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The Friendly Road; New Adventures in Contentment ....................................................................................1

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

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 pilgrimagesthe 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

"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

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

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 hospitalityand make friends for life!

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 packstrap resting warmly on my shoulder, and a song in my throatjust

nameless words to a nameless tuneand 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 allof the feeling of lightness, strength,

clearness, I have as I sit here under this maple treebut 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

Until today 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

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

When I left home last week, if you could have had a truthful picture of mefor is there not a photography so

delicate that it will catch the dim thoughtshapes 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

More than thisI shall offer no explanation in these writings of any miracles that may appearyou 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

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

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

bedbut pulled it quickly back in again, turned over, drew a long, luxurious breath, and said to myself:

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

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

For some days after I left homeand I walked out as casually that morning as though I were going to the

barnI 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

And now, for the moment, I am regaining another of the joys of youththat 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

So I took the Road as it came, as a man takes a woman, for better or worseI took the Road, and the farms

along it, and the sleepy little villages, and the streams from the hillsidesall 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

Assuredly this is one of the royal moments of all the yearfine, cool, sparkling spring weather. I think I

never saw the meadows richer and greenerand 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 verdurethey

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,

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 roadall the peddlers and agents and umbrellamenders, all the nursery

salesmen and fertilizer agents, all the tramps and scientists and poetsall 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 wearystepping horses, the man all sombrecoloured like the earth itself and knit into the

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 bynot unpleasant, not offensiveand above all, the deep, earthy, moist

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 trainhow good all these sounds are! They have all come to me again this week

It was not, indeed, until last Wednesday that I began to get my fill, temporarily, of the outward satisfaction of

the Roadthe primeval takings of the sensesthe 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:

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 myselfand made with serious purposeand 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

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, andcertain other

emoluments and hereditamentsbut remain the slave of sundry cloth upon my back and sundry articles in

my gray bagincluding a fat pocket volume or so, and a tin whistle. Let them pass now. Tomorrow 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 postagestamp, and as for

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

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 eata 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 deepseated 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

stockstill within my fences and say nothingthough indeed I never could do that, being far too much

interested in every one who came my wayand the invader was soon repelled. There is nothing so resistant

Many times that day I stopped by a field side or at the end of a lane, or at a housegate, 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 openingand 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

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

I cannot at all convey the sense of high adventure I had as I stood there. Though I had not the slightest idea of

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 today."

"I AM steppin' lively, dad," responded the boy, "but it's awful hot. We can't possibly finish today. It's too

"We've got to get through here today," 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

"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

"Fine," responded the man rather shortly, glancing up from his work. I recalled the scores of times I had been

"There is one somewhere around here," he answered not too cordially. The boy said nothing at all, but eyed

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

"I heard you say to your son," I said, "that you'd have to hurry in order to get in your potatoes today. I can

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

So we began in fine spirits. I was delighted with the favourable beginning of my enterprise; there is nothing

Ben was a lad some fifteen years oldvery stout and stocky, with a fine open countenance and a frank blue

eyeall 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

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

"I guess that beats the record across THIS field!" remarked the lad, puffing and wiping his forehead. "Say,

It gave me a peculiar thrill of pleasure; there is nothing more pleasing than the frank admiration of a boy.

"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

I glanced up and saw standing near the gateway a slim, bright girl of about twelve in a fresh gingham dress.

"_I_ don't know" with a great accent of mystery"and dad don't know. 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

I waited to help the man, whose name I had now learnedit was Stanleywith 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

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

"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 piea

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 potatoplanting 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 sittingroom and the older daughter was at the telephone exchanging the news of the day with

some neighbourand with great laughter and enjoyment. Occasionally she would turn and repeat some bit of

Instantly Ben and the slim girl, Mary, made a wild dive for the front roomthe parlourand came out with

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

We had further music of the same sort and with one record the older daughter, Kate, broke into the song with

Presently Mrs. Stanley, who was sitting under the lamp with a basket of socks to mend, began to nod.

But with further joking and laughing the family began to move about. The older daughter gave me a hand

I cannot tell with what solid pleasure I rolled into bed or how soundly and sweetly I slept.

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 hotelbarn, 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

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 dofor 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

At last I discovered a remote spot on a beam in the haybarn where, lighted by a ray of sunlight which came

through a crack in the eaves and pointed a dusty golden finger into that hayscented 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 styleeven to the last nod and final foottap. 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 haybarn, 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

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 goodsized 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

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

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

I remained with them the entire day following the potatoplanting. 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

potatofield, and part of the time I helped plant a few remaining rows, and part of the time I drove a team

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 mowerblades 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 workharness and tinkered the cornplanter. 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

"Fine, fine!" exclaimed Mr. Stanley, looking out from time to time, "we got in our potatoes just in the nick of

After supper that evening I told them of my plan to leave them on the following morning.

"Yes," said Mr. Stanley, "we're shorthanded, and I'd be glad to have a man like you all summer. There ain't

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 beconcerned 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

We were all sitting comfortably around the table in the livingroom. The lamps were lighted, and Mr.

Stanley, in slippers, was smoking his pipe and Mrs. Stanley was darning socks over a mendinggourd, 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

"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,

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.

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

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 chairarm 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 convictionsLIFE. And why

"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

"'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

"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 officeholder. It's good enough for me right

At this the older brother, who was sitting not far off, broke into a laugh, and the boy, who for a moment had

"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

"No," I said. "I've had more than value received. You've taken me in like a friend and brother. I've enjoyed

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.

"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."

With that we both laughed, but when I reached the top of the hill, and looked back, I saw him still standing

there barefooted 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, Godfriendly 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

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

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:

Oh, I assure you I assumed all the airs of a virtuoso. When I had finished my tune I removed my whistle

"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

I told him I thought it might still be difficult, having heard me near at hand, to imagine what it could beand

thus, tossing the ball of goodhumoured 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

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 petshe called it his "leader"and feeling it familiarly in his hand he instinctively began the

jargon of wellhandled and voiceworn 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 brushesuntil he actually began to make me feel that brushes were as

What a strange, little, driedup 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

"See here, Mr. Canfield, it's just noon. Why not sit down here with me and have a bit of luncheon?"

