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diff --git a/old/frnrd10.txt b/old/frnrd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..544b56a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/frnrd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7363 @@ +The Project Gutenberg etext of The Friendly Road; New Adventures in +Contentment by David Grayson (pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker) + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + + + +THE FRIENDLY ROAD +New Adventures in Contentment + +DAVID GRAYSON (pseud of Ray Stannard Baker) +Author of +"Adventure in Contentment," +"Adventures in Friendship" + +Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty + + +"Surely it is good to be alive at a time like this." + +THE FRIENDLY ROAD + + +Copyright, 1913, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + +A WORD TO HIM WHO OPENS THIS BOOK + +I did not plan when I began writing these chapters to make an +entire book, but only to put down the more or less unusual +impressions, the events and adventures, of certain quiet +pilgrimages in country roads. But when I had written down all of +these things, I found I had material in plenty. + +"What shall I call it now that I have written it?" I asked +myself. + +At first I thought I should call it "Adventures on the Road," or +"The Country Road," or something equally simple, for I would not +have the title arouse any appetite which the book itself could +not satisfy. One pleasant evening I was sitting on my porch with +my dog sleeping near me, and Harriet not far away rocking and +sewing, and as I looked out across the quiet fields I could see +in the distance a curving bit of the town road. I could see the +valley below it and the green hill beyond, and my mind went out +swiftly along the country road which I had so recently travelled +on foot, and I thought with deep satisfaction of all the people I +had met on my pilgrimages--the Country Minister with his +problems, the buoyant Stanleys, Bill Hahn the Socialist, the +Vedders in their garden, the Brush Peddler. I thought of the +Wonderful City, and of how for a time I had been caught up into +its life. I thought of the men I met at the livery stable, +especially Healy, the wit, and of that strange Girl of the +Street. And it was good to think of them all living around me, +not so very far away, connected with me through darkness and +space by a certain mysterious human cord. Most of all I love that +which I cannot see beyond the hill. + +"Harriet," I said aloud, "it grows more wonderful every year how +full the world is of friendly people!" + +So I got up quickly and came in here to my room, and taking a +fresh sheet of paper I wrote down the title of my new book: + +"The Friendly Road." + +I invite you to travel with me upon this friendly road. You may +find, as I did, something which will cause you for a time, to +forget yourself into contentment. But if you chance to be a truly +serious person, put down my book. Let nothing stay your hurried +steps, nor keep you from your way. + +As for those of us who remain, we will loiter as much as ever we +please. We'll take toll of these spring days, we'll stop wherever +evening overtakes us, we'll eat the food of hospitality--and make +friends for life! + +DAVID GRAYSON. + + + +CONTENTS + +Preface + +I. I Leave My Farm + +II. I Whistle + +III. The House by the Side of the Road + +IV. I Am the Spectator of a Mighty Battle, in which Christian +Meets Apollyon + +V. I Play the Part of a Spectacle Peddler + +VI. An Experiment in Human Nature + +VII. The Undiscovered Country + +VIII. The Hedge + +IX. The Man Possessed + +X. I Am Caught Up Into Life + +XI. I Come to Grapple with the City + +XII. The Return + + + + +CHAPTER I. I LEAVE MY FARM + +"Is it so small a thing +To have enjoyed the sun, +To have lived light in spring?" + +It is eight o'clock of a sunny spring morning. I have been on the +road for almost three hours. At five I left the town of Holt, +before six I had crossed the railroad at a place called Martin's +Landing, and an hour ago, at seven, I could see in the distance +the spires of Nortontown. And all the morning as I came tramping +along the fine country roads with my pack-strap resting warmly on +my shoulder, and a song in my throat--just nameless words to a +nameless tune--and all the birds singing, and all the brooks +bright under their little bridges, I knew that I must soon step +aside and put down, if I could, some faint impression of the +feeling of this time and place. I cannot hope to convey any +adequate sense of it all--of the feeling of lightness, strength, +clearness, I have as I sit here under this maple tree--but I am +going to write as long as ever I am happy at it, and when I am no +longer happy at it, why, here at my very hand lies the pleasant +country road, stretching away toward newer hills and richer +scenes. + +Until to-day I have not really been quite clear in my own mind as +to the step I have taken. My sober friend, have you ever tried to +do anything that the world at large considers not quite sensible, +not quite sane? Try it! It is easier to commit a thundering +crime. A friend of mine delights in walking to town bareheaded, +and I fully believe the neighbourhood is more disquieted thereby +than it would be if my friend came home drunken or failed to pay +his debts. + +Here I am then, a farmer, forty miles from home in planting time, +taking his ease under a maple tree and writing in a little book +held on his knee! Is not that the height of absurdity? Of all my +friends the Scotch Preacher was the only one who seemed to +understand why it was that I must go away for a time. Oh, I am a +sinful and revolutionary person! + +When I left home last week, if you could have had a truthful +picture of me--for is there not a photography so delicate that it +will catch the dim thought-shapes which attend upon our +lives?--if you could have had such a truthful picture of me, you +would have seen, besides a farmer named Grayson with a gray bag +hanging from his shoulder, a strange company following close upon +his steps. Among this crew you would have made out easily: + +Two fine cows. +Four Berkshire pigs. +One team of gray horses, the old mare a little lame in her right +foreleg. +About fifty hens, four cockerels, and a number of ducks and +geese. + +More than this--I shall offer no explanation in these writings of +any miracles that may appear--you would have seen an entirely +respectable old farmhouse bumping and hobbling along as best it +might in the rear. And in the doorway, Harriet Grayson, in her +immaculate white apron, with the veritable look in her eyes which +she wears when I am not comporting myself with quite the proper +decorum. + +Oh, they would not let me go! How they all followed clamoring +after me. My thoughts coursed backward faster than ever I could +run away. If you could have heard that motley crew of the +barnyard as I did-- the hens all cackling, the ducks quacking, +the pigs grunting, and the old mare neighing and stamping, you +would have thought it a miracle that I escaped at all. + +So often we think in a superior and lordly manner of our +possessions, when, as a matter of fact, we do not really possess +them, they possess us. For ten years I have been the humble +servant, attending upon the commonest daily needs of sundry hens, +ducks, geese, pigs, bees, and of a fussy and exacting old gray +mare. And the habit of servitude, I find, has worn deep scars +upon me. I am almost like the life prisoner who finds the door +of his cell suddenly open, and fears to escape. Why, I had almost +become ALL farmer. + +On the first morning after I left home I awoke as usual about +five o'clock with the irresistible feeling that I must do the +milking. So well disciplined had I become in my servitude that I +instinctively thrust my leg out of bed--but pulled it quickly +back in again, turned over, drew a long, luxurious breath, and +said to myself: + +"Avaunt cows! Get thee behind me, swine! Shoo, hens!" + +Instantly the clatter of mastery to which I had responded so +quickly for so many years grew perceptibly fainter, the hens +cackled less domineeringly, the pigs squealed less insistently, +and as for the strutting cockerel, that lordly and despotic bird +stopped fairly in the middle of a crow, and his voice gurgled +away in a spasm of astonishment. As for the old farmhouse, it +grew so dim I could scarcely see it at all! Having thus published +abroad my Declaration of Independence, nailed my defiance to the +door, and otherwise established myself as a free person, I turned +over in my bed and took another delicious nap. + +Do you know, friend, we can be free of many things that dominate +our lives by merely crying out a rebellious "Avaunt!" + +But in spite of this bold beginning, I assure you it required +several days to break the habit of cows and hens. The second +morning I awakened again at five o'clock, but my leg did not make +for the side of the bed; the third morning I was only partially +awakened, and on the fourth morning I slept like a millionaire +(or at least I slept as a millionaire is supposed to sleep!) +until the clock struck seven. + +For some days after I left home--and I walked out as casually +that morning as though I were going to the barn--I scarcely +thought or tried to think of anything but the Road. Such an +unrestrained sense of liberty, such an exaltation of freedom, I +have not known since I was a lad. When I came to my farm from the +city many years ago it was as one bound, as one who had lost out +in the World's battle and was seeking to get hold again somewhere +upon the realities of life. I have related elsewhere how I thus +came creeping like one sore wounded from the field of battle, and +how, among our hills, in the hard, steady labour in the soil of +the fields, with new and simple friends around me, I found a sort +of rebirth or resurrection. I that was worn out, bankrupt both +physically and morally, learned to live again. I have achieved +something of high happiness in these years, something I know of +pure contentment; and I have learned two or three deep and simple +things about life: I have learned that happiness is not to be had +for the seeking, but comes quietly to him who pauses at his +difficult task and looks upward. I have learned that friendship +is very simple, and, more than all else, I have learned the +lesson of being quiet, of looking out across the meadows and +hills, and of trusting a little in God. + +And now, for the moment, I am regaining another of the joys of +youth--that of the sense of perfect freedom. I made no plans when +I left home, I scarcely chose the direction in which I was to +travel, but drifted out, as a boy might, into the great busy +world. Oh, I have dreamed of that! It seems almost as though, +after ten years, I might again really touch the highest joys of +adventure! + +So I took the Road as it came, as a man takes a woman, for better +or worse--I took the Road, and the farms along it, and the sleepy +little villages, and the streams from the hillsides--all with +high enjoyment. They were good coin in my purse! And when I had +passed the narrow horizon of my acquaintanceship, and reached +country new to me, it seemed as though every sense I had began to +awaken. I must have grown dull, unconsciously, in the last years +there on my farm. I cannot describe the eagerness of discovery I +felt at climbing each new hill, nor the long breath I took at the +top of it as I surveyed new stretches of pleasant countryside. + +Assuredly this is one of the royal moments of all the year--fine, +cool, sparkling spring weather. I think I never saw the meadows +richer and greener--and the lilacs are still blooming, and the +catbirds and orioles are here. The oaks are not yet in full leaf, +but the maples have nearly reached their full mantle of +verdure--they are very beautiful and charming to see. + +It is curious how at this moment of the year all the world seems +astir. I suppose there is no moment in any of the seasons when +the whole army of agriculture, regulars and reserves, is so fully +drafted for service in the fields. And all the doors and windows, +both in the little villages and on the farms, stand wide open to +the sunshine, and all the women and girls are busy in the yards +and gardens. Such a fine, active, gossipy, adventurous world as +it is at this moment of the year! + +It is the time, too, when all sorts of travelling people are +afoot. People who have been mewed up in the cities for the winter +now take to the open road--all the peddlers and agents and +umbrella-menders, all the nursery salesmen and fertilizer agents, +all the tramps and scientists and poets--all abroad in the wide +sunny roads. They, too, know well this hospitable moment of the +spring; they, too, know that doors and hearts are open and that +even into dull lives creeps a bit of the spirit of adventure. +Why, a farmer will buy a corn planter, feed a tramp, or listen to +a poet twice as easily at this time of year as at any other! + +For several days I found myself so fully occupied with the +bustling life of the Road that I scarcely spoke to a living soul, +but strode straight ahead. The spring has been late and cold: +most of the corn and some of the potatoes are not yet in, and the +tobacco lands are still bare and brown. Occasionally I stopped to +watch some ploughman in the fields: I saw with a curious, deep +satisfaction how the moist furrows, freshly turned, glistened in +the warm sunshine. There seemed to be something right and fit +about it, as well as human and beautiful. Or at evening I would +stop to watch a ploughman driving homeward across his new brown +fields, raising a cloud of fine dust from the fast drying furrow +crests. The low sun shining through the dust and glorifying it, +the weary-stepping horses, the man all sombre-coloured like the +earth itself and knit into the scene as though a part of it, made +a picture exquisitely fine to see. + +And what a joy I had also of the lilacs blooming in many a +dooryard, the odour often trailing after me for a long distance +in the road, and of the pungent scent at evening in the cool +hollows of burning brush heaps and the smell of barnyards as I +went by--not unpleasant, not offensive--and above all, the deep, +earthy, moist odour of new-ploughed fields. + +And then, at evening, to hear the sound of voices from the +dooryards as I pass quite unseen; no words, but just pleasant, +quiet intonations of human voices, borne through the still air, +or the low sounds of cattle in the barnyards, quieting down for +the night, and often, if near a village, the distant, slumbrous +sound of a church bell, or even the rumble of a train--how good +all these sounds are! They have all come to me again this week +with renewed freshness and impressiveness. I am living deep +again! + +It was not, indeed, until last Wednesday that I began to get my +fill, temporarily, of the outward satisfaction of the Road--the +primeval takings of the senses--the mere joys of seeing, hearing, +smelling, touching. But on that day I began to wake up; I began +to have a desire to know something of all the strange and +interesting people who are working in their fields, or standing +invitingly in their doorways, or so busily afoot in the country +roads. Let me add, also, for this is one of the most important +parts of my present experience, that this new desire was far from +being wholly esoteric. I had also begun to have cravings which +would not in the least be satisfied by landscapes or dulled by +the sights and sounds of the road. A whiff here and there from a +doorway at mealtime had made me long for my own home, for the +sight of Harriet calling from the steps: + +"Dinner, David." + +But I had covenanted with myself long before starting that I +would literally "live light in spring." It was the one and +primary condition I made with myself--and made with serious +purpose--and when I came away I had only enough money in my +pocket and sandwiches in my pack to see me through the first +three or four days. Any man may brutally pay his way anywhere, +but it is quite another thing to be accepted by your humankind +not as a paid lodger but as a friend. Always, it seems to me, I +have wanted to submit myself, and indeed submit the stranger, to +that test. Moreover, how can any man look for true adventure in +life if he always knows to a certainty where his next meal is +coming from? In a world so completely dominated by goods, by +things, by possessions, and smothered by security, what fine +adventure is left to a man of spirit save the adventure of +poverty? + +I do not mean by this the adventure of involuntary poverty, for I +maintain that involuntary poverty, like involuntary riches, is a +credit to no man. It is only as we dominate life that we really +live. What I mean here, if I may so express it, is an adventure +in achieved poverty. In the lives of such true men as Francis of +Assisi and Tolstoi, that which draws the world to them in secret +sympathy is not that they lived lives of poverty, but rather, +having riches at their hands, or for the very asking, that they +chose poverty as the better way of life. + +As for me, I do not in the least pretend to have accepted the +final logic of an achieved poverty. I have merely abolished +temporarily from my life a few hens and cows, a comfortable old +farmhouse, and--certain other emoluments and hereditaments--but +remain the slave of sundry cloth upon my back and sundry articles +in my gray bag--including a fat pocket volume or so, and a tin +whistle. Let them pass now. To-morrow I may wish to attempt life +with still less. I might survive without my battered copy of +"Montaigne" or even submit to existence without that sense of +distant companionship symbolized by a postage-stamp, and as for +trousers-- + +In this deceptive world, how difficult of attainment is perfection! + +No, I expect I shall continue for a long time to owe the worm his +silk, the beast his hide, the sheep his wool, and the cat his +perfume! What I am seeking is something as simple and as quiet as +the trees or the hills --just to look out around me at the +pleasant countryside, to enjoy a little of this show, to meet +(and to help a little if I may) a few human beings, and thus to +get nearly into the sweet kernel of human life). My friend, you +may or may not think this a worthy object; if you do not, stop +here, go no further with me; but if you do, why, we'll exchange +great words on the road; we'll look up at the sky together, we'll +see and hear the finest things in this world! We'll enjoy the +sun! We'll live light in spring! + +Until last Tuesday, then, I was carried easily and comfortably +onward by the corn, the eggs, and the honey of my past labours, +and before Wednesday noon I began to experience in certain vital +centres recognizable symptoms of a variety of discomfort +anciently familiar to man. And it was all the sharper because I +did not know how or where I could assuage it. In all my life, in +spite of various ups and downs in a fat world, I don't think I +was ever before genuinely hungry. Oh, I've been hungry in a +reasonable, civilized way, but I have always known where in an +hour or so I could get all I wanted to eat--a condition +accountable, in this world, I am convinced, for no end of +stupidity. But to be both physically and, let us say, +psychologically hungry, and not to know where or how to get +anything to eat, adds something to the zest of life. + +By noon on Wednesday, then, I was reduced quite to a point of +necessity. But where was I to begin, and how? I know from long +experience the suspicion with which the ordinary farmer meets the +Man of the Road --the man who appears to wish to enjoy the fruits +of the earth without working for them with his hands. It is a +distrust deep-seated and ages old. Nor can the Man of the Road +ever quite understand the Man of the Fields. And here was I, for +so long the stationary Man of the Fields, essaying the role of +the Man of the Road. I experienced a sudden sense of the +enlivenment of the faculties: I must now depend upon wit or +cunning or human nature to win my way, not upon mere skill of the +hand or strength in the bent back. Whereas in my former life, +when I was assailed by a Man of the Road, whether tramp or +peddler or poet, I had only to stand stock-still within my fences +and say nothing--though indeed I never could do that, being far +too much interested in every one who came my way--and the invader +was soon repelled. There is nothing so resistant as the dull +security of possession the stolidity of ownership! + +Many times that day I stopped by a field side or at the end of a +lane, or at a house-gate, and considered the possibilities of +making an attack. Oh, I measured the houses and barns I saw with +a new eye! The kind of country I had known so long and familiarly +became a new and foreign land, full of strange possibilities. I +spied out the men in the fields and did not fail, also, to see +what I could of the commissary department of each farmstead as I +passed. I walked for miles looking thus for a favourable +opening--and with a sensation of embarrassment at once +disagreeable and pleasurable. As the afternoon began to deepen I +saw that I must absolutely do something: a whole day tramping in +the open air without a bite to eat is an irresistible argument. + +Presently I saw from the road a farmer and his son planting +potatoes in a sloping field. There was no house at all in view. +At the bars stood a light wagon half filled with bags of seed +potatoes, and the horse which had drawn it stood quietly, not far +off, tied to the fence. The man and the boy, each with a basket +on his arm, were at the farther end of the field, dropping +potatoes. I stood quietly watching them. They stepped quickly and +kept their eyes on the furrows: good workers. I liked the looks +of them. I liked also the straight, clean furrows; I liked the +appearance of the horse. + +"I will stop here," I said to myself. + +I cannot at all convey the sense of high adventure I had as I +stood there. Though I had not the slightest idea of what I should +do or say, yet I was determined upon the attack. + +Neither father nor son saw me until they had nearly reached the +end of the field. + +"Step lively, Ben," I heard the man say with some impatience; +"we've got to finish this field to-day." + +"I AM steppin' lively, dad," responded the boy, "but it's awful +hot. We can't possibly finish to-day. It's too much." + +"We've got to get through here to-day," the man replied grimly; +"we're already two weeks late." + +I know just how the man felt; for I knew well the difficulty a +farmer has in getting help in planting time. The spring waits +for no man. My heart went out to the man and boy struggling there +in the heat of their field. For this is the real warfare of the +common life. + +"Why," I said to myself with a curious lift of the heart, "they +have need of a fellow just like me." + +At that moment the boy saw me and, missing a step in the rhythm +of the planting, the father also looked up and saw me. But +neither said a word until the furrows were finished, and the +planters came to refill their baskets. + +"Fine afternoon," I said, sparring for an opening. + +"Fine," responded the man rather shortly, glancing up from his +work. I recalled the scores of times I had been exactly in his +place, and had glanced up to see the stranger in the road. + +"Got another basket handy?" I asked. + +"There is one somewhere around here," he answered not too +cordially. The boy said nothing at all, but eyed me with +absorbing interest. The gloomy look had already gone from his +face. + +I slipped my gray bag from my shoulder, took off my coat, and put +them both down inside the fence. Then I found the basket and +began to fill it from one of the bags. Both man and boy looked up +at me questioningly. I enjoyed the situation immensely. + +"I heard you say to your son," I said, "that you'd have to hurry +in order to get in your potatoes to-day. I can see that for +myself. Let me take a hand for a row or two." + +The unmistakable shrewd look of the bargainer came suddenly into +the man's face, but when I went about my business without +hesitation or questioning, he said nothing at all. As for the +boy, the change in his countenance was marvellous to see. +Something new and astonishing had come into the world. Oh, I +know what a thing it is to be a boy and to work in trouting time! + +"How near are you planting, Ben?" I asked. + +"About fourteen inches." + +So we began in fine spirits. I was delighted with the favourable +beginning of my enterprise; there is nothing which so draws men +together as their employment at a common task. + +Ben was a lad some fifteen years old-very stout and stocky, with +a fine open countenance and a frank blue eye--all boy. His nose +was as freckled as the belly of a trout. The whole situation, +including the prospect of help in finishing a tiresome job, +pleased him hugely. He stole a glimpse from time to time at me +then at his father. Finally he said: + +"Say, you'll have to step lively to keep up with dad." + +"I'll show you," I said, "how we used to drop potatoes when I was +a boy." + +And with that I began to step ahead more quickly and make the +pieces fairly fly. + +"We old fellows," I said to the father, "must give these young +sprouts a lesson once in a while." + +"You will, will you?" responded the boy, and instantly began to +drop the potatoes at a prodigious speed. The father followed with +more dignity, but with evident amusement, and so we all came with +a rush to the end of the row. + +"I guess that beats the record across THIS field!" remarked the +lad, puffing and wiping his forehead. "Say, but you're a good +one!" + +It gave me a peculiar thrill of pleasure; there is nothing more +pleasing than the frank admiration of a boy. + +We paused a moment and I said to the man: "This looks like fine +potato land." + +"The' ain't any better in these parts," he replied with some +pride in his voice. + +And so we went at the planting again: and as we planted we had +great talk of seed potatoes and the advantages and disadvantages +of mechanical planters, of cultivating and spraying, and all the +lore of prices and profits. Once we stopped at the lower end of +the field to get a drink from a jug of water set in the shade of +a fence corner, and once we set the horse in the thills and moved +the seed farther up the field. And tired and hungry as I felt I +really enjoyed the work; I really enjoyed talking with this busy +father and son, and I wondered what their home life was like and +what were their real ambitions and hopes. Thus the sun sank lower +and lower, the long shadows began to creep into the valleys, and +we came finally toward the end of the field. Suddenly the boy Ben +cried out: + +"There's Sis!" + +I glanced up and saw standing near the gateway a slim, bright +girl of about twelve in a fresh gingham dress. + +"We're coming!" roared Ben, exultantly. + +While we were hitching up the horse, the man said to me: + +"You'll come down with us and have some supper." + +"Indeed I will," I replied, trying not to make my response too +eager. + +"Did mother make gingerbread to-day?" I heard the boy whisper +audibly. + +"Sh-h--" replied the girl, "who is that man?" + +"_I_ don't know" with a great accent of mystery--"and dad don't +know. Did mother make gingerbread?" + +"Sh-h--he'll hear you." + +"Gee! but he can plant potatoes. He dropped down on us out of a +clear sky." + +"What is he?" she asked. "A tramp?" + +"Nope, not a tramp. He works. But, Sis, did mother make +gingerbread?" + +So we all got into the light wagon and drove briskly out along +the shady country road. The evening was coming on, and the air +was full of the scent of blossoms. We turned finally into a lane +and thus came promptly, for the horse was as eager as we, to the +capacious farmyard. A motherly woman came out from the house, +spoke to her son, and nodded pleasantly to me. There was no +especial introduction. I said merely, "My name is Grayson," and I +was accepted without a word. + +I waited to help the man, whose name I had now learned--it was +Stanley--with his horse and wagon, and then we came up to the +house. Near the back door there was a pump, with a bench and +basin set just within a little cleanly swept, open shed. Rolling +back my collar and baring my arms I washed myself in the cool +water, dashing it over my head until I gasped, and then stepping +back, breathless and refreshed, I found the slim girl, Mary, at +my elbow with a clean soft towel. As I stood wiping quietly I +could smell the ambrosial odours from the kitchen. In all my life +I never enjoyed a moment more than that, I think. + +"Come in now," said the motherly Mrs. Stanley. + +So we filed into the roomy kitchen, where an older girl, called +Kate, was flying about placing steaming dishes upon the table. +There was also an older son, who had been at the farm chores. It +was altogether a fine, vigorous, independent American family. So +we all sat down and drew up our chairs. Then we paused a moment, +and the father, bowing his head, said in a low voice: + +"For all Thy good gifts, Lord, we thank Thee. Preserve us and +keep us through another night." + +I suppose it was a very ordinary farm meal, but it seems to me I +never tasted a better one. The huge piles of new baked bread, the +sweet farm butter, already delicious with the flavour of new +grass, the bacon and eggs, the potatoes, the rhubarb sauce, the +great plates of new, hot gingerbread and, at the last, the +custard pie--a great wedge of it, with fresh cheese. After the +first ravenous appetite of hardworking men was satisfied, there +came to be a good deal of lively conversation. The girls had some +joke between them which Ben was trying in vain to fathom. The +older son told how much milk a certain Alderney cow had given, +and Mr. Stanley, quite changed now as he sat at his own table +from the rather grim farmer of the afternoon, revealed a capacity +for a husky sort of fun, joking Ben about his potato-planting and +telling in a lively way of his race with me. As for Mrs. Stanley, +she sat smiling behind her tall coffee pot, radiating good cheer +and hospitality. They asked me no questions at all, and I was so +hungry and tired that I volunteered no information. + +After supper we went out for half or three quarters of an hour to +do some final chores, and Mr. Stanley and I stopped in the cattle +yard and looked over the cows, and talked learnedly about the +pigs, and I admired his spring calves to his hearts content, for +they really were a fine lot. When we came in again the lamps had +been lighted in the sitting-room and the older daughter was at +the telephone exchanging the news of the day with some +neighbour--and with great laughter and enjoyment. Occasionally +she would turn and repeat some bit of gossip to the family, and +Mrs. Stanley would claim: + +"Do tell!" + +"Can't we have a bit of music to-night?" inquired Mr. Stanley. + +Instantly Ben and the slim girl, Mary, made a wild dive for the +front room--the parlour--and came out with a first-rate +phonograph which they placed on the table. + +"Something lively now," said Mr. Stanley. + +So they put on a rollicking negro song called. "My Georgia +Belle," which, besides the tuneful voices, introduced a steamboat +whistle and a musical clangour of bells. When it wound up with a +bang, Mr. Stanley took his big comfortable pipe out of his mouth +and cried out: + +"Fine, fine!" + +We had further music of the same sort and with one record the +older daughter, Kate, broke into the song with a full, strong +though uncultivated voice--which pleased us all very much indeed. + +Presently Mrs. Stanley, who was sitting under the lamp with a +basket of socks to mend, began to nod. + +"Mother's giving the signal," said the older son. + +"No, no, I'm not a bit sleepy," exclaimed Mrs. Stanley. + +But with further joking and laughing the family began to move +about. The older daughter gave me a hand lamp and showed me the +way upstairs to a little room at the end of the house. + +"I think," she said with pleasant dignity, "you will find +everything you need." + +I cannot tell with what solid pleasure I rolled into bed or how +soundly and sweetly I slept. + +This was the first day of my real adventures. + + + +CHAPTER II. I WHISTLE + +When I was a boy I learned after many discouragements to play on +a tin whistle. There was a wandering old fellow in our town who +would sit for hours on the shady side of a certain ancient +hotel-barn, and with his little whistle to his lips, and gently +swaying his head to his tune and tapping one foot in the gravel, +he would produce the most wonderful and beguiling melodies. His +favourite selections were very lively; he played, I remember, +"Old Dan Tucker," and "Money Musk," and the tune of a rollicking +old song, now no doubt long forgotten, called "Wait for the +Wagon." I can see him yet, with his jolly eyes half closed, his +lips puckered around the whistle, and his fingers curiously and +stiffly poised over the stops. I am sure I shall never forget the +thrill which his music gave to the heart of a certain barefoot +boy. + +At length, by means I have long since forgotten, I secured a tin +whistle exactly like Old Tom Madison's and began diligently to +practise such tunes as I knew. I am quite sure now that I must +have made a nuisance of myself, for it soon appeared to be the +set purpose of every member of the family to break up my efforts. +Whenever my father saw me with the whistle to my lips, he would +instantly set me at some useful work (oh, he was an adept in +discovering useful work to do--for a boy!). And at the very sight +of my stern aunt I would instantly secrete my whistle in my +blouse and fly for the garret or cellar, like a cat caught in the +cream. Such are the early tribulations of musical genius! + +At last I discovered a remote spot on a beam in the hay-barn +where, lighted by a ray of sunlight which came through a crack in +the eaves and pointed a dusty golden finger into that hay-scented +interior, I practised rapturously and to my heart's content upon +my tin whistle. I learned "Money Musk" until I could play it in +Old Tom Madison's best style--even to the last nod and final +foot-tap. I turned a certain church hymn called "Yield Not to +Temptation" into something quite inspiriting, and I played +"Marching Through Georgia" until all the "happy hills of hay" +were to the fervid eye of a boy's imagination full of tramping +soldiers. Oh, I shall never forget the joys of those hours in the +hay-barn, nor the music of that secret tin whistle! I can hear +yet the crooning of the pigeons in the eaves, and the slatey +sound of their wings as they flew across the open spaces in the +great barn; I can smell yet the odour of the hay. + +But with years, and the city, and the shame of youth, I put aside +and almost forgot the art of whistling. When I was preparing for +the present pilgrimage, however, it came to me with a sudden +thrill of pleasure that nothing in the wide world now prevented +me from getting a whistle and seeing whether I had forgotten my +early cunning. At the very first good-sized town I came to I was +delighted to find at a little candy and toy shop just the sort of +whistle I wanted, at the extravagant price of ten cents. I bought +it and put it in the bottom of my knapsack. + +"Am I not old enough now," I said to myself, "to be as youthful +as I choose?" + +Isn't it the strangest thing in the world how long it takes us to +learn to accept the joys of simple pleasures?