother and sister, and was at the moment out on the quest of four +apple-packers for his harvesting, these experts being at a premium at +this season. We rattled along gaily in the broad afternoon sunshine, +exchanging various human information, from apple-packing to New York +theatres, after the manner of the companionable soul of man, and I hope +he liked us as well as we liked him. + +One piece of information was of particular interest to Colin, the +whereabouts of one "Billy the Cobbler," a character of the neighbourhood, +who would fix Colin's shoe for him, and, incidentally, if he was in the +mood, give us a musical and dramatic entertainment into the bargain. + +At length our ways parted, and, with cheery good-byes and good wishes, +our young friend went rattling along, leaving in our hearts a warm +feeling of the brotherhood of man--sometimes. He had let us down close by +the "High Banks," the rumour of which had been in our ears for some +miles, and presently the great effect Nature had been preparing burst on +our gaze with a startling surprise. The peaceful pastoral country was +suddenly cloven in twain by a gigantic chasm, the Genesee River, dizzy +depths below, picturesquely flowing between Grand Canon rock effects, +shaggy woods clothing the precipitous limestone, and small forests +growing far down in the broad bed of the river, with here and there +checkerboard spaces of cultivated land, gleaming, smooth and green, amid +all the spectacular savageness--soft, cozy spots of verdure nestling +dreamily in the hollow of the giant rocky hand. The road ran close to the +edge of the chasm, and the sublimity was with us, laying its hush upon +us, for the rest of the afternoon. Appropriate to her Jove-like mood, +Nature had planted stern thickets of oak-trees along the rocky edge, and +"the acorns of our lord of Chaonia" crunched beneath our feet as we +walked on. + +After a while, sure enough we came upon "Billy the Cobbler," seated at +his bench in a little shop at the beginning of a straggle of houses, +alone, save for his cat, at the sleepy end of afternoon. We had +understood that he had been crippled in some cruel accident of machinery, +and was hampered in the use of his legs. But, unless in a certain +philosophic sweetness on his big, happy face, there was no sign of the +cripple about his burly, broad-shouldered personality. He was evidently +meant to be a giant, and was what one might call the bo'sun type, bluff, +big-voiced and merry, with a boyish laugh, large, twinkling eyes, a +trifle wistful, and the fine teeth of the district. + +"Well, boys," said he, looking up from his work with a smile, "and what +can I do for you? Walking, eh?--to New York!" and he whistled, as every +one did when they learned our mysterious business. + +Then, taking Colin's shoe in his hand, he commenced to pound upon that +instrument of torture, talking gaily the while. Presently he asked, "Do +you care about music?" and on our eagerly agreeing that we did, "All +right," he said, "we'll close the shop for a few minutes and have some." + +Then, moving around on his seat, like some heroic half-figure bust on its +pedestal, he rummaged among the litter of leather and tools at his side, +and produced a guitar from its baize bag, also a mouth organ, which by +some ingenious wire arrangement he fastened around his neck, so that he +might press his lips upon it, leaving his hands free for the guitar. + +Then, "Ready?" said he, and, applying himself simultaneously to the +guitar and the harmonica, off he started with a quite electrical gusto +into a spirited fandango that made the little shop dance and rattle with +merriment. You would have said that a whole orchestra was there, such a +volume and variety of musical sound did Billy contrive to evoke from his +two instruments. + +"There!" he said, with a humorous chuckle, pushing the harmonica aside +from his mouth, "what do you think of that for an overture?" He had +completely hypnotized us with his infectious high spirits, and we were +able to applaud him sincerely, for this lonely cobbler of shoes was +evidently a natural well of music, and was, besides, no little of an +executant. + +"Now I'll give you an imitation of grand opera," he said; and then he +launched into the drollest burlesque of a fashionable tenor and a +prima-donna, as clever as could be. He was evidently a born mime as well +as a musician, and presently delighted us with some farmyard imitations, +and one particularly quaint impersonation, "an old lady singing with +false teeth," sent us into fits of laughter. + +"You ought to go into vaudeville," we both said spontaneously, with that +vicious modern instinct to put private gifts to professional uses, and +then Billy, with shy pride, admitted that he did do a little now and +again in a professional way at harvest balls (we thought of Sheldon +Center) and the like. + +"Perhaps you might like one of my professional letter-heads," he said, +handing us one apiece. I think probably the reader would like one, too. +You must imagine it in the original, with fancy displayed professional +type, regular "artiste" style, and a portrait of Billy, with his two +instruments, in one corner. And "see thou mock him not," gentle reader! + +_King of Them All +BILLY WILLIAMS +THE KING OF ALL IMITATORS +Producing in Rapid Succession +A GRAND REPERTOIRE +of Imitations and Impersonations +Consisting of_: + +Minstrel Bands, Circus Bands, Killing +Pigs, Cat Greeting Her Kitten, Barn-Yard +of Hens and Roosters, Opera +Singers with Guitar, Whistling with +Guitar, Old Lady Singing with False +Teeth, Cow and Calf, Harmonica with +the Guitar, Arab Song, Trombone Solo +with the Guitar. + +Yes! "See thou mock him not," gentle reader, for Billy is no subject for +any man's condescension. We were in his company scarcely an hour, but we +went away with a great feeling of respect and tenderness for him, and we +hope some day to drop in on him again, and hear his music and his quaint, +manly wisdom. + +"All alone in the world, Billy?" + +A shade of sadness passed over his face, and was gone again, as he +smilingly answered, stroking the cat that purred and rubbed herself +against his shoulder. + +"Just puss and me and the guitar," he said. "The happiest of families. +Ah! Music's a great thing of a lonely evening." + +And a sense of the brave loneliness of Billy's days swept over me as we +shook his strong hand, and he gave us a cheery godspeed on our way. I am +convinced that Billy could earn quite a salary on the vaudeville stage; +but--no! he is better where he is, sitting there at his bench, with his +black cat and his guitar and his singing, manly soul. + +The twilight was rapidly thickening as we left Billy, once more bent over +his work, and, the fear of "supper-time" in our hearts, we pushed on at +extra speed toward our night's lodging at Mount Morris. The oak-trees +gloomed denser on our right as we plowed along a villainously sandy road. +Labourers homing from the day's work greeted us now and again in the +dimness, and presently one of these, plodding up behind us, broke forth +into conversation: + +"Ben-a carry pack-a lik-a dat-a--forty-two months--army--ol-a country," +said the voice out of the darkness. + +It was an Italian labourer on his way to supper, interested in our +knapsacks. + +"You're an Italian?" + +"Me come from Pal-aer-mo." + +The little chap was evidently in a talkative mood, and I nudged Colin to +do the honours of the conversation. + +"Pal-aer-mo? Indeed!" said Colin. "Fine city, I guess." + +"Been-a Pal-aer-mo?" asked the Italian eagerly. Colin couldn't say +that he had. + +"Great city, Pal-aer-mo," continued our friend, "great theatre--cost +sixteen million dollars." + +There is nothing like a walking-trip for gathering information of +this kind. + +The Italian went on to explain that this country was a poor substitute +for the "ol-a country." + +"This country--rough country. In this country me do rough-a work," he +explained apologetically; "in Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work." + +And he accentuated his statement by a vicious side spit upon the +American soil. + +It transpired that the "polit-a work" on which he had been engaged in +Pal-aer-mo had been waiting in a restaurant. + +And so the poor soul chattered on, touching, not unintelligently, in his +absurd English, on American politics, capital and labour, the rich and +the poor. The hard lot of the poor man in America, and--"Pal-aer-mo," +made the recurring burden of his talk, through which, a pathetic +undertone, came to us a sense of the native poetry of his race. + +Did he ever expect to return to Palermo? we asked him as we parted. "Ah! +many a night me dream of Pal-aer-mo," he called back, as, striking into a +by-path, he disappeared in the darkness. + +And then we came to a great iron bridge, sternly silhouetted in the +sunset. On either side rose cliffs of darkness, and beneath, like sheets +of cold moonlight, flowed the Genesee, a Dantesque effect of jet and +silver, Stygian in its intensity and indescribably mournful. The banks of +Acheron can not be more wildly _funebre_, and it was companionable to +hear Colin's voice mimicking out of the darkness: + +"In this country me do rough-a work. In Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work!" + +"Poor chap!" I said, after a pause, thinking of our friend from +Pal-aer-mo. "Do you know Hafiz, Colin?" I continued. "There is an ode of +his that came back to me as our poor Italian was talking. I think I will +say it to you. It is just the time and place for it." + +"Do," said Colin. And then I repeated: + +_"At sunset, when the eyes of exiles fill, + And distance makes a desert of the heart, +And all the lonely world grows lonelier still, + I with the other exiles go apart, +And offer up the stranger's evening prayer. + My body shakes with weeping as I pray, +Thinking on all I love that are not there, + So desolately absent far away-- +My Love and Friend, and my own land and home. + O aching emptiness of evening skies! +O foolish heart, what tempted thee to roam + So far away from the Beloved's eyes! +To the Beloved's country I belong-- + I am a stranger in this foreign place; +Strange are its streets, and strange to me its tongue; + Strange to the stranger each familiar face. +'Tis not my city! Take me by the hand, + Divine protector of the lonely ones, +And lead me back to the Beloved's land-- + Back to my friends and my companions +O wind that blows from Shiraz, bring to me + A little dust from my Beloved's street; +Send Hafiz something, love, that comes from thee, + Touched by thy hand, or trodden by thy feet."