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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10592 ***
+
+ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
+
+By David Grayson
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY
+
+
+This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.
+
+I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.
+
+This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.
+
+"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go."
+
+He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.
+
+"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."
+
+He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.
+
+As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.
+
+"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously."
+
+I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.
+
+"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself.
+
+So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.
+
+But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!
+
+I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.
+
+"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part."
+
+But presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.
+
+"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:
+
+"How are you, Brother?"
+
+You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.
+
+"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine
+of spring!"
+
+I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.
+
+So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!
+
+"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."
+
+(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)
+
+I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.
+
+Involuntarily I said:
+
+"Another member of my society: and in distress!"
+
+I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.
+
+As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.
+
+A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.
+
+"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before
+nightfall."
+
+"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."
+
+So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift."
+
+"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."
+
+"Oh, I can walk."
+
+"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall."
+
+I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.
+
+My farmer laughed and got in.
+
+"You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out."
+
+He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:
+
+"How did you know I was a Mason?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't _sure_."
+
+"I only joined last winter," he said. "I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere."
+
+I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:
+
+"Here's the grip of fellowship."
+
+He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.
+
+"I didn't feel the grip."
+
+"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there."
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook."
+
+And so he drove away.
+
+"A real Mason," I said to myself, "could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed."
+
+As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.
+
+When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.
+
+"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way."
+
+He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.
+
+"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked.
+
+"Heavier for you," I replied.
+
+So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.
+
+"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles."
+
+"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.
+
+"I'm that man."
+
+"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.
+
+"Have you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the
+same society."
+
+His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.
+
+"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"
+
+"No more am I," I said.
+
+"Nor an Oddfellow."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.
+
+"What Society did you think I belonged to?" he asked.
+
+"Well," I said, "when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----"
+
+"Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted my companion.
+
+"He did," I said. "He did----" and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. "And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge."
+
+"Were you?" exclaimed my companion. "So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without."
+
+"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?" I observed.
+
+"You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?"
+
+There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.
+
+"But when I got to thinking it over," I said, "it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member."
+
+He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+Well, we both laughed--and understood.
+
+After that, what a story he told me!--the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all
+people--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.
+
+He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:
+
+"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now."
+
+"Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs."
+
+As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!
+
+When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:
+
+"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society."
+
+As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:
+
+"What society is that?"
+
+I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.
+
+And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD
+
+They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
+
+The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
+
+"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
+
+I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me
+unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
+
+"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
+
+How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.
+
+[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
+
+So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.
+
+Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
+
+Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
+
+"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
+
+And she closes the door.
+
+Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
+
+"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
+
+I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
+
+I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.
+
+Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
+
+All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.
+
+"David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
+
+"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
+
+"No--well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!"
+
+"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them."
+
+"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?"
+
+"But I've got such a _good_ dinner."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty."
+
+"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
+said Harriet ruefully.
+
+I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:
+
+"There aren't any."
+
+"David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
+
+"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'"
+
+Harriet laughed.
+
+"It has come to a pretty pass," she said "when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day."
+
+"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical about it."
+
+"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like."
+
+"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?"
+
+"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is _not_ logical.
+
+"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
+
+"David!"
+
+"They're rich, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company."
+
+"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble
+was?"
+
+"But I was talking of _poor_ people."
+
+"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
+
+"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
+
+"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
+
+"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
+
+"Christmas," I said.
+
+I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
+
+"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
+
+"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
+as fail.'"
+
+So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!
+
+So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
+
+"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
+
+He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
+
+"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
+
+I drew my face down and said solemnly:
+
+"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
+
+"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
+
+"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast."
+
+The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel."
+
+"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow."
+
+Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.
+
+"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha' me
+doots--I ha' me doots."
+
+At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:
+
+"Is it by any chance a goose?"
+
+"It is," I said, "a goose--a big one."
+
+He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have comforted my mind,"
+he said, "with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose."
+
+So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.
+
+"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me anyway."
+
+I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!
+
+Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack--and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta--lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.
+
+I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!
+
+Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.
+
+"Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad to see you."
+
+He said it as though he meant it.
+
+"Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me."
+
+"I can sympathize with you," I said, "we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires."
+
+He looked around at me quizzically.
+
+"He lies too long in bed in the morning," I said.
+
+By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!"
+
+I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!
+
+But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.
+
+"We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she said, "and
+our cook was ill--or said she was--and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it--and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!"
+
+I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!
+
+"You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place."
+
+"Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Starkweather.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed.
+"Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities."
+
+With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying "Penny" Daniels.
+
+"So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?" laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.
+
+When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.
+
+"You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson," said Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.
+
+"We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, "and I haven't
+had so much fun in years."
+
+Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.
+
+I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end--the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee--but I must not and dare not elaborate.
+
+And what great talk we had afterward!
+
+I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood--and we laughed, and laughed--Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.
+
+"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," cried her husband: "some of the
+old ones we used to know."
+
+So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:
+
+"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,"
+
+Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,"
+
+Oh, I can't tell here--it grows late and there's work to-morrow--all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:
+
+"I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it."
+
+And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:
+
+"This has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE OPEN ROAD
+
+"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide."
+
+--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.
+
+I love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold
+everything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!
+
+So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.
+
+Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty--for beauty is inward,
+not outward--we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!
+
+Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside--and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!
+
+Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!
+
+It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!
+
+Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?--is not that the best
+life we know?
+
+And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk--and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!
+
+What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!
+
+Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.
+
+And one of these words--how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----
+
+So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying "Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee,
+coo-ee," he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.
+
+"That's the idee," says the helper.
+
+"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life."
+
+From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.
+
+"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in."
+
+So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.
+
+"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.
+
+"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the man in the
+wagon.
+
+"That's my old game--wrastling," the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!"
+
+"That's the idee," says the man in the wagon.
+
+So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, stiddy," and the response
+of the other, "That's the idee." And so on into the gray day!
+
+My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The "equality of men" which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy--is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!
+
+And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?
+
+"And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun."
+
+And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.
+
+Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:
+
+"Lord be praised for that which is common."
+
+And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG
+
+Sunday Morning, May 20th.
+
+On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+"I am not ready yet," it said; "I have not rested my time."
+
+Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!
+
+And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered--the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!
+
+I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.
+
+"Now," I said to myself, "give me a good day and I am ready to plant."
+
+The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the
+adventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.
+
+Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.
+
+At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.
+
+Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers--five seeds:
+
+One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.
+
+But after a time one ceases to count five, and _feels_ five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.
+
+I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)--and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.
+
+As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field--and my own pleasant home among its
+trees--and my barn--all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.
+
+[Illustration: "OFTEN I STOOD A MOMENT BY THE FENCE"]
+
+Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich--overnight--by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!--not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.
+
+I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.
+
+But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.
+
+I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me--save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.
+
+Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities--of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life--of letting life flow through us. To be used!--that
+is the sublimest thing we know.
+
+It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.
+
+I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?
+
+In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers--if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.
+
+For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.
+
+Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:
+
+These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:
+
+"And (he) departed without being desired."
+
+Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!
+
+And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+THE STORY OF ANNA
+
+It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.
+
+And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:
+
+"It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate."
+
+"David," he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+"it is bad enough."
+
+He laid his hand on my arm.
+
+"Can you hitch up your horse and come with me--right away?"
+
+McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.
+
+"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher.
+
+Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.
+
+"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''
+
+"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a woman now."
+
+He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:
+
+"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''
+
+"But I didn't know--she isn't--"
+
+"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.
+
+"They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river."
+
+I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.
+
+"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory."
+
+He remained silent again for a long time.
+
+"David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments."
+
+He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.
+
+As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.
+
+"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river," McAlway
+said in a low voice.
+
+It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence--of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.
+
+Suddenly we heard a voice--in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.
+
+"Oh!--McAlway," a voice said.
+
+Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.
+
+"Have you seen Anna Williams?"
+
+"She is at the house," answered the voice.
+
+"Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.
+
+"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," one of them said.
+
+The other woman turned to us half complainingly:
+
+"She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute."
+
+"She don't cry," said the other, "but just sits there like a statue."
+
+McAlway stepped forward and said:
+
+"Well--Anna?"
+
+The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience--of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.
+
+The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well--Anna?" She looked up and replied:
+
+"They were going to take my baby away."
+
+"Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. "Well, we'll never
+permit _that_. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?"
+
+Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway," the man said, "I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl--while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family--the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, "What will
+Harriet say?" Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.
+
+In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience--but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.
+
+"It's a tremendous old world," I said to myself. "Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!"
+
+The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.
+
+"Are you cold?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir," she answered faintly.
+
+I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:
+
+"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?"
+
+"Yes, sir," very faintly.
+
+"With cream on it--rich yellow cream--and plenty of sugar?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms--as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams."
+
+Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"David, _David_, DAVID," she said.
+
+It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!
+
+For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry--and cold."
+
+Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.
+
+I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.
+
+And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.
+
+I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!
+
+The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.
+
+"David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep."
+
+So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I
+held mine.
+
+"David," Harriet whispered, "did you see the baby?"
+
+"No," I whispered.
+
+"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life."
+
+When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. "What happened next?" I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.
+
+If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.
+
+"Did you see the baby?" Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the "finest baby we ever saw in all our lives."
+
+I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant--which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.
+
+It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as "bad" or "good"; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons--toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!
+
+The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.
+
+"Why, Mr. Grayson!"
+
+"How's the boy, Anna?"
+
+And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine--and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house--that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+THE DRUNKARD
+
+It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.
+
+I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.
+
+My friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.
+
+Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:
+
+"There goes that drunkard."
+
+It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.
+
+After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!
+
+And then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone
+in my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.
+
+"After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people."
+
+I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.
+
+"How are you, neighbour?" I asked.
+
+He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.
+
+My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.
+
+I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery
+better worth making?
+
+[Illustration: "HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING"]
+
+After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.
+
+One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you went by."
+
+"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time."
+
+"You usually drive."
+
+"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving."
+
+I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now "working with the experts"--those were
+his words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.
+
+"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man."
+
+So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!
+
+Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:
+
+"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'"
+
+"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.
+
+On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
+authority."
+
+"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."
+
+At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.
+
+"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now."
+
+The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.
+
+I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it."
+
+"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?"
+
+But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.
+
+"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."
+
+"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.
+
+But she was not to be joked with.
+
+"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?"
+
+It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.
+
+She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she said, "he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker."
+
+After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?
+
+And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.
+
+"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked.
+
+He glanced up at the sky.
+
+"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.
+
+I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.
+
+"After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again."
+
+"No," I said, "you will not do it again."
+
+"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?"
+
+"Free?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I
+never take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them."
+
+"But you never do?"
+
+"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly."
+
+He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:
+
+"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own
+limitations."
+
+"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly.
+
+We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:
+
+"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds."
+
+Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.
+
+So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:
+
+"What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted."
+
+I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly
+separated.
+
+"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts."
+
+The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:
+
+"I often get drunk myself."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes--dreadfully drunk."
+
+He looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!
+
+"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he said. "I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or
+rather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing."
+
+"And you do sing," I said.
+
+"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world."
+
+"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----"
+
+Before I could finish he had interrupted:
+
+"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_
+of the liquor. And there you are!"
+
+We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----"
+
+"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together."
+
+As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----
+
+Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.
+
+He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
+
+"He also belongs here," I said.
+
+And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+AN OLD MAID
+
+One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.
+
+She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?
+
+In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover "Snow Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path
+of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake" the other "Fast Asleep." Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.
+
+When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.
+
+But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.
+
+Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.
+
+On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.
+
+Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek
+pride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.
+
+Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.
+
+And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.
+
+"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that--downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute."
+
+"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----"
+
+By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.
+
+If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
+
+In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?
+
+Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----
+
+But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:
+
+"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble."
+
+That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+A ROADSIDE PROPHET
+
+From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by--part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet--so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.
+
+But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.
+
+"This," I said to myself, "may be something for me."
+
+So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields--the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:
+
+GOD IS LOVE
+
+A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, brother," I returned heartily.
+
+His face brightened perceptibly.
+
+"Don't stop on my account," I said; "finish off your work."
+
+He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.
+
+"How long," I inquired, "have you been at this sort of work?"
+
+"Ten years," he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. "Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade--I am a journeyman
+painter--but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road."
+
+He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:
+
+"I live by the Word."
+
+"By the Word?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, by the Word," and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:
+
+"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?"
+
+I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.
+
+"Do you always paint the same sign?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice"--he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields--"that I says to myself, 'I will paint "God is Love."'"
+
+"An appropriate text," I said, "for this very spot."
+
+He seemed much gratified.
+
+"Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he exclaimed. "Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----"
+
+He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.
+
+"When I was in Arizona," he was saying, "mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock."
+
+I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.
+
+But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.
+
+"It's all right," I said; "a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it."
+
+"That's what I want," he said eagerly; "that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all."
+
+He paused a moment and then continued:
+
+"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift."
+
+"I've noticed it," I said.
+
+"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked.
+
+"Very strange," I said.
+
+"I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them--but I didn't do it."
+
+I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?
+
+"Do you do all this without payment?"
+
+He looked at me in an injured way.
+
+"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself."
+
+By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you."
+
+So we set off together down the hill.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it."
+
+He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road--an
+easy, swinging, steady step--carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.
+
+"You see, Mister," he said, "I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he _wants_ to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.
+
+"I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.
+
+"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl."
+
+He paused for a long moment.
+
+"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----" He paused again.
+
+"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.
+
+"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,
+Mister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'"
+
+He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.
+
+"And I did try Him," my companion was saying, "and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion--but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants."
+
+He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead--a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.
+
+"The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister," he said, "is that
+they won't try God."
+
+I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings--how futile
+they seemed compared with this!
+
+Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.
+
+"What do you think," said he, "I should paint here?"
+
+"Well," I said, "you know better than I do. What would _you_ paint?"
+
+He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.
+
+"When in doubt," he said, "I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted--near
+towns--but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'"
+
+I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.
+
+At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home--and the barn near it--and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+THE GUNSMITH
+
+Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+"gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.
+
+"David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden."
+
+"At last!" I exclaimed.
+
+Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:
+
+"He _says_ he is going."
+
+Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't going."
+
+"No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided--yet."
+
+"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not."
+
+But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.
+
+"David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?"
+
+He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:
+
+"Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle "Bonnie Doon" or "Charlie Is My Darling" lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy."
+
+"We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said.
+
+"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----"
+
+He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it."
+
+"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," I said. "Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?"
+
+"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!" exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. "Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?"
+
+With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago--and liked him well, too--but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.
+
+In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.
+
+I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.
+
+Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.
+
+Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:
+
+"A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!"
+
+Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor _us_.
+
+I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say--the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences--all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.
+
+I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners--how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.
+
+At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience--heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand--he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.
+
+As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.
+
+"Can you mend it?" I asked.
+
+If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Phaëthon!
+
+A week later I came back to the shop.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said when he saw me.
+
+He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.
+
+"So!" he said. "You have come for your job?"
+
+He softened the "j" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.
+
+"So," he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.
+
+"I can't see where you mended them," I said.
+
+You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!
+
+When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said.
+
+"What is this I hear," I said, "about your going back to Sweden?"
+
+"For forty years," he said, "I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home."
+
+"But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?"
+
+"You have Charles Baxter," he said, smiling.
+
+For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.
+
+"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life," I said. "You know that."
+
+The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.
+
+"I have been here forty years," he said. "and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden."
+
+I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.
+
+When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor--as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm--hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!
+
+What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble--and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!--he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep--he was helping the world go
+round!
+
+All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.
+
+[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS
+SHOP"]
+
+In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.
+
+Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.
+
+"Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed."
+
+A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.
+
+I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.
+
+"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'"
+
+Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.
+
+"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pretends to
+know."
+
+The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)
+
+On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.
+
+I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.
+
+The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"When I was a poor man," he said, "and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one."
+
+The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.
+
+During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:
+
+"David, we can't let the old man go."
+
+"No, sir," I said, "we can't."
+
+"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old."
+
+I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.
+
+When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:
+
+"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?"
+
+The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:
+
+"It ist America; it ist America."
+
+"No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save."
+
+Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.
+
+"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" I asked.
+
+"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.
+
+"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!"
+
+To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.
+
+The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.
+
+Yes, it _is_ greatness.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE MOWING
+
+"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth."
+
+This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of
+hard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.
+
+I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.
+
+When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:
+
+"Well, nothing happened yesterday."
+
+Then I lay quiet for some time--it being Sunday morning--and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:
+
+"Why, nearly everything happened yesterday."
+
+And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events--and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see--and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it _may_ be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even--here in this quiet room--would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet--playing
+with things much too large for us--much too full of meaning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.
+
+I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.
+
+Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover to-morrow."
+
+"That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me."
+
+Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.
+
+I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.
+
+"We shall have good cutting to-day," I said to myself.
+
+So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!
+
+So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.
+
+"Here," I said, "is where we will begin."
+
+So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top of his capacity.
+
+Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks--and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.
+
+"Hello, Dick," I shouted.
+
+"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied.
+
+He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could--until the dew on the clover should begin--at
+least--to disappear.
+
+By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.
+
+"It's a great day for haying," I said.
+
+"A dang good one," responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.
+
+I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that--far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.
+
+I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+"Here she goes!" came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.
+
+At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work--the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye--his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.
+
+At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.
+
+And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness--that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.
+
+"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday."
+
+"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.
+
+"Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's drawin' water."
+
+"Something is undoubtedly drawing it," said I, wiping my dripping face.
+
+A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.
+
+So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.
+
+"Hungry, Dick?" I asked.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.
+
+So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.
+
+"After you," says Dick.
+
+I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.
+
+"Pump, Dick," said I.
+
+And Dick pumped.
+
+"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice.
+
+And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.
+
+"Gee, but that's good," says Dick.
+
+Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!
+
+So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:
+
+"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner."
+
+Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.
+
+So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.
+
+"More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would respond--and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.
+
+Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with--and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses--if he had eyes for such things--of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.
+
+I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself--in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!
+
+And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in--and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in--when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled--and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race."
+
+"Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, "and
+eat your shortcake."
+
+And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment--every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.
+
+I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!
+
+Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?
+
+I _lived_ yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.
+
+At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again--rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!
+
+"It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively.
+
+How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less--if that were possible--and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.
+
+Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up "My Fairy Fay" with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good day's work together."
+
+"You bet," said Dick.
+
+And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.
+
+I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always--without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!
+
+Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse--it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly--I could see the white of her
+gown--and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud--such things need not be said aloud--but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, thank God!"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AN OLD MAN
+
+Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him "Squire Summers," though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.
+
+How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life--the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.
+
+I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:
+
+"I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life."
+
+Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?
+
+His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.
+
+I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone--mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home--I have been there often to see his son--he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.
+
+There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.
+
+He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.
+
+Now he lives in a small room--and that is more than is really
+necessary--and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.
+
+Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+THE CELEBRITY
+
+Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!
+
+We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.
+
+Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:
+
+_They cannot survive without common people like you and me_.
+
+It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!
+
+This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.
+
+"Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here."
+
+"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.
+
+As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion--my favourite daily newspaper--in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!
+
+And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:
+
+"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening."
+
+Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:
+
+"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening."
+
+And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.
+
+I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them--without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't you come up?"
+
+He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer--like me--sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!
+
+He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for reëlection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.
+
+I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.
+
+And what a place and time it was for a combat--in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch--and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences--and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.
+
+After explaining who he was--I told him I had recognized him on
+sight--we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.
+
+But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.
+
+"It's a warm day," observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.
+
+"I never saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.
+
+There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a "Yes sir," or your master with
+a "No sir."
+
+Thus we warm up to one another--a little at a time--we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent--with some joy--trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.
+
+"I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, "that you are opposing my reëlection."
+
+Boom! the cannon's opening roar!
+
+"Well," I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, "I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done."
+
+Boom! the fight is on!
+
+"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?"
+
+It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.
+
+"I have voted the Republican ticket," I said, "but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats--and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with."
+
+I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.
+
+This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.
+
+And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. "The unending audacity of elected
+persons!" And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!
+
+Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.
+
+Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.
+
+[Illustration: "HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE"]
+
+"You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views."
+
+Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.
+
+"Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.
+
+"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."
+
+"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century."
+
+He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:
+
+"And any quantity of Caldwells!"
+
+That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt--what I had
+not felt before in regard to him--that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.
+
+Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.
+
+"You won't mind," I said, "if I give you my view--my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question--in detail. We get general
+impressions--and stick to them like grim death--for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----"
+
+"And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel," nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.
+
+"And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter," I added--"all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that."
+
+"I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell.
+
+"And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn--a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that."
+
+"Now, I believe that, too," said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.
+
+"Then we belong to the same party," I said. "I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it."
+
+Mr. Caldwell laughed.
+
+"And I'll appoint you," I said, "my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws."
+
+"Well, I'll accept the appointment," said Mr. Caldwell--continuing very
+earnestly, "if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once."
+
+With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.
+
+"And now," said I, rising quickly, "let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk."
+
+So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.
+
+I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:
+
+"I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it."
+
+"Let's organize a new party," I said, "let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank," he said.
+
+"Not at all," I responded.
+
+"What would you have it?"
+
+"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns."
+
+Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.
+
+"Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an outrageous idealist."
+
+"Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote."
+
+"Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what he came for."
+
+"It's an interesting world, Harriet," I said.
+
+"It is, indeed," said Harriet.
+
+As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.
+
+"We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, "on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms--but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet."
+
+"And women." said Harriet.
+
+"And women, of course," said I.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+ON FRIENDSHIP
+
+I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out--I
+hope not for long--I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!--And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.
+
+Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question--difficult because so direct and simple.
+
+"What is friendship, anyway?" queried this philosophical correspondent.
+
+The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: "Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!") and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.
+
+The truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.
+
+Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!
+
+It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. "I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels," says the poet, "I myself became the wounded person."
+
+Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. "Good-morning, friend," I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.
+
+As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has--because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!
+
+Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails--how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me--and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.
+
+If you should ever come by my farm--you, whoever you are--take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.
+
+It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!
+
+In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!
+
+So let it be with our friendships!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10592 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+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: Adventures In Friendship
+
+Author: David Grayson
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10592]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
+
+By David Grayson
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY
+
+
+This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.
+
+I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.
+
+This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.
+
+"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go."
+
+He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.
+
+"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."
+
+He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.
+
+As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.
+
+"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously."
+
+I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.
+
+"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself.
+
+So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.
+
+But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!
+
+I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.
+
+"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part."
+
+But presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.
+
+"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:
+
+"How are you, Brother?"
+
+You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.
+
+"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine
+of spring!"
+
+I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.
+
+So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!
+
+"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."
+
+(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)
+
+I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.
+
+Involuntarily I said:
+
+"Another member of my society: and in distress!"
+
+I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.
+
+As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.
+
+A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.
+
+"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before
+nightfall."
+
+"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."
+
+So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift."
+
+"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."
+
+"Oh, I can walk."
+
+"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall."
+
+I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.
+
+My farmer laughed and got in.
+
+"You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out."
+
+He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:
+
+"How did you know I was a Mason?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't _sure_."
+
+"I only joined last winter," he said. "I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere."
+
+I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:
+
+"Here's the grip of fellowship."
+
+He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.
+
+"I didn't feel the grip."
+
+"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there."
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook."
+
+And so he drove away.
+
+"A real Mason," I said to myself, "could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed."
+
+As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.
+
+When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.
+
+"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way."
+
+He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.
+
+"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked.
+
+"Heavier for you," I replied.
+
+So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.
+
+"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles."
+
+"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.
+
+"I'm that man."
+
+"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.
+
+"Have you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the
+same society."
+
+His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.
+
+"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"
+
+"No more am I," I said.
+
+"Nor an Oddfellow."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.
+
+"What Society did you think I belonged to?" he asked.
+
+"Well," I said, "when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----"
+
+"Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted my companion.
+
+"He did," I said. "He did----" and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. "And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge."
+
+"Were you?" exclaimed my companion. "So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without."
+
+"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?" I observed.
+
+"You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?"
+
+There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.
+
+"But when I got to thinking it over," I said, "it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member."
+
+He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+Well, we both laughed--and understood.
+
+After that, what a story he told me!--the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all
+people--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.
+
+He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:
+
+"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now."
+
+"Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs."
+
+As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!
+
+When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:
+
+"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society."
+
+As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:
+
+"What society is that?"
+
+I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.
+
+And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD
+
+They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
+
+The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
+
+"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
+
+I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me
+unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
+
+"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
+
+How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.
+
+[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
+
+So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.
+
+Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
+
+Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
+
+"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
+
+And she closes the door.
+
+Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
+
+"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
+
+I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
+
+I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.
+
+Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
+
+All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.
+
+"David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
+
+"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
+
+"No--well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!"
+
+"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them."
+
+"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?"
+
+"But I've got such a _good_ dinner."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty."
+
+"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
+said Harriet ruefully.
+
+I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:
+
+"There aren't any."
+
+"David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
+
+"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'"
+
+Harriet laughed.
+
+"It has come to a pretty pass," she said "when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day."
+
+"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical about it."
+
+"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like."
+
+"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?"
+
+"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is _not_ logical.
+
+"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
+
+"David!"
+
+"They're rich, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company."
+
+"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble
+was?"
+
+"But I was talking of _poor_ people."
+
+"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
+
+"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
+
+"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
+
+"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
+
+"Christmas," I said.
+
+I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
+
+"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
+
+"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
+as fail.'"
+
+So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!
+
+So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
+
+"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
+
+He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
+
+"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
+
+I drew my face down and said solemnly:
+
+"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
+
+"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
+
+"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast."
+
+The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel."
+
+"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow."
+
+Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.
+
+"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha' me
+doots--I ha' me doots."