--and some of us +never learn at all. "Boo!" says the neighbourhood, and we are +instantly frightened into doing a thousand unnecessary and +unpleasant things, or prevented from doing a thousand beguiling +things. + +For the first few days I was on the road I thought often with +pleasure of the whistle lying there in my bag, but it was not +until after I left the Stanleys' that I felt exactly in the mood +to try it. + +The fact is, my adventures on the Stanley farm had left me in a +very cheerful frame of mind. They convinced me that some of the +great things I had expected of my pilgrimage were realizable +possibilities. Why, I had walked right into the heart of as fine +a family as I have seen these many days. + +I remained with them the entire day following the +potato-planting. We were out at five o'clock in the morning, and +after helping with the chores, and eating a prodigious breakfast, +we went again to the potato-field, and part of the time I helped +plant a few remaining rows, and part of the time I drove a team +attached to a wing-plow to cover the planting of the previous +day. + +In the afternoon a slashing spring rain set in, and Mr. Stanley, +who was a forehanded worker, found a job for all of us in the +barn. Ben, the younger son, and I sharpened mower-blades and a +scythe or so, Ben turning the grindstone and I holding the blades +and telling him stories into the bargain. Mr. Stanley and his +stout older son overhauled the work-harness and tinkered the +corn-planter. The doors at both ends of the barn stood wide open, +and through one of them, framed like a picture, we could see the +scudding floods descend upon the meadows, and through the other, +across a fine stretch of open country, we could see all the roads +glistening and the treetops moving under the rain. + +"Fine, fine!" exclaimed Mr. Stanley, looking out from time to +time, "we got in our potatoes just in the nick of time." + +After supper that evening I told them of my plan to leave them on +the following morning. + +"Don't do that," said Mrs. Stanley heartily; "stay on with us." + +"Yes," said Mr. Stanley, "we're shorthanded, and I'd be glad to +have a man like you all summer. There ain't any one around here +will pay a good man more'n I will, nor treat 'im better." + +"I'm sure of it, Mr. Stanley," I said, "but I can't stay with +you." + +At that the tide of curiosity which I had seen rising ever since +I came began to break through. Oh, I know how difficult it is to +let the wanderer get by without taking toll of him! There are not +so many people here in the country that we can afford to neglect +them. And as I had nothing in the world to conceal, and, indeed, +loved nothing better than the give and take of getting +acquainted, we were soon at it in good earnest. + +But it was not enough to tell them that my name was David Grayson +and where my farm was located, and how many acres there were, and +how much stock I had, and what I raised. The great particular +"Why?" --as I knew it would be--concerned my strange presence on +the road at this season of the year and the reason why I should +turn in by chance, as I had done, to help at their planting. If a +man is stationary, it seems quite impossible for him to imagine +why any one should care to wander; and as for the wanderer it is +inconceivable to him how any one can remain permanently at home. + +We were all sitting comfortably around the table in the +living-room. The lamps were lighted, and Mr. Stanley, in +slippers, was smoking his pipe and Mrs. Stanley was darning socks +over a mending-gourd, and the two young Stanleys were whispering +and giggling about some matter of supreme consequence to youth. +The windows were open, and we could smell the sweet scent of the +lilacs from the yard and hear the drumming of the rain as it fell +on the roof of the porch. + +"It's easy to explain," I said. "The fact is, it got to the point +on my farm that I wasn't quite sure whether I owned it or it +owned me. And I made up my mind I'd get away for a while from my +own horses and cattle and see what the world was like. I wanted +to see how people lived up here, and what they are thinking +about, and how they do their farming." + +As I talked of my plans and of the duty one had, as I saw it, to +be a good broad man as well as a good farmer, I grew more and +more interested and enthusiastic. Mr. Stanley took his pipe +slowly from his mouth, held it poised until it finally went out, +and sat looking at me with a rapt expression. I never had a +better audience. Finally, Mr. Stanley said very earnestly: + +"And you have felt that way, too?" + +"Why, father!" exclaimed Mrs. Stanley, in astonishment. + +Mr. Stanley hastily put his pipe back into his mouth and +confusedly searched in his pockets for a match; but I knew I had +struck down deep into a common experience. Here was this brisk +and prosperous farmer having his dreams too--dreams that even +his wife did not know! + +So I continued my talk with even greater fervour. I don't think +that the boy Ben understood all that I said, for I was dealing +with experiences common mostly to older men, but he somehow +seemed to get the spirit of it, for quite unconsciously he began +to hitch his chair toward me, then he laid his hand on my +chair-arm and finally and quite simply he rested his arm against +mine and looked at me with all his eyes. I keep learning that +there is nothing which reaches men's hearts like talking straight +out the convictions and emotions of your innermost soul. Those +who hear you may not agree with you, or they may not understand +you fully, but something incalculable, something vital, passes. +And as for a boy or girl it is one of the sorriest of mistakes to +talk down to them; almost always your lad of fifteen thinks more +simply, more fundamentally, than you do; and what he accepts as +good coin is not facts or precepts, but feelings and +convictions--LIFE. And why shouldn't we speak out? + +"I long ago decided," I said, "to try to be fully what I am and +not to be anything or anybody else." + +"That's right, that's right," exclaimed Mr. Stanley, nodding his +head vigorously. + +"It's about the oldest wisdom there is," I said, and with that I +thought of the volume I carried in my pocket, and straightway I +pulled it out and after a moment's search found the passage I +wanted. + +"Listen," I said, "to what this old Roman philosopher said"--and +I held the book up to the lamp and read aloud: + +"'You can be invincible if you enter into no contest in which it +is not in your power to conquer. Take care, then, when you +observe a man honoured before others or possessed of great power, +or highly esteemed for any reason, not to suppose him happy and +be not carried away by the appearance. For if the nature of the +good is in our power, neither envy nor jealousy will have a place +in us. But you yourself will not wish to be a general or a +senator or consul, but a free man, and there is only one way to +do this, to care not for the things which are not in our power.'" + +"That," said Mr. Stanley, "is exactly what I've always said, but +I didn't know it was in any book. I always said I didn't want to +be a senator or a legislator, or any other sort of office-holder. +It's good enough for me right here on this farm." + +At that moment I glanced down into Ben's shining eyes. + +"But I want to be a senator or--something--when I grow up," he +said eagerly. + +At this the older brother, who was sitting not far off, broke +into a laugh, and the boy, who for a moment had been drawn out of +his reserve, shrank back again and coloured to the hair. + +"Well, Ben," said I, putting my hand on his knee, "don't you let +anything stop you. I'll back you up; I'll vote for you." + +After breakfast the next morning Mr. Stanley drew me aside and +said: + +"Now I want to pay you for your help yesterday and the day +before." + +"No," I said. "I've had more than value received. You've taken me +in like a friend and brother. I've enjoyed it." + +So Mrs. Stanley half filled my knapsack with the finest luncheon +I've seen in many a day, and thus, with as pleasant a farewell as +if I'd been a near relative, I set off up the country road. I was +a little distressed in parting to see nothing of the boy Ben, for +I had formed a genuine liking for him, but upon reaching a clump +of trees which hid the house from the road I saw him standing in +the moist grass of a fence corner. + +"I want to say good-bye," he said in the gruff voice of +embarrassment. + +"Ben," I said, "I missed you, and I'd have hated to go off +without seeing you again. Walk a bit with me." + +So we walked side by side, talking quietly and when at last I +shook his hand I said: + +"Ben, don't you ever be afraid of acting up to the very best +thoughts you have in your heart." + +He said nothing for a moment, and then: "Gee! I'm sorry you're +goin' away!" + +"Gee!" I responded, "I'm sorry, too!" + +With that we both laughed, but when I reached the top of the +hill, and looked back, I saw him still standing there bare-footed +in the road looking after me. I waved my hand and he waved his: +and I saw him no more. + +No country, after all, produces any better crop than its +inhabitants. And as I travelled onward I liked to think of these +brave, temperate, industrious, God-friendly American people. I +have no fear of the country while so many of them are still to be +found upon the farms and in the towns of this land. + +So I tramped onward full of cheerfulness. The rain had ceased, +but all the world was moist and very green and still. I walked +for more than two hours with the greatest pleasure. About ten +o'clock in the morning I stopped near a brook to drink and rest, +for I was warm and tired. And it was then that I bethought me of +the little tin pipe in my knapsack, and straightway I got it out, +and, sitting down at the foot of a tree near the brook, I put it +to my lips and felt for the stops with unaccustomed fingers. At +first I made the saddest sort of work of it, and was not a little +disappointed, indeed, with the sound of the whistle itself. It +was nothing to my memory of it! It seemed thin and tinny. + +However, I persevered at it, and soon produced a recognizable +imitation of Tom Madison's "Old Dan Tucker." My success quite +pleased me, and I became so absorbed that I quite lost account of +the time and place. There was no one to hear me save a bluejay +which for an hour or more kept me company. He sat on a twig just +across the brook, cocking his head at me, and saucily wagging his +tail. Occasionally he would dart off among the trees crying +shrilly; but his curiosity would always get the better of him and +back he would come again to try to solve the mystery of this +rival whistling, which I'm sure was as shrill and as harsh as his +own. + +Presently, quite to my astonishment, I saw a man standing near +the brookside not a dozen paces away from me. How long he had +been there I don't know, for I had heard nothing of his coming. +Beyond him in the town road I could see the head of his horse and +the top of his buggy. I said not a word, but continued with my +practising. Why shouldn't I? But it gave me quite a thrill for +the moment; and at once I began to think of the possibilities of +the situation. What a thing it was have so many unexpected and +interesting situations developing! So I nodded my head and tapped +my foot, and blew into my whistle all the more energetically. I +knew my visitor could not possibly keep away. And he could not; +presently he came nearer and said: + +"What are you doing, neighbour?" + +I continued a moment with my playing, but commanded him with my +eye. + +Oh, I assure you I assumed all the airs of a virtuoso. When I had +finished my tune I removed my whistle deliberately and wiped my +lips. + +"Why, enjoying myself," I replied with greatest good humour. +"What are you doing?" + +"Why," he said, "watching you enjoy yourself. I heard you playing +as I passed in the road, and couldn't imagine what it could be." + +I told him I thought it might still be difficult, having heard me +near at hand, to imagine what it could be--and thus, tossing the +ball of good-humoured repartee back and forth, we walked down to +the road together. He had a quiet old horse and a curious top +buggy with the unmistakable box of an agent or peddler built on +behind. + +"My name," he said, "is Canfield. I fight dust." + +"And mine," I said, "is Grayson. I whistle." + +I discovered that he was an agent for brushes, and he opened his +box and showed me the greatest assortment of big and little +brushes: bristle brushes, broom brushes, yarn brushes, wire +brushes, brushes for man and brushes for beast, brushes of every +conceivable size and shape that ever I saw in all my life. He had +out one of his especial pets--he called it his "leader"--and +feeling it familiarly in his hand he instinctively began the +jargon of well-handled and voice-worn phrases which went with +that particular brush. It was just as though some one had touched +a button and had started him going. It was amazing to me that any +one in the world should be so much interested in mere +brushes--until he actually began to make me feel that brushes +were as interesting as anything else! + +What a strange, little, dried-up old fellow he was, with his +balls of muttonchop sidewhiskers, his thick eyebrows, and his +lively blue eyes!--a man evidently not readily turned aside by +rebuffs. He had already shown that his wit as a talker had been +sharpened by long and varied contact with a world of reluctant +purchasers. I was really curious to know more of him, so I said +finally: + +"See here, Mr. Canfield, it's just noon. Why not sit down here +with me and have a bit of luncheon?" + +"Why not?" he responded with alacrity. "As the fellow said, why +not?" + +He unhitched his horse, gave him a drink from the brook, and then +tethered him where he could nip the roadside grass. I opened my +bag and explored the wonders of Mrs. Stanley's luncheon. I cannot +describe the absolutely carefree feeling I had. Always at home, +when I would have liked to stop at the roadside with a stranger, +I felt the nudge of a conscience troubled with cows and corn, but +here I could stop where I liked, or go on when I liked, and talk +with whom I pleased, as long as I pleased. + +So we sat there, the brush-peddler and I, under the trees, and +ate Mrs. Stanley's fine luncheon, drank the clear water from the +brook, and talked great talk. Compared with Mr. Canfield I was a +babe at wandering--and equally at talking. Was there any business +he had not been in, or any place in the country he had not +visited? He had sold everything from fly-paper to +threshing-machines, he had picked up a large working knowledge of +the weaknesses of human nature, and had arrived at the age of +sixty-six with just enough available cash to pay the manufacturer +for a new supply of brushes. In strict confidence, I drew certain +conclusions from the colour of his nose! He had once had a +family, but dropped them somewhere along the road. Most of our +brisk neighbours would have put him down as a failure--an old +man, and nothing laid by! But I wonder--I wonder. One thing I am +coming to learn in this world, and that is to let people haggle +along with their lives as I haggle along with mine. + +We both made tremendous inroads on the luncheon, and I presume we +might have sat there talking all the afternoon if I had not +suddenly bethought myself with a not unpleasant thrill that my +resting-place for the night was still gloriously undecided. + +"Friend," I said, "I've got to be up and going. I haven't so much +as a penny in my pocket, and I've got to find a place to sleep." + +The effect of this remark upon Mr. Canfield was magical. He threw +up both his hands and cried out: + +"You're that way, are you?"--as though for the first time he +really understood. We were at last on common ground. + +"Partner," said he, "you needn't tell nothin' about it. I've been +right there myself." + +At once he began to bustle about with great enthusiasm. He was +for taking complete charge of me, and I think, if I had permitted +it, would instantly have made a brush-agent of me. At least he +would have carried me along with him in his buggy; but when he +suggested it I felt very much, I think, as some old monk must +have who had taken a vow to do some particular thing in some +particular way. With great difficulty I convinced him finally +that my way was different from his--though he was regally +impartial as to what road he took next--and, finally, with some +reluctance, he started to climb into his buggy. + +A thought, however, struck him suddenly, and he stepped down +again, ran around to the box at the back of his buggy, opened it +with a mysterious and smiling look at me, and took out a small +broom-brush with which he instantly began brushing off my coat +and trousers--in the liveliest and most exuberant way. When he +had finished this occupation, he quickly handed the brush to me. + +"A token of esteem," he said, "from a fellow traveller." + +I tried in vain to thank him, but he held up his hand, scrambled +quickly into his buggy, and was for driving off instantly, but +paused and beckoned me toward him. When I approached the buggy, +he took hold of one the lapels of my coat, bent over, and said +with the utmost seriousness: + +"No man ought to take the road without a brush. A good +broom-brush is the world's greatest civilizer. Are you looking +seedy or dusty?--why, this here brush will instantly make you a +respectable citizen. Take my word for it, friend, never go into +any strange house without stoppin' and brushin' off. It's money +in your purse! You can get along without dinner sometimes, or +even without a shirt, but without a brush --never! There's +nothin' in the world so necessary to rich AN' poor, old AN' young +as a good brush!" + +And with a final burst of enthusiasm the brush-peddler drove off +up the hill. I stood watching him and when he turned around I +waved the brush high over my head in token of a grateful +farewell. + +It was a good, serviceable, friendly brush. I carried it +throughout my wanderings; and as I sit here writing in my study, +at this moment, I can see it hanging on a hook at the side of my +fireplace. + + + +CHAPTER III. THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD + +"Everyone," remarks Tristram Shandy, "will speak of the fair as +his own market has gone in it." + +It came near being a sorry fair for me on the afternoon following +my parting with the amiable brush-peddler. The plain fact is, my +success at the Stanleys', and the easy manner in which I had +fallen in with Mr. Canfield, gave me so much confidence in myself +as a sort of Master of the Road that I proceeded with altogether +too much assurance. + +I am firmly convinced that the prime quality to be cultivated by +the pilgrim is humility of spirit; he must be willing to accept +Adventure in whatever garb she chooses to present herself. He +must be able to see the shining form of the unusual through the +dull garments of the normal. + +The fact is, I walked that afternoon with my head in air and +passed many a pleasant farmstead where men were working in the +fields, and many an open doorway, and a mill or two, and a +town--always looking for some Great Adventure. + +Somewhere upon this road, I thought to myself, I shall fall in +with a Great Person, or become a part of a Great Incident. I +recalled with keen pleasure the experience of that young Spanish +student of Carlyle writes in one of his volumes, who, riding out +from Madrid one day, came unexpectedly upon the greatest man in +the world. This great man, of whom Carlyle observes (I have +looked up the passage since I came home), "a kindlier, meeker, +braver heart has seldom looked upon the sky in this world," had +ridden out from the city for the last time in his life "to take +one other look at the azure firmament and green mosaic pavements +and the strange carpentry and arras work of this noble palace of +a world." + +As the old story has it, the young student "came pricking on +hastily, complaining that they went at such a pace as gave him +little chance of keeping up with them. One of the party made +answer that the blame lay with the horse of Don Miguel de +Cervantes, whose trot was of the speediest. He had hardly +pronounced the name when the student dismounted and, touching the +hem of Cervantes' left sleeve, said, 'Yes, yes, it is indeed the +maimed perfection, the all-famous, the delightful writer, the joy +and darling of the Muses! You are that brave Miguel.'" + +It may seem absurd to some in this cool and calculating twentieth +century that any one should indulge in such vain imaginings as I +have described--and yet, why not? All things are as we see them. +I once heard a man--a modern man, living to-day--tell with a hush +in his voice, and a peculiar light in his eye, how, walking in +the outskirts of an unromantic town in New Jersey, he came +suddenly upon a vigorous, bearded, rather rough-looking man +swinging his stick as he walked, and stopping often at the +roadside and often looking up at the sky. I shall never forget +the curious thrill in his voice as he said: + +"And THAT was Walt Whitman." + +And thus quite absurdly intoxicated by the possibilities of the +road, I let the big full afternoon slip by--I let slip the rich +possibilities of half a hundred farms and scores of travelling +people--and as evening began to fall I came to a stretch of +wilder country with wooded hills and a dashing stream by the +roadside. It was a fine and beautiful country--to look at--but +the farms, and with them the chances of dinner, and a friendly +place to sleep, grew momentarily scarcer. Upon the hills here and +there, indeed, were to be seen the pretentious summer homes of +rich dwellers from the cities, but I looked upon them with no +great hopefulness. + +"Of all places in the world," I said to myself, "surely none +could be more unfriendly to a man like me." + +But I amused myself with conjectures as to what might happen +(until the adventure seemed almost worth trying) if a dusty man +with a bag on his back should appear at the door of one of those +well-groomed establishments. It came to me, indeed, with a sudden +deep sense of understanding, that I should probably find there, +as everywhere else, just men and women. And with that I fell into +a sort of Socratic dialogue with myself: + +ME: Having decided that the people in these houses are, after +all, merely men and women, what is the best way of reaching them? + +MYSELF: Undoubtedly by giving them something they want and have +not. + +ME: But these are rich people from the city; what can they want +that they have not? + +MYSELF: Believe me, of all people in the world those who want the +most are those who have the most. These people are also consumed +with desires. + +ME: And what, pray, do you suppose they desire? + +MYSELF: They want what they have not got; they want the +unattainable: they want chiefly the rarest and most precious of +all things--a little mystery in their lives. + +"That's it!" I said aloud; "that's it! Mystery--the things of the +spirit, the things above ordinary living--is not that the +essential thing for which the world is sighing, and groaning, and +longing--consciously, or unconsciously?" + +I have always believed that men in their innermost souls desire +the highest, bravest, finest things they can hear, or see, or +feel in all the world. Tell a man how he can increase his income +and he will be grateful to you and soon forget you; but show him +the highest, most mysterious things in his own soul and give him +the word which will convince him that the finest things are +really attainable, and he will love and follow you always. + +I now began to look with much excitement to a visit at one of the +houses on the hill, but to my disappointment I found the next two +that I approached still closed up, for the spring was not yet far +enough advanced to attract the owners to the country. I walked +rapidly onward through the gathering twilight, but with +increasing uneasiness as to the prospects for the night, and thus +came suddenly upon the scene of an odd adventure. + +From some distance I had seen a veritable palace set high among +the trees and overlooking a wonderful green valley--and, drawing +nearer, I saw evidences of well-kept roadways and a visible +effort to make invisible the attempt to preserve the wild beauty +of the place. I saw, or thought I saw, people on the wide +veranda, and I was sure I heard the snort of a climbing +motor-car, but I had scarcely decided to make my way up to the +house when I came, at the turning of the country road, upon a bit +of open land laid out neatly as a garden, near the edge of which, +nestling among the trees, stood a small cottage. It seemed +somehow to belong to the great estate above it, and I concluded, +at the first glance, that it was the home of some caretaker or +gardener. + +It was a charming place to see, and especially the plantation of +trees and shrubs. My eye fell instantly upon a fine +magnolia--rare in this country--which had not yet cast all its +blossoms, and I paused for a moment to look at it more closely. I +myself have tried to raise magnolias near my house, and I know +how difficult it is. + +As I approached nearer to the cottage, I could see a man and +woman sitting on the porch in the twilight and swaying back and +forth in rocking-chairs. I fancied-- it may have been only a +fancy--that when I first saw them their hands were clasped as +they rocked side by side. + +It was indeed a charming little cottage. Crimson ramblers, giving +promise of the bloom that was yet to come, climbed over one end +of the porch, and there were fine dark-leaved lilac-bushes near +the doorway: oh, a pleasant, friendly, quiet place! + +I opened the front gate and walked straight in, as though I had +at last reached my destination. I cannot give any idea of the +lift of the heart with which I entered upon this new adventure. +Without the premeditation and not knowing what I should say or +do, I realized that everything dependedupon a few sentences spoken +within the next minute or two. Believe me, this experience to +a man who does not know where his next meal is coming from, nor +where he is to spend the night, is well worth having. It is a +marvellous sharpener of the facts. + +I knew, of course, just how these people of the cottage would +ordinarily regard an intruder whose bag and clothing must +infallibly class him as a follower of the road. And so many +followers of the road are--well-- + +As I came nearer, the man and woman stopped rocking, but said +nothing. An old dog that had been sleeping on the top step rose +slowly and stood there. + +"As I passed your garden," I said, grasping desperately for a way +of approach, "I saw your beautiful specimen of the magnolia +tree--the one still in blossom. I myself have tried to grow +magnolias--but with small success--and I'm making bold to inquire +what variety you are so successful with." + +It was a shot in the air--but I knew from what I had seen that +they must be enthusiastic gardeners. The man glanced around at +the magnolia with evident pride, and was about to answer when the +woman rose and with a pleasant, quiet cordiality said: + +"Won't you step up and have a chair?" + +I swung my bag from my shoulder and took the proffered seat. As I +did so I saw, on the table just behind me a number magazines and +books--books of unusual sizes and shapes, indicating that they +were not mere summer novels. + +"They like books!" I said to myself, with a sudden rise of +spirits. + +"I have tried magnolias, too," said the man, "but this is the +only one that has been really successful. It is a Chinese white +magnolia." + +"The one Downing describes?" I asked. + +This was also a random shot, but I conjectured that if they loved +both books gardens they would know Downing--Bible of the +gardener. And if they did, we belonged to the same church. + +"The very same," exclaimed the woman; "it was Downing's +enthusiasm for the Chinese magnolia which led us first to try +it." + +With that, like true disciples, we fell into great talk of +Downing, at first all in praise of him, and later--for may not +the faithful be permitted latitude in their comments so long as +it is all within the cloister?--we indulged in a bit of higher +criticism. + +"It won't do," said the man, "to follow too slavishly every +detail of practice as recommended by Downing. We have learned a +good many things since the forties." + +"The fact is," I said, "no literal-minded man should be trusted +with Downing." + +"Any more than with the Holy Scriptures," exclaimed the woman. + +"Exactly!" I responded with the greatest enthusiasm; "exactly! We +go to him for inspiration, for fundamental teachings, for the +great literature and poetry of the art. Do you remember," I +asked, "that passage in which Downing quotes from some old +Chinaman upon the true secret of the pleasures of a garden--?" + +"Do we?" exclaimed the man, jumping up instantly; "do we? Just +let me get the book--" + +With that he went into the house and came back immediately +bringing a lamp in one hand--for it had grown pretty dark--and a +familiar, portly, blue-bound book in the other. While he was gone +the woman said: + +"You have touched Mr. Vedder in his weakest spot." + +"I know of no combination in this world," said I, "so certain to +produce a happy heart as good books and a farm or garden." + +Mr. Vedder, having returned, slipped on his spectacles, sat +forward on the edge of his rocking-chair, and opened the book +with pious hands. + +"I'll find it," he said. "I can put my finger right on it." + +"You'll find it," said Mrs. Vedder, "in the chapter on +'Hedges.'" + +"You are wrong, my dear," he responded, "it is in 'Mistakes of +Citizens in Country Life.'" + + +He turned the leaves eagerly. + +"No," he said, "here it is in 'Rural Taste.' Let me read you the +passage, Mr.--" + +"Grayson." + +"--Mr. Grayson. The Chinaman's name was Lieu-tscheu. 'What is +it,' asks this old Chinaman, 'that we seek in the pleasure of a +garden? It has always been agreed that these plantations should +make men amends for living at a distance from what would be their +more congenial and agreeable dwelling-place--in the midst of +nature, free and unrestrained.'" + +"That's it," I exclaimed, "and the old Chinaman was right! A +garden excuses civilization." + +"It's what brought us here," said Mrs. Vedder. + +With that we fell into the liveliest discussion of gardening and +farming and country life in all their phases, resolving that +while there were bugs and blights, and droughts and floods, yet +upon the whole there was no life so completely satisfying as life +in which one may watch daily the unfolding of natural life. + +A hundred things we talked about freely that had often risen +dimly in my own mind almost to the point--but not quite--of +spilling over into articulate form. The marvellous thing about +good conversation is that it brings to birth so many +half-realized thoughts of our own--besides sowing the seed of +innumerable other thought-plants. How they enjoyed their garden, +those two, and not only the garden itself, but all the lore and +poetry of gardening! + +We had been talking thus an hour or more when, quite +unexpectedly, I had what was certainly one of the most amusing +adventures of my whole life. I can scarcely think of it now +without a thrill of pleasure. I have had pay for my work in many +but never such a reward as this. + +"By the way," said Mr. Vedder, "I have recently come across a +book which is full of the spirit of the garden as we have long +known it, although the author is not treating directly of +gardens, but of farming and of human nature." + +"It is really all one subject," I interrupted. + +"Certainly," said Mr. Vedder, "but many gardeners are nothing but +gardeners. Well, the book to which I refer is called 'Adventures +in Contentment,' and is by--Why, a man of your own name!" + +With that Mr. Vedder reached for a book--a familiar-looking +book--on the table, but Mrs. Vedder looked at me. I give you my +word, my heart turned entirely over, and in a most remarkable way +righted itself again; and I saw Roman candles and Fourth of July +rockets in front of my eyes. Never in all my experience was I so +completely bowled over. I felt like a small boy who has been +caught in the pantry with one hand in the jam-pot--and plenty of +jam on his nose. And like that small boy I enjoyed the jam, but +did not like being caught at it. + +Mr. Vedder had no sooner got the book in his hand than I saw Mrs. +Vedder rising as though she had seen a spectre, and pointing +dramatically at me, she exclaimed: + +"You are David Grayson!" + +I can say truthfully now that I know how the prisoner at the bar +must feel when the judge, leaning over his desk, looks at him +sternly and says: + +"I declare you guilty of the offence as charged, and sentence +you--" and so on, and so on. + +Mr. Vedder stiffened up, and I can see him yet looking at me +through his glasses. I must have looked as foolishly guilty as +any man ever looked, for Mr. Vedder said promptly: + +"Let me take you by the hand, sir. We know you, and have known +you for a long time." + +I shall not attempt to relate the conversation which followed, +nor tell of the keen joy I had in it--after the first cold +plunge. We found that we had a thousand common interests and +enthusiasms. I had to tell them of my farm, and why I had left it +temporarily, and of the experiences on the road. No sooner had I +related what had befallen me at the Stanleys' than Mrs. Vedder +disappeared into the house and came out again presently with a +tray loaded with cold meat, bread, a pitcher of fine milk, and +other good things. + +"I shall not offer any excuses," said I, "I'm hungry," and with +that I laid in, Mr. Vedder helping with the milk, and all three +of us talking as fast as ever we could. + +It was nearly midnight when at last Mr. Vedder led the way to +the immaculate little bedroom where I spent the night. + +The next morning I awoke early, and quietly dressing, slipped +down to the garden and walked about among the trees and the +shrubs and the flower-beds. The sun was just coming up over the +hill, the air was full of the fresh odours of morning, and the +orioles and cat-birds were singing. + +In the back of the garden I found a charming rustic arbour with +seats around a little table. And here I sat down to listen to the +morning concert, and I saw, cut or carved upon the table, this +verse, which so pleased me that I copied it in my book: + +A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! +Rose plot, +Fringed pool, +Ferned grot-- +The veriest school of peace; and yet +the fool +Contends that God is not-- +Not God! in gardens? when the even +is cool? +Nay, but I have a sign, +'Tis very sure God walks in mine. + +I looked about after copying this verse, and said aloud: + +"I like this garden: I like these Vedders." + +And with that I had a moment of wild enthusiasm. + +"I will come," I said, "and buy a little garden next them, and +bring Harriet, and we will live here always. What's a farm +compared with a friend?" + +But with that I thought of the Scotch preacher, and of Horace, +and Mr. and Mrs. Starkweather, and I knew I could never leave the +friends at home. + +"It's astonishing how many fine people there are in this world," +I said aloud; "one can't escape them!" + +"Good morning, David Grayson," I heard some one saying, and +glancing up I saw Mrs. Vedder at the doorway. "Are you hungry?" + +"I am always hungry," I said. + +Mr. Vedder came out and linking his arm in mine and pointing out +various spireas and Japanese barberries, of which he was very +proud, we walked into the house together. + +I did not think of it especially at time--Harriet says I never +see anything really worth while, by which she means dishes, +dresses, doilies, and such like but as I remembered afterward the +table that Mrs. Vedder set was wonderfully dainty--dainty not +merely with flowers (with which it was loaded), but with the +quality of the china and silver. It was plainly the table of no +ordinary gardener or caretaker--but this conclusion did not come +to me until afterward, for as I remember it, we were in a deep +discussion of fertilizers. + +Mrs. Vedder cooked and served breakfast herself, and did it with +a skill almost equal to Harriet's--so skillfully that the talk +went on and we never once heard the machinery of service. + +After breakfast we all went out into the garden, Mrs. Vedder in +an old straw hat and a big apron, and Mr. Vedder in a pair of old +brown overalls. Two men had appeared from somewhere, and were +digging in the vegetable garden. After giving them certain +directions Mr. Vedder and I both found five-tined forks and went +into the rose garden and began turning over the rich soil, while +Mrs. Vedder, with pruning-shears, kept near us, cutting out the +dead wood. + +It was one of the charming forenoons of my life. This pleasant +work, spiced with the most interesting conversation and +interrupted by a hundred little excursions into other parts of +the garden, to see this or that wonder of vegetation, brought us +to dinner-time before we fairly knew it. + +About the middle of the afternoon I made the next discovery. I +heard first the choking cough of a big motor-car in the country +road, and a moment later it stopped at our gate. I thought I saw +the Vedders exchanging significant glances. A number of merry +young people tumbled out, and an especially pretty girl of about +twenty came running through the garden. + +"Mother," she exclaimed, "you MUST come with us!" + +"I can't, I can't," said Mrs. Vedder, "the roses MUST be +pruned--and see! The azaleas are coming into bloom." + +With that she presented me to her daughter. + +And, then, shortly, for it could no longer be concealed, I +learned that Mr. and Mrs. Vedder were not the caretakers but the +owners of the estate and of the great house I had seen on the +hill. That evening, with an air almost of apology, they explained +to me how it all came about. + +"We first came out here," said Mrs. Vedder, "nearly twenty years +ago, and built the big house on the hill. But the more we came to +know of country life the more we wanted to get down into it. We +found it impossible up there--so many unnecessary things to see +to and care for--and we couldn't--we didn't see--" + +"The fact is," Mr. Vedder put in, "we were losing touch with each +other." + +"There is nothing like a big house," said Mrs. Vedder, "to +separate a man and his wife." + +"So we came down here," said Mr. Vedder, "built this little +cottage, and developed this garden mostly with our own hands. We +would have sold the big house long ago if it hadn't been for our +friends. They like it." + +"I have never heard a more truly romantic story," said I. + +And it WAS romantic: these fine people escaping from too many +possessions, too much property, to the peace and quietude of a +garden where they could be lovers again. + +"It seems, sometimes," said Mrs. Vedder, "that I never really +believed in God until we came down here--" + +"I saw the verse on the table in the arbour," said I. + +"And it is true," said Mr. Vedder. "We got a long, long way from +God for many years: here we seem to get back to Him." + +I had fully intended to take the road again that afternoon, but +how could any one leave such people as those? We talked again +late that night, but the next morning, at the leisurely Sunday +breakfast, I set my hour of departure with all the firmness I +could command. I left them, indeed, before ten o'clock that +forenoon. I shall never forget the parting. They walked with me +to the top of the hill, and there we stopped and looked back. We +could see the cottage half hidden among the trees, and the little +opening that the precious garden made. For a time we stood there +quite silent. + +"Do you remember," I said presently, "that character in Homer who +was a friend of men and lived in a house by the side of the road? +I shall always think of you as friends of men--you took in a +dusty traveller. And I shall never forget your house by the side +of the road." + +"The House by the Side of the Road--you have christened it anew, +David Grayson," exclaimed Mrs. Vedder. + +And so we parted like old friends, and I left them to return to +their garden, where "'tis very sure God walks." + + + +CHAPTER IV. I AM THE SPECTATOR OF A MIGHTY BATTLE, IN WHICH +CHRISTIAN MEETS APPOLLYON + +It is one of the prime joys of the long road that no two days are +ever remotely alike--no two hours even; and sometimes a day that +begins calmly will end with the most stirring events. + +It was thus, indeed, with that perfect spring Sunday, when I left +my friends, the Vedders, and turned my face again to the open +country. It began as quietly as any Sabbath morning of my life, +but what an end it had! I would have travelled a thousand miles +for the adventures which a bounteous road that day spilled +carelessly into my willing hands. + +I can give no adequate reason why it should be so, but there are +Sunday mornings in the spring--at least in our country-- which +seem to put on, like a Sabbath garment, an atmosphere of divine +quietude. Warm, soft, clear, but, above all, immeasurably serene. + +Such was that Sunday morning; and I was no sooner well afoot than +I yielded to the ingratiating mood of the day. Usually I am an +active walker, loving the sense of quick motion and the stir it +imparts to both body and mind, but that morning I found myself +loitering, looking widely about me, and enjoying the lesser and +quieter aspects of nature. It was a fine wooded country in which +I found myself, and I soon struck off the beaten road and took to +the forest and the fields. In places the ground was almost +covered with meadow-rue, like green shadows on the hillsides, not +yet in seed, but richly umbrageous. In the long green grass of +the meadows shone the yellow star-flowers, and the sweet-flags +were blooming along the marshy edges of the ponds. The violets +had disappeared, but they were succeeded by wild geraniums and +rank-growing vetches. + +I remember that I kept thinking from time to time, all the +forenoon, as my mind went back swiftly and warmly to the two fine +friends from whom I had so recently parted: + +How the Vedders would enjoy this! Or, I must tell the Vedders +that. And two or three times I found myself in animated +conversations with them in which I generously supplied all three +parts. It may be true for some natures, as Leonardo said, that +"if you are alone you belong wholly to yourself; if you have a +companion, you belong only half to yourself"; but it is certainly +not so with me. With me friendship never divides: it multiplies. +A friend always makes me more than I am, better than I am, bigger +than I am. We two make four, or fifteen, or forty. + +Well, I loitered through the fields and woods for a long time +that Sunday forenoon, not knowing in the least that Chance held +me close by the hand and was leading me onward to great events. I +knew, of course,that I had yet to find a place for the night, and +that this might be difficult on Sunday, and yet I spent that +forenoon as a man spends his immortal youth--with a glorious +disregard for the future. + + +Some time after noon--for the sun was high and the day was +growing much warmer --I turned from the road, climbed an inviting +little hill, and chose a spot in an old meadow in the shade of an +apple tree and there I lay down on the grass, and looked up into +the dusky shadows of the branches above me. I could feel the soft +airs on my face; I could hear the buzzing of bees in the meadow +flowers, and by turning my head just a little I could see the +slow fleecy clouds, high up, drifting across the perfect blue of +the sky. And the scent of the fields in spring!