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

So we sat there, the brushpeddler 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 wanderingand

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 flypaper to threshingmachines, he had picked up a large working knowledge

of the weaknesses of human nature, and had arrived at the age of sixtysix 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 failurean old man, and nothing laid by! But I wonderI

wonder. One thing I am coming to learn in this world, and that is to let people haggle along with their lives as

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 restingplace for the

"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

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

"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 brushagent 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 histhough he was regally impartial as to what road

he took nextand, 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 broombrush with which

he instantly began brushing off my coat and trousersin the liveliest and most exuberant way. When he had

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

"No man ought to take the road without a brush. A good broombrush 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 brushpeddler 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.

"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 brushpeddler.

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

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

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 townalways looking for

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

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 allfamous, the delightful writer, the joy and darling of the Muses! You are that brave

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 describedand yet, why not? All things are as we see them. I once heard a

mana modern man, living todaytell 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 roughlooking 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 thus quite absurdly intoxicated by the possibilities of the road, I let the big full afternoon slip byI let

slip the rich possibilities of half a hundred farms and scores of travelling peopleand 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 countryto look atbut 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 wellgroomed

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

ME: Having decided that the people in these houses are, after all, merely men and women, what is the best

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.

MYSELF: They want what they have not got; they want the unattainable: they want chiefly the rarest and

"That's it!" I said aloud; "that's it! Mysterythe things of the spirit, the things above ordinary livingis not

that the essential thing for which the world is sighing, and groaning, and longingconsciously, or

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

From some distance I had seen a veritable palace set high among the trees and overlooking a wonderful green

valleyand, drawing nearer, I saw evidences of wellkept 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 motorcar, 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 magnoliarare in this countrywhich 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 rockingchairs. I fancied it may have been only a fancythat when I first saw

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 darkleaved lilacbushes near the doorway: oh, a

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

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 arewell

As I came nearer, the man and woman stopped rocking, but said nothing. An old dog that had been sleeping

"As I passed your garden," I said, grasping desperately for a way of approach, "I saw your beautiful specimen

of the magnolia treethe one still in blossom. I myself have tried to grow magnoliasbut with small

It was a shot in the airbut 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

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 booksbooks of unusual sizes and shapes, indicating that they were not mere

"I have tried magnolias, too," said the man, "but this is the only one that has been really successful. It is a

This was also a random shot, but I conjectured that if they loved both books gardens they would know

"The very same," exclaimed the woman; "it was Downing's enthusiasm for the Chinese magnolia which led

With that, like true disciples, we fell into great talk of Downing, at first all in praise of him, and laterfor

may not the faithful be permitted latitude in their comments so long as it is all within the cloister?we

"It won't do," said the man, "to follow too slavishly every detail of practice as recommended by Downing.

"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 handfor it had grown

pretty darkand a familiar, portly, bluebound book in the other. While he was gone the woman said:

"I know of no combination in this world," said I, "so certain to produce a happy heart as good books and a

Mr. Vedder, having returned, slipped on his spectacles, sat forward on the edge of his rockingchair, and

"You are wrong, my dear," he responded, "it is in 'Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life.'"

"Mr. Grayson. The Chinaman's name was Lieutscheu. '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 dwellingplacein the midst of

"That's it," I exclaimed, "and the old Chinaman was right! A garden excuses civilization."

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 pointbut

not quiteof spilling over into articulate form. The marvellous thing about good conversation is that it

brings to birth so many halfrealized thoughts of our ownbesides sowing the seed of innumerable other

thoughtplants. How they enjoyed their garden, those two, and not only the garden itself, but all the lore and

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

"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

"Certainly," said Mr. Vedder, "but many gardeners are nothing but gardeners. Well, the book to which I refer

With that Mr. Vedder reached for a booka familiarlooking bookon 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

jampotand plenty of jam on his nose. And like that small boy I enjoyed the jam, but did not like being

Mr. Vedder had no sooner got the book in his hand than I saw Mrs. Vedder rising as though she had seen a

I can say truthfully now that I know how the prisoner at the bar must feel when the judge, leaning over his

"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

"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 itafter 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,

It was nearly midnight when at last Mr. Vedder led the way to the immaculate little bedroom where I spent

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 flowerbeds. The sun was just coming up over the hill, the air was full of the

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

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

"I will come," I said, "and buy a little garden next them, and bring Harriet, and we will live here always.

But with that I thought of the Scotch preacher, and of Horace, and Mr. and Mrs. Starkweather, and I knew I

"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

Mr. Vedder came out and linking his arm in mine and pointing out various spireas and Japanese barberries, of

I did not think of it especially at timeHarriet 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 daintydainty 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 caretakerbut 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'sso

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 fivetined forks and went

into the rose garden and began turning over the rich soil, while Mrs. Vedder, with pruningshears, kept near

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

About the middle of the afternoon I made the next discovery. I heard first the choking cough of a big

motorcar 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

"I can't, I can't," said Mrs. Vedder, "the roses MUST be prunedand see! The azaleas are coming into

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

"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

thereso many unnecessary things to see to and care forand we couldn'twe didn't see"

"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."

And it WAS romantic: these fine people escaping from too many possessions, too much property, to the

"It seems, sometimes," said Mrs. Vedder, "that I never really believed in God until we came down here"

"And it is true," said Mr. Vedder. "We got a long, long way from God for many years: here we seem to get

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.

"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 menyou took in a dusty traveller. And I

"The House by the Side of the Roadyou 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."

It is one of the prime joys of the long road that no two days are ever remotely alikeno two hours even; and

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

I can give no adequate reason why it should be so, but there are Sunday mornings in the springat least in

our country which seem to put on, like a Sabbath garment, an atmosphere of divine quietude. Warm, soft,

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 meadowrue, like green

shadows on the hillsides, not yet in seed, but richly umbrageous. In the long green grass of the meadows

shone the yellow starflowers, and the sweetflags were blooming along the marshy edges of the ponds. The

violets had disappeared, but they were succeeded by wild geraniums and rankgrowing vetches.

I remember that I kept thinking from time to time, all the forenoon, as my mind went back swiftly and

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,

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

Some time after noonfor 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

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 miraclea 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 experienceI hesitate always when I try to put down the deep, deep things of the human

hearta feeling immeasurably real, that if I should turn my head quickly I should indeed SEE that Immanent

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

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 churchbell. 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

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

I had not been playing long before I saw two boys looking at me from out of a thicket by the roadside; and a

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.

