fMtX^if<^-< 
 
PS 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
It ornell University Library 
 PS 3503.A2998F9 1915a 
 
 The friendly road new adventures In cont 
 
 3 1924 022 243 269 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022243269 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 B f4 %. ? - 
 
''Surely it is good to be alive at a time like this 
 
THE 
 FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 New Adventures in Contentment 
 By 
 
 DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Author of "Adventures in Contentment," 
 "Adventures in Friendship" 
 
 Illustrated by 
 THOMAS FOGARTY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 i ,\ 
 
Copyright, 1913, by 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights resened, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavim, 
 
 COrVKIGHT. igi3, 1913. TEE 7HILLI7S ^UEUSHING COUPANS 
 
 '^fd>:J 
 
'M^- 
 
 ^^^\ 
 
 A WORD TO HIM WHO OPENS 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 I did not plan when I began writing these 
 chapters to make an entire book, but only to put 
 down the more or less unusual impressions, the 
 events and adventures, of certain quiet pilgrimages 
 in country roads. But when I had written down 
 all of these things, I found I had material in plenty. 
 
 "What shall I call it now that I have written 
 it?" I asked myself. 
 
 At first I thought I should call it "Adventures 
 on the Road, " or "The Country Road, " or some- 
 thing 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 
 
vi A WORD 
 
 see in the distance a curving bit of the town road. 
 I could see the valley below it and the green hill 
 beyond, and my mind went out swiftly along 
 the country road which I had so recently travelled 
 on foot^ and I thought with deep satisfaction of all 
 the people I had met on my pilgrimages — the 
 Country Minister with his problems, the buoyant 
 Stanleys, Bill Hahn the Socialist, the Vedders in 
 their garden, the Brush Peddler. I thought of the 
 Wofiderful City, and of how for a time I had been 
 caught up into its life. I thought of the men I 
 met at the livery stable, especially Healy, the wit, 
 and of that strange Girl of the Street. And it 
 was good to think of them all living around me, 
 not so very far away, connected with me through 
 darkness and space by a certain mysterious human 
 cord. Most of all I love that which I cannot 
 see beyond the hill. 
 
 "Harriet, " I said aloud, "it grows more wonder- 
 ful every year how full the world is of friendly 
 people!" 
 
 So I got up quickly and came in here to my 
 room, and taking a fresh sheet of paper I wrote 
 down the title of my new book: 
 
 "The Friendly Road." 
 
 I invite you to travel with me upon this friendly 
 road. You may find, as I did, something which 
 
A WORD vii 
 
 will cause you for a time to forget yourself into 
 contentment. But if you chance to be a truly 
 serious person, put down my book. Let nothing 
 stay your hurried steps, nor keep you from your 
 way. 
 
 As for those of us who remain, we will loiter as 
 much as ever we please. We'll take toll of these 
 spring days, we'll stop wherever evening overtakes 
 us, we'll eat the food of hospitality — and make 
 friends for life! 
 
 David Grayson. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAGS 
 
 Preface v 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. I Leave My Farm ... 3 
 II. I Whistle 33 
 
 III. The House by the Side of the 
 
 Road 57 
 
 IV. I Am the Spectator of a Mighty 
 
 Battle, in which Christian 
 
 Meets Apollyon ... 83 
 V. I Play the Part of a Spectacle 
 
 Peddler 115 
 
 VI. An Experiment in Human Na-: 
 
 ture . , . . . 143 
 
 VII. The Undiscovered Country . 175 
 
 VIII. The Hedge 199 
 
 IX. The Man Possessed . . . 227 
 
 X. I Am Caught Up Into Life . 259 
 XL I Come to Grapple with the 
 
 City 289 
 
 XII. The Return 321 
 
I LEAVE MY FARM 
 
CHAPTER I 
 I LEAVE MY FARM 
 
 "Is it so small a thing 
 
 To have enjoyed the sun. 
 
 To have lived light in spring?" 
 
 IT IS eight o'clock of a sunny spring morn-, 
 ing. I have been on the road for almost 
 three hours. At five I left the town of Holt, 
 before six I had crossed the railroad at a place 
 called Martin's Landing, and an hour ago, at 
 seven, I could see in the distance the spires of 
 Nortontown. And all the morning as I came 
 tramping along the fine country roads with my 
 pack-strap resting warmly on my shoulder, 
 and a song in my throat— just nameless words 
 to a nameless tune — and all the birds singing, 
 
 3 
 
4 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 impres- 
 sion of the feeling of this time and place. I 
 cannot hope to convey any adequate sense of 
 it all — of the feeling of lightness, strength, 
 clearness, I have as I sit here under this maple 
 tree ■ — but I am going to write as long as ever 
 I am happy at it, and when I am no longer 
 happy at it, why, here at my very hand lies 
 the pleasant country road, stretching away 
 toward newpr hills and richer scenes. 
 
 Until to-day I have not really been quite 
 clear in my own mind as to the step I have 
 taken. My sober friend, have you ever tried 
 to do anything that the world at large con- 
 siders 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 ii more disquieted thereby 
 than it would be if my friend came home 
 drunken or failed to pay his debts. 
 
 Here I am then, a farmer, forty miles from 
 home in planting time, taking his ease under 
 a piaple tree and writing in a little book held 
 on his knee! Is not that the height of absurd- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 5 
 
 ity? Of all my friends the Scotch Preacher 
 was the only one who seemed to understand 
 why it was that I must go away for a time. 
 Oh, I am a sinful and revolutionary person! 
 
 When I left home last week, if you could 
 have had a truthful picture of me — for is 
 there not a photography so delicate that it 
 will catch the dim thought-shapes which 
 attend upon our lives? — if you could have 
 had such a truthful picture of me, you would 
 have seen, besides a farmer named Grayson 
 with a gray bag hanging from his shoulder, a 
 strange company following close upon his 
 steps. Ariiong this crew you would have 
 made out easily: 
 
 Two fine cows. 
 
 Four Berkshire pigs. 
 
 One team of gray horses, the old mare a little 
 lame in her right foreleg. 
 
 About fifty hens, four cockerels, and a number 
 of ducks and geese. 
 
 More than this • — I shall offer no explana- 
 tion in these writings of any miracles that may 
 appear — you would have seen an entirely 
 respectable old farmhouse bumping and hob- 
 bling along as best it might in the rear. And 
 in the doorway, Harriet Grayson, in her 
 
6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 immaculate white apron, with the veritable 
 look in her eyes which she wears when I am 
 not comporting myself with quite the proper 
 decorum. 
 
 Oh, they would not let me go! How they 
 all followed clamoring after me. My 
 thoughts coursed backward faster than ever 
 I could run away. If you could have heard 
 that motley crew of the barnyard as I did — 
 the hens all cackling, the ducks quacking, the 
 pigs grunting, and the old mare neighing and 
 stamping, you would have thought it a 
 miracle that I escaped at all. 
 
 So often we think in a superior and lordly 
 manner of our possessions, when, as a matter 
 of fact, we do not really possess them, they 
 possess us. For ten years I have been the 
 humble servant, attending upon the com- 
 monest 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 aftej I left home I 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 7 
 
 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 servi- 
 tude that I instinctively thrust my leg out of 
 bed —7 but pulled it quickly back in again, 
 turned over, drew a long, luxurious breath, 
 and said to myself: 
 
 "Avaunt cows! Get thee behind me, 
 swine ! Shoo, hens ! " 
 
 Instantly the clatter of mastery to which I 
 had responded so quickly for so many years 
 grew perceptibly fainter, the hens cackled less 
 domineeringly, the pigs squealed less insist- 
 ently, 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 Indeperidence, nailed my de- 
 fiance 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 
 lijiierely crying out a rebellious "Avaunt!" 
 '{ But, in spite of this bold beginning, I assure 
 
8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 
 merning I was only partially awakened, and 
 on the fourth morning I slept like a millionaire 
 (or at least I slept as a millionaire is supposed 
 to sleep !) until the clock struck seven. 
 
 For some days after I left home — and I 
 walked out as casually that morning as 
 though I were going to the barn — I scarcely 
 thought or tried to think of anything but the 
 Road. Such an unrestrained sense of liberty, 
 such an exaltation of freedom, I have not 
 known since I was a lad. When I came to 
 my farm from the city many years ago it was 
 as one bound, as one who had lost out in the 
 world's battle and was seeking to get hold 
 again somewhere upon the realities of life. 
 I have related elsewhere how I thus came 
 creeping like one sore wounded from the field 
 of battle, and how, among our hills, in the 
 hard, steady labour in the soil of the fields, 
 with new and simple friends around me, I 
 found a sort of rebirth or resurrection. I 
 that was worn out, bankrupt both physically 
 and morally, learned to live again. I have 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 9 
 
 achieved something of high happiness in these 
 years, something I know of pure contentment; 
 and I have learned two or three deep and 
 simple things about life: I have learned that 
 happiness is not to be had for the seeking, 
 but comes quietly to him who pauses at his 
 difficult task and looks upward. I have 
 learned that friendship is very simple," and, 
 more than all else, I have learned the lesson 
 of being quiet, of looking out across the 
 meadows and hills, and of trusting a little in 
 God. 
 
 And now, for the moment, I am regaining 
 another of the joys of youth — that of the 
 sense of perfect freedom. I made no plans 
 when I left home, I scarcely chose the direc- 
 tion in which I was to travel, but drifted out, 
 as a boy might, into the great busy world. 
 Oh, I have dreamed of that! It seems almost 
 as though, after ten years, I might again really 
 touch the highest joys of adventure! 
 
 So I took the Road as it came, as a man 
 takes a woman, for better or worse — I took 
 the Road, and the farms along it, and the 
 •sleepy little villages, and the streams from the 
 hillsides — all with high enjoyment. They 
 were good coin in my purse! And when I had 
 
lo THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 passed the narrow horizon of my acquaint- 
 anceship, and reached country new to me, it 
 sedlmed as though every sense I had began to 
 awaken. I must have grown dull, uncon- 
 sciously, in the last years there on my farm. 
 I cannot describe the eagerness of discovery 
 I felt at climbing each new hill, nor the long 
 breath I took at the top of it as I surveyed 
 new stretches of pleasant countryside. 
 
 Assuredly this is one of the royal moments 
 of all the year — fine, cool, sparkling spring 
 weather. I think I never saw the meadows 
 richer and greener — and the lilacs are still 
 blooming, and the catbirds and orioles are 
 here. The oaks are not yet in full leaf, but 
 the maples have nearly reached their full 
 mantle of verdure — they are very beautiful 
 and charming to see. 
 
 It is curious how at this moment of the year 
 all the world seems astir. I suppose there is 
 no moment in any of the seasons when the 
 whole army of agriculture, regulars and 
 reserves, is so fully drafted for service in the 
 fields. And all the doors and windows, both 
 in the little villages and on the farms, stand 
 wide open to the sunshine, and all the women 
 and girls are busy in the yards and gardens. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 II 
 
 Such a fine, active, gossipy, adventurous world 
 as it is at this moment of the year ! 
 
 It is the time, too, when all sorts of travel- 
 ling people are afoot. People who have been 
 
 
 iSUCH A FINE, GOSSIPY WORLD 
 
 mewed up in the cities for the winter now 
 take to the open road — all the peddlers and 
 agents and umbrella-menders, all the nursery 
 salesmen and fertilizer agents, all the tramps 
 and scientists and poets — all abroad in the 
 
12 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 hot yet in, and the tobacco 
 lands are still bare and brown. Occasionally I 
 stopped to watch some ploughman in the fields : 
 I saw with a curious, deep satisfaction how the 
 moist furrows, freshly turned, glistened in the 
 warm sunshine. There seemed to be something 
 right and fit about it, as well as human and 
 beautiful. Or at evening I would stop to watch 
 a ploughman driving homeward across his new 
 brown fields, raising a cloud of fine dust from 
 the fast drying furrow crests. The low sun 
 shining through the dust and glorifying it, 
 the weary-stepping horses, the man all sombre- 
 coloured like the earth itself and knit into the 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 13 
 
 scene as though a part of it, made a picture 
 exquisitely fine to see. 
 
 And what a joy I had also of the lilacs 
 blooming in many a dooryard, the odour often 
 trailing after me for a long distance in the 
 road, and of the pungent scent at evening in 
 the cool hollows of burning brush heaps and 
 the smell of barnyards as I went by — not un- 
 pleasant, not offensive — and above all, the deep, 
 earthy, moist odour of new-ploughed fields. 
 
 And then, at evening, to hear the sound of 
 voices from the dooryards as I pass quite 
 unseen; no words, but just pleasant, quiet 
 intonations of human voices, borne through 
 the still air, or the low sounds of cattle in the 
 barnyards, quieting down for the night, and 
 often, if near a village, the distant, slumbrous 
 sound of a church bell, or even the rumble of 
 a train — how good all these sounds are ! 
 They have all come to me again this week 
 with renewed freshness and impressiveness. 
 I am living deep again ! 
 
 It was not, indeed, until last Wednesday 
 that I began to get my fill, temporarily, of 
 the outward satisfaction of the Road — the 
 primeval takings of the senses — the mere 
 joys of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching. 
 
,14 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 But on that day I began to wake up ; I began 
 to have a desire to know something of all the 
 strange and interestng people who are working 
 in their fields, or standing invitingly in their 
 doorways, or so busily afoot in the country 
 roads. Let me add, also, for this is one of the 
 most important parts of my present experience, 
 that this new desire was far from being wholly 
 esoteric. I had also begun to have cravings 
 which would not in the least be satisfied by 
 landscapes or dulled by the sights and sounds 
 of the road. A whiff here and there from a 
 doorway at mealtime had made me long for 
 my own home, for the sight of Harriet calling 
 from the steps: 
 
 "Dinner, David." 
 
 But I had covenanted with myself long 
 before starting that I would literally "live 
 light in spring, " It was the one and primary 
 condition I. made with myself — and made 
 with serious purpose — and when I came 
 away I had only enough money in my pocket 
 and sandwiches in my pack to see me through 
 the first three or four days. Any man may 
 brutally, pay his way anywhere, but it is quite 
 another thing to be accepted by your human- 
 kind not as a paid lodger but as a friend. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 15 
 
 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 iij 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 posses- 
 sions, and smothered by security, what fine 
 adventure is left to a man of spirit save the 
 adventure of poverty? 
 
 I do not mean by this the adventure of 
 involuntary poverty, for I maintain that in- 
 voluntary poverty, like involuntary riches, 
 is a credit to no man. It is only as we domi- 
 nate 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 tempo- 
 
i6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 rarily from my life a few hens and cows, a 
 comfortable old farmhouse, and certain other 
 emoluments and hereditaments — but re- 
 main the slave of sundry cloth upon my back 
 and sundry articles in my gray bag — includ- 
 ing a fat pocket volume or so, and a tin whistle. 
 Let them pass now. To-morrow I may wish 
 to attempt life with still less. I might survive 
 without my battered copy of "Montaigne" or 
 even submit to existence without that sense of 
 distant companionship symbolized by a post- 
 age-stamp, and as for trousers 
 
 In this deceptive world, how difficult of 
 attainment is perfection! 
 
 No, I expect I shall continue for a long 
 time to owe the worm his silk, the beast his 
 hide, the sheep his wool, and the cat his 
 perfume! What I am seeking is something 
 as simple and as quiet as the trees or the hills 
 — just to look out around me at the pleasant 
 countryside, to enjoy a little of this passing 
 show, to meet (and to help a little if I may) 
 a few human beings, and thus to get more 
 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 hete^ 
 go no further with me; but if you dO;. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 17 
 
 why, we'll exchange great words on the 
 road; we'll look up at the sky together, 
 we'll see and hear the finest things In this 
 world! We'll enjoy the sun! We'll live 
 light in spring! 
 
 Until last Tuesday, then, I was carried 
 easily and comfortably onward by the corn, 
 the eggs, and the honey of my past labours, and 
 before Wednesday noon I began to experience 
 in certain vital centres recognizable symptoms 
 of a variety of discomfort anciently familiar 
 to man. And it was all the sharper because 
 I did not know how or where I could assuage 
 it. In all my life, in spite of various ups and 
 downs in a fat world, I don't think I was 
 ever before genuinely hungry. Oh, I've been 
 hungry in a reasonable, civilized way, but I 
 have always known where in an hour or so I 
 could get all I wanted -to eat — a condition 
 accountable, in this world, I am convinced, 
 for no end of stupidity. But to be both 
 physically and, let us say, psychologically 
 hungry, and not to know where or how to get 
 anything to eat, adds soinething to the zest 
 of life. 
 
 By noon on Wednesday, then, I was re- 
 duced quite to a point of necessity. But 
 
1 8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 where was I to begin, and how ? I know from 
 long experience the suspicion with which the 
 ordinary farmer meets the Man of the Road 
 — the man who appears to wish to enjoy the 
 fruits of the earth without working for them 
 with his hands. It is a distrust deep-seated 
 and ages old. Nor can the Man of the Road 
 ever quite understand the Man of the Fields. 
 And here was I, for so long the stationary Man 
 of the Fields, essaying the role of the Man of 
 the Road. I experienced a sudden sense of the 
 enlivenment of the faculties: I must now 
 depend upon wit or cunning or human nature 
 to win my way, not upon mere skill of the hand 
 or strength in the bent back. Whereas in my 
 former life, when I was assailed by a Man of 
 the Road, whether tramp or peddler or poet, I 
 • had only to stand stock-still within my fences , 
 and say nothing — though indeed I never 
 could do that, being far too much interested 
 in every one who came my way — and the 
 invader was soon repelled. There is nothing 
 so resistant as the dull security of possession: 
 the stolidity of ownership ! 
 
 Many times that day I stopped by a field 
 side or at the end of a lane, or at a house-gate, : 
 and considered the possibilities of making an 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 19 
 
 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 possi- 
 bilities. I spied out the men in the fields and 
 did not fail, also, to see what I could of the 
 commissary department of each farmstead 
 as I passed. I walked for miles looking thus 
 for a favourable opening — and with a sensa- 
 tion of embarrassment at once disagreeable 
 and pleasurable. As the afternoon began to 
 deepen I saw that I must absolutely do some- 
 thing: a whole day tramping in the open air 
 without a bite to eat is an irresistible argu- 
 ment. 
 
 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 
 
20 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 straight, clean furrows; I liked the appearance 
 of the horse. 
 
 " I will stop here, " I said to myself. 
 
 I cannot at all convey the sense of high 
 adventure I had as I stood there. Though I 
 had not the slightest idea of what I should 
 do or say, yet I was determined upon the 
 attack. 
 
 Neither father nor son saw me until they 
 had nearly reached the end of the field. 
 
 "Step lively, Ben," I heard the man say 
 with some impatience; "we've got to finish 
 this field to-day. " 
 
 "I am steppin' lively, dad," responded the 
 boy, "but it's awful hot. We can't possibly 
 finish to-day. It's too much. " 
 
 "We've got to get through here to-day," 
 the man replied grimly; "we're already two 
 weeks late. " 
 
 I know just how the man felt; for I knew 
 well the difficulty a farmer has in getting help 
 in planting time. The spring waits for no 
 man. My heart went out to the man and boy 
 struggling there in the heat of their sloping 
 field. For this is the real warfare of the 
 common life. 
 
 "Why," I said to myself with a curious lift 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 21 
 
 of the heart, "they have need of a fellow just 
 like me. " 
 
 At that moment the boy saw me and, miss- 
 ing a step in the rhythm of the planting, the 
 father also looked up and saw me. But 
 neither said a word until the furrows were 
 finished, and the planters came to refill their 
 baskets. 
 
 , "Fine afternoon," I said, sparring for an 
 opening. 
 
 "Fine," responded the man rather shortly, 
 glancing up from his work. I recalled the 
 scores of times I had been exactly in his place, 
 and had glanced up to see the stranger in the 
 road. 
 
 "Got another basket handy?" I asked. 
 
 "There is one somewhere around here," he 
 answered not too cordially. The boy said 
 nothing at all, but eyed me with absorbing 
 interest. The gloomy look had already gone 
 from his face. 
 
 I slipped my gray bag from my shoulder, 
 took off my coat, and put them both down 
 inside the fence. Then I found the basket and 
 began to fill it from one of the bags. Both 
 man and boy looked up at me questioningly. 
 I enjoyed the situation immensely. 
 
22 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "I heard you say to your son, " I said, "that 
 you'd have to hurry in order to get in your 
 potatoes to-day. I can see that for myself. 
 Let me take a hand for a row or two. " 
 
 The unmistakable shrewd look of the bar- 
 gainer came suddenly into the man's face, but 
 when I went about my business without hesi- 
 tation or questioning, he said nothing at all. 
 As for the boy, the change in his countenance 
 was marvellous to see. Something new and 
 astonishing had come into the world. Oh, 
 I know what a thing it is to be a boy and have 
 to work in trouting time! 
 
 "How near are you planting, Ben ? " I asked. 
 
 "About fourteen inches." 
 
 So we began in fine spirits. I was delighted 
 with the favourable beginning of my enter- 
 prise; there is nothing which so draws men to- 
 gether as their employment at a common task. 
 
 Ben was a lad some fifteen years old — very 
 stout and stocky, with a fine open countenance 
 and a frank blue eye — all boy. His nose 
 was as freckled as the belly of a trout. The 
 whole situation, including the prospect of help 
 in finishing a" tiresome job, pleased him hugely. ' 
 He stole a glimpse from time to time at me and 
 then at his father. Finally he said : 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 23 
 
 "Say, you'll have to step lively to keep up 
 with dad." 
 
 "I'll show you," I said, "how we used to 
 drop potatoes when I was a boy. " 
 
 And with that I began to step ahead more 
 quickly and make the pieces fairly fly. 
 
 "We old fellows," I said to the father, 
 "must give these young sprouts a lesson once 
 in a while. " 
 
 "You will, will you?" responded the boy, 
 and instantly began to drop the potatoes 
 at a prodigious speed. The father followed 
 with more dignity, but with evident amuse- 
 ment, and so we all came with a rush to the end 
 of the row. 
 
 "I guess that beats the record across this 
 field!" remarked the lad, puffing and wiping 
 his forehead. "Say, but you're a good one!" 
 
 It gave me a peculiar thrill of pleasure; 
 there is nothing more pleasing than the frank 
 admiration of a boy. 
 We paused a moment and I said to the man: 
 
 "This looks like fine potato land. " 
 
 "The' ain't any better in these parts," 
 he replied with some pride in his voice. 
 
 And, so we went at the planting again: and 
 as we planted we had great talk of seed po- 
 
24 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 tatoes and the advantages and disadvantages 
 of mechanical planters, of cultivating and 
 spraying, and all the lore of prices and profits. 
 Once we stopped at the lower end of the field 
 to get a drink from a jug of water set in the 
 shade of a fence corner, and once we set the 
 horse in the thills and moved the seed farther 
 up the field. And tired and hungry as I felt 
 I really enjoyed the work; I really enjoyed 
 talking with this busy father and son, and I 
 wondered what their home life was like and 
 what were their real ambitions and hopes. 
 Thus the sun sank lower and lower, the long 
 shadows began to creep into the valleys, 
 and we came finally toward the end of the 
 field. Suddenly the boy Ben cried out: 
 
 "There's Sis!" 
 
 I glanced up and saw standing near the 
 gateway a slim, bright girl of about twelve 
 in a fresh gingham dress. 
 
 "We're coming! " roared Ben, exultantly. 
 
 While we were hitching up the horse, the 
 man said to me: 
 
 "You'll come down with us and have some 
 supper." 
 
 "Indeed I will," I replied, trying not to 
 make my response too eager. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 25 
 
 "Did mother make gingerbread to-day?" 
 I heard the boy whisper audibly. 
 
 "Sh-h — " replied the girl; "who is that 
 man?" 
 
 "/ don't know" — with a great accent of 
 mystery — "and dad don't know. Did 
 mother make gingerbread?" 
 ^ "Sh-h — he'll hear you." 
 
 "Gee! but he can plant potatoes. He 
 dropped down on us out of a clear sky." 
 
 "What is he?" she asked. "A tramp?" 
 
 "Nope, not a tramp. He works. But, Sis, 
 did mother make gingerbread?" 
 
 So we all got into the light wagon and 
 drove briskly out along the shady coun- 
 try road.' The evening was coming on, 
 and the air was full of the scent of blos- 
 soms. We turned finally into a lane and 
 thus came promptly, for the horse was as 
 eager as we, to the capacious farmyard. A 
 motherly woman came out from the house, 
 spoke to her son, and nodded pleasantly to 
 me. There was no especial Introduction. I 
 said merely, "My name is Grayson," and 
 I was accepted without a word. 
 
 I waited to help the man, whose name I 
 had now learned — it was Stanley — with his 
 
26 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 horse and wagon, and then we came up to 
 the house. Near the back door there was a 
 pump, with a bench and basin set just within 
 a little cleanly swept, open shed. Rolling 
 back my collar and baring my arms I washed 
 myself in the cool water, dashing it over my 
 head until I gasped, and then stepping back, 
 breathless and refreshed, I found the slim 
 girl, Mary, at my elbow with a clean soft 
 towel. As I stood wiping quietly I could 
 smell the ambrosial odours from the kitchen. 
 In all my life I never enjoyed a moment more 
 than that, I think. 
 
 "Come in now," said the motherly Mrs. 
 Stanley. 
 
 So we filed into the rgomy kitchen, where 
 an older girl, called Kate, was flying about 
 placing steaming dishes upon the table. 
 There was also an older son, who had been 
 at the farm chores. It was altogether a fine, 
 vigorous, independent American family. So 
 we all sat down and drew up our chairs. Then 
 we paused a moment, and the father, bowing 
 his head, said in a low voice: 
 
 "For all Thy good gifts. Lord, we thank 
 Thee. Preserve us and keep us through an- 
 other night." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 27 
 
 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 deli- 
 cious with the flavour of new grass, the bacon 
 and eggs, the potatoes, the rhubarb sauce, 
 the great plates of new, hot gingerbread and, 
 at the last," the custard pie — a great wedge 
 of it, with fresh cheese. After the first 
 ravenous appetite of hardworking men was 
 satisfied, there came to be a good 'deal of 
 lively conversation. , The girls had some joke 
 between them which Ben was trying in vain to 
 fathom. The older son told how much milk 
 a certain Alderney cow had given, and Mr. 
 Stanley, quite changed now as he sat at his 
 own table from the rather grim farmer of the 
 afternoon, revealed a capacity for a husky 
 sort of fun, joking Ben about his potato- 
 planting and telling in a lively way of his 
 race with me. As for Mrs Stanley^ she sat 
 smiling behind her tall coffee pot, radiating 
 good cheer and hospitality. They asked me 
 no questions at all, and I was so hungry and 
 tired that I volunteered no information. 
 
 After supper we went out for half or three 
 quarters of an hour to do some final chores, 
 
28 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 heart's content, for 
 they really were a fine lot. When we came in 
 again the lamps had been lighted in the sit- 
 ting-room and the older daughter was at the 
 telephone exchanging the news of the day 
 with some neighbour — and with great 
 laughter and enjoyment. Occasionally she 
 would 'turn and repeat some bit of gossip 
 to the family, and Mrs. Stanley would ex- 
 claim: 
 
 "Do tell!" 
 
 "Can't we have a bit of music to-night?" 
 inquired Mr. Stanley. 
 
 ■. Instantly Ben and the slim girl, Mary, 
 made a wild dive for the front room — 
 the parlour — and came out with a first- 
 rate phonograph which they placed on the 
 table. 
 
 " Something lively now," said Mr. Stanley. 
 