--he who has known +it, even once, may indeed die happy. + +Men worship God in various ways: it seemed to me that Sabbath +morning, as I lay quietly there in the warm silence of midday, +that I was truly worshipping God. That Sunday morning everything +about me seemed somehow to be a miracle--a miracle gratefully +accepted and explainable only by the presence of God. There was +another strange, deep feeling which I had that morning, which I +have had a few other times in my life at the rare heights of +experience--I hesitate always when I try to put down the deep, +deep things of the human heart--a feeling immeasurably real, that +if I should turn my head quickly I should indeed SEE that +Immanent Presence. . . . + +One of the few birds I know that sings through the long midday is +the vireo. The vireo sings when otherwise the woods are still. +You do not see him; you cannot find him; but you know he is +there. And his singing is wild, and shy, and mystical. Often it +haunts you like the memory of some former happiness. That day I +heard the vireo singing. . . . + +I don't know how long I lay there under the tree in the meadow, +but presently I heard, from no great distance, the sound of a +church-bell. It was ringing for the afternoon service which among +the farmers of this part of the country often takes the place, in +summer, of both morning and evening services. + +"I believe I'll go," I said, thinking first of all, I confess, of +the interesting people I might meet there. + +But when I sat up and looked about me the desire faded, and +rummaging in my bag I came across my tin whistle. Immediately I +began practising a tune called "Sweet Afton," which I had learned +when a boy; and, as I played, my mood changed swiftly, and I +began to smile at myself as a tragically serious person, and to +think of pat phrases with which to characterize the execrableness +of my attempts upon the tin whistle. I should have liked some one +near to joke with. + +Long ago I made a motto about boys: Look for a boy anywhere. +Never be surprised when you shake a cherry tree if a boy drops +out of it; never be disturbed when you think yourself in complete +solitude if you discover a boy peering out at you from a fence +corner. + +I had not been playing long before I saw two boys looking at me +from out of a thicket by the roadside; and a moment later two +others appeared. + +Instantly I switched into "Marching Through Georgia," and began +to nod my head and tap my toe in the liveliest fashion. Presently +one boy climbed up on the fence, then another, then a third. I +continued to play. The fourth boy, a little chap, ventured to +climb up on the fence. + +They were bright-faced, tow-headed lads, all in Sunday clothes. + +"It's hard luck," said I, taking my whistle from my lips, "to +have to wear shoes and stockings on a warm Sunday like this." + +"You bet it is!" said the bold leader. + +"In that case," said I, "I will play 'Yankee Doodle.'" + +I played. All the boys, including the little chap, came up around +me, and two of them sat down quite familiarly on the grass. I +never had a more devoted audience. I don't know what interesting +event might have happened next, for the bold leader, who stood +nearest, was becoming dangerously inflated with questions--I +don't know what might have happened had we not been interrupted +by the appearance of a Spectre in Black. It appeared before us +there in the broad daylight in the middle of a sunny afternoon +while we were playing "Yankee Doodle." First I saw the top of a +black hat rising over the rim of the hill. This was followed +quickly by a black tie, a long black coat, black trousers, and, +finally, black shoes. I admit I was shaken, but being a person +of iron nerve in facing such phenomena, I continued to play +"Yankee Doodle." In spite of this counter-attraction, toward +which all four boys turned uneasy glances, I held my audience. +The Black Spectre, with a black book under its arm, drew nearer. +Still I continued to play and nod my head and tap my toe. I felt +like some modern Pied Piper piping away the children of these +modern hills--piping them away from older people who could not +understand them. + +I could see an accusing look on the Spectre's face. I don't know +what put it into my head, and I had no sooner said it than I was sorry +for my levity, but the figure with the sad garments there in the +matchless and triumphant spring day affected me with a curious, +sharp impatience. Had any one the right to look out so dolefully +upon such a day and such a scene of simple happiness as this? So +I took my whistle from my lips and asked: + +"Is God dead?" + +I shall never forget the indescribable look of horror and +astonishment that swept over the young man's face. + +"What do you mean, sir?" he asked with an air of stern authority +which surprised me. His calling for the moment lifted him above +himself: it was the Church which spoke. + +I was on my feet in an instant, regretting the pain I had given +him; and yet it seemed worth while now, having made my +inadvertent remark, to show him frankly what lay in my mind. Such +things sometimes help men. + +"I meant no offence, sir," I said, "and I apologize for my +flummery, but when I saw you coming up the hill, looking so +gloomy and disconsolate on this bright day, as though you +disapproved of God's world, the question slipped out before I +knew it." + +My words evidently struck deep down into some disturbed inner +consciousness, for he asked--and his words seemed to slip out +before he thought: + +"Is THAT the way I impressed you?" + +I found my heart going out strongly toward him. "Here," I thought +to myself, "is a man in trouble." + +I took a good long look at him. He still a young man, though +worn-looking--and sad as I now saw it, rather than gloomy--with +the sensitive lips and the unworldly look one sees sometimes in +the faces of saints. His black coat was immaculately neat, but +the worn button-covers and the shiny lapels told their own +eloquent story. Oh, it seemed to me I knew him as well as if +every incident of his life were written plainly upon his high, +pale forehead! I have lived long in a country neighbourhood, and +I knew him--poor flagellant of the rural church--I knew how he +groaned under the sins of a Community too comfortably willing to +cast all its burdens on the Lord, or on the Lord's accredited +local representative. I inferred also the usual large family and +the low salary (scandalously unpaid) and the frequent moves from +place to place. + +Unconsciously heaving a sigh the young man turned partly aside +and said to me in a low, gentle voice: + +"You are detaining my boys from church." + +"I am very sorry," I said, "and I will detain them no longer," +and with that I put aside my whistle, took up my bag and moved +down the hill with them. + +"The fact is," I said, "when I heard your bell I thought of going +to church myself." + +"Did you?" he asked eagerly. "Did you?" + +I could see that my proposal of going to church had instantly +affected his spirits. Then he hesitated abruptly with a sidelong +glance at my bag and rusty clothing. I could see exactly what was +passing in his mind. + +"No," I said, smiling, as though answering a spoken question, "I +am not exactly what you would call a tramp." + +He flushed. + +"I didn't mean--I WANT you to come. That's what a church is for. +If I thought--" + +But he did not tell me what he thought; and, though he walked +quietly at my side, he was evidently deeply disturbed. Something +of his discouragement I sensed even then, and I don't think I was +ever sorrier for a man in my life than I was for him at that +moment. Talk about the suffering sinners! I wonder if they are to +be compared with the trials of the saints? + +So we approached the little white church, and caused, I am +certain, a tremendous sensation. Nowhere does the unpredictable, +the unusual, excite such confusion as in that settled +institution--the church. + +I left my bag in the vestibule, where I have no doubt it was the +object of much inquiring and suspicious scrutiny, and took my +place in a convenient pew. It was a small church with an odd air +of domesticity, and the proportion of old ladies and children in +the audience was pathetically large. As a ruddy, vigorous, +out-of-door person, with the dust of life upon him, I felt +distinctly out of place. + +I could pick out easily the Deacon, the Old Lady Who Brought +Flowers, the President of the Sewing Circle, and, above all, the +Chief Pharisee, sitting in his high place. The Chief +Pharisee--his name I learned was Nash, Mr. J. H. Nash (I did not +know then that I was soon to make his acquaintance)--the Chief +Pharisee looked as hard as nails, a middle-aged man with stiff +chin-whiskers, small round, sharp eyes, and a pugnacious jaw. + +"That man," said I to myself, "runs this church," and instantly I +found myself looking upon him as a sort of personification of the +troubles I had seen in the minister's eyes. + +I shall not attempt to describe the service in detail. There was +a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing, and the +mournful-looking deacon who passed the collection-plate seemed +inured to disappointment. The prayer had in it a note of +despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living +soul. It gave one the impression that this was indeed a +miserable, dark, despairing world, which deserved to be +wrathfully destroyed, and that this miserable world was full of +equally miserable, broken, sinful, sickly people. + +The sermon was a little better, for somewhere hidden within him +this pale young man had a spark of the divine fire, but it was so +dampened by the atmosphere of the church that it never rose above +a pale luminosity. + +I found the service indescribably depressing. I had an impulse to +rise up and cry out--almost anything to shock these people into +opening their eyes upon real life. Indeed, though I hesitate +about setting it down here, I was filled for some time with the +liveliest imaginings of the following serio-comic enterprise: + +I would step up the aisle, take my place in front of the Chief +Pharisee, wag my finger under his nose, and tell him a thing or +two about the condition of the church. + +"The only live thing here," I would tell him, "is the spark in +that pale minister's soul; and you're doing your best to smother +that." + +And I fully made up my mind that when he answered back in his +chief-pharisaical way I would gently--but firmly remove him from +his seat, shake him vigorously two or three times (men's souls +have often been saved with less!), deposit him flat in the aisle, +and yes--stand on him while I elucidated the situation to the +audience at large. While I confined this amusing and interesting +project to the humours of the imagination I am still convinced +that something of the sort would have helped enormously in +clearing up the religious and moral atmosphere of the place. + +I had a wonderful sensation of relief when at last I stepped out +again into the clear afternoon sunshine and got a reviving +glimpse of the smiling green hills and the quiet fields and the +sincere trees--and felt the welcome of the friendly road. + +I would have made straight for the hills, but the thought of that +pale minister held me back; and I waited quietly there under the +trees till he came out. He was plainly looking for me, and asked +me to wait and walk along with him, at which his four boys, whose +acquaintance I had made under such thrilling circumstances +earlier in the day, seemed highly delighted, and waited with me +under the tree and told me a hundred important things about a +certain calf, a pig, a kite, and other things at home. + +Arriving at the minister's gate, I was invited in with a +whole-heartedness that was altogether charming. The minister's +wife, a faded-looking woman who had once possessed a delicate +sort of prettiness, was waiting for us on the steps with a fine +chubby baby on her arm--number five. + +The home was much the sort of place I had imagined--a small house +undesirably located (but cheap!), with a few straggling acres of +garden and meadow upon which the minister and his boys were +trying with inexperienced hands to piece out their inadequate +living. At the very first glimpse of the garden I wanted to throw +off my coat and go at it. + +And yet--and yet---what a wonderful thing love is! There was, +after all, something incalculable, something pervasively +beautiful about this poor household. The moment the minister +stepped inside his own door he became a different and livelier +person. Something boyish crept into his manner, and a new look +came into the eyes of his faded wife that made her almost pretty +again. And the fat, comfortable baby rolled and gurgled about on +the floor as happily as though there had been two nurses and a +governess to look after him. As for the four boys, I have never +seen healthier or happier ones. + +I sat with them at their Sunday-evening luncheon. As the minister +bowed his head to say grace I felt him clasp my hand on one side +while the oldest boy clasped my hand on the other, and thus, +linked together, and accepting the stranger utterly, the family +looked up to God. + +There was a fine, modest gayety about the meal. In front of Mrs. +Minister stood a very large yellow bowl filled with what she +called rusk--a preparation unfamiliar to me, made by browning and +crushing the crusts of bread and then rolling them down into a +coarse meal. A bowl of this, with sweet, rich, yellow milk (for +they kept their own cow), made one of the most appetizing dishes +that ever I ate. It was downright good: it gave one the unalloyed +aroma of the sweet new milk and the satisfying taste of the crisp +bread. + +Nor have I ever enjoyed a more perfect hospitality. I have been +in many a richer home where there was not a hundredth part of the +true gentility--the gentility of unapologizing simplicity and +kindness. + +And after it was over and cleared away--the minister himself +donning a long apron and helping his wife--and the chubby baby +put to bed, we all sat around the table in the gathering +twilight. + +I think men perish sometimes from sheer untalked talk. For lack +of a creative listener they gradually fill up with unexpressed +emotion. Presently this emotion begins to ferment, and +finally--bang!--they blow up, burst, disappear in thin air. In +all that community I suppose there was no one but the little +faded wife to whom the minister dared open his heart, and I think +he found me a godsend. All I really did was to look from one to +the other and put in here and there an inciting comment or ask an +understanding question. After he had told me his situation and +the difficulties which confronted him and his small church, he +exclaimed suddenly: + +"A minister should by rights be a leader, not only inside of his +church, but outside it in the community." + +"You are right," I exclaimed with great earnestness; "you are +right." + +And with that I told him of our own Scotch preacher and how he +led and moulded our community; and as I talked I could see him +actually growing, unfolding, under my eyes. + +"Why," said I, "you not only ought to be the moral leader of this +community, but you are!" + +"That's what I tell him," exclaimed his wife. + +"But he persists in thinking, doesn't he, that he is a poor +sinner?" + +"He thinks it too much," she laughed. + +"Yes, yes," he said, as much to himself as to us, "a minister +ought to be a fighter!" + +It was beautiful, the boyish flush which now came into his face +and the light that came into his eyes. I should never have +identified him with the Black Spectre of the afternoon. + +"Why," said I, "you ARE a fighter; you're fighting the greatest +battle in the world today--the only real battle--the battle for +the spiritual view of life." + +Oh, I knew exactly what was the trouble with his religion--at +least the religion which, under the pressure of that church he +felt obliged to preach! It was the old, groaning, denying, +resisting religion. It was the sort of religion which sets a man +apart and assures him that the entire universe in the guise of +the Powers of Darkness is leagued against him. What he needed was +a reviving draught of the new faith which affirms, accepts, +rejoices, which feels the universe triumphantly behind it. And so +whenever the minister told me what he ought to be--for he too +sensed the new impulse--I merely told him he was just that. He +needed only this little encouragement to unfold. + +"Yes," said he again, "I am the real moral leader here." + +At this I saw Mrs. Minister nodding her head vigorously. + +"It's you," she said, "and not Mr. Nash, who should lead this +community." + +How a woman loves concrete applications. She is your only true +pragmatist. If a philosophy will not work, says she, why bother +with it? + +The minister rose quickly from his chair, threw back his head, +and strode quickly up and down the room. + +"You are right," said he; "and I WILL lead it. I'll have my +farmers' meetings as I planned." + +It may have been the effect of the lamplight, but it seemed to me +that little Mrs. Minister, as she glanced up at him, looked +actually pretty. + +The minister continued to stride up and down the room with his +chin in the air. + +"Mr. Nash," said she in a low voice to me, "is always trying to +hold him down and keep him back. My husband WANTS to do the great +things"--wistfully. + +"By every right," the minister was repeating, quite oblivious of +our presence, "I should lead these people." + +"He sees the weakness of the church," she continued, "as well as +any one, and he wants to start some vigorous community work--have +agricultural meetings and boys' clubs, and lots of things like +that--but Mr. Nash says it is no part of a minister's work: that +it cheapens religion. He says that when a parson--Mr. Nash always +calls him parson, and I just LOATHE that name --has preached, and +prayed, and visited the sick, that's enough for HIM." + +At this very moment a step sounded upon the walk, and an instant +later a figure appeared in the doorway. + +"Why, Mr. Nash," exclaimed little Mrs. Minister, exhibiting that +astonishing gift of swift recovery which is the possession of +even the simplest women, "come right in." + +It was some seconds before the minister could come down from the +heights and greet Mr. Nash. As for me, I was never more +interested in my life. + +"Now," said I to myself, "we shall see Christian meet Apollyon." + +As soon as Mrs. Minister lighted the lamp I was introduced to the +great man. He looked at me sharply with his small, round eyes, +and said: + +"Oh, you are the--the man who was in church this afternoon." + +I admitted it, and he looked around at the minister with an +accusing expression. He evidently did not approve of me, nor +could I wholly blame him, for I knew well how he, as a rich +farmer, must look upon a rusty man of the road like me. I should +have liked dearly to cross swords with him myself, but greater +events were imminent. + +In no time at all the discussion, which had evidently been broken +off at some previous meeting, concerning the proposed farmers' +assembly at the church, had taken on a really lively tone. Mr. +Nash was evidently in the somewhat irritable mood with which +important people may sometimes indulge themselves, for he bit off +his words in a way that was calculated to make any but an +unusually meek and saintly man exceedingly uncomfortable. But the +minister, with the fine, high humility of those whose passion is +for great or true things, was quite oblivious to the harsh words. +Borne along by an irresistible enthusiasm, he told in glowing +terms what his plan would mean to the community, how the people +needed a new social and civic spirit--a "neighbourhood religious +feeling" he called it. And as he talked his face flushed, and his +eyes shone with the pure fire of a great purpose. But I could see +that all this enthusiasm impressed the practical Mr. Nash as mere +moonshine. He grew more and more uneasy. Finally he brought his +hand down with a resounding thwack upon his knee, and said in a +high, cutting voice: + +"I don't believe in any such newfangled nonsense. It ain't none +of a parson's business what the community does. You're hired, +ain't you, an' paid to run the church? That's the end of it. We +ain't goin' to have any mixin' of religion an' farmin' in THIS +neighbourhood." + +My eyes were on the pale man of God. I felt as though a human +soul were being weighed in the balance. What would he do now? +What was he worth REALLY as a man as well as a minister? + +He paused a moment with downcast eyes. I saw little Mrs. Minister +glance at him--once--wistfully. He rose from his place, drew +himself up to his full height--I shall not soon forget the look +on his face--and uttered these amazing words: + +"Martha, bring the ginger-jar." + +Mrs. Minister, without a word, went to a little cupboard on the +farther side of the room and took down a brown earthenware jar, +which she brought over and placed on the table, Mr. Nash +following her movements with astonished eyes. No one spoke. + +The minister took the jar in his hands as he might the +communion-cup just before saying the prayer of the sacrament. + +"Mr. Nash," said he in a loud voice, "I've decided to hold that +farmers' meeting." + +Before Mr. Nash could reply the minister seated himself and was +pouring out the contents of the jar upon the table--a clatter of +dimes, nickels, pennies, a few quarters and half dollars, and a +very few bills. + +"Martha, just how much money is there?" + +"Twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents." + +The minister put his hand into his pocket and, after counting out +certain coins, said: + +"Here's one dollar and eighty-four cents more. That makes +twenty-six dollars. Now, Mr. Nash, you're the largest contributor +to my salary in this neighbourhood. You gave twenty-six dollars +last year--fifty cents a week. It is a generous contribution, but +I cannot take it any longer. It is fortunate that my wife has +saved up this money to buy a sewing-machine, so that we can pay +back your contribution in full." + +He paused; no one of us spoke a word. + +"Mr. Nash," he continued, and his face was good to see, "I am the +minister here. I am convinced that what the community needs is +more of a religious and social spirit, and I am going about +getting it in the way the Lord leads me." + +At this I saw Mrs. Minister look up at her husband with such a +light in her eyes as any man might well barter his life for--I +could not keep my own eyes from pure beauty of it. + +I knew too what this defiance meant. It meant that this little +family was placing its all upon the altar--even the pitiful coins +for which they had skimped and saved for months for a particular +purpose. Talk of the heroism of the men who charged with Pickett +at Gettysburg! Here was a courage higher and whiter than that; +here was a courage that dared to fight alone. + +As for Mr. Nash, the face of that Chief Pharisee was a study. +Nothing is so paralyzing to a rich man as to find suddenly that +his money will no longer command him any advantage. Like all +hard-shelled, practical people, Mr. Nash could only dominate in a +world which recognized the same material supremacy that he +recognized. Any one who insisted upon flying was lost to Mr. +Nash. + +The minister pushed the little pile of coins toward him. + +"Take it, Mr. Nash," said he. + +At that Mr. Nash rose hastily. + +"I will not," he said gruffly. + +He paused, and looked at the minister with a strange expression +in his small round eyes--was it anger, or was it fear, or could +it have been admiration? + +"If you want to waste your time on fiddlin' farmers' meetings--a +man that knows as little of farmin' as you do--why go ahead for +all o' me. But don't count me in." + +He turned, reached for his hat, and then went out of the door +into the darkness. + +For a moment we all sat perfectly silent, then the minister rose, +and said solemnly: + +"Martha, let's sing something." + +Martha crossed the room to the cottage organ and seated herself +on the stool. + +"What shall we sing?" said she. + +"Something with fight in it, Martha," he responded; "something +with plenty of fight in it." + +So we sang "Onward, Christian Soldier, Marching as to War," and +followed up with: + +Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve +And press with rigour on; +A heavenly race demands thy zeal +And an immortal crown. + + +When we had finished, and as Martha rose from her seat, the +minister impulsively put his hands on her shoulders, and said: + +"Martha, this is the greatest night of my life." + +He took a turn up and down the room, and then with an exultant +boyish laugh said: + +"We'll go to town to-morrow and pick out that sewing-machine!" + + +I remained with them that night and part of the following day, +taking a hand with them in the garden, but of the events of that +day I shall speak in another chapter. + + +CHAPTER V. I PLAY THE PART OF A SPECTACLE PEDDLER + +Yesterday was exactly the sort of a day I love best--a spicy, +unexpected, amusing day--crowned with a droll adventure. + +I cannot account for it, but it seems to me I take the road each +morning with a livelier mind and keener curiosity. If you were to +watch me narrowly these days you would see I am slowly shedding +my years. I suspect that some one of the clear hill streams from +which I have been drinking (lying prone on my face) was in +reality the fountain of eternal youth. I shall not go back to +see. + +It seems to me, when I feel like this, that in every least thing +upon the roadside, or upon the hill, lurks the stuff of +adventure. What a world it is! A mile south of here I shall find +all that Stanley found in the jungles of Africa; a mile north I +am Peary at the Pole! + +You there, brown-clad farmer on the tall seat of your wagon, +driving townward with a red heifer for sale, I can show you that +life --your life--is not all a gray smudge, as you think it is, +but crammed, packed, loaded with miraculous things. I can show +you wonders past belief in your own soul. I can easily convince +you that you are in reality a poet, a hero, a true lover, a +saint. + +It is because we are not humble enough in the presence of the +divine daily fact that adventure knocks so rarely at our door. A +thousand times I have had to learn this truth (what lesson so +hard to learn as the lesson of humility!) and I suppose I shall +have to learn it a thousand times more. This very day, straining +my eyes to see the distant wonders of the mountains, I nearly +missed a miracle by the roadside. + +Soon after leaving the minister and his family--I worked with +them in their garden with great delight most of the forenoon--I +came, within a mile--to the wide white turnpike--the Great Road. + +Now, I usually prefer the little roads, the little, unexpected, +curving, leisurely country roads. The sharp hills, the pleasant +deep valleys, the bridges not too well kept, the verdure deep +grown along old fences, the houses opening hospitably at the very +roadside, all these things I love. They come to me with the same +sort of charm and flavour, only vastly magnified, which I find +often in the essays of the older writers--those leisurely old +fellows who took time to write, REALLY write. The important thing +to me about a road, as about life--and literature, is not that it +goes anywhere, but that it is livable while it goes. For if I +were to arrive--and who knows that I ever shall arrive?--I think +I should be no happier than I am here. + +Thus I have commonly avoided the Great White Road--the broad, +smooth turnpike--rock-bottomed and rolled by a State--without so +much as a loitering curve to whet one's curiosity, nor a thank- +you-ma'am to laugh over, nor a sinful hill to test your +endurance--not so much as a dreamy valley! It pursues its hard, +unshaded, practical way directly from some particular place to +some other particular place and from time to time a motor-car +shoots in at one end of it and out at the other, leaving its dust +to settle upon quiet travellers like me. + +Thus to-day when I came to the turnpike I was at first for making +straight across it and taking to the hills beyond, but at that +very moment a motor-car whirled past me as I stood there and a +girl with a merry face waved her hand at me. I lifted my hat in +return--and as I watched them out of sight I felt a curious new +sense of warmth and friendliness there in the Great Road. + +"These are just people, too," I said aloud --"and maybe they +really like it!" + +And with that I began laughing at myself, and at the whole, big, +amazing, interesting world. Here was I pitying them for their +benighted state, and there were they, no doubt, pitying me for +mine! + +And with that pleasant and satisfactory thought in my mind and a +song in my throat I swung into the Great Road. + +"It doesn't matter in the least," said I to myself, "whether a +man takes hold of life by the great road or the little ones so +long as he takes hold." + +And oh, it was a wonderful day! A day with movement in it; a day +that flowed! In every field the farmers were at work, the cattle +fed widely in the meadows, and the Great Road itself was alive +with a hundred varied sorts of activity. Light winds stirred the +tree-tops and rippled in the new grass; and from the thickets I +heard the blackbirds crying. Everything animate and inanimate, +that morning, seemed to have its own clear voice and to cry out +at me for my interest, or curiosity, or sympathy. Under such +circumstances it could not have been long--nor was it +long--before I came plump upon the first of a series of odd +adventures. + + +A great many people, I know, abominate the roadside sign. It +seems to them a desecration of nature, the intrusion of rude +commercialism upon the perfection of natural beauty. But not I. I +have no such feeling. Oh, the signs in themselves are often rude +and unbeautiful, and I never wished my own barn or fences to sing +the praises of swamp root or sarsaparilla--and yet there is +something wonderfully human about these painted and pasted +vociferations of the roadside signs; and I don't know why they +are less "natural" in their way than a house or barn or a planted +field of corn. They also tell us about life. How eagerly they +cry out at us, "Buy me, buy me!" What enthusiasm they have in +their own concerns, what boundless faith in themselves! How they +speak of the enormous energy, activity, resourcefulness of human +kind! + +Indeed, I like all kinds of signs. The autocratic warnings of the +road, the musts and the must-nots of traffic, I observe in +passing; and I often stand long at the crossings and look up at +the finger-posts, and consider my limitless wealth as a +traveller. By this road I may, at my own pleasure, reach the +Great City; by that--who knows?--the far wonders of Cathay. And I +respond always to the appeal which the devoted pilgrim paints on +the rocks at the roadside: "Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is +at hand," and though I am certain that the kingdom of God is +already here, I stop always and repent--just a little--knowing +that there is always room for it. At the entrance of the little +towns, also, or in the squares of the villages, I stop often to +read the signs of taxes assessed, or of political meetings; I see +the evidences of homes broken up in the notices of auction sales, +and of families bereaved in the dry and formal publications of +the probate court. I pause, too, before the signs of amusements +flaming red and yellow on the barns (boys, the circus is coming +to town!), and I pause also, but no longer, to read the silent +signs carved in stone in the little cemeteries as I pass. +Symbols, you say? Why, they're the very stuff of life. If you +cannot see life here in the wide road, you will never see it at +all. + +Well, I saw a sign yesterday at the roadside that I never saw +anywhere before. It was not a large sign--indeed rather +inconspicuous--consisting of a single word rather crudely painted +in black (as by an amateur) upon a white board. It was nailed to +a tree where those in swift passing cars could not avoid seeing +it: + +[ REST ] + +I cannot describe the odd sense of enlivenment, of pleasure I had +when I saw this new sign. + +"Rest!" I exclaimed aloud. "Indeed I will," and I sat down on a +stone not far away. + +"Rest!" + +What a sign for this very spot! Here in the midst of the haste +and hurry of the Great Road a quiet voice was saying,"Rest." Some +one with imagination, I thought, evidently put that up; some +quietist offering this mild protest against the breathless +progress of the age. How often I have felt the same way +myself--as though I were being swept onward through life faster +than I could well enjoy it. For nature passes the dishes far more +rapidly than we can help ourselves. + +Or perhaps, thought I, eagerly speculating, this may be only some +cunning advertiser with rest for sale (in these days even rest +has its price), thus piquing the curiosity of the traveller for +the disclosure which he will make a mile or so farther on. Or +else some humourist wasting his wit upon the Fraternity of the +Road, too willing (like me, perhaps) to accept his ironical +advice. But it would be well worth while should I find him, to +see him chuckle behind his hand. + +So I sat there very much interested, for a long time, even +framing a rather amusing picture in my own mind of the sort of +person who painted these signs, deciding finally that he must be +a zealot rather than a trader or humourist. (Confidentially, I +could not make a picture of him in which he was not endowed with +plentiful long hair). As I walked onward again, I decided that in +any guise I should like to see him, and I enjoyed thinking what I +should say if I met him. A mile farther up the road I saw another +sign exactly like the first. + +"Here he is again," I said exultantly, and that sign being +somewhat nearer the ground I was able to examine it carefully +front and back, but it bore no evidence of its origin. + +In the next few miles I saw two other signs with nothing on them +but the word "Rest." + +Now this excellent admonition--like much of the excellent +admonitions in this world-- affected me perversely: it made me +more restless than ever. I felt that I could not rest properly +until I found out who wanted me to rest, and why. It opened +indeed a limitless vista for new adventure. + + +Presently, away ahead of me in the road, I saw a man standing +near a one-horse wagon. He seemed to be engaged in some activity +near the roadside, but I could not tell exactly what. As I +hastened nearer I discovered that he was a short, strongly built, +sun-bronzed man in working-clothes--and with the shortest of +short hair. I saw him take a shovel from the wagon and begin +digging. He was the road-worker. + +I asked the road-worker if he had seen the curious signs. He +looked up at me with a broad smile (he had good-humoured, very +bright blue eyes). + +"Yes," he said, "but they ain't for me." + +"Then you don't follow the advice they give?" + +"Not with a section like mine," said he, and he straightened up +and looked first one way of the road and then the other. "I have +from Grabow Brook, but not the bridge, to the top o' Sullivan +Hill, and all the culverts between, though two of 'em are by +rights bridges. And I claim that's a job for any full-grown man." + +He began shovelling again in the road as if to prove how busy he +was. There had been a small landslide from an open cut on one +side and a mass of gravel and small boulders lay scattered on the +smooth macadam. I watched him for a moment. I love to watch the +motions of vigorous men at work, the easy play of the muscles, +the swing of the shoulders, the vigour of stoutly planted legs. +He evidently considered the conversation closed, and I, as--well, +as a dusty man of the road--easily dismissed. (You have no idea, +until you try it, what a weight of prejudice the man of the road +has to surmount before he is accepted on easy terms by the +ordinary members of the human race.) + +A few other well-intentioned observations on my part having +elicited nothing but monosyllabic replies, I put my bag down by +the roadside and, going up to the wagon, got out a shovel, and +without a word took my place at the other end of the landslide +and began to shovel for all I was worth. + +I said not a word to the husky road-worker and pretended not to +look at him, but I saw him well enough out of the corner of my +eye. He was evidently astonished and interested, as I knew he +would be: it was something entirely new on the road. He didn't +quite know whether to be angry, or amused, or sociable. I caught +him looking over at me several times, but I offered no response; +then he cleared his throat and said: + +"Where you from?" + +I answered with a monosyllable which I knew he could not quite +catch. Silence again for some time, during which I shovelled +valiantly and with great inward amusement. Oh, there is nothing +like cracking a hard human nut! I decided at that moment, to have +him invite me to supper. + +Finally, when I showed no signs of stopping my work, he himself +paused and leaned on his shovel. I kept right on. + +"Say, partner," said he, finally, "did YOU read those signs as +you come up the road?" + +"Yes," I said, "but they weren't for me, either. My section's a +long one, too." + +"Say, you ain't a road-worker, are you?" he asked eagerly. + +"Yes," said I, with a sudden inspiration, "that's exactly what I +am--a road-worker." + +"Put her there, then, partner," he said, with a broad smile on +his bronzed face. + +He and I struck hands, rested on our shovels (like old hands at +it), and looked with understanding into each other's eyes. We +both knew the trade and the tricks of the trade; all bars were +down between us. The fact is, we had both seen and profited by +the peculiar signs at the roadside. + +"Where's your section?" he asked easily. + +"Well," I responded after considering the question, "I have a +very long and hard section. It begins at a place called Prosy +Common--do you know it?