_ + +"My! but that makes one feel lonesome," was Colin's comment. "I wonder if +there will be any mail from the folk at Mount Morris." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE OLD LADY OF THE WALNUTS AND OTHERS + + +What manner of men we were and what our business was, thus wandering +along the highroads with packs on our backs and stout sticks in our +hands, was matter for no little speculation, and even suspicion, to the +rural mind. We did not seem to fit in with any familiar classification of +vagabond. We might be peddlers, or we might be "hoboes," but there was a +disquieting uncertainty about us, and we felt it necessary occasionally +to make reassuring explanations. Once or twice we found no opportunity to +do this, as, for instance, one sinister, darksome evening, we stood in +hesitation at a puzzling cross-road--near Dansville, I think--and awaited +the coming of an approaching buggy from which to ask the way. It was +driven by two ladies, who, on our making a signal of distress to them, +immediately whipped up with evident alarm, and disappeared in a flash. +Dear things! they evidently anticipated a hold-up, and no doubt arrived +home with a breathless tale of two suspicious-looking characters hanging +about the neighbourhood. + +On another occasion, we had been seated awhile under a walnut tree +growing near a farm, and scattering its fruitage half across the +highroad. Colin had been anointing his suffering foot, and, as I told +him, looked strongly reminiscent of a certain famous corn-cure +advertisement. Meanwhile, I had been once more quoting Virgil: "The +walnut in the woodland attires herself in wealth of blossom and bends +with scented boughs," when there approached with slow step an old, +white-haired lady, at once gentle and severe in appearance, accompanied +by a younger lady. When they had arrived in front of us, the old lady in +measured tones of sorrow rather than anger, said: "We rather needed those +walnuts--" Dear soul! she evidently thought that we had been filling +our knapsacks with her nuts, and it took some little astonished +expostulation on our part to convince her that we hadn't. This affront +seemed to sink no little into Colin's sensitive Latin soul--and they were +public enough walnuts, anyway, scattered, as they were, across the public +road! But Colin couldn't get over it for some time, and I suspected that +he was the more sensitive from his recently--owing, doubtless, to his +distinguished Gallic appearance--having been profanely greeted by some +irreverent boys with the word "Spaghetti!" However, there was balm for +our wounded feelings a little farther along the road, when a +companionable old farmer greeted us with: + +"Well, boys! out for a walk? It's easy seeing you're no tramps." + +Colin's expression was a study in gratitude. The farmer was a fine, +soldierly old fellow, who told me that he was half English, too, on his +father's side. + +"But my mother," he added, "was a good blue-bellied Yankee." + +We lured him on to using that delightfully quaint expression again before +we left him; and we also learned from him valuable information as to the +possibilities of lunch farther along the road, for we were in a lonely +district with no inns, and it was Sunday. + +In regard to lunch, I suppose that in prosaically paying our way for bed +and board as we fared along we fell short of the Arcadian theory of +walking-tours in which the wayfarer, like a mendicant friar, takes toll +of lunch and dinner from the hospitable farmer of sentimental legend, and +sleeps for choice in barns, hayricks or hedgesides. Now, sleeping out of +doors in October, if you have ever tried it, is a very different thing +from sleeping out of doors in June, and as for rural hospitality--well, +if you are of a sensitive constitution you shrink from obtruding +yourself, an alien apparition, upon the embarrassed and embarrassing +rural domesticities. Besides, to be quite honest, rural table-talk, +except in Mr. Hardy's novels or pastoral poetry, is, to say the least, +lacking in variety. Indeed, if the truth must be told, the conversation +of country people, generally speaking, and an occasional, very +occasional, character or oddity apart, is undeniably dull, and I hope it +will not be imputed to me for hardness of heart that, after some +long-winded colloquy or endless reminiscence, sententious and trivial, I +have thought that Gray's famous line should really have been +written--"the long and tedious annals of the poor." + +But my heart smites me with ingratitude toward some kindly memories as I +write that--memories of homely welcome, simple and touching and +dignified. Surely I am not writing so of the genial farmer on whom we +came one lunch hour as he was stripping corn in his yard. + +"Missus," he called to the house a few yards away, "can you find any +lunch for two good-looking fellows here?" + +The housewife came to the door, scanned us for a second, and replied in +the affirmative. As we sat down to table, our host bowed his head and +said a simple grace for the bacon and cabbage, pumpkin-pie, cheese and +tea we were about to receive; and the unexpected old-fashioned rite, too +seldom encountered nowadays, came on me with a fresh beauty and +impressiveness, which made me feel that its discontinuance is a real loss +of gracious ritual in our lives, and perhaps even more. Thus this simple +farmer's board seemed sensitively linked with the far-away beginnings of +time. Of all our religious symbolism, the country gods and the gods of +the hearth and the household seem actual, approachable presences, and the +saying of grace before meat was a beautiful, fitting reminder of that +mysterious, invisible care and sustenance of our lives, which no longer +find any recognition in our daily routine: _Above all, worship thou the +gods, and bring great Ceres her yearly offerings_. + +Another such wayside meal and another old couple live touchingly in our +memories. We were still in the broad, sun-swept valley of the Genesee, +our road lying along the edge of the wide, reed-grown flats and +water-meadows, bounded on the north by rolling hills. On our left hand, +parallel with the road, ran a sort of willowed moat banked by a +grass-grown causeway, a continuous narrow mound, somewhat higher than the +surrounding country, and cut through here and there with grass-grown +gullies, the whole suggesting primeval earthworks and excavations. So the +old Roman roads run, grassy and haunted and choked with underbrush, in +the lonelier country districts of England. We were curious as to the +meaning of this causeway, and learned at length that here was all that +remained of the old Genesee Canal. Thirty years ago, this moat had +brimmed with water, and barges had plied their sleepy traffic between +Dansville and Rochester. But the old order had changed, and a day had +come when the dike had been cut through, the lazy water let out into the +surrounding flats, and the old waterway left to the willows and the +wild-flowers, the mink and the musk-rat. Only thirty years ago--yet +to-day Nature has so completely taken it all back to herself that the +hush of a long-vanished antiquity is upon it, and the turfy burial mound +of some Hengist and Horsa could not be more silent. + +This old fosse seemed to strike the somewhat forgotten, out-of-the-world +note of the surrounding country. Picturesque to the eye, with bounteous +green prospects and smooth, smiling hills, it was not, we were told, as +prosperous as it looked. For some vague reason, the tides of agricultural +prosperity had ebbed from that spacious sunlit vale. A handsome old +trapper, who sat at his house door smoking his pipe and looking across +the green flats, set down the cause to the passing of the canal. Ah, yes! +it was possible for him, thirty years ago, to make the trip to Rochester +and back by the canal, and bring home a good ten dollars; but now--well, +every one in the valley was poor, except the man whose beehives we had +seen on the hillside half-a-mile back. He had made no less than a +thousand dollars out of his honey this last season. He was an old +bachelor, too, like himself. There were no less than five bachelors in +the valley--five old men without a woman to look after them. + +"--or bother them," the old chap added humorously, relighting his pipe. +Mrs. Mulligan, half a mile farther up the valley, was the only woman +thereabouts; and she, by the way, would give us some lunch. We could say +that he had sent us. + +So we left the old trapper to his pipe and his memories, and went in +search of Mrs. Mulligan. Presently a poor little house high up on the +hillside caught our eye, and we made toward it. As we were nearing the +door, a dog, evidently not liking our packs, sprang out at us, and from +down below in the marshy flats floated the voice of a man calling to us. + +"Get out o' that!" hailed the voice. "There's nothing there for you." + +Poor Colin! We were evidently taken for tramps once more. + +However, undaunted by this reception, we reached the cottage door, and at +our knock appeared a very old, but evidently vigorous, woman. + +"Is this Mrs. Mulligan's house?" + +Her name on the lips of two strangers brought a surprised smile to her +face--a pleasant feeling of importance, even notoriety, no doubt--and she +speedily made us welcome, and, with many apologies, set before us the +cold remains of lunch which had been over an hour or two ago--cold +squash, pumpkin pie, cheese and milk. It was too bad we were late, for +they had had a chicken for dinner, and had sent the remains of it to a +friend down the road,--our trapper, no doubt,--and if the fire hadn't +gone out she would have made us some tea. Now, cold squash is not exactly +an inflammatory diet, but we liked the old lady so much, she had such a +pleasant, motherly way with her, and such an entertaining, wise and even +witty tongue, that we decided that cold squash, with her as hostess, was +better than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. + +Presently the door opened and the good man entered, he who had called to +us from the marsh--a tall, emaciated old man, piteously thin, and old, +and work-weary to look on, but with a keen, bright eye in his head, and +something of a proud air about his ancient figure. It seemed cruel to +think of his old bones having still to go on working, but our two old +people, who seemed pathetically fond of each other, were evidently very +poor, like the rest of the valley. The old man excused himself for his +salutation of us--but there were so many dangerous characters about, and +the old folk shook their heads and told of the daring operations of +mysterious robbers in the neighbourhood. In their estimation, the times +were generally unsafe, and lawless characters rife in the land. We looked +around at the pathetic poverty of the place--and wondered why they should +disquiet themselves. Poor souls! there was little left to rob them of, +save the fluttering remnants of their mortal breath. But, poor as they +were, they had their telephone,--a fact that struck us paradoxically in +many a poor cabin as we went along. Yes! had they a mind, they could +call up the White House, that instant, or the Waldorf-Astoria. + +We spoke of our old trapper, and the old lady smiled. + +"Those are his socks I've been darning for him," she said. So the cynical +old bachelor was taken care of by the good angel, woman, after all! + +Trapping was about all there was to do now in the valley, she said. A +mink brought seven dollars, a musk-rat thirty cents. Our old bachelor had +made as much as eighteen dollars in two days--one day several years ago. +The old man had told us this himself. It was evidently quite a piece of +history in the valley, quite a local legend. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN AT DANSVILLE + + +At Dansville we fell in with a man after our own hearts. Fortunately for +himself and his friends, he is unaware of the simple fact that he is a +poet. We didn't tell him, either--though we longed to. He was standing +outside his prosperous-looking planing-mill, at about half-past eight of +a dreaming October morning. Inside, the saws were making that droning, +sweet-smelling, sawdust noise that made Colin think of "Adam Bede." The +willows and button-wood trees at the back of the workshops were still +smoking with sunlit mist, and the quiet, massive, pretty water looked +like a sleepy mirror, as it softly flooded along to its work on the big, +dripping wheels. + +To our left a great hill, all huge and damp, glittering with gossamers, +and smelling of restless yellow leaves, shouldered the morning sky. + +Then, turning away from talk with three or four workmen, standing at his +office door, he saluted the two apparitional figures, so oddly passing +along the muddy morning road. + +"Out for a walk, boys?" he called. + +He was a handsome man of about forty-three, with a romantic scar slashed +down his left cheek, a startling scar that must have meant hideous agony +to him, and yet, here in the end, had made his face beautiful, by the +presence in it of a spiritual conquest. + +"How far are you walking?--you are not going so far as my little river +here, I'll bet--" + +And then we understood that we were in the presence of romantic +conversation, and we listened with a great gladness. + +"Yes! who would think that this little, quiet, mill-race is on her way to +the Gulf of Mexico!" + +We looked at the little reeded river, so demure in her morning mists, so +discreet and hushed among her willows, and in our friend's eyes, and by +the magic of his fanciful tongue, we saw her tripping along to dangerous +conjunctions with resounding rock-bedded streams, adventurously taking +hands with swirling, impulsive floods, fragrant with water-flowers and +laden with old forests, and at length, through the strange, starlit +hills, sweeping out into some moonlit estuary of the all-enfolding sea. + +"Aren't you glad we walked, Colin?" I said, a mile or two after. "You +are, of course, a great artist; but I don't remember you ever having a +thought quite so fine and romantic as that, do you?" + +"How strange it must be," said Colin, after a while, "to have +beauty--beautiful thoughts, beautiful pictures--merely as a recreation; +not as one's business, I mean. And the world is full of people who have +no need to sell their beautiful thoughts!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH WE CATCH UP WITH SUMMER + + +Some eminent wayfarers--one peculiarly beloved--have discoursed on the +romantic charm of maps. But they have dwelt chiefly on the suggestiveness +of them before the journey: these unknown names of unknown places, in +types of mysteriously graduated importance--what do they stand for? These +mazy lines, some faint and wayward as a hair, and some straight and +decided as a steel track--whence and whither do they lead? I love the map +best when the journey is done--when I can pore on its lines as into the +lined face of some dear friend with whom I have travelled the years, and +say--here this happened, here that befell! This almost invisible dot is +made of magic rocks and is filled with the song of rapids; this +infinitesimal fraction of "Scale five miles to the inch" is a haunted +valley of purple pine-woods, and the moon rising, and the lonely cry of a +sheep that has lost her little one somewhere in the folds of the hills. +Here, where is no name, stands an old white church with a gilded cross, +among little white houses huddled together under a bluff. In yonder +garden the priest's cassock and trousers are hanging sacrilegiously on a +clothes-line, and you can just see a tiny graveyard away up on the +hillside almost hidden in the trees. + +Even sacred vestments must be laundered by earthly laundresses, yet +somehow it gives one a shock to see sacred vestments out of the +sanctuary, profanely displayed on a clothes-line. It is as though one +should turn the sacred chalice into a tea-pot. A priest's trousers on a +clothes-line might well be the beginning of atheism. But I hope there +were no such fanciful deductive minds in that peaceful hamlet, and that +the faithful there can withstand even so profound a trial of faith. If it +had been my own creed that those vestments represented, I should have +been shaken, I confess; and, as it was, I felt a vague pain of +disillusionment, of an indignity done to the unseen; as, whatever the +creed, living or dead, may be, I always feel in those rooms often +affected by artistic people, furnished with the bric-a-brac of religions, +indeed not their own, but, none the less, once or even now, the living +religions of other people--rooms in which forgotten, or merely foreign, +deities are despitefully used for decoration, and a crucifix and a Buddha +and an African idol alike parts of the artistic furniture. But, no doubt, +it is to consider too curiously to consider so, and the good priest whose +cassock and trousers have occasioned these reflections would smilingly +prick my fancies, after the dialectic manner of his calling, and say that +his trousers on the clothes-line were but a humble reminder to the +faithful how near to the daily life of her children, how human at once as +well as divine, is Mother Church. + +A cross, naturally, marks the spot where we saw those priest's trousers +on the line; but there are no crosses for a hundred places of memorable +moments of our journey; they must go without memorial even in this humble +record, and Colin and I must be content to keep wayside shrines for them +in our hearts. + +How insignificant, on the map, looks the little stretch of some seventeen +miles from Dansville to Cohocton, yet I feel that one would need to erect +a cathedral to represent the perfect day of golden October wayfaring it +stands for, as on the weather-beaten map spread out before me on my +writing-table, as Colin and I so often spread it out under a tree by some +lonely roadside, I con the place-names that to us "bring a perfume in the +mention." It was a district of quaint, romantic-sounding names, and it +fully justified that fantastic method of choosing our route by the sound +of the names of places, which I confessed to the reader on an earlier +page: Wayland--Patchin's Mills--Blood's Depot--Cohocton. And to north and +south of our route were names such as Ossian, Stony Brook Glen, Loon +Lake, Rough & Ready, Doly's Corners, and Neil Creek. I confess that there +was a Perkinsville to go through--a beautiful spot, too, for which one +felt that sort of aesthetic pity one feels for a beautiful girl married +to a man, say, of the name of Podgers. Perkinsville! It was as though you +said--the beautiful Mrs. Podgers. But there was consolation in the sound +of Wayland, with its far call to Wayland's smithy and Walter Scott. +And--Cohocton! The name to me had a fine Cromwellian ring; and Blood's +Depot--what a truculent sound to that!