"It's hard luck," said I, taking my whistle from my lips, "to have to wear shoes and stockings on a warm

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 questionsI

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

counterattraction, 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 hillspiping them away from older

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

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

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

My words evidently struck deep down into some disturbed inner consciousness, for he askedand his words

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 wornlookingand sad as I now saw it, rather

than gloomywith the sensitive lips and the unworldly look one sees sometimes in the faces of saints. His

black coat was immaculately neat, but the worn buttoncovers 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 himpoor flagellant of the

rural churchI 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:

"I am very sorry," I said, "and I will detain them no longer," and with that I put aside my whistle, took up my

"The fact is," I said, "when I heard your bell I thought of going to church myself."

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

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

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 institutionthe 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,

outofdoor 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 Phariseehis 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 middleaged man with stiff chinwhiskers, small round, sharp eyes, and a

"That man," said I to myself, "runs this church," and instantly I found myself looking upon him as a sort of

I shall not attempt to describe the service in detail. There was a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing,

and the mournfullooking deacon who passed the collectionplate 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

I found the service indescribably depressing. I had an impulse to rise up and cry outalmost 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 seriocomic enterprise:

I would step up the aisle, take my place in front of the Chief Pharisee, wag my finger under his nose, and tell

"The only live thing here," I would tell him, "is the spark in that pale minister's soul; and you're doing your

And I fully made up my mind that when he answered back in his chiefpharisaical way I would gentlybut

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 yesstand 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

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 treesand felt the welcome

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

Arriving at the minister's gate, I was invited in with a wholeheartedness that was altogether charming. The

minister's wife, a fadedlooking woman who had once possessed a delicate sort of prettiness, was waiting for

The home was much the sort of place I had imagineda 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

And yetand yetwhat 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

I sat with them at their Sundayevening 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

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 ruska 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 gentilitythe gentility of unapologizing simplicity and kindness.

And after it was over and cleared awaythe minister himself donning a long apron and helping his

wifeand 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 finallybang!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."

And with that I told him of our own Scotch preacher and how he led and moulded our community; and as I

"Why," said I, "you not only ought to be the moral leader of this community, but you are!"

"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

"Why," said I, "you ARE a fighter; you're fighting the greatest battle in the world todaythe only real

Oh, I knew exactly what was the trouble with his religionat 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 befor he too sensed the new impulseI merely told him he was just that. He needed only this

How a woman loves concrete applications. She is your only true pragmatist. If a philosophy will not work,

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

"Mr. Nash," said she in a low voice to me, "is always trying to hold him down and keep him back. My

"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 workhave agricultural meetings and boys' clubs, and lots of things like thatbut Mr. Nash

says it is no part of a minister's work: that it cheapens religion. He says that when a parsonMr. Nash

always calls him parson, and I just LOATHE that name has preached, and prayed, and visited the sick,

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

It was some seconds before the minister could come down from the heights and greet Mr. Nash. As for me, I

As soon as Mrs. Minister lighted the lamp I was introduced to the great man. He looked at me sharply with

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

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 spirita

"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

"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'

My eyes were on the pale man of God. I felt as though a human soul were being weighed in the balance.

He paused a moment with downcast eyes. I saw little Mrs. Minister glance at himoncewistfully. He rose

from his place, drew himself up to his full heightI shall not soon forget the look on his faceand uttered

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

The minister took the jar in his hands as he might the communioncup just before saying the prayer of the

"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

tablea clatter of dimes, nickels, pennies, a few quarters and half dollars, and a very few bills.

The minister put his hand into his pocket and, after counting out certain coins, said:

"Here's one dollar and eightyfour cents more. That makes twentysix dollars. Now, Mr. Nash, you're the

largest contributor to my salary in this neighbourhood. You gave twentysix dollars last yearfifty 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 sewingmachine, so that we can pay back your contribution in full."

"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

At this I saw Mrs. Minister look up at her husband with such a light in her eyes as any man might well barter

I knew too what this defiance meant. It meant that this little family was placing its all upon the altareven

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;

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 hardshelled, practical people,

Mr. Nash could only dominate in a world which recognized the same material supremacy that he recognized.

He paused, and looked at the minister with a strange expression in his small round eyeswas it anger, or

"If you want to waste your time on fiddlin' farmers' meetingsa man that knows as little of farmin' as you

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:

"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

When we had finished, and as Martha rose from her seat, the minister impulsively put his hands on her

He took a turn up and down the room, and then with an exultant boyish laugh said:

I remained with them that night and part of the following day, taking a hand with them in the garden, but of

Yesterday was exactly the sort of a day I love besta spicy, unexpected, amusing daycrowned with a

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

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

You there, brownclad farmer on the tall seat of your wagon, driving townward with a red heifer for sale, I

can show you that life your lifeis 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

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 familyI worked with them in their garden with great delight most of

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 writersthose leisurely old

fellows who took time to write, REALLY write. The important thing to me about a road, as about lifeand

literature, is not that it goes anywhere, but that it is livable while it goes. For if I were to arriveand who

Thus I have commonly avoided the Great White Roadthe broad, smooth turnpikerockbottomed and

rolled by a Statewithout so much as a loitering curve to whet one's curiosity, nor a thank youma'am to

laugh over, nor a sinful hill to test your endurancenot 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 motorcar shoots in at one end of it and out at the other, leaving its dust to settle upon quiet travellers

Thus today 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 motorcar whirled past me as I stood there and a girl with a merry face

waved her hand at me. I lifted my hat in returnand as I watched them out of sight I felt a curious new sense

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

"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

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 treetops 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 longnor was it longbefore 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 sarsaparillaand 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

Indeed, I like all kinds of signs. The autocratic warnings of the road, the musts and the mustnots of traffic, I

observe in passing; and I often stand long at the crossings and look up at the fingerposts, and consider my

limitless wealth as a traveller. By this road I may, at my own pleasure, reach the Great City; by thatwho

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 repentjust a littleknowing 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 signindeed

rather inconspicuousconsisting 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:

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.