--and reaches to the top of Clear Hill. +There are several bad spots on the way, I can tell you." + +"Don't know it," said the husky road-worker; "'tain't round here, +is it? In the town of Sheldon, maybe?" + +Just at this moment, perhaps fortunately, for there is nothing so +difficult to satisfy as the appetite of people for specific +information, a motor-car whizzed past, the driver holding up his +hand in greeting, and the road-worker and I responding in +accordance with the etiquette of the Great Road. + +"There he goes in the ruts again," said the husky road-worker. +"Why is it, I'd like to know, that every one wants to run in the +same identical track when they've got the whole wide road before +'em?" + +"That's what has long puzzled me, too," I said. "Why WILL people +continue to run in ruts?" + +"It don't seem to do no good to put up signs," said the +road-worker. + +"Very little indeed," said I. "The fact is, people have got to be +bumped out of the ruts they get into." + +"You're right," said he enthusiastically, and his voice dropped +into the tone of one speaking to a member of the inner guild. "I +know how to get 'em." + +"How?" I asked in an equally mysterious voice. + +"I put a stone or two in the ruts!" + +"Do you?" I exclaimed. "I've done that very thing myself--many a +time! Just place a good hard tru--I mean stone, with a bit of +common dust sprinkled over it, in the middle of the rut, and +they'll look out for THAT rut for some time to come." + +"Ain't it gorgeous," said the husky road-worker, chuckling +joyfully, "to see 'em bump?" + +"It is," said I--"gorgeous." + +After that, shovelling part of the time in a leisurely way, and +part of the time responding to the urgent request of the signs by +the roadside (it pays to advertise!), the husky road-worker and I +discussed many great and important subjects, all, however, +curiously related to roads. Working all day long with his old +horse, removing obstructions, draining out the culverts, filling +ruts and holes with new stone, and repairing the damage of rain +and storm, the road-worker was filled with a world of practical +information covering roads and road-making. And having learned +that I was of the same calling, we exchanged views with the +greatest enthusiasm. It was astonishing to see how nearly in +agreement we were as to what constituted an ideal road. + +"Almost everything," said he, "depends on depth. If you get a +good solid foundation, the' ain't anything that can break up +your road." + +"Exactly what I have discovered," I responded. "Get down to +bedrock and do an honest job of building." + +"And don't have too many sharp turns." + +"No," said I, "long, leisurely curves are best--all through life. +You have observed that nearly all the accidents on the road are +due to sharp turnings." + +"Right you are!" he exclaimed. + +"A man who tries to turn too sharply on his way nearly always +skids." + +"Or else turns turtle in the ditch." + +But it was not until we reached the subject of oiling that we +mounted to the real summit of enthusiastic agreement. Of all +things on the road, or above the road, or in the waters under the +road, there is nothing that the road-worker dislikes more than +oil. + +"It's all right," said he, "to use oil for surfacin' and to keep +down the dust. You don't need much and it ain't messy. But +sometimes when you see oil pumped on a road, you know that either +the contractor has been jobbin', or else the road's worn out and +ought to be rebuilt." + +"That's exactly what I've found," said I. "Let a road become +almost impassable with ruts and rocks and dust, and immediately +some man says, 'Oh, it's all right--put on a little oil--'" + +"That's what our supervisor is always sayin'," said the +road-worker. + +"Yes," I responded, "it usually is the supervisor. He lives by +it. He wants to smooth over the defects, he wants to lay the dust +that every passerby kicks up, he tries to smear over the truth +regarding conditions with messy and ill-smelling oil. Above +everything, he doesn't want the road dug up and rebuilt--says it +will interfere with traffic, injure business, and even set people +to talking about changing the route entirely! Oh, haven't I seen +it in religion, where they are doing their best to oil up roads +that are entirely worn out--and as for politics, is not the cry +of the party-roadster and the harmony-oilers abroad in the land?" + +In the excited interest with which this idea now bore me along I +had entirely forgotten the existence of my companion, and as I +now glanced at him I saw him standing with a curious look of +astonishment and suspicion on his face. I saw that I had +unintentionally gone a little too far. So I said abruptly: + +"Partner, let's get a drink. I'm thirsty." + +He followed me, I thought a bit reluctantly, to a little brook +not far up the road where we had been once before. As we were +drinking, silently, I looked at the stout young fellow standing +there, and I thought to myself: + +What a good, straightforward young fellow he is anyway, and how +thoroughly he knows his job. I thought how well he was equipped +with unilluminated knowledge, and it came to me whimsically, that +here was a fine bit of road-mending for me to do. + +Most people have sight, but few have insight; and as I looked +into the clear blue eyes of my friend I had a sudden swift +inspiration, and before I could repent of it I had said to him in +the most serious voice that I could command: + +"Friend, I am in reality a spectacle-peddler--" + +His glance shifted uncomfortably to my gray bag. + +"And I want to sell you a pair of spectacles," I said. "I see +that you are nearly blind." + +"Me blind!" + +It would be utterly impossible to describe the expression on his +face. His hand went involuntarily to his eyes, and he glanced +quickly, somewhat fearfully, about. + +"Yes, nearly blind," said I. "I saw it when I first met you. You +don't know it yourself yet, but I can assure you it is a bad +case." + +I paused, and shook my head slowly. If I had not been so much in +earnest, I think I should have been tempted to laugh outright. I +had begun my talk with him half jestingly, with the amusing idea +of breaking through his shell, but I now found myself +tremendously engrossed, and desired nothing in the world (at that +moment) so much as to make him see what I saw. I felt as though I +held a live human soul in my hand. + +"Say, partner," said the road-worker, "are you sure you aren't--" +He tapped his forehead and began to edge away. + +I did not answer his question at all, but continued, with my eyes +fixed on him: + +"It is a peculiar sort of blindness. Apparently, as you look +about, you see everything there is to see, but as a matter of +fact you see nothing in the world but this road--" + +"It's time that I was seein' it again then," said he, making as +if to turn back to work, but remaining with a disturbed +expression on his countenance. + +"The Spectacles I have to sell," said I, "are powerful +magnifiers"--he glanced again at the gray bag. "When you put them +on you will see a thousand wonderful things besides the road--" + +"Then you ain't road-worker after all!" he said, evidently trying +to be bluff and outright with me. + + +Now your substantial, sober, practical American will stand only +about so much verbal foolery; and there is nothing in the world +that makes him more uncomfortable--yes, downright mad!-- than to +feel that he is being played with. I could see that I had nearly +reached the limit with him, and that if I held him now it must be +by driving the truth straight home. So I stepped over toward him +and said very earnestly: + +"My friend, don't think I am merely joking you. I was never more +in earnest in all my life. When I told you I was a road-worker I +meant it, but I had in mind the mending of other kinds of roads +than this." + +I laid my hand on his arm, and explained to him as directly and +simply as English words could do it, how, when he had spoken of +oil for his roads, I thought of another sort of oil for another +sort of roads, and when he spoke of curves in his roads I was +thinking of curves in the roads I dealt with, and I explained to +him what my roads were. I have never seen a man more intensely +interested: he neither moved nor took his eyes from my face. + +"And when I spoke of selling you a pair of spectacles," said I, +"it was only a way of telling you how much I wanted to make you +see my kinds of roads as well as your own." + +I paused, wondering if, after all, he could be made to see. I +know now how the surgeon must feel at the crucial moment of his +accomplished operation. Will the patient live or die? + +The road-worker drew a long breath as he came out from under the +anesthetic. + +"I guess, partner," said he, "you're trying to put a stone or two +in my ruts!" + +I had him! + +"Exactly," I exclaimed eagerly. + +We both paused. He was the first to speak--with some +embarrassment: + +"Say, you're just like a preacher I used to know when I was a +kid. He was always sayin' things that meant something else and +when you found out what he was drivin' at you always felt kind of +queer in your insides." + +I laughed. + +"It's a mighty good sign," I said, "when a man begins to feel +queer in the insides. It shows that something is happening to +him." + +With that we walked back to the road, feeling very close and +friendly--and shovelling again, not saying much. After quite a +time, when we had nearly cleaned up the landslide, I heard the +husky road-worker chuckling to himself; finally, straightening +up, he said: + +"Say, there's more things in a road than ever I dreamt of." + +"I see," said I, "that the new spectacles are a good fit." + +The road-worker laughed long and loud. + +"You're a good one, all right," he said. "I see what YOU mean. I +catch your point." + +"And now that you've got them on," said I, "and they are serving +you so well, I'm not going to sell them to you at all. I'm going +to present them to you--for I haven't seen anybody in a long time +that I've enjoyed meeting more than I have you." + +We nurse a fiction that people love to cover up their feelings; +but I have learned that if the feeling is real and deep they love +far better to find a way to uncover it. + +"Same here," said the road-worker simply, but with a world of +genuine feeling in his voice. + +Well, when it came time to stop work the road-worker insisted +that I get in and go home with him. + +"I want you to see my wife and kids," said he. + +The upshot of it was that I not only remained for supper--and a +good supper it was--but I spent the night in his little home, +close at the side of the road near the foot of a fine hill. And +from time to time all night long, it seemed to me, I could hear +the rush of cars going by in the smooth road outside, and +sometimes their lights flashed in at my window, and sometimes I +heard them sound their brassy horns. + +I wish I could tell more of what I saw there, of the garden back +of the house, and of all the road-worker and his wife told me of +their simple history--but, the road calls! + +When I set forth early this morning the road-worker followed me +out to the smooth macadam (his wife standing in the doorway with +her hands rolled in her apron) and said to me, a bit shyly: + +"I'll be more sort o'--sort o' interested in roads since I've +seen you." + +"I'll be along again some of these days," said I, laughing, "and +I'll stop in and show you my new stock of spectacles. Maybe I can +sell you another pair!" + +"Maybe you kin," and he smiled a broad, understanding smile. + +Nothing brings men together like having a joke in common. + +So I walked off down the road--in the best of spirits--ready for +the events of another day. + +It will surely be a great adventure, one of these days, to come +this way again--and to visit the Stanleys, and the Vedders, and +the Minister, and drop in and sell another pair of specs to the +Road-worker. It seems to me I have a wonderfully rosy future +ahead of me! + + +P. S.--I have not yet found out who painted the curious signs; +but I am not as uneasy about it as I was. I have seen two more of +them already this morning--and find they exert quite a +psychological influence. + + + +CHAPTER VI. AN EXPERIMENT IN HUMAN NATURE + +In the early morning after I left the husky road-mender (wearing +his new spectacles), I remained steadfastly on the Great Road or +near it. It was a prime spring day, just a little hazy, as though +promising rain, but soft and warm. + +"They will be working in the garden at home," I thought, "and +there will be worlds of rhubarb and asparagus." Then I remembered +how the morning sunshine would look on the little vine-clad back +porch (reaching halfway up the weathered door) of my own house +among the hills. + +It was the first time since my pilgrimage began that I had +thought with any emotion of my farm--or of Harriet. + +And then the road claimed me again, and I began to look out for +some further explanation of the curious sign, the single word +"Rest," which had interested me so keenly on the preceding day. +It may seem absurd to some who read these lines--some practical +people!--but I cannot convey the pleasure I had in the very +elusiveness and mystery of the sign, nor how I wished I might at +the next turn come upon the poet himself. I decided that no one +but a poet could have contented himself with a lyric in one word, +unless it might have been a humourist, to whom sometimes a single +small word is more blessed than all the verbal riches of Webster +himself. For it is nothing short of genius that uses one word +when twenty will say the same thing! + +Or, would he, after all, turn out to be only a more than +ordinarily alluring advertiser? I confess my heart went into my +throat that morning, when I first saw the sign, lest it read: + +[ RESTaurant 2 miles east ] + +nor should I have been surprised if it had. + +I caught a vicarious glimpse of the sign-man to-day, through the +eyes of a young farmer. Yes, he s'posed he'd seen him, he said; +wore a slouch hat, couldn't tell whether he was young or old. +Drove into the bushes (just down there beyond the brook) and, +standin' on the seat of his buggy, nailed something to a tree. A +day or two later--the dull wonder of mankind!--the young farmer, +passing that way to town, had seen the odd sign "Rest" on the +tree: he s'posed the fellow put it there. + +"What does it mean?" + +"Well, naow, I hadn't thought," said the young farmer. + +"Did the fellow by any chance have long hair?" + +"Well, naow, I didn't notice," said he. + +"Are you sure he wore a slouch hat?" + +"Ye-es--or it may a-been straw," replied the observant young +farmer. + + +So I tramped that morning; and as I tramped I let my mind go out +warmly to the people living all about on the farms or in the +hills. It is pleasant at times to feel life, as it were, in +general terms: no specific Mr. Smith or concrete Mr. Jones, but +just human life. I love to think of people all around going out +busily in the morning to their work and returning at night, +weary, to rest. I like to think of them growing up, growing old, +loving, achieving, sinning, failing--in short, living. + +In such a live-minded mood as this it often happens that the most +ordinary things appear charged with new significance. I suppose I +had seen a thousand rural-mail boxes along country roads before +that day, but I had seen them as the young farmer saw the +sign-man. They were mere inert objects of iron and wood. + +But as I tramped, thinking of the people in the hills, I came +quite unexpectedly upon a sandy by-road that came out through a +thicket of scrub oaks and hazel-brush, like some shy countryman, +to join the turn-pike. As I stood looking into it--for it seemed +peculiarly inviting--I saw at the entrance a familiar group of +rural-mail boxes. And I saw them not as dead things, but for the +moment--the illusion was over-powering--they were living, eager +hands outstretched to the passing throng I could feel, hear, see +the farmers up there in the hills reaching out to me, to all the +world, for a thousand inexpressible things, for more life, more +companionship, more comforts, more money. + +It occurred to me at that moment, whimsically and yet somehow +seriously, that I might respond to the appeal of the shy country +road and the outstretched hands. At first I did not think of +anything I could do--save to go up and eat dinner with one of the +hill farmers, which might not be an unmixed blessing!--and then +it came to me. + +"I will write a letter!" + +Straightway and with the liveliest amusement I began to formulate +in my mind what I should say: + +Dear Friend: You do not know me. I am a passerby in the road. +My name is David Grayson. You do not know me, and it may seem +odd to you to receive a letter from an entire stranger. But I am +something of a farmer myself, and as I went by I could not help +thinking of you and your family and your farm. The fact is, I +should like to look you up, and talk with you about many things. +I myself cultivate a number of curious fields, and raise many +kinds of crops-- + +At this interesting point my inspiration suddenly collapsed, for +I had a vision, at once amusing and disconcerting, of my hill +farmer (and his practical wife!) receiving such a letter (along +with the country paper, a circular advertising a cure for +catarrh, and the most recent catalogue of the largest mail-order +house in creation). I could see them standing there in their +doorway, the man with his coat off, doubtfully scratching his +head as he read my letter, the woman wiping her hands on her +apron and looking over his shoulder, and a youngster squeezing +between the two and demanding, "What is it, Paw?" + +I found myself wondering how they would receive such an unusual +letter, what they would take it to mean. And in spite of all I +could do, I could imagine no expression on their faces save one +of incredulity and suspicion. I could fairly see the shrewd +worldly wise look come into the farmer's face; I could hear him +say: + +"Ha, guess he thinks we ain't cut our eye-teeth!" And he would +instantly begin speculating as to whether this was a new scheme +for selling him second-rate nursery stock, or the smooth +introduction of another sewing-machine agent. + +Strange world, strange world! Sometimes it seems to me that the +hardest thing of all to believe in is simple friendship. Is it +not a comment upon our civilization that it is so often easier to +believe that a man is a friend-for-profit, or even a cheat, than +that he is frankly a well-wisher of his neighbours? + + +These reflections put such a damper upon my enthusiasm that I was +on the point of taking again to the road, when it came to me +powerfully: Why not try the experiment? Why not? + +"Friendship," I said aloud, "is the greatest thing in the world. +There is no door it will not unlock, no problem it will not +solve. It is, after all, the only real thing in this world." + +The sound of my own voice brought me suddenly to myself, and I +found that I was standing there in the middle of the public road, +one clenched fist absurdly raised in air, delivering an oration +to a congregation of rural-mail boxes! + +And yet, in spite of the humorous aspects of the idea, it still +appeared to me that such an experiment would not only fit in with +the true object of my journeying, but that it might be full of +amusing and interesting adventures. Straightway I got my notebook +out of my bag and, sitting down near the roadside, wrote my +letter. I wrote it as though my life depended upon it, with the +intent of making some one household there in the hills feel at +least a little wave of warmth and sympathy from the great world +that was passing in the road below. I tried to prove the validity +of a kindly thought with no selling device attached to it; I +tried to make it such a word of frank companionship as I myself, +working in my own fields, would like to receive. + +Among the letter-boxes in the group was one that stood a little +detached and behind the others, as though shrinking from such +prosperous company. It was made of unpainted wood, with leather +hinges, and looked shabby in comparison with the jaunty red, +green, and gray paint of some of the other boxes (with their +cocky little metallic flags upraised). It bore the good American +name of Clark--T. N. Clark--and it seemed to me that I could tell +something of the Clarks by the box at the crossing. + +"I think they need a friendly word," I said to myself. + +So I wrote the name T. N. Clark on my envelope and put the letter +in his box. + +It was with a sense of joyous adventure that I now turned aside +into the sandy road and climbed the hill. My mind busied itself +with thinking how I should carry out my experiment, how I should +approach these Clarks, and how and what they were. A thousand +ways I pictured to myself the receipt of the letter: it would at +least be something new for them, something just a little +disturbing, and I was curious to see whether it might open the +rift of wonder wide enough to let me slip into their lives. + +I have often wondered why it is that men should be so fearful of +new ventures in social relationships, when I have found them so +fertile, so enjoyable. Most of us fear (actually fear) people who +differ from ourselves, either up or down the scale. Your Edison +pries fearlessly into the intimate secrets of matter; your +Marconi employs the mysterious properties of the "jellied ether," +but let a man seek to experiment with the laws of that singular +electricity which connects you and me (though you be a +millionaire and I a ditch-digger), and we think him a wild +visionary, an academic person. I think sometimes that the science +of humanity to-day is in about the state of darkness that the +natural sciences were when Linneus and Cuvier and Lamarck began +groping for the great laws of natural unity. Most of the human +race is still groaning under the belief that each of us is a +special and unrelated creation, just as men for ages saw no +relationships between the fowls of the air, the beasts of the +field, and the fish of the sea. But, thank God, we are beginning +to learn that unity is as much a law of life as selfish struggle, +and love a more vital force than avarice or lust of power or +place. A Wandering Carpenter knew it, and taught it, twenty +centuries ago. + +"The next house beyond the ridge," said the toothless old woman, +pointing with a long finger, "is the Clarks'. You can't miss it," +and I thought she looked at me oddly. + +I had been walking briskly for some three miles, and it was with +keen expectation that I now mounted the ridge and saw the farm +for which I was looking, lying there in the valley before me. It +was altogether a wild and beautiful bit of country--stunted +cedars on the knolls of the rolling hills, a brook trailing its +way among alders and willows down a long valley, and shaggy old +fields smiling in the sun. As I came nearer I could see that the +only disharmony in the valley was the work (or idleness) of men. +A broken mowing-machine stood in the field where it had been left +the summer before, rusty and forlorn, and dead weeds marked the +edges of a field wherein the spring ploughing was now only half +done. The whole farmstead, indeed, looked tired. As for the house +and barn, they had reached that final stage of decay in which the +best thing that could be said of them was that they were +picturesque. Everything was as different from the farm of the +energetic and joyous Stanleys, whose work I had shared only a few +days before, as anything that could be imagined. + +Now, my usual way of getting into step with people is simplicity +itself. I take off my coat and go to work with them and the first +thing I know we have become first-rate friends. One doesn't dream +of the possibilities of companionship in labour until he has +tried it. + +But how shall one get into step with a man who is not stepping? + +On the porch of the farmhouse, there in the mid-afternoon, a man +sat idly; and children were at play in the yard. I went in at the +gate, not knowing in the least what I should say or do, but +determined to get hold of the problem somewhere. As I approached +the step, I swung my bag from my shoulder. + +"Don't want to buy nothin'," said the man. + +"Well," said I, "that is fortunate, for I have nothing to sell. +But you've got something I want." + +He looked at me dully. + +"What's that?" + +"A drink of water." + +Scarcely moving his head, he called to a shy older girl who had +just appeared in the doorway. + +"Mandy, bring a dipper of water." + +As I stood there the children gathered curiously around me, and +the man continued to sit in his chair, saying absolutely nothing, +a picture of dull discouragement. + +"How they need something to stir them up," I thought. + +When I had emptied the dipper, I sat down on the top step of the +porch, and, without saying a word to the man, placed my bag +beside me and began to open it. The shy girl paused, dipper in +hand, the children stood on tiptoe, and even the man showed signs +of curiosity. With studied deliberation I took out two books I +had with me and put them on the porch; then I proceeded to +rummage for a long time in the bottom of the bag as though I +could not find what I wanted. Every eye was glued upon me, and I +even heard the step of Mrs. Clark as she came to the but I did +not look up or speak. Finally I pulled out my tin whistle and, +leaning back against the porch column, placed it to my lips, and +began playing in Tom Madison's best style (eyes half closed, one +toe tapping to the music, head nodding, fingers lifted high from +the stops), I began playing "Money Musk," and "Old Dan Tucker." +Oh, I put vim into it, I can tell you! And bad as my playing was, +I had from the start an absorption of attention from my audience +that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a +lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips +with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good +fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the +surprise and interest in the children's faces, the slow-breaking +smile of the little girl with the dipper. + +"I'll warrant you, madam," I said to the woman who now stood +frankly in the doorway with her hands wrapped in her apron, "you +haven't heard those tunes since you were a girl and danced to +'em." + +"You're right," she responded heartily. + +"I'll give you another jolly one," I said, and, replacing my +whistle, I began with even greater zest to play "Yankee Doodle." + +When I had gone through it half a dozen times with such added +variations and trills as I could command, and had two of the +children hopping about in the yard, and the forlorn man tapping +his toe to the tune, and a smile on the face of the forlorn +woman, I wound up with a rush and then, as if I could hold myself +in no longer (and I couldn't either!), I suddenly burst out: + +Yankee doodle dandy! +Yankee doodle dandy! +Mind the music and the step, +And with the girls be handy. + + +It may seem surprising, but I think I can understand why it +was--when I looked up at the woman in the doorway there were +tears in her eyes! + +"Do you know 'John Brown's Body'?" eagerly inquired the little +girl with the dipper, and then, as if she had done something +quite bold and improper, she blushed and edged toward the +doorway. + +"How does it go?" I asked, and one of the bold lads in the yard +instantly puckered his lips to show me, and immediately they were +all trying it. + +"Here goes," said I, and for the next few minutes, and in my very +best style, I hung Jeff Davis on the sour apple-tree, and I sent +the soul of John Brown marching onward with an altogether +unnecessary number of hallelujahs. + +I think sometimes that people--whole families of 'em--literally +perish for want of a good, hearty, whole-souled, mouth-opening, +throat-stretching, side-aching laugh. They begin to think +themselves the abused of creation, they begin to advise with +their livers and to hate their neighbours, and the whole world +becomes a miserable dark blue place quite unfit for human +habitation. Well, all this is often only the result of a neglect +to exercise properly those muscles of the body (and of the soul) +which have to do with honest laughter. + +I've never supposed I was an especially amusing person, but +before I got through with it I had the Clark family well loosened +up with laughter, although I wasn't quite sure some of the time +whether Mrs. Clark was laughing or crying. I had them all +laughing and talking, asking questions and answering them as +though I were an old and valued neighbour. + +Isn't it odd how unconvinced we often are by the crises in the +lives of other people? They seem to us trivial or unimportant; +but the fact is, the crises in the life of a boy, for example, or +of a poor man, are as commanding as the crises in the life of the +greatest statesman or millionaire, for they involve equally the +whole personality, the entire prospects. + +The Clark family, I soon learned, had lost its pig. A trivial +matter, you say? I wonder if anything is ever trivial. A year of +poor crops, sickness, low prices, discouragement and, at the end +of it, on top of it all, the cherished pig had died! + +From all accounts (and the man on the porch quite lost his apathy +in telling me about it) it must have been a pig of remarkable +virtues and attainments, a paragon of pigs-- in whom had been +bound up the many possibilities of new shoes for the children, a +hat for the lady, a new pair of overalls for the gentleman, and I +know not what other kindred luxuries. I do not think, indeed, I +ever had the portrait of a pig drawn for me with quite such +ardent enthusiasm of detail, and the more questions I asked the +more eager the story, until finally it became necessary for me to +go to the barn, the cattle-pen, the pig-pen and the +chicken-house, that I might visualize more clearly the scene of +the tragedy. The whole family trooped after us like a classic +chorus, but Mr. Clark himself kept the centre of the stage. + +How plainly I could read upon the face of the land the story of +this hill farmer and his meagre existence--his ill-directed +effort to wring a poor living for his family from these upland +fields, his poverty, and, above all, his evident lack of +knowledge of his own calling. Added to these things, and perhaps +the most depressing of all his difficulties, was the utter +loneliness of the task, the feeling that it mattered little to +any one whether the Clark family worked or not, or indeed whether +they lived or died. A perfectly good American family was here +being wasted, with the precious land they lived on, because no +one had taken the trouble to make them feel that they were a +part of this Great American Job. + + +As we went back to the house, a freckled-nosed neighbour's boy +came in at the gate. + +"A letter for you, Mr. Clark," said he. "I brought it up with our +mail." + +"A letter!" exclaimed Mrs. Clark. + +"A letter!" echoed at least three of the children in unison. + +"Probably a dun from Brewster," said Mr. Clark discouragingly. + +I felt a curious sensation about the heart, and an eagerness of +interest I have rarely experienced. I had no idea what a mere +letter--a mere unopened unread letter--would mean to a family +like this. + +"It has no stamp on it!" exclaimed the older girl. + +Mrs. Clark turned it over wonderingly in her hands. Mr. Clark +hastily put on a pair of steel-bowed spectacles. + +"Let me see it," he said, and when he also had inspected it +minutely he solemnly tore open the envelope and drew forth my +letter. + +'I assure you I never awaited the reading of any writing of mine +with such breathless interest. How would they take it? Would they +catch the meaning that I meant to convey? And would they suspect +me of having written it? + +Mr. Clark sat on the porch and read the letter slowly through to +the end, turned the sheet over and examined it carefully, and +then began reading it again to himself, Mrs. Clark leaning over +his shoulder. + +"What does it mean?" asked Mr. Clark. + +"It's too good to be true," said Mrs. Clark with a sigh. + +I don't know how long the discussion might have +continued--probably for days or weeks--had not the older girl, +now flushed of face and rather pretty, looked at me and said +breathlessly (she was as sharp as a briar): + +"You wrote it." + +I stood the battery of all their eyes for a moment, smiling and +rather excited. + +"Yes," I said earnestly, "I wrote it, and I mean every word of +it." + +I had anticipated some shock of suspicion and inquiry, but to my +surprise it was accepted as simply as a neighbourly good morning. +I suppose the mystery of it was eclipsed by my astonishing +presence there upon the scene with my tin whistle. + +At any rate, it was a changed, eager, interested family which now +occupied the porch of that dilapidated farmhouse. And immediately +we fell into a lively discussion of crops and farming, and indeed +the whole farm question, in which I found both the man and his +wife singularly acute--sharpened upon the stone of hard +experience. + +Indeed, I found right here, as I have many times found among our +American farmers, an intelligence (a literacy growing out of what +I believe to be improper education) which was better able to +discuss the problems of rural life than to grapple with and solve +them. A dull, illiterate Polish farmer, I have found, will +sometimes succeed much better at the job of life than his +American neighbour. + +Talk with almost any man for half an hour, and you will find that +his conversation, like an old-fashioned song, has a regularly +recurrent chorus. I soon discovered Mr. Clark's chorus. + +"Now, if only I had a little cash," he sang, or, "If I had a few +dollars, I could do so and so." + +Why, he was as helplessly, dependent upon money as any +soft-handed millionairess. He considered himself poor and +helpless because he lacked dollars, whereas people are really +poor and helpless only when they lack courage and faith. + +We were so much absorbed in our talk that I was greatly surprised +to hear Mrs. Clark's voice at the doorway. + +"Won't you come in to supper?" + +After we had eaten, there was a great demand for more of my tin +whistle (oh, I know how Caruso must feel!), and I played over +every blessed tune I knew, and some I didn't, four or five times, +and after that we told stories and cracked jokes in a way that +must have been utterly astonishing in that household. After the +children had been, yes, driven to bed, Mr. Clark seemed about to +drop back into his lamentations over his condition (which I have +no doubt had come to give him a sort of pleasure), but I turned +to Mrs. Clark, whom I had come to respect very highly, and began +to talk about the little garden she had started, which was about +the most enterprising thing about the place. + +"Isn't it one of the finest things in this world," said I, "to go +out into a good garden in the summer days and bring in loaded +baskets filled with beets and cabbages and potatoes, just for the +gathering?" + +I knew from the expression on Mrs. Clark's face that I had +touched a sounding note. + +"Opening the green corn a little at the top to see if it is ready +and then stripping it off and tearing away the moist white +husks--" + +"And picking tomatoes?" said Mrs. Clark. "And knuckling the +watermelons to see if they are ripe? Oh, I tell you there are +thousands of people in this country who'd like to be able to pick +their dinner in the garden!" + +"It's fine!" said Mrs. Clark with amused enthusiasm, "but I like +best to hear the hens cackling in the barnyard in the morning +after they've laid, and to go and bring in the eggs." + +"Just like a daily present!" I said. + +"Ye-es," responded the soundly practical Mrs. Clark, thinking, no +doubt, that there were other aspects of the garden and chicken +problem. + +"I'll tell you another thing I like about a farmer's life," said +I, "that's the smell in the house in the summer when there are +preserves, or sweet pickles, or jam, or whatever it is, simmering +on the stove. No matter where you are, up in the garret or down +cellar, it's cinnamon, and allspice, and cloves, and every sort +of sugary odour. Now, that gets me where I live!" + +"It IS good!" said Mrs. Clark with a laugh that could certainly +be called nothing if not girlish. + + +All this time I had been keeping one eye on Mr. Clark. It was +amusing to see him struggling against a cheerful view of life. He +now broke into the conversation. + +"Well, but--" he began. + +Instantly I headed him off. + +"And think," said I, "of living a life in which you are beholden +to no man. It's a free life, the farmer's life. No one can +discharge you because you are sick, or tired, or old, or because +you are a Democrat or a Baptist!" + +"Well, but--" + +"And think of having to pay no rent, nor of having to live +upstairs in a tenement!" + +"Well, but--" + +"Or getting run over by a street-car, or having the children play +in the gutters." + +"I never did like to think of what my children would do if we +went to town," said Mrs. Clark. + +"I guess not!" I exclaimed. + +The fact is, most people don't think half enough of themselves +and of their jobs; but before we went to bed that night I had the +forlorn T. N. Clark talking about the virtues of his farm in +quite a surprising way. + +I even saw him eying me two or three times with a shrewd look in +his eyes (your American is an irrepressible trader) as though I +might possibly be some would-be purchaser in disguise. + +(I shall write some time a dissertation on the advantages, of +wearing shabby clothing.) + +The farm really had many good points. One of them was a shaggy +old orchard of good and thriving but utterly neglected +apple-trees. + +"Man alive," I said, when we went out to see it in the morning, +"you've got a gold mine here!" And I told him how in our +neighbourhood we were renovating the old orchards, pruning them +back, spraying, and bringing them into bearing again. + +He had never, since he owned the place, had a salable crop of +fruit. When we came in to breakfast I quite stirred the practical +Mrs. Clark with my enthusiasm, and she promised at once to send +for a bulletin on apple-tree renovation, published by the state +experiment station. I am sure I was no more earnest in my advice +than the conditions warranted. + +After breakfast we went into the field, and I suggested that +instead of ploughing any more land--for the season was already +late--we get out all the accumulations of rotted manure from +around the barn and strew it on the land already ploughed and +harrow it in. + +"A good job on a little piece of land," I said, "is far more +profitable than a poor job on a big piece of land." + +Without more ado we got his old team hitched up and began +loading, and hauling out the manure, and spent all day long at +it. Indeed, such was the height of enthusiasm which T. N. Clark +now reached (for his was a temperament that must either soar in +the clouds or grovel in the mire), that he did not wish to stop +when Mrs. Clark called us in to supper. In that one day his crop +of corn, in perspective, overflowed his crib, he could not find +boxes and barrels for his apples, his shed would not hold all his +tobacco, and his barn was already being enlarged to accommodate a +couple more cows! He was also keeping bees and growing ginseng. + +But it was fine, that evening, to see Mrs. Clark's face, the +renewed hope and courage in it. I thought as I looked at her (for +she was the strong and steady one in that house): + +"If you can keep the enthusiasm up, if you can make that husband +of yours grow corn, and cows, and apples as you raise chickens +and make garden, there is victory yet in this valley." + +That night it rained, but in spite of the moist earth we spent +almost all of the following day hard at work in the field, and +all the time talking over ways and means for the future, but the +next morning, early, I swung my bag on my back and left them. + +I shall not attempt to describe the friendliness of our parting. +Mrs. Clark followed me wistfully to the gate. + +"I can't tell you--" she began, with the tears starting in her +eyes. + +"Then don't try--" said I, smiling. + +And so I swung off down the country road, without looking back. + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY + +In some strange deep way there is no experience of my whole +pilgrimage that I look back upon with so much wistful affection +as I do upon the events of the day--the day and the wonderful +night--which followed my long visit with the forlorn Clark family +upon their hill farm. At first I hesitated about including an +account of it here because it contains so little of what may be +called thrilling or amusing incident. + +"They want only the lively stories of my adventures," I said to +myself, and I was at the point of pushing my notes to the edge of +the table where (had I let go) they would have fallen into the +convenient oblivion of the waste-basket. But something held me +back. + +"No," said I, "I'll tell it; if it means so much to me, it may +mean something to the friends