--if you haven't forgotten the +plumed dare-devil cavalier who once made a dash to steal the king's +regalia from the Tower. Again--Loon Lake. Can you imagine two more +lonesome wailing words to make a picture with? But--Cohocton. How oddly +right my absurd instinct had been about that--and, shall we ever forget +the unearthly beauty of the evening which brought us at dark to the +quaint little operatic-looking village, deep and snug among the solemn, +sleeping hills? + +The day had been one of those days that come perhaps only in +October--days of rich, languorous sunshine full of a mysterious +contentment, days when the heart says, "My cup runneth over," and happy +tears suddenly well to the eyes, as though from a deep overflowing sense +of the goodness of God. It was really Summer, with the fragrant mists of +Autumn in her hair. It had happened as we had hoped on starting out. We +had caught up with Summer on her way to New York, Summer all her golden +self, though garlanded with wreaths of Autumn, and about her the swinging +censers of burning weeds. + +It was a wonderful valley we had caught her in, all rolling purple hills +softly folding and unfolding in one continuous causeway; a narrow valley, +and the hills were high and close and gentle, suggesting protection and +abundance and never-ending peace. Here and there the vivid green of +Winter wheat struck a note of Spring amid all the mauves and ochres of +dying things. + +It was a day on which you had no wish to talk,--you were too +happy,--wanted only to wander on and on as in a dream through the mellow +vale--one of those days in which the world seems too good to be true, a +day of which we feel, "This day can never come again." It was like +walking through the Twenty-third Psalm. And, as it closed about us, as we +came to our village at nightfall, and the sunshine, like a sinking lake +of gold, grew softer and softer behind the uplands, the solid world of +rock and tree, and stubble-field and clustered barns, seemed to be +growing pure thought--nothing seemed left of it but spirit; and the hills +had become as the luminous veil of some ineffable temple of the +mysterious dream of the world. + +"Puvis de Chavannes!" said Colin to me in a whisper. + +And later I tried to say better what I meant in this song: + +_Strange, at this still enchanted hour, + How things in daylight hard and rough, +Iron and stone and cruel power, + Turn to such airy, starlit stuff! + +Yon mountain, vast as Behemoth, + Seems but a veil of silver breath; +And soundless as a flittering moth, + And gentle as the face of death, + +Stands this stern world of rock and tree + Lost in some hushed sidereal dream-- +The only living thing a bird, + The only moving thing a stream. + +And, strange to think, yon silent star, + So soft and safe amid the spheres-- +Could we but see and hear so far-- + Is made of thunder, too, and tears._ + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CONTAINING VALUABLE STATISTICS + + +And the morning was like unto the evening. Summer was still to be our +companion, and, as the evening of our coming to Cohocton had been the +most dreamlike of all the ends of our walking days--had, so to say, been +most evening-spiritual, so the morning of our Cohocton seemed most +morning-spiritual of all our mornings, most filled with strange hope and +thrill and glitter. We were afoot earlier than usual. The sun had hardly +risen, and the shining mists still wreathed the great hill which +overhangs the village. We were for calling it a mountain, but we were +told that it lacked fifty feet of being a mountain. You are not a +mountain till you grow to a thousand feet. Our mountain was only some +nine hundred and fifty feet. Therefore, it was only entitled to be called +a hill. I love information--don't you, dear reader?--though, to us +humble walking delegates of the ideal, it was all one. But I know for +certain that it was a lane of young maples which made our avenue of +light-hearted departure out of the village, though I cannot be sure of +the names of all the trees of the thick woods which clothed the hillside +beneath which our road lay, a huge endless hillside all dripping and +sparkling, and alive with little rills, facing a broad plain, a sea of +feathery grass almost unbearably beautiful with soft glittering dew and +opal mists, out of which rose spectral elms, like the shadows of gigantic +Shanghai roosters. All about was the sound of brooks musically rippling +from the hills, and there was a chaste chill in the air, as befitted the +time of day, for + +_Maiden still the morn is, and strange she is, and secret, +Her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells_. + +It was all so beautiful that an old thought came back to me that I often +had as a child, when I used to be taken among mysterious mountains, for +Summer holidays: Do people really live in such beautiful places all the +year round? Do they live there just like ordinary people in towns, go +about ordinary businesses, live ordinary lives? It seemed to me then, as +it seems to me still, that such places should be kept sacred, like +fairyland, or should, at least, be the background of high and romantic +action, like the scenery in operas. To think of a valley so beautiful as +that through which we were walking being put to any other use than that +of beauty seems preposterous; but do you know what that beautiful valley +was doing, while Colin and I were thus poetizing it, adoring its +outlines and revelling in its tints? It was just quietly growing +potatoes. Yes! we had mostly passed through the apple country. This +garden of Eden, this Vale of Enna, was a great potato country. And we +learned, too, that its inhabitants were by no means so pleased with +beautiful Cohoctori Valley as we were. Here, we gathered, was another +beautiful ne'er-do-well of Nature, too occupied with her good looks to be +fit for much else than prinking herself out with wild-flowers, and +falling into graceful attitudes before her mirror--and there were mirrors +in plenty, many streams and willows, in Cohocton Valley; everywhere, for +us, the mysterious charm of running water. Once this idle daughter of +Ceres used to grow wheat, wheat "in great plenty," but now she could be +persuaded to grow nothing but potatoes. + +All this and much more we learned from a friend who drew up beside us in +a buggy, as I was drinking from a gleaming thread of water gliding down a +mossed conduit of hollowed tree-trunks into an old cauldron sunk into the +hillside, and long since turned in ferns and lichen. Colin was seated +near by making a sketch, as I drank. + +"I wouldn't drink too much of that water, lads," said the friendly voice +of the dapper little intelligent-faced man in the buggy. + +What! not drink this fairy water? + +"Why, you country folk are as afraid of fresh water as you are of fresh +air," I answered, laughing. + +"All right, it's up to you--but it's been a dry Summer, you know." + +And then the little man's attention was taken by Colin. + +"Sketching?" he asked, and then he said, half shyly, "Would you mind my +taking a look how you do it?" and, climbing down from his buggy, he came +and looked over Colin's shoulder. "I used to try my hand at it a bit when +I was a boy, but those blamed trees always beat me ... don't bother you +much, seemingly though," he added, as he watched Colin's pencil with the +curiosity of a child. + +"I've a little girl at home who does pretty well," he continued after a +moment, "but you've certainly got her skinned. I wish she could see you +doing it." + +His delight in a form of skill which has always been as magical to me as +it seemed to him, was charmingly boyish, and Colin turned over his +sketch-book, and showed him the notes he had made as we went along. One +of a stump fence particularly delighted him--those stump fences made out +of the roots of pine trees set side by side, which had been a feature of +the country some miles back, and which make such a weird impression on +the landscape, like rows of gigantic black antlers, or many-armed Hindoo +idols, or a horde of Zulus in fantastic war-gear drawn up in +battle-array, or the blackened stumps of giants' teeth--Colin and I tried +all those images and many more to express the curious weird effect of +coming upon them in the midst of a green and smiling landscape. + +"Well, lads," he said, after we had talked awhile, "I shall have to be +going. But you've given me a great deal of pleasure. Can't I give you a +lift in exchange? I guess there is room for the three of us." + +Now Colin and I, on the occasion of our ride with the apple-farmer, +awhile back, had held subtle casuistical debate on the legitimacy of men +ostensibly, not to say ostentatiously, on foot to New York picking up +chance rides in this way. The argument had gone into pursuit of very fine +distinctions, and almost rivalled in its casuistry the famous old Duns +Scotus--or was it Thomas Aquinas?