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 myselfas though I

were being swept onward through life faster than I could well enjoy it. For nature passes the dishes far more

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

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

In the next few miles I saw two other signs with nothing on them but the word "Rest."

Now this excellent admonitionlike 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 onehorse 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, sunbronzed man in workingclothesand with the shortest

of short hair. I saw him take a shovel from the wagon and begin digging. He was the roadworker.

I asked the roadworker if he had seen the curious signs. He looked up at me with a broad smile (he had

"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 fullgrown 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, aswell, as a dusty man of the roadeasily 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

A few other wellintentioned 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

I said not a word to the husky roadworker 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:

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

Finally, when I showed no signs of stopping my work, he himself paused and leaned on his shovel. I kept

"Say, partner," said he, finally, "did YOU read those signs as you come up the road?"

"Yes," said I, with a sudden inspiration, "that's exactly what I ama roadworker."

"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,

"Well," I responded after considering the question, "I have a very long and hard section. It begins at a place

called Prosy Commondo you know it?and reaches to the top of Clear Hill. There are several bad spots

"Don't know it," said the husky roadworker; "'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 motorcar whizzed past, the driver holding up his hand in greeting, and the

"There he goes in the ruts again," said the husky roadworker. "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?"

"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

"Do you?" I exclaimed. "I've done that very thing myselfmany a time! Just place a good hard truI 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

"Ain't it gorgeous," said the husky roadworker, chuckling joyfully, "to see 'em bump?"

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 roadworker 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 roadworker was filled with a world of practical information covering roads

and roadmaking. 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

"Exactly what I have discovered," I responded. "Get down to bedrock and do an honest job of building."

"No," said I, "long, leisurely curves are bestall through life. You have observed that nearly all the

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

"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

"That's exactly what I've found," said I. "Let a road become almost impassable with ruts and rocks and dust,

"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 illsmelling oil. Above everything, he doesn't want the road dug up and rebuiltsays 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 outand as for

politics, is not the cry of the partyroadster and the harmonyoilers 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:

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

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

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

"And I want to sell you a pair of spectacles," I said. "I see that you are nearly blind."

It would be utterly impossible to describe the expression on his face. His hand went involuntarily to his eyes,

"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

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 roadworker, "are you sure you aren't" He tapped his forehead and began to edge

"It is a peculiar sort of blindness. Apparently, as you look about, you see everything there is to see, but as a

"It's time that I was seein' it again then," said he, making as if to turn back to work, but remaining with a

"The Spectacles I have to sell," said I, "are powerful magnifiers"he glanced again at the gray bag. "When

"Then you ain't roadworker 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 uncomfortableyes, 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 roadworker 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

"And when I spoke of selling you a pair of spectacles," said I, "it was only a way of telling you how much I

I paused, wondering if, after all, he could be made to see. I know now how the surgeon must feel at the

"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."

"It's a mighty good sign," I said, "when a man begins to feel queer in the insides. It shows that something is

With that we walked back to the road, feeling very close and friendlyand shovelling again, not saying

much. After quite a time, when we had nearly cleaned up the landslide, I heard the husky roadworker

"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 youfor I haven't seen anybody in a long time that I've enjoyed

We nurse a fiction that people love to cover up their feelings; but I have learned that if the feeling is real and

"Same here," said the roadworker simply, but with a world of genuine feeling in his voice.

Well, when it came time to stop work the roadworker insisted that I get in and go home with him.

The upshot of it was that I not only remained for supperand a good supper it wasbut 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

I wish I could tell more of what I saw there, of the garden back of the house, and of all the roadworker and

When I set forth early this morning the roadworker 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 along again some of these days," said I, laughing, "and I'll stop in and show you my new stock of

So I walked off down the roadin the best of spiritsready for the events of another day.

It will surely be a great adventure, one of these days, to come this way againand to visit the Stanleys, and

the Vedders, and the Minister, and drop in and sell another pair of specs to the Roadworker. It seems to me I

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 morningand find they exert quite a psychological influence.

In the early morning after I left the husky roadmender (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

"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 vineclad back porch

It was the first time since my pilgrimage began that I had thought with any emotion of my farmor of

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 linessome 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

I caught a vicarious glimpse of the signman today, 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 laterthe dull wonder of mankind!the young farmer, passing that way to town, had seen the odd sign

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,

In such a liveminded mood as this it often happens that the most ordinary things appear charged with new

significance. I suppose I had seen a thousand ruralmail boxes along country roads before that day, but I had

seen them as the young farmer saw the signman. 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 byroad that

came out through a thicket of scrub oaks and hazelbrush, like some shy countryman, to join the turnpike.

As I stood looking into itfor it seemed peculiarly invitingI saw at the entrance a familiar group of

ruralmail boxes. And I saw them not as dead things, but for the momentthe illusion was

overpoweringthey 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

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 dosave to go

up and eat dinner with one of the hill farmers, which might not be an unmixed blessing!and then it came to

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

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 mailorder 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

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 eyeteeth!" And he would instantly begin speculating as to whether this

was a new scheme for selling him secondrate nursery stock, or the smooth introduction of another

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

friendforprofit, or even a cheat, than that he is frankly a wellwisher of his neighbours?

These reflections put such a damper upon my enthusiasm that I was on the point of taking again to the road,

"Friendship," I said aloud, "is the greatest thing in the world. There is no door it will not unlock, no problem

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

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 letterboxes 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 ClarkT. N. Clarkand it seemed to me

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

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 ditchdigger), and

we think him a wild visionary, an academic person. I think sometimes that the science of humanity today 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

"The next house beyond the ridge," said the toothless old woman, pointing with a long finger, "is the Clarks'.

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 countrystunted 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 mowingmachine 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 firstrate friends. One doesn't dream of the possibilities

On the porch of the farmhouse, there in the midafternoon, 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

"Well," said I, "that is fortunate, for I have nothing to sell. But you've got something I want."

Scarcely moving his head, he called to a shy older girl who had just appeared in the doorway.

As I stood there the children gathered curiously around me, and the man continued to sit in his chair, saying

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 makebelieve which went with it, the surprise and interest in

the children's faces, the slowbreaking 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."