+
+At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:
+
+"Is it by any chance a goose?"
+
+"It is," I said, "a goose--a big one."
+
+He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have comforted my mind,"
+he said, "with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose."
+
+So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.
+
+"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me anyway."
+
+I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!
+
+Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack--and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta--lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.
+
+I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!
+
+Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.
+
+"Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad to see you."
+
+He said it as though he meant it.
+
+"Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me."
+
+"I can sympathize with you," I said, "we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires."
+
+He looked around at me quizzically.
+
+"He lies too long in bed in the morning," I said.
+
+By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!"
+
+I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!
+
+But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.
+
+"We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she said, "and
+our cook was ill--or said she was--and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it--and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!"
+
+I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!
+
+"You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place."
+
+"Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Starkweather.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed.
+"Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities."
+
+With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying "Penny" Daniels.
+
+"So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?" laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.
+
+When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.
+
+"You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson," said Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.
+
+"We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, "and I haven't
+had so much fun in years."
+
+Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.
+
+I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end--the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee--but I must not and dare not elaborate.
+
+And what great talk we had afterward!
+
+I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood--and we laughed, and laughed--Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.
+
+"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," cried her husband: "some of the
+old ones we used to know."
+
+So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:
+
+"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,"
+
+Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,"
+
+Oh, I can't tell here--it grows late and there's work to-morrow--all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:
+
+"I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it."
+
+And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:
+
+"This has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE OPEN ROAD
+
+"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide."
+
+--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.
+
+I love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold
+everything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!
+
+So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.
+
+Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty--for beauty is inward,
+not outward--we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!
+
+Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside--and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!
+
+Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!
+
+It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!
+
+Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?--is not that the best
+life we know?
+
+And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk--and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!
+
+What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!
+
+Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.
+
+And one of these words--how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----
+
+So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying "Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee,
+coo-ee," he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.
+
+"That's the idee," says the helper.
+
+"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life."
+
+From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.
+
+"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in."
+
+So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.
+
+"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.
+
+"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the man in the
+wagon.
+
+"That's my old game--wrastling," the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!"
+
+"That's the idee," says the man in the wagon.
+
+So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, stiddy," and the response
+of the other, "That's the idee." And so on into the gray day!
+
+My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The "equality of men" which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy--is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!
+
+And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?
+
+"And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun."
+
+And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.
+
+Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:
+
+"Lord be praised for that which is common."
+
+And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG
+
+Sunday Morning, May 20th.
+
+On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+"I am not ready yet," it said; "I have not rested my time."
+
+Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!
+
+And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered--the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!
+
+I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.
+
+"Now," I said to myself, "give me a good day and I am ready to plant."
+
+The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the
+adventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.
+
+Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.
+
+At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.
+
+Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers--five seeds:
+
+One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.
+
+But after a time one ceases to count five, and _feels_ five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.
+
+I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)--and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.
+
+As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field--and my own pleasant home among its
+trees--and my barn--all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.
+
+[Illustration: "OFTEN I STOOD A MOMENT BY THE FENCE"]
+
+Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich--overnight--by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!--not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.
+
+I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.
+
+But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.
+
+I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me--save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.
+
+Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities--of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life--of letting life flow through us. To be used!--that
+is the sublimest thing we know.
+
+It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.
+
+I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?
+
+In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers--if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.
+
+For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.
+
+Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:
+
+These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:
+
+"And (he) departed without being desired."
+
+Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!
+
+And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+THE STORY OF ANNA
+
+It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.
+
+And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:
+
+"It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate."
+
+"David," he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+"it is bad enough."
+
+He laid his hand on my arm.
+
+"Can you hitch up your horse and come with me--right away?"
+
+McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.
+
+"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher.
+
+Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.
+
+"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''
+
+"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a woman now."
+
+He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:
+
+"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''
+
+"But I didn't know--she isn't--"
+
+"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.
+
+"They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river."
+
+I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.
+
+"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory."
+
+He remained silent again for a long time.
+
+"David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments."
+
+He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.
+
+As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.
+
+"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river," McAlway
+said in a low voice.
+
+It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence--of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.
+
+Suddenly we heard a voice--in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.
+
+"Oh!--McAlway," a voice said.
+
+Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.
+
+"Have you seen Anna Williams?"
+
+"She is at the house," answered the voice.
+
+"Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.
+
+"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," one of them said.
+
+The other woman turned to us half complainingly:
+
+"She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute."
+
+"She don't cry," said the other, "but just sits there like a statue."
+
+McAlway stepped forward and said:
+
+"Well--Anna?"
+
+The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience--of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.
+
+The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well--Anna?" She looked up and replied:
+
+"They were going to take my baby away."
+
+"Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. "Well, we'll never
+permit _that_. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?"
+
+Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway," the man said, "I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl--while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family--the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, "What will
+Harriet say?" Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.
+
+In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience--but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.
+
+"It's a tremendous old world," I said to myself. "Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!"
+
+The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.
+
+"Are you cold?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir," she answered faintly.
+
+I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:
+
+"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?"
+
+"Yes, sir," very faintly.
+
+"With cream on it--rich yellow cream--and plenty of sugar?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms--as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams."
+
+Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"David, _David_, DAVID," she said.
+
+It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!
+
+For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry--and cold."
+
+Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.
+
+I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.
+
+And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.
+
+I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!
+
+The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.
+
+"David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep."
+
+So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I
+held mine.
+
+"David," Harriet whispered, "did you see the baby?"
+
+"No," I whispered.
+
+"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life."
+
+When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. "What happened next?" I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.
+
+If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.
+
+"Did you see the baby?" Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the "finest baby we ever saw in all our lives."
+
+I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant--which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.
+
+It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as "bad" or "good"; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons--toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!
+
+The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.
+
+"Why, Mr. Grayson!"
+
+"How's the boy, Anna?"
+
+And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine--and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house--that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+THE DRUNKARD
+
+It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.
+
+I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.
+
+My friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.
+
+Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:
+
+"There goes that drunkard."
+
+It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.
+
+After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!
+
+And then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone
+in my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.
+
+"After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people."
+
+I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.
+
+"How are you, neighbour?" I asked.
+
+He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.
+
+My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.
+
+I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery
+better worth making?
+
+[Illustration: "HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING"]
+
+After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.
+
+One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you went by."
+
+"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time."
+
+"You usually drive."
+
+"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving."
+
+I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now "working with the experts"--those were
+his words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.
+
+"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man."
+
+So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!
+
+Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:
+
+"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'"
+
+"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.
+
+On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
+authority."
+
+"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."
+
+At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.
+
+"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now."
+
+The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.
+
+I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it."
+
+"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?"
+
+But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.
+
+"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."
+
+"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.
+
+But she was not to be joked with.
+
+"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?"
+
+It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.
+
+She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she said, "he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker."
+
+After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?
+
+And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.
+
+"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked.
+
+He glanced up at the sky.
+
+"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.
+
+I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.
+
+"After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again."
+
+"No," I said, "you will not do it again."
+
+"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?"
+
+"Free?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I
+never take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them."
+
+"But you never do?"
+
+"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly."
+
+He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:
+
+"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own
+limitations."
+
+"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly.
+
+We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:
+
+"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds."
+
+Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.
+
+So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:
+
+"What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted."
+
+I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly
+separated.
+
+"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts."
+
+The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:
+
+"I often get drunk myself."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes--dreadfully drunk."
+
+He looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!
+
+"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he said. "I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or
+rather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing."
+
+"And you do sing," I said.
+
+"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world."
+
+"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----"
+
+Before I could finish he had interrupted:
+
+"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_
+of the liquor. And there you are!"
+
+We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----"
+
+"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together."
+
+As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----
+
+Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.
+
+He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
+
+"He also belongs here," I said.
+
+And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+AN OLD MAID
+
+One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.
+
+She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?
+
+In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover "Snow Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path
+of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake" the other "Fast Asleep." Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.
+
+When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.
+
+But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.
+
+Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.
+
+On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.
+
+Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek
+pride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.
+
+Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.
+
+And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.
+
+"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that--downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute."
+
+"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----"
+
+By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.
+
+If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
+
+In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?
+
+Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----
+
+But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:
+
+"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble."
+
+That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+A ROADSIDE PROPHET
+
+From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by--part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet--so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.
+
+But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.
+
+"This," I said to myself, "may be something for me."
+
+So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields--the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:
+
+GOD IS LOVE
+
+A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, brother," I returned heartily.
+
+His face brightened perceptibly.
+
+"Don't stop on my account," I said; "finish off your work."
+
+He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.
+
+"How long," I inquired, "have you been at this sort of work?"
+
+"Ten years," he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. "Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade--I am a journeyman
+painter--but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road."
+
+He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:
+
+"I live by the Word."
+
+"By the Word?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, by the Word," and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:
+
+"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?"
+
+I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.
+
+"Do you always paint the same sign?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice"--he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields--"that I says to myself, 'I will paint "God is Love."'"
+
+"An appropriate text," I said, "for this very spot."
+
+He seemed much gratified.
+
+"Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he exclaimed. "Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----"
+
+He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.
+
+"When I was in Arizona," he was saying, "mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock."
+
+I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.
+
+But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.
+
+"It's all right," I said; "a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it."
+
+"That's what I want," he said eagerly; "that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all."
+
+He paused a moment and then continued:
+
+"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift."
+
+"I've noticed it," I said.
+
+"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked.
+
+"Very strange," I said.
+
+"I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them--but I didn't do it."
+
+I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?
+
+"Do you do all this without payment?"
+
+He looked at me in an injured way.
+
+"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself."
+
+By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you."
+
+So we set off together down the hill.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it."
+
+He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road--an
+easy, swinging, steady step--carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.
+
+"You see, Mister," he said, "I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he _wants_ to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.
+
+"I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.
+
+"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl."
+
+He paused for a long moment.
+
+"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----" He paused again.
+
+"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.
+
+"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,
+Mister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'"
+
+He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.
+
+"And I did try Him," my companion was saying, "and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion--but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants."
+
+He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead--a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.
+
+"The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister," he said, "is that
+they won't try God."
+
+I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings--how futile
+they seemed compared with this!
+
+Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.
+
+"What do you think," said he, "I should paint here?"
+
+"Well," I said, "you know better than I do. What would _you_ paint?"
+
+He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.
+
+"When in doubt," he said, "I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted--near
+towns--but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'"
+
+I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.
+
+At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home--and the barn near it--and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+THE GUNSMITH
+
+Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+"gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.
+
+"David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden."
+
+"At last!" I exclaimed.
+
+Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:
+
+"He _says_ he is going."
+
+Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't going."
+
+"No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided--yet."
+
+"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not."
+
+But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.
+
+"David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?"
+
+He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:
+
+"Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle "Bonnie Doon" or "Charlie Is My Darling" lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy."
+
+"We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said.
+
+"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----"
+
+He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it."
+
+"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," I said. "Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?"
+
+"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!" exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. "Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?"
+
+With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago--and liked him well, too--but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.
+
+In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.
+
+I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.
+
+Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.
+
+Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:
+
+"A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!"
+
+Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor _us_.
+
+I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say--the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences--all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.
+
+I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners--how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.
+
+At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience--heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand--he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.
+
+As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.
+
+"Can you mend it?" I asked.
+
+If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Pha�thon!
+
+A week later I came back to the shop.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said when he saw me.
+
+He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.
+
+"So!" he said. "You have come for your job?"
+
+He softened the "j" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.
+
+"So," he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.
+
+"I can't see where you mended them," I said.
+
+You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!
+
+When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said.
+
+"What is this I hear," I said, "about your going back to Sweden?"
+
+"For forty years," he said, "I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home."
+
+"But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?"
+
+"You have Charles Baxter," he said, smiling.
+
+For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.
+
+"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life," I said. "You know that."
+
+The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.
+
+"I have been here forty years," he said. "and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden."
+
+I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.
+
+When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor--as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm--hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!
+
+What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble--and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!--he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep--he was helping the world go
+round!
+
+All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.
+
+[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS
+SHOP"]
+
+In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.
+
+Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.
+
+"Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed."
+
+A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.
+
+I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.
+
+"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'"
+
+Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.
+
+"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pretends to
+know."
+
+The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)
+
+On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.
+
+I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.
+
+The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"When I was a poor man," he said, "and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one."
+
+The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.
+
+During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:
+
+"David, we can't let the old man go."
+
+"No, sir," I said, "we can't."
+
+"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old."
+
+I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.
+
+When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:
+
+"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?"
+
+The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:
+
+"It ist America; it ist America."
+
+"No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save."
+
+Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.
+
+"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" I asked.
+
+"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.
+
+"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!"
+
+To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.
+
+The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.
+
+Yes, it _is_ greatness.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE MOWING
+
+"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth."
+
+This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of
+hard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.
+
+I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.
+
+When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:
+
+"Well, nothing happened yesterday."
+
+Then I lay quiet for some time--it being Sunday morning--and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:
+
+"Why, nearly everything happened yesterday."
+
+And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events--and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see--and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it _may_ be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even--here in this quiet room--would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet--playing
+with things much too large for us--much too full of meaning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.
+
+I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.
+
+Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover to-morrow."
+
+"That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me."
+
+Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.
+
+I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.
+
+"We shall have good cutting to-day," I said to myself.
+
+So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!
+
+So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.
+
+"Here," I said, "is where we will begin."
+
+So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top of his capacity.
+
+Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks--and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.
+
+"Hello, Dick," I shouted.
+
+"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied.
+
+He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could--until the dew on the clover should begin--at
+least--to disappear.
+
+By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.
+
+"It's a great day for haying," I said.
+
+"A dang good one," responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.
+
+I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that--far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.
+
+I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+"Here she goes!" came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.
+
+At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work--the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye--his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.
+
+At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.
+
+And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness--that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.
+
+"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday."
+
+"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.
+
+"Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's drawin' water."
+
+"Something is undoubtedly drawing it," said I, wiping my dripping face.
+
+A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.
+
+So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.
+
+"Hungry, Dick?" I asked.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.
+
+So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.
+
+"After you," says Dick.
+
+I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.
+
+"Pump, Dick," said I.
+
+And Dick pumped.
+
+"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice.
+
+And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.
+
+"Gee, but that's good," says Dick.
+
+Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!
+
+So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:
+
+"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner."
+
+Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.
+
+So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.
+
+"More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would respond--and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.
+
+Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with--and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses--if he had eyes for such things--of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.
+
+I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself--in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!
+
+And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in--and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in--when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled--and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race."
+
+"Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, "and
+eat your shortcake."
+
+And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment--every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.
+
+I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!
+
+Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?
+
+I _lived_ yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.
+
+At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again--rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!
+
+"It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively.
+
+How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less--if that were possible--and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.
+
+Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up "My Fairy Fay" with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good day's work together."
+
+"You bet," said Dick.
+
+And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.
+
+I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always--without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!
+
+Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse--it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly--I could see the white of her
+gown--and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud--such things need not be said aloud--but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, thank God!"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AN OLD MAN
+
+Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him "Squire Summers," though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.
+
+How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life--the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.
+
+I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:
+
+"I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life."
+
+Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?
+
+His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.
+
+I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone--mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home--I have been there often to see his son--he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.
+
+There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.
+
+He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.
+
+Now he lives in a small room--and that is more than is really
+necessary--and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.
+
+Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+THE CELEBRITY
+
+Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!
+
+We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.
+
+Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:
+
+_They cannot survive without common people like you and me_.
+
+It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!
+
+This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.
+
+"Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here."
+
+"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.
+
+As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion--my favourite daily newspaper--in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!
+
+And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:
+
+"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening."
+
+Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:
+
+"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening."
+
+And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.
+
+I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them--without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't you come up?"
+
+He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer--like me--sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!
+
+He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for re�lection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.
+
+I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.
+
+And what a place and time it was for a combat--in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch--and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences--and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.
+
+After explaining who he was--I told him I had recognized him on
+sight--we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.
+
+But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.
+
+"It's a warm day," observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.
+
+"I never saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.
+
+There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a "Yes sir," or your master with
+a "No sir."
+
+Thus we warm up to one another--a little at a time--we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent--with some joy--trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.
+
+"I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, "that you are opposing my re�lection."
+
+Boom! the cannon's opening roar!
+
+"Well," I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, "I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done."
+
+Boom! the fight is on!
+
+"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?"
+
+It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.
+
+"I have voted the Republican ticket," I said, "but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats--and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with."
+
+I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.
+
+This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.
+
+And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. "The unending audacity of elected
+persons!" And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!
+
+Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.
+
+Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.
+
+[Illustration: "HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE"]
+
+"You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views."
+
+Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.
+
+"Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.
+
+"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."
+
+"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century."
+
+He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:
+
+"And any quantity of Caldwells!"
+
+That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt--what I had
+not felt before in regard to him--that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.
+
+Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.
+
+"You won't mind," I said, "if I give you my view--my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question--in detail. We get general
+impressions--and stick to them like grim death--for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----"
+
+"And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel," nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.
+
+"And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter," I added--"all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that."
+
+"I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell.
+
+"And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn--a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that."
+
+"Now, I believe that, too," said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.
+
+"Then we belong to the same party," I said. "I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it."
+
+Mr. Caldwell laughed.
+
+"And I'll appoint you," I said, "my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws."
+
+"Well, I'll accept the appointment," said Mr. Caldwell--continuing very
+earnestly, "if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once."
+
+With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.
+
+"And now," said I, rising quickly, "let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk."
+
+So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.
+
+I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:
+
+"I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it."
+
+"Let's organize a new party," I said, "let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank," he said.
+
+"Not at all," I responded.
+
+"What would you have it?"
+
+"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns."
+
+Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.
+
+"Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an outrageous idealist."
+
+"Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote."
+
+"Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what he came for."
+
+"It's an interesting world, Harriet," I said.
+
+"It is, indeed," said Harriet.
+
+As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.
+
+"We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, "on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms--but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet."
+
+"And women." said Harriet.
+
+"And women, of course," said I.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+ON FRIENDSHIP
+
+I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out--I
+hope not for long--I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!--And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.
+
+Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question--difficult because so direct and simple.
+
+"What is friendship, anyway?" queried this philosophical correspondent.
+
+The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: "Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!") and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.
+
+The truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.
+
+Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!
+
+It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. "I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels," says the poet, "I myself became the wounded person."
+
+Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. "Good-morning, friend," I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.
+
+As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has--because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!
+
+Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails--how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me--and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.
+
+If you should ever come by my farm--you, whoever you are--take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.
+
+It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!
+
+In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!
+
+So let it be with our friendships!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<title>Adventures in Friendship</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
+<style type="text/css">
+body {	font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
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+</head>
+<!-- Converted to HTML for the Gutenberg Project by Sjaani -->
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+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: Adventures In Friendship
+
+Author: David Grayson
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10592]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<table width="80%" align="center" border="0">
+  <tr>
+    <td> <div align="center"><img src="img1.jpg" alt="" width="385" height="300" align="left" /></div>
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      <h1 align="center">ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP</h1>
+<h1 align="center">David Grayson</h1>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+   <div align="center"><img src="img2.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+	  <h1 align="center">I</h1>
+        <h2 align="center">AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY</h2>
+<p>This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.</p>
+
+<p>I have had an amusing adventure&mdash;and made a friend.</p>
+
+<p>This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented&mdash;both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You ought to belong to one of our lodges,&quot; he said. &quot;You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're just the sort of a man,&quot; he said, &quot;that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I <i>think</i>) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks&mdash;and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must, indeed,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship&mdash;only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a complicated matter, this fellowship,&quot; I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.</p>
+
+<p>But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!</p>
+
+<p>I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here,&quot; I said aloud, &quot;is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But presently&mdash;how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails&mdash;I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why!&quot; I exclaimed to myself, &quot;I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How are you, Brother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen him look&mdash;and look&mdash;and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me&mdash;for he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my friend,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;I <i>am</i> intoxicated&mdash;with the wine
+of spring!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as &quot;Brother.&quot; A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.</p>
+
+<p>So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)</p>
+
+<p>I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another member of my society: and in distress!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her&mdash;if absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.</p>
+
+<p>A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's the matter, Brother?&quot; I asked in the friendliest manner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bolt gone,&quot; he said gruffly, &quot;and I got to get to town before
+nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in,&quot; I said, &quot;and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's all right,&quot; he said. &quot;I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hold on,&quot; I said, &quot;get in, I'll take you back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I can walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I can drive you faster,&quot; I said, &quot;and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.</p>
+
+<p>My farmer laughed and got in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; I said, &quot;when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How did you know I was a Mason?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I wasn't <i>sure</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I only joined last winter,&quot; he said. &quot;I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's the grip of fellowship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't feel the grip.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Didn't you?&quot; I asked. &quot;Well, Brother, it was all there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If ever I can do anything for you,&quot; he said, &quot;just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so he drove away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A real Mason,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.</p>
+
+<p>When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in, Brother,&quot; I said; &quot;I am going your way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretty heavy for your buggy,&quot; he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Heavier for you,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pull up the lap robe,&quot; I said, &quot;and be comfortable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift,&quot; he remarked. &quot;A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm that man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been intending to drop in and see you,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you?&quot; he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said. &quot;I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly&mdash;seeing that we belong to the
+same society.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be mistaken,&quot; he said. &quot;I'm not a Mason!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No more am I,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor an Oddfellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What Society did you think I belonged to?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did he ask you that, too?&quot; interrupted my companion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He did,&quot; I said. &quot;He did----&quot; and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. &quot;And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you?&quot; exclaimed my companion. &quot;So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?&quot; I observed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet it is,&quot; he responded. &quot;You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But when I got to thinking it over,&quot; I said, &quot;it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's that?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Universal Brotherhood of Men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, we both laughed&mdash;and understood.</p>
+
+<p>After that, what a story he told me!&mdash;the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are&mdash;all
+people&mdash;of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears&mdash;if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.</p>
+
+<p>He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind,&quot; I said, &quot;I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!</p>
+
+<p>When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What society is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.</p>
+
+
+<p>And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.</p>
+
+     <div align="center"><img src="img3.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <hr style="width: 35%;" />
+      <div align="center"><img src="img4.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<h1 align="center">II</h1>
+<h2 align="center">A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD</h2>
+      <div align="center"><img src="img5.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <p>They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.</p>
+
+<p>The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, &quot;has been a day of pleasant bread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>One of the very pleasantest I can remember!</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays&mdash;let them overtake me
+unexpectedly&mdash;waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, this is Christmas Day!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this&mdash;one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.</p>
+
+      <div align="center"><img src="img6.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <p>So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas, Harriet&quot;&mdash;and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had&mdash;but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky&mdash;on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas, Harriet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet opens the door&mdash;just a crack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo&mdash;but it's cold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she closes the door.</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a friendly world,&quot; I say to myself, &quot;and full of business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor&mdash;the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.</p>
+
+<p>I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.</p>
+
+<p>Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay&mdash;all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen&mdash;and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)&mdash;when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; said Harriet, presently, &quot;the cousins can't come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't come!&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, you act as if you were delighted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;well, yes,&quot; I said, &quot;I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment&mdash;I was all ready for them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I've got such a <i>good</i> dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,&quot;
+said Harriet ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There aren't any.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;how did you know what I was thinking about?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I merely wanted to show you,&quot; I said, &quot;that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has come to a pretty pass,&quot; she said &quot;when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a tragedy, I'll admit,&quot; I said, &quot;but let's be logical about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am willing,&quot; said Harriet, &quot;to be as logical as you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; I said, &quot;having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who?&quot; asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is <i>not</i> logical.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, there are the Starkweathers,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They're rich, aren't they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you know how they live&mdash;what dinners they have&mdash;and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out&mdash;tactfully, of course&mdash;you made a point of tact&mdash;what the trouble
+was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I was talking of <i>poor</i> people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you can argue,&quot; observed Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I can act, too,&quot; I said. &quot;I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What <i>is</i> the matter with you this morning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Christmas,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you <i>should</i> get the Starkweathers----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'In the bright lexicon of youth,'&quot; I observed, &quot;'there is no such word
+as fail.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere&mdash;the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!</p>
+
+<p>So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas,&quot; I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, David,&quot; he exclaimed heartily, &quot;Merry Christmas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I drew my face down and said solemnly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, now, what's the matter?&quot; He was all sympathy at once.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, &quot;there is a poor man you will na' have to compel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you don't count,&quot; I said. &quot;You're coming anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;but I ha' me
+doots&mdash;I ha' me doots.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it by any chance a goose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is,&quot; I said, &quot;a goose&mdash;a big one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. &quot;You have comforted my mind,&quot;
+he said, &quot;with the joys of anticipation&mdash;a goose, a big goose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind,&quot; I said, &quot;they'll not be displeased to see me anyway.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty&mdash;furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything&mdash;with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!</p>
+
+<p>Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack&mdash;and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta&mdash;lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.</p>
+
+<p>I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!</p>
+
+<p>Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, friend,&quot; he said, &quot;I'm glad to see you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said it as though he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can sympathize with you,&quot; I said, &quot;we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me quizzically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He lies too long in bed in the morning,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; she said with a rueful laugh, &quot;we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day,&quot; she said, &quot;and
+our cook was ill&mdash;or said she was&mdash;and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it&mdash;and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might,&quot; I said, &quot;apply for Mrs. Heney's place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is Mrs. Heney?&quot; asked Mrs. Starkweather.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!&quot; I exclaimed.
+&quot;Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying &quot;Penny&quot; Daniels.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?&quot; laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.</p>
+
+<p>When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson,&quot; said Mrs.