 So they put' on a rollicking negro song 
 called "My Georgia Belle," which, besides 
 the tuneful voices, introduced a steamboat 
 whistle and a musical clangour of bells. When 
 it wound up with a bang, Mr. Stanley took 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 29 
 
 his big comfortable pipe out of his mouth 
 and cried out: 
 
 "Fine, fine!" 
 
 We had further music of the same sort and 
 with one record the older daughter, Kate, 
 broke into the song with a full, strong though 
 uncultivated voice — which pleased us all 
 very much indeed. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Stanley, who was sitting 
 under the lamp with a basket of socks to 
 mend, began to nod. 
 
 . "Mother's giving the signal," said the 
 older son. 
 
 "No, no, I'm not a bit sleepy," exclaimed 
 Mrs. Stanley. 
 
 But with further joking and laughing the 
 family began to move about. The older 
 daughter gave me a hand lamp and showed 
 me the way upstairs to a little room at the 
 end of the house. 
 
 "I think," she said with pleasant dignity, 
 "you will find everything you need." 
 
 I cannot tell with what solid pleasure I 
 rolled into bed or how soundly and sweetly I 
 slept. 
 
 This was the first day of my real adven- 
 tures. 
 
I WHISTLE 
 
'•^'f^.. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I WHISTLE 
 
 TT THEN I was a boy I learned after many 
 V V discouragements to play on a tin whistle. 
 There was a wandering old fellow in our 
 town who would sit for hours on the shady 
 side of a certain ancient hotel-barn, and with 
 his little whistle to his lips, and gently swaying 
 his head to his tune and tapping one foot in 
 the gravel, he would produce the most wonder- 
 ful and beguiling melodies. His favourite selec- 
 tions 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 
 
 33 
 
34 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 never forget the thrill which his music gave 
 to the heart of a certain barefoot boy. 
 
 At length, by means I have long since 
 forgotten, I secured a tin whistle exactly 
 like Old Tom Madison's and began dili- 
 gently to practise such tunes as I knew. 
 I am quite sure now that I must have made 
 a nuisance of myself, for it soon appeared 
 to be the set purpose of every member of the 
 family to break up my efforts. Whenever 
 my father saw me with the whistle to my 
 lips, he would instantly set me at some useful 
 work (oh, -he was an adept in discovering 
 useful work to do — for a boy!). And at 
 the very sight of my stern aunt I would 
 instantly secrete my whistle in my blouse 
 and fly for the garret or cellar, like a cat caught 
 in the cream. Such are the early tribulations 
 of musical genius ! 
 
 At last I discovered a remote spot on a 
 beam in the hay-barn where, lighted by a ray 
 of sunlight which came through a crack in 
 the eaves and pointed a dusty golden finger 
 into that hay-scented interior, I practised 
 rapturously and to my heart's content upon 
 my tin whistle. I learned "Money Musk" 
 until I could play it in Old Tom Madison's 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 35 
 
 best style — even to the last nod and final 
 foot-tap. I turned a certain church hymn 
 called "Yield Not to Temptation" into 
 something quite inspiriting, and I played 
 "Marching, Through Georgia" until all the 
 "happy hills of hay" were to the fervid eye 
 of a boy's imagination full of tramping soldiers. 
 Oh, I shall never forget the joys of those 
 hours in the hay-barn, nor the music of that 
 secret tin whistle! I can hear yet the croon- 
 ing of the pigeons in the eaves, and the 
 slatey sound of their wings as they flew 
 across the open spaces in the great barn; I 
 can smell yet the odour of the hay. 
 
 But with years, and the city, and the shame 
 of youth, I put aside and almost forgot the 
 art of whistling. When I was preparing for the 
 present pilgrimage, however, it came to me 
 with a sudden thrill of pleasure that nothing 
 in the wide world now prevented me from 
 getting a whistle and seeing whether I had 
 forgotten my early cunning At the very 
 first good-sized town I came to I was de- 
 lighted to find at a little candy and toy shop 
 just the sort of whistle I wanted, at the 
 extravagant price of ten cents. I bought it 
 and put it in the bottom of my knapsack. 
 
36 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Am I not old enough now," I said to 
 myself, "to be as youthful as I choose?" 
 
 Isn't it the strangest thing in the world 
 how long it takes us to learn to accept the 
 joys of simple pleasures ? — and some of us 
 never learn at all. "Boo!" says the neigh- 
 bourhood; and we are instantly frightened 
 into doing a thousand unnecessary and un- 
 pleasant things, or prevented from doing a 
 thousand beguiling things. 
 
 For the first few days I was on the road 
 I thought often with pleasure of the whistle 
 lying there in my bag, but it was not until 
 after I left the Stanleys' that I felt exactly 
 in the mood to try it. 
 
 The fact is, my adventures on the Stanley 
 farm had left me in a very cheerful frame of 
 mind. They convinced me that some of the 
 great things I had expected of my pilgrimage 
 were realizable possibilities. Why, I had 
 walked right into the heart of as fine a family 
 as I have seen these many days. 
 
 I remained with them the entire day follow- 
 ing the patoto-planting. We were out at five 
 o'clock in the morning, and after helping with 
 the chores, and eating a prodigious breakfast, 
 we went again to the potato-field, and part 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 37 
 
 of the time I helped plant a few remaining 
 rows, and part of the time I drove a team 
 attached to a wing-plow to cover the planting 
 of the previous day. 
 
 In the afternoon a slashing spring rain 
 set in, and Mr. Stanley, who was a fore- 
 handed worker, found a job for all of us 
 in the barn. Ben, the younger son, and 
 I sharpened mower-blades and a scythe or 
 so, Ben turning the grindstone and I holding 
 the blades and . telling him stories into the 
 bargain. Mr. Stanley and his stout older 
 son overhauled the work-harness and tinkered 
 the corn-planter. The doors at both ends 
 of the barn stood wide open, and through 
 one of them, framed like a picture, we could 
 see the scudding floods descend upon the 
 meadows, and through the other, across 
 a fine stretch of open country, we could 
 see all the roads glistening and the tree- 
 tops moving under the rain. 
 
 "Fine, fine!" exclaimed Mr. Stanley, look- 
 ing out from time to time, "we got in our 
 potatoes just in the nick of time." 
 
 After supper that evening I told them of 
 my plan to leave them on the following 
 morning. 
 
38 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Don't do that," said Mrs. Stanley heart- 
 ily; "stay on with us." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Stanley, "we're short- 
 handed, and I'd be glad to have a man like 
 you all summer. There ain't any one around 
 here will pay a good man more'n I will, nor 
 treat 'im better." 
 
 "I'm sure of it, Mr. Stanley," I said, 
 "but I can't stay with you." 
 
 At that the tide of curiosity which I had 
 seen rising ever since I came began to break 
 through. Oh, I know how difficult it is to 
 let the wanderer get by without taking toll 
 of him! There are not so many, people 
 here in the country that we can afford to 
 neglect them. And as I had nothing in 
 » the world to conceal, and, indeed, loved 
 nothing better than the give and take of 
 getting acquainted, we were soon at it in 
 good earnest. 
 
 But it was not enough to tell them that 
 my name was David Grayson and where 
 my farm was located, and how many acres 
 there were, and how much stock I had, and 
 what I raised. The great particular "Why?" 
 — as I knew it would be — concerned my 
 strange presence on the road at this season 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD . 39 
 
 of the year and the reason why I should turn 
 in by chance, as I had done, to help at their 
 planting. If a man is stationary, it seems 
 quite impossible for him to imagine why 
 any one should care to wander; and as for 
 the wanderer it is inconceivable to him 
 how any one can remain permanently at 
 - home. 
 
 We were all sitting comfortably around 
 the table in the living-room. The lamps 
 were lighted, and Mr. Stanley, in slippers, 
 was smoking his pipe and Mrs. Stanley 
 was darning socks over a mending-gourd, 
 and the two young Stanleys were whis- 
 pering and giggling about some matter of 
 supreme consequence to youth. The win- 
 dows were open, and we could smell the sweet 
 scent of the lilacs from the yard and hear the 
 drumming of the rain as it fell on the roof of 
 the porch. 
 
 "It's easy to explain," I said. "The 
 fact is, it got to the point on my farm that 
 I wasn't quite sure whether I owned it or 
 it owned me. And I made up my mind 
 I'd get away for a while from my own horses 
 and cattle and see what the world was like. 
 I wanted to see how people lived up here, 
 
40 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 and what they are thinking about, and how 
 they do their farming." 
 
 As I talked of my plans and of the duty 
 one had, as I saw it, to be a good broad 
 man as well as a good farmer, I grew more 
 and more interested and enthusiastic. Mr. 
 Stanley took his pipe slowly from his mouth, 
 held it poised until it finally went out, 
 and sat looking at me with a rapt expression. 
 I never had a better audience. Finally, Mr. 
 Stanley said very earnestly: 
 
 "And you have felt that way, too.?" 
 
 "Why, father!" exclaimed Mrs. Stanley, 
 in astonishment. 
 
 Mr. Stanley hastily put his pipe back 
 into his mouth and confusedly searched 
 in his pockets for a match; but I knew 
 I had struck down deep into a common 
 experience. Here was this brisk and 
 prosperous farmer having his dreams 
 too — dreams that even his wife did not 
 know! 
 
 So I continued my talk with even greater 
 fervour. I don't think that the boy Ben 
 understood all that I said, for I was dealing 
 with experiences common mostly to older 
 men, but he somehow seemed to get the 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 41 
 
 spirit of it, for quite unconsciously he began 
 to hitch his chair toward me, then he laid 
 his hand on my chair-arm and finally and 
 quite simply he rested his arm against mine 
 and looked at me with all his eyes. I keep 
 learning that there is nothing which reaches 
 men's hearts like talking straight out the 
 convictions and emotions of your innermost 
 soul. Those who hear you may not agree 
 with you, or they may not understand you 
 fully, but something incalculable, something 
 vital, passes. And as for a boy or girl it 
 is one of the sorriest of mistakes to talk down 
 to them; almost always your lad of fifteen 
 thinks more simply, more fundamentally, 
 than you do; and what he accepts as good 
 coin is not facts or precepts, but feelings 
 and convictions — life. And why shouldn't 
 we speak out? 
 
 "I long ago decided," I said, "to try to 
 be fully what I am and not to be anything 
 or anybody else." 
 
 "That's right, that's right!" exclaimed Mr. 
 Stanley, nodding his head vigorously. 
 
 "It's about the oldest wisdom there is," 
 I said, and with that I thought of the volume 
 I carried in my pocket, and straightway I 
 
42 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 pulled It out and after a moment's search 
 found the passage I wanted. 
 
 "Listen," I said, "to what this old Roman 
 philosopher said " — and I held the book up 
 to the lamp and read aloud: 
 
 "'You can be invincible if you enter into 
 no contest in which it is not in your power 
 to conquer. Take care, then, when you 
 observe a man honoured before others or 
 possessed of great power, or highly esteemed 
 for any reason, not to suppose him happy 
 and be not carried away by the appearance. 
 For if the nature of the good is in our power, 
 neither envy nor jealousy will have a place in 
 us. But you yourself -will not wish to be a 
 general or a senator or consul, but a free man, 
 and there is only one way to do this, to care 
 not for the things which are not in our 
 power." 
 
 "That," said Mr. Stanley triumphantly, 
 "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 legis- 
 lator, or any other sort of office-holder. It's 
 good enough for me. right here on this farm." 
 
 At that moment I glanced down into 
 Ben's shining eyes. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 43 
 
 " But I want to be a senator or t— some- 
 thing — when I grow up," he said eagerly. 
 
 At this the older brother, who was sitting 
 not far off, broke into a laugh, and the boy, 
 who for a moment had been drawn out of 
 his reserve, shrank back again and coloured 
 to the hair. 
 
 "Well, Ben," said I, putting my hand on 
 his knee, "don't you let anything stop you. 
 I'll back you up; I'll vote for you." 
 
 After breakfast the next morning Mr. 
 Stanley drew me aside and said: 
 
 "Now I want to pay you for your help 
 yesterday and the day before." 
 
 "No," I said. "I've had more than value 
 "received. You've taken me in like a friend 
 and brother. I've enjoyed it." 
 
 So Mrs. Stanley half filled my knapsack 
 with the finest luncheon I've seen in many a 
 day, and thus, with as pleasant a farewell as 
 if I'd been a near relative, I set off up the 
 country road. I was a little distressed in 
 parting to see nothing of the boy Ben, for 
 I had formed a genuine liking for him, but 
 upon reaching a clump of trees which hid 
 the house from the road I saw him standing, 
 in the moist grass of a fence corner. 
 
44 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "I want to say good-bye," he said in the 
 gruif voice of embarrassment. 
 
 "Ben," I said, "I missed you, and I'd 
 have hated to go off without seeing you 
 again. Walk a bit with me." 
 
 So we walked side by side, talking quietly, 
 and when at last I shook his hand I said : 
 
 "Ben, don't you ever be afraid of acting 
 up to the very best thoughts you have in 
 your heart." - 
 
 He said nothing for a moment, and then: 
 "Gee! I'm sorry you're goin' away!" 
 
 "Gee!" I responded, "I'm sorry, too!" 
 
 With that we both laughed, but when 
 I reached the top of the hill, and looked 
 back, I saw him still standing there bare- 
 footed in the road looking after me. I waved 
 my hand and he waved his: and I saw him 
 no more. 
 
 No country, after all, produces any better 
 crop than its inhabitants. And as I trav- 
 elled onward I liked to think of these brave, 
 temperate, industrious, God-friendly Ameri- 
 can 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 FRIENDLY ROAD 45 
 
 The rain had ceased, but all the world was 
 moist and very green and still. I walked 
 for more than two hours with the greatest 
 pleasure. About ten o'clock in the morning 
 I stopped near a brook to drink and rest, for 
 I was warm and tired. And it was then that 
 I bethought me of the little tin pipe in my 
 knapsack, and straightway I got it out, and, 
 sitting down at the foot of a tree near the 
 brook, I put it to my lips and felt for the 
 stops with unaccustomed fingers. At first 
 I made the saddest sort of work of it, and 
 was not a little disappointed, indeed, with 
 the sound of the whistle itself. It was 
 nothing to my memory of it! It seemed thin 
 and tinny. 
 
 However, I persevered at it, and soon 
 produced a recognizable imitation of Tom 
 Madison's "Old Dan Tucker." My suc- 
 cess 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 awJLy among the trees crying. 
 
46 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 shrilly; but his curiosity would always get 
 the better of him and back he would come 
 again to try to solve the mystery of this 
 rival whistling, which I'm sure was as shrill 
 and as harsh as his own. 
 
 Presently, quite to my astonishment, I. 
 saw a man standing near the brookside 
 not a dozen paces away from me. How 
 long he had been there I don't know,, for 
 I had heard nothing of his coming. Be- 
 yond 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 to 
 have so many unexpected and interesting 
 situations developing! So I nodded my head 
 and tapped my foot, and blew into my 
 whistle all the more energetically. I knew 
 my visitor could not possibly keep away. 
 And he could not; presently he came nearer 
 and said: 
 
 "What are you doing, neighbour?" 
 I continued a moment with my play- 
 ing, but commanded him with my eye. 
 
" WHAT ARE YOU DOING, NEIGHBOUR? " 
 
48 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 Oh, I assure you I assumed all the airs of 
 a virtuoso. When I had finished my tune 
 I removed my whistle deliberately and wiped 
 my lips. 
 
 "Why, enjoying myself," I replied with 
 greatest good humour. "What are you do- 
 ing?" , 
 
 "Why," he said, "watching you enjoy 
 yourself. I heard you playing as I passed, 
 in the road, and couldn't imagine what it 
 could be." 
 
 I told him I thought it might still be 
 difficult, having heard me near at hand, 
 to imagine what it could be — and thus, 
 tossing the ball of good-humoured repar- 
 tee back and forth, we walked down to the 
 road together. He had a quiet old horse and 
 a curious top buggy with the unmistakable 
 box of an agent or peddler built on behind. 
 
 "My name," he said, "is Canfield. I 
 fight dust." 
 
 "And mine," I said, "is Grayson. I 
 whistle." 
 
 I discovered that he was an agent for 
 brushes, and he opened his box and showed 
 me the greatest assortment of big and little 
 brushes: bristle brushes, broom brushes, yarn 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 49 
 
 brushes, wire brushes, brushes for man and 
 brushes for beast, brushes of every conceivable 
 size and shape that ever I saw in all my 
 life. He had out one of his especial pets — 
 he called it his "leader" — and feeling it 
 familiarly in his hand he instinctively began 
 the jargon of well-handled and voice- worn 
 phrases which went with that particular 
 brush. It was just as though some one had 
 touched a button and had started him going. 
 It was amazing to me that any one in the 
 world should be so much interested in mere 
 brushes — until he actually began to make 
 me feel that brushes were as interesting as 
 anything else! 
 
 What a strange, little, dried-up old fellow 
 he was, with his balls of muttonchop side- 
 whiskers, his thick eyebrows, and his lively 
 blue eyes ! — a man evidently not readily 
 turned aside by rebuffs. He had already 
 shown that his wit as a talker had been 
 sharpened by long and varied contact with a 
 world of reluctant purchasers. I was really 
 curious to know more of him, so I said finally : 
 
 "See here, Mr. Canfield, it's just noon. 
 Why not sit down here with me and have 
 a bit of luncheon?" 
 
so THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Why not?" he responded with alacrity. 
 "As the fellow said, why not?" 
 
 He unhitched his horse, gave him a drink 
 from the brook, and then tethered him where 
 he could nip the roadside grass. I opened 
 my bag and explored the wonders of Mrs. 
 Stanley's luncheon. I cannot describe the 
 absolutely carefree feeling I had. Always 
 at home, when I would have liked to stop 
 at the roadside with a stranger, I felt the 
 nudge of a conscience troubled with cows 
 and corn, but here I could stop wkere I 
 liked, or go on when I liked, and talk with 
 whom I pleased, as long as I pleased. 
 
 So we sat there, the brush-peddler and 
 I, under the trees, and ate Mrs. Stanley's 
 fine luncheon, drank the clear water from 
 the brook, and talked great talk. Com- 
 pared with Mr. Canfield I was a babe at 
 wandering — and equally at talking. Was 
 there any business he had not been in, or 
 any place in the country he had not visited? 
 He had sold everything from fly-paper to 
 threshing-machines, he had picked up a 
 large working knowledge of the weaknesses 
 of human nature, and had arrived at the 
 age of sixty-six with just enough available 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 51 
 
 cash to pay the manufacturer for a new supply 
 of brushes. In strict confidence, I drew 
 certain conclusions from the colour of his 
 nose! He had once had a family, but 
 dropped them somewhere along the road. 
 Most of our brisk neighbours would have 
 put him down as a failure — an old man, 
 and nothing laid by! But I wonder — I 
 
 wonder One thing I am coming to learn 
 
 in this world, and that is to let people haggle 
 along with their lives as I haggle along with 
 mine. 
 
 We both made tremendous inroads on 
 the luncheon, and I presume we might 
 have sat there talkiiig all the afternoon if 
 I had not suddenly bethought myself with 
 a not unpleasant thrill that my resting- 
 place for the night was still gloriously un- 
 decided. 
 
 "Friend," I said, "I've got to be up and 
 going. I haven't so much as a penny in 
 my pocket, and I've got to find a place 
 to sleep." 
 
 The effect of this remark upon Mr. Can- 
 field was magical. He threw up both his 
 hands and cried out: 
 
 "You're that way, are you?" — as though 
 
52 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 for the first time he really understood. We 
 "W-sre at last on common ground. 
 
 "Partner," said he, "you needn't tell me 
 ijCichin' about it. I've been right there 
 myself." 
 
 At once he began to bustle about with 
 great enthusiasm. He was for taking com- 
 plete charge of me, and I think, if I had 
 permitted it, wOuld instantly have, made a 
 brush-agent of me. At least he would have 
 carried me along with him in his buggy; but 
 when he suggested it I felt very much, I 
 think, as some old monk must have felt 
 who had taken a vow to do some particular 
 thing in some particular way. With great 
 difficulty I convinced him finally that my 
 way was different from his- — -though he was 
 regally impartial as to what road he took 
 next — and, finally, with some reluctance, 
 he started to climb into his buggy. 
 
 A thought, however, struck him suddenly, 
 and he stepped down again, ran around to 
 the box at the back of his buggy, opened it 
 with a mysterious and smiling look at me, 
 and took out a small broom-brush with 
 which he instantly began brushing off my 
 coat and trousers — in the liveliest' and most 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 53 
 
 exuberant way. When he had finished this 
 occupation, he quickly handed the brush to 
 me. 
 
 "A token of esteem," he said, "from a 
 fellow traveller." 
 
 I tried in vain to thank him, but he held 
 up his hand, scrambled quickly into his 
 buggy, and was for driving off instantly, 
 but paused and beckoned me toward him. 
 When I approached the buggy, he took hold 
 of one the lapels of my coat, bent over, 
 and said with the utmost seriousness: 
 
 "No man ought to take the road with- 
 out a brush. A good broom-brush is the 
 world's greatest civilizer. Are you looking 
 seedy or dusty? — why, this here brush 
 will instantly make you a respectable citi- 
 zen. 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 arC poor, old arC young 
 as a good brush!" 
 
 And with a final burst of enthusiasm 
 the brush-peddler drove off up the hill- 
 
54 
 
 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I stood watching him and when he looked 
 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. 
 
 '!f\ *■' 
 
 
 
 r;u«« 
 
 
 ^OM^unn^fiaUr^ 
 
THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE 
 OF THE ROAD 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF 
 THE ROAD 
 
 EVERY one," remarks Tristram Shandy, 
 "will speak of the fair as his own market 
 has gone in it." 
 
 It came near being a sorry fair for me 
 on the afternoon following my parting with 
 the amiable brush-peddler. The plain fact 
 is, my success at the Stanleys', and the easy ' 
 manner in which I had fallen in with Mr. 
 Canfield, gave me so much confidence in 
 myself as a sort of Master of the Road that 
 I proceeded with altogether too much as- 
 
 surance. 
 
 S7 
 
58 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I am firmly convinced that the prime 
 quality to be cultivated by the pilgrim is 
 humility of spirit; he must be willing to 
 accept Adventure in whatever garb she 
 chooses to present herself. He must be 
 able to see the shining form of the unusual 
 through the dull garments of the normal. 
 
 The fact is, I walked that afternoon 
 with my head in air and passed many a 
 pleasant farmstead where men were work- 
 ing in the fields, and many an open door- 
 way, and a mill or two, and a town — always 
 looking for some Great Adventure. 
 
 Somewhere upcin 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 whom 
 Carlyle writes in one of his volumes, who, 
 riding out from Madrid one day, came un- 
 expectedly 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, or 
 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 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 59 
 
 take one other look at the azure firmament 
 and green mosaic pavements and the strange 
 carpentry and arras work of this noble pal- 
 ace of a world." 
 
 As the old story has it, the young student 
 "came pricking on hastily, complaining that 
 they went at such a pace as gave him little 
 chance of keeping up with them. One of 
 the party made answer that the blame lay 
 with the horse of Don Miguel de Cervantes, 
 whose trot was of the speediest. He had 
 hardly pronounced the name when the stu- 
 dent dismounted and, touching the hem of 
 Cervantes' left sleeve, said, 'Yes, yes, it is 
 indeed the maimed perfection, the all-famous, 
 the delightful writer, the joy and darling of 
 the Muses ! You are that brave Miguel.' " 
 
 It may seem absurd to some in this cool 
 and calculating twentieth century that any 
 one should indulge in such vain imaginings 
 as I have described — and yet, why not ? 
 All things are as we see them. I once heard 
 a man — a modern man, living to-day — 
 tell with a hush in his voice, and a peculiar 
 light in his eye, how, walking in the outskirts 
 of an unromantic town in New Jersey, he 
 came suddenly upon a vigorous, bearded, 
 
6o THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 rather rough-looking man swinging his stick 
 as he walked, and stopping often at the 
 roadside and often looking up at the sky. 
 I shall never forget the curious thrill in 
 his voice as he said: 
 
 "And that was Walt Whitman." 
 
 And thus quite absurdly intoxicated by 
 the possibilities of the road, I let the big, 
 full afternoon slip by — I let slip the rich 
 possibilities of half a hundred farms and 
 scores of travelling people — and as evening 
 began to fall I came to a stretch of wilder 
 country with wooded hills and a dashing 
 stream by the roadside. It was a fine and 
 beautiful country — to look at — but the 
 farms, and with, them the chances of dinner, 
 and a friendly place to sleep, grew momen- 
 tarily 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 adven- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 6i 
 
 ture seemed almost worth trying) if a dusty 
 man with a bag on his back should appear 
 at the door of one of those well-groomed 
 establishments. It came to me, indeed, with 
 a sudden deep sense of understanding, that 
 I^ should probably find there, as everywhere 
 else, just men and women. And with that 
 I fell into a sort of Socratic dialogue with 
 myself: 
 
 Me: Having decided that the people In 
 these houses are, after all, merely men and 
 women, what is the best way of reaching them? 
 
 Myself: Undoubtedly by giving them 
 something they want and have not. 
 
 Me: But these are rich people from the 
 city; what can they want that they have not? 
 
 Myself: Believe me, of all people in the 
 world those who want the most are those 
 who have the most. These people are also 
 consumed with desires. 
 
 Me: And what, pray, do you suppose 
 they desire ? 
 
 Myself: They want what they have not 
 got; they want the unattainable: they want 
 chiefly the rarest And most precious of all 
 things — a little mystery in their lives. 
 
 "That's it!" I said aloud; "that's it! 
 
62 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 Mystery — the things of the spirit, the things 
 above ordinary living — is not that the essential 
 thing for which the world is sighing, and 
 groaning, and longing — consciously, or un- 
 consciously?" 
 
 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 in- 
 crease 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 excite- 
 ment 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 ad- 
 vanced to attract the owners to the country. 
 I walked rapidly onward through the gather- 
 ing twilight, but with increasing uneasi- 
 ness as to the prospects for the night, and 
 thus came suddenly upon the scene of an 
 odd adventure. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 63 
 
 From some distance I had seen a verit- 
 able palace set high among the trees and 
 overlooking a wonderful green valley — and, 
 drawing nearer, I saw evidences of well- 
 kept roadways and a visible effort to make 
 invisible the attempt to preserve the wild 
 beauty of the place. I saw, or thought I 
 saw, people on the wide veranda, and I 
 was sure I heard the snort of a climbing 
 motor-car, but I had scarcely decided to 
 make my way up to the house when I came, 
 at the turning of the country road, upon a 
 bit of open land laid out neatly as a garden, 
 near the edge of which, nestling among the 
 trees, stood a small cottage. It seemed some- 
 how 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 espe- 
 cially the plantation of trees and shrubs. 
 My eye fell instantly upon a fine magnolia — 
 rare in this country — which had not yet 
 cast all its blossoms, and I paused for a 
 moment to look at it more closely. I my- 
 self have tried to raise magnolias near my 
 house, and I know how difficult it is. ' 
 
64 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 As I approached nearer to the cottage 
 I could see a man and woman sitting upon 
 the porch in the twilight and swaying back 
 and forth in rocking-chairs. I fancied — 
 it, may have been only a fancy — that when 
 I first saw them their hands were clasped 
 as they rocked side by side. 
 
 It was indeed a charming little cottage. 
 Crimson ramblers, giving promise of the 
 bloom that was yet to come, climbed over 
 one end of the porch, and there were fine 
 dark-leaved lilac-bushes near the doorway: 
 oh, a pleasant, friendly, quiet place! 
 