"I'll give you another jolly one," I said, and, replacing my whistle, I began with even greater zest to play

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

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 waswhen I looked up at the woman in the

"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

"Here goes," said I, and for the next few minutes, and in my very best style, I hung Jeff Davis on the sour

appletree, and I sent the soul of John Brown marching onward with an altogether unnecessary number of

I think sometimes that peoplewhole families of 'emliterally perish for want of a good, hearty,

wholesouled, mouthopening, throatstretching, sideaching 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

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

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 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

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 cattlepen, the pigpen and the chickenhouse, that I

might visualize more clearly the scene of the tragedy. The whole family trooped after us like a classic chorus,

How plainly I could read upon the face of the land the story of this hill farmer and his meagre existencehis

illdirected 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

As we went back to the house, a frecklednosed neighbour's boy came in at the gate.

I felt a curious sensation about the heart, and an eagerness of interest I have rarely experienced. I had no idea

what a mere lettera mere unopened unread letterwould mean to a family like this.

Mrs. Clark turned it over wonderingly in her hands. Mr. Clark hastily put on a pair of steelbowed spectacles.

"Let me see it," he said, and when he also had inspected it minutely he solemnly tore open the envelope and

'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

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.

I don't know how long the discussion might have continuedprobably for days or weekshad not the older

girl, now flushed of face and rather pretty, looked at me and said breathlessly (she was as sharp as a briar):

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

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 acutesharpened upon the stone of hard

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

Talk with almost any man for half an hour, and you will find that his conversation, like an oldfashioned

"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 softhanded millionairess. He considered himself

poor and helpless because he lacked dollars, whereas people are really poor and helpless only when they lack

We were so much absorbed in our talk that I was greatly surprised to hear Mrs. Clark's voice at the doorway.

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

"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

"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

"Yees," responded the soundly practical Mrs. Clark, thinking, no doubt, that there were other aspects of the

"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

"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

"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!"

"And think of having to pay no rent, nor of having to live upstairs in a tenement!"

"Or getting run over by a streetcar, 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.

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

(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

"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

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

appletree renovation, published by the state experiment station. I am sure I was no more earnest in my

After breakfast we went into the field, and I suggested that instead of ploughing any more landfor the

season was already latewe get out all the accumulations of rotted manure from around the barn and strew it

"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

"If you can keep the enthusiasm up, if you can make that husband of yours grow corn, and cows, and apples

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

I shall not attempt to describe the friendliness of our parting. Mrs. Clark followed me wistfully to the gate.

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 daythe day and the wonderful nightwhich 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

"No," said I, "I'll tell it; if it means so much to me, it may mean something to the friends who are following

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

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 youand 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 worlda 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

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

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

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, smellingfeeling 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 surroundingssome 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 saidto be left unsaid. Upon this it occurred to

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:

I waited a moment, smiling a little at my own absurdity and yet quite captivated by the enterprise.

"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

fieldsall around here, today 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

"No; I cannot give exact directions. But take the Long Road and turn at the turning by the tuliptree, and you

I hung up the receiver. For a single instant it had seemed almost true, and indeed I believeI wonder

Some day, I thought, just a bit sadly, for I shall probably not be here thensome day, we shall be able to call

our friends through space and time. Some day we shall discover that marvellously simple coherer by which

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 notebook 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

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

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 shutin its atmosphere, how tinkling and

"Musty coaches and Latin quotations!" I exclaimed. "Montaigne's no writer for the open air. He belongs at a

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,

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 hillsnot 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

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 halfcovered 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

Near the upper end of the pond I found a clear white sandbank, 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 plungeand 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

And so, shaking the water out of my hair and swimming with long and leisurely strokes, I returned to the

sandbank, and there, standing in a spot of warm sunshine, I dried myself with the towel from my bag. And I

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 appletree and looked up into the shadowy places

in the foliage above me. I felt a delicious sense of physical wellbeing, and I was pleasantly tired.

So I lay thereand the next thing I knew, I turned over, feeling cold and stiff, and opened my eyes upon the

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

The first sensation I had was one of complete panic. What was I to do? Where was I to go?

Hastily seizing my bagand before I was half awakeI 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 fastgathering

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

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 currycomband stopped!

"All you need," said I to myself in my most matteroffact tone, "is a little cool sense. Be quiet now and

So I stood there for some moments reasoning it out, with the result that I turned back and found the meadow

"What a fool I've been!" I said. "Isn't it perfectly plain that I should have gone down to the pond, crossed over

Having thus settled my problem, and congratulating myself on my perspicacity, I started straight for the

millpond, 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

I then decided to return to the old appletree where I had slept, which now seemed quite like home, but,

strange to relate, the appletree 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

I turned slowly around and looked for a light; I think I never wanted so much to see some sign of human

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 ninetynine out of a hundred of

the people in America today, I had never before found myself where nothing stood between nature and me,

where I had no place to sleep, no shelter for the nightnor any prospect of finding one. I was infinitely less

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 predicamentand 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

As I laughedand 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 adventurethe Thing Itself.

"This is the light," I said looking up again at the sky and the single bright star, "which is set for me tonight. I

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 treeand 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

With that I groped for the familiar volume, and with a curious sensation of satisfaction I tore out a handful of

"Better Montaigne than Grayson," I said, with a chuckle. It was amazing how Montaigne sparkled and

"There goes a bundle of quotations from Vergil," I said, "and there's his observations on the eating of fish.

So I ripped out a good part of another chapter, and thus, by coaxing, got my fire to going. It was not difficult

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)

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

treedepths, 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 alland 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

Occasionally I added, with some amusement, a few dry pages of Montaigne to the fire, and watched the

"No," said I, "Montaigne is not for the open spaces and the stars. Without a roof over his head Montaigne

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

When I walked out into the meadow by daylight and looked about me curiously, I saw, not forty rods away,

"Be you the fellow that was daown in my cowpasture all night?" asked the sturdy farmer.

"Why didn't you come right into the house?" the sturdy farmer had asked me when I came out of the meadow

"Well," I said, turning the question as adroitly as I could, "I'll make it up by going into the house now."

I recalled swiftly a childa child she seemed thenwith 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.

Well, we had quite a wonderful visit, she made breakfast for me, asking and talking eagerly as I ate.