+Starkweather.</p>
+
+<p>So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We walked over,&quot; said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, &quot;and I haven't
+had so much fun in years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.</p>
+
+<p>I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end&mdash;the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee&mdash;but I must not and dare not elaborate.</p>
+
+<p>And what great talk we had afterward!</p>
+
+<p>I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood&mdash;and we laughed, and laughed&mdash;Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None of the new-fangled ones, Clara,&quot; cried her husband: &quot;some of the
+old ones we used to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,&quot;</span>
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Oh, I can't tell here&mdash;it grows late and there's work to-morrow&mdash;all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This has been a day of pleasant bread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature&mdash;childlike simplicity, if you will&mdash;there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.</p>
+      <div align="center"><img src="img7.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img8.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<h1 align="center">III</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE OPEN ROAD</h2
+><div align="center"><img src="img9.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&quot;To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;GOETHE, <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I love sometimes to have a day alone&mdash;a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning&mdash;preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough&mdash;and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new&mdash;and behold
+everything <i>is</i> new. My barn, my oaks, my fences&mdash;I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!</p>
+
+<p>So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty&mdash;for beauty is inward,
+not outward&mdash;we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!</p>
+
+<p>Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside&mdash;and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!</p>
+
+<p>Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!</p>
+
+<p>It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!</p>
+
+<p>Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?&mdash;is not that the best
+life we know?</p>
+
+<p>And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk&mdash;and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!</p>
+
+<p>What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.</p>
+
+<p>And one of these words&mdash;how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----</p>
+
+<p>So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying &quot;Coo-ee, coo-ee.&quot; I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. &quot;Coo-ee,
+coo-ee,&quot; he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the idee,&quot; says the helper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A poor lot,&quot; remarks the leader: &quot;such is the farmer's life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans&mdash;a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll pass 'em up,&quot; he says; &quot;that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hi there, it's for you,&quot; shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly,&quot; says the man in the
+wagon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's my old game&mdash;wrastling,&quot; the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. &quot;Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the idee,&quot; says the man in the wagon.</p>
+
+<p>So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, &quot;Stiddy, stiddy,&quot; and the response
+of the other, &quot;That's the idee.&quot; And so on into the gray day!</p>
+
+<p>My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The &quot;equality of men&quot; which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy&mdash;is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!</p>
+
+<p>And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest&mdash;to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work&mdash;only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lord be praised for that which is common.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.</p>
+
+      <div align="center"><img src="img10.jpg" alt=" " /> </div>
+      <hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img11.jpg" alt=" " /> </div>
+<h1 align="center">IV</h1>
+<h2 align="center">ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img12.jpg" alt=" " /> </div>
+<p>Sunday Morning, May 20th.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+&quot;I am not ready yet,&quot; it said; &quot;I have not rested my time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!</p>
+
+<p>And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered&mdash;the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!</p>
+
+<p>I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;give me a good day and I am ready to plant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand&mdash;the
+adventure of it&mdash;after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, &quot;Present!&quot; to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.</p>
+
+<p>Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning&mdash;a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.</p>
+
+<p>At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.</p>
+
+<p>Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers&mdash;five seeds:</p>
+
+<p>One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.</p>
+
+<p>But after a time one ceases to count five, and <i>feels</i> five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)&mdash;and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field&mdash;and my own pleasant home among its
+trees&mdash;and my barn&mdash;all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img13.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich&mdash;overnight&mdash;by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!&mdash;not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.</p>
+
+<p>I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.</p>
+
+<p>But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.</p>
+
+<p>I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me&mdash;save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.</p>
+
+<p>Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities&mdash;of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life&mdash;of letting life flow through us. To be used!&mdash;that
+is the sublimest thing we know.</p>
+
+<p>It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?</p>
+
+<p>In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers&mdash;if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.</p>
+
+<p>For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.</p>
+
+<p>Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:</p>
+
+<p>These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends&mdash;with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And (he) departed without being desired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!</p>
+
+<p>And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed&mdash;and sank into dreamless slumber.</p>
+<div align="center"><img src="img14.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img15.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">V</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE STORY OF ANNA</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img16.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.</p>
+
+<p>And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+&quot;it is bad enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand on my arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you hitch up your horse and come with me&mdash;right away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?&quot; asked the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said; &quot;but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A girl!&quot; he said, with a curious note in his voice; &quot;but a woman now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I didn't know&mdash;she isn't&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A woods child,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They made it hard for her,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher, &quot;especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I&mdash;I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He remained silent again for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said finally, &quot;I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we&mdash;we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river,&quot; McAlway
+said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence&mdash;of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly we heard a voice&mdash;in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh!&mdash;McAlway,&quot; a voice said.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you seen Anna Williams?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is at the house,&quot; answered the voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get your horse,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She's all right, as soon as she gets dry,&quot; one of them said.</p>
+
+<p>The other woman turned to us half complainingly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She don't cry,&quot; said the other, &quot;but just sits there like a statue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>McAlway stepped forward and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well&mdash;Anna?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience&mdash;of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch Preacher had said, &quot;Well&mdash;Anna?&quot; She looked up and replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They were going to take my baby away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were they!&quot; exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. &quot;Well, we'll never
+permit <i>that</i>. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway,&quot; the man said, &quot;I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl&mdash;while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family&mdash;the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, &quot;What will
+Harriet say?&quot; Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.</p>
+
+<p>In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience&mdash;but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a tremendous old world,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you cold?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; she answered faintly.</p>
+
+<p>I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir,&quot; very faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With cream on it&mdash;rich yellow cream&mdash;and plenty of sugar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms&mdash;as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;this is Anna Williams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David, <i>David</i>, DAVID,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;that girl is hungry&mdash;and cold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.</p>
+
+<p>I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.</p>
+
+<p>And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a &quot;foremost citizen,&quot; the &quot;leader in all good works,&quot;
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are&mdash;in ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind&mdash;I even whistled&mdash;and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; she whispered, &quot;the baby's asleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath&mdash;at least I
+held mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; Harriet whispered, &quot;did you see the baby.?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. &quot;What happened next?&quot; I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.</p>
+
+<p>If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you see the baby?&quot; Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the &quot;finest baby we ever saw in all our lives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant&mdash;which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as &quot;bad&quot; or &quot;good&quot;; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons&mdash;toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!</p>
+
+<p>The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Mr. Grayson!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How's the boy, Anna?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine&mdash;and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house&mdash;that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img17.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img18.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">VI</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE DRUNKARD</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img19.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment&mdash;unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.</p>
+
+<p>I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.</p>
+
+<p>My friend is a drunkard&mdash;at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still&mdash;and he usually came in the evening&mdash;I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There goes that drunkard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as <i>that</i>, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.</p>
+
+<p>After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!</p>
+
+<p>And then one evening when I saw him coming&mdash;I had been a long day alone
+in my fields&mdash;I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How are you, neighbour?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.</p>
+
+<p>My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is&mdash;is there any discovery
+better worth making?</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img20.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.</p>
+
+<p>One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes&mdash;his eyes <i>burned</i>! I shook his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had hoped,&quot; I said, &quot;that you would stop sometime as you went by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I've wanted to stop&mdash;but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You usually drive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now &quot;working with the experts&quot;&mdash;those were
+his words&mdash;and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he said, &quot;I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson&mdash;and a happy man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!</p>
+
+<p>Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly,&quot; he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.</p>
+
+<p>On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were &quot;in a place of suitable
+authority.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Great things are possible,&quot; he said, &quot;to the man of ideas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man&mdash;hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+&quot;I think you will understand.&quot; I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thinks!&quot; exclaimed Harriet. &quot;What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; she said, &quot;I can't understand some things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>But she was not to be joked with.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved&mdash;liked&mdash;him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand&mdash;it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of&mdash;life. He&mdash;he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.</p>
+
+<p>She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. &quot;When he's sober,&quot; she said, &quot;he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?</p>
+
+<p>And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced up at the sky.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fine?&quot; he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After it is all over,&quot; he said, &quot;of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I said, &quot;you will not do it again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Free?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses&mdash;I
+never take more&mdash;I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you never do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I never do, but I <i>feel</i> that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves&mdash;to be free of their own
+limitations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's it! That's it!&quot; he exclaimed eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation&mdash;whether drink, or riches, or fame&mdash;a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.</p>
+
+<p>So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man <i>say</i> to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities&mdash;if we can keep them properly
+separated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most of us,&quot; I said finally, &quot;are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper&mdash;far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I often get drunk myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;dreadfully drunk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me and laughed&mdash;for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now,&quot; he said. &quot;I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker&mdash;or
+rather stronger and stronger&mdash;for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you do sing,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do, indeed,&quot; he responded, laughing, &quot;and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes,&quot; I said, &quot;when I'm on <i>my</i> kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Before I could finish he had interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees&mdash;and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I <i>smell</i> the <i>smell</i>
+of the liquor. And there you are!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course,&quot; I said. &quot;You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul&mdash;and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man&mdash;and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him&mdash;but----</p>
+
+<p>Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He also belongs here,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img21.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img22.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">VII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">AN OLD MAID</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img23.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm&mdash;and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle&mdash;reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.</p>
+
+<p>She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?</p>
+
+<p>In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover &quot;Snow Bound,&quot; by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the &quot;Path
+of Life.&quot; On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called &quot;Wide Awake&quot; the other &quot;Fast Asleep.&quot; Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place&mdash;including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.</p>
+
+<p>When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.</p>
+
+<p>But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about&mdash;or so it seemed to me&mdash;with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, &quot;a ring and a rose,&quot; a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.</p>
+
+<p>On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible&mdash;a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride&mdash;if there is such a thing as meek
+pride&mdash;she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.</p>
+
+<p>Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week&mdash;with tea.</p>
+
+<p>And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are <i>our</i> progenitors.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Aikens,&quot; says Miss Aiken, &quot;were always like that&mdash;downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was like the Macintoshes,&quot; Harriet puts in. &quot;Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two <i>Mayflower</i> ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.</p>
+
+<p>If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.</p>
+
+<p>In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: &quot;How, after all, does this person live?&quot; For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?</p>
+
+<p>Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite&mdash;such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood&mdash;oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)&mdash;a long time ago&mdash;who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him&mdash;such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----</p>
+
+<p>But I must get to <i>the</i> thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively&mdash;unlike her, too&mdash;she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, an old, old trouble. No <i>new</i> trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the <i>other</i> woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img24.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img25.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">VIII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">A ROADSIDE PROPHET</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img26.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by&mdash;part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet&mdash;so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.</p>
+
+<p>But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;may be something for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields&mdash;the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:</p>
+
+<p>GOD IS LOVE</p>
+
+<p>A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good morning, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good morning, brother,&quot; I returned heartily.</p>
+
+<p>His face brightened perceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't stop on my account,&quot; I said; &quot;finish off your work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How long,&quot; I inquired, &quot;have you been at this sort of work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ten years,&quot; he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. &quot;Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade&mdash;I am a journeyman
+painter&mdash;but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I live by the Word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the Word?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, by the Word,&quot; and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you always paint the same sign?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, no,&quot; he answered. &quot;I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice&quot;&mdash;he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields&mdash;&quot;that I says to myself, 'I will paint &quot;God is Love.&quot;'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An appropriate text,&quot; I said, &quot;for this very spot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He seemed much gratified.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you can follow your feelings!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was in Arizona,&quot; he was saying, &quot;mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.</p>
+
+<p>But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's all right,&quot; I said; &quot;a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's what I want,&quot; he said eagerly; &quot;that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and then continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a curious thing, Mister&mdash;perhaps you've noticed it yourself&mdash;that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've noticed it,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's strange, isn't it?&quot; he again remarked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very strange,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know's I can blame them,&quot; he continued. &quot;I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them&mdash;but I didn't do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story&mdash;something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you do all this without payment?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in an injured way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who'd pay me?&quot; he asked. &quot;Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time he was ready to start. So I said, &quot;Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So we set off together down the hill.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road&mdash;an
+easy, swinging, steady step&mdash;carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, Mister,&quot; he said, &quot;I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he <i>wants</i> to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a long moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought <i>that</i> was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----&quot; He paused again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, <i>she</i> died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge&mdash;were you ever there,
+Mister?&mdash;and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that <i>is</i> Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me&mdash;I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I did try Him,&quot; my companion was saying, &quot;and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion&mdash;but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead&mdash;a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister,&quot; he said, &quot;is that
+they won't try God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings&mdash;how futile
+they seemed compared with this!</p>
+
+<p>Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think,&quot; said he, &quot;I should paint here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;you know better than I do. What would <i>you</i> paint?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When in doubt,&quot; he said, &quot;I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted&mdash;near
+towns&mdash;but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home&mdash;and the barn near it&mdash;and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img27.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img28.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">IX</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE GUNSMITH</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img29.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+&quot;gunsmith problem&quot; about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said finally, &quot;Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At last!&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He <i>says</i> he is going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet laughed. &quot;Then it's all decided,&quot; she said; &quot;he isn't going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher, &quot;it's not decided&mdash;yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind,&quot; I said, &quot;whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said, &quot;did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle &quot;Bonnie Doon&quot; or &quot;Charlie Is My Darling&quot; lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We all know the longing for old places and old times,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, &quot;Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years,&quot; I said. &quot;Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!&quot; exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. &quot;Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago&mdash;and liked him well, too&mdash;but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.</p>
+
+<p>In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.</p>
+
+<p>I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.</p>
+
+<p>Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor <i>us</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say&mdash;the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences&mdash;all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.</p>
+
+<p>I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners&mdash;how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.</p>
+
+<p>At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience&mdash;heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand&mdash;he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.</p>
+
+<p>As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.</p>
+
+<p>I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you mend it?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive&mdash;they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Pha&euml;thon!</p>
+
+<p>A week later I came back to the shop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in, come in,&quot; he said when he saw me.</p>
+
+<p>He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So!&quot; he said. &quot;You have come for your job?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He softened the &quot;j&quot; in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't see where you mended them,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!</p>
+
+<p>When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in, come in,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is this I hear,&quot; I said, &quot;about your going back to Sweden?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For forty years,&quot; he said, &quot;I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Carlstrom,&quot; I said, &quot;we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have Charles Baxter,&quot; he said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life,&quot; I said. &quot;You know that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been here forty years,&quot; he said. &quot;and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.</p>
+
+<p>When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor&mdash;as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm&mdash;hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work&mdash;once I remember, a pistol&mdash;which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!</p>
+
+<p>What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble&mdash;and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!&mdash;he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep&mdash;he was helping the world go
+round!</p>
+
+<p>All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img30.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.</p>
+
+<p>Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of recent years,&quot; said Ketchell, &quot;we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.</p>
+
+<p>I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why,&quot; he replied, &quot;as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a good thing,&quot; he says, &quot;when a man knows what he pretends to
+know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape&mdash;who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house&mdash;with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.</p>
+
+<p>I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.</p>
+
+<p>The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was a poor man,&quot; he said, &quot;and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife&mdash;but I have not dared to wish for one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop&mdash;stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.</p>
+
+<p>During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David, we can't let the old man go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; I said, &quot;we can't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.</p>
+
+<p>When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It ist America; it ist America.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Carlstrom, no&mdash;it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm not going,&quot; he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Charles Baxter brought it in,&quot; answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. &quot;He thought I couldn't mend it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it <i>is</i> greatness.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img31.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img32.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">X</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE MOWING</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img33.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>&quot;Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this&mdash;after a week of
+hard work&mdash;a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.</p>
+
+<p>I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.</p>
+
+<p>When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, nothing happened yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I lay quiet for some time&mdash;it being Sunday morning&mdash;and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, nearly everything happened yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events&mdash;and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see&mdash;and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it <i>may</i> be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even&mdash;here in this quiet room&mdash;would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet&mdash;playing
+with things much too large for us&mdash;much too full of meaning.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.</p>
+
+<p>I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;we'll cut the clover to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's fortunate,&quot; said Harriet, &quot;I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.</p>
+
+<p>I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall have good cutting to-day,&quot; I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!</p>
+
+<p>So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here,&quot; I said, &quot;is where we will begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling &quot;Good-bye, Susan&quot; at the top of his capacity.</p>
+
+<p>Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks&mdash;and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, Dick,&quot; I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could&mdash;until the dew on the clover should begin&mdash;at
+least&mdash;to disappear.</p>
+
+<p>By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a great day for haying,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A dang good one,&quot; responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that&mdash;far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.</p>
+
+<p>I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+&quot;Here she goes!&quot; came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work&mdash;the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye&mdash;his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.</p>
+
+<p>And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness&mdash;that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dang it all,&quot; says Dick, &quot;the moon's drawin' water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Something is undoubtedly drawing it,&quot; said I, wiping my dripping face.</p>
+
+<p>A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.</p>
+
+<p>So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hungry, Dick?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hungry!&quot; exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.</p>
+
+<p>So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After you,&quot; says Dick.</p>
+
+<p>I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pump, Dick,&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<p>And Dick pumped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harder, Dick,&quot; said I in a strangled voice.</p>
+
+<p>And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gee, but that's good,&quot; says Dick.</p>
+
+<p>Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!</p>
+
+<p>So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter&mdash;let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill&mdash;bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.</p>
+
+<p>So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More chicken, Mr. Grayson?&quot; she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More chicken, Dick?&quot; I'd ask.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More chicken, Mr. Grayson,&quot; he would respond&mdash;and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with&mdash;and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses&mdash;if he had eyes for such things&mdash;of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.</p>
+
+<p>I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself&mdash;in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!</p>
+
+<p>And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in&mdash;and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in&mdash;when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled&mdash;and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go 'way now,&quot; said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, &quot;and
+eat your shortcake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment&mdash;every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.</p>
+
+<p>I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!</p>
+
+<p>Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?</p>
+
+<p>I <i>lived</i> yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.</p>
+
+<p>At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again&mdash;rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's danged hot,&quot; said Dick conclusively.</p>
+
+<p>How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less&mdash;if that were possible&mdash;and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.</p>
+
+<p>Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up &quot;My Fairy Fay&quot; with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Dick,&quot; said I, &quot;we've had a good day's work together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet,&quot; said Dick.</p>
+
+<p>And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always&mdash;without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!</p>
+
+<p>Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse&mdash;it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly&mdash;I could see the white of her
+gown&mdash;and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud&mdash;such things need not be said aloud&mdash;but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: &quot;Thank God, thank God!&quot;</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img34.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img35.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">XI</h1>
+<h2 align="center">AN OLD MAN</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img36.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him &quot;Squire Summers,&quot; though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.</p>
+
+<p>How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him&mdash;and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life&mdash;the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.</p>
+
+<p>I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?</p>
+
+<p>His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.</p>
+
+<p>I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone&mdash;mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home&mdash;I have been there often to see his son&mdash;he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.</p>
+
+<p>There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Now he lives in a small room&mdash;and that is more than is really
+necessary&mdash;and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.</p>
+
+<p>Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img37.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img38.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">XII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE CELEBRITY</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img39.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!</p>
+
+<p>We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.</p>
+
+<p>Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:</p>
+
+<p><i>They cannot survive without common people like you and me</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us&mdash;neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, calling through the open doorway, &quot;I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mercy me!&quot; exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion&mdash;my favourite daily newspaper&mdash;in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!</p>
+
+<p>And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.</p>
+
+<p>I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them&mdash;without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson,&quot; said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good afternoon, sir,&quot; I responded, &quot;won't you come up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer&mdash;like me&mdash;sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!</p>
+
+<p>He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for re&euml;lection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.</p>
+
+<p>I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.</p>
+
+<p>And what a place and time it was for a combat&mdash;in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch&mdash;and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences&mdash;and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.</p>
+
+<p>After explaining who he was&mdash;I told him I had recognized him on
+sight&mdash;we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a warm day,&quot; observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never saw the corn ripening better,&quot; I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.</p>
+
+<p>There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a &quot;Yes sir,&quot; or your master with
+a &quot;No sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus we warm up to one another&mdash;a little at a time&mdash;we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent&mdash;with some joy&mdash;trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hear,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, &quot;that you are opposing my re&euml;lection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Boom! the cannon's opening roar!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, &quot;I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Boom! the fight is on!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have voted the Republican ticket,&quot; I said, &quot;but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats&mdash;and I've had my doubts,&quot; said I, &quot;whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.</p>
+
+<p>This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.</p>
+
+<p>And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. &quot;The unending audacity of elected
+persons!&quot; And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!</p>
+
+<p>Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img40.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't understand,&quot; he said, &quot;what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know,&quot; I said to him, with some enthusiasm, &quot;I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson,&quot; he said, &quot;is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said, &quot;I'm afraid I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he returned, &quot;they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And any quantity of Caldwells!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt&mdash;what I had
+not felt before in regard to him&mdash;that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You won't mind,&quot; I said, &quot;if I give you my view&mdash;my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question&mdash;in detail. We get general
+impressions&mdash;and stick to them like grim death&mdash;for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel,&quot; nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter,&quot; I added&mdash;&quot;all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I admit it,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn&mdash;a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, I believe that, too,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we belong to the same party,&quot; I said. &quot;I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Caldwell laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I'll appoint you,&quot; I said, &quot;my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'll accept the appointment,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell&mdash;continuing very
+earnestly, &quot;if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now,&quot; said I, rising quickly, &quot;let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's organize a new party,&quot; I said, &quot;let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all,&quot; I responded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What would you have it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'd have it in one sentence,&quot; I said, &quot;and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Grayson,&quot; he said, &quot;you're an outrageous idealist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Caldwell,&quot; I said, &quot;you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;he's got my vote.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, David,&quot; said Harriet, &quot;that's what he came for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's an interesting world, Harriet,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is, indeed,&quot; said Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We may be fooled, Harriet,&quot; I observed, &quot;on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms&mdash;but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And women.&quot; said Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And women, of course,&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img41.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img42.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">XIII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">ON FRIENDSHIP</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img43.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out&mdash;I
+hope not for long&mdash;I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!&mdash;And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question&mdash;difficult because so direct and simple.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is friendship, anyway?&quot; queried this philosophical correspondent.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: &quot;Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!&quot;) and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is,&mdash;my philosophical correspondent&mdash;I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.</p>
+
+<p>Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop&mdash;just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!</p>
+
+<p>It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. &quot;I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels,&quot; says the poet, &quot;I myself became the wounded person.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. &quot;Good-morning, friend,&quot; I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has&mdash;because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!</p>
+
+<p>Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails&mdash;how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me&mdash;and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.</p>
+
+<p>If you should ever come by my farm&mdash;you, whoever you are&mdash;take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!</p>
+
+<p>In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!</p>
+
+<p>So let it be with our friendships!</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+      <div align="center"><img src="img44.jpg" width="420" height="430" alt="" /></div></td>
+  </tr></table>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
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@@ -0,0 +1,4347 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+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: Adventures In Friendship
+
+Author: David Grayson
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10592]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
+
+By David Grayson
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY
+
+
+This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.
+
+I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.
+
+This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.
+
+"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go."
+
+He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.
+
+"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."
+
+He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.
+
+As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.
+
+"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously."
+
+I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.
+
+"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself.
+
+So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.
+
+But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!
+
+I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.
+
+"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part."
+
+But presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.
+
+"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:
+
+"How are you, Brother?"
+
+You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.
+
+"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine
+of spring!"
+
+I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.
+
+So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!
+
+"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."
+
+(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)
+
+I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.
+
+Involuntarily I said:
+
+"Another member of my society: and in distress!"
+
+I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.
+
+As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.
+
+A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.
+
+"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before
+nightfall."
+
+"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."
+
+So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift."
+
+"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."
+
+"Oh, I can walk."
+
+"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall."
+
+I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.
+
+My farmer laughed and got in.
+
+"You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out."
+
+He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:
+
+"How did you know I was a Mason?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't _sure_."
+
+"I only joined last winter," he said. "I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere."
+
+I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:
+
+"Here's the grip of fellowship."
+
+He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.
+
+"I didn't feel the grip."
+
+"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there."
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook."
+
+And so he drove away.
+
+"A real Mason," I said to myself, "could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed."
+
+As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.
+
+When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.
+
+"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way."
+
+He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.
+
+"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked.
+
+"Heavier for you," I replied.
+
+So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.
+
+"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles."
+
+"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.
+
+"I'm that man."
+
+"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.
+
+"Have you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the
+same society."
+
+His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.
+
+"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"
+
+"No more am I," I said.
+
+"Nor an Oddfellow."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.
+
+"What Society did you think I belonged to?" he asked.
+
+"Well," I said, "when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----"
+
+"Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted my companion.
+
+"He did," I said. "He did----" and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. "And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge."
+
+"Were you?" exclaimed my companion. "So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without."
+
+"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?" I observed.
+
+"You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?"
+
+There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.
+
+"But when I got to thinking it over," I said, "it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member."
+
+He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+Well, we both laughed--and understood.
+
+After that, what a story he told me!--the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all
+people--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.
+
+He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:
+
+"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now."
+
+"Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs."
+
+As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!
+
+When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:
+
+"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society."
+
+As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:
+
+"What society is that?"
+
+I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.
+
+And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD
+
+They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
+
+The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
+
+"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
+
+I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me
+unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
+
+"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
+
+How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.
+
+[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
+
+So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.
+
+Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
+
+Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
+
+"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
+
+And she closes the door.
+
+Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
+
+"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
+
+I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
+
+I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.
+
+Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
+
+All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.
+
+"David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
+
+"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
+
+"No--well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!"
+
+"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them."
+
+"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?"
+
+"But I've got such a _good_ dinner."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty."
+
+"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
+said Harriet ruefully.
+
+I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:
+
+"There aren't any."
+
+"David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
+
+"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'"
+
+Harriet laughed.
+
+"It has come to a pretty pass," she said "when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day."
+
+"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical about it."
+
+"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like."
+
+"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?"