 I opened the front gate and walked straight 
 in, as though I had at last reached my des- 
 tination. I cannot give any idea of the 
 lift of the heart with which I entered upon 
 this new adventure. Without the slightest 
 premeditation and not knowing what I should 
 say or do, I realized that everything depended 
 upon 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 faculties. 
 
 I knew, of course, just how these quiet 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 65 
 
 people of the cottage would ordinarily regard 
 an intruder whose bag and clothing must in- 
 fallibly class him as a follower of the road. 
 And so many followers of the road are — 
 well 
 
 As I came nearer, the man and woman 
 stopped rocking, but said nothing. An old 
 dog that had been sleeping on the top step 
 fose slowly and stood there. 
 
 "As I passed your garden," I said, grasp- 
 ing desperately for a way of approach, 
 ''I saw your beautiful specimen of the 
 magnolia tree — the one still in blossom. 
 I myself have tried to grow rhagnolias — 
 but with small success — and I'm making 
 bold to inquire what variety you are so 
 successful with." 
 
 It was a shot in the air — but I knew 
 from what I had seen that they must be 
 enthusiastic gardeners. The man glanced 
 around at the magnolia with evident pride, 
 and was about to answer when the woman 
 rose and with a pleasant, quiet cordiality 
 said: 
 
 "Won't you step up and have a chair?" 
 
 I swung my bag from my shoulder and 
 took the proffered seat. As I did so I saw, 
 
66 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 on the table just behind me a number of 
 magazines and books — books of unusual 
 sizes and shapes, indicating that they were 
 not mere summer novels. 
 
 "They like books!" I said to myself with 
 a sudden rise of spirits. 
 
 "I have tried magnolias, too," said the 
 man, "but this is the only one that has 
 been really successful. It is a Chinese white 
 magnolia." 
 
 "The one Downing describes.''" I asked. 
 
 This was also a random shot, but I con- 
 jectured that if. they loved both books and 
 gardens they would know Downing — the 
 Bible of the gardener. And if they did, why, 
 we belonged to the same church. 
 
 "The very same," exclaimed the woman; 
 "it was Downing's enthusiasm for the Chinese- 
 magnolia which led us first to try it." 
 
 With that, like true disciples, we fell 
 into great talk of Downing, at first all in 
 praise of him, and later — for may not 
 the faithful be permitted latitude in their 
 comments so long as it is all within the 
 cloister? — we indulged in a bit of higher 
 criticism: 
 
 "It won't do," said the man, "to follow 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD d'j 
 
 too slavishly every detail of practice as rec- 
 ommended by Downing. We have learned 
 a good many things since the forties." 
 
 "The fact is," I said, "no literal-minded 
 man should be trusted with Downing." 
 
 "Any more than with the Holy Scrip- 
 tures," exclaimed the woman. 
 
 "Exactly!" I responded with the greatest 
 enthusiasm; "exactly! We go to him for 
 inspiration, for fundamental teachings, for 
 the great literature and poetry of the art. 
 Do you remember," I asked, "that passage 
 in which Downing quotes from some old 
 Chinaman upon the true secret of the pleas- 
 ures of a garden ?" 
 
 "Do we?" exclaimed the man, jumping 
 up instantly; "do we? Just let me get the 
 book " 
 
 With that he went into the house and 
 came back immediately bringing a lamp in 
 one hand — for it had grown pretty dark — 
 and a familiar, portly, blue-bound book in 
 the other. While he was gone the woman 
 said: 
 
 "You have touched Mr. Vedder in his 
 weakest spot." 
 
 "I know of no combination in this world," 
 
68 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 said I, "so certain to produce a happy heart 
 as good books and a farm or garden." 
 
 Mr. Vedder, having returned, sHpped on his 
 spectacles, sat forward on the edge of his 
 rocking-chair, and opened the book with pious 
 hands. 
 
 "I'll find it," he said. "I can put my. 
 finger right on it." 
 
 "You'll find it," said Mi;s. Vedder, "in 
 the chapter on 'Hedges.' " 
 
 "You are wrong, my dear," he responded, 
 "it is in 'Mistakes of Citizens in Countrv 
 Life.'" • 
 
 He turned the leaves eagerly. 
 
 "No," he said, "here it is in 'Rural Taste.' 
 Let me read you thfe passage, Mr. " 
 
 "Grayson." 
 
 " — : Mr. Grayson. The Chinaman's name 
 was Lieu-tscheu. 'What is it,' asks this 
 old. Chinaman, 'that we seek in the pleasure of 
 a garden .f" It has always been agreed that 
 these plantations should make men amends for 
 living at a distance from what would be 
 their more congenial and agreeable dwelling- 
 place — in the midst of nature, free and 
 unrestrained.'" 
 
 "That's it," I exclaimed, "and the old 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 69 
 
 Chinaman was right! A garden excuses civ- 
 ilization." 
 
 "It's what brought us here," said Mrs. 
 Vedder. 
 
 With that we fell into the liveliest dis- 
 cussion of gardening and farming and coun- 
 try life in all their phases, resolving that 
 while there were bugs and blights, and 
 droughts and floods, yet upon the whole 
 there was no life so completely satisfying 
 as life in which one may watch daily the 
 unfolding of natural life. 
 
 A hundred things we talked about freely 
 that had often risen dimly in my own mind 
 almost to the point — but not quite — of 
 spilling over into articulate form. The mar- 
 vellous thing about good conversation is 
 that it brings to birth so many half-realized 
 thoughts of our own — besides sowing the 
 sped of innumerable other thought-plants. 
 How they enjoyed their garden, those two, 
 and not only the garden itself, but all the 
 lore and poetry of gardening! 
 
 We had been talking thus an hour or 
 more when, quite unexpectedly, I had what 
 was certainly one of the most amusing ad- 
 ventures of my whole life. I can scarcely 
 
■JO THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 think of it now without a thrill of pleasure. 
 I have had pay for my work in many ways, 
 but never such a reward as this. 
 
 "By the way," said Mr. Vedder, "we 
 have recently come across a book which 
 is full of the spirit of the garden as we have 
 long known it, although the author is not 
 treating directly of gardens, but of farming and 
 of human nature." 
 
 "It is really all one subject," I inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Vedder, "but many 
 gardeners are nothing but gardeners. Well, 
 the book to which I refer is called 'Adventures 
 
 in Contentment,' and is by Why, by 
 
 a man of your own name!" 
 
 With that Mr. Vedder reached for a book 
 — a familiar-looking book — on the table, 
 but Mrs. Vedder looked at me. I give you 
 my word, my heart turned entirely over, 
 and in a most remarkable way righted 
 itself again; and I saw Roman candles and 
 Fourth of July rockets in front of my eyes. 
 Never in all my experience was I so com- 
 pletely bowled over. I felt like a small boy 
 who has been caught in the pantry with one 
 Aand in the jam-pot — and plenty of jam 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 71 
 
 on his nose. And like that small boy I 
 enjoyed the jam, but did not like being 
 caught at it. 
 
 Mr. Vedder had no sooner got the book 
 in his hand than I saw Mrs. Vedder rising 
 as though she had seen a spectre, and pointing 
 dramatically at me, she exclaimed: 
 
 "You are David Grayson!" 
 
 I can say truthfully now that I know how 
 the prisoner at the bar must feel when the 
 judge, leaning over his desk, looks at him 
 sternly and says : 
 
 "I declare you guilty of the offence as 
 
 charged, and sentence you " and so on, 
 
 and so on. 
 
 Mr. Vedder stiffened up, and I can see 
 him yet looking at me through his glasses. 
 I must have looked as foolishly guilty as 
 any man ever looked, for Mr. Vedder said 
 promptly : 
 
 "Let me take you by the hand, sir. We 
 know you, and have known you for a long 
 time." 
 
 I shall not attempt to relate the conver- 
 sation which followed, nor tell of the keen 
 joy I had in it — after the first cold plunge. 
 We found that we had a thousand common 
 
72 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 interests and enthusiasms. I had to tell 
 them of my farm, and why I had left it tem- 
 porarily, and of the experiences on the road. 
 No sooner had I related what had befallen 
 me at the Stanleys' than Mrs. Vedder dis- 
 appeared into the house and came out again 
 presently with a tray loaded with cold meat, 
 bread, a pitcher of fine milk, and other good 
 things. 
 
 "I shall not offer any excuses," said I, 
 "I'm hungry," and with that I laid in, 
 Mr. Vedder helping with the milk, and all 
 three of us talking as fast as ever we could. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when at last Mr. 
 Vedder led the way to the immaculate little 
 bedroom where I spent the night. 
 
 The next morning I awoke early and, 
 quietly dressing, slipped down to the garden 
 and walked about among the trees and the 
 shrubs and the flower-beds. The sun was 
 just coming up over the hill, the air was full 
 of the fresh odours of morning, and the orioles 
 and cat-birds were singing. 
 
 In the back of the garden I found a charming 
 rustic arbour with seats around a little 
 table. And here I sat down to listen to the 
 morning concert, and I saw, cut or carved 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 73 
 
 upon the table, this verse, which so pleased 
 Hie that I copied it in my book: 
 
 A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! 
 
 Rose plot. 
 
 Fringed pool, 
 
 Ferned grot — 
 Thcjveriest school of peace; and yet 
 the fool 
 
 Contends that God is not — 
 Not God! in gardens?. when the even 
 is cool? 
 
 Nay, but I have a sign, 
 'Tis very sure God walks in mine. 
 
 I looked about after copying this verse, 
 and said aloud: 
 
 "I like this garden: I like the?e Vedders." 
 
 And with that I had a moment of wild 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "I will come," I said, "and buy a little 
 garden next them, and bring Harriet, and 
 we will live here always. What's a farm 
 compared with a friend?" 
 
 But with that I, thought of the Scotch 
 preacher, and of Horace, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Starkweather, and I knew I could never 
 leave the friends at home. 
 
 "It's astonishing how many fine people 
 
74 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 there are in this world," I said aloud; "one 
 can't escape them!" 
 
 "Good morning, David Grayson," I heard 
 some one saying, and glancing up I saw Mrs. 
 Vedder at the doorway. "Are you hungry.?" 
 
 "I am always hungry," I said. 
 
 Mr. Vedder came out and linking his 'arm 
 in mine and pointing out various spireas 
 and Japanese barberries, of which he was 
 very proud, we walked into the house to- 
 gether. 
 
 I did not think of it especially at the 
 time — Harriet says I never see anything 
 really worth while, by which she means 
 dishes, dresses, doilies, and such like — 
 but as I remembered afterward the table 
 that Mrs. Vedder set was wonderfully dainty 
 — dainty not merely with flowers (with 
 which it was loaded), but with the quality 
 of the china and silver. It was plainly the 
 table of no ordinary gardener or caretaker — 
 but this conclusion did not come to me until 
 afterward, for as I remember it, we were in a 
 deep discussion of fertilizers. 
 
 Mrs. Vedder cooked and §erved breakfast 
 herself, and did it with a skill almost equal 
 to Harriet's — so skilfully that the talk went 
 
GLANCING UP, I SAW MRS. VEDDER AT THE DOORWAY " 
 
76 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 on and we never once heard the machinery 
 of service. 
 
 After breakfast we all went out into the 
 garden, Mrs. Vedder in an old straw hat 
 and a big apron, and Mr. Vedder in a pair of 
 old brown overalls. Two men had appeared 
 from somewhere, and were digging in the 
 vegetable garden. After giving them certain 
 directions Mr. Vedder and I both found five- 
 tined forks and went into the rose garden and 
 began turning over the rich soil, while Mrs. 
 Vedder, with pruning-shears, kept near us, 
 cutting out the dead wood. 
 
 It was one of the charming forenoons of 
 my life. This pleasant work, spiced with 
 the most interesting conversation and inter- 
 rupted by a hundred little excursions into 
 other parts of the garden, to see this or that 
 wonder of vegetation, brought us to dinner- 
 time before we fairly knew it. 
 
 AbouV the middle of the ' afternoon I 
 made the next discovery. I heard first the 
 choking cough of a big motor-car in the 
 country road, and a moment later it stopped 
 at our gate. I thought I saw the Vedders 
 exchanging significant glances. A number 
 of merry young people tumbled out, and an 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD ^^ 
 
 especially pretty girl of about twenty came 
 running through the garden. 
 
 "Mother," she exclaimed, "you must come 
 with us!" 
 
 "I can't, I can't," said Mrs. Vedder, 
 "the roses must be pruned — and see! The 
 azaleas are coming into bloom." 
 
 With that she presented me to her daughter. 
 
 And, then, shortly, for it could no longer be 
 concealed, I learned that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Vedder were not the caretakers but the owners 
 of the estate and of the great house I had 
 seen on the hill. That evening, with an air 
 almost of apology, they explained to me how 
 it all came about. 
 
 "We first, came out here," said Mrs. 
 Vedder, "nearly twenty years ago, and built 
 the big house on the hill. But the more we 
 came to know of country life the more we 
 wanted to get down into it. We found it 
 impossible up there — ^ so many unnecessary 
 things to see to and care for — and we 
 couldn't — we didn't see " 
 
 "The fact is," Mr. Vedder put in, "we 
 were losing touch with each other." 
 
 "There is nothing like a big house," said 
 Mrs. Vedder, "to separate a man and his wife." 
 
78 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "So we came down here," said Mr. 
 Vedder, "built this Uttle cottage, and have 
 developed this garden mostly with our own 
 hands. We would have sold the big place 
 long ago if it hadn't been for our friends. 
 They Hke it." 
 
 " I have never heard a more truly romantic 
 story," said I. 
 
 And it was romantic: these fine people 
 escaping from too many possessions, too much 
 property, to the peace and quietude of a gar' 
 den where they could be lovers again. 
 
 "It seems, sometimes," said Mrs. Vedder, 
 "that I never really believed in God until 
 we came down here " 
 
 "I saw the verse on the table in your 
 arbour," said I. 
 
 "And it is true," said Mr. Vedder. "We 
 got a long, long way from God for many 
 years : here we seem to get back to Him." 
 
 I had fully intended to take the road 
 again that afternoon, but how could any 
 one leave such people as those? We talked 
 again late that night, but the next morning, 
 at the leisurely Sunday breakfast, I set my 
 hour of departure with all the firmness I 
 could command. I left them, indeed, before 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 79 
 
 ten o'clock that forenoon. I shall never 
 forget, the parting. They walked with me 
 to the top of the hill, and there we stopped 
 and looked back. We could see the cottage 
 half hidden among the trees, and the little 
 opening that the precious garden made. 
 For a time we stood there quite silent. 
 
 "Do you remember," I said presently, 
 "that character in Homer who was a friend 
 of men and lived in a house by the side of 
 the road? I shall always think of you as 
 friends of men — you took in a dusty traveller. 
 And I shall never forget your house by the 
 side of the road." 
 
 "The House by the Side of the Road — 
 you have christened it anew, David Grayson," 
 exclaimed Mrs. Vedder. 
 
 And so we parted like old friends, and 
 I left them to return to their garden, where 
 " 'tis very sure God walks." 
 
I AM A SPECTATOR OF A MIGHTY 
 
 BATTLE, IN WHICH CHRISTIAN 
 
 AGAIN MEETS APOLLYON 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 I AM A SPECTATOR OF A MIGHTY 
 
 BATTLE, IN WHICH CHRISTIAN 
 
 AGAIN MEETS APOLLYON 
 
 IT IS one of the prime joys of the long road 
 that no two days are ever remotely 
 alike — no two hours even; and sometimes a 
 day that begins calmly will end with the 
 most stirring events. 
 
 It was thus, indeed, with that perfect 
 spring Sunday when I left my friends, the 
 Vedders, and turned my face again to the 
 open country. It began as quietly as any 
 Sabbath morning of my life, but what an 
 end it had! I would have travelled a thou- 
 
84 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 sand miles for the adventures which a boun- 
 teous road that day spilled carelessly into 
 my willing hands. 
 
 I can give no adequate reason why it 
 should be so, but there are Sunday mornings 
 in the spring — at least in our country — 
 which seem to put on, like a Sabbath gar- 
 ment, an atmosphere of divine quietude. 
 Warm, soft, clear, but, above all, immeas- 
 urably serene. 
 
 Such was that Sunday morning; and I 
 was no sooner well afoot than I yielded to 
 the ingratiating mood of the day. Usually 
 I am an active walker, loving the sense of 
 quick motion and the stir it imparts to 
 both body and mind, but that morning I 
 found myself loitering, looking widely about 
 me, and enjoying the lesser and quieter 
 aspects of nature. It was a fine wooded 
 country in which I found myself, and I soon 
 struck off the beaten road and took to the 
 forest and the fields. In places the ground'| 
 was almost covered with meadow-rue, like 
 green shadows on the hillsides, not yet in 
 seed, but richly umbrageous. In the long 
 green grass of the meadows shone the yellow 
 star-fldwers, and the sweet-flags were bloom- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 85 
 
 Ing along the marshy edges of the ponds. 
 The violets had disappeared, but they were 
 succeeded by wild geraniums and rank-grow- 
 ing vetches. 
 
 I remember that I kept thinking from 
 time to time, all the forenoon, as my- mind 
 went back swiftly and warmly to the two 
 fine friends from whom I had so recently 
 parted : 
 
 How the Vedders would enjoy -this! Or, 
 I must tell the Vedders that. And two or 
 three times I found myself in animated con- 
 versaflions 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 your- 
 self; if you have a companion, you belong 
 only half to yourself"; but it is certainly 
 not so with me. With me friendship never 
 divides : it multiplies. A friend always makes 
 me more than I am, better than I am, bigger 
 than I am. We two make four, or fifteen, 
 or forty. 
 
 Well, I loitered through the fields and 
 woods for a long time that Sunday forenoon, 
 not knowing in the least that Chance held 
 me close by the hand and was leading me 
 
86 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 onward to great events. I knew, of course, 
 that I had yet to find a place for the night, 
 and that this might be difficult on Sunday, 
 and yet I spent that forenoon as a man 
 spends his immortal youth — with a glorious 
 disregard for the future. 
 
 Some time after noon — for the sun was 
 high and the day was growing much warmer 
 — I turned from the road, climbed an in- 
 viting little hill, and chose a spot in an old 
 meadow in the shade of an apple tree, and 
 there I lay down on the grass and looked up 
 into the dusky shadows of the branches, 
 above me. I could feel the soft airs on my 
 face; I could hear the buzzing of bees in 
 the meadow flowers, and by turning my 
 head just a little I could see the slow fleecy 
 clouds, high up, drifting across the perfect] 
 blue of the sky. And the scent of the fields 
 in spring! — he who has known it, even 
 once, may indeed die happy. 
 
 Men worship God in va-rious 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 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 87 
 
 seemed somehow to be a miracle — a mir- 
 acle gratefully accepted and explainable only 
 by the presence of God. There was another 
 strange, deep feeling which I had that morning, 
 which I have had a few other times in my 
 life at the rare heights of experience — I 
 hesitate always when I try to put down the 
 deep, deep things of the human heart — a 
 feeling immeasurably real, that if I should 
 turn my head quickly I .should indeed see 
 that Immanent Presence. . . . 
 
 One of the few birds I know that sings 
 through the long midday is the vireo. The 
 vireo sings when otherwise the woods are 
 still. You do not see him; you cannot 
 find him; but you know he is there. And 
 his singing is wild, and shy, and mystical. 
 Often it haunts you like the memory of 
 spme former happiness. That day I heard , 
 the vireo singing. . . . 
 
 I don't know how long I lay there under 
 the tree in the meadow, but presently I 
 heard, from no great distance, the sound of a 
 church-bell. It was ringing for the afternoon 
 service which among the farmers of this part 
 of the country often takes the place, in sum- 
 t?oer, of both morning and evening services. 
 
88 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "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 tragi- 
 cally serious person, and to think of pat 
 phrases with which to characterize the ex- 
 ecrableness of my attempts upon the tin 
 whistle. I should have liked some one near 
 to joke with. 
 
 Long ago I made a motto about boys: 
 Look for a boy anywhere. Never be sur- 
 prised when you shake a cherry tree if a 
 boy drops out of it; never ,be disturbed 
 when you think yourself in complete solitude 
 if you discover a boy peering out at you from 
 a fence corner. 
 
 I had not been playing long before I 
 saw two boys looking at me from out of 
 a thicket by the roadside; and a moment 
 later two others appeared. 
 
 Instantly I switched into "Marching 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 89 
 
 Through Georgia^" and began to nod my 
 head and tap my toe in the Uveliest fash- 
 ion. Presently one boy climbed up on the 
 fence, then another, then a third. I con- 
 tinued to, play. The fourth boy, a little 
 chap, ventured to climb up on the fence. 
 
 They were bright-faced, tow-headed lads, 
 all in Sunday clothes. 
 
 " It's hard luck," said I, taking my whistle 
 from my lips, "to have to wear shoes and 
 stockings on a warm Sunday like this." 
 
 "You bet it is!" said the bold leader. 
 
 "In that case," said I, "I will play 'Yan- 
 kee Doodle.' " 
 
 I played. All the boys, including the 
 little chap, came up around me, and two 
 of them sat down quite familiarly on the 
 grass. I never had a more devoted audience. 
 I don't know what interesting event might 
 have happened next, for the bold leader, 
 who stood nearest, was becoming dangerously 
 inflated with questions — I don't know what 
 might have happened had we not been 
 interrupted by the appearance of a Spectre 
 in Black. It appeared before . us there in 
 the broad daylight in the middle of a sunny 
 afternoon while we were playing "Yankee 
 
90 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 Doodle." First I saw the top of a black 
 hat rising over the rim of the hill. This 
 was followed quickly by a black tie, a long 
 black coat,' black trousers, and, finally, black 
 shoes. I admit I was shaken, but being a 
 person of iron nerve in facing such phenomena 
 I continued to play "Yankee Doodle." In 
 spite of this counter-attraction, toward which 
 all four boys turned uneasy glances, I held 
 my audience. The Black Spectre, with a 
 black book under its arm, drew nearer. 
 Still I continued to play and nod my head 
 and tap my toe. I felt like some modern 
 Pied Piper piping away the children of these 
 modern hills — piping them away from older 
 people who could not understand them. 
 
 I could see an accusing look on the Spec- 
 tre'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 Say 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 lip& 
 and asked: 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 91 
 
 "Is God dead?" 
 
 I shall never forget the indescribable look 
 of horror and astonishment that swept over 
 the young man's face. 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" he asked with 
 an air of stern authority which surprised 
 me. His calling for the moment lifted him 
 above himself: it was the Church which 
 spoke. 
 
 I was on my feet in an instant, regret- 
 ting the pain I had given him; and yet it 
 seemed worth while now, havijig made my 
 inadvertent remark, to show him frankly 
 what lay in my mind. Such things some- 
 times help men. 
 
 "I meant no offence, sir," I said, "and 
 I apologize for my flummery, but when 
 I saw you coming up the hill, looking so 
 gloomy and disconsolate on this bright 
 day, as though you disapproved of God's 
 world, the question slipped out before I 
 knew it." 
 
 My words evidently struck deep down 
 into some disturbed inner consciousness, for 
 he asked — and his words- seemed to slip 
 out before he thought: 
 
 "Is that the way I impressed you?" 
 
92 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I found my heart going out strongly to- 
 ward him. "Here," I thought to myself, 
 "is a man in trouble." 
 
 I took a good long look at him. ■ He was 
 still a young man, though worn-looking — 
 and sad, as I now saw it, rather than gloomy 
 — with the sensitive lips and the unworldly 
 look one sees sometimes in the faces of 
 saints. His black coat was immaculately 
 neat, but the worn button-covers and the 
 shiny lapels told their own eloquent story. 
 Oh, it seemed to me I knew hini as well as 
 if every incident of his life were written 
 plainly upon his high, pale forehead! I have 
 lived long in a country neighbourhood, and 
 I knew him — poor flagellant of the rural 
 church — I knew how he groaned under the 
 sins of a community too comfortably will- 
 ing 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 fre- 
 quent moves from place to place. 
 
 Unconsciously heaving a sigh the young 
 man turned partly aside and said to me in a 
 low, gentle voice : 
 
 "You are detaining my boys from church." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 93 
 
 "I am very sorry," I said, "and I will de- 
 tain them no longer," and with that I put 
 aside my whistle, took up my bag and moved 
 down the hill with them. 
 
 "The fact is," I said, "when I heard 
 your bell I thought of going to church my- 
 self." 
 
 "Did you?" he asked eagerly. "Did 
 you?" 
 
 I could see that my proposal of going 
 to church had instantly affected his spirits. 
 Then he hesitated abruptly with a sidelong 
 glance at my bag and rusty clothing. I 
 could see exactly what was passing in his 
 mind. 
 
 "No," 1 said, smiling, as though answering 
 a spoken question, "I am not exactly what 
 you would call a tramp." 
 
 He flushed. 
 
 " I didn't mean — I want you to come. 
 That's what a church is for. If I thought " 
 
 But he did not tell me what he thought; 
 and, though he walked quietly at my side, 
 he was evidently deeply disturbed. Some- 
 thing 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 
 
94 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 that moment. Talk about the sufferings of 
 sinners! I wonder if they are to be com- 
 pared with the trials of the saints? 
 
 So we approached the little wliite church, 
 and caused, I am certain, a tremendous 
 sensation. Nowhere does the unpredictable, 
 the unusual, excite such confusion as in that 
 settled institution — the church. 
 
 I left my bag in the vestibule, where ] 
 have no doubt it was the object of much 
 inquiring and suspicious scrutiny, and took 
 my place in a convenient pew. It was a 
 small church with an odd air of domesticity, 
 and the proportion of old ladies and children 
 in the audience was pathetically large. As 
 a ruddy, vigorous, out-of-door person, with 
 the dust of life upon him, I felt distinctly 
 out of place. 
 
 I could pick out easily the Deacon, the 
 Old Lady Who Brought Flowers, the Presi- 
 dent of the Sewing Circle, and, above all, 
 the Chief Pharisee, sitting in his high place. 
 The Chief Pharisee — his name I learned 
 was Nash, Mr. J. H. Nash (I did not know 
 then that I was soon to make his acquain- 
 tance) — the Chief Pharisee looked as hard 
 as nails, a middle-aged man with stiff white 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD . 95 
 
 chin-whiskers, small, round, sharp eyes, and 
 a pugnacious jaw.. 
 
 "That man," said I to myself, "runs 
 this church," and instantly I found myself 
 looking upon him as a sort of personification 
 of the troubles I had seen in the minister's 
 eyes. 
 
 I shall not attempt to describe the ser- 
 vice in detail. There was a discouraging 
 droop and quaver in the singing, and the 
 mournful-looking deacon who passed the 
 collection-plate, seemed inured to disappoint- 
 ment. The prayer had in it a note of de- 
 spairing 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 
 wrathfuUy destroyed, and that this miserable 
 world was full of equally miserable, broken, 
 sinful, sickly people. 
 
 The sermon was a little better, for some- 
 where 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 lumi- 
 nosity. 
 
 J found the service indescribably depress- 
 
96 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 ing. I had an impulse to rise up and cry 
 out — almost anything to shock these people 
 into opening their eyes upon real life. In- 
 deed, though I hesitate about setting it down 
 here, I was filled for some time with the live- 
 liest imaginings of the following serio-comic 
 enterprise : 
 
 I would step up the aisle, take my place 
 In front of the Chief Pharisee, wag my 
 finger under his nose, and tell him a thing 
 or two about the condition of the church. 
 
 "The only live thing here^" I would tell 
 him, "is the spark in that pale minister's 
 soul; and you're doing your best to smother 
 that." 
 