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

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 eveningsthe long

evenings of summerin 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

One evening, having walked farther than usual, I came quite suddenly around a turn in the road and saw

I feel that I am conveying no adequate impression of what I beheld by giving it any such prim and decorous

name asa 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 umbrellaa little one above the big oneand 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

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

beyonda 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 siloall the

evidences of prosperitywith wellnurtured fields, now yellowing with the summer crops, spreading

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

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 portraitand ours is really

a friendly neighbourhoodwas by no means flattering. Old Toombs was apparently of that type of

hardshelled, grasping, selfreliant, oldfashioned 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 justyou must admit that he is just."

There was no man living about whom the Scotch Preacher could not find something good to say.

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

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

So our small community had let Old Toombs go his way with all his money, his acres, his hedge, and his

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

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, forceforce. 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,

firmthick through the body, thick through the thighs; and his shoulderswhat shoulders they

were!round like a maple log; and his great head with its thatching of coarse irongray hair, though thrust

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 springbowed 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

"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 highpitched 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

At first his words were marked by a sort of bitter humour, but as he continued to speak his voice rose higher

There were just two things I could dohaul down the flag and retreat ingloriously, or face the music. With a

sudden sense of rising spiritsfor such things do not often happen to a man in a quiet country roadI

"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

I paused. The old man looked for a moment as though he were going to strike me with his stick, but he

"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 knowand I might as well tell you franklyis 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

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:

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 notablefeatures 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

"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

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 yearsand 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 itfor thirtytwo 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,

"Do you see that valley?" he asked. "Do you see that slopin' valley up through the meadow?"

"That' passel o' hounds up there," he said, "want to build a road down my valley."

"They want to build a road through my land. They want to ruin my farmthey want to cut down my hedge.

It was appalling. His face grew purple, his eyes narrowed to pin points and grew red and angrylike the

eyes of an infuriated boar. His hands shook. Suddenly he turned upon me, poising his stick in his hand, and

"My name," I answered as quietly as I could, "is Grayson. I live on the old Mather farm. I am not in the least

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.

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.

"And that"he pointed as we came out of the tool shed"is my housea 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

He followed me down to the roadside now quite loquacious. Even after I had thanked him and started to go

When I stopped he came forward hesitatinglyand 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

"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

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

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 rightofway; 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

rightofway than the land was actually worth, but he had spurned themI can imagine with what

"Let 'em drive round," he said. "Didn't they know what they'd have to do when they settled up there? What a

And thus the matter came to the courts with the town attempting to condemn the land for a road through Old

"What can we do?" asked the Scotch Preacher, who was deeply distressed by the bitterness of feeling

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 dallyingfor 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

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

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 facea sort of grim exaltation. As I

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

"Good morning, friend," or, "How are you, brother?" but I had no such prompting that day.

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

"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

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.

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

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

"Man, man," he'd say, lapsing in his earnestness into the broad Scotch accent of his youth, "you canna' mean

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

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

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 peopleit is, indeed, the very

taproot of democracythat although the unfriendly one may persist long in his power and arrogance, there is

I suppose if I were writing a mere story I should tell how Old Toombs was miraculously softened at the age

of sixtyeight 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 happenedall things are possibleand being ingeniously

related would somehow have answered a need in the human soul that the logic of events be constantly and

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

misdeedsbut it rarely so happens in life. No, it is the community which lives or dies, is regenerated or

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

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 tragediesI saw once a

perfect young man die in his strengthbut 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

Old Toombs is dead. Like Jehoram, King of Judah, of whom it is terribly said in the Book of Chronicles, "he

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 dayskept 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

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, mysteriousas 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

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

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 Heone of the species, where he lies upon the plain, lolling under his soiled gray

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

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.

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.

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

With that I sat down on a convenient stone, took off my hat, wiped my forehead, and looked about me with

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

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 avoirdupois but

to the prodigious number of soiled newspapers and magazines with which the lowhanging pockets of his

overcoat were stuffed. For he was still wearing an old shabby overcoat though the weather was warm and

brightand on his head was an odd and outlandish hat. It was of fur, flat at the top, flat as a pie tin, with the

motheaten earlaps turned up at the sides and looking exactly like small furry ears. These, with the round

steel spectacles which he worethe only distinctive feature of his countenancegave him an indescribably

The stranger stepped out into the road and evidently awaited my approach. My first vivid impression of his

faceI remember it afterward shining with a strange inward illuminationwas not favourable. It was a

deeplined, scarred, wornlooking face, insignificant if not indeed ugly in its features, and yet, even at the

"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 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 himthe wings of his overcoat beating about his legs and

So many men in this world are going nowhere in particular that when one comes alongeven though he be

amusing and insignificantwho 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

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

I was not a little disappointed, but having made my attack, I determined to see if there was any treasure

He stood looking at me curiously, indeed suspiciously, through his round spectacles.

When I held out my hand he looked at it closely for a moment, and then took it with a quick warm pressure in

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

He thrust his scarred hand through my arm, and we walked up the road side by side, his bulging pockets

He stopped in the road and faced me. Throwing back his overcoat he pointed to a small red button on his coat

"They don't want me in Kilburn," said he, "the mill men are strikin' there, and the bosses have got armed men

I cannot convey the strange excitement I felt. It seemed as though these words suddenly opened a whole new

world around mea 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

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

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

flaghere he was with his mild spectacled eyes and his furry ears wagging as he walked. It was

Coming at last to a pleasant bit of woodland, where a stream ran under the roadway, I said:

"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

PIEBeau 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 itand did not know, I think,

that the meal was finished. (Confidentially, I have speculated on what might have happened if the supply had

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 flarelight at the centre of a great crowd of men and womenbut that is

His talk bristled with such words as "capitalism," "proletariat," "classconsciousness"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

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 simplea 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

I tried ineffectually several times to break the swift current of his oratory and finally succeeded (when he

"Boy and man," said Bill Hahn, "I worked in that hell for thirtytwo yearsThe classconscious proletariat

It was appallingthe dead level of the tone in which he uttered those wordsthe monotone of an emotion

I had the feeling I often have with troubled childrenan indescribable pity that they have had to pass

"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

Well, he told me his story, mostly in a curious, dull, detached wayas 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 pitso that the glare hurt

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 selfgoverning

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 halforganized

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 comfortablyhe was young and strong then; with a

"It was as pretty a place as you would want to see," he said; "we grew cabbages and onions and

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

So they struckand 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

"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.