+
+"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is _not_ logical.
+
+"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
+
+"David!"
+
+"They're rich, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company."
+
+"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble
+was?"
+
+"But I was talking of _poor_ people."
+
+"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
+
+"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
+
+"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
+
+"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
+
+"Christmas," I said.
+
+I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
+
+"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
+
+"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
+as fail.'"
+
+So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!
+
+So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
+
+"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
+
+He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
+
+"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
+
+I drew my face down and said solemnly:
+
+"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
+
+"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
+
+"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast."
+
+The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel."
+
+"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow."
+
+Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.
+
+"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha' me
+doots--I ha' me doots."
+
+At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:
+
+"Is it by any chance a goose?"
+
+"It is," I said, "a goose--a big one."
+
+He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have comforted my mind,"
+he said, "with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose."
+
+So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.
+
+"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me anyway."
+
+I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!
+
+Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack--and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta--lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.
+
+I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!
+
+Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.
+
+"Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad to see you."
+
+He said it as though he meant it.
+
+"Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me."
+
+"I can sympathize with you," I said, "we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires."
+
+He looked around at me quizzically.
+
+"He lies too long in bed in the morning," I said.
+
+By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!"
+
+I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!
+
+But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.
+
+"We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she said, "and
+our cook was ill--or said she was--and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it--and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!"
+
+I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!
+
+"You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place."
+
+"Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Starkweather.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed.
+"Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities."
+
+With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying "Penny" Daniels.
+
+"So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?" laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.
+
+When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.
+
+"You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson," said Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.
+
+"We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, "and I haven't
+had so much fun in years."
+
+Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.
+
+I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end--the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee--but I must not and dare not elaborate.
+
+And what great talk we had afterward!
+
+I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood--and we laughed, and laughed--Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.
+
+"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," cried her husband: "some of the
+old ones we used to know."
+
+So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:
+
+"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,"
+
+Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,"
+
+Oh, I can't tell here--it grows late and there's work to-morrow--all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:
+
+"I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it."
+
+And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:
+
+"This has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE OPEN ROAD
+
+"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide."
+
+--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.
+
+I love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold
+everything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!
+
+So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.
+
+Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty--for beauty is inward,
+not outward--we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!
+
+Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside--and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!
+
+Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!
+
+It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!
+
+Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?--is not that the best
+life we know?
+
+And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk--and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!
+
+What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!
+
+Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.
+
+And one of these words--how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----
+
+So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying "Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee,
+coo-ee," he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.
+
+"That's the idee," says the helper.
+
+"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life."
+
+From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.
+
+"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in."
+
+So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.
+
+"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.
+
+"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the man in the
+wagon.
+
+"That's my old game--wrastling," the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!"
+
+"That's the idee," says the man in the wagon.
+
+So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, stiddy," and the response
+of the other, "That's the idee." And so on into the gray day!
+
+My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The "equality of men" which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy--is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!
+
+And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?
+
+"And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun."
+
+And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.
+
+Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:
+
+"Lord be praised for that which is common."
+
+And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG
+
+Sunday Morning, May 20th.
+
+On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+"I am not ready yet," it said; "I have not rested my time."
+
+Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!
+
+And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered--the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!
+
+I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.
+
+"Now," I said to myself, "give me a good day and I am ready to plant."
+
+The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the
+adventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.
+
+Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.
+
+At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.
+
+Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers--five seeds:
+
+One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.
+
+But after a time one ceases to count five, and _feels_ five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.
+
+I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)--and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.
+
+As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field--and my own pleasant home among its
+trees--and my barn--all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.
+
+[Illustration: "OFTEN I STOOD A MOMENT BY THE FENCE"]
+
+Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich--overnight--by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!--not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.
+
+I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.
+
+But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.
+
+I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me--save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.
+
+Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities--of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life--of letting life flow through us. To be used!--that
+is the sublimest thing we know.
+
+It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.
+
+I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?
+
+In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers--if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.
+
+For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.
+
+Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:
+
+These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:
+
+"And (he) departed without being desired."
+
+Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!
+
+And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+THE STORY OF ANNA
+
+It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.
+
+And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:
+
+"It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate."
+
+"David," he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+"it is bad enough."
+
+He laid his hand on my arm.
+
+"Can you hitch up your horse and come with me--right away?"
+
+McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.
+
+"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher.
+
+Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.
+
+"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''
+
+"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a woman now."
+
+He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:
+
+"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''
+
+"But I didn't know--she isn't--"
+
+"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.
+
+"They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river."
+
+I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.
+
+"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory."
+
+He remained silent again for a long time.
+
+"David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments."
+
+He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.
+
+As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.
+
+"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river," McAlway
+said in a low voice.
+
+It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence--of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.
+
+Suddenly we heard a voice--in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.
+
+"Oh!--McAlway," a voice said.
+
+Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.
+
+"Have you seen Anna Williams?"
+
+"She is at the house," answered the voice.
+
+"Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.
+
+"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," one of them said.
+
+The other woman turned to us half complainingly:
+
+"She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute."
+
+"She don't cry," said the other, "but just sits there like a statue."
+
+McAlway stepped forward and said:
+
+"Well--Anna?"
+
+The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience--of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.
+
+The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well--Anna?" She looked up and replied:
+
+"They were going to take my baby away."
+
+"Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. "Well, we'll never
+permit _that_. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?"
+
+Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway," the man said, "I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl--while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family--the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, "What will
+Harriet say?" Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.
+
+In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience--but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.
+
+"It's a tremendous old world," I said to myself. "Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!"
+
+The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.
+
+"Are you cold?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir," she answered faintly.
+
+I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:
+
+"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?"
+
+"Yes, sir," very faintly.
+
+"With cream on it--rich yellow cream--and plenty of sugar?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms--as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams."
+
+Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"David, _David_, DAVID," she said.
+
+It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!
+
+For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry--and cold."
+
+Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.
+
+I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.
+
+And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.
+
+I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!
+
+The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.
+
+"David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep."
+
+So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I
+held mine.
+
+"David," Harriet whispered, "did you see the baby?"
+
+"No," I whispered.
+
+"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life."
+
+When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. "What happened next?" I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.
+
+If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.
+
+"Did you see the baby?" Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the "finest baby we ever saw in all our lives."
+
+I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant--which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.
+
+It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as "bad" or "good"; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons--toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!
+
+The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.
+
+"Why, Mr. Grayson!"
+
+"How's the boy, Anna?"
+
+And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine--and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house--that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+THE DRUNKARD
+
+It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.
+
+I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.
+
+My friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.
+
+Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:
+
+"There goes that drunkard."
+
+It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.
+
+After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!
+
+And then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone
+in my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.
+
+"After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people."
+
+I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.
+
+"How are you, neighbour?" I asked.
+
+He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.
+
+My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.
+
+I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery
+better worth making?
+
+[Illustration: "HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING"]
+
+After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.
+
+One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you went by."
+
+"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time."
+
+"You usually drive."
+
+"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving."
+
+I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now "working with the experts"--those were
+his words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.
+
+"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man."
+
+So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!
+
+Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:
+
+"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'"
+
+"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.
+
+On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
+authority."
+
+"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."
+
+At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.
+
+"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now."
+
+The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.
+
+I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it."
+
+"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?"
+
+But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.
+
+"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."
+
+"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.
+
+But she was not to be joked with.
+
+"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?"
+
+It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.
+
+She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she said, "he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker."
+
+After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?
+
+And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.
+
+"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked.
+
+He glanced up at the sky.
+
+"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.
+
+I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.
+
+"After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again."
+
+"No," I said, "you will not do it again."
+
+"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?"
+
+"Free?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I
+never take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them."
+
+"But you never do?"
+
+"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly."
+
+He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:
+
+"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own
+limitations."
+
+"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly.
+
+We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:
+
+"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds."
+
+Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.
+
+So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:
+
+"What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted."
+
+I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly
+separated.
+
+"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts."
+
+The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:
+
+"I often get drunk myself."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes--dreadfully drunk."
+
+He looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!
+
+"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he said. "I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or
+rather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing."
+
+"And you do sing," I said.
+
+"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world."
+
+"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----"
+
+Before I could finish he had interrupted:
+
+"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_
+of the liquor. And there you are!"
+
+We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----"
+
+"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together."
+
+As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----
+
+Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.
+
+He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
+
+"He also belongs here," I said.
+
+And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+AN OLD MAID
+
+One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.
+
+She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?
+
+In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover "Snow Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path
+of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake" the other "Fast Asleep." Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.
+
+When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.
+
+But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.
+
+Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.
+
+On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.
+
+Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek
+pride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.
+
+Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.
+
+And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.
+
+"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that--downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute."
+
+"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----"
+
+By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.
+
+If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
+
+In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?
+
+Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----
+
+But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:
+
+"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble."
+
+That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+A ROADSIDE PROPHET
+
+From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by--part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet--so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.
+
+But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.
+
+"This," I said to myself, "may be something for me."
+
+So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields--the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:
+
+GOD IS LOVE
+
+A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, brother," I returned heartily.
+
+His face brightened perceptibly.
+
+"Don't stop on my account," I said; "finish off your work."
+
+He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.
+
+"How long," I inquired, "have you been at this sort of work?"
+
+"Ten years," he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. "Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade--I am a journeyman
+painter--but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road."
+
+He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:
+
+"I live by the Word."
+
+"By the Word?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, by the Word," and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:
+
+"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?"
+
+I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.
+
+"Do you always paint the same sign?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice"--he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields--"that I says to myself, 'I will paint "God is Love."'"
+
+"An appropriate text," I said, "for this very spot."
+
+He seemed much gratified.
+
+"Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he exclaimed. "Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----"
+
+He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.
+
+"When I was in Arizona," he was saying, "mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock."
+
+I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.
+
+But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.
+
+"It's all right," I said; "a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it."
+
+"That's what I want," he said eagerly; "that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all."
+
+He paused a moment and then continued:
+
+"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift."
+
+"I've noticed it," I said.
+
+"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked.
+
+"Very strange," I said.
+
+"I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them--but I didn't do it."
+
+I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?
+
+"Do you do all this without payment?"
+
+He looked at me in an injured way.
+
+"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself."
+
+By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you."
+
+So we set off together down the hill.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it."
+
+He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road--an
+easy, swinging, steady step--carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.
+
+"You see, Mister," he said, "I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he _wants_ to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.
+
+"I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.
+
+"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl."
+
+He paused for a long moment.
+
+"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----" He paused again.
+
+"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.
+
+"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,
+Mister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'"
+
+He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.
+
+"And I did try Him," my companion was saying, "and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion--but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants."
+
+He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead--a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.
+
+"The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister," he said, "is that
+they won't try God."
+
+I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings--how futile
+they seemed compared with this!
+
+Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.
+
+"What do you think," said he, "I should paint here?"
+
+"Well," I said, "you know better than I do. What would _you_ paint?"
+
+He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.
+
+"When in doubt," he said, "I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted--near
+towns--but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'"
+
+I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.
+
+At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home--and the barn near it--and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+THE GUNSMITH
+
+Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+"gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.
+
+"David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden."
+
+"At last!" I exclaimed.
+
+Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:
+
+"He _says_ he is going."
+
+Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't going."
+
+"No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided--yet."
+
+"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not."
+
+But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.
+
+"David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?"
+
+He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:
+
+"Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle "Bonnie Doon" or "Charlie Is My Darling" lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy."
+
+"We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said.
+
+"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----"
+
+He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it."
+
+"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," I said. "Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?"
+
+"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!" exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. "Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?"
+
+With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago--and liked him well, too--but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.
+
+In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.
+
+I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.
+
+Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.
+
+Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:
+
+"A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!"
+
+Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor _us_.
+
+I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say--the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences--all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.
+
+I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners--how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.
+
+At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience--heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand--he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.
+
+As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.
+
+"Can you mend it?" I asked.
+
+If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Phaethon!
+
+A week later I came back to the shop.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said when he saw me.
+
+He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.
+
+"So!" he said. "You have come for your job?"
+
+He softened the "j" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.
+
+"So," he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.
+
+"I can't see where you mended them," I said.
+
+You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!
+
+When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said.
+
+"What is this I hear," I said, "about your going back to Sweden?"
+
+"For forty years," he said, "I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home."
+
+"But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?"
+
+"You have Charles Baxter," he said, smiling.
+
+For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.
+
+"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life," I said. "You know that."
+
+The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.
+
+"I have been here forty years," he said. "and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden."
+
+I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.
+
+When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor--as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm--hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!
+
+What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble--and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!--he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep--he was helping the world go
+round!
+
+All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.
+
+[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS
+SHOP"]
+
+In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.
+
+Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.
+
+"Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed."
+
+A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.
+
+I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.
+
+"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'"
+
+Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.
+
+"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pretends to
+know."
+
+The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)
+
+On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.
+
+I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.
+
+The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"When I was a poor man," he said, "and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one."
+
+The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.
+
+During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:
+
+"David, we can't let the old man go."
+
+"No, sir," I said, "we can't."
+
+"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old."
+
+I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.
+
+When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:
+
+"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?"
+
+The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:
+
+"It ist America; it ist America."
+
+"No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save."
+
+Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.
+
+"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" I asked.
+
+"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.
+
+"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!"
+
+To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.
+
+The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.
+
+Yes, it _is_ greatness.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE MOWING
+
+"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth."
+
+This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of
+hard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.
+
+I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.
+
+When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:
+
+"Well, nothing happened yesterday."
+
+Then I lay quiet for some time--it being Sunday morning--and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:
+
+"Why, nearly everything happened yesterday."
+
+And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events--and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see--and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it _may_ be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even--here in this quiet room--would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet--playing
+with things much too large for us--much too full of meaning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.
+
+I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.
+
+Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover to-morrow."
+
+"That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me."
+
+Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.
+
+I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.
+
+"We shall have good cutting to-day," I said to myself.
+
+So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!
+
+So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.
+
+"Here," I said, "is where we will begin."
+
+So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top of his capacity.
+
+Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks--and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.
+
+"Hello, Dick," I shouted.
+
+"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied.
+
+He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could--until the dew on the clover should begin--at
+least--to disappear.
+
+By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.
+
+"It's a great day for haying," I said.
+
+"A dang good one," responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.
+
+I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that--far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.
+
+I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+"Here she goes!" came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.
+
+At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work--the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye--his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.
+
+At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.
+
+And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness--that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.
+
+"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday."
+
+"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.
+
+"Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's drawin' water."
+
+"Something is undoubtedly drawing it," said I, wiping my dripping face.
+
+A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.
+
+So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.
+
+"Hungry, Dick?" I asked.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.
+
+So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.
+
+"After you," says Dick.
+
+I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.
+
+"Pump, Dick," said I.
+
+And Dick pumped.
+
+"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice.
+
+And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.
+
+"Gee, but that's good," says Dick.
+
+Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!
+
+So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:
+
+"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner."
+
+Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.
+
+So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.
+
+"More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would respond--and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.
+
+Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with--and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses--if he had eyes for such things--of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.
+
+I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself--in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!
+
+And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in--and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in--when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled--and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race."
+
+"Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, "and
+eat your shortcake."
+
+And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment--every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.
+
+I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!
+
+Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?
+
+I _lived_ yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.
+
+At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again--rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!
+
+"It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively.
+
+How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less--if that were possible--and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.
+
+Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up "My Fairy Fay" with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good day's work together."
+
+"You bet," said Dick.
+
+And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.
+
+I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always--without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!
+
+Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse--it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly--I could see the white of her
+gown--and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud--such things need not be said aloud--but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, thank God!"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AN OLD MAN
+
+Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him "Squire Summers," though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.
+
+How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life--the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.
+
+I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:
+
+"I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life."
+
+Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?
+
+His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.
+
+I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone--mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home--I have been there often to see his son--he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.
+
+There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.
+
+He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.
+
+Now he lives in a small room--and that is more than is really
+necessary--and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.
+
+Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+THE CELEBRITY
+
+Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!
+
+We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.
+
+Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:
+
+_They cannot survive without common people like you and me_.
+
+It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!
+
+This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.
+
+"Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here."
+
+"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.
+
+As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion--my favourite daily newspaper--in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!
+
+And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:
+
+"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening."
+
+Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:
+
+"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening."
+
+And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.
+
+I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them--without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't you come up?"
+
+He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer--like me--sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!
+
+He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for reelection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.
+
+I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.
+
+And what a place and time it was for a combat--in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch--and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences--and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.
+
+After explaining who he was--I told him I had recognized him on
+sight--we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.
+
+But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.
+
+"It's a warm day," observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.
+
+"I never saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.
+
+There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a "Yes sir," or your master with
+a "No sir."
+
+Thus we warm up to one another--a little at a time--we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent--with some joy--trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.
+
+"I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, "that you are opposing my reelection."
+
+Boom! the cannon's opening roar!
+
+"Well," I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, "I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done."
+
+Boom! the fight is on!
+
+"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?"
+
+It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.
+
+"I have voted the Republican ticket," I said, "but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats--and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with."
+
+I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.
+
+This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.
+
+And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. "The unending audacity of elected
+persons!" And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!
+
+Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.
+
+Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.
+
+[Illustration: "HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE"]
+
+"You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views."
+
+Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.
+
+"Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.
+
+"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."
+
+"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century."
+
+He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:
+
+"And any quantity of Caldwells!"
+
+That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt--what I had
+not felt before in regard to him--that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.
+
+Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.
+
+"You won't mind," I said, "if I give you my view--my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question--in detail. We get general
+impressions--and stick to them like grim death--for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----"
+
+"And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel," nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.
+
+"And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter," I added--"all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that."
+
+"I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell.
+
+"And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn--a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that."
+
+"Now, I believe that, too," said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.
+
+"Then we belong to the same party," I said. "I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it."
+
+Mr. Caldwell laughed.
+
+"And I'll appoint you," I said, "my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws."
+
+"Well, I'll accept the appointment," said Mr. Caldwell--continuing very
+earnestly, "if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once."
+
+With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.
+
+"And now," said I, rising quickly, "let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk."
+
+So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.
+
+I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:
+
+"I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it."
+
+"Let's organize a new party," I said, "let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank," he said.
+
+"Not at all," I responded.
+
+"What would you have it?"
+
+"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns."
+
+Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.
+
+"Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an outrageous idealist."
+
+"Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote."
+
+"Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what he came for."
+
+"It's an interesting world, Harriet," I said.
+
+"It is, indeed," said Harriet.
+
+As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.
+
+"We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, "on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms--but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet."
+
+"And women." said Harriet.
+
+"And women, of course," said I.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+ON FRIENDSHIP
+
+I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out--I
+hope not for long--I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!--And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.
+
+Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question--difficult because so direct and simple.
+
+"What is friendship, anyway?" queried this philosophical correspondent.
+
+The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: "Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!") and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.
+
+The truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.
+
+Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!
+
+It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. "I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels," says the poet, "I myself became the wounded person."
+
+Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. "Good-morning, friend," I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.
+
+As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has--because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!
+
+Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails--how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me--and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.
+
+If you should ever come by my farm--you, whoever you are--take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.
+
+It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!
+
+In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!
+
+So let it be with our friendships!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+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: Adventures In Friendship
+
+Author: David Grayson
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10592]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
+
+By David Grayson
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY
+
+
+This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.
+
+I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.
+
+This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.
+
+"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go."
+
+He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.
+
+"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."
+
+He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.
+
+As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.
+
+"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously."
+
+I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.
+
+"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself.
+
+So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.
+
+But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!
+
+I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.
+
+"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part."
+
+But presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.
+
+"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:
+
+"How are you, Brother?"
+
+You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.
+
+"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine
+of spring!"
+
+I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.
+
+So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!
+
+"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."
+
+(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)
+
+I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.
+
+Involuntarily I said:
+
+"Another member of my society: and in distress!"
+
+I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.
+
+As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.
+
+A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.
+
+"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before
+nightfall."
+
+"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."
+
+So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift."
+
+"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."
+
+"Oh, I can walk."
+
+"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall."
+
+I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.
+
+My farmer laughed and got in.
+
+"You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out."
+
+He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:
+
+"How did you know I was a Mason?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't _sure_."
+
+"I only joined last winter," he said. "I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere."
+
+I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:
+
+"Here's the grip of fellowship."
+
+He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.
+
+"I didn't feel the grip."
+
+"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there."
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook."
+
+And so he drove away.
+
+"A real Mason," I said to myself, "could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed."
+
+As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.
+
+When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.
+
+"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way."
+
+He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.
+
+"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked.
+
+"Heavier for you," I replied.
+
+So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.
+
+"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles."
+
+"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.
+
+"I'm that man."
+
+"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.
+
+"Have you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the
+same society."
+
+His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.
+
+"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"
+
+"No more am I," I said.
+
+"Nor an Oddfellow."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.
+
+"What Society did you think I belonged to?" he asked.
+
+"Well," I said, "when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----"
+
+"Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted my companion.
+
+"He did," I said. "He did----" and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. "And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge."
+
+"Were you?" exclaimed my companion. "So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without."
+
+"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?" I observed.
+
+"You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?"
+
+There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.
+
+"But when I got to thinking it over," I said, "it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member."
+
+He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+Well, we both laughed--and understood.
+
+After that, what a story he told me!--the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all
+people--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.
+
+He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:
+
+"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now."
+
+"Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs."
+
+As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!
+
+When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:
+
+"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society."
+
+As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:
+
+"What society is that?"
+
+I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.
+
+And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD
+
+They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
+
+The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
+
+"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
+
+I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me
+unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
+
+"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
+
+How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.
+
+[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
+
+So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.
+
+Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
+
+Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
+
+"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
+
+And she closes the door.
+
+Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
+
+"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
+
+I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
+
+I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.
+
+Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
+
+All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.
+
+"David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
+
+"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
+
+"No--well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!"
+
+"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them."
+
+"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?"
+
+"But I've got such a _good_ dinner."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty."
+
+"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
+said Harriet ruefully.
+
+I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:
+
+"There aren't any."
+
+"David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
+
+"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'"
+
+Harriet laughed.
+
+"It has come to a pretty pass," she said "when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day."
+
+"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical about it."
+
+"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like."
+
+"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?"
+
+"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is _not_ logical.
+
+"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
+
+"David!"
+
+"They're rich, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company."
+
+"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble
+was?"
+
+"But I was talking of _poor_ people."
+
+"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
+
+"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
+
+"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
+
+"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
+
+"Christmas," I said.
+
+I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
+
+"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
+
+"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
+as fail.'"
+
+So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!
+
+So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
+
+"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
+
+He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
+
+"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
+
+I drew my face down and said solemnly:
+
+"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
+
+"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
+
+"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast."
+
+The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel."
+
+"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow."
+
+Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.
+
+"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha' me
+doots--I ha' me doots."
+
+At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:
+
+"Is it by any chance a goose?"
+
+"It is," I said, "a goose--a big one."
+
+He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have comforted my mind,"
+he said, "with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose."
+
+So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.
+
+"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me anyway."
+
+I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!
+
+Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack--and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta--lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.
+
+I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!
+
+Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.
+
+"Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad to see you."
+
+He said it as though he meant it.
+
+"Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me."
+
+"I can sympathize with you," I said, "we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires."
+
+He looked around at me quizzically.
+
+"He lies too long in bed in the morning," I said.
+
+By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!"
+
+I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!
+
+But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.
+
+"We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she said, "and
+our cook was ill--or said she was--and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it--and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!"
+
+I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!
+
+"You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place."
+
+"Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Starkweather.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed.
+"Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities."
+
+With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying "Penny" Daniels.
+
+"So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?" laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.
+
+When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.
+
+"You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson," said Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.
+
+"We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, "and I haven't
+had so much fun in years."
+
+Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.
+
+I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end--the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee--but I must not and dare not elaborate.
+
+And what great talk we had afterward!
+
+I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood--and we laughed, and laughed--Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.
+
+"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," cried her husband: "some of the
+old ones we used to know."
+
+So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:
+
+"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,"
+
+Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,"
+
+Oh, I can't tell here--it grows late and there's work to-morrow--all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:
+
+"I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it."
+
+And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:
+
+"This has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE OPEN ROAD
+
+"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide."
+
+--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.
+
+I love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold
+everything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!
+
+So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.
+
+Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty--for beauty is inward,
+not outward--we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!
+
+Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside--and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!
+
+Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!
+
+It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!
+
+Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?--is not that the best
+life we know?
+
+And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk--and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!
+
+What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!
+
+Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.
+
+And one of these words--how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----
+
+So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying "Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee,
+coo-ee," he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.
+
+"That's the idee," says the helper.
+
+"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life."
+
+From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.
+
+"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in."
+
+So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.
+
+"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.
+
+"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the man in the
+wagon.
+
+"That's my old game--wrastling," the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!"
+
+"That's the idee," says the man in the wagon.
+
+So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, stiddy," and the response
+of the other, "That's the idee." And so on into the gray day!
+
+My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The "equality of men" which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy--is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!
+
+And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?
+
+"And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun."
+
+And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.
+
+Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:
+
+"Lord be praised for that which is common."
+
+And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG
+
+Sunday Morning, May 20th.
+
+On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+"I am not ready yet," it said; "I have not rested my time."
+
+Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!
+
+And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered--the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!
+
+I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.
+
+"Now," I said to myself, "give me a good day and I am ready to plant."
+
+The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the
+adventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.
+
+Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.
+
+At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.
+
+Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers--five seeds:
+
+One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.
+
+But after a time one ceases to count five, and _feels_ five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.
+
+I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)--and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.
+
+As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field--and my own pleasant home among its
+trees--and my barn--all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.
+
+[Illustration: "OFTEN I STOOD A MOMENT BY THE FENCE"]
+
+Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich--overnight--by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!--not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.
+
+I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.
+
+But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.