--debate as to how many angels can dance +on the point of a needle. Once we had come to a deadlock as to the kind +of vehicle from which it was proper to accept such hospitality. Perhaps +it was a Puritan scrupulousness in my blood that had made me take the +stand that four-wheeled vehicles, such as wagons, hay-carts and the like, +being slow-moving, were permissible, but that buggies, or any form of +rapid two-wheeled vehicle, were not. To this Colin had retorted that, on +that basis, a tally-ho would be all right, or even an automobile. So the +argument had wrestled from side to side, and finally we had compromised. + +We agreed that an occasional buggy would be within the vagabond law and +that any vehicle, other, of course, than an automobile, which was not +plying for hire--such as a trolley or a local train--might on occasion be +gratefully climbed into. + +Thus it was that we hesitated a moment at the offer of our friend, a +hesitancy we amused him by explaining as, presently, conscience-clear, we +rattled with him through the hills. He was an interesting talker, a +human-hearted, keen-minded man, and he had many more topics as well as +potatoes. Besides, he was not in the potato business, but, as with our +former friend, his beautiful business was apples. Still, he talked very +entertainingly about potatoes; telling us, among other things, that, so +friendly was the soil toward that particular vegetable that it yielded as +much as a hundred to a hundred and fifty bushels to the acre, and that a +fair-sized potato farm thereabouts, properly handled, would pay for +itself in a year. I transcribe this information, not merely because I +think that, among so many words, the reader is fairly entitled to expect +some little information, but chiefly for the benefit of a friend of mine, +the like of whom, no doubt, the reader counts among his acquaintances. +The friend I mean has a mind so quaintly voracious of facts that, often +when we have been dining together at one of the great hotels, he would +speculate, say, looking round the room filled with eager diners, on how +many clams are nightly consumed in New York City, or how many millions +of fresh eggs New York requires each morning for breakfast. So when next +I dine with him I will say, as he asks me about my trip: + +"Do you know that in the Cohocton Valley they raise as much as one +hundred to one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes to the acre?" And +he will say: + +"You don't really mean to say so?" + +I have in my private note-book much more such tabulated information which +I picked up and hoarded for his entertainment, just as whenever a letter +comes to me from abroad, I tear off the stamp and save it for a little +girl I love. + +But, as I said, our friend in the buggy was by no means limited to +potatoes for his conversation. He was learned in the geography of the +valley and told us how once the Cohocton River, now merely a decorative +stream among willows, was once a serviceable waterway, how it was once +busy with mills, and how men used to raft down it as far as Elmira. + +But "the springs were drying up." I liked the mysterious sound of that, +and still more his mysterious story of an undercurrent from the Great +Lakes that runs beneath the valley. I seemed to hear the sound of its +strange subterranean flow as he talked. Such is the fun of knowing so +little about the world. The simplest fact out of a child's geography thus +comes to one new and marvellous. + +Well, we had to say good-bye at last to our friend at a cross-road, and +we left him learnedly discussing the current prices of apples with a +business acquaintance who had just driven up--Kings, Rambos, Baldwins, +Greenings, and Spigs. And, by the way, in packing apples into barrels, +you must always pack them--stems down. Be careful to remember that. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A DITHYRAMBUS OF BUTTEEMILK + + +One discovery of some importance you make in walking the roads is the +comparative rarity and exceeding preciousness of buttermilk. We had, as I +said, caught up with Summer. Summer, need one say, is a thirsty +companion, and the State seemed suddenly to have gone dry. We looked in +vain for magic mirrors by the roadside, overhung with fairy grasses, +littered with Autumn leaves, and skated over by nimble water-bugs. As our +friend had said, the springs seemed to have dried up. Now and again we +would hail with a great cry a friendly pump; once we came upon a +cider-mill, but it was not working, and time and again we knocked and +asked in vain for buttermilk. Sometimes, but not often, we found it. Once +we met a genial old man just leaving his farm door, and told him that we +were literally dying for a drink of buttermilk. Our expression seemed to +tickle him. + +"Well!" he said, laughing, "it shall never be said that two poor +creatures passed my door, and died for lack of a glass of buttermilk," +and he brought out a huge jug, for which he would accept nothing but our +blessings. He seemed to take buttermilk lightly; but, one evening, we +came upon another old farmer to whom buttermilk seemed a species of the +water of life to be hoarded jealously and doled out in careful quantities +at strictly market rates. + +In town one imagines that country people give their buttermilk to the +pigs. At any rate, they didn't give it to us. We paid that old man +twenty cents, for we drank two glasses apiece. And first we had knocked +at the farm door, and told our need to a pretty young woman, who +answered, with some hesitancy, that she would call "father." She seemed +to live in some awe of "father," as we well understood when a tall, +raw-boned, stern, old man, of the caricature "Brother Jonathan" type, +appeared grimly, making an iron sound with a great bunch of keys. On +hearing our request, he said nothing, but, motioning to us to follow, +stalked across the farmyard to a small building under a great elm-tree. +There were two steps down to the door, and it had a mysterious +appearance. It might have been a family vault, a dynamite magazine, or +the Well at the World's End. It was the strong-room of the milk; and, +when the grim old guardian of the dairy unlocked the door, with a sound +of rusty locks and falling bolts, there, cool and cloistral, were the +fragrant pans and bowls, the most sacred vessels of the farm. + +"_She bathed her body many a time +In fountains filled with milk_." + +I hummed to Colin; but I took care that the old man didn't hear me. And +we agreed, as we went on again along the road, that he did right to guard +well and charge well for so noble and so innocent a drink. Indeed, the +old fellow's buttermilk was so good that I think it must have gone to my +head. In no other way can I account for the following dithyrambic song: + +_Let whoso will sing Bacchus' vine, +We know a drink that's more divine; + +'Tis white and innocent as doves, +Fragrant and bosom-white as love's + +White bosom on a Summer day, +And fragrant as the hawthorn spray. + +Let Dionysus and his crew, +Garlanded, drain their fevered brew, + +And in the orgiastic bowl +Drug and besot the sacred soul; + +This simple country cup we drain +Knows not the ghosts of sin and pain, + +No fates or furies follow him +Who sips from its cream-mantled rim. + +Yea! all his thoughts are country-sweet, +And safe the walking of his feet, + +However hard and long the way-- +With country sleep to end the day. + +To drain this cup no man shall rue-- +The innocent madness of the dew + +Who shall repent, or frenzy fine +Of morning star, or the divine + +Inebriation of the hours +When May roofs in the world with flowers! + +About this cup the swallows skim, +And the low milking-star hangs dim + +Across the meadows, and the moon +Is near in heaven_--_the young moon; + +And murmurs sweet of field and hill +Loiter awhile, and all is still. + +As in some chapel dear to Pan, +The fair milk glimmers in the can, + +And, in the silence cool and white, +The cream mounts through the listening night; + +And, all around the sleeping house, +You hear the breathing of the cows, + +And drowsy rattle of the chain, +Till lo! the blue-eyed morn again_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A GROWL ABOUT AMERICAN COUNTRY HOTELS + + +Though Colin and I had been walking but a very few days, after the first +day or two it seemed as though we had been out on the road for weeks; as +though, indeed, we had spent our lives in the open air; and it needed no +more than our brief experience for us to realize what one so often reads +of those who do actually live their lives out-of-doors, gypsies, sailors, +cowboys and the like--how intolerable to them is a roof, and how +literally they gasp for air and space in the confined walls of cities. + +Bed in the bush with stars to see, +Bread I dip in the river-- + +There's the life for a man like me, +There's the life forever. + +The only time of the day when our spirits began to fail was toward its +close, when the shadows of supper and bed in some inclement inn began to +fall over us, and we confessed to each other a positive sense of fear in +our evening approach to the abodes of men. After a long, safe, care-free +day, in the company of liberating prospects and sweet-breathed winds, +there seemed a curious lurking menace in the most harmless village, as +well as an unspeakable irksomeness in its inharmonious interruption of +our mood. To emerge, saturated, body and soul, with the sweet scents and +sounds and sights of a day's tramp, out of the meditative leafiness and +spiritual temper of natural things, into the garishly lit street of some +little provincial town, animated with the clumsy mirth of silly young +country folks, aping so drearily the ribaldry, say, of Elmira, is a +painful anticlimax to the spirit. Had it only been real Summer, instead +of Indian Summer, we should, of course, have been real gypsies, and made +our beds under the stars, but, as it was, we had no choice. Or, had we +been walking in Europe ... yes, I am afraid the truth must