Many of them found their places taken by the eager "black people," and many had to go to work at lower

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

Again and again he used this same phrase, "We had to live!" as a sort of bedrock explanation for all the woes

After a time, with one finger gone and a frightfully scarred handhe held it up for me to seehe went back

"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

"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

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 thirtytwo years!"

It was not very long after that when the "great strike" beganindeed, it grew out of the organization which

he had tried to launchedand 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 turned on me suddenly, and I shall never forget the look on his face, nor the blaze in his eyes:

A moment passed and then he said, as if a little remorseful at having turned thus on me:

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.

It was then that he began to see clearly what it all meant. He said he made a great discovery: that the "black

"I tell you," said he, "we found when we got started that them black peoplewe used to call 'em

dagoeswere just workin' people like usand in hell with us. They were good soldiers, them Eyetalians

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

He said he saw at last what Socialism meant. One day he went home from a strikers' meetingone 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.

"I never have figured it out why I should have been able to think of nothing but that clock," he said, "but so it

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

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.

"Well, Robert Winter was the biggest gun of 'em all. He owned the mills there and the largest store and the

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

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.

"Well," said Bill Hahn, "I seen the great Robert Winter that we had been fighting for five long monthsand

he was down on his hands and knees on the carpethe had his little daughter on his backand he was

He came away all weak and trembling and cold, and, "Comrade," he said, "I was cryin' like a baby, and didn't

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

As he uttered these words, I looked at him curiouslyhis absurd flat fur hat with the motheaten ears, the

old bulging overcoat, the round spectacles, the scarred, insignificant facehe seemed somehow transformed,

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 homerightly speakin'nor any money, but, comrade, you see here in front of you, a happy

"Well," said he, finally, "I must be goin'. The committee will wonder what's become o' me."

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

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

"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 hillsome strange force carrying me onwardand came thus to

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 streetsand there is nothing that will so surely recreate (for me) the inner

emotion of a time or place as a remembered odourbrought back to me the incidents of that immemorial

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 instantlyour

unpremeditated words are usually truestwith the date of my arrival at this farm.

"Then you are only ten years old!" he exclaimed with a laugh, thinking I was joking.

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

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

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 ghostnot a palpable human being at

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 stophow shall I describe it?and I rebound suddenly and see the

world, as it were, doublesee that my condition instead of being serious or tragic is in reality amusingand

I usually came out of it with an utterly absurd or whimsical idea. It was so upon this occasion. I think it was

"After all," I said aloud taking a firm hold on the good hard flesh of one of my legs, "this is positively David

I looked out again into that tide of facesinteresting, tired, passive, smiling, sad, but above all, preoccupied

I had the sudden, almost irresistible notion of climbing up a step near me, holding up one hand, and crying

"Here I am, my friends. I am David Grayson. I am real and solid and opaque; I have plenty of red blood

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 underdaring than

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

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, bluishgray 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

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 sharpeyed newsboy discovered methe first human being in Kilburn who had actually seen me

"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

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

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 did not always believe in this doctrine. For many yearsthe years before I was rightly born into this

alluring worldI 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

Once I remember staying at home, in bed, reading "Huckleberry Finn," while I sent my trousers out to be

Well, that dummy Grayson perished in a cornfield. His empty coat served well for a scarecrow. A wisp of

And Ithe man withinI 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 digressionleft myself walking alone there in the streets of Kilburn while I

philosophized upon the ways and means of lifenot 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

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

In this emergency my mind began to work swiftly. A score of fascinating plans for getting my supper and a

"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

firstrate supper, and I've no doubt that I could whistle up a bed almost 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

There was one man in particulara 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 carveda fine pompous citizen who never realized how nearly Fate with a battered volume of

Montaigne in one hand and a tin whistle in the othercame 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

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 outofdoor 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

They all broke out laughing; they seemed to know it already! I was just a little taken aback, but I laughed,

"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

"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

anywhereand now look at them snorting through the streets. I counted twentytwo passing that corner up

This was a fortunate remark, for I found instantly that the invasion of the automobile was a matter of

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 aboutprovided 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 soilat least all

outdoor men have. And when I described the simplest things about my barn, and the cattle and pigs, and the

beesand the good things we have to eatI had every one of them leaning forward and hanging on my

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 doubleyolked, 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

flavourall 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

Indeed I had the most curious experience with my friend the withis name I soon learned was Healya

jolly, round, rednosed, outdoor chap with fists that looked like smallsized 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

"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

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

"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

"Sure, sure," said the Irishman heartily. "Put it there in the officeon top o' the desk. It'll be all right."

So I put it in the office and was about to say goodbye, 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

"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

My way led me quickly out of the wellgroomed 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 lateit was after nine o'clockcrowds 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

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 ratherhow 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, yesat last our own hopes and fears and desires are

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

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

Up to that time I had never known much of the practical workings of Socialism; and the main contention of

But the Socialism of today is no mere abstractionas 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 progresswho 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:

Oh, we are going a long way with these Socialists, we are going to discover a new world of social

relationshipsand 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

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

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.

He seized me by both arms and introduced me to several of his companions as "Brother Grayson." They all

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 chairsa sort of restaurant. A

number of men and a few women had already gathered there. Among them my eyes instantly singled out a

huge, roughlooking 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 blueblack 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 diplomatas Bill

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 differentwomen 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

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

personthough 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 booksand, 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

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.

In the midst of this jollity the clear voice of a girl rang out with the first lines of a song. Instantly the room

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, Arise, ye wretched of the earth, For justice thunders condemnation A better

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 jollityall that

seemed to have been dropped when they came to their feetbut 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

Hardly had the company sat down again, with a renewal of the flow of jolly conversation When I heard a

"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

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 silencean 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

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

"As I was saying," he continued in a steady, clear voice, "we are fighting today 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,

Instantly the tension relaxed, conversation started again and every one turned away from the policeman at the

There was no regular speaking, and about midnight the party began to break up. I leaned over and said to my

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,

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

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

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

ignoranceand the sweet, clean country not two miles awaythe thought of my own home among the hills

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

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 illsmelling 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 impatienceyes, angerwith 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

hillsand, poof! all this crowded poverty would dissolve and disappear, and they would all come to the

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 feathersI 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

ownuntil 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

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 goodhumoured, 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 havewell, 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 areaways, 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

handorgan 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 creationand we howl so lustily

"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

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

"Why," I said, "all this, too, is beautiful!" So I continued my walk with quite a new feeling in my heart,

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

He looked around with astonishment at the man in the shabby clothesbut it was only for an instant.