+
+I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me--save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.
+
+Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities--of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life--of letting life flow through us. To be used!--that
+is the sublimest thing we know.
+
+It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.
+
+I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?
+
+In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers--if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.
+
+For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.
+
+Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:
+
+These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:
+
+"And (he) departed without being desired."
+
+Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!
+
+And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+THE STORY OF ANNA
+
+It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.
+
+And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:
+
+"It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate."
+
+"David," he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+"it is bad enough."
+
+He laid his hand on my arm.
+
+"Can you hitch up your horse and come with me--right away?"
+
+McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.
+
+"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher.
+
+Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.
+
+"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''
+
+"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a woman now."
+
+He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:
+
+"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''
+
+"But I didn't know--she isn't--"
+
+"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.
+
+"They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river."
+
+I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.
+
+"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory."
+
+He remained silent again for a long time.
+
+"David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments."
+
+He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.
+
+As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.
+
+"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river," McAlway
+said in a low voice.
+
+It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence--of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.
+
+Suddenly we heard a voice--in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.
+
+"Oh!--McAlway," a voice said.
+
+Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.
+
+"Have you seen Anna Williams?"
+
+"She is at the house," answered the voice.
+
+"Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.
+
+"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," one of them said.
+
+The other woman turned to us half complainingly:
+
+"She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute."
+
+"She don't cry," said the other, "but just sits there like a statue."
+
+McAlway stepped forward and said:
+
+"Well--Anna?"
+
+The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience--of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.
+
+The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well--Anna?" She looked up and replied:
+
+"They were going to take my baby away."
+
+"Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. "Well, we'll never
+permit _that_. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?"
+
+Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway," the man said, "I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl--while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family--the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, "What will
+Harriet say?" Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.
+
+In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience--but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.
+
+"It's a tremendous old world," I said to myself. "Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!"
+
+The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.
+
+"Are you cold?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir," she answered faintly.
+
+I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:
+
+"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?"
+
+"Yes, sir," very faintly.
+
+"With cream on it--rich yellow cream--and plenty of sugar?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms--as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams."
+
+Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"David, _David_, DAVID," she said.
+
+It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!
+
+For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry--and cold."
+
+Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.
+
+I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.
+
+And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.
+
+I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!
+
+The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.
+
+"David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep."
+
+So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I
+held mine.
+
+"David," Harriet whispered, "did you see the baby?"
+
+"No," I whispered.
+
+"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life."
+
+When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. "What happened next?" I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.
+
+If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.
+
+"Did you see the baby?" Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the "finest baby we ever saw in all our lives."
+
+I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant--which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.
+
+It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as "bad" or "good"; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons--toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!
+
+The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.
+
+"Why, Mr. Grayson!"
+
+"How's the boy, Anna?"
+
+And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine--and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house--that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+THE DRUNKARD
+
+It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.
+
+I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.
+
+My friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.
+
+Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:
+
+"There goes that drunkard."
+
+It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.
+
+After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!
+
+And then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone
+in my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.
+
+"After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people."
+
+I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.
+
+"How are you, neighbour?" I asked.
+
+He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.
+
+My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.
+
+I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery
+better worth making?
+
+[Illustration: "HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING"]
+
+After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.
+
+One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you went by."
+
+"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time."
+
+"You usually drive."
+
+"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving."
+
+I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now "working with the experts"--those were
+his words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.
+
+"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man."
+
+So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!
+
+Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:
+
+"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'"
+
+"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.
+
+On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
+authority."
+
+"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."
+
+At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.
+
+"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now."
+
+The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.
+
+I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it."
+
+"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?"
+
+But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.
+
+"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."
+
+"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.
+
+But she was not to be joked with.
+
+"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?"
+
+It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.
+
+She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she said, "he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker."
+
+After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?
+
+And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.
+
+"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked.
+
+He glanced up at the sky.
+
+"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.
+
+I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.
+
+"After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again."
+
+"No," I said, "you will not do it again."
+
+"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?"
+
+"Free?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I
+never take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them."
+
+"But you never do?"
+
+"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly."
+
+He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:
+
+"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own
+limitations."
+
+"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly.
+
+We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:
+
+"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds."
+
+Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.
+
+So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:
+
+"What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted."
+
+I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly
+separated.
+
+"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts."
+
+The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:
+
+"I often get drunk myself."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes--dreadfully drunk."
+
+He looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!
+
+"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he said. "I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or
+rather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing."
+
+"And you do sing," I said.
+
+"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world."
+
+"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----"
+
+Before I could finish he had interrupted:
+
+"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_
+of the liquor. And there you are!"
+
+We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----"
+
+"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together."
+
+As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----
+
+Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.
+
+He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
+
+"He also belongs here," I said.
+
+And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+AN OLD MAID
+
+One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.
+
+She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?
+
+In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover "Snow Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path
+of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake" the other "Fast Asleep." Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.
+
+When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.
+
+But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.
+
+Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.
+
+On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.
+
+Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek
+pride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.
+
+Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.
+
+And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.
+
+"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that--downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute."
+
+"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----"
+
+By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.
+
+If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
+
+In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?
+
+Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----
+
+But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:
+
+"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble."
+
+That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+A ROADSIDE PROPHET
+
+From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by--part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet--so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.
+
+But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.
+
+"This," I said to myself, "may be something for me."
+
+So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields--the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:
+
+GOD IS LOVE
+
+A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, brother," I returned heartily.
+
+His face brightened perceptibly.
+
+"Don't stop on my account," I said; "finish off your work."
+
+He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.
+
+"How long," I inquired, "have you been at this sort of work?"
+
+"Ten years," he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. "Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade--I am a journeyman
+painter--but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road."
+
+He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:
+
+"I live by the Word."
+
+"By the Word?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, by the Word," and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:
+
+"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?"
+
+I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.
+
+"Do you always paint the same sign?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice"--he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields--"that I says to myself, 'I will paint "God is Love."'"
+
+"An appropriate text," I said, "for this very spot."
+
+He seemed much gratified.
+
+"Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he exclaimed. "Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----"
+
+He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.
+
+"When I was in Arizona," he was saying, "mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock."
+
+I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.
+
+But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.
+
+"It's all right," I said; "a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it."
+
+"That's what I want," he said eagerly; "that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all."
+
+He paused a moment and then continued:
+
+"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift."
+
+"I've noticed it," I said.
+
+"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked.
+
+"Very strange," I said.
+
+"I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them--but I didn't do it."
+
+I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?
+
+"Do you do all this without payment?"
+
+He looked at me in an injured way.
+
+"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself."
+
+By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you."
+
+So we set off together down the hill.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it."
+
+He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road--an
+easy, swinging, steady step--carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.
+
+"You see, Mister," he said, "I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he _wants_ to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.
+
+"I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.
+
+"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl."
+
+He paused for a long moment.
+
+"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----" He paused again.
+
+"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.
+
+"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,
+Mister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'"
+
+He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.
+
+"And I did try Him," my companion was saying, "and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion--but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants."
+
+He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead--a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.
+
+"The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister," he said, "is that
+they won't try God."
+
+I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings--how futile
+they seemed compared with this!
+
+Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.
+
+"What do you think," said he, "I should paint here?"
+
+"Well," I said, "you know better than I do. What would _you_ paint?"
+
+He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.
+
+"When in doubt," he said, "I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted--near
+towns--but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'"
+
+I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.
+
+At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home--and the barn near it--and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+THE GUNSMITH
+
+Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+"gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.
+
+"David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden."
+
+"At last!" I exclaimed.
+
+Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:
+
+"He _says_ he is going."
+
+Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't going."
+
+"No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided--yet."
+
+"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not."
+
+But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.
+
+"David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?"
+
+He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:
+
+"Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle "Bonnie Doon" or "Charlie Is My Darling" lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy."
+
+"We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said.
+
+"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----"
+
+He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it."
+
+"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," I said. "Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?"
+
+"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!" exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. "Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?"
+
+With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago--and liked him well, too--but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.
+
+In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.
+
+I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.
+
+Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.
+
+Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:
+
+"A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!"
+
+Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor _us_.
+
+I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say--the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences--all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.
+
+I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners--how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.
+
+At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience--heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand--he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.
+
+As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.
+
+"Can you mend it?" I asked.
+
+If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Pha�thon!
+
+A week later I came back to the shop.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said when he saw me.
+
+He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.
+
+"So!" he said. "You have come for your job?"
+
+He softened the "j" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.
+
+"So," he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.
+
+"I can't see where you mended them," I said.
+
+You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!
+
+When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said.
+
+"What is this I hear," I said, "about your going back to Sweden?"
+
+"For forty years," he said, "I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home."
+
+"But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?"
+
+"You have Charles Baxter," he said, smiling.
+
+For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.
+
+"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life," I said. "You know that."
+
+The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.
+
+"I have been here forty years," he said. "and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden."
+
+I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.
+
+When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor--as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm--hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!
+
+What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble--and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!--he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep--he was helping the world go
+round!
+
+All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.
+
+[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS
+SHOP"]
+
+In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.
+
+Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.
+
+"Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed."
+
+A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.
+
+I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.
+
+"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'"
+
+Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.
+
+"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pretends to
+know."
+
+The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)
+
+On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.
+
+I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.
+
+The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"When I was a poor man," he said, "and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one."
+
+The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.
+
+During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:
+
+"David, we can't let the old man go."
+
+"No, sir," I said, "we can't."
+
+"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old."
+
+I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.
+
+When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:
+
+"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?"
+
+The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:
+
+"It ist America; it ist America."
+
+"No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save."
+
+Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.
+
+"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" I asked.
+
+"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.
+
+"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!"
+
+To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.
+
+The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.
+
+Yes, it _is_ greatness.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE MOWING
+
+"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth."
+
+This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of
+hard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.
+
+I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.
+
+When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:
+
+"Well, nothing happened yesterday."
+
+Then I lay quiet for some time--it being Sunday morning--and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:
+
+"Why, nearly everything happened yesterday."
+
+And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events--and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see--and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it _may_ be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even--here in this quiet room--would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet--playing
+with things much too large for us--much too full of meaning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.
+
+I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.
+
+Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover to-morrow."
+
+"That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me."
+
+Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.
+
+I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.
+
+"We shall have good cutting to-day," I said to myself.
+
+So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!
+
+So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.
+
+"Here," I said, "is where we will begin."
+
+So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top of his capacity.
+
+Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks--and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.
+
+"Hello, Dick," I shouted.
+
+"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied.
+
+He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could--until the dew on the clover should begin--at
+least--to disappear.
+
+By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.
+
+"It's a great day for haying," I said.
+
+"A dang good one," responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.
+
+I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that--far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.
+
+I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+"Here she goes!" came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.
+
+At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work--the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye--his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.
+
+At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.
+
+And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness--that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.
+
+"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday."
+
+"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.
+
+"Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's drawin' water."
+
+"Something is undoubtedly drawing it," said I, wiping my dripping face.
+
+A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.
+
+So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.
+
+"Hungry, Dick?" I asked.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.
+
+So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.
+
+"After you," says Dick.
+
+I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.
+
+"Pump, Dick," said I.
+
+And Dick pumped.
+
+"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice.
+
+And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.
+
+"Gee, but that's good," says Dick.
+
+Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!
+
+So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:
+
+"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner."
+
+Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.
+
+So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.
+
+"More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would respond--and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.
+
+Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with--and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses--if he had eyes for such things--of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.
+
+I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself--in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!
+
+And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in--and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in--when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled--and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race."
+
+"Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, "and
+eat your shortcake."
+
+And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment--every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.
+
+I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!
+
+Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?
+
+I _lived_ yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.
+
+At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again--rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!
+
+"It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively.
+
+How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less--if that were possible--and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.
+
+Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up "My Fairy Fay" with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good day's work together."
+
+"You bet," said Dick.
+
+And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.
+
+I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always--without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!
+
+Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse--it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly--I could see the white of her
+gown--and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud--such things need not be said aloud--but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, thank God!"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AN OLD MAN
+
+Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him "Squire Summers," though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.
+
+How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life--the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.
+
+I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:
+
+"I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life."
+
+Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?
+
+His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.
+
+I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone--mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home--I have been there often to see his son--he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.
+
+There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.
+
+He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.
+
+Now he lives in a small room--and that is more than is really
+necessary--and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.
+
+Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+THE CELEBRITY
+
+Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!
+
+We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.
+
+Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:
+
+_They cannot survive without common people like you and me_.
+
+It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!
+
+This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.
+
+"Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here."
+
+"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.
+
+As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion--my favourite daily newspaper--in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!
+
+And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:
+
+"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening."
+
+Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:
+
+"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening."
+
+And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.
+
+I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them--without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't you come up?"
+
+He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer--like me--sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!
+
+He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for re�lection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.
+
+I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.
+
+And what a place and time it was for a combat--in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch--and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences--and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.
+
+After explaining who he was--I told him I had recognized him on
+sight--we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.
+
+But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.
+
+"It's a warm day," observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.
+
+"I never saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.
+
+There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a "Yes sir," or your master with
+a "No sir."
+
+Thus we warm up to one another--a little at a time--we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent--with some joy--trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.
+
+"I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, "that you are opposing my re�lection."
+
+Boom! the cannon's opening roar!
+
+"Well," I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, "I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done."
+
+Boom! the fight is on!
+
+"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?"
+
+It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.
+
+"I have voted the Republican ticket," I said, "but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats--and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with."
+
+I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.
+
+This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.
+
+And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. "The unending audacity of elected
+persons!" And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!
+
+Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.
+
+Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.
+
+[Illustration: "HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE"]
+
+"You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views."
+
+Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.
+
+"Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.
+
+"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."
+
+"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century."
+
+He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:
+
+"And any quantity of Caldwells!"
+
+That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt--what I had
+not felt before in regard to him--that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.
+
+Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.
+
+"You won't mind," I said, "if I give you my view--my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question--in detail. We get general
+impressions--and stick to them like grim death--for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----"
+
+"And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel," nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.
+
+"And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter," I added--"all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that."
+
+"I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell.
+
+"And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn--a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that."
+
+"Now, I believe that, too," said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.
+
+"Then we belong to the same party," I said. "I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it."
+
+Mr. Caldwell laughed.
+
+"And I'll appoint you," I said, "my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws."
+
+"Well, I'll accept the appointment," said Mr. Caldwell--continuing very
+earnestly, "if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once."
+
+With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.
+
+"And now," said I, rising quickly, "let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk."
+
+So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.
+
+I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:
+
+"I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it."
+
+"Let's organize a new party," I said, "let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank," he said.
+
+"Not at all," I responded.
+
+"What would you have it?"
+
+"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns."
+
+Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.
+
+"Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an outrageous idealist."
+
+"Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote."
+
+"Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what he came for."
+
+"It's an interesting world, Harriet," I said.
+
+"It is, indeed," said Harriet.
+
+As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.
+
+"We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, "on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms--but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet."
+
+"And women." said Harriet.
+
+"And women, of course," said I.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+ON FRIENDSHIP
+
+I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out--I
+hope not for long--I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!--And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.
+
+Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question--difficult because so direct and simple.
+
+"What is friendship, anyway?" queried this philosophical correspondent.
+
+The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: "Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!") and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.
+
+The truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.
+
+Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!
+
+It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. "I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels," says the poet, "I myself became the wounded person."
+
+Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. "Good-morning, friend," I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.
+
+As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has--because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!
+
+Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails--how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me--and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.
+
+If you should ever come by my farm--you, whoever you are--take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.
+
+It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!
+
+In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!
+
+So let it be with our friendships!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
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+<head>
+<title>Adventures in Friendship</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+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: Adventures In Friendship
+
+Author: David Grayson
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10592]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<table width="80%" align="center" border="0">
+  <tr>
+    <td> <div align="center"><img src="img1.jpg" alt="" width="385" height="300" align="left" /></div>
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      <h1 align="center">ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP</h1>
+<h1 align="center">David Grayson</h1>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+   <div align="center"><img src="img2.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+	  <h1 align="center">I</h1>
+        <h2 align="center">AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY</h2>
+<p>This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.</p>
+
+<p>I have had an amusing adventure&mdash;and made a friend.</p>
+
+<p>This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented&mdash;both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You ought to belong to one of our lodges,&quot; he said. &quot;You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're just the sort of a man,&quot; he said, &quot;that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I <i>think</i>) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks&mdash;and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must, indeed,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship&mdash;only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a complicated matter, this fellowship,&quot; I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.</p>
+
+<p>But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!</p>
+
+<p>I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here,&quot; I said aloud, &quot;is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But presently&mdash;how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails&mdash;I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why!&quot; I exclaimed to myself, &quot;I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How are you, Brother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen him look&mdash;and look&mdash;and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me&mdash;for he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my friend,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;I <i>am</i> intoxicated&mdash;with the wine
+of spring!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as &quot;Brother.&quot; A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.</p>
+
+<p>So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)</p>
+
+<p>I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another member of my society: and in distress!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her&mdash;if absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.</p>
+
+<p>A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's the matter, Brother?&quot; I asked in the friendliest manner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bolt gone,&quot; he said gruffly, &quot;and I got to get to town before
+nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in,&quot; I said, &quot;and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's all right,&quot; he said. &quot;I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hold on,&quot; I said, &quot;get in, I'll take you back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I can walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I can drive you faster,&quot; I said, &quot;and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.</p>
+
+<p>My farmer laughed and got in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; I said, &quot;when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How did you know I was a Mason?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I wasn't <i>sure</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I only joined last winter,&quot; he said. &quot;I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's the grip of fellowship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't feel the grip.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Didn't you?&quot; I asked. &quot;Well, Brother, it was all there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If ever I can do anything for you,&quot; he said, &quot;just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so he drove away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A real Mason,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.</p>
+
+<p>When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in, Brother,&quot; I said; &quot;I am going your way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretty heavy for your buggy,&quot; he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Heavier for you,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pull up the lap robe,&quot; I said, &quot;and be comfortable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift,&quot; he remarked. &quot;A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm that man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been intending to drop in and see you,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you?&quot; he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said. &quot;I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly&mdash;seeing that we belong to the
+same society.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be mistaken,&quot; he said. &quot;I'm not a Mason!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No more am I,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor an Oddfellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What Society did you think I belonged to?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did he ask you that, too?&quot; interrupted my companion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He did,&quot; I said. &quot;He did----&quot; and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. &quot;And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you?&quot; exclaimed my companion. &quot;So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?&quot; I observed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet it is,&quot; he responded. &quot;You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But when I got to thinking it over,&quot; I said, &quot;it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's that?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Universal Brotherhood of Men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, we both laughed&mdash;and understood.</p>
+
+<p>After that, what a story he told me!&mdash;the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are&mdash;all
+people&mdash;of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears&mdash;if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.</p>
+
+<p>He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind,&quot; I said, &quot;I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!</p>
+
+<p>When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What society is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.</p>
+
+
+<p>And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.</p>
+
+     <div align="center"><img src="img3.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <hr style="width: 35%;" />
+      <div align="center"><img src="img4.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<h1 align="center">II</h1>
+<h2 align="center">A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD</h2>
+      <div align="center"><img src="img5.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <p>They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.</p>
+
+<p>The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, &quot;has been a day of pleasant bread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>One of the very pleasantest I can remember!</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays&mdash;let them overtake me
+unexpectedly&mdash;waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, this is Christmas Day!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this&mdash;one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.</p>
+
+      <div align="center"><img src="img6.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <p>So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas, Harriet&quot;&mdash;and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had&mdash;but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky&mdash;on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas, Harriet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet opens the door&mdash;just a crack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo&mdash;but it's cold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she closes the door.</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a friendly world,&quot; I say to myself, &quot;and full of business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor&mdash;the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.</p>
+
+<p>I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.</p>
+
+<p>Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay&mdash;all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen&mdash;and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)&mdash;when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; said Harriet, presently, &quot;the cousins can't come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't come!&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, you act as if you were delighted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;well, yes,&quot; I said, &quot;I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment&mdash;I was all ready for them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I've got such a <i>good</i> dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,&quot;
+said Harriet ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There aren't any.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;how did you know what I was thinking about?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I merely wanted to show you,&quot; I said, &quot;that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has come to a pretty pass,&quot; she said &quot;when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a tragedy, I'll admit,&quot; I said, &quot;but let's be logical about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am willing,&quot; said Harriet, &quot;to be as logical as you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then,&quot; I said, &quot;having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who?&quot; asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is <i>not</i> logical.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, there are the Starkweathers,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They're rich, aren't they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you know how they live&mdash;what dinners they have&mdash;and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out&mdash;tactfully, of course&mdash;you made a point of tact&mdash;what the trouble
+was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I was talking of <i>poor</i> people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you can argue,&quot; observed Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I can act, too,&quot; I said. &quot;I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What <i>is</i> the matter with you this morning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Christmas,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you <i>should</i> get the Starkweathers----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'In the bright lexicon of youth,'&quot; I observed, &quot;'there is no such word
+as fail.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere&mdash;the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!</p>
+
+<p>So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merry Christmas,&quot; I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, David,&quot; he exclaimed heartily, &quot;Merry Christmas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I drew my face down and said solemnly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, now, what's the matter?&quot; He was all sympathy at once.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, &quot;there is a poor man you will na' have to compel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you don't count,&quot; I said. &quot;You're coming anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;but I ha' me
+doots&mdash;I ha' me doots.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it by any chance a goose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is,&quot; I said, &quot;a goose&mdash;a big one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. &quot;You have comforted my mind,&quot;
+he said, &quot;with the joys of anticipation&mdash;a goose, a big goose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind,&quot; I said, &quot;they'll not be displeased to see me anyway.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty&mdash;furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything&mdash;with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!</p>
+
+<p>Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack&mdash;and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta&mdash;lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.</p>
+
+<p>I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!</p>
+
+<p>Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, friend,&quot; he said, &quot;I'm glad to see you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said it as though he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can sympathize with you,&quot; I said, &quot;we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me quizzically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He lies too long in bed in the morning,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; she said with a rueful laugh, &quot;we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day,&quot; she said, &quot;and
+our cook was ill&mdash;or said she was&mdash;and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it&mdash;and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might,&quot; I said, &quot;apply for Mrs. Heney's place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is Mrs. Heney?&quot; asked Mrs. Starkweather.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!&quot; I exclaimed.
+&quot;Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying &quot;Penny&quot; Daniels.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?&quot; laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.</p>
+
+<p>When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson,&quot; said Mrs.