 And I fully made up my mind that when 
 he answered back in his chief-pharisaical 
 way I would gently but firmly remove him 
 from his seat, shake him vigorously two Or 
 three times (men's souls have often been 
 saved with less!), deposit him flat in the 
 aisle, and — yes — stand on him while I 
 elucidated the situation to the audience at 
 large. While I confined this amusing and 
 interesting project to the humours .of the 
 imagination* I am still convinced that some- 
 thing of the sort would have helped enormously ' 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 97 
 
 in clearing up the religious and naoral atmos- 
 phere of the place. 
 
 I had a wonderful sensation of relief 
 when at last I stepped out again into the 
 clear afternoon sunshine and got a reviving 
 glimpse of the smiling green hills and the 
 quiet fields and the sincere trees — and 
 felt the welcome of the friendly road. 
 
 I would have made straight for the 
 hills, but the thought of that pale minister 
 held me back, and I lyaited 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 
 fdur boys, whose acquaintance I had made 
 under such thrilling circumstances earlier 
 in the day, seemed highly delighted, and 
 waited with me lender the tree and told me a 
 hundred important things about a certain 
 calf, a pig, a kite, and other things at home. 
 
 Arriving at the minister's gate, I was 
 invited in with a whole-heartedness that 
 was altogether charming. The minister's wife, 
 a faded-looking woman who had once pos- 
 sessed a delicate sort of prettiness, was 
 waiting for us on the steps with a fine chubby 
 baby on her arm — number five. 
 
98 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 The home was much the sort of place I 
 had imagined — a small house undesirably 
 located (but cheap!), with a few straggling 
 acres of garden and meadow upon which the 
 minister and his boys were trying with 
 inexperienced hands to piece out their in- 
 adequate living. At the very first glimpse 
 of the garden I wanted to throw off my coat 
 and go at it. 
 
 And yet — and yet — what a wonderful 
 thing love is! There was, after all,' some- 
 thing incalculable, something pervasively 
 beautiful about this poor household. The 
 moment the minister stepped inside his 
 own door he became a different and livelier 
 person. Something boyish crept into his 
 manner, and a new look came into the eyes of 
 his faded wife that made her almost pretty 
 again. And the fat, comfortable baby rolled 
 and gurgled about on the floor as happily as 
 though there had been two nurses and a 
 governess to look after him. As for the 
 four boys, I have never seen healthier or 
 happier ones. 
 
 I sat with them at their Sunday-evening 
 luncheon. As the minister bowed his head 
 to say grace I felt him clasp my hand on 
 
THE F.RIENDLY ROAD 99 
 
 one side while the oldest boy clasped my 
 hand on the other, and thus, linked together, 
 and accepting the stranger utterly, the family 
 looked up to God. 
 
 There was a fine, modest gayety about 
 the meal. In front of Mrs. Minister stood 
 a very' large yellow bowl filled with what 
 she called rusk — a preparation unfamiliar 
 to me, made by browning and crushing the 
 crusts of bread and then rolling them down 
 into a coarse meal. ,A bowl of this, with 
 sweet, rich, yellow milk (for they kept their 
 own cow), made one of the most appetizing 
 dishes that ever I ate. It was downright 
 good: it gave one the unalloyed aroma of the 
 sweet new 'milk and the satisfying taste of the 
 crisp bread. 
 
 Nor ha,ve I ever enjoyed a more perfect 
 hospitality. I have been in many a richer 
 home where there was not a hundredth part 
 of the true gentility — the gentility of unapolo- 
 gizing simplicity and kindness. 
 
 And after it was over and cleared away 
 — the minister himself donning a long apron 
 and helping his wife — and the chubby 
 baby put to bed, we all sat around the table 
 in the gathering twilight. 
 
loo THE FRIENDLY. ROAD 
 
 I think men perish sometimes frbm sheer 
 untalked talk. For lack of a creative lis- 
 tener they gradually" fill up with unexpressed 
 emotion. Presently this emotion begins to 
 ferment, and finally — bang! — they blow 
 up, burst, disappear in thin air. In all that 
 community I suppose there was no one but 
 the little faded wife to whom the minister 
 dared open his heart, and I think he found me 
 a godsend. All I really did was to lot)k 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 situa- 
 tion 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 of 
 it In the community." 
 
 "You are right," I exclaimed with great 
 earnestness; "you are 'right." 
 
 And with that I told him of our own 
 Scotch preacher and how he led and moulded 
 our community; and as I talked I could see 
 him actually growing, unfolding, under my 
 eyes. 
 
 "Why," said I, "you not only ought to 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD loi 
 
 • 
 
 be the moral leader of this community, but 
 you are!" 
 
 "That's what I tell him," exclaimed his 
 wife. 
 
 "But he persists in thinking, doesn't he, 
 that he is a poor sinner?" 
 
 "He thinks it too much," she laughed. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said, as much to himself as 
 to us, "a minister ought to be a fighter!" 
 
 It was beautiful, the boyish flush which 
 now came into his face and the light that 
 came into his eyes. I should never have 
 identified him with the Black Spectre of 
 the afternoon. 
 
 "Why," said I, " you are a fighter; you're 
 fighting the greatest battle in the world to- 
 day — the only real battle — the battle for 
 the spiritual view of life." 
 
 Oh, I knew exactly what was the trouble 
 with his religion — at least the religion which, 
 under the pressure of that church, he felt 
 obliged to preach! It was the old, groaning^ 
 denying, resisting religion. It was the sort 
 of religion which sets a man apart and assures 
 him that the entire universe in the guise of 
 the Powers of Darkness is leagued against 
 him. What he needed was a reviving draught 
 
I02 THE FRIENDLY' ROAD 
 
 of the new faith which affirms, accepts, re- 
 joices, which feels the universe triumphantly 
 behind it. And so whenever the minister 
 told me what he ought to be — for he too 
 sensed the new Impulse — I merely told him 
 he was just that. He needed only this little 
 encouragment to unfold. 
 
 "Yes," said he again, "I am the real moral 
 leader here." 
 
 At this I saw Mrs. Minister nodding her 
 head vigorously. v 
 
 "It's you," she said, "and not Mr. Nash, 
 who should lead this community." 
 
 How a woman loves concrete applications! 
 She is your only true pragmatist. If a phil- 
 osophy will not work, says she, why bother 
 with it ? " 
 
 The minister rose quickly from his chair, 
 threw back his head, and strode quickly up 
 and down the room. 
 
 "You are right," said he; "and I will 
 ^lead It. I'll have my farmers' meetings as I 
 planned." 
 
 It may have been the effect of the lamp- 
 light, but It seemed to me that little Mrs. 
 Minister, as she glanced up at him, looked 
 actually pretty. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 103 ■ 
 
 The minister continued to stride up and 
 down the room with his chin in the air. 
 
 "Mr. Nash," said she in a low voice to 
 me, "is always trying to hold him down and 
 keep him back. My husband wants to do 
 the great things" wistfully. 
 
 "By every right," the minister was re- 
 peating quite oblivious of our presence, "I 
 should lead this people." 
 
 "He sees the weakness of the church," 
 she continued," "as well as, any one, and he 
 wants to start some vigorous community 
 work — have agricultural meetings and boys' 
 clubs, and lots of things like that — but 
 Mr. Nash says It is no part of a minister's 
 work: that it cheapens, religion. He says' 
 that when a parson — Mr. Nash always 
 calls him parson, and I just loathe that name 
 — has preached, and prayed, and visited the 
 sick, that's enough for him." 
 
 At this very moment a step sounded 
 upon the walk, and an instant later a figure 
 appeared in the doorway. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Nash," exclaimed little Mrs. 
 Minister, exhibiting that astonishing gift 
 of swift recovery which is the possession 
 of even the simplest women, "come right in." 
 
104 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 It was some seconds before the minister 
 could come down from the heights and 
 greet Mr. Nash. As for me, I was never 
 more interested in my life. 
 
 "Now," said I to myself, "we shall see 
 Christian meet Apollyon." 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Minister lighted the 
 lamp I was introduced to the great man. 
 He looked at me sharply with his small, 
 round eyes, and said' 
 
 "Oh, you are the — the man who was in 
 church this afternoon." 
 
 I admitted it, and he looked around at 
 the minister with an accusing expression. 
 He evidently did not approve of me, nor 
 could I wholly blame him, for I knew well 
 how he, as a rich farmer, must look upon 
 a rusty man of the road like me. I should 
 have liked dearly to cross swords with him 
 myself, but greater events were imminent. 
 
 In no time at all the discussion, which 
 had evidently been broken off at some 
 previous meeting, concerning the proposed 
 farmers' assembly at the church, had taken 
 on a really lively tone. Mr. Nash was 
 evidently in the somewhat irritable mood 
 with which important people may sometimes 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 105 
 
 indulge themselves, for he bit off his words in 
 a way that was calculated to make any but 
 an unusually meek and saintly man exceed- 
 ingly uncomfortable. But the minister, with 
 the fine, high humility of those whose passion 
 is for great or true things, was quite oblivious 
 to the harsh words. Borne along by an 
 irresistible enthusiasm, he told in glowing 
 terms what his plan would mean to the 
 community, how the people needed a new 
 social and civic spirit — a "neighbourhood 
 religious feeling" he called it. And as he 
 talked his face flushed and his eyes shone 
 with the pure fire of a great purpose. But 
 I could see that all this enthusiasm impressed 
 the practical Mr. Nash as mere moonshine. 
 He grew more and more uneasy. Finally 
 he brought his hand down with a resound- 
 ing thwack upon his knee, and said in a 
 high, cutting voice: 
 
 "I don't believe in any such newfangled 
 nonsense. It ain't none of a parson's business 
 what the community does. You're hired, 
 ain't you, an ' paid to run the church ? That's 
 the end of it. We ain't goin' to have any 
 mixin' of religion an' farmin' in this neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
io6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 My eyes were on the pale man of God. 
 I felt as though a human soul were being 
 weighed in the balance. What would he do 
 now? What was he worth really as a man as 
 well as a minister? 
 
 He paused a moment with downcast eyes. 
 I saw little Mrs. Minister glance at him — 
 once — wistfully. He rose from his place, 
 drew himself up to his full height — I shall 
 not soon forget the look on his face — and 
 uttered these amazing words : 
 
 "Martha, bring the ginger-jar." 
 
 Mrs. Minister, without a word, went to 
 a little cupboard on the farther side of the 
 room and took down a brown earthenware 
 jar, which she brought over and placed on 
 the table, Mr. Nash following her move- 
 ments with astonished eyes. No one spoke. 
 
 The minister took the jar in his hands 
 as he might the communion-cup just before^ 
 saying the prayer of the sacrament. 
 
 "Mr. Nash," said he in a loud voice, "I've 
 decided to hold that farmers' meeting." 
 
 Before Mr. Nash could reply the m.inister 
 seated himself and was pouring out the 
 contents of the jar upon the table — 
 a clatter of dimes, nickels, pennies, a few 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 107 
 
 quarters and half dollars, and a very few 
 bills. 
 
 "Martha, just how much money is there 
 here?" 
 
 "Twenty-four dollars and sixteen cents." 
 
 The minister put his hand iiito his pocket 
 and, after counting out certain coins, said: 
 
 "Here's one dollar and eighty-four cents 
 more. That makes twenty-six dollars. Now, 
 Mr. Nash, you're the largest contributor 
 to my salary in this neighbourhood. You 
 gave twenty-six dollars last year — fifty 
 cents a week. It is a generous contribution, 
 but I cannot take it any longer. It .is 
 fortunate that my wife has saved up this 
 money to buy a sewing-machine, so that we 
 can pay back your contribution in full." 
 
 He paused; no one of us spoke a word. 
 
 "Mr. Nash," he continued, and his face 
 was good to see, "I am the minister here. 
 I am convinced that what the community 
 needs is more of a religious and social spirit, 
 and I am going about getting it in the way 
 the Lord leads me." 
 
 At this I saw Mrs. Minister look up at 
 her husband with such a light in her eyes 
 as any man might well barter his life for 
 
io8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 — I could not keep my own eyes from the 
 pure beauty of it. 
 
 I knew too what this defiance meant. 
 It meant that this little family was placing 
 its all upon the altar — even the pitiful 
 coins for which they had skimped and saved 
 for months for a particular purpose. Talk 
 of the heroism of the men who charged 
 with Pickett at Gettysburg! Here was a 
 courage higher and whiter than that; here 
 was a courage that dared to fight alone. 
 
 As for Mr. Nash, the face- of that Chief 
 Pharisee was a study. Nothing is so paralyz- 
 ing to a rich man as to find suddenly that 
 his money will nb longer command him any 
 advantage. Like all hard-shelled, practical 
 people, Mr. Nash could only dominate in a 
 world which recognized the same material 
 supremacy that he recognized. Any one who 
 insisted upon flying was lost to Mr. Nash. 
 
 The minister pushed the little pile of 
 coins toward him. 
 
 "Take it, Mr. Nash," said he. 
 
 At that Mr. Nash rose hastily. 
 
 "I will not," he said gruffly. 
 
 He paused, and looked at the minister 
 with a strange expression in his small round 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 109 
 
 eyes — was it anger, or was it fear, or could 
 it have been admiration? 
 
 "If you want to waste your time on 
 fiddlin' farmers' meetings — a man that knows 
 
 HE TURNED, REACHED FOR HIS HAT, AND THEN WENT 
 OUT OF THE DOOR INTO THE DARKNESS " 
 
 as little of farmin' as you do — why, go 
 ahead for all o' me. But don't count me in." 
 He turned, reached for his hat, and then 
 went out of the door into the darkness. 
 
no THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 For a moment we all sat perfectly silent, 
 then the minister rose, and said solemnly: 
 
 "Martha, let's sing something." 
 
 Martha crossed the room to the cottage 
 organ and seated herself on the stool. 
 
 "What shall we sing.'"' said she. 
 
 "Something with fight in it, Martha," he 
 responded; "something, with plenty of fight 
 in it." 
 
 So we sang "Onward, Christian Soldiers, 
 Marching as to War," and followed that 
 ¥ip with: 
 
 Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve 
 
 And press with vigour on; 
 A heavenly race demands thy zeal 
 
 And an, immortal crown. 
 
 When we had finished, and as Martha 
 rose from her seat, the minister impulsively 
 put his hands on her shoulders, and said: 
 
 "Martha, this is the greatest night? of my 
 life." 
 
 He took a turn up and down the room, 
 and then with an exultant boyish laugh 
 said: 
 
 "We'll go to town to-morrow and pick 
 out that sewing-machine ! " 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 III 
 
 I remained with them that night and part 
 of the following day, taking a hand with 
 them in the garden, but of the events of 
 that day I shall speak in another chapter. 
 
I PLAY THE PART OF A SPECTACLE 
 PEDDLER 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 I PLAY THE PART OF A SPECTACLE- 
 PEDDLER 
 
 YESTERDAY was exactly the sort of a 
 day I love best — a spicy, unexpected, 
 amusing day — a day crowned with a droll 
 adventure. 
 
 I cannot at all 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 that I am slowly shedding 
 
ii6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 my years. I suspect that some one of the 
 clear hill streams from which I have been 
 drinking (lying prone on my face) was in 
 reality the fountain of eternal youth. I 
 shall not go back to see. 
 
 It seems to me, when I feel like this, 
 that in every least thing upon the roadside, 
 or upon the hill, lurks the stuff of adventure. 
 What a world it is! A mile south of here 
 I shall find all that Stanley found in the 
 jungles of Africa; a mile north I am Peary 
 at the Pole! 
 
 You there, brown-clad farmer on the tall 
 seat of your wagon, driving townward with 
 a red heifer for sale, I can show you that life 
 — your life — is not all a gray smudge, as 
 you think it is, but crammed, packed, loaded 
 with miraculous things. I can show you 
 wonders past belief in your own soul. I 
 can easily convince you that you are in 
 reality a poet, a hero, a true lover, a saint. 
 
 It is because we are not humble enough 
 in the presence of the divine daily fact 
 that adventure knocks so rarely at our 
 door. A thousand times I have had to 
 learn this truth (what lesson so hard to 
 learn as the lesson of humility!) and I 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 117 
 
 suppose I shall have to learn it a thousand 
 times more. This very day, straining my eyes 
 to see the distant wonders of the mountains, 
 I nearly missed a miracle by the roadside. 
 
 Soon after leaving the minister and his 
 family — I worked with them in their garden 
 with great delight most of the forenoon — 
 I came, within a mile, to the wide white 
 turnpike — the Great Road. 
 
 Now, I^ usually prefer the little roads, 
 the little, unexpected, curving, leisurely coun- 
 try roads. The sharp hills, the pleasant 
 deep valleys, the bridges not too well kept, 
 the verdure deep grown along old fences, 
 the houses opening hospitably at the very 
 roadside, all these things I love. They 
 come to me with the same sort of charm and 
 flavour, only vastly magnified, which I find 
 often in the essays of the older writers — 
 those leisurely old fellows who took time to 
 write, really write. The important thing 
 to me about a road, as about life and litera- 
 ture, is not' that it goes anywhere, but that 
 it is livable while it goes. For if I were to 
 arrive — and who knows that I ever shall 
 arrive t — I think I should be no happier 
 than I am here. 
 
1 1 8' THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I 
 Thus I have commonly avoided the Great 
 
 White Road — the broad, smooth turnpike — 
 
 rock-bottomed and rolled by a beneficent 
 
 State — without so much as a loitering curve 
 
 to whet one's curiosity; nor a thank-you-ma'am 
 
 to laugh over, nor a sinful hill to test your 
 
 endurance — not so much as a dreamy valley! 
 
 It pursues its hard, unshaded, practical way 
 
 directly from some particular place to some 
 
 other particular place — and from time to 
 
 time a motor-car shoots in at one end of it 
 
 and out at the other, leaving its dust to 
 
 settle upon quiet travellers like me. 
 
 Thus to-day when I came to the turn- 
 pike I was at first for making straight across 
 it and taking to the hills beyond, but at 
 that very moment a motor-car whirled past 
 me as I stood there, and a girl with a merry 
 face waved her hand at me. I lifted my hat 
 in return, and as I watched them out of 
 sight I felt a curious new sense of warmth and 
 friendliness there in the Great Road. 
 
 "These are just people, too," 1 said aloud 
 — "and maybe they really like it!" 
 
 And with that I began laughing at myself, 
 and at the whole big, amazing, interesting 
 world. Here was I pitying them for their 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 119 
 
 benighted state, and there were they, no 
 doubt, pitying me for mine! 
 
 And with that pleasant and satisfactory 
 thought in my mind and a song in my throat 
 I swung into the Great Road. 
 
 "It doesn't matter in the least," said I 
 to myself, "whether a man takes hold of life 
 by the great road or the little ones so long as 
 he' takes hold." 
 
 And oh, it was a wonderful day! A 
 day with riiovement in it; a day that flowed! 
 In every field the farmers were at work, 
 the cattle fed widely in the meadows, and 
 the Great Road itself was alive with a hundred 
 varied sorts of activity. ' Light winds stirred 
 the tree-tops and rippled in the new grass; 
 and from the thickets I heard the blackbirds 
 crying. Everything animate and inanimate, 
 that morning, seemed to have its own clear 
 voice and to cry out at me for my interest, 
 or curiosity, or sympathy. Under such cir- 
 cumstances it could not have been long — 
 nor was it long — before I came plump upon 
 the first of a series of odd adventures. 
 
 A great many people, I know, abominate 
 the roadside sign. It seems to them a des- 
 
I20 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 ecration 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 
 swamproot or sarsaparilla — and yet there 
 is something wonderfully human about these 
 painted and pasted vociferations of the road- 
 side signs; and I don't know why they are 
 less "natural" in their way than a house 
 or barn of a planted field of corn. They 
 also tell us about life. How eagerly they 
 cry out at us, "Buy me, buy me!" What 
 enthusiasm they have in their own concerns, 
 what boundless faith in themselves! How 
 they speak of the enormous energy, activity, 
 resourcefulness of human kind! 
 
 Indeed, I like all kinds of signs. The 
 autocratic warnings of the road, the musts 
 and the must-nots of traffic, I observe in 
 passing; and I often stand long at the cross- 
 ings and look up at the finger-posts, and 
 consider my Hmitless wealth as a traveller. 
 By this road I may, at my own pleasure, 
 reach the Great City; by that — who knows? 
 — the far wonders of Cathay. And I re- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 121 
 
 spond always to the appeal which the devoted 
 pilgrim paints on the rocks at the roadside: 
 "Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at 
 hand," and though I am certain that the 
 kingdom of God is already here, I stop 
 always and repent — just a little — knowing 
 that there is always room for it. At the 
 entrance of the little towns, also, or in the 
 squares of the villages, I stop often to read 
 the signs of taxes assessed, or of political 
 meetings; I see the evidences of homes 
 broken up in the notices of auction sales, 
 and of families bereaved in the dry and 
 fbrmal 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 road- 
 side that I never saw anywhere before. 
 It was not a large sign — indeed rather 
 inconspicuous — consisting of a single word 
 
122 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 enliven- 
 ment, of pleasure I had when I saw this new 
 sign. 
 
 "Rest!" I exclaimed aloud. "Indeed I 
 will," and I sat down on a stone not far away, 
 
 "Rest!" 
 
 What a signv 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, evi- 
 dently put that up; some quietist offering 
 this mild protest against the breathless prog- 
 ress of the age. How often I have felt- 
 the, same way myself — as though I were 
 being swept onward through life faster than 
 I could well enjoy it. For nature passes the 
 dishes far more rapidly than we can help 
 ourselves. 
 
THE FRIENDLY 'ROAD 123 
 
 Or perhaps, thought I, eagerly specu- 
 lating, this may be only some cunning ad- 
 vertiser with rest for sale (in these days 
 even rest has its price), thus piquing the 
 curiosity of the traveller for the disclosure 
 which he will make a mile or so farther on. 
 Or else some humourist wasting his wit upon 
 the Fraternity of the Road, too willing (like 
 me, perhaps) to accept his ironical advice. 
 But it would be well worth while, should I 
 find him, to see him chuckle behind his hand. 
 
 So I sat there, very much interested, for 
 a long time, even framing a rather amus- 
 ing picture in my own mind of the sort of 
 person who painted these signs, deciding 
 finally that he must be a zealot rather than 
 a trader or humourist. (Confidentially, I 
 could not make a picture of him in which he 
 was not endowed with plentiful long hair!) 
 As I walked onward again, I decided that 
 in any guise I should like to see him, and I 
 enjoyed thinking what I should say if I 
 met him. A mile farther up the road I 
 saw another sign exactly like the first. 
 
 "Here he is again," I said exultantly, 
 and that sign being somewhat nearer the 
 ground I was able to examine it carefully 
 
124 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 front and back, but it bore no evidence 
 of its origin. 
 
 In the next few miles I saw two other 
 signs with nothing on them but the single 
 word "Rest." 
 
 Now this excellent admonition — like much 
 of the excellent admonition in this world — 
 affected me perversely: it made me more 
 restless than ever. I felt that I could not 
 rest properly until I found out who wanted 
 me to rest, and why. It opened indeed a 
 limitless vista for new adventure. 
 
 Presently, away ahead of me in the road, 
 I saw a man standing near a one-horse 
 wagon. He seemed to be engaged in some 
 activity near the roadside, but I could not 
 tell exactly what. As I hastened nearer I 
 discovered that he was a short, strongly 
 built, sun-bronzed man in working-clothes 
 — and with the shortest of short hair. I 
 saw him take a shovel from the wagon and 
 begin digging. He was the road-worker. 
 
 I asked the road-worker if he had seen 
 the curious signs. He looked up at me with 
 a broad smile (he had good-humoured, very 
 bright blue eyes). 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 125 
 
 "Yes," he said, "but they ain't for me." 
 
 "Then you don't follow the advice they 
 give?" 
 
 "Not with a section like mine," said he, and 
 he straightened up and looked first one way 
 of the road and then the other. "I have 
 from Grabow Brook, but not the bridge, to the 
 top o' Sullivan Hill, and all the culverts be- 
 tween, though two of 'em are by rights 
 bridges. And I claim that's a job for any 
 full-grown man." 
 
 He began shovelling again in the road as if 
 to prove how busy he was. There had been 
 a small landslide from an open cut on one side 
 and a mass of gravel and small boulders lay 
 scattered on the smooth macadam. I watched 
 him for a moment. I love to watch the mo- 
 tions of vigorous men at work, the easy play 
 of the muscles, the swing of the shoulders, 
 the vigour of stoutly planted legs. He evi- 
 dently considered the conversation closed, 
 and I, as — well, as a dusty man of the road — 
 easily dismissed. (You have no idea, until 
 you try it, what a weight of prejudice the 
 man of the road has to surmount before he is 
 accepted on easy terms by the ordinary mem- 
 bers of the human race.) 
 
126 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 A few other well-intentioned observations 
 on my part having elicited nothing but 
 naonosyllabic replies, I put my bag down by 
 the roadside and, going up to the wagon, 
 got out a shovel, and without a word 
 took my place at the other end of the 
 landslide and began to shovel for all I was 
 worth. 
 
 I said not a word to the husky road-worker 
 and pretended not to look at him, but I saw 
 him well enough out of the corner of my eye. 
 He was evidently astonished and interested, 
 as I knew he would be: it was something 
 entirely new on the road. He didn't quite 
 know whether to be angry, or amused, or 
 sociable. I caught him looking over at me 
 several times, but I offered no response; then 
 he cleared his throat and said: 
 
 "Where you from?" 
 
 I answered with a monosyllable which I 
 knew he could not quite catch. Silence 
 again for some time, during which I shovelled 
 valiantly and with great inward amusement. 
 Oh, there is nothing like cracking a hard 
 human nut! I decided at that moment to 
 have him invite me to supper. 
 
 Finally, when I showed no signs of stopping 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 127 
 
 my work, he himself paused and leaned on his 
 shovel. I kept right on. 
 
 "Say, partner," said he, finally, "did you 
 read those signs as you come up the road ? " 
 
 "Yes," I said, "but they weren't for me,, 
 either. My section's a long one, too." 
 
 "Say, you ain't a road-worker, are you?" 
 he asked eagerly. 
 
 "Yes," said I, with a sudden inspiration, 
 "that's exactly what I am — a road-worker. "^ 
 
 "Put her there, then, partner," he said,, 
 with a broad smile on his bronzed face. 
 
 He and I struck hands, rested on our 
 shovels (like old hands at it), and looked with 
 understanding into each other's eyes. We 
 both knew the trade and the tricks of the 
 trade; all bars were down between us. The 
 fact is, we had both seen and profited by the 
 peculiar signs at the roadside. 
 
 "Where's your section?" he asked easily. 
 
 "Well," I responded after considering the 
 question, "I have a very long and hard 
 section. It begins at a place called Prosy 
 Common — do you know it ? — and reaches. 
 to the top of Clear Hill. There are several 
 bad spots on the way, I can tell you." 
 
 "Don't know it," said the husky road- 
 
128 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 worker; '"taln'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 informa- 
 tion, a. motor-car whizzed past, the driver 
 holding up his hand in greeting, and the 
 road- worker and I responding in accord with 
 the etiquette of the Great Road. 
 
 "There he goes in the ruts again," said 
 the husky road-worker. "Why is it, I'd 
 like to know, that every one wants to run in 
 the same i-dentical track when they've got 
 the whole wide road before 'em?" 
 
 "That's what has long puzzled me, too," I 
 said. "Why will people continue to run in 
 ruts?" 
 
 "It don't seem to do no good to put' up 
 signs," said the road-worker. 
 