who are following these lines." + +For, after all, it is not what goes on outside of a man, the +clash and clatter of superficial events, that arouses our deepest +interest, but what goes on inside. Consider then that in this +narrative I shall open a little door in my heart and let you look +in, if you care to, upon the experiences of a day and a night in +which I was supremely happy. + +If you had chanced to be passing, that crisp spring morning, you +would have seen a traveller on foot with a gray bag on his +shoulder, swinging along the country road; and you might have +been astonished to see him lift his hat at you and wish you a +good morning. You might have turned to look back at him, as you +passed, and found him turning also to look back at you--and +wishing he might know you. But you would not have known what he +was chanting under his breath as he tramped (how little we know +of a man by the shabby coat he wears), nor how keenly he was +enjoying the light airs and the warm sunshine of that fine spring +morning. + +After leaving the hill farm he had walked five miles up the +valley, had crossed the ridge at a place called the Little Notch, +where all the world lay stretched before him like the open palm +of his hand, and had come thus to the boundaries of the +Undiscovered Country. He had been for days troubled with the deep +problems of other people, and it seemed to him this morning as +though a great stone had been rolled from the door of his heart, +and that he was entering upon a new world--a wonderful, high, +free world. And, as he tramped, certain lines of a stanza long +ago caught up in his memory from some forgotten page came up to +his lips, and these were the words (you did not know as you +passed) that he was chanting under his breath as he tramped, for +they seem charged with the spirit of the hour: + +I've bartered my sheets for a starlit bed; +I've traded my meat for a crust of bread; +I've changed my book for a sapling cane, +And I'm off to the end of the world again. + +In the Undiscovered Country that morning it was wonderful how +fresh the spring woods were, and how the birds sang in the trees, +and how the brook sparkled and murmured at the roadside. The +recent rain had washed the atmosphere until it was as clear and +sparkling and heady as new wine, and the footing was firm and +hard. As one tramped he could scarcely keep from singing or +shouting aloud for the very joy of the day. + +"I think," I said to myself, "I've never been in a better +country," and it did not seem to me I cared to know where the +gray road ran, nor how far away the blue hills were. + +"It is wonderful enough anywhere here," I said. + +And presently I turned from the road and climbed a gently sloping +hillside among oak and chestnut trees. The earth was well +carpeted for my feet, and here and there upon the hillside, where +the sun came through the green roof of foliage, were warm +splashes Of yellow light, and here and there, on shadier slopes, +the new ferns were spread upon the earth like some lacy coverlet. +I finally sat down at the foot of a tree where through a rift in +the foliage in the valley below I could catch a glimpse in the +distance of the meadows and the misty blue hills. I was glad to +rest, just rest, for the two previous days of hard labour, the +labour and the tramping, had wearied me, and I sat for a long +time quietly looking about me, scarcely thinking at all, but +seeing, hearing, smelling--feeling the spring morning, and the +woods and the hills, and the patch of sky I could see. + +For a long, long time I sat thus, but finally my mind began to +flow again, and I thought how fine it would be if I had some good +friend there with me to enjoy the perfect surroundings--some +friend who would understand. And I thought of the Vedders with +whom I had so recently spent a wonderful day; and I wished that +they might be with me; there were so many things to be said--to +be left unsaid. Upon this it occurred to me, suddenly, +whimsically, and I exclaimed aloud: + +"Why, I'll just call them up." + +Half turning to the trunk of the tree where I sat, I placed one +hand to my ear and the other to my lips and said: + +"Hello, Central, give me Mr. Vedder." + +I waited a moment, smiling a little at my own absurdity and yet +quite captivated by the enterprise. + +"Is this Mr. Vedder? Oh, Mrs. Vedder! Well, this is David +Grayson." . . . . + +"Yes, the very same. A bad penny, a rolling stone." . . . . + +"Yes. I want you both to come here as quickly as you can. I have +the most important news for you. The mountain laurels are +blooming, and the wild strawberries are setting their fruit. Yes, +yes, and in the fields--all around here, to-day there are +wonderful white patches of daisies, and from where I sit I can +see an old meadow as yellow as gold with buttercups. And the +bobolinks are hovering over the low spots. Oh, but it is fine +here-- and we are not together!" . . . . + +"No; I cannot give exact directions. But take the Long Road and +turn at the turning by the tulip-tree, and you will find me at +home. Come right in without knocking." + + +I hung up the receiver. For a single instant it had seemed almost +true, and indeed I believe--I wonder-- + +Some day, I thought, just a bit sadly, for I shall probably not +be here then--some day, we shall be able to call our friends +through space and time. Some day we shall discover that +marvellously simple coherer by which we may better utilize the +mysterious ether of love. + +For a time I was sad with thoughts of the unaccomplished future, +and then I reflected that if I could not call up the Vedders so +informally I could at least write down a few paragraphs which +would give them some faint impression of that time and place. But +I had no sooner taken out my note-book and put down a sentence or +two than I stuck fast. How foolish and feeble written words are +anyway! With what glib facility they describe, but how +inadequately they convey. A thousand times I have thought to +myself, " If only I could WRITE!" + +Not being able to write I turned, as I have so often turned +before, to some good old book, trusting that I might find in the +writing of another man what I lacked in my own. I took out my +battered copy of Montaigne and, opening it at random, as I love +to do, came, as luck would have it, upon a chapter devoted to +coaches, in which there is much curious (and worthless) +information, darkened with Latin quotations. This reading had an +unexpected effect upon me. + +I could not seem to keep my mind down upon the printed page; it +kept bounding away at the sight of the distant hills, at the +sound of a woodpecker on a dead stub which stood near me, and at +the thousand and one faint rustlings, creepings, murmurings, +tappings, which animate the mystery of the forest. How dull +indeed appeared the printed page in comparison with the book of +life, how shut-in its atmosphere, how tinkling and distant the +sound of its voices. Suddenly I shut my book with a snap. + +"Musty coaches and Latin quotations!" I exclaimed. "Montaigne's +no writer for the open air. He belongs at a study fire on a quiet +evening!" + +I had anticipated, when I started out, many a pleasant hour by +the roadside or in the woods with my books, but this was almost +the first opportunity I had found for reading (as it was almost +the last), so full was the present world of stirring events. As +for poor old Montaigne, I have been out of harmony with him ever +since, nor have I wanted him in the intimate case at my elbow. + +After a long time in the forest, and the sun having reached the +high heavens, I gathered up my pack and set forth again along the +slope of the hills--not hurrying, just drifting and enjoying +every sight and sound. And thus walking I came in sight, through +the trees, of a glistening pool of water and made my way straight +toward it. + + +A more charming spot I have rarely seen. In some former time an +old mill had stood at the foot of the little valley, and a +ruinous stone dam still held the water in a deep, quiet pond +between two round hills. Above it a brook ran down through the +woods, and below, with a pleasant musical sound, the water +dripped over the mossy stone lips of the dam and fell into the +rocky pool below. Nature had long ago healed the wounds of men; +she had half-covered the ruined mill with verdure, had softened +the stone walls of the dam with mosses and lichens, and had crept +down the steep hillside and was now leaning so far out over the +pool that she could see her reflection in the quiet water. + +Near the upper end of the pond I found a clear white sand-bank, +where no doubt a thousand fishermen had stood, half hidden by the +willows, to cast for trout in the pool below. I intended merely +to drink and moisten my face, but as I knelt by the pool and saw +my reflection in the clear water wanted something more than that! +In a moment I had thrown aside my bag and clothes and found +myself wading naked into the water. + +It was cold! I stood a moment there in the sunny air, the great +world open around me, shuddering, for I dreaded the plunge--and +then with a run, a shout and a splash I took the deep water. Oh, +but it was fine! With long, deep strokes I carried myself fairly +to the middle of the pond. The first chill was succeeded by a +tingling glow, and I can convey no idea whatever of the glorious +sense of exhilaration I had. I swam with the broad front stroke, +I swam on my side, head half submerged, with a deep under stroke, +and I rolled over on my back and swam with the water lapping my +chin. Thus I came to the end of the pool near the old dam, +touched my feet on the bottom, gave a primeval whoop, and dove +back into the water again. I have rarely experienced keener +physical joy. After swimming thus boisterously for a time, I +quieted down to long, leisurely strokes, conscious of the water +playing across my shoulders and singing at my ears, and finally, +reaching the centre of the pond, I turned over on my back and, +paddling lazily, watched the slow procession of light clouds +across the sunlit openings of the trees above me. Away up in the +sky I could see a hawk slowly swimming about (in his element as I +was in mine), and nearer at hand, indeed fairly in the thicket +about the pond, I could hear a wood-thrush singing. + +And so, shaking the water out of my hair and swimming with long +and leisurely strokes, I returned to the sand-bank, and there, +standing in a spot of warm sunshine, I dried myself with the +towel from my bag. And I said to myself: + +"Surely it is good to be alive at a time like this!" + +Slowly I drew on my clothes, idling there in the sand, and +afterward I found an inviting spot in an old meadow where I threw +myself down on the grass under an apple-tree and looked up into +the shadowy places in the foliage above me. I felt a delicious +sense of physical well-being, and I was pleasantly tired. + +So I lay there--and the next thing I knew, I turned over, feeling +cold and stiff, and opened my eyes upon the dusky shadows of late +evening. I had been sleeping for hours! + + +The next few minutes (or was it an hour or eternity?), I recall +as containing some of the most exciting and, when all is said, +amusing incidents in my whole life. And I got quite a new glimpse +of that sometimes bumptious person known as David Grayson. + +The first sensation I had was one of complete panic. What was I +to do? Where was I to go? + +Hastily seizing my bag--and before I was half awake--I started +rapidly across the meadow, in my excitement tripping and falling +several times in the first hundred yards. In daylight I have no +doubt that I should easily have seen a gateway or at least an +opening from the old meadow, but in the fast-gathering darkness +it seemed to me that the open field was surrounded on every side +by impenetrable forests. Absurd as it may seem, for no one knows +what his mind will do at such a moment, I recalled vividly a +passage from Stanley's story of his search for Livingstone, in +which he relates how he escaped from a difficult place in the +jungle by KEEPING STRAIGHT AHEAD. + +I print these words in capitals because they seemed written that +night upon the sky. KEEPING STRAIGHT AHEAD, I entered the forest +on one side of the meadow (with quite a heroic sense of +adventure), but scraped my shin on a fallen log and ran into a +tree with bark on it that felt like a gigantic currycomb--and +stopped! + +Up to this point I think I was still partly asleep. Now, however, +I waked up. + +"All you need," said I to myself in my most matter-of-fact tone, +"is a little cool sense. Be quiet now and reason it out." + +So I stood there for some moments reasoning it out, with the +result that I turned back and found the meadow again. + +"What a fool I've been!" I said. "Isn't it perfectly plain that I +should have gone down to the pond, crossed over the inlet, and +reached the road by the way I came?" + +Having thus settled my problem, and congratulating myself on my +perspicacity, I started straight for the mill-pond, but to my +utter amazement, in the few short hours while I had been asleep, +that entire body of water had evaporated, the dam had +disappeared, and the stream had dried up. I must certainly +present the facts in this remarkable case to some learned +society. + +I then decided to return to the old apple-tree where I had slept, +which now seemed quite like home, but, strange to relate, the +apple-tree had also completely vanished from the enchanted +meadow. At that I began to suspect that in coming out of the +forest I had somehow got into another and somewhat similar old +field. I have never had a more confused or eerie sensation; not +fear, but a sort of helplessness in which for an instant I +actually began to doubt whether it was I myself, David Grayson, +who stood there in the dark meadow, or whether I was the victim +of a peculiarly bad dream. I suppose many other people have had +these sensations under similar conditions, but they were new to +me. + +I turned slowly around and looked for a light; I think I never +wanted so much to see some sign of human habitation as I did at +that moment. + +What a coddled world we live in, truly. That being out after dark +in a meadow should so disturb the very centre of our being! In +all my life, indeed, and I suppose the same is true of +ninety-nine out of a hundred of the people in America to-day, I +had never before found myself where nothing stood between nature +and me, where I had no place to sleep, no shelter for the +night--nor any prospect of finding one. I was infinitely less +resourceful at that moment than a rabbit, or a partridge, or a +gray squirrel. + + + +Presently I sat down on the ground where I had been standing, +with a vague fear (absurd to look back upon) that it, too, in +some manner might slip away from under me. And as I sat there I +began to have familiar gnawings at the pit of my stomach, and I +remembered that, save for a couple of Mrs. Clark's doughnuts +eaten while I was sitting on the hillside, ages ago, I had had +nothing since my early breakfast. + +With this thought of my predicament--and the glimpse I had of +myself "hungry and homeless"--the humour of the whole situation +suddenly came over me, and, beginning with a chuckle, I wound up, +as my mind dwelt upon my recent adventures, with a long, loud, +hearty laugh. + +As I laughed--and what a roar it made in that darkness!--I got up +on my feet and looked up at the sky. One bright star shone out +over the woods, and in high heavens I could see dimly the white +path of the Milky Way. And all at once I seemed again to be in +command of myself and of the world. I felt a sudden lift and +thrill of the spirits, a warm sense that this too was part of the +great adventure--the Thing Itself. + +"This is the light," I said looking up again at the sky and the +single bright star, "which is set for me to-night. I will make my +bed by it." + +I can hope to make no one understand (unless he understands +already) with what joy of adventure I now crept through the +meadow toward the wood. It was an unknown, unexplored world I was +in, and I, the fortunate discoverer, had here to shift for +himself, make his home under the stars! Marquette on the wild +shores of the Mississippi, or Stanley in Africa, had no joy that +I did not know at that moment. + +I crept along the meadow and came at last to the wood. Here I +chose a somewhat sheltered spot at the foot of a large tree--and +yet a spot not so obscured that I could not look out over the +open spaces of the meadow and see the sky. Here, groping in the +darkness, like some primitive creature, I raked together a pile +of leaves with my fingers, and found dead twigs and branches of +trees; but in that moist forest (where the rain had fallen only +the day before) my efforts to kindle a fire were unavailing. Upon +this, I considered using some pages from my notebook, but another +alternative suggested itself: + +"Why not Montaigne?" + +With that I groped for the familiar volume, and with a curious +sensation of satisfaction I tore out a handful of pages from the +back. + +"Better Montaigne than Grayson," I said, with a chuckle. It was +amazing how Montaigne sparkled and crackled when he was well +lighted. + +"There goes a bundle of quotations from Vergil," I said, "and +there's his observations on the eating of fish. There are more +uses than one for the classics." + +So I ripped out a good part of another chapter, and thus, by +coaxing, got my fire to going. It was not difficult after that to +find enough fuel to make it blaze up warmly. + +I opened my bag and took out the remnants of the luncheon which +Mrs. Clark had given me that morning; and I was surprised and +delighted to find, among the other things, a small bottle of +coffee. This suggested all sorts of pleasing possibilities and, +the spirit of invention being now awakened, I got out my tin cup, +split a sapling stick so I could fit it into the handle, and set +the cup, full of coffee, on the coals at the edge of the fire. It +was soon heated, and although I spilled some of it in getting it +off, and although it was well spiced with ashes, I enjoyed it, +with Mrs. Clark's doughnuts and sandwiches (some of which I +toasted with a sapling fork) as thoroughly, I think, as ever I +enjoyed any meal. + +How little we know--we who dread life--how much there is in life! + +My activities around the fire had warmed me to the bone, and +after I was well through with my meal I gathered a plentiful +supply of wood and placed it near at hand, I got out my +waterproof cape and put it on, and, finally piling more sticks on +the fire, I sat down comfortably at the foot of the tree. + + +I wish I could convey the mystery and the beauty of that night. +Did you ever sit by a campfire and watch the flames dance, and +the sparks fly upward into the cool dark air? Did you ever see +the fitful light among the tree-depths, at one moment opening +vast shadowy vistas into the forest, at the next dying downward +and leaving it all in sombre mystery? It came to me that night +with the wonderful vividness of a fresh experience. + +And what a friendly and companionable thing a campfire is! How +generous and outright it is! It plays for you when you wish so be +lively, and it glows for you when you wish to be reflective. + +After a while, for I did not feel in the least sleepy, I stepped +out of the woods to the edge of the pasture. All around me lay +the dark and silent earth, and above the blue bowl of the sky, +all glorious with the blaze of a million worlds. Sometimes I have +been oppressed by this spectacle of utter space, of infinite +distance, of forces too great for me to grasp or understand, but +that night it came upon me with fresh wonder and power, and with +a sense of great humility that I belonged here too, that I was a +part of it all--and would not be neglected or forgotten. It +seemed to me I never had a moment of greater faith than that. + +And so, with a sense of satisfaction and peace, I returned to my +fire. As I sat there I could hear the curious noises of the +woods, the little droppings, cracklings, rustlings which seemed +to make all the world alive. I even fancied I could see small +bright eyes looking out at my fire, and once or twice I was +almost sure I heard voices--whispering--perhaps the voices of the +woods. + +Occasionally I added, with some amusement, a few dry pages of +Montaigne to the fire, and watched the cheerful blaze that +followed. + +"No," said I, "Montaigne is not for the open spaces and the +stars. Without a roof over his head Montaigne would--well, die of +sneezing." + +So I sat all night long there by the tree. Occasionally I dropped +into a light sleep, and then, as my fire died down, I grew chilly +and awakened, to build up the fire and doze again. I saw the +first faint gray streaks of dawn above the trees, I saw the pink +glow in the east before the sunrise, and I watched the sun +himself rise upon a new day-- + +When I walked out into the meadow by daylight and looked about me +curiously, I saw, not forty rods away, the back of a barn. + + +"Be you the fellow that was daown in my cowpasture all night?" +asked the sturdy farmer. + +"I'm that fellow," I said. + +"Why didn't you come right up to the house?" + +"Well--" I said, and then paused. + +"Well . . ." said I. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE HEDGE + +Strange, strange, how small the big world is! + +"Why didn't you come right into the house?" the sturdy farmer had +asked me when I came out of the meadow where I had spent the +night under the stars. + +"Well," I said, turning the question as adroitly as I could, +"I'll make it up by going into the house now." + +So I went with him into his fine, comfortable house. + +"This is my wife," said he. + +A woman stood there facing me. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Mr. +Grayson!" + +I recalled swiftly a child--a child she seemed then--with braids +down her back, whom I had known when I first came to my farm. She +had grown up, married, and had borne three children, while I had +been looking the other way for a minute or two. She had not been +in our neighborhood for several years. + +"And how is your sister and Doctor McAlway?" + +Well, we had quite a wonderful visit, she made breakfast for me, +asking and talking eagerly as I ate. + +"We've just had news that old Mr. Toombs is dead." + +"Dead!" I exclaimed, dropping my fork; "old Nathan Toombs!" + +"Yes, he was my uncle. Did you know him?" + +"I knew Nathan Toombs," I said. + +I spent two days there with the Ransomes, for they would not hear +of my leaving, and half of our spare time, I think, was spent in +discussing Nathan Toombs. I was not able to get him out of my +mind for days, for his death was one of those events which prove +so much and leave so much unproven. + +I can recall vividly my astonishment at the first evidence I ever +had of the strange old man or of his work. It was not very long +after I came to my farm to live. I had taken to spending my spare +evenings--the long evenings of summer--in exploring the country +roads for miles around, getting acquainted with each farmstead, +each bit of grove and meadow and marsh, making my best bow to +each unfamiliar hill, and taking everywhere that toll of pleasure +which comes of quiet discovery. + +One evening, having walked farther than usual, I came quite +suddenly around a turn in the road and saw stretching away before +me an extraordinary sight. + +I feel that I am conveying no adequate impression of what I +beheld by giving it any such prim and decorous name as--a Hedge. +It was a menagerie, a living, green menagerie! I had no sooner +seen it than I began puzzling my brain as to whether one of the +curious ornaments into which the upper part of the hedge had been +clipped and trimmed was made to represent the head of a horse, or +a camel, or an Egyptian sphinx. + +The hedge was of arbor vitae and as high as a man's waist. At more +or less regular intervals the trees in it had been allowed to +grow much taller and had been wonderfully pruned into the +similitude of towers, pinnacles, bells, and many other strange +designs. Here and there the hedge held up a spindling umbrella +of greenery, sometimes a double umbrella--a little one above the +big one--and over the gateway at the centre; as a sort of final +triumph, rose a grandiose arch of interlaced branches upon which +the artist had outdone himself in marvels of ornamentation. + +I shall never forget the sensation of delight I had over this +discovery, or of how I walked, tiptoe, along the road in front, +studying each of the marvellous adornments. How eagerly, too, I +looked over at the house beyond--a rather bare, bleak house set +on a slight knoll or elevation and guarded at one corner by a +dark spruce tree. At some distance behind I saw a number of huge +barns, a cattle yard and a silo--all the evidences of +prosperity--with well-nurtured fields, now yellowing with the +summer crops, spreading pleasantly away on every hand. + +It was nearly dark before I left that bit of roadside, and I +shall never forget the eerie impression I had as I turned back to +take a final look at the hedge, the strange, grotesque aspect it +presented there in the half light with the bare, lonely house +rising from the knoll behind. + + +It was not until some weeks later that I met the owner of the +wonderful hedge. By that time, however, having learned of my +interest, I found the whole countryside alive with stories about +it and about Old Nathan Toombs, its owner. It was as though I had +struck the rock of refreshment in a weary land. + +I remember distinctly how puzzled was by the stories I heard. The +neighbourhood portrait--and ours is really a friendly +neighbourhood--was by no means flattering. Old Toombs was +apparently of that type of hard-shelled, grasping, self-reliant, +old-fashioned farmer not unfamiliar to many country +neighbourhoods. He had come of tough old American stock and he +was a worker, a saver, and thus he had grown rich, the richest +farmer in the whole neighbourhood. He was a regular +individualistic American. + +"A dour man," said the Scotch Preacher, "but just--you must admit +that he is just." + +There was no man living about whom the Scotch Preacher could not +find something good to say. + +"Yes, just," replied Horace, "but hard--hard, and as mean as +pusley." + +This portrait was true enough in itself, for I knew just the sort +of an aggressive, undoubtedly irritable old fellow it pictured, +but somehow, try as I would, I could not see any such old fellow +wasting his moneyed hours clipping bells, umbrellas, and camel's +heads on his ornamental greenery. It left just that incongruity +which is at once the lure, the humour, and the perplexity of +human life. Instead of satisfying my curiosity I was more anxious +than ever to see Old Toombs with my own eyes. + +But the weeks passed and somehow I did not meet him. He was a +lonely, unneighbourly old fellow. He had apparently come to fit +into the community without ever really becoming a part of it. His +neighbours accepted him as they accepted a hard hill in the town +road. From time to time he would foreclose a mortgage where he +had loaned money to some less thrifty farmer, or he would extend +his acres by purchase, hard cash down, or he would build a bigger +barn. When any of these things happened the community would crowd +over a little, as it were, to give him more room. It is a curious +thing, and tragic, too, when you come to think of it, how the +world lets alone those people who appear to want to be let alone. +"I can live to myself," says the unneighbourly one. "Well, live +to yourself, then," cheerfully responds the world, and it goes +about its more or less amusing affairs and lets the unneighbourly +one cut himself off. + +So our small community had let Old Toombs go his way with all his +money, his acres, his hedge, and his reputation for being a just +man. + +Not meeting him, therefore, in the familiar and friendly life of +the neighbourhood, I took to walking out toward his farm, looking +freshly at the wonderful hedge and musing upon that most +fascinating of all subjects--how men come to be what they are. +And at last I was rewarded. + +One day I had scarcely reached the end of the hedge when I saw +Old Toombs himself, moving toward me down the country road. +Though I had never seen him before, I was at no loss to identify +him. The first and vital impression he gave me, if I can compress +it into a single word, was, I think, force--force. He came +stubbing down the country road with a brown hickory stick in his +hand which at every step he set vigorously into the soft earth. +Though not tall, he gave the impression of being enormously +strong. He was thick, solid, firm--thick through the body, thick +through the thighs; and his shoulders--what shoulders they +were!--round like a maple log; and his great head with its +thatching of coarse iron-gray hair, though thrust slightly +forward, seemed set immovably upon them, + +He presented such a forbidding appearance that I was of two minds +about addressing him. Dour he was indeed! Nor shall I ever forget +how he looked when I spoke to him. He stopped short there in the +road. On his big square nose he wore a pair of curious +spring-bowed glasses with black rims. For a moment he looked at +me through these glasses, raising his chin a little, and then, +deliberately wrinkling his nose, they fell off and dangled at the +length of the faded cord by which they were hung. There was +something almost uncanny about this peculiar habit of his and of +the way in which, afterward, he looked at me from under his bushy +gray brows. This was in truth the very man of the neighbourhood +portrait. + +"I am a new settler here," I said, "and I've been interested in +looking at your wonderful hedge." + +The old man's eyes rested upon me a moment with a mingled look of +suspicion and hostility. + +"So you've heard o' me," he said in a high-pitched voice, "and +you've heard o' my hedge." + +Again he paused and looked me over. "Well," he said, with an +indescribably harsh, cackling laugh, "I warrant you've heard +nothing good o' me down there. I'm a skinflint, ain't I? I'm a +hard citizen, ain't I? I grind the faces o' the poor, don't I?" + +At first his words were marked by a sort of bitter humour, but as +he continued to speak his voice rose higher and higher until it +was positively menacing. + +There were just two things I could do--haul down the flag and +retreat ingloriously, or face the music. With a sudden sense of +rising spirits--for such things do not often happen to a man in a +quiet country road--I paused a moment, looking him square in the +eye. + +"Yes," I said, with great deliberation, "you've given me just +about the neighborhood picture of yourself as I have had it. They +do say you are a skinflint, yes, and a hard man. They say that +you are rich and friendless; they say that while you are a just +man, you do not know mercy. These are terrible things to say of +any man if they are true." + +I paused. The old man looked for a moment as though he were going +to strike me with his stick, but he neither stirred nor spoke. It +was evidently a wholly new experience for him. + +"Yes," I said, "you are not popular in this community, but what +do you suppose I care about that? I'm interested in your hedge. +What I'm curious to know--and I might as well tell you +frankly--is how such a man as you are reputed to be could grow +such an extraordinary hedge. You must have been at it a very long +time." + +I was surprised at the effect of my words. The old man turned +partly aside and looked for a moment along the proud and +flaunting embattlements of the green marvel before us. Then he +said in a moderate voice: + +"It's a putty good hedge, a putty good hedge." + +"I've got him," I thought exultantly, "I've got him!" + +"How long ago did you start it?" I pursued my advantage eagerly. + +"Thirty-two years come spring," said he. + +"Thirty-two years!" I repeated; "you've been at it a long time." + +With that I plied him with questions in the liveliest manner, and +in five minutes I had the gruff old fellow stumping along at my +side and pointing out the various notable-features of his +wonderful creation. His suppressed excitement was quite wonderful +to see. He would point his hickory stick with a poking motion, +and, when he looked up, instead of throwing back his big, rough +head, he bent at the hips, thus imparting an impression of +astonishing solidity. + +"It took me all o' ten years to get that bell right," he said, +and, "Take a look at that arch: now what is your opinion o' +that?" + +Once, in the midst of our conversation, he checked himself +abruptly and looked around at me with a sudden dark expression of +suspicion. I saw exactly what lay in his mind, but I continued my +questioning as though I perceived no change in him. It was only +momentary, however, and he was soon as much interested as before. +He talked as though he had not had such an opportunity before in +years--and I doubt whether he had. It was plain to see that if +any one ever loved anything in this world, Old Toombs loved that +hedge of his. Think of it, indeed! He had lived with it, nurtured +it, clipped it, groomed it--for thirty-two years. + +So we walked down the sloping field within the hedge, and it +seemed as though one of the deep mysteries of human nature was +opening there before me. What strange things men set their hearts +upon! + +Thus, presently, we came nearly to the farther end of the hedge. +Here the old man stopped and turned around, facing me. + +"Do you see that valley?" he asked. "Do you see that slopin' +valley up through the meadow?" + +His voice rose suddenly to a sort of high-pitched violence. + +"That' passel o' hounds up there," he said, "want to build a road +down my valley." + +He drew his breath fiercely. + +"They want to build a road through my land. They want to ruin my +farm--they want to cut down my hedge. I'll fight 'em. I'll fight +'em. I'll show 'em yet!" + +It was appalling. His face grew purple, his eyes narrowed to pin +points and grew red and angry--like the eyes of an infuriated +boar. His hands shook. Suddenly he turned upon me, poising his +stick in his hand, and said violently. + +"And who are you? Who are you? Are you one of these surveyor +fellows?" + +"My name," I answered as quietly as I could, "is Grayson. I live +on the old Mather farm. I am not in the least interested in any +of your road troubles." + +He looked at me a moment more, and then seemed to shake himself +or shudder, his eyes dropped away and he began walking toward his +house. He had taken only a few steps, however, before he turned, +and, without looking at me, asked if I would like to see the +tools he used for trimming his hedge. When I hesitated, for I was +decidedly uncomfortable, he came up to me and laid his hand +awkwardly on my arm. + +"You'll see something, I warrant, you never see before." + +It was so evident that he regretted his outbreak that I followed +him, and he showed me an odd double ladder set on low wheels +which he said he used in trimming the higher parts of his hedge. + +"It's my own invention," he said with pride. + +"And that"--he pointed as we came out of the tool shed--"is my +house--a good house. I planned it all myself. I never needed to +take lessons of any carpenter I ever see. And there's my barns. +What do you think o' my barns? Ever see any bigger ones? They +ain't any bigger in this country than Old Toombs's barns. They +don't like Old Toombs, but they ain't any of one of 'em can ekal +his barns!" + +He followed me down to the roadside now quite loquacious. Even +after I had thanked him and started to go he called after me. + +When I stopped he came forward hesitatingly--and I had the +impressions, suddenly, and for the first time that he was an old +man. It may have been the result of his sudden fierce explosion +of anger, but his hand shook, his face was pale, and he seemed +somehow broken. + +"You--you like my hedge?" he asked. + +"It is certainly wonderful hedge," I said. "I never have seen +anything like it?" + +"The' AIN'T nothing like it," he responded, quickly. "The' ain't +nothing like it anywhere." + +In the twilight as I passed onward I saw the lonely figure of the +old man moving with his hickory stick up the pathway to his +lonely house. The poor rich old man! + +"He thinks he can live wholly to himself," I said aloud. + +I thought, as I tramped homeward, of our friendly and kindly +community, of how we often come together of an evening with +skylarking and laughter, of how we weep with one another, of how +we join in making better roads and better schools, and building +up the Scotch Preacher's friendly little church. And in all these +things Old Toombs has never had a part. He is not even missed. + + +As a matter of fact, I reflected, and this is a strange, deep +thing, no man is in reality more dependent upon the community +which he despises and holds at arm's length than this same Old +Nathan Toombs. Everything he has, everything he does, gives +evidence of it. And I don't mean this in any mere material sense, +though of course his wealth and his farm would mean no more than +the stones in his hills to him if he did not have us here around +him. Without our work, our buying, our selling, our governing, +his dollars would be dust. But we are still more necessary to him +in other ways: the unfriendly man is usually the one who demands +most from his neighbours. Thus, if he have not people's love or +confidence, then he will smite them until they fear him, or +admire him, or hate him. Oh, no man, however may try, can hold +himself aloof! + +I came home deeply stirred from my visit with Old Toombs and lost +no time in making further inquiries. I learned, speedily, that +there was indeed something in the old man's dread of a road being +built through his farm. The case was already in the courts. His +farm was a very old one and extensive, and of recent years a +large settlement of small farmers had been developing the rougher +lands in the upper part of the townships called the Swan Hill +district. Their only way to reach the railroad was by a rocky, +winding road among the 'hills,' while their outlet was down a +gently sloping valley through Old Toombs's farm. They were now so +numerous and politically important that they had stirred up the +town authorities. A proposition had been made to Old Toombs for a +right-of-way; they argued with him that it was a good thing for +the whole country, that it would enhance the values of his own +upper lands, and that they would pay him far more for a +right-of-way than the land was actually worth, but he had spurned +them--I can imagine with what vehemence. + +"Let 'em drive round," he said. "Didn't they know what they'd +have to do when they settled up there? What a passel o' curs! +They can keep off o' my land, or I'll have the law on 'em." + +And thus the matter came to the courts with the town attempting +to condemn the land for a road through Old Toombs's farm. + +"What can we do?" asked the Scotch Preacher, who was deeply +distressed by the bitterness of feeling displayed. "There is no +getting to the man. He will listen to no one." + +At one time I thought of going over and talking with Old Toombs +myself, for it seemed that I had been able to get nearer to him +than any one had in a long time. But I dreaded it. I kept +dallying--for what, indeed, could I have said to him? If he had +been suspicious of me before, how much more hostile he might be +when I expressed an interest in his difficulties. As to reaching +the Swan Hill settlers, they were now aroused to an implacable +state of bitterness; and they