+Starkweather.</p>
+
+<p>So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We walked over,&quot; said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, &quot;and I haven't
+had so much fun in years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.</p>
+
+<p>I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end&mdash;the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee&mdash;but I must not and dare not elaborate.</p>
+
+<p>And what great talk we had afterward!</p>
+
+<p>I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood&mdash;and we laughed, and laughed&mdash;Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None of the new-fangled ones, Clara,&quot; cried her husband: &quot;some of the
+old ones we used to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,&quot;</span>
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Oh, I can't tell here&mdash;it grows late and there's work to-morrow&mdash;all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This has been a day of pleasant bread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature&mdash;childlike simplicity, if you will&mdash;there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.</p>
+      <div align="center"><img src="img7.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+      <hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img8.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<h1 align="center">III</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE OPEN ROAD</h2
+><div align="center"><img src="img9.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&quot;To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;GOETHE, <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I love sometimes to have a day alone&mdash;a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning&mdash;preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough&mdash;and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new&mdash;and behold
+everything <i>is</i> new. My barn, my oaks, my fences&mdash;I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!</p>
+
+<p>So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty&mdash;for beauty is inward,
+not outward&mdash;we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!</p>
+
+<p>Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside&mdash;and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!</p>
+
+<p>Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!</p>
+
+<p>It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!</p>
+
+<p>Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?&mdash;is not that the best
+life we know?</p>
+
+<p>And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk&mdash;and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!</p>
+
+<p>What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.</p>
+
+<p>And one of these words&mdash;how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----</p>
+
+<p>So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying &quot;Coo-ee, coo-ee.&quot; I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. &quot;Coo-ee,
+coo-ee,&quot; he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the idee,&quot; says the helper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A poor lot,&quot; remarks the leader: &quot;such is the farmer's life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans&mdash;a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll pass 'em up,&quot; he says; &quot;that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hi there, it's for you,&quot; shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly,&quot; says the man in the
+wagon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's my old game&mdash;wrastling,&quot; the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. &quot;Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the idee,&quot; says the man in the wagon.</p>
+
+<p>So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, &quot;Stiddy, stiddy,&quot; and the response
+of the other, &quot;That's the idee.&quot; And so on into the gray day!</p>
+
+<p>My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The &quot;equality of men&quot; which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy&mdash;is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!</p>
+
+<p>And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest&mdash;to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work&mdash;only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lord be praised for that which is common.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.</p>
+
+      <div align="center"><img src="img10.jpg" alt=" " /> </div>
+      <hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img11.jpg" alt=" " /> </div>
+<h1 align="center">IV</h1>
+<h2 align="center">ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img12.jpg" alt=" " /> </div>
+<p>Sunday Morning, May 20th.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+&quot;I am not ready yet,&quot; it said; &quot;I have not rested my time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!</p>
+
+<p>And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered&mdash;the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!</p>
+
+<p>I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;give me a good day and I am ready to plant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand&mdash;the
+adventure of it&mdash;after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, &quot;Present!&quot; to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.</p>
+
+<p>Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning&mdash;a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.</p>
+
+<p>At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.</p>
+
+<p>Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers&mdash;five seeds:</p>
+
+<p>One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.</p>
+
+<p>But after a time one ceases to count five, and <i>feels</i> five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)&mdash;and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field&mdash;and my own pleasant home among its
+trees&mdash;and my barn&mdash;all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img13.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich&mdash;overnight&mdash;by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!&mdash;not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.</p>
+
+<p>I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.</p>
+
+<p>But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.</p>
+
+<p>I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me&mdash;save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.</p>
+
+<p>Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities&mdash;of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life&mdash;of letting life flow through us. To be used!&mdash;that
+is the sublimest thing we know.</p>
+
+<p>It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?</p>
+
+<p>In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers&mdash;if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.</p>
+
+<p>For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.</p>
+
+<p>Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:</p>
+
+<p>These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends&mdash;with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And (he) departed without being desired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!</p>
+
+<p>And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed&mdash;and sank into dreamless slumber.</p>
+<div align="center"><img src="img14.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img15.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">V</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE STORY OF ANNA</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img16.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.</p>
+
+<p>And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+&quot;it is bad enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand on my arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you hitch up your horse and come with me&mdash;right away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?&quot; asked the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said; &quot;but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A girl!&quot; he said, with a curious note in his voice; &quot;but a woman now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I didn't know&mdash;she isn't&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A woods child,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They made it hard for her,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher, &quot;especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I&mdash;I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He remained silent again for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said finally, &quot;I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we&mdash;we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.</p>
+
+<p>As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river,&quot; McAlway
+said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence&mdash;of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly we heard a voice&mdash;in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh!&mdash;McAlway,&quot; a voice said.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you seen Anna Williams?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is at the house,&quot; answered the voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get your horse,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She's all right, as soon as she gets dry,&quot; one of them said.</p>
+
+<p>The other woman turned to us half complainingly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She don't cry,&quot; said the other, &quot;but just sits there like a statue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>McAlway stepped forward and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well&mdash;Anna?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience&mdash;of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>The Scotch Preacher had said, &quot;Well&mdash;Anna?&quot; She looked up and replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They were going to take my baby away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were they!&quot; exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. &quot;Well, we'll never
+permit <i>that</i>. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway,&quot; the man said, &quot;I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl&mdash;while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family&mdash;the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, &quot;What will
+Harriet say?&quot; Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.</p>
+
+<p>In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience&mdash;but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a tremendous old world,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you cold?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; she answered faintly.</p>
+
+<p>I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir,&quot; very faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With cream on it&mdash;rich yellow cream&mdash;and plenty of sugar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms&mdash;as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;this is Anna Williams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David, <i>David</i>, DAVID,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;that girl is hungry&mdash;and cold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.</p>
+
+<p>I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.</p>
+
+<p>And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a &quot;foremost citizen,&quot; the &quot;leader in all good works,&quot;
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are&mdash;in ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind&mdash;I even whistled&mdash;and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; she whispered, &quot;the baby's asleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath&mdash;at least I
+held mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; Harriet whispered, &quot;did you see the baby.?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. &quot;What happened next?&quot; I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.</p>
+
+<p>If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you see the baby?&quot; Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the &quot;finest baby we ever saw in all our lives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant&mdash;which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as &quot;bad&quot; or &quot;good&quot;; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons&mdash;toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!</p>
+
+<p>The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Mr. Grayson!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How's the boy, Anna?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine&mdash;and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house&mdash;that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img17.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img18.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">VI</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE DRUNKARD</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img19.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment&mdash;unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.</p>
+
+<p>I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.</p>
+
+<p>My friend is a drunkard&mdash;at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still&mdash;and he usually came in the evening&mdash;I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There goes that drunkard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as <i>that</i>, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.</p>
+
+<p>After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!</p>
+
+<p>And then one evening when I saw him coming&mdash;I had been a long day alone
+in my fields&mdash;I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How are you, neighbour?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.</p>
+
+<p>My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is&mdash;is there any discovery
+better worth making?</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img20.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.</p>
+
+<p>One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes&mdash;his eyes <i>burned</i>! I shook his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had hoped,&quot; I said, &quot;that you would stop sometime as you went by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I've wanted to stop&mdash;but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You usually drive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now &quot;working with the experts&quot;&mdash;those were
+his words&mdash;and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he said, &quot;I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson&mdash;and a happy man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!</p>
+
+<p>Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly,&quot; he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.</p>
+
+<p>On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were &quot;in a place of suitable
+authority.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Great things are possible,&quot; he said, &quot;to the man of ideas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man&mdash;hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+&quot;I think you will understand.&quot; I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thinks!&quot; exclaimed Harriet. &quot;What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; she said, &quot;I can't understand some things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>But she was not to be joked with.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved&mdash;liked&mdash;him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand&mdash;it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of&mdash;life. He&mdash;he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.</p>
+
+<p>She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. &quot;When he's sober,&quot; she said, &quot;he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?</p>
+
+<p>And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced up at the sky.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fine?&quot; he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After it is all over,&quot; he said, &quot;of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I said, &quot;you will not do it again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Free?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses&mdash;I
+never take more&mdash;I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you never do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I never do, but I <i>feel</i> that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves&mdash;to be free of their own
+limitations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's it! That's it!&quot; he exclaimed eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation&mdash;whether drink, or riches, or fame&mdash;a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.</p>
+
+<p>So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man <i>say</i> to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities&mdash;if we can keep them properly
+separated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most of us,&quot; I said finally, &quot;are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper&mdash;far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I often get drunk myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes&mdash;dreadfully drunk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me and laughed&mdash;for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now,&quot; he said. &quot;I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker&mdash;or
+rather stronger and stronger&mdash;for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you do sing,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do, indeed,&quot; he responded, laughing, &quot;and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes,&quot; I said, &quot;when I'm on <i>my</i> kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Before I could finish he had interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees&mdash;and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I <i>smell</i> the <i>smell</i>
+of the liquor. And there you are!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course,&quot; I said. &quot;You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul&mdash;and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man&mdash;and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him&mdash;but----</p>
+
+<p>Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He also belongs here,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img21.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img22.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">VII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">AN OLD MAID</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img23.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm&mdash;and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle&mdash;reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.</p>
+
+<p>She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?</p>
+
+<p>In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover &quot;Snow Bound,&quot; by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the &quot;Path
+of Life.&quot; On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called &quot;Wide Awake&quot; the other &quot;Fast Asleep.&quot; Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place&mdash;including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.</p>
+
+<p>When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.</p>
+
+<p>But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about&mdash;or so it seemed to me&mdash;with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, &quot;a ring and a rose,&quot; a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.</p>
+
+<p>On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible&mdash;a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride&mdash;if there is such a thing as meek
+pride&mdash;she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.</p>
+
+<p>Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week&mdash;with tea.</p>
+
+<p>And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are <i>our</i> progenitors.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Aikens,&quot; says Miss Aiken, &quot;were always like that&mdash;downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was like the Macintoshes,&quot; Harriet puts in. &quot;Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two <i>Mayflower</i> ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.</p>
+
+<p>If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.</p>
+
+<p>In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: &quot;How, after all, does this person live?&quot; For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?</p>
+
+<p>Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite&mdash;such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood&mdash;oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)&mdash;a long time ago&mdash;who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him&mdash;such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----</p>
+
+<p>But I must get to <i>the</i> thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively&mdash;unlike her, too&mdash;she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, an old, old trouble. No <i>new</i> trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the <i>other</i> woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img24.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img25.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">VIII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">A ROADSIDE PROPHET</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img26.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by&mdash;part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet&mdash;so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.</p>
+
+<p>But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;may be something for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields&mdash;the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:</p>
+
+<p>GOD IS LOVE</p>
+
+<p>A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good morning, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good morning, brother,&quot; I returned heartily.</p>
+
+<p>His face brightened perceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't stop on my account,&quot; I said; &quot;finish off your work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How long,&quot; I inquired, &quot;have you been at this sort of work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ten years,&quot; he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. &quot;Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade&mdash;I am a journeyman
+painter&mdash;but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I live by the Word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the Word?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, by the Word,&quot; and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you always paint the same sign?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, no,&quot; he answered. &quot;I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice&quot;&mdash;he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields&mdash;&quot;that I says to myself, 'I will paint &quot;God is Love.&quot;'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An appropriate text,&quot; I said, &quot;for this very spot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He seemed much gratified.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you can follow your feelings!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was in Arizona,&quot; he was saying, &quot;mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.</p>
+
+<p>But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's all right,&quot; I said; &quot;a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's what I want,&quot; he said eagerly; &quot;that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and then continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a curious thing, Mister&mdash;perhaps you've noticed it yourself&mdash;that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've noticed it,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's strange, isn't it?&quot; he again remarked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very strange,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know's I can blame them,&quot; he continued. &quot;I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them&mdash;but I didn't do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story&mdash;something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you do all this without payment?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in an injured way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who'd pay me?&quot; he asked. &quot;Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time he was ready to start. So I said, &quot;Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So we set off together down the hill.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road&mdash;an
+easy, swinging, steady step&mdash;carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, Mister,&quot; he said, &quot;I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he <i>wants</i> to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a long moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought <i>that</i> was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----&quot; He paused again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, <i>she</i> died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge&mdash;were you ever there,
+Mister?&mdash;and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that <i>is</i> Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me&mdash;I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I did try Him,&quot; my companion was saying, &quot;and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion&mdash;but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead&mdash;a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister,&quot; he said, &quot;is that
+they won't try God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings&mdash;how futile
+they seemed compared with this!</p>
+
+<p>Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think,&quot; said he, &quot;I should paint here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;you know better than I do. What would <i>you</i> paint?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When in doubt,&quot; he said, &quot;I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted&mdash;near
+towns&mdash;but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home&mdash;and the barn near it&mdash;and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img27.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img28.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">IX</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE GUNSMITH</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img29.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+&quot;gunsmith problem&quot; about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said finally, &quot;Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At last!&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He <i>says</i> he is going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet laughed. &quot;Then it's all decided,&quot; she said; &quot;he isn't going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said the Scotch Preacher, &quot;it's not decided&mdash;yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind,&quot; I said, &quot;whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David,&quot; he said, &quot;did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle &quot;Bonnie Doon&quot; or &quot;Charlie Is My Darling&quot; lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We all know the longing for old places and old times,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, &quot;Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years,&quot; I said. &quot;Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!&quot; exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. &quot;Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago&mdash;and liked him well, too&mdash;but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.</p>
+
+<p>In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.</p>
+
+<p>I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.</p>
+
+<p>Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor <i>us</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say&mdash;the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences&mdash;all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.</p>
+
+<p>I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners&mdash;how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.</p>
+
+<p>At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience&mdash;heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand&mdash;he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.</p>
+
+<p>As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.</p>
+
+<p>I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you mend it?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive&mdash;they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Pha&euml;thon!</p>
+
+<p>A week later I came back to the shop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in, come in,&quot; he said when he saw me.</p>
+
+<p>He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So!&quot; he said. &quot;You have come for your job?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He softened the &quot;j&quot; in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't see where you mended them,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!</p>
+
+<p>When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in, come in,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is this I hear,&quot; I said, &quot;about your going back to Sweden?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For forty years,&quot; he said, &quot;I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Carlstrom,&quot; I said, &quot;we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have Charles Baxter,&quot; he said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life,&quot; I said. &quot;You know that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been here forty years,&quot; he said. &quot;and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.</p>
+
+<p>When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor&mdash;as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm&mdash;hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work&mdash;once I remember, a pistol&mdash;which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!</p>
+
+<p>What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble&mdash;and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!&mdash;he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep&mdash;he was helping the world go
+round!</p>
+
+<p>All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img30.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.</p>
+
+<p>Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of recent years,&quot; said Ketchell, &quot;we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.</p>
+
+<p>I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why,&quot; he replied, &quot;as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a good thing,&quot; he says, &quot;when a man knows what he pretends to
+know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape&mdash;who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house&mdash;with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.</p>
+
+<p>I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.</p>
+
+<p>The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was a poor man,&quot; he said, &quot;and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife&mdash;but I have not dared to wish for one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop&mdash;stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.</p>
+
+<p>During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;David, we can't let the old man go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; I said, &quot;we can't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.</p>
+
+<p>When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It ist America; it ist America.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Carlstrom, no&mdash;it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm not going,&quot; he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Charles Baxter brought it in,&quot; answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. &quot;He thought I couldn't mend it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.</p>
+
+<p>The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it <i>is</i> greatness.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img31.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img32.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">X</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE MOWING</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img33.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>&quot;Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this&mdash;after a week of
+hard work&mdash;a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.</p>
+
+<p>I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.</p>
+
+<p>When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, nothing happened yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I lay quiet for some time&mdash;it being Sunday morning&mdash;and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, nearly everything happened yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events&mdash;and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see&mdash;and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it <i>may</i> be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even&mdash;here in this quiet room&mdash;would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet&mdash;playing
+with things much too large for us&mdash;much too full of meaning.</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.</p>
+
+<p>I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;we'll cut the clover to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's fortunate,&quot; said Harriet, &quot;I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.</p>
+
+<p>I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall have good cutting to-day,&quot; I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!</p>
+
+<p>So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here,&quot; I said, &quot;is where we will begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling &quot;Good-bye, Susan&quot; at the top of his capacity.</p>
+
+<p>Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks&mdash;and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, Dick,&quot; I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could&mdash;until the dew on the clover should begin&mdash;at
+least&mdash;to disappear.</p>
+
+<p>By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a great day for haying,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A dang good one,&quot; responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that&mdash;far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.</p>
+
+<p>I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+&quot;Here she goes!&quot; came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work&mdash;the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye&mdash;his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.</p>
+
+<p>And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness&mdash;that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dang it all,&quot; says Dick, &quot;the moon's drawin' water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Something is undoubtedly drawing it,&quot; said I, wiping my dripping face.</p>
+
+<p>A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.</p>
+
+<p>So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hungry, Dick?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hungry!&quot; exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.</p>
+
+<p>So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After you,&quot; says Dick.</p>
+
+<p>I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pump, Dick,&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<p>And Dick pumped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harder, Dick,&quot; said I in a strangled voice.</p>
+
+<p>And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gee, but that's good,&quot; says Dick.</p>
+
+<p>Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!</p>
+
+<p>So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter&mdash;let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill&mdash;bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.</p>
+
+<p>So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More chicken, Mr. Grayson?&quot; she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More chicken, Dick?&quot; I'd ask.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More chicken, Mr. Grayson,&quot; he would respond&mdash;and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with&mdash;and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses&mdash;if he had eyes for such things&mdash;of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.</p>
+
+<p>I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself&mdash;in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!</p>
+
+<p>And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in&mdash;and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in&mdash;when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled&mdash;and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go 'way now,&quot; said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, &quot;and
+eat your shortcake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment&mdash;every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.</p>
+
+<p>I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!</p>
+
+<p>Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?</p>
+
+<p>I <i>lived</i> yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.</p>
+
+<p>At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again&mdash;rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's danged hot,&quot; said Dick conclusively.</p>
+
+<p>How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less&mdash;if that were possible&mdash;and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.</p>
+
+<p>Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up &quot;My Fairy Fay&quot; with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Dick,&quot; said I, &quot;we've had a good day's work together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet,&quot; said Dick.</p>
+
+<p>And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always&mdash;without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!</p>
+
+<p>Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse&mdash;it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly&mdash;I could see the white of her
+gown&mdash;and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud&mdash;such things need not be said aloud&mdash;but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: &quot;Thank God, thank God!&quot;</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img34.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img35.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">XI</h1>
+<h2 align="center">AN OLD MAN</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img36.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him &quot;Squire Summers,&quot; though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.</p>
+
+<p>How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him&mdash;and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life&mdash;the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.</p>
+
+<p>I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?</p>
+
+<p>His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.</p>
+
+<p>I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone&mdash;mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home&mdash;I have been there often to see his son&mdash;he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.</p>
+
+<p>There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Now he lives in a small room&mdash;and that is more than is really
+necessary&mdash;and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.</p>
+
+<p>Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img37.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img38.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">XII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">THE CELEBRITY</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img39.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!</p>
+
+<p>We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.</p>
+
+<p>Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:</p>
+
+<p><i>They cannot survive without common people like you and me</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us&mdash;neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Harriet,&quot; I said, calling through the open doorway, &quot;I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mercy me!&quot; exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion&mdash;my favourite daily newspaper&mdash;in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!</p>
+
+<p>And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.</p>
+
+<p>I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them&mdash;without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson,&quot; said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good afternoon, sir,&quot; I responded, &quot;won't you come up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer&mdash;like me&mdash;sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!</p>
+
+<p>He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for re&euml;lection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.</p>
+
+<p>I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.</p>
+
+<p>And what a place and time it was for a combat&mdash;in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch&mdash;and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences&mdash;and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.</p>
+
+<p>After explaining who he was&mdash;I told him I had recognized him on
+sight&mdash;we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a warm day,&quot; observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never saw the corn ripening better,&quot; I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.</p>
+
+<p>There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a &quot;Yes sir,&quot; or your master with
+a &quot;No sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus we warm up to one another&mdash;a little at a time&mdash;we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent&mdash;with some joy&mdash;trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hear,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, &quot;that you are opposing my re&euml;lection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Boom! the cannon's opening roar!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, &quot;I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Boom! the fight is on!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have voted the Republican ticket,&quot; I said, &quot;but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats&mdash;and I've had my doubts,&quot; said I, &quot;whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.</p>
+
+<p>This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.</p>
+
+<p>And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. &quot;The unending audacity of elected
+persons!&quot; And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!</p>
+
+<p>Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img40.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't understand,&quot; he said, &quot;what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know,&quot; I said to him, with some enthusiasm, &quot;I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson,&quot; he said, &quot;is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said, &quot;I'm afraid I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he returned, &quot;they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And any quantity of Caldwells!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt&mdash;what I had
+not felt before in regard to him&mdash;that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You won't mind,&quot; I said, &quot;if I give you my view&mdash;my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question&mdash;in detail. We get general
+impressions&mdash;and stick to them like grim death&mdash;for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel,&quot; nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter,&quot; I added&mdash;&quot;all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I admit it,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn&mdash;a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, I believe that, too,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we belong to the same party,&quot; I said. &quot;I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Caldwell laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I'll appoint you,&quot; I said, &quot;my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'll accept the appointment,&quot; said Mr. Caldwell&mdash;continuing very
+earnestly, &quot;if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now,&quot; said I, rising quickly, &quot;let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's organize a new party,&quot; I said, &quot;let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all,&quot; I responded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What would you have it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'd have it in one sentence,&quot; I said, &quot;and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Grayson,&quot; he said, &quot;you're an outrageous idealist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Caldwell,&quot; I said, &quot;you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width:35%;" />
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Harriet,&quot; I said, &quot;he's got my vote.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, David,&quot; said Harriet, &quot;that's what he came for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's an interesting world, Harriet,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is, indeed,&quot; said Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We may be fooled, Harriet,&quot; I observed, &quot;on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms&mdash;but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And women.&quot; said Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And women, of course,&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="img41.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<hr style="width: 35%;" />
+<div align="center"><img src="img42.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<h1 align="center">XIII</h1>
+<h2 align="center">ON FRIENDSHIP</h2>
+<div align="center"><img src="img43.jpg" alt=" " /></div>
+<p>I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out&mdash;I
+hope not for long&mdash;I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!&mdash;And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question&mdash;difficult because so direct and simple.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is friendship, anyway?&quot; queried this philosophical correspondent.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: &quot;Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!&quot;) and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is,&mdash;my philosophical correspondent&mdash;I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.</p>
+
+<p>Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop&mdash;just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!</p>
+
+<p>It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. &quot;I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels,&quot; says the poet, &quot;I myself became the wounded person.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. &quot;Good-morning, friend,&quot; I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has&mdash;because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!</p>
+
+<p>Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails&mdash;how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me&mdash;and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.</p>
+
+<p>If you should ever come by my farm&mdash;you, whoever you are&mdash;take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!</p>
+
+<p>In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!</p>
+
+<p>So let it be with our friendships!</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+      <div align="center"><img src="img44.jpg" width="420" height="430" alt="" /></div></td>
+  </tr></table>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+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: Adventures In Friendship
+
+Author: David Grayson
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10592]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
+
+By David Grayson
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY
+
+
+This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
+was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
+the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
+things, the rarest.
+
+I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.
+
+This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
+Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
+various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
+to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
+had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
+was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
+feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
+Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
+surprised and disappointed.
+
+"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
+having loyal friends wherever you go."
+
+He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
+much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
+much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
+funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
+my widow and children.
+
+"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our
+lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."
+
+He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
+voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
+think (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling
+corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.
+
+As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the
+Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense
+of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
+the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
+not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
+world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
+and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
+human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
+wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
+the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
+impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.
+
+"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity
+that they choose to protect so sedulously."
+
+I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
+live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
+me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to
+it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.
+
+"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself.
+
+So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which
+often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.
+
+But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long
+depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and
+came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in
+upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out
+across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat
+upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned
+out to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon
+sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:
+and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven
+(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:
+the whole world was busy with spring!
+
+I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half
+startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the
+spring.
+
+"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this place; of
+all these things I am a part."
+
+But presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented
+hound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.
+And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter
+lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which
+met my eye so openly.
+
+"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's lodges. I
+myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
+the Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
+help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
+did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
+farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
+road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:
+
+"How are you, Brother?"
+
+You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I
+glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
+high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.
+
+"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine
+of spring!"
+
+I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A
+strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
+not my Brother.
+
+So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
+have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!
+
+"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
+have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
+we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
+accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
+cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."
+
+(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
+it. You can get a better for nothing.)
+
+I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
+of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
+as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
+creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
+horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
+was on his knees between the front wheels.
+
+Involuntarily I said:
+
+"Another member of my society: and in distress!"
+
+I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
+neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there
+had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite
+certain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.
+
+As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
+duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
+cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
+the moist road, and his face was red and angry.
+
+A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
+but only to her distress.
+
+"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.
+
+"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before
+nightfall."
+
+"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."
+
+So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
+and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
+out and picked it up.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
+obliged to you for the lift."
+
+"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."
+
+"Oh, I can walk."
+
+"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load
+to town before nightfall."
+
+I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
+books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
+human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved
+without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his
+dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.
+
+My farmer laughed and got in.
+
+"You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in distress I always
+like to help him out."
+
+He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:
+
+"How did you know I was a Mason?"
+
+"Well, I wasn't _sure_."
+
+"I only joined last winter," he said. "I like it first-rate. When you're
+a Mason you find friends everywhere."
+
+I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but
+the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After
+helping him to put in the bolt, I said:
+
+"Here's the grip of fellowship."
+
+He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.
+
+"I didn't feel the grip."
+
+"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there."
+
+"If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let me know.
+Name's Forbes, Spring Brook."
+
+And so he drove away.
+
+"A real Mason," I said to myself, "could not have had any better
+advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it
+without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed."
+
+As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I
+got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
+crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
+every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
+discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
+road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.
+
+When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
+saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
+around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
+expectation. I stopped the mare.
+
+"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way."
+
+He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
+roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
+neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.
+
+"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked.
+
+"Heavier for you," I replied.
+
+So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
+diffidently.
+
+"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
+about all a man wants to carry for four miles."
+
+"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.
+
+"I'm that man."
+
+"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.
+
+"Have you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
+notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the
+same society."
+
+His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
+beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
+I spoke of the society it clouded again.
+
+"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"
+
+"No more am I," I said.
+
+"Nor an Oddfellow."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
+to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
+face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
+had done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his
+eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker
+farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who
+had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever
+needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.
+
+"What Society did you think I belonged to?" he asked.
+
+"Well," I said, "when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a
+corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----"
+
+"Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted my companion.
+
+"He did," I said. "He did----" and I reflected not without enthusiasm
+that I had come away without a corn-planter. "And when I drove out of
+town I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the
+lodge."
+
+"Were you?" exclaimed my companion. "So was I. I just felt as though I
+had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges
+and it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without."
+
+"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?" I observed.
+
+"You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, haven't
+you?"
+
+There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it
+cannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,
+come close together.
+
+"But when I got to thinking it over," I said, "it suddenly occurred to
+me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized
+you instantly as a charter member."
+
+He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he
+had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+"The Universal Brotherhood of Men."
+
+Well, we both laughed--and understood.
+
+After that, what a story he told me!--the story of a misplaced man on an
+unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all
+people--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if
+only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
+growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
+all he needed was a listener.
+
+He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we
+had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:
+
+"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
+right now."
+
+"Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
+how you came out with your pigs."
+
+As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
+My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
+previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
+rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
+astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
+discovered his gold mine!
+
+When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
+my arm and said in a confidential voice:
+
+"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society."
+
+As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
+suspiciously:
+
+"What society is that?"
+
+I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
+explanation.
+
+And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
+lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
+warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
+waiting.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD
+
+They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
+this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
+blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
+questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
+lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
+covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
+still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
+
+The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
+
+"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
+highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
+
+I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
+into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
+As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
+the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me
+unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
+
+"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
+
+How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
+life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
+this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
+Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
+than I had ever dreamed it could be.
+
+[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
+
+So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
+down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
+I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
+the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
+snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
+it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
+with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.
+
+Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
+still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
+Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
+upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
+sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
+blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
+shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
+no longer contain myself:
+
+"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
+
+Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
+
+"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
+
+And she closes the door.
+
+Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
+my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
+and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
+straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
+
+"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
+
+I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
+away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
+the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
+stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
+floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
+morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
+
+I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
+me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
+out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
+stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
+the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
+quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.
+
+Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
+stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
+how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
+up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
+crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
+its mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
+in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
+of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
+close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
+
+All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
+expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
+adventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I
+was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
+the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
+breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
+heaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,
+I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
+(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
+best solvent of secrecy is patience.
+
+"David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
+
+"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
+
+"No--well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
+about to happen!"