 "Very little indeed," said I. "The fact is, 
 people have got to be bumped out of most 
 of the ruts they get into." 
 
 "You're right," said he enthusiastically, 
 and his voice dropped into the tone of one 
 speaking to a member of the inner guild. 
 "I know how to get 'em." 
 
A MOTOR-CAR WHIZZED PAST. THERE HE GOES IN THE 
 
 RUTS AGAIN," SAID THE HUSKY ROAD-WORKER 
 
I30 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "How?" I asked in an equally mysterious •: 
 voice. 
 
 " I put a stone or two in the ruts ! " 
 
 "Do you?" I exclaimed. "I've done that 
 very thing myself — many a time! Just 
 place a good hard tru — I mean stone, with a 
 bit of common dust sprinkled over it, in the 
 middle of the rut, and they'll look out for 
 that rut for some time to come." 
 
 "Ain't it gorgeous," said the husky road- 
 worker, chuckling joyfully, "to see 'em 
 bump?" 
 
 "It is," said I — "gorgeous." 
 
 After that, shovelling part of the time 
 in a leisurely way, and part of the time 
 responding to the urgent request of the 
 signs by the roadside (it pays to advertise!), 
 the husky road-worker and I discussed many 
 great and important subjects, all, however, 
 curiously related to roads. Working all day 
 long with his old horse, removing obstructions, 
 draining out the culverts, filling ruts and 
 holes with new stone, and repairing the 
 damage of rain and storm, the road-worker 
 was filled with a world of practical information 
 covering roads and road-making. And hav- 
 ing learned that I was of the same calling 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 131 
 
 we exchanged views with the greatest enthu- 
 siasm. It was astonishing to see how nearly 
 in agreement we were as to what constituted 
 an ideal road. 
 
 "Almost everything," said he, "depends 
 on* depth. If you get a good solid foundation, 
 the' ain't anything that can break up your 
 road." 
 
 "Exactly what I have discovered," I re- 
 sponded. "Get down to bedrock and do an 
 honest job of building." 
 
 "And don't have too many sharp turns." 
 
 "No," said I, "long, leisurely curves are 
 best — all through life. You have observed 
 that nearly all the accidents on the road are 
 due to sharp turnings." 
 
 "Right you are I" he exclaimed. 
 
 "A man who tries to turn too sharply on 
 his way nearly always skids." 
 
 "Or else turns turtle in the ditch." 
 
 But it was not until we reached the subject 
 of oiling that we mounted to the real summit 
 of enthusiastic agreement. Of all things 
 on the road, or above the road, or in the 
 waters under the road, there is nothing that 
 the road-worker dislikes more than oil. 
 
 "It's all right," said he, "to use oil for 
 
132 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 surfacin' and to keep down the dust. You 
 don't need much and it ain't messy. But 
 sometimes when you see oil pumped on a 
 road, you know that either the contractor 
 has been jobbin', or else the road's worn 
 out and ought to be rebuilt." 
 
 "That's exactly what I've found," said 
 I. "Let a road become almost impassable 
 with ruts and rocks and dust, and immedi- 
 ately some man says, 'Oh, it's all right — 
 put on a little oil '" 
 
 "That's what our supervisor is always 
 sayin', " said the road-worker. 
 
 "Yes," I responded, "it usually is the 
 supervisor. He lives by it. He wants to 
 smooth over the defects, he wants to lay 
 the dust that every passerby kicks up, 
 he tries to smear over the truth regarding 
 conditions with messy and ill-smelling oil. 
 Above everything, he doesn't want the 
 road dug up and rebuilt — says it will 
 interfere with traffic, injure business, and 
 even set people to talking about changing 
 the route entirely! Oh, haven't I seen it in 
 religion, where they are doing their best 
 to oil up roads that are entirely worn out 
 — and as for politics, is not the cry of the 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 133 
 
 party-roadster and the harmony-oilers abroad 
 in the land?" 
 
 In the excited interest with which this 
 idea now bore me along I had entirely for- 
 gotten the existence of my companion, and 
 as I now glanced at him I saw him standing 
 with a curious look of astonishment and 
 suspicion on his face. I saw that I had 
 unintentionally gone a little too far. So I 
 said abruptly: 
 
 "Partner, let's get a drink. I'm thirsty." 
 
 He followed me, I thought a bit reluctantly, 
 to a little brook not far up the road where 
 we had been once before. As we were 
 drinking, silently, I looked at the stout 
 young fellow standing there, and I thought 
 to myself: 
 
 What a good, straightforward young fel- 
 low he is anyway, and how thoroughly 
 he knows his job. I thought how well 
 he was equipped with unilluminated knowl- 
 edge, and it came to me whimsically, 
 that here was a fine bit of road-mending 
 for me to do. 
 
 Most people have sight, but few have 
 insight; and as I looked into the clear blue 
 eyes of my friend I had a sudden swift 
 
134 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 inspiration, and before I could repent of it 
 I had said to him in the most serious voice 
 that I could command: 
 
 "Friend, I am in reality a spectacle- 
 peddler " 
 
 His glance shifted uncomfortably to my 
 gray bag. 
 
 "And I want to sell you a pair of spec- 
 tacles," I said. "I see that you are nearly 
 blind." 
 
 "Me blind!" 
 
 It would be utterly impossible to describe 
 the expression on his face. His hand went 
 involuntarily to his eyes, and he glanced 
 quickly, somewhat fearfully, about. 
 
 "Yes, nearly blind," said I. "I saw it 
 when I first met you. You don't know it 
 yourself yet, but I can assure you it is a bad 
 case." 
 
 I paused, and shook my head slowly. 
 If I had not been so- much in earnest, I 
 think I should have been tempted to laugh 
 outright. I had begun my talk with him 
 half jestingly, with the amusing idea of 
 breaking through his shell, but I now found 
 myself tremendously engrossed, and desiring 
 nothing in the world (at that moment) 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 135 
 
 so much as to make him see what I saw. 
 I felt as though I held a live human soul in 
 my hand. 
 
 "Say, partner," said the road-worker,, "are 
 
 you sure you aren't " He tapped his 
 
 forehead and began to edge away. 
 
 I did not answer his question at all, but 
 continued, with my eyes fixed on him: 
 
 "It is a peculiar sort of blindness. Ap- 
 parently, as you look about, you see every- 
 thing there is to see, but as a matter of fact 
 you see nothing in the world but this road " 
 
 "It's time that I was seein' it again then," 
 said he, making as if to turn back to work, 
 but remaining with a disturbed expression 
 on his countenance. 
 
 "The spectacles I have to sell," said I, 
 "are powerful magnifiers" — he glanced again 
 at the gray bag. "When you put them on 
 you will see a thousand wonderful things 
 besides the road " 
 
 "Then you ain't a road-worker after all!" 
 he said, evidently trying to be bluff and 
 outright with me. 
 
 Now your substantial, sober, practical 
 American will stand only about so much 
 
136 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 verbal foolery; and there is nothing in the 
 world that makes him more uncomfortable 
 — yes, downright mad ! - — than to feel that 
 he is being played with. I could see that 
 I had nearly reached the limit with him, 
 and that if I held him now it must be by 
 driving the truth straight home. So I stepped 
 over toward him and said very earnestly: 
 
 "My friend, don't think I am merely 
 joking you. I was never more in earnest 
 ^ in all my life. When I told you I was a 
 road-worker I meant it, but I had in mind 
 the mending of other kinds of roads than 
 this." 
 
 I laid my hand on his arm, and explained 
 to him as directly and simply as English 
 words could do it, how, when he had spoken 
 of oil for his roads, I thought of another 
 sort of oil for another sort of roads, and when 
 he spoke of curves in his roads I was thinking 
 of curves in the roads I dealt with, and 
 I explained to him what my roads were. 
 I have never seen a man more intensely 
 interested: he neither moved nor took his 
 eyes from my face. 
 
 "And when I spoke of selling you a pair 
 of spectacles," said I, "it was only a way of 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 137 
 
 telling you how much I wanted to make you 
 see my kinds of roads as well as your own." 
 
 I paused, wondering if, after all, he 
 could be made to see. I know now how 
 the surgeon must feel at the crucial mo- 
 ment of his accomplished operation. Will 
 the patient live or die? 
 
 The road-worker drew a long breath as 
 he came out from under the anesthetic. 
 
 "I guess, partner," said he, "you're try- 
 ing to put a stone or two in my ruts!" 
 
 I had him! 
 
 "Exactly," I exclaimed eagerly. 
 
 We both paused. He was the first to 
 speak — with some embarrassment: 
 
 "Say, you're just like a preacher I used 
 to know when I was a kid. He was always 
 sayin' things that meant something else, 
 and when you found out what he was drivin' 
 at you always felt kind of queer in your 
 insides." 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 "It's a mighty good sign," I said, "when 
 a man begins to feel queer in the insides. 
 It shows that something is happening to 
 him." 
 
 With that we walked back to th^ road, 
 
138 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 feeling very close and friendly — and began 
 shovelling again, not saying much. After 
 quite a time, when we had nearly cleaned 
 up the landslide, I heard the husky road- 
 worker chuckling to himself; finally, straight- 
 ening up, he said: 
 
 "Say, there's more things in a road than 
 ever I dreamt of." 
 
 "I see," said I, "that the new spectacles 
 are a good fit." 
 
 The road-worker laughed long and loud. 
 
 "You're a good one, all right," he said. 
 " I see what you mean. I catch your point." 
 
 "And now that you've got them on," 
 said I, "and they are serving you so well, 
 I'm not going to sell them to you at all. 
 I'm going to present them to you — for 
 I haven't seen anybody in a long time that 
 I've enjoyed meeting more than I have you." 
 
 We nurse a fiction that people love to 
 cover up their feelings; but I have learned 
 that if the feeling is real and deep they love 
 far better to find a way to uncover it, 
 
 "Same here," said the road--v^orker simply, 
 but with a world of genuine feeling in his 
 voice. 
 
 Well, when it came time to stop work 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 139 
 
 the road-worker insisted that I get in and 
 go home with him. 
 
 "I want you to see my wife and kids," 
 said he. 
 
 The upshot of it was that I not only 
 remained for supper — and a good supper 
 it was — but I spent the night in his little 
 home, close at the side of the road near 
 the foot of a fine hill. And from time to 
 time all night long, it seemed to me, I could 
 hear the rush of cars going by in the smooth 
 road outside, and sometimes their lights 
 flashed in at my window, and sometimes 
 I heard them sound their brassy horns. 
 
 I wish I could tell more of what I saw 
 there, of the garden back of the house, and 
 of all the road-worker and his wife told me 
 of their simple history — but the road calls! 
 
 When I set forth early this morning the 
 road-worker followed me out to the smooth 
 macadam (his wife standing in the doorway 
 with her hands rolled in her apron) and said 
 to me, a bit shyly: 
 
 " I'll be more sort o' — sort o' interested 
 in roads since I've seen you." 
 
 "I'll be along again some of these days," 
 said I, laughing, "and I'll stop in and show 
 
HO THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 you my new stock of spectacles. Maybe I 
 can sell you another pair!" 
 
 "Maybe you kin," and he smiled a broad, 
 understanding smile. 
 
 Nothing brings men together like having 
 a joke in common. 
 
 So I walked off down the road — in the 
 best of spirits — ready for the events of an- 
 other day. 
 
 It will surely be a great adventure, one 
 of these days, to come this way again — 
 and to visit the Stanleys, and the Vedders, 
 and the Minister, and drop in and sell another 
 pair of specs to the Road-worker. It seems 
 to me I have a wonderfully rosy future 
 ahead of me ! 
 
 P. S. — I have not yet found out who painted 
 the curious signs; but I am not as uneasy 
 about it as I was. I have seen two more of 
 them already this morning — and find they 
 exert quite a psychological influence. 
 
AN EXPERIMENT IN HUMAN 
 NATURE 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN HUMAN NATURE 
 
 IN THE early morning after I left the husky 
 road-mender (wearing his new spectacles), 
 I remained steadfastly on the Great Road or 
 near it. It was a prime spring day, just a 
 little hazy, as though promising rain, but soft 
 and warm. 
 
 "They will be working in the garden at 
 home," I thought, " and there will be worlds 
 of rhubarb and asparagus." Then I remem- 
 bered how the morning sunshine would look 
 on the little vine-clad back porch (reaching 
 
 ^43 
 
144 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 halfway up the weathered door) of my own 
 house among the hills. 
 
 It was the first time since my pilgrimage 
 began that I had thought with any emotion 
 of my farm — or of Harriet. 
 
 And then the road claimed me again, 
 and I beg^n to look out for some further 
 explanation of the curious sign, the single 
 word "Rest," which had interested me so 
 keenly on the preceding day. It may seem 
 absurd to some who read these lines — • 
 some practical people ! — but I cannot convey 
 the pleasure I had in the very elusiveness 
 and mystery of the sign, nor how I wished 
 I might at the next turn come upon the poet 
 himself. I decided that no one but a poet 
 could have contented himself with a lyric 
 in one word, unless it might have been a 
 humourist, to whom sometimes a single 
 small word is more blessed than all the 
 verbal riches of Webster himself. For it 
 is nothing short of genius that uses one 
 word when twenty will say the same 
 thing! 
 
 Or, would he, after all, turn out to be 
 only a more than ordinarily alluring ad- 
 vertiser? I confess my heart went into 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 145 
 
 my throat that morning, when I first saw 
 the sign, lest it read : 
 
 REST 
 
 aurant 2 miles east 
 
 nor should I have been surprised if it had. 
 
 I caught a vicarious glimpse of the sign- 
 man to-day, through the eyes of a young 
 farmer. Yes, he s'posed he'd seen him, 
 he said; wore a slouch hat, couldn't tell 
 whether he was young or old. Drove into 
 the bushes (just daown there beyond 
 the brook) and, standin' on the seat of 
 his buggy, nailed something to a tree. A 
 day or two later — the dull wonder of man- 
 kind! — the young farmer, passing that way 
 to town, had seen the odd sign "Rest" on the 
 tree: he s'posed the fellow put it there. 
 
 "What does it mean?" 
 
 "Well, naow, I hadn't thought," said the 
 young farmer. 
 
 "Did the fellow by any chance have long 
 hair?" 
 
 "Well, naow, I didn't notice," said he. 
 
 "Are you sure he wore a slouch hat?" 
 
146 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Ye-es — or it may a-been straw," re- 
 plied the observant young farmer. 
 
 So I tramped that morning; and as I 
 tramped I let my mind go out warmly 
 to the people living all about on the farms 
 or in the hills. It is pleasant at times to 
 feel life, as it were, in general terms; no 
 specific Mr. Smith or concrete Mr. Jones, 
 but just human life. I love to think of 
 people all around going out busily in the 
 morning to their work and returning at 
 night, weary, to rest. I like to think of 
 them growing up, growing old, loving, achiev- 
 ing, sinning, failing — in short, living. 
 
 In such a live-minded mood as this it 
 often happens that the most ordinary things 
 appear charged with new significance. I 
 suppose I had seen a thousand rural-mail 
 boxes along country roads before that day, 
 but I had seen them as the young farmer saw 
 the sign-man. They were mere inert objects 
 of iron and wood. 
 
 But as I tramped, thinking of the people 
 in the hills, I came quite unexpectedly 
 upon a sandy by-road that came out through 
 a thicket of scrub oaks and hazel-brush, 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 147 
 
 like some shy countryman, to join the turn- 
 pike. As I stood looking into it — for 
 it seemed peculiarly inviting — I saw at 
 the entrance a familiar group of rural-mail 
 boxes. And I saw them not as dead things, 
 but for the moment — the illusion was over- 
 powering — they were living, eager hands 
 outstretched to the passing throng. I could 
 feel, hear, see the farmers up there in the 
 hills reaching out to me, to all the world, 
 for a thousand inexpressible things, for more 
 life, more companionship, more comforts, 
 more money. 
 
 It occurred to me at that moment, whim- 
 sically and yet somehow seriously, that I 
 might respond to the appeal of the shy coun- 
 try road and the outstretched hands. At 
 first I did not think of anything I could do 
 — save to go up and eat dinner with one 
 of the hill farmers, which might not be an 
 unmixed blessing! — and then it came to me. 
 
 "I will write a letter!" 
 
 Straightway and with the liveliest amuse- 
 ment I began to formulate in my mind what 
 I should say: 
 
 Dear Friend : You do not know me. ■ I am a passerby in 
 the Toad. My name is David Grayson. You do not know 
 
148 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 of your 
 family and your farm. The fact is, I should like to look 
 you up, and talk with you about many things. I myself 
 cultivate a number of curious fields, and raise many kinds of 
 crops 
 
 At this interesting point my inspiration 
 suddenly collapsed, for I had a vision, at 
 once amusing and disconcerting, of my hill 
 farmer (and his practical wife!) receiving 
 such a letter (along with the country paper, 
 a circular advertising a cure for catarrh, 
 and the most recent catalogue of the largest 
 mail-order house in creation). I could see 
 them standing there in their doorway, the 
 man with his coat off, doubtfully scratching 
 his head as he read my letter, the woman 
 wiping her hands on her apron and looking 
 over his shoulder, and a youngster squeezing 
 between the two and demanding, "What 
 is it, Paw?" 
 
 I found myself wondering how they would 
 receive such an unusual letter, what they 
 would take it to mean. And in spite of 
 all I could do, I could imagine no expression 
 on their faces save one of incredulity and 
 suspicion. I could fairly see the shrewd. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 149 
 
 worldly wise look come into the farmer's face; 
 I could hear him say: 
 
 "Ha, guess he thinks we ain't cut our 
 eye-teeth!" And he would instantly begin 
 speculating as to whether this was a new 
 scheme for selling him second-rate nursery 
 stock, or the smooth introduction of another 
 sewing-machine agent. . 
 
 Strange world, strange world! Sometimes 
 it seems to me that the hardest thing of all 
 to believe in is simple friendship. Is it not 
 a comment upon our civilization that it 
 is so often easier to believe that a man is a 
 friend-for-profit, or even a cheat, than that 
 he is frankly a well-wisher of his neighbours ? 
 
 These reflections put such a damper upon 
 my enthusiasm that I was on the point of 
 taking again to the road, when it came to me 
 powerfully: Why not try the experiment? 
 Why not? 
 
 "Friendship," I said aloud, "is the greatest 
 thing in the world. There is no door it will 
 not unlock, no problem it will not solve. It 
 is, after all, the only real thing in this world." 
 
 The sound of my own voice brought me 
 suddenly to myself, and I found that I 
 
I50 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 was standing there in the middle of the 
 public road, one clenched fist absurdly raised 
 in air, delivering an oration to a congregation 
 of rural-mail boxes! 
 
 And yet, in spite of the humorous aspects 
 of the idea, it still appeared to me that such 
 an experiment would not only fit in with the 
 true object of my journeying, but that it 
 might be full of amusing and interesting 
 adventures. Straightway I got my note- 
 book 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 coriipanionship 
 as I myself, working in my own fields, would 
 like to receive. 
 
 Among the letter-boxes in the group was 
 one that stood a little detached and behind 
 the others, as though shrinking from such 
 prosperous company. It was made of un- 
 painted wood, with leather hinges, and looked ■ 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 151 
 
 shabby in comparison with the jaunty red, 
 green, and gray paint of some of the other 
 boxes (with their cocky little metallic flags 
 upraised). It bore the good American name 
 of Clark — T. N. Clark — and it seemed to 
 me that I could tell something of the Clarks 
 by the box at the crossing. 
 
 "I think they need a friendly word," I said 
 to myself. 
 
 So I wrote the name T. N. Clark on my 
 envelope and put the letter in his box. 
 
 It was with a sense of joyous adventure 
 that I now turned aside into the sandy road 
 and climbed the hill. My mind busied 
 itself with thinking how I should carry out 
 my experiment, how I should approach these 
 Clarks, and how and what they were. A 
 thousand ways I pictured to myself the 
 receipt of the letter: it would at least be 
 something new for them, something just a 
 little disturbing, and I was curious to see 
 whether it might open the rift of wonder wide 
 enough to let me slip into their lives. 
 
 I have often wondered why it is that 
 men should be so fearful of new ventures 
 in social relationships, when I have found 
 them so fertile, so enjoyable. Most of us 
 
152 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 fear (actually fear) people who differ from 
 ourselves, either up or down the scale. 
 Your Edison pries fearlessly into the most 
 intimate secrets of matter; your Marconi 
 employs the mysterious properties of the 
 "jellied ether," but let a man seek to experi- 
 ment with the laws of that singular electricity 
 which connects you and me (though you be 
 a millionaire and I a ditch-digger), and we 
 think him a wild visionary, an academic 
 person. I think sometimes that the science 
 of humanity to-day is in about the state of 
 darkness that the natural sciences were 
 when Linnaeus and Cuvier and Lamarck 
 began groping for the great laws of natural 
 unity. Most of the human race is still 
 groaning under the belief that each of us is 
 a special and unrelated creation, just as 
 men for ages saw no relationships between 
 the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, 
 and the fish of the sea. But, thank God, 
 we are beginning to learn that unity is as 
 much a law of life as selfish struggle, and love 
 a more vital force than avarice or lust of 
 power or place. A Wandering Carpenter 
 knew it, and taught it, twenty centuries 
 ago. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 153 
 
 "The next house beyond the ridge," said 
 the toothless old woman, pointing with 
 a long finger, "is the Clarks'. You can't 
 miss it," and I thought she looked at me 
 oddly. 
 
 I had been walking briskly for some 
 three miles, and it was with keen expecta- 
 tion that I now mounted the ridge and 
 saw the farm for which I was looking, lying 
 there in the valley before me. It was al- 
 together a wild and beautiful bit of country — 
 stunted cedars on the knolls of the roHing 
 hills, a brook trailing its way among alders 
 and willows down a long valley, and shaggy 
 old fields smiling in the sun. As I came nearer 
 I could see that the only disharmony in the 
 valley was the work (or idleness) of men. A 
 broken mowing-machine stood in the field 
 where it had been left the summer before, rusty 
 and forlorn, and dead weeds marked the 
 edges of a field wherein the spring plough- 
 ing was now only half done. The whole 
 farmstead, indeed, looked tired. As for the 
 house and bafn, 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 
 
154 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 from the farm of the energetic and joyous 
 Stanleys, whose work I had shared only a 
 few days before, as anything that could be 
 imagined. 
 
 Now, my usual way of getting into step 
 with people is simplicity itself. I take off 
 my coat and go to work with them and the 
 first thing I know we have become first-rate 
 friends. One doesn't dream of the possi- 
 bilities of companionship in labour until he 
 has tried it. 
 
 B\it how shall one get into step with a man 
 who is not stepping? 
 
 On the porch of the farmhouse, there 
 in the mid-afternoon, a man sat idly; and 
 children were at play in the yard. I went 
 in at the gate, not knowing in the least 
 what I should say or do, but determined to 
 get hold of the problem somewhere. As I 
 approached the step, I swung my bag from 
 my shoulder. 
 
 "Don't want to buy nothin', " said the man. 
 
 "Well," said I, "that is fortunate, for I 
 have nothing to sell. But you've got some- 
 thing I want." 
 
 He looked at me dully- 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 155 
 
 "A drink of water." 
 
 Scarcely moving his head, he called to 
 
 AS I STOOD THERE THE CHILDREN GATHERED CURIOUSLY 
 AROUND ME " 
 
 a shy older girl who had just appeared in 
 
 the doorway. 
 
 "Mandy, bring a dipper of water." 
 
 As I stood there the children gathered 
 
iS6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 curiously around me, and the man con- 
 tinued to sit in his chair, saying absolutely 
 nothing, a picture of dull discouragement. 
 
 "How they need something to stir them 
 up," I thought. 
 
 When I had emptied the dipper, I sat 
 down on the top step of the porch, and, 
 without saying a word to the man, placed 
 my bag beside me and began to open it. 
 The shy girl paused, dipper in hand, the 
 children stood on tiptoe, and even the man 
 showed signs of curiosity. With studied 
 deliberation I took out two books I had 
 with me and put them on the porch; then I 
 proceeded to rummage for a long time in 
 the bottom of the bag as though I could 
 not find what I wanted. Every eye was 
 glued upon me, and I even heard the step 
 of Mrs. Clark as she came to the doorway, 
 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." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 157 
 
 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 audi- 
 ence 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 
 playin'g itself, the make-believe which went 
 with it, the surprise and interest in the 
 children's faces, the slow-breaking smile of 
 the little girl with the dipper. 
 
 "I'll warrant you, madam," I said to the 
 woman who now stood frankly in the door- 
 way with her hands wrapped in her apron, 
 "you haven't heard those tunes since you 
 were a girl and danced to 'em." 
 
 "You're right," she responded heartily. 
 
 "I'll give you another jolly one," I said, 
 and, replacing my whistle, I began with 
 even greater zest to play " ifankee Doodle." 
 
 When I had gone through it half a dozen 
 times with such added variations and trills 
 as I could command, and had two of the 
 children hopping about in the yard, and the 
 forlorn man tapping his toe to the tune, and 
 a smile on the face of the forlorn woman, I 
 
iS8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 wound up with a rush, and then, as if I could 
 hold myself in no longer (and I couldn't 
 either!), I suddenly burst out: 
 
 Yankee doodle dandy! 
 Yankee doodle dandy! 
 Mind the music and the'step, 
 And with the girls be handy. 
 
 It jnay seem surprising, but I think I 
 can understand why it was — when I looked 
 up" at the woman in the doorway there were 
 tears in her eyes! 
 
 "Do you know 'John Brown's Body'?" 
 eagerly inquired the little girl with the 
 dipper, and then, as if she had done some- 
 thing 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 puck- 
 ered his lips to show me, and immediately 
 they were all trying it. 
 
 "Here goes," said I, and for the next few 
 minutes, and in my very best style, I hung 
 Jeff Davis on the sour apple-tree, and I sent 
 the soul of John Brown marching onward 
 with an altogether unnecessary number of 
 hallelujahs. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 159 
 
 I think somptimes that people — whole 
 families of 'em — literally perish for want 
 of a good, hearty, whole-souled, mouth' 
 opening, throat-stretching, side-aching laugh. 
 They begin to think themselves the abused 
 of creation, they begin to advise with their 
 livers and to hate their neighbours, and the 
 whole world becomes a miserable dark blue 
 place quite unfit for human habitation. Well, 
 all this is often only the result of a neglect 
 to exercise properly those muscles of the 
 body (and of the soul) which have to do with 
 honest laughter. 
 
 I've never supposed I was an especially 
 amusing person, but before I got through 
 with it I had the Clark family well loosened 
 up with laughter, although I wasn't quite 
 sure some of the time whether Mrs. Clark 
 was laughing' or crying. I had them all 
 laughing and talking, asking questions and 
 answering them as though I were an old and 
 valued neighbour. 
 
 Isn't it odd how unconvinced we often 
 are by the crises in the lives of other people? 
 They seem to us trivial or unimportant; 
 but the fact is, the crises in the life of a boy, 
 for example, or of a poor man, are as com' 
 
i6o THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 manding as the crises in the life of the greatest 
 statesman or millionaire, for they involve 
 equally the whole personality, the entire 
 prospects. 
 
 The Clark family, I soon learned, had 
 lost its pig. A trivial matter, you say? I 
 wonder if anything is ever trivial. A year 
 of poor crops, sickness, low prices, discour- 
 agement — and, at the end of it, on top of it 
 all, the cherished pig had died ! 
 