had the people of the whole +community with them, for no one liked Old Toombs. + +Thus while I hesitated time passed and my next meeting with Old +Toombs, instead of being premeditated, came about quite +unexpectedly. I was walking in the town road late one afternoon +when I heard a wagon rattling behind me, and then, quite +suddenly, a shouted, "Whoa." + +Looking around, I saw Old Toombs, his great solid figure mounted +high on the wagon seat, the reins held fast in the fingers of one +hand. I was struck by the strange expression in his face--a sort +of grim exaltation. As I stepped aside he burst out in a loud, +shrill, cackling laugh: + +"He-he-he--he-he-he--" + +I was too astonished to speak at once. Ordinarily when I meet any +one in the town road it is in my heart to cry out to him, + +"Good morning, friend," or, "How are you, brother?" but I had no +such prompting that day. + +"Git in, Grayson," he said; "git in, git in." + +I climbed up beside him, and he slapped me on the knee with +another burst of shrill laughter. + +"They thought they had the old man," he said, starting up his +horses. "They thought there weren't no law left in Israel. I +showed 'em." + +I cannot convey the bitter triumphancy of his voice. + +"You mean the road case?" I asked. + +"Road case!" he exploded, "they wan't no road case; they didn't +have no road case. I beat 'em. I says to 'em, 'What right hev any +o' you on my property? Go round with you,' I says. Oh, I beat +'em. If they'd had their way, they'd 'a' cut through my +hedge--the hounds!" + + +When he set me down at my door, I had said hardly a word. There +seemed nothing that could be said. I remember I stood for some +time watching the old man as he rode away, his wagon jolting in +the country road, his stout figure perched firmly in the seat. I +went in with a sense of heaviness at the heart. + +"Harriet," I said, "there are some things in this world beyond +human remedy." + +Two evenings later I was surprised to see the Scotch Preacher +drive up to my gate and hastily tie his horse. + +"David," said he, "there's bad business afoot. A lot of the young +fellows in Swan Hill are planning a raid on Old Toombs's hedge. +They are coming down to-night." + +I got my hat and jumped in with him. We drove up the hilly road +and out around Old Toombs's farm and thus came, near to the +settlement. I had no conception of the bitterness that the +lawsuit had engendered. + +"Where once you start men hating one another," said the Scotch +Preacher, "there's utterly no end of it." + +I have seen our Scotch Preacher in many difficult places, but +never have I seen him rise to greater heights than he did that +night. It is not in his preaching that Doctor McAlway excels, +but what a power he is among men! He was like some stern old +giant, standing there and holding up the portals of civilization. +I saw men melt under his words like wax; I saw wild young fellows +subdued into quietude; I saw unwise old men set to thinking. + +"Man, man," he'd say, lapsing in his earnestness into the broad +Scotch accent of his youth, "you canna' mean plunder, and +destruction, and riot! You canna! Not in this neighbourhood!" + +"What about Old Toombs?" shouted one of the boys. + +I never shall forget how Doctor McAlway drew himself up nor the +majesty that looked from his eye. + +"Old Toombs!" he said in a voice that thrilled one to the bone, +"Old Toombs! Have you no faith, that you stand in the place of +Almighty God and measure punishments?" + +Before we left it was past midnight and we drove home, almost +silent, in the darkness. + +"Doctor McAlway," I said, "if Old Toombs could know the history +of this night it might change his point of view." + +"I doot it," said the Scotch Preacher. "I doot it." + +The night passed serenely; the morning saw Old Toombs's hedge +standing as gorgeous as ever. The community had again stepped +aside and let Old Toombs have his way: they had let him alone, +with all his great barns, his wide acres and his wonderful hedge. +He probably never even knew what had threatened him that night, +nor how the forces of religion, of social order, of +neighbourliness in the community which he despised had, after +all, held him safe. There is a supreme faith among common +people--it is, indeed, the very taproot of democracy--that +although the unfriendly one may persist long in his power and +arrogance, there is a moving Force which commands events. + +I suppose if I were writing a mere story I should tell how Old +Toombs was miraculously softened at the age of sixty-eight years, +and came into new relationships with his neighbours, or else I +should relate how the mills of God, grinding slowly, had crushed +the recalcitrant human atom into dust. + +Either of these results conceivably might have happened--all +things are possible--and being ingeniously related would somehow +have answered a need in the human soul that the logic of events +be constantly and conclusively demonstrated in the lives of +individual men and women. + +But as a matter of fact, neither of these things did happen in +this quiet community of ours. There exists, assuredly, a logic of +events, oh, a terrible, irresistible logic of events, but it is +careless of the span of any one man's life. We would like to have +each man enjoy the sweets of his own virtues and suffer the lash +of his own misdeeds--but it rarely so happens in life. No, it is +the community which lives or dies, is regenerated or marred by +the deeds of men. + +So Old Toombs continued to live. So he continued to buy more +land, raise more cattle, collect more interest, and the wonderful +hedge continued to flaunt its marvels still more notably upon the +country road. To what end? Who knows? Who knows? + +I saw him afterward from time to time, tried to maintain some +sort of friendly relations with him; but it seemed as the years +passed that he grew ever lonelier and more bitter, and not only +more friendless, but seemingly more incapable of friendliness. In +times past I have seen what men call tragedies--I saw once a +perfect young man die in his strength--but it seems to me I never +knew anything more tragic than the life and death of Old Toombs. +If it cannot be said of a man when he dies that either his +nation, his state, his neighborhood, his family, or at least his +wife or child, is better for his having lived, what CAN be said +for him? + +Old Toombs is dead. Like Jehoram, King of Judah, of whom it is +terribly said in the Book of Chronicles, "he departed without +being desired." + +Of this story of Nathan Toombs we talked much and long there in +the Ransome home. I was with them, as I said, about two +days--kept inside most of the time by a driving spring rain which +filled the valley with a pale gray mist and turned all the +country roads into running streams. One morning, the weather +having cleared, I swung my bag to my shoulder, and with much +warmth of parting I set my face again to the free road and the +open country. + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE MAN POSSESSED + +I suppose I was predestined (and likewise foreordained) to reach +the city sooner or later. My fate in that respect was settled for +me when I placed my trust in the vagrant road. I thought for a +time that I was more than a match for the Road, but I soon +learned that the Road was more than a match for me. Sly? There's +no name for it. Alluring, lovable, mysterious--as the heart of a +woman. Many a time I followed the Road where it led through +innocent meadows or climbed leisurely hill slopes only to find +that it had crept around slyly and led me before I knew it into +the back door of some busy town. + +Mostly in this country the towns squat low in the valleys, they +lie in wait by the rivers, and often I scarcely know of their +presence until I am so close upon them that I can smell the +breath of their heated nostrils and hear their low growlings and +grumblings. + +My fear of these lesser towns has never been profound. I have +even been bold enough, when I came across one of them, to hasten +straight through as though assured that Cerberus was securely +chained; but I found, after a time, what I might indeed have +guessed, that the Road, also led irresistibly to the lair of the +Old Monster himself, the He-one of the species, where he lies +upon the plain, lolling under his soiled gray blanket of smoke. + +It is wonderful to be safe at home again, to watch the tender, +reddish brown shoots of the Virginia creeper reaching in at my +study window, to see the green of my own quiet fields, to hear +the peaceful clucking of the hens in the sunny dooryard--and +Harriet humming at her work in the kitchen. + + +When I left the Ransomes that fine spring morning, I had not the +slightest presentiment of what the world held in store for me. +After being a prisoner of the weather for so long, I took to the +Road with fresh joy. All the fields were of a misty greenness and +there were pools still shining in the road, but the air was +deliciously clear, clean, and soft. I came through the hill +country for three or four miles, even running down some of the +steeper places for the very joy the motion gave me, the feel of +the air on my face. + +Thus I came finally to the Great Road, and stood for a moment +looking first this way, then that. + +"Where now?" I asked aloud. + +With an amusing sense of the possibilities that lay open before +me, I closed my eyes, turned slowly around several times and then +stopped. When I opened my eyes I was facing nearly southward: and +that way I set out, not knowing in the least what Fortune had +presided at that turning. If I had gone the other way-- + +I walked vigorously for two or three hours, meeting or passing +many people upon the busy road. Automobiles there were in +plenty, and loaded wagons, and jolly families off for town, and a +herdsman driving sheep, and small boys on their way to school +with their dinner pails, and a gypsy wagon with lean, led horses +following behind, and even a Jewish peddler with a crinkly black +beard, whom I was on the very point of stopping. + +"I should like sometime to know a Jew," I said to myself. + +As I travelled, feeling like one who possesses hidden riches, I +came quite without warning upon the beginning of my great +adventure. I had been looking for a certain thing all the +morning, first on one side of the road, then the other, and +finally I was rewarded. There it was, nailed high upon tree, the +curious, familiar sign: + +[ REST ] + +I stopped instantly. It seemed like an old friend. + +"Well," said I. "I'm not at all tired, but I want to be +agreeable." + +With that I sat down on a convenient stone, took off my hat, +wiped my forehead, and looked about me with satisfaction, for it +was a pleasant country. + +I had not been sitting there above two minutes when my eyes fell +upon one of the oddest specimens of humanity (I thought then) +that ever I saw. He had been standing near the roadside, just +under the tree upon which I had seen the sign, "Rest." My heart +dotted and carried one. + +"The sign man himself!" I exclaimed. + +I arose instantly and walked down the road toward him. + +"A man has only to stop anywhere here," I said exultantly, "and +things happen. + +The stranger's appearance was indeed extraordinary. He seemed at +first glimpse to be about twice as large around the hips as he +was at the shoulders, but this I soon discovered to be due to no +natural avoir-dupois but to the prodigious number of soiled +newspapers and magazines with which the low-hanging pockets of +his overcoat were stuffed. For he was still wearing an old shabby +overcoat though the weather was warm and bright--and on his head +was an odd and outlandish hat. It was of fur, flat at the top, +flat as a pie tin, with the moth-eaten earlaps turned up at the +sides and looking exactly like small furry ears. These, with the +round steel spectacles which he wore--the only distinctive +feature of his countenance--gave him an indescribably droll +appearance. + +"A fox!" I thought. + +Then I looked at him more closely. + +"No," said I, "an owl, an owl!" + +The stranger stepped out into the road and evidently awaited my +approach. My first vivid impression of his face--I remember it +afterward shining with a strange inward illumination--was not +favourable. It was a deep-lined, scarred, worn-looking face, +insignificant if not indeed ugly in its features, and yet, even +at the first glance, revealing something +inexplainable--incalculable-- + +"Good day, friend," I said heartily. + +Without replying to my greeting, he asked: + +"Is this the road to Kilburn?"--with a faint flavour of +foreignness in his words. + +"I think it is," I replied, and I noticed as he lifted his hand +to thank me that one finger was missing and that the hand itself +was cruelly twisted and scarred. + +The stranger instantly set off up the Road without giving me much +more attention than he would have given any other signpost. I +stood a moment looking after him--the wings of his overcoat +beating about his legs and the small furry ears on his cap +wagging gently. + +"There," said I aloud, "is a man who is actually going +somewhere." + +So many men in this world are going nowhere in particular that +when one comes along--even though he be amusing and +insignificant--who is really (and passionately) going somewhere, +what a stir he communicates to a dull world! We catch sparks of +electricity from the very friction of his passage. + +It was so with this odd stranger. Though at one moment I could +not help smiling at him, at the next I was following him. + +"It may be," said I to myself, "that this is really the sign +man!" + +I felt like Captain Kidd under full sail to capture a treasure +ship; and as I approached I was much agitated as to the best +method of grappling and boarding. I finally decided, being a +lover of bold methods, to let go my largest gun first--for moral +effect. + +"So," said I, as I ran alongside, "you are the man who puts up +the signs." + +He stopped and looked at me. + +"What signs?" + +"Why the sign 'Rest' along this road." + +He paused for some seconds with a perplexed expression on his +face. + +"Then you are not the sign man?" I said. + +"No," he replied, "I ain't any sign man." + +I was not a little disappointed, but having made my attack, I +determined to see if there was any treasure aboard--which, I +suppose, should be the procedure of any well-regulated pirate. + +"I'm going this way myself," I said, "and if you have no +objections--" + +He stood looking at me curiously, indeed suspiciously, through +his round spectacles. + +"Have you got the passport?" he asked finally. + +"The passport!" I exclaimed, mystified in my turn. + +"Yes," said he, "the passport. Let me see your hand." + +When I held out my hand he looked at it closely for a moment, and +then took it with a quick warm pressure in one of his, and gave +it a little shake, in a way not quite American. + +"You are one of us," said he, "you work." + +I thought at first that it was a bit of pleasantry, and I was +about to return it in kind when I saw plainly in his face a look +of solemn intent. + +"So," he said, "we shall travel like comrades." + +He thrust his scarred hand through my arm, and we walked up the +road side by side, his bulging pockets beating first against his +legs and then against mine, quite impartially. + +"I think," said the stranger, "that we shall be arrested at +Kilburn." + +"We shall!" I exclaimed with something, I admit, of a shock. + +"Yes," he said, "but it is all in the day's work." + +"How is that?" + +He stopped in the road and faced me. Throwing back his overcoat +he pointed to a small red button on his coat lapel. + +"They don't want me in Kilburn," said he, "the mill men are +strikin' there, and the bosses have got armed men on every +corner. Oh, the capitalists are watchin' for me, all right." + +I cannot convey the strange excitement I felt. It seemed as +though these words suddenly opened a whole new world around me--a +world I had heard about for years, but never entered. And the +tone in which he had used the word "capitalist!" I had almost to +glance around to make sure that there were no ravening +capitalists hiding behind the trees. + +"So you are a Socialist," I said. + +"Yes," he answered. "I'm one of those dangerous persons." + +First and last I have read much of Socialism, and thought about +it, too, from the quiet angle of my farm among the hills, but +this was the first time I had ever had a live Socialist on my +arm. I could not have been more surprised if the stranger had +said, "Yes, I am Theodore Roosevelt." + +One of the discoveries we keep making all our life long (provided +we remain humble) is the humorous discovery of the ordinariness +of the extraordinary. Here was this disrupter of society, this +man of the red flag--here he was with his mild spectacled eyes +and his furry ears wagging as he walked. It was +unbelievable!--and the sun shining on him quite as impartially as +it shone on me. + +Coming at last to a pleasant bit of woodland, where a stream ran +under the roadway, I said: + +"Stranger, let's sit down and have a bite of luncheon." + +He began to expostulate, said he was expected in Kilburn. + +"Oh, I've plenty for two," I said, "and I can say, at least, that +I am a firm believer in cooperation. + +Without more urging he followed me into the woods, where we sat +down comfortably under a tree. + +Now, when I take a fine thick sandwich out of my bag, I always +feel like making it a polite bow, and before I bite into a big +brown doughnut, I am tempted to say, "By your leave, madam," and +as for MINCE PIE----Beau Brummel himself could not outdo me in +respectful consideration. But Bill Hahn neither saw, nor smelled, +nor, I think, tasted Mrs. Ransome's cookery. As soon as we sat +down he began talking. From time to time he would reach out for +another sandwich or doughnut or pickle (without knowing in the +least which he was getting), and when that was gone some reflex +impulse caused him to reach out for some more. When the last +crumb of our lunch had disappeared Bill Hahn still reached out. +His hand groped absently about, and coming in contact with no +more doughnuts or pickles he withdrew it--and did not know, I +think, that the meal was finished. (Confidentially, I have +speculated on what might have happened if the supply had been +unlimited!) + +But that was Bill Hahn. Once started on his talk, he never +thought of food or clothing or shelter; but his eyes glowed, his +face lighted up with a strange effulgence, and he quite lost +himself upon the tide of his own oratory. I saw him afterward by +a flare-light at the centre of a great crowd of men and +women--but that is getting ahead of my story. + +His talk bristled with such words as "capitalism," "proletariat," +"class-consciousness"--and he spoke with fluency of "economic +determinism" and "syndicalism." It was quite wonderful! And from +time to time, he would bring in a smashing quotation from +Aristotle, Napoleon, Karl Marx, or Eugene V. Debs, giving them +all equal value, and he cited statistics!--oh, marvellous +statistics, that never were on sea or land. + +Once he was so swept away by his own eloquence that he sprang to +his feet and, raising one hand high above his head (quite +unconscious that he was holding up a dill pickle), he worked +through one of his most thrilling periods. + +Yes, I laughed, and yet there was so brave a simplicity about +this odd, absurd little man that what I laughed at was only his +outward appearance (and that he himself had no care for), and all +the time I felt a growing respect and admiration for him. He was +not only sincere, but he was genuinely simple--a much higher +virtue, as Fenelon says. For while sincere people do not aim at +appearing anything but what they are, they are always in fear of +passing for something they are not. They are forever thinking +about themselves, weighing all their words and thoughts and +dwelling upon what they have done, in the fear of having done too +much or too little, whereas simplicity, as Fenelon says, is an +uprightness of soul which has ceased wholly to dwell upon itself +or its actions. Thus there are plenty of sincere folk in the +world but few who are simple. + +Well, the longer he talked, the less interested I was in what he +said and the more fascinated I became in what he was. I felt a +wistful interest in him: and I wanted to know what way he took to +purge himself of himself. I think if I had been in that group +nineteen hundred years ago, which surrounded the beggar who was +born blind, but whose anointed eyes now looked out upon glories +of the world, I should have been among the questioners: + +"What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes?" + +I tried ineffectually several times to break the swift current of +his oratory and finally succeeded (when he paused a moment to +finish off a bit of pie crust). + +"You must have seen some hard experiences in your life," I said. + +"That I have," responded Bill Hahn, "the capitalistic system--" + +"Did you ever work in the mills yourself?" I interrupted hastily. + +"Boy and man," said Bill Hahn, "I worked in that hell for +thirty-two years--The class-conscious proletariat have only to +exert themselves--" + +"And your wife, did she work too--and your sons and daughters?" + +A spasm of pain crossed his face. + +"My daughter?" he said. "They killed her in the mills." + +It was appalling--the dead level of the tone in which he uttered +those words--the monotone of an emotion long ago burned out, and +yet leaving frightful scars. + +"My friend!" I exclaimed, and I could not help laying my hand on +his arm. + +I had the feeling I often have with troubled children--an +indescribable pity that they have had to pass through the valley +of the shadow, and I not there to take them by the hand. + +"And was this--your daughter--what brought you to your present +belief?" + +"No," said he, "oh, no. I was a Socialist, as you might say, from +youth up. That is, I called myself a Socialist, but, comrade, +I've learned this here truth: that it ain't of so much importance +that you possess a belief, as that the belief possess you. Do you +understand?" + +"I think," said I, "that I understand." + +Well, he told me his story, mostly in a curious, dull, detached +way--as though he were speaking of some third person in whom he +felt only a brotherly interest, but from time to time some +incident or observation would flame up out of the narrative, like +the opening of the door of a molten pit--so that the glare hurt +one!--and then the story would die back again into quiet +narrative. + +Like most working people he had never lived in the twentieth +century at all. He was still in the feudal age, and his whole +life had been a blind and ceaseless struggle for the bare +necessaries of life, broken from time to time by fierce irregular +wars called strikes. He had never known anything of a real +self-governing commonwealth, and such progress as he and his kind +had made was never the result of their citizenship, of their +powers as voters, but grew out of the explosive and ragged +upheavals, of their own half-organized societies and unions. + +It was against the "black people" he said, that he was first on +strike back in the early nineties. He told me all about it, how +he had been working in the mills pretty comfortably--he was young +and strong then; with a fine growing family and a small home of +his own. + +"It was as pretty a place as you would want to see," he said; "we +grew cabbages and onions and turnips--everything grew fine!--in +the garden behind the house." + +And then the "black people" began to come in, little by little at +first, and then by the carload. By the "black people" he meant +the people from Southern Europe, he called them "hordes"--"hordes +and hordes of 'em"--Italians mostly, and they began getting into +the mills and underbidding for the jobs, so that wages slowly +went down and at the same time the machines were speeded up. It +seems that many of these "black people" were single men or +vigorous young married people with only themselves to support, +while the old American workers were men with families and little +homes to pay for, and plenty of old grandfathers and mothers, to +say nothing of babies, depending upon them. + +"There wasn't a living for a decent family left," he said. + +So they struck--and he told me in his dull monotone of the long +bitterness of that strike, the empty cupboards, the approach of +winter with no coal for the stoves and no warm clothing for the +children. He told me that many of the old workers began to leave +the town (some bound for the larger cities, some for the Far +West). + +"But," said he with a sudden outburst of emotion, "I couldn't +leave. I had the woman and the children!" + +And presently the strike collapsed, and the workers rushed helter +skelter back to the mills to get their old jobs. "Begging like +whipped dogs," he said bitterly. + +Many of them found their places taken by the eager "black +people," and many had to go to work at lower wages in poorer +places--punished for the fight they had made. + +But he got along somehow, he said--"the woman was a good +manager"-- until one day he had the misfortune to get his hand +caught in the machinery. It was a place which should have been +protected with guards, but was not. He was laid up for several +weeks, and the company, claiming that the accident was due to his +own stupidity and carelessness, refused even to pay his wages +while he was idle. Well, the family had to live somehow, and the +woman and the daughter--"she was a little thing," he said, "and +frail"--the woman and the daughter went into the mill. But even +with this new source of income they began to fall behind. Money +which should have gone toward making the last payments on their +home (already long delayed by the strike) had now to go to the +doctor and the grocer. + +"We had to live," said Bill Hahn. + +Again and again he used this same phrase, "We had to live!" as a +sort of bedrock explanation for all the woes of life. + +After a time, with one finger gone and a frightfully scarred +hand--he held it up for me to see--he went back into the mill. + +"But it kept getting worse and worse," said he, "and finally I +couldn't stand it any longer." + +He and a group of friends got together secretly and tried to +organize a union, tried to get the workmen together to improve +their own condition; but in some way ("they had spies +everywhere," he said) the manager learned of the attempt and one +morning when he reported at the mill he was handed a slip asking +him to call for his wages, that his help was no longer required. + +"I'd been with that one company for twenty years and four +months," he said bitterly, "I'd helped in my small way to build +it up, make it a big concern payin' 28 per cent. dividends every +year; I'd given part of my right hand in doin' it--and they threw +me out like an old shoe." + +He said he would have pulled up and gone away, but he still had +the little home and the garden, and his wife and daughter were +still at work, so he hung on grimly, trying to get some other +job. "But what good is a man for any other sort of work," he +said, "when he has been trained to the mills for thirty-two +years!" + +It was not very long after that when the "great strike" +began--indeed, it grew out of the organization which he had tried +to launched--and Bill Hahn threw himself into it with all his +strength. He was one of the leaders. I shall not attempt to +repeat here his description of the bitter struggle, the coming of +the soldiery, the street riots, the long lists of arrests +("some," said he, "got into jail on purpose, so that they could +at least have enough to eat!"), the late meetings of strikers, +the wild turmoil and excitement. + +Of all this he told me, and then he stopped suddenly, and after a +long pause he said in a low voice: + +"Comrade, did ye ever see your wife and your sickly daughter and +your kids sufferin' for bread to eat?" + +He paused again with a hard, dry sob in his voice. + +"Did ye ever see that?" + +"No," said I, very humbly, "I have never seen anything like +that." + +He turned on me suddenly, and I shall never forget the look on +his face, nor the blaze in his eyes: + +"Then what can you know about working-men?" + +What could I answer? + +A moment passed and then he said, as if a little remorseful at +having turned thus on me: + +"Comrade, I tell you, the iron entered my soul--them days." + +It seems that the leaders of the strike were mostly old employees +like Bill Hahn, and the company had conceived the idea that if +these men could be eliminated the organization would collapse, +and the strikers be forced back to work. One day Bill Hahn found +that proceedings had been started to turn him out of his home, +upon which he had not been able to keep up his payments, and at +the same time the merchant, of whom he had been a respected +customer for years, refused to give him any further credit. + +"But we lived somehow," he said, "we lived and we fought." + +It was then that he began to see clearly what it all meant. He +said he made a great discovery: that the "black people" against +whom they had struck in 1894 were not to blame! + +"I tell you," said he, "we found when we got started that them +black people--we used to call 'em dagoes--were just workin' +people like us--and in hell with us. They were good soldiers, +them Eyetalians and Poles and Syrians, they fought with us to the +end." + +I shall not soon forget the intensely dramatic but perfectly +simple way in which he told me how he came, as he said, "to see +the true light." Holding up his maimed right hand (that trembled +a little), he pointed one finger upward. + +"I seen the big hand in the sky," he said, "I seen it as clear as +daylight." + +He said he saw at last what Socialism meant. One day he went home +from a strikers' meeting--one of the last, for the men were worn +out with their long struggle. It was a bitter cold day, and he +was completely discouraged. When he reached his own street he saw +a pile of household goods on the sidewalk in front of his home. +He saw his wife there wringing her hands and crying. He said he +could not take a step further, but sat down on a neighbour's +porch and looked and looked. "It was curious," he said, "but the +only thing I could see or think about was our old family clock +which they had stuck on top of the pile, half tipped over. It +looked odd and I wanted to set it up straight. It was the clock +we bought when we were married, and we'd had it about twenty +years on the mantel in the livin'-room. It was a good clock," he +said. + +He paused and then smiled a little. + +"I never have figured it out why I should have been able to think +of nothing but that clock," he said, "but so it was." + +When he got home, he found his frail daughter just coming out of +the empty house, "coughing as though she was dyin'." Something, +he said, seemed to stop inside him. Those were his words: +"Something seemed to stop inside 'o me." + +He turned away without saying a word, walked back to strike +headquarters, borrowed a revolver from a friend, and started out +along the main road which led into the better part of the town. + +"Did you ever hear o' Robert Winter?" he asked. + +"No," said I. + +"Well, Robert Winter was the biggest gun of 'em all. He owned the +mills there and the largest store and the newspaper-- he pretty +nearly owned the town." + +He told me much more about Robert Winter which betrayed still a +curious sort of feudal admiration for him, and for his great +place and power; but I need not dwell on it here. He told me how +he climbed through a hemlock hedge (for the stone gateway was +guarded) and walked through the snow toward the great house. + +"An' all the time I seemed to be seein' my daughter Margy right +there before my eyes coughing as though she was dyin'." + +It was just nightfall and all the windows were alight. He crept +up to a clump of bushes under a window and waited there a moment +while he drew out and cocked his revolver. Then he slowly reached +upward until his head cleared the sill and he could look into the +room. "A big, warm room," he described it. + +"Comrade," said he, "I had murder in my heart that night." + +So he stood there looking in with the revolver ready cocked in +his hand. + +"And what do you think I seen there?" he asked. + +"I cannot guess," I said. + +"Well," said Bill Hahn, "I seen the great Robert Winter that we +had been fighting for five long months--and he was down on his +hands and knees on the carpet--he had his little daughter on his +back--and he was creepin' about with her--an' she was laughin'." + +Bill Hahn paused. + +"I had a bead on him," he said, "but I couldn't do it--I just +couldn't do it." + +He came away all weak and trembling and cold, and, "Comrade," he +said, "I was cryin' like a baby, and didn't know why." + +The next day the strike collapsed and there was the familiar +stampede for work-- but Bill Hahn did not go back. He knew it +would be useless. A week later his frail daughter died and was +buried in the paupers field. + +"She was as truly killed," he said, "as though some one had fired +a bullet at her through a window." + +"And what did you do after that?" I asked, when he had paused for +a long time with his chin on his breast. + +"Well," said he, "I did a lot of thinking them days, and I says +to myself: 'This thing is wrong, and I will go out and stop it--I +will go out and stop it.'" + +As he uttered these words, I looked at him curiously--his absurd +flat fur hat with the moth-eaten ears, the old bulging overcoat, +the round spectacles, the scarred, insignificant face--he seemed +somehow transformed, a person elevated above himself, the tool of +some vast incalculable force. + +I shall never forget the phrase he used to describe his own +feelings when he had reached this astonishing decision to go out +and stop the wrongs of the World. He said he "began to feel all +clean inside." + +"I see it didn't matter what become o' me, and I began to feel +all clean inside." + +It seemed, he explained, as though something big and strong had +got hold of him, and he began to be happy. + +"Since then," he said in a low voice, "I've been happier than I +ever was before in all my life. I ain't got any family, nor any +home--rightly speakin'--nor any money, but, comrade, you see here +in front of you, a happy man." + +When he had finished his story we sat quiet for some time. + +"Well," said he, finally, "I must be goin'. The committee will +wonder what's become o' me." + +I followed him out to the road. There I put my hand on his +shoulder, and said: + +"Bill Hahn, you are a better man than I am." + +He smiled, a beautiful smile, and we walked off together down the +road. + +I wish I had gone on with him at that time into the city, but +somehow I could not do it. I stopped near the top of the hill +where one can see in the distance that smoky huddle of buildings +which is known as Kilburn, and though he urged me, I turned aside +and sat down in the edge of a meadow. There were many things I +wanted to think about, to get clear in my mind. + +As I sat looking out toward that great city, I saw three men +walking in the white road. As I watched them, I could see them +coming quickly, eagerly. Presently they threw up their hands and +evidently began to shout, though I could not hear what they said. +At that moment I saw my friend Bill Hahn running in the road, his +coat skirts flapping heavily about his legs. When they met they +almost fell into another's arms. + +I suppose it was so that the early Christians, those who hid in +the Roman catacombs, were wont to greet one another. + + +So I sat thinking. + +"A man," I said to myself, "who can regard himself as a function, +not an end of creation, has arrived." + +After a time I got up and walked down the hill--some strange +force carrying me onward--and came thus to the city of Kilburn. + + + +CHAPTER X. I AM CAUGHT UP INTO LIFE + +I can scarcely convey in written words the whirling emotions I +felt when I entered the city of Kilburn. Every sight, every +sound, recalled vividly and painfully the unhappy years I had +once spent in another and greater city. Every mingled odour of +the streets--and there is nothing that will so surely re-create +(for me) the inner emotion of a time or place as a remembered +odour--brought back to me the incidents of that immemorial +existence. + +For a time, I confess it frankly here, I felt afraid. More than +once I stopped short in the street where I was walking, and +considered turning about and making again for the open country. +Some there may be who will feel that I am exaggerating my +sensations and impressions, but they do not know of my memories +of a former life, nor of how, many years ago, I left the city +quite defeated, glad indeed that I was escaping, and thinking (as +I have related elsewhere) that I should never again set foot upon +a paved street. These things went deep with me. Only the other +day, when a friend asked me how old I was, I responded +instantly--our unpremeditated words are usually truest--with the +date of my arrival at this farm. + +"Then you are only ten years old!" he exclaimed with a laugh, +thinking I was joking. + +"Well," I said, "I am counting only the years worth living." + +No; I existed, but I never really lived until I was reborn, that +wonderful summer here among these hills. + +I said I felt afraid in the streets of Kilburn, but it was no +physical fear. Who could be safer in a city than the man who has +not a penny in his pockets? It was rather a strange, deep, +spiritual shrinking. There seemed something so irresistible about +this life of the city, so utterly overpowering. I had a sense of +being smaller than I had previously felt myself, that in some way +my personality, all that was strong or interesting or original +about me, was being smudged over, rubbed out. In the country I +had in some measure come to command life, but here, it seemed to +me, life was commanding me and crushing me down. It is a +difficult thing to describe: I never felt just that way before. + +I stopped at last on the main street of Kilburn in the very heart +of the town. I stopped because it seemed necessary to me, like a +man in a flood, to touch bottom, to get hold upon something +immovable and stable. It was just at that hour of evening when +the stores and shops are pouring forth their rivulets of humanity +to join the vast flood of the streets. I stepped quickly aside +into a niche near the corner of an immense building of brick and +steel and glass, and there I stood with my back to the wall, and +I watched the restless, whirling, torrential tide of the streets. +I felt again, as I had not felt it before in years, the +mysterious urge of the city--the sense of unending, overpowering +movement. + +There was another strange, indeed uncanny, sensation that began +to creep over me as I stood there. Though hundreds upon hundreds +of men and women were passing me every minute, not one of them +seemed to see me. Most of them did not even look in my direction, +and those who did turn their eyes toward me see me to glance +through me to the building behind. I wonder if this is at all a +common experience, or whether I was unduly sensitive that day, +unduly wrought up? I began to feel like one clad in garments of +invisibility. I could see, but was not seen. I could feel, but +was not felt. In the country there are few who would not stop to +speak to me, or at least appraise me with their eyes; but here I +was a wraith, a ghost--not a palpable human being at all. For a +moment I felt unutterably lonely. + +It is this way with me. When I have reached the very depths of +any serious situation or tragic emotion, something within me +seems at last to stop--how shall I describe it?