out, and that +our real dread at evening was--the American country hotel. With the best +wish in the world, it is impossible to be enthusiastic over the American +country hotel. How ironically the kindly old words used to come floating +to me out of Shakespeare each evening as the shadows fell, and the lights +came out in the windows--"to take mine ease at mine inn;" and assuredly +it was on another planet that Shenstone wrote: + +_Whoe'er hath travelled life's dull round, +Whate'er his fortunes may have been, +Must sigh to think he still has found +His warmest welcome at an inn_. + +Had Shenstone been writing in an American country hotel, his tune would +probably have been more after this fashion: "A wonderful day has come to +a dreary end in the most sepulchral of hotels, a mouldy, barn-like place, +ill-lit, mildewed and unspeakably dismal. A comfortless room with two +beds and two low-power electric lights, two stiff chairs, an +uncompanionable sofa, and some ghastly pictures of simpering naked women. +We have bought some candles, and made a candlestick out of a soap-dish. +Colin is making the best of it with 'The Beloved Vagabond,' and I have +drawn up one of the chairs to a table with a mottled marble top, and am +writing this amid a gloom which you could cut with a knife, and which is +so perfect of its kind as to be almost laughable. But for the mail, which +we found with unutterable thankfulness at the post-office, I hardly dare +think what would have happened to us, to what desperate extremities we +might not have been driven, though even the possibilities of despair seem +limited in this second-hand tomb of a town...." + +Here Colin looks up with a wry smile and ironically quotes from the +wisdom of Paragot: "What does it matter where the body finds itself, so +long as the soul has its serene habitations?" This wail is too typical +of most of our hotel experiences. As a rule we found the humble, cheaper +hotels best, and, whenever we had a choice of two, chose the less +pretentious. + +Sometimes as, on entering a town or village, we asked some passer-by +about the hotels, we would be looked over and somewhat doubtfully asked: +"Do you want a two-dollar house?" And we soon learned to pocket our +pride, and ask if there was not a cheaper house. Strange that people +whose business is hospitality should be so inhospitable, and strange that +the American travelling salesman, a companionable creature, not averse +from comfort, should not have created a better condition of things. For +the inn should be the natural harmonious close to the day, as much a part +of the day's music as the setting sun. It should be the gratefully sought +shelter from the homeless night, the sympathetic friend of hungry +stomachs and dusty feet, the cozy jingle of social pipes and dreamy +after-dinner talk, the abode of snowy beds for luxuriously aching limbs, +lavendered sheets and pleasant dreams. + +But, as people without any humour usually say, "A sense of humour helps +under all circumstances"; and we managed to extract a great deal of fun +out of the rigours of the American country hotel. + +In one particularly inhospitable home of hospitality, for example, we +found no little consolation from the directions printed over the very +simple and familiar device for calling up the hotel desk. The device was +nothing more remarkable than the button of an ordinary electric bell, +which you were, in the usual way, to push once for bell-boy, twice for +ice-water, three times for chambermaid, and so on. However, the hotel +evidently regarded it as one of the marvels of advanced science and +referred to it, in solemnly printed "rules" for its use, as no less than +"The Emergency Drop Annunciator!" Angels of the Annunciation! what a +heavenly phrase! + +But this is an ill-tempered chapter--let us begin another. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ONIONS, PIGS AND HICKORY-NUTS + + +One feature of the countryside in which from time to time we found +innocent amusement was the blackboards placed outside farmhouses, on +which are written, that is, "annunciated," the various products the +farmer has for sale, such as apples, potatoes, honey, and so forth. On +one occasion we read: "Get your horses' teeth floated here." There was no +one to ask about what this mysterious proclamation meant. No doubt it was +clear as daylight to the neighbours, but to us it still remains a +mystery. Perhaps the reader knows what it meant. Then on another occasion +we read: "Onions and Pigs For Sale." Why this curious collocation of +onions and pigs? Colin suggested that, of course, the onions were to +stuff the pigs with. + +"And here's an idea," he continued. "Suppose we go in and buy a little +suckling-pig and a string of onions. Then we will buy a yard of two of +blue ribbon and tie it round the pig's neck, and you shall lead it along +the road, weeping. I will walk behind it, with the onions, grinning from +ear to ear. And when any one meets us, and asks the meaning of the +strange procession, you will say: 'I am weeping because our little pig +has to die!' And if any one says to me, 'Why are you grinning from ear to +ear?' I shall answer, 'Because I am going to eat him. We are going to +stuff him with onions at the next inn, and eat roast pig at the rising of +the moon.'" + +But we lacked courage to put our little joke into practice, fearing an +insufficient appreciation of the fantastic in that particular region. + +We were now making for Watkins, and had spent the night at Bradford, a +particularly charming village almost lost amid the wooded hills of +another lovely and spacious valley, through which we had lyrically walked +the day before. Bradford is a real country village, and was already all +in a darkness smelling of cows and apples, when we groped for it among +the woods the evening before. At starting out next morning, we inquired +the way to Watkins of a storekeeper standing at his shop-door. He was in +conversation with an acquaintance, and our questions occasioned a lively +argument as to which was the better of two roads. The acquaintance was +for the road through "Pine Creek," and he added, with a grim smile, "I +guess I should know; I've travelled it often enough with a heavy load +behind"; and the recollection of the rough hills he had gone bumping +over, all evidently fresh in his mind, seemed to give him a curious +amusement. It transpired that he was an undertaker! + +So we took the road to Pine Creek, but at the threshold of the village +our fancy was taken by the particularly quaint white wooden +meeting-house, surrounded on three sides with tie-up sheds for vehicles, +each stall having a name affixed to it, like a pew: "P. Yawger," "A.W. +Gillum," "Pastor," and so on. Here the pious of the district tied up +their buggies while they went within to pray, and these sacred stalls +made a quaint picture for the imagination of outlying farmers driving to +meeting over the hills on Sabbath mornings. + +It was a beautiful morning of veiled sunshine, so warm that some hardy +crickets chirped faintly as we went along. Once a blue jay came and +looked at us, and the squirrels whirred among the chestnuts and +hickories, and the roadsides were so thickly strewn with fallen nuts that +we made but slow progress, stopping all the time to fill our pockets. + +For a full hour we sat down with a couple of stones for nut-crackers, and +forgot each other and everything else in the hypnotizing occupation of +cracking hickory-nuts. And we told each other that thus do grown sad men +become boys again, by a woodside, of an October morning, cracking +hickory-nuts, the world well lost. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +OCTOBER ROSES AND A YOUNG GIRL'S FACE + + +The undertaker was certainly right about the road. I think he must have +had a flash of poetic insight into our taste in roads. This was not, as a +rule, understood by the friendly country folk. Their ideas and ours as to +what constituted a good road differed beyond the possibility of +harmonizing. When they said that a road was good they meant that it was +straight, level, and businesslike. When they said that a road was bad +they meant that it was rugged, rambling and picturesque. So, to their +bewilderment, whenever we had a choice of good or bad roads, we always +chose the bad. And, to get at what we really wanted, we learned to +inquire which was the worst road to such and such a place. That we knew +would be the road for us. From their point of view, the road we were on +was as bad as could be; but, as I said, the undertaker evidently +understood us, and had sent us into a region of whimsically sudden hills +and rock and wooded wilderness, a swart country of lonely, rugged +uplands, with but a solitary house here and there for miles. It was +resting at the top of one of these hard-won acclivities that we came +upon--and remember that it was the middle of October--two wild roses +blooming by the roadside. This seems a fact worthy the attention of +botanical societies, and I still have the roses pressed for the +inspection of the learned between the pages of my travelling copy of Hans +Andersen's "Fairy Tales." + +A fact additionally curious was that the bush on which the flowers grew +seemed to be the only rose-bush in the region. We looked about us in +vain to find another. How had that single rose-bush come to be, an +uncompanioned exotic, in the rough society of pines and oaks and +hickories, on a rocky hill-top swept by the North wind, and how had those +frail, scented petals found strength and courage thus to bloom alone in +the doorway of Winter? And, why, out of all the roses of the world, had +these two been chosen, still, so late in the