"But I thought you were an incurable and irreproachable countryman! Why are you here?"

"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."

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 Kilburnthe 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 thingsand soon, indeed, brought me nearer to the brink of great

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

"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

I have always believed that if men could be made to understand one another they would necessarily be

"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

"We haven't had a word about gardens," he said, "and there are no end of things that Mrs. Vedder and I found

"Well!" I said, much delighted, "let's have a regular oldfashioned 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 morningthe

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

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, repentingall 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

Mr. Vedder took me to a quiet restaurant where we had a snug alcove all to ourselves. I shall remember it

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 millpond, 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

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 readingroom 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

"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

"Yes," I said. "I've got immense accumulations of the wealth of the agesingots 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

"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!"

"Well, I had thought of that. It's a good idea. Let's join our forces and establish a university where truly

"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

"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 readingrooms 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

"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

"Well, supposing we did or could give him this equality you speak ofwhat would become of us? What

We had some further goodhumoured 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

"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 peoplehis classcould 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 collectivelyas they are going to one of these daysthey 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

"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

"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

"It's a wonderful name," said I, "and it's about the biggest and finest work in the worldto 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

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 meand to whom better than

As we were leaving the table an idea flashed across my mind which seemed, at first, so wonderful that it quite

"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

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, ironjawed 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. Vedderwho was well

known to Bill by reputationand finally asked him squarely whether he would meet him. I think my

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

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 anteroom, the other door slowly opened and a boy stuck his head in.

"Here he is," said I, greatly astonished that any one in Kilburn should be inquiring for me, or should know

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.

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 tonight: Mrs. Vedder will be

"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

Dand 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.

"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."

"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 otherbut this is a class war. It's all or nothing with

After I left the strike headquarters that eveningfor it was almost dark before I parted with the

committeeI 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, manywindowed 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

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 thatall, 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

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 said, lifting my hat and wondering that there should be any one here in this back street

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 halftimid, halfbold look in her eyes. I could not remember having seen her

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

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

"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

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 voicefor, after all, she was only a childI 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

Once she smiled a little, and once she looked around at me with a curious, timid, halfwistful expression in

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?

"Here it is," she said finally, pointing to a dark, meanlooking, onestory house, set in a dingy, barren

When I had walked to the corner, I stopped and looked back. She was standing stockstill just where I had

I have hesitated about telling of a further strange thing that happened to me that nightbut 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 indeedI 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:

It was exactly the voice in which she has called me a thousand times. Without an instant's hesitation, I

It may have been the result of the strain and excitement of the previous two days. I don't explain itI can

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

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, redfaced 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

So I walked onward that morning, nor ever have had such a sense of relief and escape, nor ever such a feeling

"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 goodafter so many

days in that desert of a cityto 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:

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 should say so!" I replied. "I've been on a very long journey. I've seen many strange sights and met many

"But how can you say that in travelling only sixty miles and being gone three weeks that you have seen so

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 amor you

This time she looked really alarmed, glancing quickly toward the house, so that I began to laugh.

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

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

For the first time on my trip I saw a man that I really felt like calling a trampa 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

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

typecharacteristics. 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 thena 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

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 devilmaycare chap he

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 songat

Oh, I'm so fine and gay, I'm so fine and gay, I have to take a dog along, To kape the gairls 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

goodhumoured impudence. I can't tell how amused and pleased I wasthough if I had known what was to

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

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 thingsa 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 claspknife. 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

While we were eating, the little dog sat sedately by the fire. From time to time his master would say, "Speak,

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

After the meal was over my companion proceeded to produce other surprises from his pocketsa 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

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 senseand he soon began to drowse, rousing himself once or twice to roll another cigarette, but

I was glad enough of the rest and quiet after the strenuous experience of the last two daysand 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.

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 raincape was missing! It wasn't a very good raincape, 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.

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 bypath. 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

byroad 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

So I came by way of a thicket along an old stone fence to the byroad, 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 himguiltily enough, too!I said in the calmest voice I could command:

I wish I could describe the look in his facemingled astonishment, fear, and defiance.

"Yes," I said, and I slipped my bag off my shoulder and began to rummage inside. My companion watched

With that I handed him my old rubbers. A peculiar expression came into the man's face.

I was about to take his arm, but quick as a flash he dodged, cast both rubbers and raincape 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 raincape 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 interestingbut I shall

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

"There is a spot in Arcadya spot in Arcadya spot in Arcady" So runs the old song.

There IS a spot in Arcady, and at the centre of it there is a weatherworn 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 supperfire.

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

So I came down the lane and heard the comfortable grunting of pigs in the pasture lot and saw the calves

I stopped at the corner of the barn for a moment. From within I heard the rattling of milk in a pail (a fine

"Lord, Mr. Grayson!" exclaimed Dick, rising instantly and clasping my hand like a longlost brother.

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

And there was the old house with the late sun upon it, the vines hanging green over the porch, Harriet's trim

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

"Harriet," I said, "you're spoiling me. Haven't you heard how dangerous it is to set such a supper as this

This remark produced the most extraordinary effect. Harriet was at that moment standing in the corner near

"She's so glad I'm home that she can't help laughing," I thought, which shows how penetrating I really am.

I couldn't say a single word; somethingit must have been a piece of the rhubarb piestuck 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,

"Harriet," I said, "I haven't seen a single person anywhere on my journey that I like as much as I do you."

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

I wish I had room to tell, but I cannot, of all the crowded experiences of that daythe 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 familyoh, of a

thousand thingsand how when I went into my study and took up the nearest book in my favourite caseit

chanced to be "The Bible in Spain"it opened of itself at one of my favourite passages, the one beginning:

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 Roadand all the

common people who travel in it or live along itI 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

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

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