--and I rebound +suddenly and see the world, as it were, double--see that my +condition instead of being serious or tragic is in reality +amusing--and I usually came out of it with an utterly absurd or +whimsical idea. It was so upon this occasion. I think it was the +image of my robust self as a wraith that did it. + +"After all," I said aloud taking a firm hold on the good hard +flesh of one of my legs, "this is positively David Grayson." + +I looked out again into that tide of faces--interesting, tired, +passive, smiling, sad, but above all, preoccupied faces. + +"No one," I thought, "seems to know that David Grayson has come +to town." + +I had the sudden, almost irresistible notion of climbing up a +step near me, holding up one hand, and crying out: + +"Here I am, my friends. I am David Grayson. I am real and solid +and opaque; I have plenty of red blood running in my veins. I +assure you that I am a person well worth knowing." + +I should really have enjoyed some such outlandish enterprise, and +I am not at all sure yet that it would not have brought me +adventures and made me friends worth while. We fail far more +often by under-daring than by over-daring. + +But this imaginary object had the result, at least, of giving me +a new grip on things. I began to look out upon the amazing +spectacle before me in a different mood. It was exactly like some +enormous anthill into which an idle traveller had thrust his +cane. Everywhere the ants were running out of their tunnels and +burrows, many carrying burdens and giving one strangely the +impression that while they were intensely alive and active, not +more than half of them had any clear idea of where they were +going. And serious, deadly serious, in their haste! I felt a +strong inclination to stop a few of them and say: + +"Friends, cheer up. It isn't half as bad as you think it is. +Cheer up!" + +After a time the severity of the human flood began to abate, and +here and there at the bottom of that gulch of a street, which had +begun to fill with soft, bluish-gray shadows, the evening lights +a appeared. The air had grown cooler; in the distance around a +corner I heard a street organ break suddenly and joyously into +the lively strains of "The Wearin' o' the Green." + +I stepped out into the street with quite a new feeling of +adventure. And as if to testify that I was now a visible person a +sharp-eyed newsboy discovered me--the first human being in +Kilburn who had actually seen me --and came up with a paper in +his hand. + +"Herald, boss?" + +I was interested in the shrewd, world-wise, humorous look in the +urchin's eyes. + +"No," I began, with the full intent of bantering him into some +sort of acquaintance; but he evidently measured my purchasing +capacity quite accurately, for he turned like a flash to another +customer. "Herald, boss?" + +"You'll have to step lively, David Grayson," I said to myself, +"if you get aboard in this city." + +A slouchy negro with a cigarette in his fingers glanced at me in +passing and then, hesitating, turned quickly toward me. + +"Got a match, boss?" + +I gave him a match. + +"Thank you, boss," and he passed on down the street. + +"I seem to be 'boss' around here," I said. + +This contact, slight as it was, gave me a feeling of warmth, +removed a little the sensation of aloofness I had felt, and I +strolled slowly down the street, looking in at the gay windows, +now ablaze with lights, and watching the really wonderful +procession of vehicles of all shapes and sizes that rattled by on +the pavement. Even at that hour of the day I think there were +more of them in one minute than I see in a whole month at my +farm. + +It's a great thing to wear shabby clothes and an old hat. Some of +the best things I have ever known, like these experiences of the +streets, have resulted from coming up to life from underneath; of +being taken for less than I am rather than for more than I am. + +I did not always believe in this doctrine. For many years--the +years before I was rightly born into this alluring world--I tried +quite the opposite course. I was constantly attempting to come +down to life from above. Instead of being content to carry +through life a sufficiently wonderful being named David Grayson I +tried desperately to set up and support a sort of dummy creature +which, so clad, so housed, so fed, should appear to be what I +thought David Grayson ought to appear in the eyes of the world. +Oh, I spent quite a lifetime trying to satisfy other people! + +Once I remember staying at home, in bed, reading "Huckleberry +Finn," while I sent my trousers out to be mended. + +Well, that dummy Grayson perished in a cornfield. His empty coat +served well for a scarecrow. A wisp of straw stuck out through a +hole in his finest hat. + +And I--the man within--I escaped, and have been out freely upon +the great adventure of life. + +If a shabby coat (and I speak here also symbolically, not +forgetful of spiritual significances) lets you into the +adventurous world of those who are poor it does not on the other +hand rob you of any true friendship among those who are rich or +mighty. I say true friendship, for unless a man who is rich and +mighty is able to see through my shabby coat (as I see through +his fine one), I shall gain nothing by knowing him. + +I've permitted myself all this digression--left myself walking +alone there in the streets of Kilburn while I philosophized upon +the ways and means of life--not without design, for I could have +had no such experiences as I did have in Kilburn if I had worn a +better coat or carried upon me the evidences of security in life. + +I think I have already remarked upon the extraordinary +enlivenment of wits which comes to the man who has been without a +meal or so and does not know when or where he is again to break +his fast. Try it, friend and see! It was already getting along in +the evening, and I knew or supposed I knew no one in Kilburn save +only Bill Hahn, Socialist who was little better off than I was. + +In this emergency my mind began to work swiftly. A score of +fascinating plans for getting my supper and a bed to sleep in +flashed through my mind. + +"Why," said I, "when I come to think of it, I'm comparatively +rich. I'll warrant there are plenty of places in Kilburn, and +good ones, too, where I could barter a chapter of Montaigne and a +little good conversation for a first-rate supper, and I've no +doubt that I could whistle up a bed almost anywhere!" + +I thought of a little motto I often repeat to myself: + +TO KNOW LIFE, BEGIN ANYWHERE! + +There were several people on the streets of Kilburn that night +who don't know yet how very near they were to being boarded by a +somewhat shabby looking farmer who would have offered them, let +us say, a notable musical production called "Old Dan Tucker," +exquisitely performed on a tin whistle, in exchange for a good +honest supper. + +There was one man in particular--a fine, pompous citizen who came +down the street swinging his cane and looking as though the +universe was a sort of Christmas turkey, lying all brown and +sizzling before him ready to be carved--a fine pompous citizen +who never realized how nearly Fate with a battered volume of +Montaigne in one hand and a tin whistle in the other--came to +pouncing upon him that evening! And I am firmly convinced that if +I had attacked him with the Great Particular Word he would have +carved me off a juicy slice of the white breast meat. + +"I'm getting hungry," I said; "I must find Bill Hahn!" + +I had turned down a side street, and seeing there in front of a +building a number of lounging men with two or three cabs or +carriages standing nearby in the street I walked up to them. It +was a livery barn. + +Now I like all sorts of out-of-door people: I seem to be related +to them through horses and cattle and cold winds and sunshine. I +like them and understand them, and they seem to like me and +understand me. So I walked up to the group of jolly drivers and +stablemen intending to ask my directions. The talking died out +and they all turned to look at me. I suppose I was not altogether +a familiar type there in the city streets. My bag, especially, +seemed to set me apart as a curious person. + +"Friends," I said, "I am a farmer--" + +They all broke out laughing; they seemed to know it already! I +was just a little taken aback, but I laughed, too, knowing that +there was a way of getting at them if only I could find it. + +"It may surprise you," I said, but this is the first time in some +dozen years that I've been in a big city like this." + +"You hadn't 'ave told us, partner!" said one of them, evidently +the wit of the group, in a rich Irish brogue. + +"Well," I responded, laughing with the best of them, "you've been +living right here all the time, and don't realize how amusing and +curious the city looks to me. Why, I feel as though I had been +away sleeping for twenty years, like Rip Van Winkle. When I left +the city there was scarcely an automobile to be seen +anywhere--and now look at them snorting through the streets. I +counted twenty-two passing that corner up there in five minutes +by the clock." + +This was a fortunate remark, for I found instantly that the +invasion of the automobile was a matter of tremendous import to +such Knights of Bucephalus as these. + +At first the wit interrupted me with amusing remarks, as wits +will, but I soon had him as quiet as the others. For I have found +the things that chiefly interest people are the things they +already know about--provided you show them that these common +things are still mysterious, still miraculous, as indeed they +are. + +After a time some one pushed me a stable stool and I sat down +among them, and we had quite a conversation, which finally +developed into an amusing comparison (I wish I had room to repeat +it here) between the city and the country. I told them something +about my farm, how much I enjoyed it, and what a wonderful free +life one had in the country. In this I was really taking an +unfair advantage of them, for I was trading on the fact that +every man, down deep in his heart, has more or less of an +instinct to get back to the soil--at least all outdoor men have. +And when I described the simplest things about my barn, and the +cattle and pigs, and the bees--and the good things we have to +eat--I had every one of them leaning forward and hanging on my +words. + +Harriet sometimes laughs at me for the way I celebrate farm life. +She says all my apples are the size of Hubbard squashes, my eggs +all double-yolked, and my cornfields tropical jungles. Practical +Harriet! My apples may not ALL be the size of Hubbard squashes, +but they are good, sizable apples, and as for flavour--all the +spices of Arcady--! And I believe, I KNOW, from my own experience +that these fields and hills are capable of healing men's souls. +And when I see people wandering around a lonesome city like +Kilburn, with never a soft bit of soil to put their heels into, +nor a green thing to cultivate, nor any corn or apples or honey +to harvest, I feel--well, that they are wasting their time. + +(It's a fact, Harriet!) + + +Indeed I had the most curious experience with my friend the +wit--his name I soon learned was Healy--a jolly, round, +red-nosed, outdoor chap with fists that looked like small-sized +hams, and a rich, warm Irish voice. At first he was inclined to +use me as the ready butt of his lively mind, but presently he +became so much interested in what I was saying that he sat +squarely in front of me with both his jolly eyes and his smiling +mouth wide open. + +"If ever you pass my way," I said to him, "just drop in and I'll +give you a dinner of baked beans"--and I smacked--"and home made +bread" and I smacked again--"and pumpkin pie"--and I smacked a +third time--"that will make your mouth water." + +All this smacking and the description of baked beans and pumpkin +pie had an odd counter effect upon ME; for I suddenly recalled my +own tragic state. So I jumped up quickly and asked directions for +getting down to the mill neighbourhood, where I hoped to find +Bill Hahn. My friend Healy instantly volunteered the information. + +"And now," I said, "I want to ask a small favour of you. I'm +looking for a friend, and I'd like to leave my bag here for the +night." + +"Sure, sure," said the Irishman heartily. "Put it there in the +office--on top o' the desk. It'll be all right." + +So I put it in the office and was about to say good-bye, when my +friend said to me: + +"Come in, partner, and have a drink before you go"--and he +pointed to a nearby saloon. + +"Thank you," I answered heartily, for I knew it was as fine a bit +of hospitality as he could offer me, "thank you, but I must find +my friend before it gets too late." + +"Aw, come on now," he cried, taking my arm. "Sure you'll be +better off for a bit o' warmth inside." + +I had hard work to get away from them, and I am as sure as can be +that they would have found supper and a bed for me if they had +known I needed either. + +"Come agin," Healy shouted after me, "we're glad to see a farmer +any toime." + +My way led me quickly out of the well-groomed and glittering main +streets of the town. I passed first through several blocks of +quiet residences, and then came to a street near the river which +was garishly lighted, and crowded with small, poor shops and +stores, with a saloon on nearly every corner. I passed a huge, +dark, silent box of a mill, and I saw what I never saw before in +a city, armed men guarding the streets. + +Although it was growing late--it was after nine o'clock--crowds +of people were still parading the streets, and there was +something intangibly restless, something tense, in the very +atmosphere of the neighbourhood. It was very plain that I had +reached the strike district. I was about to make some further +inquiries for the headquarters of the mill men or for Bill Hahn +personally, when I saw, not far ahead of me, a black crowd of +people reaching out into the street. Drawing nearer I saw that an +open space or block between two rows of houses was literally +black with human beings, and in the centre on a raised platform, +under a gasolene flare, I beheld my friend of the road, Bill +Hahn. The overcoat and the hat with the furry ears had +disappeared, and the little man stood there bare-headed, before +that great audience. + +My experience in the world is limited, but I have never heard +anything like that speech for sheer power. It was as unruly and +powerful and resistless as life itself. It was not like any other +speech I ever heard, for it was no mere giving out by the orator +of ideas and thoughts and feelings of his own. It seemed +rather--how shall I describe it?--as though the speaker was +looking into the very hearts of that vast gathering of poor men +and poor women and merely telling them what they themselves felt, +but could not tell. And I shall never forget the breathless hush +of the people or the quality of their responses to the orator's +words. It was as though they said, "Yes, yes" with a feeling of +vast relief--"Yes, yes--at last our own hopes and fears and +desires are being uttered--yes, yes." + +As for the orator himself, he held up one maimed hand and leaned +over the edge of the platform, and his undistinguished face +glowed with the white light of a great passion within. The man +had utterly forgotten himself. + +I confess, among those eager working people, clad in their poor +garments, I confess I was profoundly moved. Faith is not so +bounteous a commodity in this world that we can afford to treat +even its unfamiliar manifestations with contempt. And when a +movement is hot with life, when it stirs common men to their +depths, look out! look out! + +Up to that time I had never known much of the practical workings +of Socialism; and the main contention of its philosophy has never +accorded wholly with my experience in life. + +But the Socialism of to-day is no mere abstraction--as it was, +perhaps, in the days of Brook Farm. It is a mode of action. Men +whose view of life is perfectly balanced rarely soil themselves +with the dust of battle. The heat necessary to produce social +conflict (and social progress--who knows?) is generated by a +supreme faith that certain principles are universal in their +application when in reality they are only local or temporary. + +Thus while one may not accept the philosophy of Socialism as a +final explanation of human life, he may yet look upon Socialism +in action as a powerful method of stimulating human progress. The +world has been lagging behind in its sense of brotherhood, and we +now have the Socialists knit together in a fighting friendship as +fierce and narrow in its motives as Calvinism, pricking us to +reform, asking the cogent question: + +"Are we not all brothers?" + +Oh, we are going a long way with these Socialists, we are going +to discover a new world of social relationships--and then, and +then, like a mighty wave; will flow in upon us a renewed and more +wonderful sense of the worth of the individual human soul. A new +individualism, bringing with it, perhaps, some faint realization +of our dreams of a race of Supermen, lies just beyond! Its +prophets, girded with rude garments and feeding upon the wild +honey of poverty, are already crying in the wilderness. + +I think I could have remained there at the Socialist meeting all +night long: there was something about it that brought a hard, dry +twist to my throat. But after a time my friend Bill Hahn, +evidently quite worn out, yielded his place to another and far +less clairvoyant speaker, and the crowd, among whom I now +discovered quite a number of policemen, began to thin out. + + +I made my way forward and saw Bill Hahn and several other men +just leaving the platform. I stepped up to him, but it was not +until I called him by name (I knew how absent minded he was!) +that he recognized me. + +"Well, well," he said; "you came after all!" + +He seized me by both arms and introduced me to several of his +companions as "Brother Grayson." They all shook hands with me +warmly. + +Although he was perspiring, Bill put on his overcoat and the old +fur hat with the ears, and as he now took my arm I could feel one +of his bulging pockets beating against my leg. I had not the +slightest idea where they were going, but Bill held me by the arm +and presently we came, a block or so distant, to a dark, narrow +stairway leading up from the street. I recall the stumbling sound +of steps on the wooden boards, a laugh or two, the high voice of +a woman asserting and denying. Feeling our way along the wall, we +came to the top and went into a long, low, rather dimly lighted +room set about with tables and chairs--a sort of restaurant. A +number of men and a few women had already gathered there. Among +them my eyes instantly singled out a huge, rough-looking man who +stood at the centre of an animated group. He had thick, shaggy +hair, and one side of his face over the cheekbone was of a dull +blue-black and raked and scarred, where it had been burned in a +Powder blast. He had been a miner. His gray eyes, which had a +surprisingly youthful and even humorous expression, looked out +from under coarse, thick, gray brows. A very remarkable face and +figure he presented. I soon learned that he was R--- D---, the +leader of whom I had often heard, and heard no good thing. He +was quite a different type from Bill Hahn: he was the man of +authority, the organizer, the diplomat--as Bill was the prophet, +preaching a holy war. + +How wonderful human nature is! Only a short time before I had +been thrilled by the intensity of the passion of the throng, but +here the mood suddenly changed to one of friendly gayety. Fully a +third of those present were women, some of them plainly from the +mills and some of them curiously different--women from other +walks in life who had thrown themselves heart and soul into the +strike. Without ceremony but with much laughing and joking, they +found their places around the tables. A cook, who appeared in a +dim doorway was greeted with a shout, to which he responded with +a wide smile, waving the long spoon which he held in his hand. + +I shall not attempt to give any complete description of the +gathering or of what they said or did. I think I could devote a +dozen pages to the single man who was placed next to me. I was +interested in him from the outset. The first thing that struck me +about him was an air of neatness, even fastidiousness, about his +person--though he wore no stiff collar, only a soft woollen shirt +without a necktie. He had the long sensitive, beautiful hands of +an artist, but his face was thin and marked with the pallor +peculiar to the indoor worker. I soon learned that he was a +weaver in the mills, an Englishman by birth, and we had not +talked two minutes before I found that, while he had never had +any education in the schools, he had been a gluttonous reader of +books-- all kind of books--and, what is more, had thought about +them and was ready with vigorous (and narrow) opinions about this +author or that. And he knew more about economics and sociology, I +firmly believe, than half the college professors. A truly +remarkable man. + +It was an Italian restaurant, and I remember how, in my hunger, I +assailed the generous dishes of boiled meat and spaghetti. A red +wine was served in large bottles which circulated rapidly around +the table, and almost immediately the room began to fill with +tobacco smoke. Every one seemed to be talking and laughing at +once, in the liveliest spirit of good fellowship. They joked from +table to table, and sometimes the whole room would quiet down +while some one told a joke, which invariably wound up with a roar +of laughter. + +"Why," I said, "these people have a whole life, a whole society, +of their own!" + +In the midst of this jollity the clear voice of a girl rang out +with the first lines of a song. Instantly the room was hushed: + +Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, +Arise, ye wretched of the earth, +For justice thunders condemnation +A better world's in birth. + +These were the words she sang, and when the clear, sweet voice +died down the whole company, as though by a common impulse, arose +from their chairs, and joined in a great swelling chorus: + +It is the final conflict, +Let each stand in his place, +The Brotherhood of Man +Shall be the human race. + +It was beyond belief, to me, the spirit with which these words +were sung. In no sense with jollity--all that seemed to have been +dropped when they came to their feet--but with an unmistakable +fervour of faith. Some of the things I had thought and dreamed +about secretly among the hills of my farm all these years, +dreamed about as being something far off and as unrealizable as +the millennium, were here being sung abroad with jaunty faith by +these weavers of Kilburn, these weavers and workers whom I had +schooled myself to regard with a sort of distant pity. + +Hardly had the company sat down again, with a renewal of the flow +of jolly conversation When I heard a rapping on one of the +tables. I saw the great form of R--- D--- slowly rising. + +"Brothers and sisters," he said, "a word of caution. The +authorities will lose no chance of putting us in the wrong. Above +all we must comport ourselves here and in the strike with great +care. We are fighting a great battle, bigger than we are--" + +At this instant the door from the dark hallway suddenly opened +and a man in a policeman's uniform stepped in. There fell an +instant's dead silence--an explosive silence. Every person there +seemed to be petrified in the position in which his attention was +attracted. Every eye was fixed on the figure at the door. For an +instant no one said a word; then I heard a woman's shrill voice, +like a rifle-shot: + +"Assassin!" + +I cannot imagine what might have happened next, for the feeling +in the room, as in the city itself, was at the tensest, had not +the leader suddenly brought the goblet which he held in his hand +down with a bang upon the table. + +"As I was saying," he continued in a steady, clear voice, "we are +fighting to-day the greatest of battles, and we cannot permit +trivial incidents, or personal bitterness, or small persecutions, +to turn us from the great work we have in hand. However our +opponents may comport themselves, we must be calm, steady, sure, +patient, for we know that our cause is just and will prevail." + +"You're right," shouted a voice back in the room. + +Instantly the tension relaxed, conversation started again and +every one turned away from the policeman at the door. In a few +minutes, he disappeared without having said a word. + +There was no regular speaking, and about midnight the party began +to break up. I leaned over and said to my friend Bill Hahn: + +"Can you find me a place to sleep tonight?" + +"Certainly I can," he said heartily. + +There was to be a brief conference of the leaders after the +supper, and those present soon departed. I went down the long, +dark stairway and out into the almost deserted street. Looking up +between the buildings I could see the clear blue sky and the +stars. And I walked slowly up and down awaiting my friend and +trying, vainly to calm my whirling emotions. + +He came at last and I went with him. That night I slept scarcely +at all, but lay looking up into the darkness. And it seemed as +though, as I lay there, listening, that I could hear the city +moving in its restless sleep and sighing as with heavy pain. All +night long I lay there thinking. + + + +CHAPTER XI. I COME TO GRAPPLE WITH THE CITY +I have laughed heartily many times since I came home to think of +the Figure of Tragedy I felt myself that morning in the city of +Kilburn. I had not slept well, had not slept at all, I think, and +the experiences and emotions of the previous night still lay +heavy upon me. Not before in many years had I felt such a +depression of the spirits. + +It was all so different from the things I love! Not so much as a +spear of grass or a leafy tree to comfort the eye, or a bird to +sing; no quiet hills, no sight of the sun coming up in the +morning over dewy fields, no sound of cattle in the lane, no +cheerful cackling of fowls, nor buzzing of bees! That morning, I +remember, when I first went out into those squalid streets and +saw everywhere the evidences of poverty, dirt, and ignorance--and +the sweet, clean country not two miles away--the thought of my +own home among the hills (with Harriet there in the doorway) came +upon me with incredible longing. + +"I must go home; I must go home!" I caught myself saying aloud. + +I remember how glad I was when I found that my friend Bill Hahn +and other leaders of the strike were to be engaged in conferences +during the forenoon, for I wanted to be alone, to try to get a +few things straightened out in my mind. + +But I soon found that a city is a poor place for reflection or +contemplation. It bombards one with an infinite variety of new +impressions and new adventures; and I could not escape the +impression made by crowded houses, and ill-smelling streets, and +dirty sidewalks, and swarming human beings. For a time the burden +of these things rested upon my breast like a leaden weight; they +all seemed so utterly wrong to me, so unnecessary; so unjust! I +sometimes think of religion as only a high sense of good order; +and it seemed to me that morning as though the very existence of +this disorderly mill district was a challenge to religion, and an +offence to the Orderer of an Orderly Universe. I don't now how +such conditions may affect other people, but for a time I felt a +sharp sense of impatience--yes, anger--with it all. I had an +impulse to take off my coat then and there and go at the job of +setting things to rights. Oh, I never was more serious in my +life: I was quite prepared to change the entire scheme of things +to my way of thinking whether the people who lived there liked it +or not. It seemed to me for a few glorious moments that I had +only to tell them of the wonders in our country, the pleasant, +quiet roads, the comfortable farmhouses, the fertile fields, and +the wooded hills--and, poof! all this crowded poverty would +dissolve and disappear, and they would all come to the country +and be as happy as I was. + +I remember how, once in my life, I wasted untold energy trying to +make over my dearest friends. There was Harriet, for example, +dear, serious, practical Harriet. I used to be fretted by the way +she was forever trying to clip my wing feathers--I suppose to +keep me close to the quiet and friendly and unadventurous roost! +We come by such a long, long road, sometimes, to the acceptance +of our nearest friends for exactly what they are. Because we are +so fond of them we try to make them over to suit some curious +ideal of perfection of our own--until one day we suddenly laugh +aloud at our own absurdity (knowing that they are probably trying +as hard to reconstruct us as we are to reconstruct them) and +thereafter we try no more to change them, we just love 'em and +enjoy 'em! + +Some such psychological process went on in my consciousness that +morning. As I walked briskly through the streets I began to look +out more broadly around me. It was really a perfect spring +morning, the air crisp, fresh, and sunny, and the streets full of +life and activity. I looked into the faces of the people I met, +and it began to strike me that most of them seemed oblivious of +the fact that they should, by good rights, be looking downcast +and dispirited. They had cheered their approval the night before +when the speakers had told them how miserable they were (even +acknowledging that they were slaves), and yet here they were +this morning looking positively good-humoured, cheerful, some of +them even gay. I warrant if I had stepped up to one of them that +morning and intimated that he was a slave he would have--well, I +should have had serious trouble with him! There was a degree of +sociability in those back streets, a visiting from window to +window, gossipy gatherings in front area-ways, a sort of pavement +domesticity, that I had never seen before. Being a lover myself +of such friendly intercourse I could actually feel the hum and +warmth of that neighbourhood. + +A group of brightly clad girl strikers gathered on a corner were +chatting and laughing, and children in plenty ran and shouted at +their play in the street. I saw a group of them dancing merrily +around an Italian hand-organ man who was filling the air with +jolly music. I recall what a sinking sensation I had at the pit +of my reformer's stomach when it suddenly occurred to me that +these people some of them, anyway, might actually LIKE this +crowded, sociable neighbourhood! "They might even HATE the +country," I exclaimed. + +It is surely one of the fundamental humours of life to see +absurdly serious little human beings (like D. G. for example) +trying to stand in the place of the Almighty. We are so +confoundedly infallible in our judgments, so sure of what is good +for our neighbour, so eager to force upon him our particular +doctors or our particular remedies; we are so willing to put our +childish fingers into the machinery of creation--and we howl so +lustily when we get them pinched! + +"Why!" I exclaimed, for it came to me like a new discovery, "it's +exactly the same here as it is in the country! I haven't got to +make over the universe: I've only got to do my own small job, and +to look up often at the trees and the hills and the sky and be +friendly with all men." + +I cannot express the sense of comfort, and of trust, which this +reflection brought me. I recall stopping just then at the corner +of a small green city square, for I had now reached the better +part of the city, and of seeing with keen pleasure the green of +the grass and the bright colour of a bed of flowers, and two or +three clean nursemaids with clean baby cabs, and a flock of +pigeons pluming themselves near a stone fountain, and an old +tired horse sleeping in the sun with his nose buried in a feed +bag. + +"Why," I said, "all this, too, is beautiful!" So I continued my +walk with quite a new feeling in my heart, prepared again for any +adventure life might have to offer me. + +I supposed I knew no living soul in Kilburn but Bill the +Socialist. What was my astonishment and pleasure, then in one of +the business streets to discover a familiar face and figure. A +man was just stepping from an automobile to the sidewalk. For an +instant; in that unusual environment, I could not place him, then +I stepped up quickly and said: + +"Well, well, Friend Vedder." + +He looked around with astonishment at the man in the shabby +clothes--but it was only for an instant. + +"David Grayson!" he exclaimed, "and how did YOU get into the +city?" + +"Walked," I said. + +"But I thought you were an incurable and irreproachable +countryman! Why are you here?" + +"Love o' life," I said; "love o' life." + +"Where are you stopping?" I waved my hand. + +"Where the road leaves me," I said. "Last night I left my bag +with some good friends I made in front of a livery stable and I +spent the night in the mill district with a Socialist named Bill +Hahn." + +"Bill Hahn!" The effect upon Mr. Vedder was magical. + +"Why, yes," I said, "and a remarkable man he is, too." + +I discovered immediately that my friend was quite as much +interested in the strike as Bill Hahn, but on the other side. He +was, indeed, one of the directors of the greatest mill in +Kilburn--the very one which I had seen the night before +surrounded by armed sentinels. It was thrilling to me, this +knowledge, for it seemed to plump me down at once in the middle +of things--and soon, indeed, brought me nearer to the brink of +great events than ever I was before in all my days. + +I could see that Mr. Vedder considered Bill Hahn as a sort of +devouring monster, a wholly incendiary and dangerous person. So +terrible, indeed, was the warning he gave me (considering me, I +suppose an unsophisticated person) that I couldn't help laughing +outright. + +"I assure you--" he began, apparently much offended. + +But I interrupted him. + +"I'm sorry I laughed," I said, "but as you were talking about +Bill Hahn, I couldn't help thinking of him as I first saw him." +And I gave Mr. Vedder as lively a description as I could of the +little man with his bulging coat tails, his furry ears, his odd +round spectacles. He was greatly interested in what I said and +began to ask many questions. I told him with all the earnestness +I could command of Bill's history and of his conversion to his +present beliefs. I found that Mr. Vedder had known Robert Winter +very well indeed, and was amazed at the incident which I narrated +of Bill Hahn's attempt upon his life. + +I have always believed that if men could be made to understand +one another they would necessarily be friendly, so I did my best +to explain Bill Hahn to Mr. Vedder. + +"I'm tremendously interested in what you say," he said, "and we +must have more talk about it." + +He told me that he had now to put in an appearance at his office, +and wanted me to go with him; but upon my objection he pressed me +to take luncheon with him a little later, an invitation which I +accepted with real pleasure. + +"We haven't had a word about gardens," he said, "and there are no +end of things that Mrs. Vedder and I found that we wanted to talk +with you about after you had left us." + +"Well!" I said, much delighted, "let's have a regular +old-fashioned country talk." + +So we parted for the time being, and I set off in the highest +spirits to see something more of Kilburn. + +A city, after all, is a very wonderful place. One thing, I +recall, impressed me powerfully that morning--the way in which +every one was working, apparently without any common agreement or +any common purpose, and yet with a high sort of understanding. +The first hearing of a difficult piece of music (to an +uncultivated ear like mine) often yields nothing but a confused +sense of unrelated motives, but later and deeper hearings reveal +the harmony which ran so clear in the master's soul. + +Something of this sort happened to me in looking out upon the +life of that great city of Kilburn. All about on the streets, in +the buildings, under ground and above ground, men were walking, +running, creeping, crawling, climbing, lifting, digging, driving, +buying, selling, sweating, swearing, praying, loving, hating, +struggling, failing, sinning, repenting--all working and living +according to a vast harmony, which sometimes we can catch clearly +and sometimes miss entirely. I think, that morning, for a time, I +heard the true music of the spheres, the stars singing together. + +Mr. Vedder took me to a quiet restaurant where we had a snug +alcove all to ourselves. I shall remember it always as one of the +truly pleasant experiences of my pilgrimage. + +I could see that my friend was sorely troubled, that the strike +rested heavy upon him, and so I led the conversation to the hills +and the roads and the fields we both love so much. I plied him +with a thousand questions about his garden. I told him in the +liveliest way of my adventures after leaving his home, how I had +telephoned him from the hills, how I had taken a swim in the +mill-pond, and especially how I had lost myself in the old +cowpasture, with an account of all my absurd and laughable +adventures and emotions. + +Well, before we had finished our luncheon I had every line ironed +from the brow of that poor plagued rich man, I had brought jolly +crinkles to the corners of his eyes, and once or twice I had him +chuckling down deep inside (Where chuckles are truly effective). +Talk about cheering up the poor: I think the rich are usually far +more in need of it! + +But I couldn't keep the conversation in these delightful +channels. Evidently the strike and all that it meant lay heavy +upon Mr. Vedder's consciousness, for he pushed back his coffee +and began talking about it, almost in a tone of apology. He told +me how kind he had tried to make the mill management in its +dealings with its men. + +"I would not speak of it save in explanation of our true attitude +of helpfulness; but we have really given our men many +advantages"--and he told me of the reading-room the company had +established, of the visiting nurse they had employed, and of +several other excellent enterprises, which gave only another +proof of what I knew already of Mr. Vedder's sincere kindness of +heart. + +"But," he said, "we find they don't appreciate what we try to do +for them." + +I laughed outright. + +"Why," I exclaimed, "you are having the same trouble I have had!" + +"How's that?" he inquired, I thought a little sharply. Men don't +like to have their seriousness trifled with. + +"No longer ago than this morning," I said, "I had exactly that +idea of giving them advantages; but I found that the difficulty +lies not with the ability to give, but with the inability or +unwillingness to take. You see I have a great deal of surplus +wealth myself--" + +Mr. Vedder's eyes flickered up at me. + +"Yes," I said. "I've got immense accumulations of the wealth of +the ages--ingots of Emerson and Whitman, for example, gems of +Voltaire, and I can't tell what other superfluous coinage!" (And +I waved my hand in the most grandiloquent manner.) "I've also +quite a store of knowledge of corn and calves and cucumbers, and +I've a boundless domain of exceedingly valuable landscapes. I am +prepared to give bountifully of all these varied riches (for I +shall still have plenty remaining), but the fact is that this +generation of vipers doesn't appreciate what I am trying to do +for them. I'm really getting frightened, lest they permit me to +perish from undistributed riches!" + +Mr. Vedder was still smiling. + +"Oh," I said, warming up to my idea, "I'm a regular +multimillionaire. I've got so much wealth that I'm afraid I shall +not be as fortunate as jolly Andy Carnegie, for I don't see how I +can possibly die poor!" + +"Why not found a university or so?" asked Mr. Vedder. + +"Well, I had thought of that. It's a good idea. Let's join our +forces and establish a university where truly serious people can +take courses in laughter." + +"Fine idea!" exclaimed Mr. Vedder; "but wouldn't it require an +enormous endowment to accommodate all the applicants? You must +remember that this is a very benighted and illiterate world, +laughingly speaking." + +"It is, indeed," I said, "but you must remember that many people, +for a long time, will be too serious to apply. I wonder sometimes +if any one ever learns to laugh really laugh much before he is +forty." + +"But," said Mr. Vedder anxiously, "do you think such an +institution would be accepted by the proletariat of the +serious-minded?" + +"Ah, that's the trouble," said I, "that's the trouble. The +proletariat doesn't appreciate what we are trying to do for them! +They don't want your reading-rooms nor my Emerson and cucumbers. +The seat of the difficulty seems to be that what seems wealth to +us isn't necessarily wealth for the other fellow." + +I cannot tell with what delight we fenced our way through this +foolery (which was not all foolery, either). I never met a man +more quickly responsive than Mr. Vedder. But he now paused for +some moments, evidently ruminating. + +"Well, David," he said seriously, "what are we going to do about +this obstreperous other fellow?" + +"Why not try the experiment," I suggested, "of giving him what he +considers wealth, instead of what you consider wealth?" + +"But what does he consider wealth?" + +"Equality," said I. + +Mr. Vedder threw up his hands. + +"So you're a Socialist, too!" + +"That," I said, "is another story." + +"Well, supposing we did or could give him this equality you speak +of--what would become of us? What would we get out of it?" + +"Why, equality, too!" I said. + +Mr. Vedder threw up his hands up with a gesture of mock +resignation. + +"Come," said he, "let's get down out of Utopia!" + +We had some further good-humoured fencing and then returned to +the inevitable problem of the strike. While we were discussing +the meeting of the night before which, I learned, had been +luridly reported in the morning papers, Mr. Vedder suddenly +turned to me and asked earnestly: + +"Are you really a Socialist?" + +"Well," said I, "I'm sure of one thing. I'm not ALL Socialist, +Bill Hahn believes with his whole soul (and his faith has made +him a remarkable man) that if only another class of people--his +class--could come into the control of material property, that +all the ills that man is heir to would be speedily cured. But I +wonder if when men own property collectively--as they are going +to one of these days--they will quarrel and hate one another any +less than they do now. It is not the ownership of material +property that interests me so much as the independence of it. +When I started out from my farm on this pilgrimage it seemed to +me the most blessed thing in the world to get away from property +and possession." + +"What are you then, anyway?" asked Mr. Vedder, smiling. + +"Well, I've thought of a name I would like to have applied to me +sometimes," I said. "You see I'm tremendously fond of this world +exactly as it is now. Mr. Vedder, it's a wonderful and beautiful +place! I've never seen a better one. I confess I could not +possibly live in the rarefied atmosphere of a final solution. I +want to live right here and now for all I'm worth. The other day +a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. 