+
+"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them."
+
+"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
+have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?"
+
+"But I've got such a _good_ dinner."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
+may depend upon me to do my duty."
+
+"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
+said Harriet ruefully.
+
+I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
+problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
+fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
+remarked:
+
+"There aren't any."
+
+"David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
+
+"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly
+appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
+Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
+of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
+then I said, 'There aren't any.'"
+
+Harriet laughed.
+
+"It has come to a pretty pass," she said "when there are no poor people
+to invite to dinner on Christmas day."
+
+"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical about it."
+
+"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like."
+
+"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
+try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?"
+
+"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
+good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
+it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
+I maintain is _not_ logical.
+
+"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
+
+"David!"
+
+"They're rich, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
+they probably have a houseful of company."
+
+"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
+suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
+advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
+out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble
+was?"
+
+"But I was talking of _poor_ people."
+
+"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
+for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
+
+"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
+
+"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the
+Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
+expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
+haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
+leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
+
+"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
+
+"Christmas," I said.
+
+I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
+suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
+left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
+forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
+
+"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
+
+"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
+as fail.'"
+
+So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
+and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
+the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
+fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
+think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
+brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
+everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
+laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
+was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
+like wine!
+
+So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
+going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
+
+"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
+
+He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
+met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
+eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
+house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
+a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
+must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
+I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
+
+"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
+
+I drew my face down and said solemnly:
+
+"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
+
+"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
+
+"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
+neighbourhood to come to our feast."
+
+The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my
+ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel."
+
+"Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow."
+
+Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the
+spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice
+and much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a
+moment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.
+
+"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha' me
+doots--I ha' me doots."
+
+At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:
+
+"Is it by any chance a goose?"
+
+"It is," I said, "a goose--a big one."
+
+He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have comforted my mind,"
+he said, "with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose."
+
+So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw
+the great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the
+chimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had
+been of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I
+were well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late
+moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to
+think of inviting them to dinner.
+
+"Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me anyway."
+
+I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the
+parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture,
+pictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room
+was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar
+sense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in
+themselves, must clutter up a man's life!
+
+Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I
+can successfully lack--and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of
+food I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing
+nor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures
+that are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like
+casting aside all such impedimenta--lest I fail to arrive at the far
+goal of my endeavour.
+
+I like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who
+ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,
+absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it
+with another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many
+objects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,
+and spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts
+upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!
+
+Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet
+smoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like
+this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.
+
+"Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad to see you."
+
+He said it as though he meant it.
+
+"Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is
+comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like
+this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my
+furnace than he goes off and leaves me."
+
+"I can sympathize with you," I said, "we often have trouble at our house
+with the man who builds the fires."
+
+He looked around at me quizzically.
+
+"He lies too long in bed in the morning," I said.
+
+By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was
+burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings
+and books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled
+and untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the
+remains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown
+carelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her
+place, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,
+rather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of
+glasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this
+morning she, too, looked worried and old.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a merry
+Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!"
+
+I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!
+
+But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.
+
+"We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she said, "and
+our cook was ill--or said she was--and had to go. One of the maids went
+with her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and
+the stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place
+without some one who is responsible in charge of it--and so here we are.
+Merry Christmas!"
+
+I couldn't help laughing. Poor people!
+
+"You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place."
+
+"Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Starkweather.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed.
+"Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our
+greatest celebrities."
+
+With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for
+years performed a most important function in this community. Alone and
+unaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with
+us. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at
+Thanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our
+Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished
+miserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.
+Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings
+of a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of
+charity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:
+it always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving
+and Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.
+I only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant
+Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate
+alternative of marrying "Penny" Daniels.
+
+"So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?" laughed Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to
+come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.
+
+When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to
+the door seeming greatly improved in spirits.
+
+"You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson," said Mrs.
+Starkweather.
+
+So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later
+who should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and
+his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally
+covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.
+
+"We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, "and I haven't
+had so much fun in years."
+
+Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood
+on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.
+
+I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,
+and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and
+the pumpkin pie at the end--the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin
+pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought
+visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet
+presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every
+time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of
+miracle. And her coffee--but I must not and dare not elaborate.
+
+And what great talk we had afterward!
+
+I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in
+quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of
+their boyhood--and we laughed, and laughed--Mrs. Starkweather the most
+of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her
+home, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she
+discovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must
+sing for us.
+
+"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," cried her husband: "some of the
+old ones we used to know."
+
+So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began
+to sing:
+
+"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
+  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,"
+
+Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with
+his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife
+nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her
+eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands
+on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,
+too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:
+
+"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,"
+
+Oh, I can't tell here--it grows late and there's work to-morrow--all the
+things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.
+Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers
+and said with great earnestness:
+
+"I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.
+I shall never forget it."
+
+And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,
+went out, saying:
+
+"This has been a day of pleasant bread."
+
+It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
+common human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in
+people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
+they think serious are not serious at all.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE OPEN ROAD
+
+"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide."
+
+--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.
+
+I love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
+care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
+enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
+morning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
+enough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
+of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
+orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold
+everything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw
+them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
+opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
+of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
+wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
+shall make!
+
+So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road
+and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the
+bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The
+long blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with
+reluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or
+bitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I
+am an adventurer upon a new earth.
+
+Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in
+pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake
+unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle
+foreignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only
+true foundation for the appreciation of beauty--for beauty is inward,
+not outward--we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering
+mere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no
+power of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and
+passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain
+cathedrals!
+
+Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for
+foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through
+my thicket or cross my field from my own roadside--and behold, a new
+heaven and a new earth!
+
+Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we
+cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear
+within the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads
+are dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in
+years: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining
+heights of the Alps!
+
+It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before
+my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming
+things! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure
+channels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,
+a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally
+how everything wearies them and that is old age!
+
+Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see
+and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend
+the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of
+yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?--is not that the best
+life we know?
+
+And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack
+swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.
+Around it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the
+known land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the
+habit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to
+shun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open
+Road, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the
+tamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I
+trod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage
+(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the
+earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of
+fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the
+nest of a hawk--and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must
+not here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now
+the feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;
+Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!
+
+What more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,
+painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the
+Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the
+names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.
+A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered
+with the spirit of the Open Road!
+
+Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I
+devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone
+the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I
+know, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not
+telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of
+it. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand
+will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring
+back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a
+time or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my
+possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the
+remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience
+with scarcely diminished emotion.
+
+And one of these words--how it brings to me the very mood of a gray
+October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn
+shocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I
+hear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows
+flock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp
+and the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy
+once----
+
+So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the
+hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of
+a pasture crying "Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see at first why he cries
+and then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,
+huddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee,
+coo-ee," he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,
+sidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and
+that, come at last to the boarded pen.
+
+"That's the idee," says the helper.
+
+"A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life."
+
+From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and
+unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and
+muscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick
+neck and chapped hands.
+
+"I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in the
+wagon and put 'em in."
+
+So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,
+here and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a
+panic.
+
+"Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep
+in the wool of one of the ewes.
+
+"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the man in the
+wagon.
+
+"That's my old game--wrastling," the leader remarks, struggling with the
+next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!"
+
+"That's the idee," says the man in the wagon.
+
+So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the
+road I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, stiddy," and the response
+of the other, "That's the idee." And so on into the gray day!
+
+My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in
+outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,
+in politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally
+decided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not
+mean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away
+with established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages
+is likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not
+invite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a
+better way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I
+would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion
+question the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient
+habit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I
+would have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He
+should acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for
+himself. The "equality of men" which we worship: is there not a higher
+inequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?
+Democracy--is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him
+question the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he
+continue young and useful!
+
+And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this
+excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to
+find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who
+travels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the
+tooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that
+question and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for
+something I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is
+it that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered
+questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.
+We travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these
+activities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have
+Faith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in
+following the Open Road?
+
+"And O the joy that is never won,
+But follows and follows the journeying sun."
+
+And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as
+well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open
+Road must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;
+and adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.
+
+Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked
+down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy
+exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my
+daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I
+said to myself:
+
+"Lord be praised for that which is common."
+
+And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG
+
+Sunday Morning, May 20th.
+
+On Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out
+every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand
+deep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any
+learned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed
+reasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do
+not cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I
+had no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.
+"I am not ready yet," it said; "I have not rested my time."
+
+Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund
+warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday
+morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust
+my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a
+strange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the
+sepulchre!
+
+And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That
+afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made
+wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for
+a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn
+from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended
+separately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of
+last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips
+well-covered--the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the
+highest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my
+barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of
+yellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless
+discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here
+cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!
+
+I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and
+Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I
+cleaned and sharpened my hoe.
+
+"Now," I said to myself, "give me a good day and I am ready to plant."
+
+The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a
+world of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped
+down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
+this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the
+adventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with
+Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
+satisfaction in answering, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature; to
+plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
+and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
+joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
+in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
+seasons; its life his life.
+
+Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
+over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
+scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
+of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
+field on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that
+moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
+prince, or president.
+
+At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
+done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
+sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
+flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
+hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
+kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
+soil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow
+the rhythm of a march.
+
+Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there
+is a conscious counting by the fingers--five seeds:
+
+One for the blackbird,
+One for the crow,
+One for the cutworm,
+Two to grow.
+
+But after a time one ceases to count five, and _feels_ five,
+instinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an
+inferior four.
+
+I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to
+your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always
+does)--and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?
+And the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that
+action and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!
+Scientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch
+than the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his
+work with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the
+artistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical
+accomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,
+repayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.
+
+As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the
+lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness
+passed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still
+I followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and
+sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.
+Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through
+the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously
+from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from
+the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen
+smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the
+hill from the margin of my field--and my own pleasant home among its
+trees--and my barn--all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to
+the sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the
+sowing.
+
+[Illustration: "OFTEN I STOOD A MOMENT BY THE FENCE"]
+
+Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one
+belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have
+chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be
+something they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the
+advertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by
+promising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich--overnight--by
+inspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It
+is curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to
+potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm
+the soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would
+thrive grandly!--not knowing that plumbing is as important and
+honourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.
+
+I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I
+thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become
+great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew
+not what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I
+missed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure
+satisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I
+was deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep
+and true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging
+by symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one
+the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the
+fertile exceptions.
+
+But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the
+world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.
+Here we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.
+The wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,
+the sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we
+measure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.
+
+I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.
+I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the
+wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler
+of Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the
+long furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am
+invincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me
+in the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me--save as
+he takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is
+renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.
+
+Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My
+friend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have
+lost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm
+planted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,
+comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great
+humilities--of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to
+some dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to
+the fullness of life--of letting life flow through us. To be used!--that
+is the sublimest thing we know.
+
+It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold
+upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or
+rather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they
+come at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their
+own feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,
+and the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.
+
+I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.
+It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name
+we know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,
+I seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so
+obscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and
+saves us all?
+
+In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am
+ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided
+long ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to
+you, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant
+necessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have
+sometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in
+crowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at
+one with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make
+shoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers--if that completes and
+contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,
+a big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.
+
+For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw
+to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some
+draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not
+of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest
+tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never
+have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness
+and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live
+in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a
+question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we
+draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings
+about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we
+attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.
+
+Thus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes
+indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of
+this universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being
+desired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of
+contentment. Often and often I think to myself:
+
+These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;
+my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn
+comes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am
+indispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human
+heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book
+of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as
+though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced
+man. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of
+Judah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns
+the dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:
+
+"And (he) departed without being desired."
+
+Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a
+more terrible epitaph!
+
+And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness
+of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful
+nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,
+after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat
+down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
+countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
+wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
+upon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+THE STORY OF ANNA
+
+It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
+that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
+earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
+attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
+simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
+its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
+True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
+lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
+common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
+you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
+For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
+too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
+who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular
+evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up
+the road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to
+sit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the
+grateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me
+from garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the
+day and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes
+only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember
+the thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,
+that in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the
+fever of unhappiness or discontent.
+
+And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that
+something was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there
+was agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through
+the garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath
+he did not speak at once. So I said:
+
+"It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate."
+
+"David," he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,
+"it is bad enough."
+
+He laid his hand on my arm.
+
+"Can you hitch up your horse and come with me--right away?"
+
+McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,
+certainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.
+
+"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
+three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher.
+
+Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
+unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.
+
+"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
+girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''
+
+"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a woman now."
+
+He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:
+
+"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
+child. David, she has a child of her own,''
+
+"But I didn't know--she isn't--"
+
+"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
+in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
+whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.
+
+"They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "especially her
+older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
+her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
+her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river."
+
+I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
+thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.
+
+"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
+was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
+driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
+Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not
+defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory."
+
+He remained silent again for a long time.
+
+"David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know half as much
+about human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
+careful in our judgments."
+
+He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
+It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
+sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
+community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
+and that therefore he must be kind.
+
+As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
+reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.
+
+"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river," McAlway
+said in a low voice.
+
+It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were
+strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my
+breath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the
+calm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a
+rumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,
+were of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never
+experienced such a degree of silence--of breathless, oppressive silence.
+It seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess
+of sound.
+
+Suddenly we heard a voice--in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,
+every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized
+out of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.
+
+"Oh!--McAlway," a voice said.
+
+Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.
+
+"Have you seen Anna Williams?"
+
+"She is at the house," answered the voice.
+
+"Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher.
+
+I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that
+silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top
+of the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a
+gate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.
+I remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the
+faint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but
+I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.
+Two looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide
+the form of the third.
+
+"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," one of them said.
+
+The other woman turned to us half complainingly:
+
+"She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't
+let go of the baby for a minute."
+
+"She don't cry," said the other, "but just sits there like a statue."
+
+McAlway stepped forward and said:
+
+"Well--Anna?"
+
+The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:
+a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,
+and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon
+with inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was
+childish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,
+that stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in
+it, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces
+of old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience--of
+boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head
+and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.
+
+The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well--Anna?" She looked up and replied:
+
+"They were going to take my baby away."
+
+"Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. "Well, we'll never
+permit _that_. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like
+to know?"
+
+Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled
+unheeded down her face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway," the man said, "I was coming across the bridge
+with the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all
+floating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying
+over and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I
+must. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't
+dare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the
+river. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come
+out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and
+her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though
+we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in
+the city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving
+homeward with the girl--while McAlway went over the hill to tell her
+family--the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, "What will
+Harriet say?" Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume
+its natural position.
+
+In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant
+preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience--but this, I knew,
+was different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or
+some other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me
+all at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.
+
+"It's a tremendous old world," I said to myself. "Why, anything may
+happen anywhere!"
+
+The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.
+
+"Are you cold?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir," she answered faintly.
+
+I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:
+
+"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?"
+
+"Yes, sir," very faintly.
+
+"With cream on it--rich yellow cream--and plenty of sugar?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the
+door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the
+kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms--as
+forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams."
+
+Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment
+that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some
+stranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,
+upon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become
+suddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or
+any other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming
+instantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals
+and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly
+but surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable
+sensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under
+such circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat
+on my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and
+started for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"David, _David_, DAVID," she said.
+
+It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)
+that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had
+gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in
+the country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of
+devastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do
+not walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to
+unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a
+way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!
+
+For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the
+Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden
+inspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl
+stood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry--and cold."
+
+Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and
+became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all
+weak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went
+straight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from
+places.
+
+I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
+loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
+and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
+clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
+with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
+poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
+actions are, how feeble his judgments.
+
+And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
+knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
+of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
+has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
+until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
+do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
+good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
+built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
+when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
+suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
+that was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and
+when the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true
+wisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask
+ourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the
+deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of
+the Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to
+discover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.
+
+I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go
+in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up
+to the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the
+door jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!
+
+The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There
+was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came
+down the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was
+transfigured.
+
+"David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep."
+
+So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,
+and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I
+held mine.
+
+"David," Harriet whispered, "did you see the baby?"
+
+"No," I whispered.
+
+"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life."
+
+When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a
+little room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used
+to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the
+endings of them. "What happened next?" I remember asking a hundred
+times; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my
+own mind.
+
+If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the
+story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to
+quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their
+immortality.
+
+"Did you see the baby?" Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:
+a BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to
+draw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple
+drama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to
+look to the "finest baby we ever saw in all our lives."
+
+I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and
+wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange
+or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked
+miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in
+crying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our
+home, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:
+though down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was
+something finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant--which kept its
+counsel regarding the past.
+
+It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify
+strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us
+glimpses as "bad" or "good"; we separate humanity into inevitable
+goathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be
+not bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,
+but Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.
+Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good
+people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if
+not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.
+We are exceedingly charitable persons--toward ourselves. And thus we let
+other people live!
+
+The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper
+road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for
+hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence
+behind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I
+drive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest
+worker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,
+probably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,
+and a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,
+blue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent
+breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a
+woman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me
+she began hastily to roll down her sleeves.
+
+"Why, Mr. Grayson!"
+
+"How's the boy, Anna?"
+
+And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight
+of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine--and the hollyhocks, and the
+dilapidated house--that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I
+here set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a
+common little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been
+interested.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+THE DRUNKARD
+
+It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
+her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I
+had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
+looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
+underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
+garment; and I went with her into a new world.
+
+I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
+have seen new things which are also true.
+
+My friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of
+the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
+could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
+days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
+a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
+nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
+still--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of
+his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
+farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
+chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
+grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
+passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
+the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
+distance.
+
+Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
+Harriet said:
+
+"There goes that drunkard."
+
+It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
+yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
+as _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
+my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
+passing.
+
+After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
+concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
+discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
+not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
+realities!
+
+And then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone
+in my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
+indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
+pretended to be hard at work.
+
+"After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room in it
+for many curious people."
+
+I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
+though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
+I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.
+
+"How are you, neighbour?" I asked.
+
+He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
+hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
+on up the road.
+
+My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
+street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
+recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
+imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
+neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
+had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.
+
+I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
+had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
+be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
+in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
+keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery
+better worth making?
+
+[Illustration: "HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING"]
+
+After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
+his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
+horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
+later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
+back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
+Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
+head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
+toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
+field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
+his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.
+
+One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
+some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
+held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
+first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
+forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
+slightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you went by."
+
+"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
+in hand almost all the time."
+
+"You usually drive."
+
+"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
+span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
+in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving."
+
+I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
+words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
+away. He told me that he was now "working with the experts"--those were
+his words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would
+astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
+and with fine courtesy shook my hand.
+
+"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man."
+
+So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
+again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
+unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!
+
+Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
+exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
+with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
+adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
+him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
+get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:
+
+"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
+post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
+me in the box since the carrier started?'"
+
+"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
+aside again.
+
+On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
+the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
+authority."
+
+"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."
+
+At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
+bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
+bee-man.
+
+"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
+was up half the night; but I feel all right now."
+
+The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
+exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
+"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
+wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
+wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
+hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
+but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
+for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
+friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
+his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.
+
+I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
+She said I was encouraging a vice.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
+about it."
+
+"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
+think?"
+
+But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
+wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
+preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
+came into my room.
+
+"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."
+
+"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.
+
+But she was not to be joked with.
+
+"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
+drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
+think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
+when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
+believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
+but when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems
+to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
+but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
+with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?"
+
+It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
+the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
+Our stories won't turn out.
+
+She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
+orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she said, "he seems to
+be a steady, hard worker."
+
+After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
+strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?
+
+And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
+faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
+when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
+softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
+roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
+was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
+knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
+me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
+beside him.
+
+"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked.
+
+He glanced up at the sky.
+
+"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.
+
+I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
+process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
+it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
+to talk of himself.
+
+"After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of myself. You
+don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
+and yet I know I shall do it again."
+
+"No," I said, "you will not do it again."
+
+"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
+Were you not free for a whole afternoon?"
+
+"Free?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
+have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
+wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
+which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
+how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I
+never take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
+though I were really doing them."
+
+"But you never do?"
+
+"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the
+wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
+friendly and neighbourly."
+
+He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
+life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
+beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
+friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
+home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
+had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
+that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
+his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
+said:
+
+"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
+They all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own
+limitations."
+
+"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly.
+
+We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
+thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
+intoxication:
+
+"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds."
+
+Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
+finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
+Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
+think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
+stimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy
+satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
+unity within. No man can be two men successfully.
+
+So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another
+under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
+his own experience:
+
+"What's done we partly may compute
+But know not what's resisted."
+
+I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
+warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
+bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
+something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
+Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
+realities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly
+separated.
+
+"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. We don't
+give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
+matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness
+is the failure of a man to control his thoughts."
+
+The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
+the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
+and I said:
+
+"I often get drunk myself."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes--dreadfully drunk."
+
+He looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
+you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
+you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!
+
+"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he said. "I've
+been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
+will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
+Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
+order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
+talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
+'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
+angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or
+rather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I
+see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing."
+
+"And you do sing," I said.
+
+"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me the most
+beautiful music in the world."
+
+"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much
+to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
+mind with other, stronger thoughts----"
+
+Before I could finish he had interrupted:
+
+"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
+bees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
+putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
+think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
+a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_
+of the liquor. And there you are!"
+
+We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
+each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
+again. I have been in hell for years----"
+
+"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will come up
+together."
+
+As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
+satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
+are to be found upon this miraculous earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
+am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
+with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
+the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
+have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----
+
+Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
+story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
+bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.
+
+He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
+came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
+shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
+turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
+
+"He also belongs here," I said.
+
+And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
+longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
+that something human, in passing, had touched me.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+AN OLD MAID
+
+One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
+these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
+farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
+with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
+save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
+farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
+above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
+rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
+important in a country community, of a sensitive social
+tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was
+amused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable
+curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,
+and since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has
+come to ours.
+
+She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in
+front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to
+say of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found
+that contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours
+than in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,
+a world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected
+and predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently
+stirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,
+often-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what
+other orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he
+looks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the
+humdrummery of this day?
+
+In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned
+flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white
+door with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the
+hall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which
+prepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,
+cleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will
+discover "Snow Bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a
+large embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt
+ladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path
+of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in
+faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake" the other "Fast Asleep." Not
+far away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious
+vase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of
+coral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three
+very large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and
+available place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for
+you and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.
+
+When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy
+curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of
+chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She
+has one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once
+she came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were
+thrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had
+brought us one of Evangeline's daughters.
+
+But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The
+sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the
+immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was
+permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness
+and order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy
+things, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this
+wonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once
+in her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently
+folded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear
+when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In
+such calm readiness she awaits her time.
+
+Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,
+which is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much
+as a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its
+contents; perhaps an old letter or two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon
+that is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can
+tell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,
+mysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an
+old-fashioned odour composed of many simples.
+
+On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a
+Bible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the
+portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table
+in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It
+has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is
+there a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She
+seeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she
+seizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.
+Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with
+courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she
+has a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch
+Preacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly
+believe that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.
+
+Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a
+certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I
+can say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not
+be in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of
+the outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for
+the cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white
+cloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the
+world enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you
+could see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when
+she comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her
+old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound
+as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!
+With what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in
+her ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek
+pride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his
+pulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to
+look turns with affection.
+
+Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another
+genius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple
+puddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there
+inheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has
+them steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.
+
+And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and
+the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We
+gravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush
+album, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by
+Harriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the
+MacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.
+
+"The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that--downright and
+outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out
+the truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute."
+
+"That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grandfather
+Macintosh----"
+
+By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to
+watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a
+Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which
+Harriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a
+Macintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not
+defeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with
+two _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a
+blue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting
+relatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete
+comfort of a good supper.
+
+If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by
+a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a
+mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which
+has two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
+in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
+takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
+delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
+patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
+dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
+occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.
+
+In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
+her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
+details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
+and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
+know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
+the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
+furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
+then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
+spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?
+
+Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
+precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
+out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
+things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
+the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
+this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
+her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
+inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
+friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
+people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
+and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
+not important, of course, after so many years----
+
+But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
+little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
+the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
+sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
+unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
+Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
+tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
+her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around
+Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to
+Harriet's question she said:
+
+"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble."
+
+That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of
+other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and
+yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who
+is not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our
+Old Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,
+helpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't
+know what we should do without her in this community.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+A ROADSIDE PROPHET
+
+From my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in
+the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a
+little wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of
+an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the
+road beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the
+world go by--part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up
+again. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be
+afoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that
+whatever he had to say I should like to hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the
+travellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet--so
+intent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they
+travel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,
+they would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have
+nothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to
+percentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what
+a wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a
+crop of contentment.
+
+But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on
+the knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though
+searching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just
+at that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers
+long since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my
+astonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one
+hand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,
+and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder
+narrowly.
+
+"This," I said to myself, "may be something for me."
+
+So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an
+Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and
+slumbering brown fields--the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little
+brook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot
+describe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old
+fields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man
+was kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,
+but so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good
+look at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his
+collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was
+of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further
+evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his
+trousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so
+intently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,
+making some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.
+Then I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his
+hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he
+had been painting on the boulder:
+
+GOD IS LOVE
+
+A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,
+with a deference that was almost timidity:
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, brother," I returned heartily.
+
+His face brightened perceptibly.
+
+"Don't stop on my account," I said; "finish off your work."
+
+He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his
+brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but
+he had the swift deftness of long practice.
+
+"How long," I inquired, "have you been at this sort of work?"
+
+"Ten years," he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. "Off and on
+for ten years. Winters I work at my trade--I am a journeyman
+painter--but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the
+road."
+
+He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the
+utmost seriousness:
+
+"I live by the Word."