year, to hold up the +tattered standard of Summer? + +_Why, in the empty Autumn woods, + And all the loss and end of things, +Does one leaf linger on the tree; + Why is it only one bird sings? + +And why, across the aching field, + Does one lone cricket chirrup on; +Why one surviving butterfly, + With all its bright companions gone? + +And why, when faces all about + Whiten and wither hour by hour, +Does one old face bloom on so sweet, + As young as when it was a flower_? + +The same mystery was again presented to us a little farther along the +road, as we stopped at a lone schoolhouse among the hills, the only house +to be seen, and asked our way of the young schoolmarm. The door had been +left half open, and, knocking, we had stepped into the almost empty +schoolroom, with its portrait of Lincoln and a map of the United States. +Three scholars sat there with their kindly-faced teacher, studying +geography amid the silence of the hills, which the little room seemed to +concentrate in a murmuring hush, like a shell. A little boy sat by +himself a desk or two behind two young girls, and as we entered, and the +studious faces looked up in surprise, we saw only the pure brows and the +great spiritual eyes of the older girl, almost a woman, and we thought of +the lonely roses we had found up on the hillside. Here was another rose +blooming in the wilderness, a face lovely and beautiful as a spring +reflecting the sky in the middle of a wood. How had she come there, that +beautiful child-woman in the solitude? By what caprice of the strange law +of the distribution of fair faces had she come to flower in this +particular waste place of the earth?--for her face had surely come a long +way, been blown blossom-wise on some far wandering wind, from realms of +old beauty and romance, and it had the exiled look of all beautiful +things. Could she be a plain farmer's daughter, indigenous to that +stubborn soil? No, surely she was not that, and yet--how had she come to +be there? But these were questions we could not put to the schoolmarm. +We could only ask our road, and the prosaic possibilities of lunch in the +neighbourhood, and go on our way. Nor could I press that rose among the +pages of my book--but, as I write, I wonder if it is still making sweet +that desolate spot, and still studying irrelevant geography in the +silence of the hills. + +However, we did learn something about our young human rose at a farmhouse +a mile or so farther on. While a motherly housewife prepared us some +lunch, all a-bustle with expectancy of an imminent inroad of harvesters +due to thresh the corn, and liable to eat all before them, a sprightly +young daughter, who attended the same school, and whom we had told about +our call at the schoolhouse, entertained us with girlish gossip of the +neighbourhood. So we learned that our fancies had not been so far wrong, +but that our beautiful young face had indeed come from as far as France, +the orphaned child of a French sailor and an English mother, come over +the seas for a home with a farmer uncle near by. Strange are the +destinies of beautiful faces. All the way from France to Pine Creek! Poor +little world-wandered rose! + +And while we ate our lunch, the mother had a sad, beautiful story of a +dead son and a mother's tears to tell us, too sacred to tell again. How +many beautiful faces there are hidden about the world, and how many +beautiful sad stories hidden in the broken hearts of mothers! + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONCERNING THE POPULAR TASTE IN SCENERY AND SOME HAPPY PEOPLE + + +We had somewhat scorned the idea of Watkins, as being one of Nature's +show-places. In fact, Watkins Glen is, so to say, so nationally beautiful +as latterly to have received a pension from the Government of the United +States, which now undertakes the conservation of its fantastic chasms and +waterfalls. Some one--I am inclined to think it was myself--once said +that he never wished to go to Switzerland, because he feared that the +Alps would be greasy with being climbed. I think it is clear what he +meant. To one who loves Nature for himself, has his own discovering eyes +for her multiform and many-mooded beauty, it is distasteful to have some +excursionist effect of spectacular scenery labelled and thrust upon him +with a showman's raptures; and, in revulsion from the hypocritical +admiration of the vulgar, he turns to the less obvious and less +melodramatic beauty of the natural world. The common eye can see Nature's +beauty only in such melodramatic and sentimental forms--dizzy chasms, +foaming waterfalls, snow-capped mountains and flagrant sunsets, just as +it can realize Nature's wildness of heart only in a menagerie. That a +squirrel or a meadow-lark, or even a guinea-pig, is just as wild as the +wild beasts in a travelling circus is outside the comprehension of the +vulgar, who really hunger after mere marvels, whatever they may be, and +actually have no eyes for beauty at all. + +Thus really sublime and grandiose effects of Nature are apt to lose their +edge for us by over-popularization, as many of her scenes and moods have +come to seem platitude from being over-painted. Niagara has suffered far +more from the sentimental tourist and the landscape artist than from all +the power-houses, and one has to make a strenuous effort of detachment +from its excursionist associations to appreciate its sublimity. + +Thus Colin and I discussed, in a somewhat bored way, whether we should +trouble to visit the famous Watkins Glen, as we sat over supper in a +Watkins hotel, one of the few really comfortable and cordial hotels we +met in our wanderings, and we smiled to think what the natives would have +made of our conversation. Two professional lovers of beauty calmly +discussing whether it was worth while walking half a mile to see one of +the natural, and national, wonders of America! Why, last season more than +half a million visitors kodaked it, and wrote their names on the face of +the rocks! However, a great natural effect holds its own against no +little vulgarization, and Watkins Glen soon made us forget the trippers +and the concrete footpaths and iron railings of the United States +government, in the fantasies of its weirdly channelled gorge and +mysterious busy water. + +Watkins itself, despite its name, is sufficiently favoured by Nature to +make an easy annual living, situated as it is at the south end of the +beautiful Seneca Lake, and at the head of a nobly picturesque valley some +twenty miles long, with a pretty river spreading out into flashing +reed-grown flats, sheer cliffs and minor waterfalls, here and there a +vineyard on the hillside, or the vivid green of celery trenches in the +dark loam of the hollows, all the way to--Elmira! The river and the +trolley run side by side the whole charming way, and, as you near +Elmira, you come upon latticed barns that waft you the fragrance of +drying tobacco-leaves, suspended longitudinally for the wind to play +through. On the morning of our leaving Watkins, we had been roused a +little earlier than usual by mirthful sounds in the street beneath our +hotel windows. Light-hearted voices joking each other floated up to us, +and some one out of the gladness of his heart was executing a spirited +shake-down on the sidewalk--at six o'clock of a misty October morning. +Looking out, we caught an endearing glimpse of the life of the most +lovable of all professions. It was a theatrical company that had played a +one-night stand at the local opera-house the evening before, and was now +once more upon its wandering way. They had certainly been up till past +midnight, but here they were, at six o'clock of the morning, merry as +larks, gay as children, waiting for the Elmira trolley. Presently the car +came clanging up, and alongside drew up a big float, containing baggage +and rolls of scenery--all of which, to our astonishment, by some miracle +of loading known only to baggagemen, was in a few moments stowed away +into the waiting car. When the last property was shipped, the conductor +rang his bell, by way of warning, and the whole group, like a flight of +happy birds, climbed chattering into the car. "All aboard," called the +conductor, once more ringing his bell, and off they went, leaving a trail +of laughter in the morning air. + +"'Beloved Vagabonds!'" said Colin, as we turned away, lonely, from our +windows, with, I hardly know why, a suspicion of tears in our eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE SUSQUEHANNA + + +Here for a while a shadow seemed to fall over our trip. No doubt it was +the shadow of the great town we were approaching. Not that we have +anything against Elmira, though possibly its embattled reformatory, +frowning from the hillside, contributed its gloomy associations to our +spirits. It was against towns in general that our gorge rose. Did our +vagabond ethics necessitate our conscientiously tramping every foot of +these "gritty paving-stones," we asked each other, as we entered upon a +region of depressing suburbs, and we called a halt on the spot to discuss +the point. The discussion was not long, and it was brought to a +cheerful, demoralized end by the approach of the trolley, into which, +regardless of right or wrong, we climbed with alacrity, not to alight +till not only Elmira was left behind, but more weary suburbs, too, on the +other side. That night, as old travellers phrase it, we lay at Waverly, +on the frontier of Pennsylvania, a sad, dirty little town, grotesquely +belying its romantic name, and only surpassed in squalor by the +classically named Athens--beware, reader, of American towns named out of +classical dictionaries! Here, however, our wanderings in