'Why,' I +answered without a thought, 'Now.' It has always seemed to me +that if a man can't make a go of it, yes, and be happy at this +moment, he can't be at the next moment. But most of all, it seems +to me, I want to get close to people, to look into their hearts, +and be friendly with them. Mr. Vedder, do you know what I'd like +to be called?" + +"I cannot imagine," said he. + +"Well, I'd like to be called an Introducer. My friend, Mr. +Blacksmith, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Plutocrat. I +could almost swear that you were brothers, so near alike are you! +You'll find each other wonderfully interesting once you get over +the awkwardness of the introduction. And Mr. White Man, let me +present you particularly to my good friend, Mr. Negro. You will +see if you sit down to it that this colour of the face is only +skin deep." + +"It's a good name!" said Mr. Vedder, laughing. + +"It's a wonderful name," said I, "and it's about the biggest and +finest work in the world--to know human beings just as they are, +and to make them acquainted with one another just as they are. +Why, it's the foundation of all the democracy there is, or ever +will be. Sometimes I think that friendliness is the only +achievement of life worth while--and unfriendliness the only +tragedy." + +I have since felt ashamed of myself when I thought how I lectured +my unprotected host that day at luncheon; but it seemed to boil +out of me irresistibly. The experiences of the past two days had +stirred me to the very depths, and it seemed to me I must explain +to somebody how it all impressed me--and to whom better than to +my good friend Vedder? + +As we were leaving the table an idea flashed across my mind which +seemed, at first, so wonderful that it quite turned me dizzy. + +"See here, Mr. Vedder," I exclaimed, "let me follow my occupation +practically. I know Bill Hahn and I know you. Let me introduce +you. If you could only get together, if you could only understand +what good fellows you both are, it might go far toward solving +these difficulties." + +I had some trouble persuading him, but finally he consented, said +he wanted to leave no stone unturned, and that he would meet Bill +Hahn and some of the other leaders, if proper arrangements could +be made. + +I left him, therefore, in excitement, feeling that I was at the +point of playing a part in a very great event. "Once get these +men together," I thought, "and they MUST come to an +understanding." + +So I rushed out to the mill district, saying to myself over and +over (I have smiled about it since!): "We'll settle this strike: +we'll settle this strike: we'll settle this strike." After some +searching I found my friend Bill in the little room over a saloon +that served as strike headquarters. A dozen or more of the +leaders were there, faintly distinguishable through clouds of +tobacco smoke. Among them sat the great R--- D---, his burly +figure looming up at one end of the table, and his strong, rough, +iron-jawed face turning first toward this speaker and then toward +that. The discussion, which had evidently been lively, died down +soon after I appeared at the door, and Bill Hahn came out to me +and we sat down together in the adjoining room. Here I broke +eagerly into an account of the happenings of the day, described +my chance meeting with Mr. Vedder--who was well known to Bill by +reputation--and finally asked him squarely whether he would meet +him. I think my enthusiasm quite carried him away. + +"Sure, I will," said Bill Hahn heartily. + +"When and where?" I asked, "and will any of the other men join +you?" + +Bill was all enthusiasm at once, for that was the essence of his +temperament, but he said that he must first refer it to the +committee. I waited, in a tense state of impatience, for what +seemed to me a very long time; but finally the door opened and +Bill Hahn came out bringing R--- D-- himself with him. We all sat +down together, and R--- D--- began to ask questions (he was +evidently suspicious as to who and what I was); but I think, +after I talked with them for some time that I made them see the +possibilities and the importance of such a meeting. I was greatly +impressed with R--- D---, the calmness and steadiness of the man, +his evident shrewdness. "A real general," I said to myself. "I +should like to know him better." + +After a long talk they returned to the other room, closing the +door behind them, and I waited again, still more impatiently. + +It seems rather absurd now, but at that moment I felt firmly +convinced that I was on the way to the permanent settlement of a +struggle which had occupied the best brains of Kilburn for many +weeks. + +While I was waiting in that dingy ante-room, the other door +slowly opened and a boy stuck his head in. + +"Is David Grayson here?" he asked. + +"Here he is," said I, greatly astonished that any one in Kilburn +should be inquiring for me, or should know where I was. + +The boy came in, looked at me with jolly round eyes for a moment, +and dug a letter out of his pocket. I opened it at once, and +glancing at the signature discovered that it was from Mr. Vedder. + +"He said I'd probably find you at strike headquarters," remarked +the boy. + +This was the letter: marked "Confidential." + +My Dear Grayson: I think you must be something of a hypnotist. +After you left me I began to think of the project you mentioned, +and I have talked it over with one or two of my associates. I +would gladly hold this conference, but it does not now seem wise +for us to do so. The interests we represent are too important to +be jeopardized. In theory you are undoubtedly right, but in this +case I think you will agree with me (when you think it over), we +must not show any weakness. Come and stop with us to-night: Mrs. +Vedder will be overjoyed to see you and we'll have another fine +talk. + +I confess I was a good deal cast down as I read this letter. + +"What interests are so important?" I asked myself, "that they +should keep friends apart?" + +But I was given only a moment for reflection for the door opened +and my friend Bill, together with R--- D---and several other +members of the committee, came out. I put the letter in my +pocket, and for a moment my brain never worked under higher +pressure. What should I say to them now? How could I explain +myself ? + +Bill Hahn was evidently labouring under considerable excitement, +but R--- D--- was as calm as a judge. He sat down in the chair +opposite and said to me: + +"We've been figuring out this proposition of Mr. Vedder's. Your +idea is all right, and it would be a fine thing if we could +really get together as you suggest upon terms of common +understanding and friendship." + +"Just what Mr. Vedder said," I exclaimed. + +"Yes," he continued, "it's all right in theory; but in this case +it simply won't work. Don't you see it's got to be war? Your +friend and I could probably understand each other--but this is a +class war. It's all or nothing with us, and your friend Vedder +knows it as well as we do." + +After some further argument and explanation, I said: + +"I see: and this is Socialism." + +"Yes," said the great R--- D---, "this is Socialism." + +"And it's force you would use," I said. + +"It's force THEY use," he replied. + +After I left the strike headquarters that evening--for it was +almost dark before I parted with the committee--I walked straight +out through the crowded streets, so absorbed in my thoughts that +I did not know in the least where I was going. The street lights +came out, the crowds began to thin away, I heard a strident song +from a phonograph at the entrance to a picture show, and as I +passed again in front of the great, dark, many-windowed mill +which had made my friend Vedder a rich man I saw a sentinel turn +slowly at the corner. The light glinted on the steel of his +bayonet. He had a fresh, fine, boyish face. + +"We have some distance yet to go in this world," I said to +myself, "no man need repine for lack of good work ahead." + +It was only a little way beyond this mill that an incident +occurred which occupied probably not ten minutes of time, and yet +I have thought about it since I came home as much as I have +thought about any other incident of my pilgrimage. I have thought +how I might have acted differently under the circumstances, how I +could have said this or how I ought to have done that--all, of +course, now to no purpose whatever. But I shall not attempt to +tell what I ought to have done or said, but what I actually did +do and say on the spur of the moment. + +It was in a narrow, dark street which opened off the brightly +lighted main thoroughfare of that mill neighbourhood. A girl +standing in the shadows between two buildings said to me as I +passed: + +"Good evening." + +I stopped instantly, it was such a pleasant, friendly voice. + +"Good evening," I said, lifting my hat and wondering that there +should be any one here in this back street who knew me. + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +I stepped over quickly toward her, hat in hand. She was a mere +slip of a girl, rather comely, I thought, with small childish +features and a half-timid, half-bold look in her eyes. I could +not remember having seen her before. + +She smiled at me--and then I knew! + +Well, if some one had struck me a brutal blow in the face I could +not have been more astonished. + +We know of things!--and yet how little we know until they are +presented to us in concrete form. Just such a little school girl +as I have seen a thousand times in the country, the pathetic +childish curve of the chin, a small rebellious curl hanging low +on her temple. + +I could not say a word. The girl evidently saw in my face that +something was the matter, for she turned and began to move +quickly away. Such a wave of compassion (and anger, too) swept +over me as I cannot well describe. I stepped after her and asked +in a low voice: + +"Do you work in the mills?" + +"Yes, when there's work." + +"What is your name?" + +"Maggie--" + +"Well, Maggie," I said, "let's be friends." + +She looked around at me curiously, questioningly. + +"And friends," I said, "should know something about each other. +You see I am a farmer from the country. I used to live in a city +myself, a good many years ago, but I got tired and sick and +hopeless. There was so much that was wrong about it. I tried to +keep the pace and could not. I wish I could tell you what the +country has done for me." + +We were walking along slowly, side by side, the girl perfectly +passive but glancing around at me from time to time with a +wondering look. I don't know in the least now what prompted me to +do it, but I began telling in a quiet, low voice--for, after all, +she was only a child--I began telling her about our chickens at +the farm and how Harriet had named them all, and one was Frances +E. Willard, and one, a speckled one, was Martha Washington, and I +told her of the curious antics of Martha Washington and of the +number of eggs she laid, and of the sweet new milk we had to +drink, and the honey right out of our own hives, and of the +things growing in the garden. + +Once she smiled a little, and once she looked around at me with a +curious, timid, half-wistful expression in her eyes. + +"Maggie," I said, "I wish you could go to the country." + +"I wish to God I could," she replied. + +We walked for a moment in silence. My head was whirling with +thoughts: again I had that feeling of helplessness, of +inadequacy, which I had felt so sharply on the previous evening. +What could I do? + +When we reached the corner, I said: + +"Maggie, I will see you safely home." + +She laughed--a hard, bitter laugh. + +"Oh, I don't need any one to show me around these streets!" + +"I will see you home," I said. + +So we walked quickly along the street together. + +"Here it is," she said finally, pointing to a dark, mean-looking, +one-story house, set in a dingy, barren areaway. + +"Well, good night, Maggie," I said, "and good luck to you." + +"Good night," she said faintly. + +When I had walked to the corner, I stopped and looked back. She +was standing stock-still just where I had left her--a figure I +shall never forget. + + +I have hesitated about telling of a further strange thing that +happened to me that night--but have decided at last to put it in. +I did not accept Mr. Vedder's invitation: I could not; but I +returned to the room in the tenement where I had spent the +previous night with Bill Hahn the Socialist. It was a small, +dark, noisy room, but I was so weary that I fell almost +immediately into a heavy sleep. An hour or more later I don't +know how long indeed--I was suddenly awakened and found myself +sitting bolt upright in bed. It was close and dark and warm there +in the room, and from without came the muffled sounds of the +city. For an instant I waited, rigid with expectancy. And then I +heard as clearly and plainly as ever I heard anything: + +"David! David!" in my sister Harriet's voice. + +It was exactly the voice in which she has called me a thousand +times. Without an instant's hesitation, I stepped out of bed and +called out: + +"I'm coming, Harriet! I'm coming!" + +"What's the matter?" inquired Bill Hahn sleepily. + +"Nothing," I replied, and crept back into bed. + +It may have been the result of the strain and excitement of the +previous two days. I don't explain it--I can only tell what +happened. + +Before I went to sleep again I determined to start straight for +home in the morning: and having decided, I turned over, drew a +long, comfortable breath and did not stir again, I think, until +long after the morning sun shone in at the window. + + +CHAPTER XII. THE RETURN + +"Everything divine runs with light feet." + +Surely the chief delight of going away from home is the joy of +getting back again. I shall never forget that spring morning when +I walked from the city of Kilburn into the open country, my bag +on my back, a song in my throat, and the gray road stretching +straight before me. I remember how eagerly I looked out across +the fields and meadows and rested my eyes upon the distant hills. +How roomy it all was! I looked up into the clear blue of the sky. +There was space here to breathe, and distances in which the +spirit might spread its wings. As the old prophet says, it was a +place where a man might be placed alone in the midst of the +earth. + +I was strangely glad that morning of every little stream that ran +under the bridges, I was glad of the trees I passed, glad of +every bird and squirrel in the branches, glad of the cattle +grazing in the fields, glad of the jolly boys I saw on their way +to school with their dinner pails, glad of the bluff, red-faced +teamster I met, and of the snug farmer who waved his hand at me +and wished me a friendly good morning. It seemed to me that I +liked every one I saw, and that every one liked me. + +So I walked onward that morning, nor ever have had such a sense +of relief and escape, nor ever such a feeling of gayety. + +"Here is where I belong," I said. "This is my own country. Those +hills are mine, and all the fields, and the trees and the sky-- +and the road here belongs to me as much as it does to any one." + +Coming presently to a small house near the side of the road, I +saw a woman working with a trowel in her sunny garden. It was +good to see her turn over the warm brown soil; it was good to see +the plump green rows of lettuce and the thin green rows of +onions, and the nasturtiums and sweet peas; it was good--after so +many days in that desert of a city--to get a whiff of blossoming +things. I stood for a moment looking quietly over the fence +before the woman saw me. When at last she turned and looked up, I +said: + +"Good morning." + +She paused, trowel in hand. + +"Good morning," she replied; "you look happy." + +I wasn't conscious that I was smiling outwardly. + +"Well, I am," I said; "I'm going home." + +"Then you OUGHT to be happy," said she. + +"And I'm glad to escape THAT," and I pointed toward the city. + +"What?" + +"Why, that old monster lying there in the valley." + +I could see that she was surprised and even a little alarmed. So +I began intently to admire her young cabbages and comment on the +perfection of her geraniums. But I caught her eying me from time +to time as I leaned there on the fence, and I knew that she would +come back sooner or later to my remark about the monster. Having +shocked your friend (not too unpleasantly), abide your time, and +he will want to be shocked again. So I was not at all surprised +to hear her ask: + +"Have you travelled far?" + +"I should say so!" I replied. "I've been on a very long journey. +I've seen many strange sights and met many wonderful people." + +"You may have been in California, then. I have a daughter in +California." + +"No," said I, "I was never in California." + +"You've been a long time from home, you say?" + +"A very long time from home." + +"How long?" + +"Three weeks." + +"Three weeks! And how far did you say you had travelled?" + +"At the farthest point, I should say sixty miles from home." + +"But how can you say that in travelling only sixty miles and +being gone three weeks that you have seen so many strange places +and people?" + +"Why," I exclaimed, "haven't you seen anything strange around +here?'" + +"Why, no--" glancing quickly around her. + +"Well, I'm strange, am I not?" + +"Well--" + +"And you're strange." + +She looked at me with the utmost amazement. I could scarcely keep +from laughing. + +"I assure you," I said, "that if you travel a thousand miles you +will find no one stranger than I am--or you are--nor anything +more wonderful than all this--" and I waved my hand. + +This time she looked really alarmed, glancing quickly toward the +house, so that I began to laugh. + +"Madam," I said, "good morning!" + +So I left her standing there by the fence looking after me, and I +went on down the road. + +"Well," I said, "she'll have something new to talk about. It may +add a month to her life. Was there ever such an amusing world!" + +About noon that day I had an adventure that I have to laugh over +every time I think of it. It was unusual, too, as being almost +the only incident of my journey which was of itself in the least +thrilling or out of the ordinary. Why, this might have made an +item in the country paper! + +For the first time on my trip I saw a man that I really felt like +calling a tramp--a tramp in the generally accepted sense of the +term. When I left home I imagined I should meet many tramps, and +perhaps learn from them odd and curious things about life; but +when I actually came into contact with the shabby men of the +road, I began to be puzzled. What was a tramp, anyway? + +I found them all strangely different, each with his own +distinctive history, and each accounting for himself as logically +as I could for myself. And save for the fact that in none of them +I met were the outward graces and virtues too prominently +displayed, I have come back quite uncertain as to what a +scientist might call type-characteristics. I had thought of +following Emerson in his delightfully optimistic definition of a +weed. A weed, he says, is a plant whose virtues have not been +discovered. A tramp, then, is a man whose virtues have not been +discovered. Or, I might follow my old friend the Professor (who +dearly loves all growing things) in his even kindlier definition +of a weed. He says that it is merely a plant misplaced. The +virility of this definition has often impressed me when I have +tried to grub the excellent and useful horseradish plants out of +my asparagus bed! Let it be then--a tramp is a misplaced man, +whose virtues have not been discovered. + +Whether this is an adequate definition or not, it fitted +admirably the man I overtook that morning on the road. He was +certainly misplaced, and during my brief but exciting experience +with him I discovered no virtues whatever. + +In one way he was quite different from the traditional tramp. He +walked with far too lively a step, too jauntily, and he had with +him a small, shaggy, nondescript dog, a dog as shabby as he, +trotting close at his heels. He carried a light stick, which he +occasionally twirled over in his hand. As I drew nearer I could +hear him whistling and even, from time to time, breaking into a +lively bit of song. What a devil-may-care chap he seemed, anyway! +I was greatly interested. + +When at length I drew alongside he did not seem in the least +surprised. He turned, glanced at me with his bold black eyes, and +broke out again into the song he was singing. And these were the +words of his song--at least, all I can remember of them: + +Oh, I'm so fine and gay, +I'm so fine and gay, +I have to take a dog along, +To kape the ga-irls away. + +What droll zest he put into it! He had a red nose, a globular red +nose set on his face like an overgrown strawberry, and from under +the worst derby hat in the world burst his thick curly hair. + +"Oh, I'm so fine and gay," he sang, stepping to the rhythm of his +song, and looking the very image of good-humoured impudence. I +can't tell how amused and pleased I was--though if I had known +what was to happen later I might not have been quite so +friendly--yes, I would too! + +We fell into conversation, and it wasn't long before I suggested +that we stop for luncheon together somewhere along the road. He +cast a quick appraising eye at my bag, and assented with +alacrity. We climbed a fence and found a quiet spot near a little +brook. + +I was much astonished to observe the resources of my jovial +companion. Although he carried neither bag nor pack and appeared +to have nothing whatever in his pockets, he proceeded, like a +professional prestidigitator, to produce from his shabby clothing +an extraordinary number of curious things--a black tin can with a +wire handle, a small box of matches, a soiled package which I +soon learned contained tea, a miraculously big dry sausage +wrapped in an old newspaper, and a clasp-knife. I watched him +with breathless interest. + +He cut a couple of crotched sticks to hang the pail on and in two +or three minutes had a little fire, no larger than a man's hand, +burning brightly under it. ("Big fires," said he wisely, "are not +for us.") This he fed with dry twigs, and in a very few minutes +he had a pot of tea from which he offered me the first drink. +This, with my luncheon and part of his sausage, made up a very +good meal. + +While we were eating, the little dog sat sedately by the fire. +From time to time his master would say, "Speak, Jimmy." + +Jimmy would sit up on his haunches, his two front paws hanging +limp, turn his head to one side in the drollest way imaginable +and give a yelp. His master would toss him a bit of sausage or +bread and he would catch it with a snap. + +"Fine dog!" commented my companion. + +"So he seems," said I. + +After the meal was over my companion proceeded to produce other +surprises from his pockets--a bag of tobacco, a brier pipe (which +he kindly offered to me and which I kindly refused), and a soiled +packet of cigarette papers. Having rolled a cigarette with +practised facility, he leaned up against a tree, took off his +hat, lighted the cigarette and, having taken a long draw at it, +blew the smoke before him with an incredible air of satisfaction. + +"Solid comfort this here--hey!" he exclaimed. + +We had some further talk, but for so jovial a specimen he was +surprisingly uncommunicative. Indeed, I think he soon decided +that I somehow did not belong to the fraternity, that I was a +"farmer"--in the most opprobrious sense--and he soon began to +drowse, rousing himself once or twice to roll another cigarette, +but finally dropping (apparently, at least) fast asleep. + +I was glad enough of the rest and quiet after the strenuous +experience of the last two days--and I, too, soon began to +drowse. It didn't seem to me then that I lost consciousness at +all, but I suppose I must have done so, for when I suddenly +opened my eyes and sat up my companion had vanished. How he +succeeded in gathering up his pail and packages so noiselessly +and getting away so quickly is a mystery to me. + +"Well," I said, "that's odd." + +Rousing myself deliberately I put on my hat and was about to take +up my bag when I suddenly discovered that it was open. My +rain-cape was missing! It wasn't a very good rain-cape, but it +was missing. + +At first I was inclined to be angry, but when I thought of my +jovial companion and the cunning way in which he had tricked me, +I couldn't help laughing. At the same time I jumped up quickly +and ran down the road. + +"I may get him yet," I said. + +Just as I stepped out of the woods I caught a glimpse of a man +some hundreds of yards away, turning quickly from the main road +into a lane or by-path. I wasn't altogether sure that he was my +man, but I ran across the road and climbed the fence. I had +formed the plan instantly of cutting across the field and so +striking the by-road farther up the hill. I had a curious sense +of amused exultation, the very spirit of the chase, and my mind +dwelt with the liveliest excitement on what I should say or do if +I really caught that jolly spark of impudence + +So I came by way of a thicket along an old stone fence to the +by-road, and there, sure enough, only a little way ahead of me, +was my man with the shaggy little dog close at his heels. He was +making pretty good time, but I skirted swiftly along the edge of +the road until I had nearly overtaken him. Then I slowed down to +a walk and stepped out into the middle of the road. I confess my +heart was pounding at a lively rate. The next time he looked +behind him--guiltily enough, too!--I said in the calmest voice I +could command: + +"Well, brother, you almost left me behind." + +He stopped and I stepped up to him. + +I wish I could describe the look in his face--mingled +astonishment, fear, and defiance. + +"My friend," I said, "I'm disappointed in you." + +He made no reply. + +"Yes, I'm disappointed. You did such a very poor job." + +"Poor job!" he exclaimed. + +"Yes," I said, and I slipped my bag off my shoulder and began to +rummage inside. My companion watched me silently and +suspiciously. + +"You should not have left the rubbers." + +With that I handed him my old rubbers. A peculiar expression came +into the man's face. + +"Say, pardner, what you drivin' at?" + +"Well," I said, "I don't like to see such evidences of haste and +inefficiency." + +He stood staring at me helplessly, holding my old rubbers at +arm's length. + +"Come on now," I said, "that's over. We'll walk along together." + +I was about to take his arm, but quick as a flash he dodged, cast +both rubbers and rain-cape away from him, and ran down the road +for all he was worth, the little dog, looking exactly like a +rolling ball of fur, pelting after him. He never once glanced +back, but ran for his life. I stood there and laughed until the +tears came, and ever since then, at the thought of the expression +on the jolly rover's face when I gave him my rubbers, I've had to +smile. I put the rain-cape and rubbers back into my bag and +turned again to the road. + + +Before the afternoon was nearly spent I found myself very tired, +for my two days' experience in the city had been more exhausting +for me, I think, than a whole month of hard labour on my farm. I +found haven with a friendly farmer, whom I joined while he was +driving his cows in from the pasture. I helped him with his +milking both that night and the next morning, and found his +situation and family most interesting--but I shall not here +enlarge upon that experience. + +It was late afternoon when I finally surmounted the hill from +which I knew well enough I could catch the first glimpse of my +farm. For a moment after I reached the top I could not raise my +eyes, and when finally I was able to raise them I could not see. + +"There is a spot in Arcady--a spot in Arcady--a spot in Arcady--" +So runs the old song. + +There IS a spot in Arcady, and at the centre of it there is a +weather-worn old house, and not far away a perfect oak tree, and +green fields all about, and a pleasant stream fringed with alders +in the little valley. And out of the chimney into the sweet, +still evening air rises the slow white smoke of the supper-fire. + +I turned from the main road, and climbed the fence and walked +across my upper field to the old wood lane. The air was heavy and +sweet with clover blossoms, and along the fences I could see that +the raspberry bushes were ripening their fruit. + +So I came down the lane and heard the comfortable grunting of +pigs in the pasture lot and saw the calves licking one another as +they stood at the gate. + +"How they've grown!" I said. + +I stopped at the corner of the barn for a moment. From within I +heard the rattling of milk in a pail (a fine sound), and heard a +man's voice saying: + +"Whoa, there! Stiddy now!" + +"Dick's milking," I said. + +So I stepped in at the doorway. + +"Lord, Mr. Grayson!" exclaimed Dick, rising instantly and +clasping my hand like a long-lost brother. + +"I'm glad to see you!" + +"I'm glad to see YOU!" + +The warm smell of the new milk, the pleasant sound of animals +stepping about in the stable, the old mare reaching her long head +over the stanchion to welcome me, and nipping at my fingers when +I rubbed her nose-- + +And there was the old house with the late sun upon it, the vines +hanging green over the porch, Harriet's trim flower bed--I crept +along quietly to the corner. The kitchen door stood open. + +"Well, Harriet!" I said, stepping inside. + +"Mercy! David!" + +I have rarely known Harriet to be in quite such a reckless mood. +She kept thinking of a new kind of sauce or jam for supper (I +think there were seven, or were there twelve? on the table before +I got through). And there was a new rhubarb pie such as only +Harriet can make, just brown enough on top, and not too brown, +with just the right sort of hills and hummocks in the crust, and +here and there little sugary bubbles where a suggestion of the +goodness came through--such a pie--! and such an appetite to go +with it! + +"Harriet," I said, "you're spoiling me. Haven't you heard how +dangerous it is to set such a supper as this before a man who is +perishing with hunger? Have you no mercy for me?" + +This remark produced the most extraordinary effect. Harriet was +at that moment standing in the corner near the pump. Her +shoulders suddenly began to shake convulsively. + +"She's so glad I'm home that she can't help laughing," I thought, +which shows how penetrating I really am. + +She was crying. + +"Why, Harriet!" I exclaimed. + +"Hungry!" she burst out, "and j-joking about it!" + +I couldn't say a single word; something--it must have been a +piece of the rhubarb pie--stuck in my throat. So I sat there and +watched her moving quietly about in that immaculate kitchen. +After a time I walked over to where she stood by the table and +put my arm around her quickly. She half turned her head, in her +quick, businesslike way. I noted how firm and clean and sweet her +face was. + +"Harriet," I said, "you grow younger every year." + +No response. + +"Harriet," I said, "I haven't seen a single person anywhere on my +journey that I like as much as I do you." + +The quick blood came up. + +"There--there--David!" she said. + +So I stepped away. + +"And as for rhubarb pie, Harriet--" + +When I first came to my farm years ago there were mornings when I +woke up with the strong impression that I had just been hearing +the most exquisite sounds of music. I don't know whether this is +at all a common experience, but in those days (and farther back +in my early boyhood) I had it frequently. It did not seem exactly +like music either, but was rather a sense of harmony, so +wonderful, so pervasive that it cannot be described. I have not +had it so often in recent years, but on the morning after I +reached home it came to me as I awakened with a strange depth and +sweetness. I lay for a moment there in my clean bed. The morning +sun was up and coming in cheerfully through the vines at the +window; a gentle breeze stirred the clean white curtains, and I +could smell even there the odours of the garden. + +I wish I had room to tell, but I cannot, of all the crowded +experiences of that day--the renewal of acquaintance with the +fields, the cattle, the fowls, the bees, of my long talks with +Harriet and Dick Sheridan, who had cared for my work while I was +away; of the wonderful visit of the Scotch Preacher, of Horace's +shrewd and whimsical comments upon the general absurdity of the +head of the Grayson family--oh, of a thousand things--and how +when I went into my study and took up the nearest book in my +favourite case--it chanced to be "The Bible in Spain"--it opened +of itself at one of my favourite passages, the one beginning: + +"Mistos amande, I am content--" + + +So it's all over! It has been a great experience; and it seems to +me now that I have a firmer grip on life, and a firmer trust in +that Power which orders the ages. In a book I read not long ago, +called "A Modern Utopia," the writer provides in his imaginary +perfect state of society a class of leaders known as Samurai. +And, from time to time, it is the custom of these Samurai to cut +themselves loose from the crowding world of men, and with packs +on their backs go away alone to far places in the deserts or on +Arctic ice caps. I am convinced that every man needs some such +change as this, an opportunity to think things out, to get a new +grip on life, and a new hold on God. But not for me the Arctic +ice cap or the desert! I choose the Friendly Road--and all the +common people who travel in it or live along it--I choose even the +busy city at the end of it. + +I assure you, friend, that it is a wonderful thing for a man to +cast himself freely for a time upon the world, not knowing where +his next meal is coming from, nor where he is going to sleep for +the night. It is a surprising readjuster of values. I paid my +way, I think, throughout my pilgrimage; but I discovered that +stamped metal is far from being the world's only true coin. As a +matter of fact, there are many things that men prize more +highly--because they are rarer and more precious. + +My friend, if you should chance yourself some day to follow the +Friendly Road, you may catch a fleeting glimpse of a man in a +rusty hat, carrying a gray bag, and sometimes humming a little +song under his breath for the joy of being there. And it may +actually happen, if you stop him, that he will take a tin whistle +from his bag and play for you, "Money Musk," or "Old Dan Tucker," +or he may produce a battered old volume of Montaigne from which +he will read you a passage. If such an adventure should befall +you, know that you have met + +Your friend, + +David Grayson. + +P. S.-- Harriet bemoans most of all the unsolved mystery of the +sign man. But it doesn't bother me in the least. I'm glad now I +never found him. The poet sings his song and goes his way. If we +sought him out how horribly disappointed we might be! We might +find him shaving, or eating sausage, or drinking a bottle of +beer. We might find him shaggy and unkempt where we imagined him +beautiful, weak where we thought him strong, dull where we +thought him brilliant. Take then the vintage of his heart and let +him go. As for me, I'm glad some mystery is left in this world. A +thousand signs on my roadways are still as unexplainable, as +mysterious, and as beguiling as this. And I can close my +narrative with no better motto for tired spirits than that of the +country roadside: + +[ REST ] + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg etext of The Friendly Road; New Adventures in +Contentment by David Grayson (pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker) diff --git a/old/frnrd10.zip b/old/frnrd10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3aad02 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/frnrd10.zip |