+
+"By the Word?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, by the Word," and putting down his brushes he took from an inner
+pocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore
+at the top this sentence in large type:
+
+"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that
+breaketh the rock in pieces?"
+
+I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger
+than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a
+more curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was
+what he was.
+
+"Do you always paint the same sign?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feeling about what I should paint. When
+I came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all
+seemed so calm and nice"--he swept his arm in the direction of the
+fields--"that I says to myself, 'I will paint "God is Love."'"
+
+"An appropriate text," I said, "for this very spot."
+
+He seemed much gratified.
+
+"Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he exclaimed. "Sometimes near towns
+I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'
+I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to
+paint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----"
+
+He paused a moment, wiping his brushes.
+
+"When I was in Arizona," he was saying, "mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'
+It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt
+moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock."
+
+I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little
+he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have
+brought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in
+some places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra
+turpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that
+he is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in
+travelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers
+who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a
+musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they
+will find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.
+
+But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were
+talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he
+shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped
+up his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long
+experience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked
+critically at his work.
+
+"It's all right," I said; "a great many people coming this way in the
+next hundred years will see it."
+
+"That's what I want," he said eagerly; "that's what I want. Most people
+never hear the Word at all."
+
+He paused a moment and then continued:
+
+"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that
+the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift."
+
+"I've noticed it," I said.
+
+"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked.
+
+"Very strange," I said.
+
+"I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was that way myself
+for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
+jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
+take them--but I didn't do it."
+
+I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
+wrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like
+Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?
+
+"Do you do all this without payment?"
+
+He looked at me in an injured way.
+
+"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
+know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
+paying myself."
+
+By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm going your
+way, and I'll walk with you."
+
+So we set off together down the hill.
+
+"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in the
+world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
+about it."
+
+He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road--an
+easy, swinging, steady step--carrying his small black bag. So I
+gradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple
+and common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a
+rock.
+
+"You see, Mister," he said, "I was a wild sort when I was young. The
+drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what
+was right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops
+ringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't
+do what is right, it's because he _wants_ to do what is wrong. He thinks
+it's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and
+plenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,
+I was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see
+me. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.
+You are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.
+
+"I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be
+helped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't
+your fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their
+troubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for
+myself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.
+
+"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl."
+
+He paused for a long moment.
+
+"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of
+that little girl----" He paused again.
+
+"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to
+hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and
+everything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,
+that man. I'm telling you.
+
+"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in
+Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to
+buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look
+up on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,
+Mister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit
+me hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,
+says I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a
+chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So
+I stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain
+it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all
+around me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'"
+
+He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on
+either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy
+clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life
+crept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.
+
+"And I did try Him," my companion was saying, "and I found that the
+words on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been
+true ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health
+and my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and
+no writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a
+painter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and
+down the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent
+ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion--but I do know
+that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once
+a man has it he has everything else he wants."
+
+He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily
+ahead--a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet
+marked with a sort of high beauty.
+
+"The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister," he said, "is that
+they won't try God."
+
+I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to
+be said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings--how futile
+they seemed compared with this!
+
+Near the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,
+quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.
+
+"What do you think," said he, "I should paint here?"
+
+"Well," I said, "you know better than I do. What would _you_ paint?"
+
+He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little
+joke with himself.
+
+"When in doubt," he said, "I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of
+that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted--near
+towns--but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'"
+
+I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his
+knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to
+look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved
+mine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,
+long time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.
+
+At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,
+pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy
+countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,
+above the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own
+home--and the barn near it--and the cows feeding quietly in the
+pastures.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+THE GUNSMITH
+
+Harriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the
+"gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be
+expected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch
+Preacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I
+could see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get
+to it in his own way.
+
+"David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to
+Sweden."
+
+"At last!" I exclaimed.
+
+Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:
+
+"He _says_ he is going."
+
+Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't going."
+
+"No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided--yet."
+
+"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether Carlstrom is to
+go or not."
+
+But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.
+
+"David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the homesickness of
+the foreigner?"
+
+He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:
+
+"Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of
+heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared
+not whistle "Bonnie Doon" or "Charlie Is My Darling" lest it break her
+heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy."
+
+"We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said.
+
+"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing
+to see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and
+the street where you played, and the house----"
+
+He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it."
+
+"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," I said. "Is
+it homesickness, or just old age?"
+
+"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!" exclaimed the
+Scotch Preacher. "Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?"
+
+With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known
+him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years
+ago--and liked him well, too--but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that
+evening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and
+wonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the
+Scotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!
+It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.
+
+In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much
+excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call
+on Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.
+
+I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's
+gunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town
+for me. I went to it now with a new understanding.
+
+Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard
+the familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew
+that Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the
+hammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the
+anvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.
+
+Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may
+know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,
+pointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A
+stranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say
+to himself:
+
+"A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful
+community!"
+
+Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,
+nor _us_.
+
+I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar
+new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have
+stood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the
+shed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,
+kettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken
+water wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of
+diligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you
+may say--the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the
+yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset
+which at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring
+fences--all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.
+Where honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.
+
+I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open
+doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half
+of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements
+on the benches, the guns in the corners--how all of these things form
+the subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney
+above it.
+
+At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you
+will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil
+set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood
+controls the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant
+scene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the
+hickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the
+peculiar rhythmic swing of long experience--heaping up his fire with a
+little iron paddle held in the other hand--he hums to himself in a high
+curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment
+in consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames
+of the forge.
+
+As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom
+saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith
+with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as
+I looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he
+seemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,
+and his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.
+
+I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time
+Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind
+days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I
+had broken on one of my stony hills'.
+
+"Can you mend it?" I asked.
+
+If I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I
+saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how
+could I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?
+A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they
+are broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of
+Phaethon!
+
+A week later I came back to the shop.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said when he saw me.
+
+He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a
+moment with feigned seriousness.
+
+"So!" he said. "You have come for your job?"
+
+He softened the "j" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging
+inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.
+
+"So," he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of
+almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without
+a word. I looked them over carefully.
+
+"I can't see where you mended them," I said.
+
+You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to
+admire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my
+hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he
+explained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been
+found necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his
+forge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special
+tool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid
+him for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was
+this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult
+thing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our
+friendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in
+bringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!
+
+When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly
+pleased.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said.
+
+"What is this I hear," I said, "about your going back to Sweden?"
+
+"For forty years," he said, "I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an
+old man and I'm going home."
+
+"But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get along without you. Who's going
+to keep us mended up?"
+
+"You have Charles Baxter," he said, smiling.
+
+For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and
+Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.
+
+"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his
+life," I said. "You know that."
+
+The old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is
+the right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.
+
+"I have been here forty years," he said. "and all the time I have been
+homesick for Sweden."
+
+I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and
+talked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other
+friends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.
+After I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody
+had heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the
+secret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where
+I usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I
+went in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the
+harness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for
+one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that
+day as though his history stood out as something separate and new and
+impressive.
+
+When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not
+unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with
+faith in a free country. He was poor--as poor as a man could possibly
+be. For several years he worked on a farm--hard work, for which, owing to
+his frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money
+constantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a
+little shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he
+built his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun
+which stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his
+trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but
+he could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In
+all the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such
+work--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times
+for the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his
+hand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want
+to sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his
+shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the
+artist!
+
+What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up
+early in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as
+daylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,
+bending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
+humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
+curves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble--and what a lot of it he
+has had in his time!--he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the
+harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children
+and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them
+all welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,
+clang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,
+creak, creak, would go the hickory sweep--he was helping the world go
+round!
+
+All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife
+died, and then his children one after another until only one now
+remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to
+rent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his
+shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.
+He took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed
+his coat, and went to the town hall to vote.
+
+[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS
+SHOP"]
+
+In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the
+town where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every
+opportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and
+going to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a
+store, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up
+the land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
+nothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,
+clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.
+
+Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned
+and saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.
+Again and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then
+there would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and
+the money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.
+
+"Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we thought he'd given up the idea.
+His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would
+be disappointed."
+
+A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on
+the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon
+that anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself
+a real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole
+town; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has
+fashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which
+sees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,
+hoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the
+gunsmith.
+
+I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a
+community. The town is better for having stood often looking into the
+fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know
+how many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in
+Carlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher
+say, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little
+fault to find with the world.
+
+"Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like
+finding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any
+farther,'"
+
+Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.
+
+"It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pretends to
+know."
+
+The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
+It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
+yet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place
+among the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me
+are thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This
+stooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his
+field that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell
+what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown
+hat?)
+
+On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles
+Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another
+view of him.
+
+I think there is always something that surprises one in finding a
+familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the
+Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
+the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
+striking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black
+coat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from
+his broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an
+especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like
+some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.
+
+The old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best
+pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's
+hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native
+desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
+of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
+of houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep
+at least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"When I was a poor man," he said, "and carried boxes from Ketchell's
+store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.
+Now I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to
+wish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would
+like a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one."
+
+The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,
+began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when
+he realized what he was doing.
+
+During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:
+
+"David, we can't let the old man go."
+
+"No, sir," I said, "we can't."
+
+"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the
+old."
+
+I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other
+men of the company.
+
+When we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:
+
+"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this
+community? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?"
+
+The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said
+eagerly:
+
+"It ist America; it ist America."
+
+"No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You
+work, Carlstrom, and you save."
+
+Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;
+not so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and
+passing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward
+steadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch
+Preacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet
+positively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday
+afternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a
+broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
+don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
+this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
+the gunsmith humming louder than ever.
+
+"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" I asked.
+
+"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
+his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
+the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
+so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
+accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.
+
+"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, unable to
+conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!"
+
+To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
+It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
+Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
+it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.
+
+The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
+of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
+and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
+accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
+that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
+towns, and the people he knows the best people.
+
+Yes, it _is_ greatness.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE MOWING
+
+"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
+It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
+the earth."
+
+This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
+and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
+that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
+comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of
+hard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
+and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
+at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
+sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
+morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
+house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
+unobservant of the Sabbath day.
+
+I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself
+again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll
+with an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I
+can hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my
+neighbour Horace's young bay colts.
+
+When I first woke up this morning I said to myself:
+
+"Well, nothing happened yesterday."
+
+Then I lay quiet for some time--it being Sunday morning--and I turned
+over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in
+that one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:
+
+"Why, nearly everything happened yesterday."
+
+And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,
+the more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that
+June Saturday. I had walked among unusual events--and had not known the
+wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see--and ears, but I heard
+not. It may be, it _may_ be, that the Future Life of which we have had
+such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full
+understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full
+understanding this day, this moment even--here in this quiet room--would
+contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet--playing
+with things much too large for us--much too full of meaning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a
+full week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
+showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
+were shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath
+on the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of
+them had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of
+clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its
+flood.
+
+I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was
+delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring
+up from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the
+size of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the
+sun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of
+the past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting
+hay-maker.
+
+Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by
+one of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.
+My field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had
+concluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch
+it could all be done in one day.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover to-morrow."
+
+"That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd already arranged to have Ann
+Spencer in to help me."
+
+Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect
+June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The
+mists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the
+earth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing
+things. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.
+
+I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the
+field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of
+the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the
+glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the
+palm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too
+dry.
+
+"We shall have good cutting to-day," I said to myself.
+
+So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe
+across the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the
+crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and
+the rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to
+cover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life
+than we deserve!
+
+So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I
+opened wide.
+
+"Here," I said, "is where we will begin."
+
+So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the
+orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at
+the lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently
+on the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his
+shoulder and whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top of his capacity.
+
+Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and
+(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way
+of moving up and down when he talks--and one large tooth out in front.
+His body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as
+that of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the
+lodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really
+see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels
+twice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is
+marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this
+morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was
+fastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale
+blue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his
+trouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull
+world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls
+him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.
+
+"Hello, Dick," I shouted.
+
+"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied.
+
+He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned
+into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay
+cutting as long as I could--until the dew on the clover should begin--at
+least--to disappear.
+
+By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,
+stood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could
+hear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still
+morning air.
+
+"It's a great day for haying," I said.
+
+"A dang good one," responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel
+the edge of his scythe.
+
+I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of
+jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as
+of great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like
+that this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of
+youth. But it was more than that--far more. I cannot well express it,
+but it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into
+some vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe
+itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.
+
+I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first
+short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems
+into the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes
+and Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively
+"Here she goes!" came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had
+begun.
+
+At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,
+with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there
+is something incomparable about such work--the long steady pull of
+willing and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting
+thought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
+steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
+of him in my mind's eye--his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each
+step and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks
+above his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his
+tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or
+followed.
+
+At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a
+gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with
+cool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one
+hand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting
+the water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach
+this refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.
+
+And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in
+the broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our
+scythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would
+go at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a
+working companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each
+other with a curious sense of friendliness--that sense of friendliness
+which grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common
+weariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.
+
+"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday."
+
+"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of
+his did not materialize.
+
+"Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's drawin' water."
+
+"Something is undoubtedly drawing it," said I, wiping my dripping face.
+
+A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy
+old bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened
+rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.
+
+So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet
+we were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it
+was!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for
+another stroke.
+
+"Hungry, Dick?" I asked.
+
+"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration
+crowded into one word.
+
+So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with
+smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it
+rested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our
+friendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I
+cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
+fields.
+
+"After you," says Dick.
+
+I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
+moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
+pump spout.
+
+"Pump, Dick," said I.
+
+And Dick pumped.
+
+"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice.
+
+And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
+head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.
+
+"Gee, but that's good," says Dick.
+
+Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
+together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
+down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
+knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
+sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
+agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
+moments in life than this!
+
+So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
+screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:
+
+"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner."
+
+Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
+shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
+a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
+top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
+baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
+and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
+other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
+even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
+hospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the
+bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
+without a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous
+fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
+roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
+that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
+her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
+indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.
+
+So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
+hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
+buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the
+chicken.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would inquire in a tone of voice that
+made your mouth water.
+
+"More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask.
+
+"More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would respond--and thus we kept up a
+tenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.
+
+Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while
+we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one
+eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be
+trifled with--and far away to the North and East one could catch
+glimpses--if he had eyes for such things--of the wide-stretching
+pleasantness of our countryside.
+
+I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.
+Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who
+could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly
+at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself--in
+my ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!
+
+And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,
+juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over
+it. When It came in--and I am speaking of it in that personal way
+because it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember
+whether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in--when It came
+in, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift
+glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When
+Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he
+composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he
+wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire
+with his emotions, merely whistled--and then looked around evidently
+embarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that
+occasion.
+
+"Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human
+race."
+
+"Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, "and
+eat your shortcake."
+
+And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a
+few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up
+through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the
+blissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment--every muscle in
+the body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the
+mind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the
+hay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many
+moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest
+work.
+
+I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full
+current of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of
+the Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All
+day yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not
+working for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by
+fear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in
+the processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the
+indispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!
+
+Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man
+know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?
+
+I _lived_ yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard
+things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all
+roads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and
+looked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.
+
+At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work
+again--rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely
+be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly
+heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound
+in the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the
+birds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!
+
+"It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively.
+
+How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared
+with the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance
+passed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in
+the forenoon. But we said less--if that were possible--and made every
+ounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the
+events of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how
+we went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,
+as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the
+house. The day's work was done.
+
+Dick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but
+now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up "My Fairy Fay" with some
+marks of his earlier enthusiasm.
+
+"Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good day's work together."
+
+"You bet," said Dick.
+
+And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly
+feeling of companionship. We had done great things together.
+
+I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not
+exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did
+last night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there
+always--without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without
+thinking even!
+
+Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse--it is supremely
+pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still
+night had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all
+the familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the
+distant thicket. Harriet came out quietly--I could see the white of her
+gown--and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a
+cowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the
+perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I
+don't know that I said it aloud--such things need not be said aloud--but
+as I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my
+whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, thank God!"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AN OLD MAN
+
+Today I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot
+get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so
+plainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think
+of calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a
+doctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now
+of calling him "Squire Summers," though he bore that name with no small
+credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or
+grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have
+been stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.
+
+How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed
+himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now
+several years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his
+broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his
+thin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his
+quietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and
+friend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again
+impressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down
+the long drive to the main road with all the friends of our
+neighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
+and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.
+Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious
+of the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the
+wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool
+leaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem
+to me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to
+his own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the
+immeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life--the trivial
+necessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.
+
+I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said
+that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in
+his presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:
+
+"I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept
+life."
+
+Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on
+the country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly
+nods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say
+that has not already been said?
+
+His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,
+his hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is
+tranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and
+keen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,
+and threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is
+tranquil.
+
+I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we
+are upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and
+sympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty
+to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have
+nearly all gone--mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his
+home--I have been there often to see his son--he sits in a large rocking
+chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No
+one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is
+not far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane
+against the wall where he can easily reach it again.
+
+There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered
+incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy
+and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does
+not take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,
+he refuses everything, accepts nothing.
+
+He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind
+it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he
+can look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet
+fields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came
+in wearied to sleep.
+
+Now he lives in a small room--and that is more than is really
+necessary--and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land
+where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience
+the logic of events.
+
+Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been
+wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited
+comings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I
+have wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall
+ever reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go
+by without taking toll of it!
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+THE CELEBRITY
+
+Not for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and
+when all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.
+Since this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to
+live in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central
+place in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may
+happen here!
+
+We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the
+Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have
+clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and
+spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I
+should not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so
+livable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.
+
+Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:
+
+_They cannot survive without common people like you and me_.
+
+It follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will
+pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very
+comfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually
+from time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the
+town road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner
+or later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the
+philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,
+indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
+that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
+more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
+of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
+farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
+well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
+regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
+sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
+tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
+for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
+puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!
+
+This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
+with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
+one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
+the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
+driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
+plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
+livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
+these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
+way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
+a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
+some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
+Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.
+
+"Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think the
+Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here."
+
+"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
+disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
+that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
+rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
+particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
+importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
+Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
+subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.
+
+As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
+moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
+coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
+my dominion--my favourite daily newspaper--in my hand. Let all kings,
+queens, and other potentates approach!
+
+And besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur
+Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I
+am nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at
+the School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my
+opinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I
+take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news
+of both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask
+Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.
+The Republican county paper said of the meeting:
+
+"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a
+reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and
+sympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday
+evening."
+
+Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same
+historic events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:
+
+"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out
+mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at
+the School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening."
+
+And here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the
+Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my
+gate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to
+take the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my
+hitching-post.
+
+I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a
+veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not
+have it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I
+confess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in
+reality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new
+person coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the
+celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,
+but if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them--without
+the colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent
+many a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what
+wistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not
+been wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
+Travelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly
+bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking
+off his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't you come up?"
+
+He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and
+altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly
+condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small
+honour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with
+me. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient
+deference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he
+had all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last
+shading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,
+a dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and
+yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in
+approaching a free farmer--like me--sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves
+on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect
+thing to see!
+
+He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a
+questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that
+(concretely) I was opposing him for reelection. And it was as plain as a
+pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
+do it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage
+of his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the
+presumptuous uprising against his authority.
+
+I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more
+enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open
+field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood
+facing the panoplied authority of the King's man.
+
+And what a place and time it was for a combat--in the quietude of the
+summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and
+sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the
+porch--and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old
+fences--and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant
+hill toward the town.
+
+After explaining who he was--I told him I had recognized him on
+sight--we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another
+with harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He
+advanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware
+that there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines
+and the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance
+in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest
+guns.
+
+But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the
+battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It
+wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.
+
+"It's a warm day," observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of
+his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.
+
+"I never saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let him feel a
+little of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.
+
+There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn
+of a phrase. I can be your servant with a "Yes sir," or your master with
+a "No sir."
+
+Thus we warm up to one another--a little at a time--we mass our forces,
+each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my
+opponent--with some joy--trotting up his reserves, having found the
+opposition stronger than he at first supposed.
+
+"I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be
+disarming, "that you are opposing my reelection."
+
+Boom! the cannon's opening roar!
+
+"Well," I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness
+of my thrust, "I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.
+Gaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done."
+
+Boom! the fight is on!
+
+"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?"
+
+It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful
+follower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the
+Institution which he represented.
+
+"I have voted the Republican ticket," I said, "but I confess that
+recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
+Democrats--and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether there is any real
+Republican party left to vote with."
+
+I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that
+the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to
+chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.
+
+This much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the
+battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and
+me; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;
+between the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending
+conflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of
+civilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning
+to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the
+pendulum inclines toward democracy.
+
+And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only
+servants, and would be masters. "The unending audacity of elected
+persons!" And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough
+to prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!
+
+Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.
+Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and
+listened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen
+words into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the
+cows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.
+
+Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his
+appeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the
+railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably
+Mentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved
+his chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first
+time I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real
+fight he had in him.
+
+[Illustration: "HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE"]
+
+"You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down there at
+Washington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when
+you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
+have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
+you do to your views."
+
+Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
+was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
+and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.
+
+"Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am more than ever
+convinced that farming is good enough for me."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
+closer.
+
+"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you are looking
+for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."
+
+"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
+the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
+Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century."
+
+He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:
+
+"And any quantity of Caldwells!"
+
+That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
+political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
+away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
+beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
+He was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of
+determination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had
+a human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,
+and while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt--what I had
+not felt before in regard to him--that he was sincerely anxious to serve
+the best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was
+a man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.
+
+Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached
+a common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.
+
+"You won't mind," I said, "if I give you my view--my common country view
+of the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't
+think my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the
+trusts or the railroad question--in detail. We get general
+impressions--and stick to them like grim death--for we know somehow that
+we are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what
+we get----"
+
+"And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel," nodded Mr.
+Caldwell.
+
+"And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter," I added--"all
+that, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work
+of ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that."
+
+"I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell.
+
+"And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New
+York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff
+laws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they
+earn--a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will
+prevent all that."
+
+"Now, I believe that, too," said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.
+
+"Then we belong to the same party," I said. "I don't know what the name
+of it is yet, but we both belong to it."
+
+Mr. Caldwell laughed.
+
+"And I'll appoint you," I said, "my agent in Washington to work out the
+changes in the laws."
+
+"Well, I'll accept the appointment," said Mr. Caldwell--continuing very
+earnestly, "if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me
+all at once."
+
+With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and
+laughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.
+
+"And now," said I, rising quickly, "let's go and get a drink of
+buttermilk."
+
+So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the
+oak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the
+whitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened
+the door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt
+the good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the
+cool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and
+talked and laughed.
+
+I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to
+me:
+
+"I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I
+understood my job better for it."
+
+"Let's organize a new party," I said, "let's begin with two members, you
+and I, and have only one plank in the platform."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank," he said.
+
+"Not at all," I responded.
+
+"What would you have it?"
+
+"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like this: We
+believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking
+from the common store any more than he actually earns."
+
+Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms.
+
+"Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an outrageous idealist."
+
+"Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of these days that I'm a
+practical politician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote."
+
+"Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what he came for."
+
+"It's an interesting world, Harriet," I said.
+
+"It is, indeed," said Harriet.
+
+As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the
+town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open
+curtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch
+hat set firmly on his big head.
+
+"We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, "on dogmas and doctrines and
+platforms--but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what
+hope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet."
+
+"And women." said Harriet.
+
+"And women, of course," said I.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+ON FRIENDSHIP
+
+I come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out--I
+hope not for long--I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as
+we continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to
+the top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate
+at the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself
+hate to go!--And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long
+enough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I
+am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.
+
+Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly
+difficult question--difficult because so direct and simple.
+
+"What is friendship, anyway?" queried this philosophical correspondent.
+
+The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite
+new. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have
+scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of
+friendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to
+thinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far
+away rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his
+tail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I
+would or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our
+neighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our
+much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his
+boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how
+she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on
+the same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the
+next furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of
+John Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And
+it was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,
+connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
+human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific
+earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,
+remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that
+characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to
+hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open
+(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,
+to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness
+while my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the
+weather: "Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!") and finally sits down beside me,
+not too far away.
+
+The truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any
+theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
+things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
+come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
+adequate language.
+
+Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
+shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
+unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
+in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
+is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
+work in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
+or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
+have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
+near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!
+
+It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
+friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
+nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
+to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
+friendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to
+the same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer
+together but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of
+friendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no
+business is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be
+silent with a friend. "I do not need to ask the wounded person how he
+feels," says the poet, "I myself became the wounded person."
+
+Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a
+veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I
+make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man
+with a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct
+that he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those
+personal things which with all of us are so far more real than any
+outward interest. "Good-morning, friend," I have heard him say to a
+total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together
+and were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary
+gift.
+
+As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which
+causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of
+what he has--because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as
+good as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I
+give (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only
+spurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the
+Indies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word
+across my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!
+
+Especially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how
+eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon
+the road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely
+at evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to
+convey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman
+going by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and
+her oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling
+his little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded
+hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails--how they are all
+marked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human
+experience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and
+watched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how
+often I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me--and
+we have fenced and parried with fine bold words.
+
+If you should ever come by my farm--you, whoever you are--take care lest
+I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted
+Isle where I make my rendezvous.
+
+It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for
+friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a
+single friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon
+worthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is
+miraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a
+friend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,
+behold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there
+room for two more!
+
+In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical
+Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he
+says he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all
+the swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with
+the discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold
+them!
+
+So let it be with our friendships!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP ***
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:34:46 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:34:46 -0700
commit	b92d5038075210f0385a8b1cfb10b13698508c21 (patch)
tree	0283f0b473785f7c59f0a765a1e751f46308c0b9