 From all accounts (and the man on the 
 porch quite lost his apathy in telling me 
 about it) it must have been a pig of remarkable 
 virtues and attainments, a paragon of pigs — - 
 in whom had been bound up the many pos- 
 sibilities of new shoes for the children, a 
 hat for ■ the lady, a new pair of overalls for 
 the gentleman, and I know not what other 
 kindred luxuries. I do not think, indeed, 
 I ever had the portrait of a pig drawn for 
 me with quite such ardent enthusiasm of 
 detail, and the more questions I asked 
 the more eager the story, until finally it 
 became necessary for me to go to the barn, 
 the cattle-pen, the pig-pen and the chicken- 
 house, that I might visualize more clearly 
 the scene of the tragedy. The whole family 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD i6i 
 
 trooped after us like a classic chorus, but Mr. 
 Clark himself kept the centre of the stage. 
 
 How plainly I could read upon the face 
 of the land the story of this hill farmer 
 and his meagre existence — his ill-directed 
 effort to wring a poor living for his family 
 from these upland fields, his poverty, and, 
 above all, his evident lack of knowledge of 
 his own calling. Added to these things, 
 and perhaps the most depressing of all 
 his difficulties, was the utter loneliness of 
 the task, the feeling that it mattered little 
 to any one whether the Clark family worked 
 or not, or indeed whether they lived or died. 
 A perfectly good American family was here 
 being wasted, with the precious land they 
 lived on, because no one had taken the trouble 
 to make them feel that they were a part 
 of this Great American Job. 
 
 As we went back to the house, a freckled- 
 nosed neighbour's boy came in at the gate. 
 
 "A letter for you, Mr. Clark," said he. 
 "I brought it up with our mail." 
 
 "A letter!" exclaimed Mrs. Clark. 
 
 "A letter!" echoed at least three of the 
 children in unison. 
 
1 62 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Probably a dun from Brewster," said 
 Mr. Clark discouragingly. 
 
 I felt a curious sensation about the heart, 
 and an eagerness of interest I have rarely 
 experienced. I had no idea what a mere 
 letter — a mere unopened unread letter ■ — ■ 
 would mean to a family like this. 
 
 "It has no stamp on it!" exclaimed the 
 older girl. 
 
 Mrs. Clark turned it over wonderingljy 
 in her hands. Mr. Clark hastily put on a 
 pair of steel-bowed spectacles. 
 
 "Let me see it," he said, and when he 
 also had inspected it minutely he solemnly 
 tore open the envelope and drew forth my 
 letter. 
 
 I assure you I never awaited the reading 
 of any writing of mine with such breathless 
 interest. How would they take it.'' Would 
 they catch the meaning that I meant to con- 
 vey? And would, they suspect me of having 
 written it? 
 
 Mr. Clark sat on the porch and read the 
 letter slowly through to the end, turned 
 the sheet over and examined it carefully, 
 and then began reading it again to himself, 
 Mrs. Clark leaning over his shoulder. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 163 
 
 "What does it mean?" asked Mr. Clark. 
 
 "It's too good to be true," said Mrs. 
 Clark with a sigh. 
 
 I don't know how long the discussion 
 might have continued — probably for days 
 or weeks — had not the older girl, now 
 flushed of face and rather pretty, looked 
 at me and said breathlessly (she was as 
 sharp as a briar): 
 
 "You wrote it." 
 
 I stood the battery of all their eyes for 
 a moment, smiling and rather excited. 
 
 "Yes," I said earnestly, "I wrote it, and 
 I mean every word of it." 
 
 I had anticipated some shock of sus- 
 picion 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 pres- 
 ence there upon the scene with my tin 
 whistle. 
 
 At any rate, it was a changed, eager, 
 Interested family which now occupied the 
 porch of that dilapidated farmhouse. And 
 immediately we fell into a lively discussion 
 of crops and farming, and indeed the whole 
 farm question, in which I found both the 
 
i64 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 man and his wife singularly acute — sharp- 
 ened upon the stone of hard experience. 
 
 Indeed, I found right here, as I have 
 many times found among our American 
 farmers^ an intelligence (a literacy grow- 
 ing out of what I believe to be improper 
 education) which was better able to dis- 
 cuss the problems of rura,l life than to grapple 
 with and solve them. A dull, illiterate 
 Polish farmer, I have found, will sometimes 
 succeed much better at the job of life than 
 his American neighbour. 
 
 Talk with almost any man for half an 
 hour, and you will find that his conversa- 
 tion, like an old-fashioned song, has a reg- 
 ularly recurrent chorus. I soon discovered 
 Mr. Clark's chorus. 
 
 "Now, if only I had a little cash," he 
 sang, or, "If I had a few dollars, I could 
 do so and so." 
 
 Why, he was as helplessly dependent 
 upon money as any soft-handed millionairess. 
 He considered himself poor and helpless 
 because he lacked dollars, whereas people- 
 are really poor and helpless only when they 
 lack courage and faith. 
 
 We were so much absorbed in our talk 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 165 
 
 that I was greatly surprised to hear Mrs. 
 Clark's voice at the doorway. 
 
 "Won't you come in to supper?" 
 
 After we had eaten, there was a great 
 demand for more of my tin whistle (oh, 
 I know how Caruso must feel!), and I played 
 over every blessed tune I knew, and some 
 I didn't, four or five times, and after that 
 we told stories and cracked jokes in a way 
 that must have been utterly astonishing in 
 that household. After the children had been, 
 yes, driven to bed, Mr. Clark seemed about 
 to drop back into his lamentations over his 
 condition (which I have no doubt had come 
 to give him a sort of pleasure), but I turned 
 to Mrs. Clark, whom I had come to respect 
 very highly, and began to talk about the 
 little garden she had started, which was 
 about the most enterprising thing about the 
 place. 
 
 "Isn't it one of the finest things in this 
 world," said I, "to go out into a good garden 
 in the summer days and bring in loaded 
 baskets filled with beets and cabbages and 
 potatoes, just for the gathering?" 
 
 I knew from the expression on Mrs. Clark's 
 face that I had touched a sounding note. . 
 
1 66 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Opening the green corn a little at the 
 top to see if it is ready and then stripping 
 it off and tearing away the moist white 
 husks " 
 
 "And picking tomatoes?" said Mrs. Clark. 
 
 "And knuckling the watermelons to see 
 if they are ripe? Oh, I tell you there are 
 thousands of people in this country who'd 
 like to be able to pick their dinner in the 
 garden ! " 
 
 "It's fine!" said Mrs. Clark with amused 
 enthusiasm, "but I like best to hear the 
 hens cackling in the barnyard in the morning 
 after they've laid, and to go and bring in 
 the eggs." 
 
 "Just like a daily present!", I said. 
 
 "Ye-es," responded the soundly practi- 
 cal Mrs. Clark, thinking, no doubt, that there 
 were other aspects of the garden and chicken 
 problem. 
 
 "I'll tell you another thing I like about 
 a farmer's life," said I, "that's the smell in 
 the house in the summer when there are pre- 
 serves, 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 
 
-THE FRIENDLY ROAD 167 
 
 sort of sugary odour. Now, that gets me 
 where I live!" 
 
 "It is good!" said Mrs. Clark "with a 
 laugh that could certainly be called nothing 
 if not girlish. 
 
 All this time I had been keeping one eye on 
 Mr. Clark. It was amusing to see him strug- 
 gling against a cheerful view of life. He now 
 broke into the conversation. 
 
 " Well, but " he began. 
 
 Instantly I headed him off. 
 
 "And think," said I, "of living a life in 
 which you are beholden to no man. It's 
 a free life, the farmer's life. No one can 
 discharge you because you are sick, or tired, 
 or old, or because you are a Democrat or 
 a Baptist!" 
 
 "Well, but " 
 
 "And think of having to pay no rent, 
 nor of having to live upstairs in a tene- 
 ment!" 
 
 "Well, but " 
 
 "Or getting run over by a street-car, 
 or having the children play in the gut- 
 ters." 
 
 "I never did like to think of what my 
 
1 68 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 children would do if we went to town," said 
 Mrs. Clark. 
 
 "I guess not!" I exclaimed. 
 
 The fact is, -niost people don't think half 
 enough of themselves and of their jobs; 
 but before we went to bed that night I 
 had the forlorn T. N. Clark talking about 
 the virtues of his farm in quite a surprising 
 way. 
 
 I even saw him eying me two or three 
 times with a shrewd look in his eyes (your 
 American is an irrepressible trader) as though 
 I might possibly be some would-be pur- 
 chaser in disguise. 
 
 (I shall write some time a dissertation on 
 the advantages of wearing shabby clothing.) 
 
 The 'farm really had many good points. 
 One of them was a shaggy old orchard 
 'Of good and thriving but utterly neglected 
 apple-trees. 
 
 "Man alive," I said, when we went out 
 to see it in the morning, "you've got a gold 
 mine here!" And I told him how in our 
 neighbourhood we were renovating the old 
 orchards, pruning them back, spraying, and 
 bringing them into bearing, again. 
 
 He had never, since he owned the place. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 169 
 
 had a salable crop of fruit. When we came 
 in to breakfast I quite stirred the practical 
 Mrs. Clark with my enthusiasm, and she 
 promised at once to send for a bulletin on 
 apple-tree renovation, published by the state 
 experiment station. I am sure I was no 
 more earnest in my advice than the conditions 
 warranted. 
 
 After breakfast we went into the field, 
 and I suggested that instead of ploughing 
 any more land — for the season was al- 
 ready late — we get out all the accumula- 
 tions of rotted manure from around the barn 
 and strew it on the land already ploughed 
 and harrow it in. 
 
 "A good job on a little piece of land," 
 I said, "is far more ■ profitable than a poor 
 job on a big piece of land." 
 
 Without more ado we got his old team 
 hitched up and began loading and haul- 
 ing out the manure, and spent all day long 
 at it. Indeed, such was the height of en- 
 thusiasm 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 
 
I70 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 day his crop of corn, in perspective, over- 
 flowed his crib, he could not find boxes and 
 barrels for his apples, his shed would not 
 hold all his tobacco, and his barn was already 
 being enlarged to accommodate a couple more 
 cows ! He was also keeping bees and growing 
 ginseng. 
 
 But it was fine, that evening, to see Mrs. 
 Clark's face, the renewed hope and courage 
 in it. I thought as I looked at her (for she 
 was the strong and steady one in that 
 house) : 
 
 "If you can keep the enthusiasm up, 
 if you can make that husband of yours 
 grow corn, and cows, and apples as you 
 raise chickens and make garden, there is 
 victory yet in this valley." 
 
 That night it rained, but in spite of the 
 moist earth we spent almost all of the fol- 
 lowing day hard at work in the field, and 
 all the time talking over ways and means 
 for the future, but the next morning, early, 
 I swung my bag on my back and left 
 them. 
 
 I shall not attempt to describe the friend- 
 liness of our parting. Mrs. Clark followed 
 me wistfully to the gate. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 171 
 
 'I can't tell you 
 
 she began, with 
 
 the tears starting in her eyes. 
 
 "Then don't try " said I, smiling. 
 
 And so I swung off down the country 
 road, without looking back. 
 
 
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY 
 
 IN SOME strange deep way there is no 
 experience of my whole pilgrimage that 
 I look back upon with so much wistful 
 affection as I do upon the events of the 
 day — the day and the wonderful night — 
 which followed my long visit with the for- 
 lorn 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 in- 
 cident. 
 
 "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 con- 
 
 175 
 
176 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 venient oblivion of the waste-basket. But 
 something held me back. 
 
 "No," said I, "I'll tell it; if it meant so 
 much to me, it may mean something to 
 Ihe friends who are folldwing these lines." 
 
 For, after all, it is not what goes on outside 
 of a man, the clash and clatter of super- 
 ficial events, that arouses our deepest interest, 
 but what goes on inside. Consider then 
 that in this narrative I shall open a little 
 door in my heart and let you look in, if 
 you care to, upon the experiences of a day 
 and a night in which I was supremely happy. 
 
 If you had chanced to be passing, that 
 crisp spring morning, you would have seen 
 a traveller on foot with a gray bag on his 
 shoulder, swinging along the country road; 
 and you might have been astonished to see 
 him lift his hat at you and wish you a good 
 morning. You might have turned to look 
 back at him, as you passed, and found him 
 turning also to look back at you — and wish- 
 ing 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 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 177 
 
 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 Undis- 
 covered 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 enter- 
 ing upon a new world — a wonderful, high, 
 free world. And, as he tramped, certain 
 lines of a stanza long ago caught up in his 
 memory from some forgotten page came 
 up to his lips, and these were the words (ypu 
 did not know as you passed) that he was 
 chanting under his breath as he tramped, for 
 they seem charged with the spirit of the hour: 
 
 I've bartered my sheets for a starlit bed; 
 I've traded my meat for a crust of bread; 
 I've changed my book for a sapling cane, 
 And I'm off to the end of the world again. 
 
 In the Undiscovered Country that morning 
 it was wonderful- how fresh the spring woods 
 
178 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 spark- 
 ling and heady as new wine, and the footing 
 was firm and hard. As one tramped he 
 could scarcely keep from singing or shouting 
 aloud for the very joy of the day. 
 
 "I think," I said to myself, "I've never 
 been in a better country," and it did not 
 seem to me I cared to know where the gray 
 road ran, nor how far away the blue hills were. 
 
 "It is wonderful enough anywhere here," 
 I said. 
 
 And presently I turned from the road 
 and climbed a gently sloping hillside among 
 oak and chestnut trees. The earth was well 
 carpeted for my feet, and here and there 
 upon the hillside, where the sun came through 
 the green roof of foliage, were warm splashes 
 of yellow light, and here and there, on shadier 
 slopes, the new ferns were spread upon the 
 earth like some lacy coverlet. I finally 
 sat down at the foot of a tree where through 
 a rift in the foliage in the valley below I 
 could catch a glimpse in the distance of the 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 179 
 
 meadows and the misty blue hills. I was 
 glad to rest, just rest, for the two previous 
 days of hard labour, the labour and the 
 tramping, had wearied me, and I sat for a 
 long time quietly looking about me, scarcely 
 thinking at all, but seeing, hearing, smelling 
 — feeling the spring naomingi, and the woods^ 
 and the hills, and the patch of sky I could 
 see. 
 
 For a long, long time I sat thus, but 
 finally my mind began to flow again, and 
 I thought how fine it would be if I had 
 some good friend there with me to enjoy 
 the perfect surroundings — soirie friend who 
 would understand. And I thought of the 
 Vedders with whom I had so recently spent 
 a wonderful day; and I wished that they 
 might be with me; there were so many things 
 to be said — to be left unsaid. Upon this 
 it occurred to me, suddenly, whimsically, 
 and I exclaimed aloud: 
 
 "Why, ril just call them up." 
 
 Half turning to the trunk of the tree 
 where I sat, I placed one hand to my ear 
 and the other to my lips and said : 
 
 "Hello, Central, give me Mr. Vedder." 
 
 I waited a moment, smiling a little at 
 
i8o THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 my own absurdity and yet .quite captivated 
 by the enterprise. 
 
 "Is this Mr. Vedder? Oh, Mrs. Vedder! 
 Well, this is David Grayson." . . . 
 
 "Yes, the very same. A bad penny, a 
 rolling stone." . . . 
 
 "Yes. I want you both to come here 
 a;s quickly as you can. I have the most 
 important news for you. The mountain 
 laurels are blooming, a,nd the wild straw- 
 berries are setting their fruit. Yes, yes, 
 and in the fields — all around here, to-day — 
 there are wonderful white patches of daisies, 
 and from where I sit I can see an old meadow 
 as yellow as gold with buttercups. And 
 the bobolinks are hovering over the low spots. 
 Oh, but it is fine here — and we are not to- 
 gether!" . . . 
 
 "No; I cannot give exact directions. But 
 take the Long Road and turn at the turning 
 by the tulip-tree, and you will find me at 
 home. Come right in without knocking." 
 
 I hung up the receiver. For a single 
 instant it had seemed almost true, and 
 indeed I believe — I wonder 
 
 Some day, I thought, just a bit sadly, 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD i8i 
 
 for I shall probably not be here then — 
 some day, we shall be able to call our friends 
 through space and time. Some day we 
 shall discover that marvellously simple coherer 
 by which we may better utilize the myste- 
 rious ether of love. 
 
 For a time I was sad with thoughts of 
 the unaccomplished future, and then I re- 
 flected that if I could not call up the Vedders 
 so informally I could at least write down a 
 few paragraphs which would give them some 
 faint impression of that time and place. 
 But I had no sooner taken out my note-book 
 and put down a sentence or two than I stuck 
 fast. How foolish and feeble written words 
 are anyway! With what glib facility they 
 describe, but how inadequately they convey. 
 A thousand times I have thought to myself, 
 "If only I could write!" 
 
 Not being able to write I turned, as I 
 have so often turned before, to some good 
 old book, trusting that I might find in the 
 writing of another man what I lacked in 
 my own. I took out my battered copy 
 of Montaigne and, opening it at random, as 
 I love to do, came, as luck would have it, 
 upon a chapter devoted to coaches, in which 
 
1 82 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 there is much curious (and worthless) in- 
 formation, darkened with Latin quotations. 
 This reading had an unexpected effect upon 
 me. 
 
 I could not seem to keep my mind down 
 upon the printed page; it kept bounding 
 away at the sight of the distant hills, at 
 the sound of a woodpecker on a dead stub 
 which stood near me, and at the thousand and 
 one faint rustlings, creepings, murmurings, 
 tappings, which animate the mystery of the 
 forest. How dull indeed appeared the printed 
 page in comparison with the book of life, how 
 shut-in its atmosphere, how tinkling and dis- 
 tant the sound of its voices. Suddenly I shut 
 my book with a snap. 
 
 "Musty coaches and Latin quotations!" 
 I exclaimed. "Montaigne's no writer for 
 the open air. He belongs at a study fire on 
 a quiet evening!" 
 
 I had anticipated, when I started out, 
 many a pleasant hour by the roadside or 
 in the woods with my books, but this was 
 almost the first opportunity I had found for 
 reading (as it was almost the last), so full 
 was the present world of stirring events. 
 As for poor old Montaigne, I have been out 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 183 
 
 of harmony with him. ever since, nor have 
 I wanted him in the intimate case at my 
 elbow. 
 
 After a long time in the forest, and the 
 sun having reached the high heavens, I 
 gathered up my pack and set forth again 
 along the slope of the hills — not hurrying, 
 just drifting and enjoying every sight and 
 sound. And thus walking I came in sight, 
 through the trees, of a glistening pool of 
 water and made my way straight toward it. 
 
 A more charming spot I have rarely seen. 
 In some former time an old mill had stood 
 at the foot of the little valley, and a ruinous 
 stone dam still held the water in a deep, 
 quiet pond between two round hills. Above 
 it a brook ran down through the woods, and 
 below, with a pleasant musical sound, the 
 water dripped over the mossy stone lips of 
 the dam and fell into the rocky pool below. 
 Nature had long ago healed the wounds of 
 men; she had half covered the ruined mill 
 with verdure, had softened the stone walls 
 of the dam with mosses and lichens, and 
 had crept down the steep hillside and was 
 now leaning so far out over the pool that 
 
i84 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 she could see her reflection in the quiet 
 water. 
 
 Near the upper end of the pond I found 
 a clear white sand-bank, where no doubt 
 a thousand fishermen had stood, half hidden 
 by the willows, to cast for trout in the pool 
 below. I intended merely to drink and 
 moisten my face, but as I knelt by the pool 
 and saw my reflection in the clear water I 
 wanted something more than that! In a 
 moment I had thrown aside my bag and 
 clothes and found myself wading naked into 
 the water. 
 
 It was cold! I stood a moment there in 
 the sunny air, the great world open around me, 
 shuddering, for I dreaded the plunge — and 
 then with a run, a shout and a splash I took, 
 the deep water. Oh, but it was fine! With 
 long, deep strokes I carried myself fairly 
 to the middle of the pond. , The first chill 
 was succeeded by a tingling glow, and I can 
 convey no idea whatever of the glorious 
 sense of exhilaration I had. I swam with 
 the broad front stroke, I swam on my side, 
 head half submerged, with a deep under 
 stroke, and I rolled over on my back and 
 •»wam with the water lapping my chin. Thus 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 185 
 
 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 bois- 
 terously for a time, I quieted down to long, 
 leisurely strokes, conscious of the water play- 
 ing across my shoulders and singing at my 
 ears, and finally, reaching the centre of the 
 pond, I turned over on my back and, paddling 
 lazily, watched the slow procession of light 
 clouds across the sunlit openings of the 
 trees above me. Away up in the sky I 
 could see a hawk slowly swimming about 
 (in his element as I was in mine), and nearer 
 at hand, indeed fairly in the thicket about 
 the pond, I could hear a wood-thrush singing. 
 
 And so, shaking the water out of my hair 
 and swimming with long and leisurely strokes, 
 I returned to the sand-bank, and there, 
 standing in a spot of warm sunshine, I dried 
 myself with the towel from my bag. And 
 I said to myself: 
 
 "Surely it is good to be "alive at a time 
 like this!" 
 
 Slowly I drew on my clothes, idling there 
 in the sand, and afterward I found an in- 
 
1 86 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 viting spot in an old meadow where I threw, 
 myself down on the grass under an apple- 
 tree and looked up Into the shadowy places 
 in the foliage above me. I felt a delicious 
 sense of physical well-being, and I was pleas- 
 antly tired. 
 
 So I lay there — and the next thing I 
 knew, I turned over, feeling cold and stiff, 
 and opened my eyes upon the dusky shadows 
 of late evening. I had been sleeping for 
 hours! 
 
 The next few minutes (or was it an hour, 
 or eternity?), I recall as containing some 
 of the most exciting and, when all is said, 
 amusing incidents in my whole life. And 
 I got quite a new glimpse of that sometimes 
 bumptious person known as David Grayson. 
 
 The first sensation I had was one. of com- 
 plete panic. What was I to do? Where 
 was I to go ? 
 
 Hastily seizing my bag — and before I 
 was half awake — I started rapidly across 
 the meadow, in my excitement tripping and 
 falling several times in the first hundred 
 yards. In daylight I have no doubt that 
 I should easily have seen a gateway or at 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 187 
 
 least an opening from the old meadow, but 
 in the fast-gathering darkness it seemed to 
 me that the open field was surrounded on 
 every side by impenetrable forests. Absurd 
 as it may seem, for no one knows what his 
 mind will do at such a moment, I recalled 
 vividly a passage from Stanley's story of his 
 search for Livingstone, in which he relates 
 how he escaped from a difficult place in the 
 jungle by KEEPING STRAIGHT AHEAD. 
 
 I print these words in capitals because 
 they seemed written that night upon the 
 sky. Keeping straight ahead, I entered the 
 forest on one side of the meadow (with 
 quite a heroic sense of adventure), but 
 scraped my shin on a fallen log and ran 
 into a tree with bark on it that felt like 
 a gigantic currycomb — and stopped ! 
 
 Up to this point I think I was still partly 
 asleep. Now, however, I waked up. 
 
 "All you need," said I to myself in my 
 most matter-of-fact tone, "is a little cool 
 sense. Be quiet now and reason it out." 
 
 So I stood there for some moments reason- 
 ing it out, with the result that I turned back 
 and found the meadow again. 
 
 "What a fool I've been!" I said. "Isn't 
 
i88 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 it perfectly plain that I should have gone 
 down to the pond, crossed over the inlet, 
 and reached the road by the way I came?" 
 
 Having thus settled my problem, and 
 congratulating myself on my perspicacity, 
 I started straight for the mill-pond, but 
 to my utter amazement, in the few short 
 hours while I had been asleep, that entire 
 body of water had evaporated, the dam had 
 disappeared, and the stream had dried up. 
 I must certainly present the facts in this 
 remarkable case to some learned society. 
 
 I then decided to return to the old apple- 
 tree where I had slept, which now seemed 
 quite like home, but, strange to relate, the 
 apple-tree had also completely vanished from 
 the enchanted meadow. At that I began 
 to suspect that in coming out of the forest I 
 had somehow got into another and somewhat 
 similar old field. I have never had a more con- 
 fused or eerie sensation; not fear, but a sort 
 of helplessness in which for an instant I actu- 
 ally began to doubt whether it was really 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 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 189 
 
 under similar conditions, but they were new 
 to me. 
 
 I turned slowly around and looked for 
 a light; I think I never wanted so much 
 to see some sign of human habitation as I 
 did at that moment. 
 
 What a coddled world we live in, truly. 
 That being out after dark in a meadow should 
 so disturb the very centre of our being! 
 In all my life, indeed, and I suppose the 
 same is true of ninty-nine out of a hundred 
 of the people in America to-day, I had never 
 before found myself where nothing stood 
 between nature and me, where I had no 
 place to sleep, no shelter for the night — 
 nor any prospect of finding one. I was 
 infinitely less resourceful at that moment than 
 a rabbit, or a partridge, or a gray squirrel. 
 
 Presently I sat down on the ground where 
 I had been standing, with a vague fear (absurd 
 to look back upon !) that it, too, in some man- 
 ner 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 dough- 
 nuts eaten while I was sitting on the hillside, 
 
I90 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 ages ago, I had had nothing since my early 
 breakfast. 
 
 With this thought of my predicament — 
 and the glimpse I had of myself "hungry 
 and homeless" — the humour of the whole 
 situation suddenly came over me, and, be- 
 ginning with a chuckle, I wound up, as my 
 mind dwelt upon my recent adventures, with 
 a long, loud, hearty laugh. 
 
 As I laughed — ^ and what a roar it made 
 in that darkness ! — I got up on my feet 
 and looked up at the sky. One bright 
 star shone out over the wcfods, and in the 
 high heavens I could see dimly the white 
 path of the Milky Way. And all at once I 
 seemed again to be in command of myself 
 and of the world. I felt a sudden lift and 
 thrill of the spirits, a warm sense that this 
 too was part of the great adventure — the 
 Thing Itself. 
 
 "This is the light," I said looking up 
 again at the sky and the single bright star, 
 "which is set for me to-night. I will make 
 my bed by it." 
 
 I can hope to make no one understand 
 (unless he understands already) with what 
 joy of adventure I now crept through the 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 191 
 
 meadow toward the wood. It was an un- 
 known, 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 Mis- 
 sissippi, or Stanley in Africa, had no joy that 
 I did not know at that moment. 
 
 I crept along the meadow and came at 
 iast to the wood. Here I chose a somewhat 
 sheltered spot at the foot of a large tree — 
 and yet a spot not so obscured that I could 
 not look out over the open spaces of the 
 meadow and see the sky. Here, groping in the 
 darkness, like some primitive creature, I raked 
 together a pile of leaves with my fingers, 
 and found dead twigs and branches of trees; 
 but in that moist forest (where the. rain had 
 fallen only the day before) my efforts to 
 kindle a fire were unavailing. Upon this, I 
 considered using some pages from my note- 
 book, but another alternative suggested itself: 
 
 " Why not Montaigne ? " 
 
 With that I groped for the familiar volume, 
 and with a curious sensation of satisfaction 
 I tore out a handful of pages from the back. 
 
 "Better Montaigne than Grayson," I said, 
 with a chuckle. It was amazing how Mon- 
 
192 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 taigne sparkled and crackled when he was 
 well lighted. 
 
 "There goes a bundle of quotations from 
 Vergil," I said, "and there's his observations 
 on the eating of fish. There are more uses 
 than one for the classics." 
 
 So I ripped out a good part of another 
 chapter, and thus, by coaxing, got my fire to 
 going. It was not difficult after that to find 
 enough fuel to make it blaze up warmly. 
 