the +brick-and-mortar wilderness were to end, for by a long, romantic, old, +covered bridge we crossed the Chemung River, and there once more, on the +other side, was Nature, lovelier than ever, awaiting us. Not Dante, when +he emerged from Hades and again beheld the stars, drew deeper breaths of +escape than we, thus escaping from--Athens! + +And soon we were to meet the Susquehanna--beautiful, broad-bosomed name, +that has always haunted my imagination like the name of some beautiful +savage princess--_La belle sauvage_. Susquehanna! What a southern +opulence in the soft, seductive syllables! Yes, soon we were to meet the +Susquehanna. Nor had we long to wait, and little did we suspect what our +meeting with that beautiful river was to mean. + +The Chemung, on whose east bank we were now walking, seemed a noble +enough river, very broad and all the more picturesque for being +shallow with the Summer drought; and its shining reaches and wooded +banks lifted up our hearts. She, like ourselves, was on her way to +join the Susquehanna, a mile or two below, and we said to ourselves, +that, beautiful as the land had been through which we had already +passed, we were now entering on a Nature of more heroic mould, +mightier contours, and larger aspects. We were henceforth to walk in +the company of great rivers: the Susquehanna, like some epic goddess, +was to lead us to the Lehigh; the Blue Mountains were to bring us to +the Delaware; and the uplands of Sullivan County were to bring us +to--the lordly gates of the Hudson. + +Our chests expanded as imagination luxuriated in the pictures it made. +Our walk was only just beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AND UNEXPECTEDLY THE LAST + + +We had seen the two great rivers sweep into each other's arms in a broad +glory of sunlit water, meeting at the bosky end of a wooded promontory, +and yes! there was the Susquehanna glittering far beneath--the beautiful +name I had so often seen and wondered about, painted on the sides of +giant freight-cars! Yes, there was actually the great legendary river. It +was a very warm, almost sultry noonday, more like midsummer than +mid-October, and the river was almost blinding in its flashing beauty. +Loosening our knapsacks, we called a halt and, leaning over the railing +guarding the precipitous bank, luxuriated in the visionary scene. So +high was the bank, and so broad the river, that we seemed lifted up into +space, and the river, dreamily flowing beneath a gauze veil of heat-mist, +seemed miles below us and drowsily unreal. Its course inshore was dotted +with boulders, in the shadows of which we could see long ghostly fishes +lazily gliding, and a mud-turtle, with a trail of little ones, slowly +moving from rock to rock. + +Suddenly Colin put his hand to his head, and swayed toward me, as though +he were about to faint. + +"I don't know what's the matter, old man," he said, "but I think I had +better sit down a minute." And he sank by the roadside. + +Unlike himself, he had been complaining of fatigue, and had seemed out of +sorts for a day or two, but we had thought nothing of it; and, after +resting a few minutes, he announced himself ready for the road again, +but he looked very pale and walked with evident weariness. As a roadside +cottage came in sight, "I wonder if they could give us a cup of tea," he +said; "that would fix me up, I'm sure." So we knocked, and the door was +opened by a pathetic shadow of an old woman, very poor and thin and +weary-looking, who, although, as we presently learned, she was at the +moment suffering from the recent loss of one eye, made us welcome and +busied herself about tea, with an unselfish kindness that touched our +hearts, and made us reflect on the angelic goodness of human +nature--sometimes. + +She looked anxiously, mother-like, at Colin, and persuaded him to lie +down and rest awhile in her little parlour, and, while he rested, she and +I talked and she told me how she had come by her blind eye--an odd, +harmless-sounding cause. She had been looking up into one of her +apple-trees, one day, a few weeks ago, and an apple had fallen and struck +her in the eye. Such innocent means does Nature sometimes use for her +cruel accidents of disease and death! Just an apple falling from a +tree,--and you are blind! A fly stings you, on a Summer day, and you die. + +Colin, rested and refreshed, we once more started on our way, but, +bravely as he strode on, there was no disguising it--my blithe, +happy-hearted companion was ill. Of course we both assured the other that +it could be nothing, but privately our hearts sank with a vague fear we +did not speak. At length, after a weary four miles, we reached Towanda. + +"I'm afraid," said poor Colin, "I can walk no more to-day. Perhaps a good +night's rest will make me all right." We found an inn, and while Colin +threw himself, wearied, on his bed, I went out, not telling him, and +sought a doctor. + +"And you've been walking with this temperature?" said the learned man, +when he had seated himself at Colin's bedside and felt his wrist. "Have +you been drinking much water as you went along? ... H'm--it's been a very +dry Summer, you know." + +And the words of our friend in the buggy came back to us with sickening +emphasis. O those innocent-looking fairy wells and magic mirrors by the +road-side! And I thought, too, of the poor old blinded woman and the +falling apple. Was Nature really like that? + +And then the wise man's verdict fell on our ears like a doom. + +"Take my advice, and don't walk any more, but catch the night train for +New York." + +Poor Colin! But there was no appeal. + +The end of our trip had come, suddenly, unreasonably, stupidly, +like this. + +"So we've got to be shot into New York like a package through a tube, +after all!" said Colin. "No lordly gates of the Hudson for us! What a +fool I feel, to be the one to spoil our trip like this!" + +And the tears glistened in our eyes, as we pressed each other's hand in +that dreary inn bedroom, with the shadow of we knew not what for Colin +over us--for our comradeship had been very good, day by day, together on +the open road. + +Our train did not go till midnight, so we had a long melancholy evening +before us; but the doctor had given Colin some mysterious potion +containing rest, and presently, as I sat by his side in the gray +twilight, he fell into a deep sleep--a sleep, alas! of fire and wandering +talk. It was pitiful to hear him, poor fellow--living over again in +dreams the road we had travelled, or making pictures of the road he +still dreamed ahead of us. Never before had I realized how entirely his +soul was the soul of a painter--all pictures and colour. + +"O my God!" he would suddenly exclaim, "did you ever see such blue in +your life!" and then again, evidently referring to some particularly +attractive effect in the phantasmagoria of his fever, "it's no use--you +must let me stop and have a shot to get that, before it goes." + +One place that seemed particularly to haunt him was--Mauch Chunk. He had +been there before, and, as we had walked along, had often talked +enthusiastically of it. "Wait till we get to Mauch Chunk," he said; "then +the real fun will begin." And now, over and over again, he kept making +pictures of Mauch Chunk, till I could have cried. + +"Dramatic black rocks," he would murmur, "water rushing from the hills +in every direction--clean-cut, vivid scenery--like theatres--the road +runs by the side of a steel-blue river at the bottom of a chasm, and +there is hardly room for it--the houses cling to the hillside like +swallows' nests--here and there patches of fresh green grass gleam among +the rocks, and, high up in the air on some dizzy ledge, there is a wild +apple-tree in blossom--it is all black rocks and springs and moss and +tumbling water--" + +Then again his soul was evidently walking in the Blue Mountains, and +several times he repeated a phrase of mine that had taken his fancy: "And +now for the spacious corridors of the Highlands, and the lordly gates of +the Hudson." + +Then he would suddenly half awaken and turn to me, realizing the +truth, and say: + +"O our beautiful journey--to end like this!" and fall asleep again. + +And once more I fell to thinking of fairy springs by the roadside, and +apples falling innocently from the bough, and how the beautiful journey +we call life might some day suddenly end like this, with half the +beautiful road untravelled--the rest sleep and perchance dreams. + + * * * * * + +But Colin did not die. He is once more painting out in the sun, and next +year we plan to stand again on that very spot by the Susquehanna, and +watch the shadows of great fishes gliding through the dreamy water, and +the mud-turtle with her trail of little ones moving from rock to +rock--and then we shall strike out on the road again, just where we left +off that October afternoon; but the reader need not be afraid--we shall +not write a book about it. + + + + +_ENVOI_ + + +_And now the merry way we took +Is nothing but a printed book; + +We would you had been really there, +Out with us in the open air-- + +For, after all, the best of words +Are but a poor exchange for birds. + +Yet if, perchance, this book of ours +Should sometimes make you think of flowers, + +Orchards and barns and harvest wain, +"It was not written all in vain--" + +So authors used to make their bow, +As, Gentle Reader, we do now_. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCTOBER VAGABONDS *** + + +******* This file should be named 10447.txt or 10447.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/4/10447 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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