 I opened my bag and took out the remnants 
 of the luncheon which Mrs. Clark had given 
 me that morning; and I was surprised and 
 delighted to find, among the other things, a 
 small bottle of coffee. This suggested all 
 sorts of pleasing possibilities and, the spirit 
 of invention being now awakened, I got out 
 my tin cup, split a sapling stick so that I 
 could fit it into the handle, and set the cup, 
 full of coffee, on the coals at the edge of tht 
 fire. It was soon heated, and although 1 
 spilled some of it in getting it off, and 
 although it was well spiced with ashes, I 
 enjoyed it, with Mrs. Claij-k's doughnuts 
 and sandwiches (some of which I toasted 
 with a sapling fork) as 'thoroughly, I think, 
 as ever I enjoyed any meal. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 193 
 
 How little we know — we who dread life 
 — how much there is in life! 
 
 My activities around the fire had warmed 
 me to the bone, and after I was well through 
 with my meal I gathered a plentiful supply 
 of wood and placed it near at hand, I got 
 out my waterproof cape and put it on, and, 
 finally piling more sticks on the fire, I sat 
 down comfortably at the foot of the tree. 
 
 I wish I could convey the mystery and 
 'the beauty of that night. Did you ever sit 
 by a campfire and watch the flames dance, 
 and the sparks fly upward into the cool dark 
 air? Did you ever see the fitful light among 
 the tree-depths, at one moment opening 
 vast shadowy vistas into the forest, at the 
 next dying downward and leaving it all in 
 sombre mystery? It came to me that night 
 with the wonderful vividness of a fresh ex- 
 perience. 
 
 And what a friendly and companionable 
 thing a campfire is! How generous and 
 outright it is! It plays for you when you 
 wish to be lively, and it glows for you when 
 you ynsh to be reflective. 
 
 Af<"er a while, for I did not feel in the 
 
194 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 least sleepy, I stepped out of the wopds to 
 the edge of the pasture. All around me lay 
 the dark and silent earth, ^nd 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 a,ll — and would not be neglected or- 
 forgotten. It seemed to me I never had a 
 moment of greater faith than that. 
 
 And so, with a sense of satisfaction and 
 peace, I returned to my fire. As I sat there 
 I could hear the curious noises of the woods, 
 the little droppings, cracklings, rustlings 
 which seemed to make all the world alive. 
 I even fancied I could see small bright eyes 
 .looking out. at my fire, and once or twice I 
 was almost sure I heard voices — whispering 
 — whispering — perhaps the voices of the 
 woods. 
 
 Occasionally I added,with some amusement^ 
 a few dry pages of Montaigne to the fire, and 
 watched the cheerful blaze that followed. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 195 
 
 "No," said I, "Montaigne is not for the 
 open spaces and the stars. Wither t a roof 
 over his head Montaigne would — well, die 
 of sneezing!" 
 
 So I sat all night long there by the tree. 
 Occasionally I dropped into a light sleep, and 
 then, as my fire died down, I grew chilly and 
 awakened, to build up the fire and doze 
 again. I saw the first faint gray streaks of 
 dawn above the trees, I saw the pink glow 
 in the east before the sunrise, and I watched 
 the sun himself rise upon a new day 
 
 When I walked out into the meadow by, 
 daylight and looked about me curiously, 
 I saw, not forty rods away, the back of a barn. 
 
 " Be you the fellow that was daown in my 
 cowpastur' all night?" asked the sturdy 
 farmer. 
 
 "I'm that fellow," I said. 
 
 "Why didn't you come right up to the 
 house?" 
 
 "Well " I said, and then paused. 
 
 ".Well . . ."said I. 
 
THE HEDGE 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE HEDGE 
 
 STRANGE, strange, how small the big 
 world is! 
 
 "Why didn't you come right into the 
 house?" the sturdy farmer had asked me 
 when I came out of the meadow where I 
 had spent the night under the stars. 
 
 "Well," I said, turning the question as 
 adroitly as I could, "I'll make it up by going 
 into the house now." 
 
 So I went with him into his fine, comfort- 
 able house. 
 
 "This is my wife," said he. 
 
 A. woman stood there facing me. "Oh!" 
 she exclaimed, " Mr. Grayson ! " 
 
 I recalled swiftly a child — a child she 
 seemed then — with braids down her back, 
 whom I had known when I first came to 
 
 199 
 
200 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 neighbour- 
 hood for several years. 
 
 "And how is your sister and Doctor Mc- 
 Alway?" 
 
 Well, we had quite a woiiderful visit, and 
 she made breakfast for me, asking questions 
 and talking eagerly as I ate. 
 
 "We've just had news that old Mr. 
 Toombs is dead." 
 
 "Dead!" I exclaimed, dropping my fork; 
 "old Nathan Toombs!" 
 
 "Yes, he was my uncle. Did you know 
 him?" 
 
 "I knew Nathan Toombs," I said. 
 
 I spent two days there with the Ransomes, 
 for they wbuld not' hear of my leaving, and 
 half of our spare time^ I think, was spent in 
 discussing Nathan Toombs. I was not able 
 to get him out of my mind for days, for his 
 death was one of those events which prove 
 so much and leave so much unproven. 
 
 I can recall vividly my astonishment at 
 the first evidence I ever had of the strange 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 201 
 
 old man or of his work. It was not very 
 long after I came to my farm to live. I 
 had taken to spending my spare evenings — 
 the long evenings of summer — in exploring 
 the country rodds for miles around, getting 
 acquainted with each farmstead, each bit 
 of grove and meadow and marsh, making 
 my best bow to each unfamiliar hill, and 
 taking everywhere that toll of pleasure which 
 comes of quiet discovery. 
 
 One evening, having walked farther than 
 usual, I came quite suddenly around a turn 
 in the road and saw stretching away before 
 me an extraordinary sight. 
 
 I feel that I am conveying no adequate 
 impression of what I beheld by giving it 
 any such prim and decorous name as — a 
 Hedge. It was a menagerie, a living, green 
 menagerie! I had no sooner seen it than I 
 began puzzling my brain as to whether one 
 of the curious .ornaments into which the 
 upper part of the hedge had been clipped 
 and trimmed was made to represent the head 
 of a horse, or a camel, or an Egyptian sphinx. 
 
 The hedge was of arbor vitae and as high 
 as a man's waist. At more or less regular 
 intervals the trees in it had been allowed 
 
202 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 to grow much taller and had been wonderfully 
 pruned into the similitude of towers, pin- 
 nacles, bells, and many other strange designs. 
 Here and there the hedge held up a spindhng 
 umbrella of greenery, sometimes a double 
 umbrella ■ — a little one above the big one — 
 and over the gateway at the centre, as a sort 
 of final triumph, rose a grandiose arch of 
 interlaced branches upon which the art- 
 ist had outdone himself in marvels of orna- 
 mentation. 
 
 I shall never forget the sensation of delight 
 I had over this discovery, or of how I walked, 
 tiptoe, along the road in front, studying 
 each of the marvellous adornments. How 
 eagerly, too, I looked over at the house beyond 
 — a rather bare, bleak house set on a slight 
 knoll or elevation and guarded at one corner 
 by a dark spruce tree. At some distance 
 behind I saw a number of huge barns, a cat- 
 tle yard and a silo — all the evidences of 
 prosperity ■ — with well-nurtured fields, now 
 yellowing with the summer crops, spreading 
 pleasantly away cin every hand. 
 
 It was nearly dark before I left that bit 
 of roadside, and I shall never forget the 
 eerie impression I had as I turned back to 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 203 
 
 take a final Ipok at the hedge, the strange, 
 grotesque aspect it presented there in the 
 half light with the bare, lonely house rising 
 from the knoll behind. 
 
 It was not until some weeks later that I 
 met the owner of the wonderful hedge. 
 By that time, however, having learned of 
 my interest, I found the whole countryside 
 alive with stories about it and about Old 
 Nathan Toombs, its owner. It was as 
 though I had struck the rock of refreshment 
 in a weary land. 
 
 I remember distinctly how puzzled I was 
 by the stories I heard. The neighbourhood 
 portrait — and ours is really a friendly neigh- 
 bourhood — was by no means flattering. 
 Old Toombs was apparently of that type 
 of hard-shelled, grasping, • self-reliant, old- 
 fashioned farmer not unfamiliar to many 
 country neighbourhoods. He had come of 
 tough old American stock and he was a 
 worker, a saver, and thus he had grown rich^ 
 the richest farmer in the whole neighbourhood. 
 He was a regular individualistic American. 
 
 "A dour man," said the Scotch Preacher, 
 "but just — you must admit that he is just." 
 
204 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 There was no man living about whom 
 the Scotch Preacher could not find some- 
 thing good to say. 
 
 "Yes, just," replied Horace, skeptically, 
 "but hard — hard, and as mean as pusley." 
 
 This portrait was true enough in itself, 
 for I knew just the sort of an aggressive, 
 undoubtedly irritable old fellow it pictured, 
 but somehow, try as I would, I could not 
 see any such old fellow wasting his moneyed 
 hours clipping bells, umbrellas, and camel's 
 heads on his ornamental greenery. It left 
 just that incongruity which is at once the 
 lure, the humour, and the perplexity of 
 human life. Instead of satisfying my curi- 
 osity I was more anxious than ever to see 
 Old Toombs with my own eyes. 
 
 But the weeks passed and somehow I 
 did not meet him. He was a lonely, un- 
 neighbourly old fellow. He had appar- 
 ently 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 pur- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 205 
 
 chase, hard cash down, or he would build a 
 bigger barn. When any of these things 
 happened the community would crowd over 
 a little, as it were, to give him more room. 
 It is a curious thing, and tragic, too, when 
 you come to think of it, how the world lets 
 alone those people who appear to want to be 
 let alone. "I can live to myself," says the 
 unneighbourly one. "Well, live to yourself, 
 then," cheerfully responds the world, and it 
 goes about its more or less amusing affairs and 
 lets the unneighbourly one cut himself off. 
 
 So our small community had let Old 
 Toombs go his way with all his money, 
 his acres, his hedge, and his reputation for 
 being a just man. 
 
 Not meeting him, therefore, in the familiar 
 and friendly life of the neighbourhood, I 
 took to walking out toward his farm, looking 
 freshly at the wonderful hedge and musing 
 upon that most fascinating of all subjects — 
 how men come to be what they are. And 
 at last I was rewarded. 
 
 One day I had scarcely reached the end 
 of the hedge when I saw Old Toombs himself 
 moving toward me down the country road. 
 Though I had never seen him before, I was 
 
2o6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 at no loss to identify him. The first and 
 vital impression he gave me, if I can compress 
 it into a single word, was, I think, force — 
 force. He came stubbing down the country 
 road with a brown hickory stick in his hand, 
 which at every step he set vigorously into 
 the soft earth. Though not tall, he gave the 
 impression of being enormously strong. He 
 was thick, solid, firm — thick through the 
 body, thick through the thighs; and his 
 shoulders — what shoulders they were ! — • 
 round like a maple log; and his great head 
 with its thatching of coarse iron-gray hair, 
 though thrust slightly forward, seemed set 
 immovably upon them. 
 
 He presented such a forbidding appearance 
 that I was of two minds about addressing 
 him. Dour he was indeed! Nor shall I 
 ever forget how he looked when I spoke to 
 him. He stopped short there in the road. 
 On his big square nose he wore a pair of 
 curious spring-bowed glasses with black rims. 
 For a moment he looked at me through 
 these glasses, raising his chin a little, and 
 then, deliberately wrinkling his nose, they 
 fell off and dangled at the length of the 
 faded cord by which they were hung. There 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 207 
 
 was something almost uncanny about this 
 peculiar habit of his and of the way in which, 
 afterward, he looked at me from under 
 his bushy gray brows. This was in truth 
 the very man of the neighbourhood por- 
 trait. 
 
 "I am a new settler here," I said, "and 
 I've been interested in looking at your won- 
 derful hedge." 
 
 The old man's eyes rested upon me a 
 moment with a mingled look of suspicion 
 and hostility. 
 
 "So you've heard o' me," he said in a 
 high-pitched voice, "and you've heard o' 
 my hedge." 
 
 Again he paused and looked me over. 
 
 "Well," he said, with an indescribably 
 harsh, cackling laugh, "I warrant you've 
 heard nothing good o' me down there. I'm 
 a skinflint, ain't I? I'm a hard citizen, ain't 
 I? I grind the faces o' the poor, don't I?" 
 
 At first his words were marked by a 
 sort of bitter' humour, but as he continued 
 to speak his voice rose higher and higher 
 until it was positively menacing. 
 
 There were just two things I could do — 
 haul down the flag and retreat ingloriously, 
 
2o8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 or face the music. With a sudden sense of 
 rising spirits — for such things do not often 
 happen to a man in a quiet country road — I 
 paused a moment, looking him squarely in 
 the eye. 
 
 "Yes," I said, with greg,t deliberation, 
 "you've given me just about the neighbour- 
 hood picture of yourself as I have had it. 
 They do say you are a skinflint, yes, and a 
 hard man. They say that you are rich and 
 friendless ; they say that while you are a just 
 man, you do not know mercy. These are 
 terrible things to say of any man if they are 
 true." 
 
 I paused. The old man looked for a 
 moment as though he were going to strike 
 me with his stick, but he neither stirred 
 nor spoke. It was evidently a wholly new 
 experience for him. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "you are not popular in 
 this community, but what do you suppose 
 I care about that? I'm interested in your 
 hedge. What I'm curious to Icnow — and I 
 might as well tell you frankly — is how such 
 a man as you are reputed to be could grow 
 such an extraordinary hedge. You must have 
 been at it a very long time." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 209 
 
 « 
 
 I was surprised at the effect of my words. 
 The old man turned part,ly aside and looked 
 for a moment along the proud and flaunting 
 embattlements of the green rharvel before us. 
 Then he said in a moderate voice: 
 
 "It's a putty good hedge, a putty good 
 hedge." 
 
 "I've got him," I thought exultantly. 
 "I've got him!" 
 
 "How long ago did you start it?" I pur- 
 sued my advantage eagerly. 
 
 "Thirty-two years come spring," said he. 
 
 "Thirty-two years!" I repeated; "you've 
 been at it a long time." 
 
 With that I plied him with questions in 
 the liveliest manner, and in five minutes I 
 had the gruff old fellow stumping along at 
 my side and pointing out the various notable 
 features of. his wonderful creation. His sup- 
 pressed excitement was quite wonderful to 
 see. He would point his hickory, stick with a 
 poking motion, and,when he looked up, instead 
 of throwing back his big, rough head, he 
 bent at the hips, thus imparting an impression 
 of astonishing solidity. 
 
 "It took me all o' ten years to get that 
 bell right," he said, and, "Take a look 
 
2IO THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 » 
 
 at that arch: now what is your opinion o' 
 that?" 
 
 Once, in the midst of our conversation, 
 he checked , himself abruptly and looked 
 ardund at me with a sudden dark expres- 
 sion 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 moiiiehtary, however, and he 
 was soon as much interested as before. He 
 talked as though he had not had such an 
 opportunity before in years — and I doubt 
 whether he had. ' It was plain to see that 
 if any one ever loved anything in this world. 
 Old Toombs loved that hedge of his. Think 
 of it, indeed! He had lived with it, nur- 
 tured it, dipped it, groomed it — for thirty- 
 two years. 
 
 So we walked down the sloping field within 
 the hedge, and it seemed as though one of 
 the deep mysteries of human nature was 
 opening there before me. What strange 
 things men set their hearts upon! 
 
 Thys, presently, we came nearly to the 
 farther end of the hedge. Here the old 
 man stopped and. turned around, facing me- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 211 
 
 "Do you see that valley?" he asked. 
 "Do you see that slopin' valley up through 
 my meadow?" 
 
 His voice rose suddenly to a sort of high- 
 pitched violence. 
 
 "That passel o' hounds up there," he said, 
 "want to build a road down my valley." 
 
 He drew his breath fiercely. 
 
 "They want to build a road through 
 my land. They want to ruin my farm — 
 they want to cut down my hedge. I'll 
 fight 'em. I'll fight 'em. I'll show 'em 
 yet!" . 
 
 It was appalling. His face grew purple, 
 his eyes narrowed to pin points and grew red 
 and angry — like the eyes of an infuriated 
 boar. His h^nds shook. Suddenly he turned 
 upon me, poising his stick in his hand, and 
 said violently. 
 
 "And who are you? Who are you? Are 
 you one of these surveyor fellows?" 
 
 "My name," I answered as quietly as I 
 could, "is Grayson. I live on the old Mather 
 farm. I am not in the least interested in 
 any of your road troubles." 
 
 He looked at me a moment more, and then 
 seemed to shake himself or shudder, his eyes 
 
212 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 dropped away and he began walking toward 
 his house. He had taken only a few steps, 
 however, before he turned, and, without look- 
 ing at me, asked if I would like to see the 
 tool's he used for trimming his hedge. When 
 I hesitated, for I was decidedly uncomfort- 
 able, he came up to me and laid his hand 
 awkwardly on my arm. 
 
 "You'll see something, I warrant, you 
 never see before." 
 
 It was so evident that he regretted his 
 outbreak that I followed him, and he showed 
 me an odd double ladder set on lOw wheels 
 which he said he used in trimming the higher 
 parts of his hedge. 
 
 "It's my own invention," he said with 
 pride. 
 
 "And that" — he pointed as we came out 
 of the tool shed — "is my house — a good 
 house. r planned it all myself. I never 
 needed to take lessons of any carpenter I ever 
 see. And there's my barns. What do you 
 think o' my barns? Ever see any bigger 
 ones.? They ain't any bigger in this country 
 than Old Toombs's barns. They don't like 
 Old Toombs, but they ain't any of 'em can 
 ekal his barns!" 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 213 
 
 He followed me down to the roadside 
 now quite loquacious. Even after I had 
 thanked him and started to go he called after 
 me. When I stopped he came forward hesita- 
 tingly — and I had the impressions, suddenly, 
 and for the first time that he was an old man. 
 It may have been the result of his sudden 
 fierce explosion of anger, but his hand shook, 
 his face was pale, and he seemed somehow 
 broken. . 
 
 "You — you like my hedge?" he asked. 
 
 "It is certainly a 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 any- 
 where." 
 
 In the twilight as I passed onward I saw the 
 lonely figure of the old man moving with his 
 hickory stick up the pathway to his lonely 
 house. The poor rich old man! 
 
 "He thinks he can live wholly to himself," 
 I said aloud. 
 
 I thought, as I tramped homeward, of 
 our friendly and kindly community, of how 
 we often come together of an evening with 
 skylarking and laughter, of how we weep 
 with one another, of how we join in making 
 
214 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 better roads and better schools, and in build- 
 ing up the Scotch Preacher's friendly little 
 church. And in all these things Old Toombs 
 has never had a part. He is not even missed. 
 
 As a matter of fact, I reflected, and this 
 is a strange, deep thing, no man is in reality 
 more dependent upon the community which 
 he despises and holds at arm's length than 
 this same Old Nathan Toombs. Everything 
 he has, everything he does, gives evidence 
 of it. And I don't mean this in any mere 
 material sense, thoiigh 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 un- 
 friendly 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 he 
 may try, can hold himself aloof! 
 , I came home dee])ly stirred from my visit 
 with Old Toombs and lost no time in making 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 215 
 
 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 township, 
 called the Swan Hill district. Their only 
 way to reach the railroad was by a rocky, 
 winding road among the hills, while their 
 natural outlet was down a gently sloping 
 valley through Old Toombs's farm. They 
 were now so numerous and politically im- 
 portant that they had stirred up the town 
 authorites. A proposition had been made to 
 Old Toombs for a right-of-way; they argued 
 with him that it was a good thing for the 
 whole country, that It would enhance the 
 values of his own upp^er lands, and that 
 they would pay him far more for a right-of- 
 way than the land was actually worth, but 
 he had spurned, them — I can imagine with 
 what vehemence. 
 
 "Let 'em drive round," he said. "Didn't 
 they know what they'd hev to do when they 
 settled up there? What a passel o' curs! 
 
2i6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 They can keep off o' my land, or I'll have 
 the law on 'em." 
 
 And thus the matter came to the courts 
 with the town attempting to condemn the 
 land for a road through Old Toombs's farm. 
 
 "What can we do?" asked the Scotch 
 Preacher, who was deeply distressed by 
 the bitterness of feeling displayed. "There 
 is no getting to the man. He will listen 
 to no one." 
 
 At one time I thought of going over and 
 talking with Old Toombs myself, for it 
 seemed that I had been able to get nearer 
 to him than any one had in a long time. 
 But I dreaded it. I kept dallying — for 
 what, indeed, could I have said to him? 
 If he had been suspicious of me before, how 
 much more hostile he might be when I ex- 
 pressed 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 com- 
 munity with them, for no one liked Old 
 Toombs. 
 
 Thus while I hesitated time passed and 
 my next meeting with Old Toombs, instead 
 of being premediated, came about quite 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 217 
 
 unexpectedly. I was walking in the town 
 road late one afternoon when I heard a wagon 
 rattling behind me, and then, quite suddenly, a 
 shouted, "Whoa!" 
 
 Looking around, I saw Old Toombs, his 
 great solid figure mounted high on the 
 wagon seat, the reins held fast in the fingers 
 of one hand. I was struck by the strange 
 expression in his face — a sort of grim ex- 
 altation. , As I stepped aside he burst out 
 In a loud, shrill, cackling laugh: 
 
 "He-he-he — he-he-he " 
 
 I was too astonished to speak at once. 
 Ordinarily when I meet any one in the town 
 road it is in my heart to cry out to him, 
 "Good morning, friend," or, "How are you, 
 brother?" but I had no such prompting that 
 day. 
 
 "Git in, Grayson," he said; "git In, git 
 in." 
 
 I climbed up beside him, and he slapped 
 me on the knee with another burst of shrill 
 laughter. 
 
 "They thought they had the old man," he 
 said, sfTting up his horses. "They thought 
 there weren't no law left in Israel. I showed 
 'em." 
 
21 8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I cannot convey the bitter triumphancy of 
 his voice. 
 
 "You mean the road case?" I asked. 
 
 "Road case!" he exploded, "they wan't 
 no road case; they didn't have no road case. 
 I beat 'em. I says to 'em, 'What right 
 hev any o' you on my property? Go round 
 with you,' I says. Oh, I beat 'em. If they'd 
 had their way, they'd 'a' cut through my 
 hedge — the hounds!" 
 
 When he set me down at my door I had 
 said hardly a word. There seemed nothing 
 that could be said. I remember I stood for 
 some time watching the old man as he rode 
 away, his wagon jolting in the country road, 
 his stout figure perched firmly in the seat. I 
 went in with a sense of heaviness at the heart. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "there are some things 
 in this world beyond human remedy." 
 
 Two evenings later I was surprised to see 
 the Scotch Preacher drive up to my gate and 
 hastily tie his horse. 
 
 "David," said he, "there's bad business 
 afoot. A lot of the young fellows in Swan Hill 
 are planning a raid on Old Toombs's hedge. 
 They are coming down to-night." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 219 
 
 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 
 sundown, to the settlement. I had no con- 
 ception 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 Mc- 
 Alway excels, but what a power he is among 
 men! He was like some stern old giant, 
 standing there and holding up the portals 
 of civilization. I saw men melt under his 
 words like wax; I saw wild young fellows 
 subdued into quietude; I saw unwise old men 
 set to thinking. ^ 
 
 "Man, man," he'd say, lapsing in his ear- 
 nestness into the broad Scotch accent of 
 his youth, "you canna' mean plunder, and 
 destruction, and riot! You canna 1 Not in 
 this neighbourhood!" 
 
 "What about Old Toombs?" shouted one 
 of the boys. 
 
220 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I never shall forget how Doctor McAlway 
 drew himself up, nor the majesty that looked 
 from his eye. 
 
 "Old Toombs!" he said in a voice that 
 thrilled one to the bone, "Old Toombs! 
 Have you no faith, that you stand in the 
 place of Almighty God and measure pun- 
 ishments?" 
 
 Before we left it was past midnight and we 
 drove home, almost silent, in the darkness. 
 
 "Doctor McAlway," I said, "if Old Toombs 
 could know the history of this night it might 
 change his point of view." 
 
 "I doot it," said the Scotch Preacher. 
 "I doot it." 
 
 The night passed serenely; the morning 
 saw Old Toombs's hedge standing as gor- 
 geous 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 neigh- 
 bourliness in the community which he despised 
 had, after all, held him safe. There is a 
 supreme faith among common people — it iS\ 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 221 
 
 indeed, the very taproot of democracy — that 
 although the unfriendly one may persist 
 long in his power and arrogance, there is a 
 moving Force which commands events. 
 
 I suppose if I were writing a mere story I 
 should tell how Old Toombs was miraculously 
 softened at the age of sixty-eight years, and 
 came into new relationships with his neigh- 
 bours, or else I should relate how the mills of 
 God, grinding -slowly, had crushed the recalci- 
 trant human atom into dust. 
 
 Either of these results conceivably might 
 have happened — all things are possible — 
 and being ingeniously related would somehow 
 have answered a need in the human soul 
 that the logic of events be constantly and 
 conclusively demonstrated in the lives of 
 individual men and women. 
 
 But as a matter of fact, neither of these 
 things did happen in this quiet community 
 of ours. There exists, assuredly, a logic 
 of events, oh, a terrible, irresistible logic of 
 'events, but it is careless of the span of any 
 one man's life. We would like to have each 
 man enjoy the sweets of his own virtues 
 and suffer the lash of his own misdeeds — 
 but it rarely so happens in life. No, it is 
 
222 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 the community which lives or dies, is regener- 
 ated or marred by the deeds of men. 
 
 So Old Toombs continued to live. So 
 he continued to buy more land, raise more 
 cattle, collect more interest, and the won- 
 derful hedge continued to flaunt its marvels 
 still more notably upon the country road. 
 To what end ? Who knows ? Who knows ? 
 
 I saw him afterward from time to time, 
 tried to maintain some sort of. friendly rela- 
 tions with him; but it seemed as the years 
 passed that he grew ever lonelier and more 
 bitter, and not only more friendless, but 
 seemingly more incapable of friendliness. 
 In times past I have seen what men call 
 tragedies — I saw once a perfect young man 
 die in his strength — but it seems 'to me I 
 never knew anything more tragic than the 
 life and death of Old Toombs. If it can- 
 not be said of a man when he dies that either 
 his nation, his state, his neighbourhood, his 
 family, or at least his wife or child, is better 
 for his having lived, what can be said for him?* 
 
 Old Toombs is dead. Like Jehoram, King 
 of Judah, of whom it is terribly said in the 
 Book of Chronicles, "he departed without 
 being desired." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 223 
 
 Of this story of Nathan Toombs we talked 
 much and long there in the Ransome home. 
 I was with them, as I said, about two days 
 — kept inside most of the time by a driving 
 spring rain which filled the valley with a 
 pale gray mist and turned all the country 
 roads into running streams. One morning, 
 the weather having cleared, I swung my bag 
 to my shoulder, and with much warmth of 
 parting I set my face again to the free road 
 and the open country. 
 
THE MAN POSSESSED 
 
^'^i 
 
 kC:- 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MAN POSSESSED 
 
 I SUPPOSE I was predestined (and like- 
 wise foreordained) to reach the city sooner 
 or later. My fate in that respect was settled 
 for me when I placed my trust in the vagrant 
 road. I thought for a time that I was 
 more than a match for the Road, but I soon 
 learned that the Road was more than a 
 match for me. Sly? There's no name for 
 it. Alluring, lovable, mysterious — as the 
 
 227 
 
228 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 heart of a woman. Many a time I've fol- 
 lowed the Road where it led through innocent 
 meadows or climbed leisurely hill slopes only 
 to find that it had crept around slyly and 
 led me before I knew it into the back door 
 of some busy town. 
 
 Mostly in this country the towns squat 
 low in the valleys, they lie in wait by the 
 rivers, and often I scarcely know of their 
 presence until I am so close upon them 
 that I can smell the breath of their heated 
 nostrils and hear their low growlings and 
 grumblings. 
 
 My fear of these lesser towns has never been 
 profound. I have even been bold enough, 
 when I came across one of them, to hasten 
 straight through as though assured that Cer- 
 berus was securely chained; but I found, after 
 a time, what I might indeed have guessed, 
 that the Road also led irresistibly to the lair 
 of the Old Monster himself, the He-one of the 
 species, where he lies upon the plain, lolling 
 under his soiled gray blanket of smoke. 
 
 It is wonderful to be safe at home again, 
 to watch the tender, reddish brown shoots of 
 the Virginia creeper reaching in at my study 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 229 
 
 window, to see the green of my own quiet 
 fields, to hear the peaceful clucking of the 
 hens in the sunny dooryard — and Harriet 
 humming at her work in the kitchen. 
 
 When I left the Ransomes that fine spring 
 morning, I had not the slightest presenti- 
 ment of what the world held in store for me. 
 After being a prisoner of the weather for 
 so long, I took to the Road with fresh joy. 
 All the fields were of a misty greenness and 
 there were pools still shining in the road, 
 but the air was deliciously clear, clean, and 
 soft. I came through the hill country for 
 three or four miles, even running down some 
 of the steeper places for the very joy the 
 motion gave me, the feel of the air on my face. 
 
 Thus I came finally to the Great Road, 
 and stood for a moment looking first this 
 way, then that. 
 
 "Where now?" I asked aloud. 
 
 With an amusing sense of the possibil- 
 ities 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 
 
230 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 interesting 
 people upon the busy road. Automobiles 
 there were in plenty, and loaded wagons, and 
 jolly families off for town, and a herdsman 
 driving sheep, and small boys on their way to 
 school with their dinner pails, and a gypsy 
 wagon with lean, led horses following behind, 
 and even a Jewish peddler with a crinkly 
 black beard, whom I was on the very point 
 of stopping. 
 
 "I should like sometime to know a Jew," 
 I said to myself. 
 
 As I travelled, feeling like one who pos- 
 sesses 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 a 
 tree, the curious, familiar sign: 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 231 
 
 I stopped instantly. It seemed like an old 
 friend. 
 
 "Well," said I. "I'm not at all tired, 
 but I want to be agreeable." 
 
 With that I sat down on a convenient 
 stone, took off my hat, wiped my fore- 
 head, and looked about me with satisfac- 
 tion, for it was a pleasant country. 
 
 I had not been sitting there above two 
 minutes when my eyes fell upon one of 
 the oddest specimens of humanity (I thought 
 then) that ever I saw. He had been standing 
 near the roadside, just under the tree upon 
 which I had seen the sign, " Rest." My heart 
 dotted and carried one. 
 
 "The sign man himself!" I exclaimed. 
 
 I arose instantly and walked down the 
 road toward him. 
 
 "A man has only to stop anywhere here," 
 I said exultantly, "and things happen." 
 
 The stranger's appearance was indeed ex- 
 traordinary. He seemed at first glimpse 
 to be about twice as large around the hips 
 as he was at the shoulders, but this I soon 
 discovered to be due to no natural avoir- 
 dupois but to the prodigious number of 
 soiled newspapers and magazines with which 
 
232 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 the low-hanging pockets of his overcoat 
 were stuffed. For he was still wearing an 
 old shabby overcoat — though the weather 
 was warm and bright — and on his head was 
 an odd and outlandish hat. It was of fur, 
 flat at the top, flat as a pie tin, with the moth- 
 eaten earlaps turned up at the sides and 
 looking exactly like small furry ears. These, 
 with the round steel spectacles which he 
 wore — the only distinctive feature of his 
 countenance — gave him an indescribably 
 droll appearance. 
 
 "A fox!" I thought. 
 
 Then I looked at him more closely. 
 
 "No," said I, "an owl, an owl!" 
 
 The stranger stepped out into the road 
 and evidently awaited my approach. My 
 first vivid impression of his face — I remem- , 
 ber it afterward shining with a strange 
 inward illumination — was not favourable. 
 It was a deep-lined, scarred, worn-looking 
 face, insignificant if not indeed ugly in 
 its features, and yet, even at the first glance, 
 revealing something inexplainable — incal- 
 culable 
 
 "Good day, friend," I said heartily. 
 
 Without replving to my greeting, be asked: 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 233 
 
 "Is this the road to Kilburn?" — with a 
 faint flavour of foreignness in his words. 
 
 "I think it is," I replied, and I noticed 
 as he lifted his hand to thank me that one 
 finger was missing and that the hand itself 
 was cruelly twisted and scarred. 
 
 The stranger instantly set off up the Road 
 without giving me much more attention 
 than he would have given any other sign- 
 post. I stood a moment looking after him 
 — the wings of his overcoat beating about 
 his legs and the small furry ears on his cap 
 wagging gently. 
 
 "There," said I aloud, "is a man who is 
 actually going somewhere." 
 
 So many men in this world are going 
 nowhere in particular that when one comes 
 along — even though he be amusing and in- 
 significant — who is really (and passionately) 
 going somewhere, what a stir he commun- 
 icates to a dull world! We catch sparks of 
 electricity from the very friction of his passage. 
 
 It was so with this odd stranger. Though 
 at one moment I could not help smiling at 
 him, at the next I was following him. 
 
 "It may be," said I to myself, "that 
 this is really the sign man!" 
 
234 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 de- 
 cided, being a lover of bold methods, to let 
 go my largest gun first — for moral effect. 
 
 "So," said I, as I ran alongside, "you 
 are the man who puts up the signs." 
 
 He stopped and looked at me. 
 
 '* What signs?" 
 
 "Why the sign 'Rest' along this road." 
 
 He paused for some seconds with a per- 
 plexed expression on his face. 
 
 "Then you are not the sign man," I 
 said. 
 
 "No," he replied, "I ain't any sign man." 
 
 I was not a little disappointed, but having 
 made my attack, I determined to see if 
 there was any treasure aboard — which, I 
 suppose, should be the procedure of any well- 
 regulated pirate. 
 
 "I'm going this way myself," I said, 
 "and if you have no objections " 
 
 He stood looking at me curiously, indeed 
 suspiciously, through his round spectacles. 
 
 "Have you got the passport.?" he asked 
 finally. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 235 
 
 *'The passport!" I exclaimed, mystified in 
 my turn. 
 
 "Yes," said he, "the passport. Let me 
 see your hand^" 
 
 When I held out my hand he looked at 
 it closely for a moment, and then took it 
 with a quick warm pressure in one of his, 
 and gave it a little shake, in a way not quite 
 American. 
 
 "You are one of us," said he, "you work." 
 
 I thought at first that it was a bit of 
 pleasantry, and I was about to return it 
 in kind when I saw plainly in his face a 
 look of solemn intent. 
 
 " So, ' ' he said, "we shall travel like com- 
 rades." 
 
 He thrust his scarred hand through my arm, 
 and we walked up the road side by side, his 
 bulging pockets beating first against his legs 
 and then against mine, quite impartially. 
 
 "I think," said the stranger, "that we 
 shall be arrested at Kilburn." 
 
 "We shall!" I exclaimed with something, 
 I admit, of a shock. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "but it is all in the day's 
 work." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
236 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 He stopped in the road and faced me. 
 Throwing back his overcoat he pointed to 
 a small red button on his coat lapel , 
 
 "They don't want me in Kilburn," said 
 he, "the mill men are strikin' there, and the 
 bosses have got armed men on every corner. 
 Oh, the capitalists are watchin' for me, all 
 right." 
 
 I cannot convey the strange excitement 
 I felt. It seemed as though these words 
 suddenly opened a whole new world around 
 me — a world I had heard about for years, 
 but never entered. And the tone in which 
 he had used the word "capitalist!" I had 
 almost to glance around to make sure that 
 there were no ravening capitalists hiding be- 
 hind the trees. , 
 
 "So you are a Socialist," I said. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. "I'm one of those 
 dangerous persons," 
 
 First and last I have read much of Socialism, 
 and thought about it, too, from the quiet 
 angle of my farm among the hills, but this 
 was the first time I had ever had a live So- 
 cialist on my arm. I could not have been 
 more surprised if the stranger had said, "Yes, 
 I am Theodore Roosevelt." 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 237 
 
 One of the discoveries we keep making 
 all our life long (provided we remain humble) 
 is the humorous discovery of the ordinari- 
 ness of the extraordinary. Here was this 
 disrupter of society, this man of the red flag — 
 here he was with his mild spectacled eyes and 
 his furry ears wagging as he walked. It was 
 unbelievable ! — and the sun shining on him 
 quite as irripartially as it shone on me. 
 
 Coming at last to a pleasant bit of wood- 
 land, where a stream ran under the roadway, 
 I said: 
 
 "Stranger, let's sit down and have a 
 bite of luncheon." 
 
 He began to expostulate, said he was 
 expected in Kilburn. 
 
 "Oh, I've plenty for two," I said, "and 
 I can say, at least, that I am a firm believer 
 in cooperation." 
 
 Without more urgmg 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 
 
238 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 PIE ■ — Beau Brummel himself could not outdo 
 me In respectful consideration. But Bill 
 Hahn neither saw, nor smelled, nor, I think, 
 tasted Mrs. Ransome's cookery. As soon 
 as we sat down he began talking. From time 
 to time he would reach out for another 
 sandwich or doughnut or pickle (without 
 knowing in the least which he was getting), 
 and when that was gone some reflex impulse 
 caused him to reach out for some more. 
 When the last crumb of our luncheon had 
 disappeared Bill Hahn still reached out. 
 His hand groped absently about, and coming 
 in contact with no more doughiiuts or pickles 
 he withdrew it — and did not know, I think,, 
 that the- meal was finished. (Confidentially, 
 I have speculated on what might have hap- 
 pened if the supply had been unlimited!) 
 
 But that was Bill Hahn. Once started 
 on his talk, he never thought of food or 
 clothing or shelter; but his eyes glowed, 
 his face lighted up with a strange efful- 
 gence, and he quite lost himself upon the 
 tide of his own oratory. I saw him after- 
 ward by a flare-light at the centre of a 
 great crowd of men and women — but that 
 is getting ahead of m.y story. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 239 
 
 His talk bristled with such words as 
 "capitalism," "proletariat," "class-conscious- 
 ness" — and he spoke with fluency of "eco- 
 nomic determinism" and "syndicalism." It 
 was quite wonderful! And from time to 
 time, he would bring in a smashing quota- 
 tion from Aristotle, Napoleon, Karl Marx, or 
 Eugene V. Debs, giving them all equal values, 
 and he cited statistics ! — oh, marvellous sta- 
 tistics, that never were on sea or land. 
 
 Once he was so swept away by his own 
 eloquence that he sprang to his feet and, 
 raising one hand high above his head (quite 
 unconscious that he was holding up a dill 
 pickle), he worked through one of his most 
 thrilling periods. 
 
 Yes, I laughed, and yet there was so 
 brave a simplicity about this odd, absurd 
 little man that what I laughed at was only 
 his outward appearance (and that he himself 
 had no care for), and all the time I felt a 
 growing respect and admiration for him. 
 He was not only sincere, but he was genuinely 
 simple — amuch higher virtue, as Fenelon says. 
 For while sincere people do not aim at ap- 
 pearing anything but what they are, they 
 are always in fear of passing for something 
 
240 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 m the world but few who are 
 simple. 
 
 Well, the longer he talked, the less in- 
 terested 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 v/hose 
 anointed eyes now looked out upon the 
 glories of the world, I should have been 
 among the questioners : 
 
 "What did he to thee? How opened he 
 thine eyes?" 
 
 I tried ineffectually several times to break 
 the swift current of his oratory and finally 
 succeeded (when he paused a moment to 
 finish off a bit of pie crust). 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 241 
 
 "You must have seen some hard ex- 
 periences in your life," I said. 
 
 "That I have," responded Bill Hahn, 
 "the capitalistic system " 
 
 "Did you ever work in the mills your- 
 self?" I interrupted hastily. 
 
 "Boy and man," said Bill Hahn, "I 
 worked in that hell for thirty-two years — 
 The class-conscious proletariat have only 
 to exert themselves " 
 
 "And your wife, did she work too — 
 and your sons and daughters ?" 
 
 A spasm of pain crossed his face. 
 
 "My daughter?" he said. "They killed 
 her in the mills." 
 
 It was appalling — the dead level of the 
 tone in which he uttered those words — the 
 monotone of an emotion long ago burned out, 
 and yet leaving frightful scars. 
 
 "My friend!" I exclaimed, and I could 
 not help laying my hand on his arm. 
 
 I had the feeling I often have with troubled 
 children — an indescribable pity that they have 
 had to pass through the valley of the shadow, 
 and I not there to take them by the hand. 
 
 "And was this — your daughter — what 
 broijght you to your present belief?" 
 
242 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "No," said he, "oh, no. I was a Socialist, 
 as you might say, from youth up. That is, 
 I called myself a Socialist, but, comrade, I've 
 learned this here truth: that it ain't of so 
 much importance that you possess a belief, 
 as that the belief possess you. Do you 
 understand ? " 
 
 "I think," said I, "that I understand." 
 
 Well, he told me his story, mostly in 
 a curious, dull, detached way — as though 
 he were speaking of some third person 
 in whom he felt only a brotherly interest, 
 but from time to time some incident or 
 observation would flame up out of the nar- 
 rative, like the opening of the door of a 
 molten pit — so that the glare hurt one! — 
 and then the story would die back again into 
 quiet narrative. 
 
 Like most working people he had never 
 lived in the twentieth century at all. He was 
 still in the feudal age, and his whole life had 
 been a blind and ceaseless struggle for the 
 bare necessaries of life, broken from time 
 to time by fierce irregular wars called strikes. 
 He had never known anything of a real self- 
 governing commonwealth, and such progress 
 as he and his kind had made was never the 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 243 
 
 result of their citizenship, of their powers as 
 voters, but grew out of the explosive and 
 ragged upheavals of their own half-organized 
 societies and unions. 
 
 It was against the "black people" he said 
 that he was first on strike back in the early 
 nineties. He told me all about it, how he had 
 been working in the mills pretty comfortably 
 — he was young and strong then, with a fine 
 growing family and a small home of his own. 
 
 "It was as pretty a place as you would 
 want to see," he said; "we grew cabbages 
 and onions and turnips — everything grew 
 fine! — in the garden behind the house." 
 
 And then the "black people" began to come 
 in, little by little at first, and then by the 
 carload. By the "black people" he meant 
 the people from Southern Europe, he called 
 them "hordes" — "hordes and hordes of 
 'em" — Italians mostly, and they began 
 getting into the mills and underbidding for 
 the jobs, so that wages slowly went down and 
 at the same time the machines were speeded 
 up. It seems that many of these "black peo- 
 ple" were single men or vigorous young mar- 
 ried people with only themselves to support, 
 while the old American workers were men 
 
244 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 with families and little homes to pay for, 
 and plenty of old grandfathers and grand- 
 mothers, to say nothing of babies, depending 
 upon them. 
 
 "There wasn't a living for a decent family 
 left," he said. 
 
 So they struck — and he told me in his 
 dull monotone of the long bitterness of that 
 strike, the empty cupboards, the approach 
 of winter with no coal for the stoves and no 
 warm clothing for the children. He told 
 me that many of the old workers began to 
 leave the town (some bound for the larger 
 cities, some for the Far West). 
 
 "But," said he with a sudden outburst 
 of emotion, "I couldn't leave. I had the 
 woman and the children!" 
 
 And presently the strike collapsed, and 
 the workers rushed helter skelter back to the 
 mills to get their old jobs. "Begging like 
 whipped dogs," he said bitterly. 
 
 Many of them found their places taken 
 by the eager "black people," and many had 
 to go to work at lower wages in poorer places 
 — punished for the fight they had made. 
 
 But he got along somehow, he said — 
 'the woman was a good manager" — until 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 245 
 
 one day he had the misfortune to get his 
 hand caught in the machinery. It was a 
 place which should have been protected 
 with guards, but was not. He was laid up 
 for several weeks, and the company, claiming 
 that the accident was due to his own stupidity 
 and carelessness, refused even to pay his 
 wages while he was idle. Well, the family 
 had to live somehow, and the woman and 
 the daughter — " she was a little thing," he 
 said, "and frail" — the woman and the 
 daughter went into the mill. But even with 
 this new source of income they began to fall 
 behind. Money which should have gone 
 toward making the last payments on their 
 home (already long delayed by the strike) 
 had now to go to the doctor and the grocer. 
 
 "We had to live," said Bill Hahn. 
 
 Again and again he used this same phrase, 
 "We had to live!" as a sort of bedrock ex- 
 planation for all the woes of life. 
 
 After a time, with one finger gone and 
 a frightfully scarred hand — he held it up for 
 me to see — he went back into the mill. 
 
 "But it kept getting worse and worse," 
 said he, "and finally I couldn't stand it/ any 
 longer." 
 
246 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 He and a group of friends got together 
 secretly and tried to organize a union, tried to 
 get the workmen together to improve their 
 own condition; but in some way ("they had 
 spies everywhere," he said) the manager 
 learned of the attempt and one morning 
 when he reported at the mill he was handed 
 a slip asking him to call for his wages, that 
 his help was no longer required. 
 
 "I'd been with that one company for 
 twenty years and four months," he said 
 bitterly, "I'd helped in my small way to 
 build it up, make it a big concern payin' 28 
 per cent, dividends every year; I'd given 
 part of my right hand in doin' it — and they 
 threw me out like an old shoe." 
 
 He said he would have pulled up and gone 
 away, but he still had the little home and 
 the garden, and his wife and^ daughter were 
 still at work, so he hung on grimly, trying to 
 get some other job. "But what good is a 
 man for any other sort of work," he said, 
 "when he has been trained to the mills for 
 thirty-two years!" 
 
 It was not very long after that when the 
 "great strike" began — indeed, it grew out 
 of the organization which he had tried to 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 247 
 
 launch — and Bill Hahn threw himself into 
 it with all his strength. He was one of the 
 leaders. I shall not attempt to repeat here 
 his description of the bitter struggle, the 
 coming of the soldiery, the street riots, the 
 long lists of arrests ("some," said he, "got 
 into jail on purpose, so that they' could at 
 least have enough to eat!"), the late meetings 
 of strikers, the wild turmoil and excitement. 
 
 Of all this he told me, and then he stopped 
 suddenly, and after a long pause he' said in 
 a low voice : 
 
 "Comrade, did ye ever see your wife and 
 your sickly daughter and your kids sufferin' 
 for bread to eat?" 
 
 He paused again with a hard, dry sob 
 in his voice. 
 
 "Did ye ever see that?" 
 
 "No," said I, very humbly, "I have 
 never seen anything like that." 
 
 He turned on me suddenly, and I shall never 
 forget the look on his face, nor the blaze 
 in his eyes : 
 
 "Then what can you know about working- 
 men!" 
 
 What could I answer? 
 
 A moment passed and then he said, as if a 
 
248 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 little remorseful at having turned thus upon 
 me: 
 
 "Comrade, I tell you, the iron entered my 
 soul — them days." 
 
 It seems that the leaders of the strike were 
 mostly old employees like Bill Hahn, and 
 the company had conceived the idea that 
 if these men could be eliminated the organi- 
 zation 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 hdme, upon which he 
 had not been able to keep up his payments, 
 and at the same time the merchant, of whom 
 he had been a respected customer for years, 
 refused to give him any further credit. 
 
 "But we lived somehow," he said, "we 
 lived and we fought." 
 
 It was then that he began to see clearly 
 what it all meant. He said he made a 
 great discovery: that the "black people" 
 against whom they had struck in 1894 
 were not to blame! 
 
 "I tell you," said he, "we found when we 
 got started that them black people — we used 
 to call 'em dagoes — were just workin' people 
 like us — and in hell with us. They were 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 249 
 
 good soldiers, them Eyetalians and Poles and 
 Syrians, they fought with us to the end." 
 
 I shall not soon forget the intensely dramatic 
 but perfectly simple way in which he told 
 me how he came, as he said, "to see the true 
 light." Holding up his maimed right hand 
 (that trembled a little), he pointed one finger 
 upward. 
 
 "I seen the big hand in the sky," he said, 
 " I seen it as clear as daylight." 
 
 He said he saw at last what Socialism meant. 
 
 One day he went home from a strikers' 
 meeting — one of the last, for the men were 
 worn out with their long struggle. It was 
 a bitter cold day, and he was completely 
 discouraged. When he reached his own-street 
 he saw a pile of household goods on the side- 
 walk 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 
 
2SO THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 married, and we'd had it about twenty years 
 on the mantel in the livin'-room. It was a 
 good clock," he said. 
 
 He paused and then smiled a little. 
 
 "I never have figured it out why I should 
 have been able to think of nothing but that 
 dock," he said, "but so it was." 
 
 When he got home, he found his frail 
 daughter just coming out of the empty house, 
 "coughing as though she was dyin'." Some- 
 thing, he said, seemed to stop inside of him. 
 Those were his words: "Something seemed 
 to stop inside 'o me." 
 
 He turned away without saying a word, 
 walked back to strike headquarters, bor- 
 rowed a revolver from a friend, and started 
 out along the main road which led into the 
 better part of the town. 
 
 "Did you ever hear o' Robert Winter?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "No," said I. 
 
 "Well, Robert Winter Vv'as the biggest 
 gun of 'em all. He owned the mills there, 
 and the largest store and the newspaper — 
 he pretty nearly owned the town." 
 
 He told me much more about Robert 
 Winter which betrayed still a curious sort 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 251 
 
 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 
 in through a hemlock hedge (for the stone 
 gateway was guarded) and walked through 
 the snow toward the great house. ' 
 
 "An' all the time I seemed to be seein' 
 my daughter Margy right there before my eyes 
 coughing as though she was dyin'." 
 
 It was just nightfall and all the windows 
 were alight. He crept up to a clump of 
 bushes under a window and waited there a 
 moment while he drew out and cocked his 
 revolver. Then he slowly reached upward 
 until his head cleared the sill and he could look 
 into the room. "A big, warm room," he 
 described it. 
 
 "Comrade," said he, "I had murder in 
 my heart that night." 
 
 So he stood there looking in with the 
 revolver ready cocked in his hand. 
 
 "And what do you think I seen there?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I cannot guess," I said. 
 
 "Well," said Bill Hahn, "I seen the great 
 Robert Winter that we had been fighting 
 *nr five long months — and he was down on 
 
252 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 his hands and knees on the carpet — and 
 he had his little daughter on his back — 
 and he was creepin' about with her — an' 
 she was laughin'." 
 
 Bill Hahn paused. 
 
 "I had a bead on him," he said finally, "but 
 I couldn't do it — I just couldn't do it." 
 
 He came away all weak and trembling 
 and cold, and, "Comrade," he said, "I was 
 cryin' like a baby, and didn't know why." 
 
 The next day the strike collapsed and 
 there was the faniiliar 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 pauper's 
 field. 
 
 "She was as truly killed," he said, "as 
 though some one had fired a bullet at her 
 through a window." 
 
 "And what did you do after that.?" I 
 asked, when he had paused for a long time 
 with his chin On his breast. 
 
 "Well," said he, "I did a lot of thinking 
 them days, and I says to myself: 'This 
 thing is wrong, and I will go out and stop it — 
 I will go out and stop it.' " 
 
 As he uttered these words, I looked at him 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 253 
 
 curiously — his absurd flat fur hat with the 
 moth-eaten ears, the old bulging overcoat, 
 the round spectacles, the scarred, insignificant 
 face — he seemed sornehow transformed, a per- 
 son elevated above himself, the tool of some 
 vast incalculable force. 
 
 I shall never forget the phrase he used 
 to describe his own feelings when he had 
 reached this astonishing decision to go out 
 and stop the wrongs of the world. He said 
 he "began to feel all clean inside." 
 
 " I see it didn't matter what become o' me, 
 and I began to feel all clean inside." 
 
 It seemed, he explained, as though some- 
 thing big and strong had got hold of him, 
 and he began to be happy. 
 
 "Since then," he said in a low voice, 
 "I've been happier than I ever was before 
 In all my life. I ain't got any family, nor any 
 home — rightly speakin' — nor any money, 
 but, comrade, you see here in front of you, 
 a happy man." 
 
 When he had finished his story we sat 
 quiet for some time. 
 
 "Well," said he, finally, "I must be goin'. 
 The committee will wonder what's become 
 
 o' me." 
 
254 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I followed him out to the road. There 
 I put my hand on his shoulder, and said: 
 
 "Bill Hahn, you are a better man than 
 I am." 
 
 He smiled, a beautiful smile, and we walked 
 off together down the road. 
 
 I wish I had gone on with him at that 
 time into the city, but somehow I could 
 not do it. I stopped near the top of the 
 hill where one can see in the distance that 
 smoky huddle of buildings which is known 
 as Kilburn, and though he urged me, I 
 turned aside and sat down in the edge of a 
 meadow. There were many things I wanted 
 to think about, to get clear in my mind. 
 
 As I sat looking out toward that great 
 city, I saw three men walking in the white 
 road. As I watched them, I could see 
 them coming quickly, eagerly. Presently 
 they threw up their hands and evidently 
 began to shout, though I could not hear 
 what they said. At that moment I saw my 
 friend Bill Hahn running in the road, his 
 (ioat skirts flapping heavily about his legs. 
 When they met they almost fell into one 
 another's arms. 
 
 I suppose it was so that the early Chris- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 255 
 
 tians, those who hid in the Roman catacombs, 
 were wont to greet one another. 
 
 So I sat thinking. 
 
 "A man," I said to myself, "who' can 
 regard himself as a function, not an end of 
 creation, has arrived." 
 
 After a time I got up and walked down the 
 hill — - some strange force carrying me on- 
 ward — and came thus to the city of Kilburn.. 
 
I AM CAUGHT UP INTO LIFE 
 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 I AM CAUGHT UP INTO LIFE 
 
 I -CAN' scarcely convey in written words 
 the whirling emotions I felt when I 
 entered the city of Kilburn. ■ Every sight, 
 every sound, recalled vividly and painfully 
 the unhappy years I had once spent in another 
 and greater city. Every mingled odour of the 
 streets — and there is nothing that will so 
 surely re-create (for me) the inner emotion 
 of a time or place as a remembered odour — 
 brought back to me the incidents of that 
 immemorial existence. 
 
 For a time, I confess it frankly here, I 
 
 359 
 
26o THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 felt afraid. More than once I stopped short 
 in the street where I was walking, and con- 
 sidered turning about and making again for 
 the open country. Some there may be who 
 will feel that I am exaggerating my sensations 
 and impressions, but they do not know of my 
 memories of a former life, nor of how, many 
 years ago, I left the city quite defeated, 
 glad indeed that I was escaping, and thinking 
 (as I have related elsewhere) that I should 
 never again set foot upon a paved street. 
 These things went deep with me. Only 
 the other day, when a friend asked me how 
 old I was, I responded instantly — our un- 
 premeditated words are usually truest — with 
 the date of my arrival at this farm.- 
 
 "Then you are only ten years old!" he ex- 
 claimed with a laugh, thinking I was joking. 
 
 "Well," I said, "I am counting only the 
 years worth living." 
 
 No; I existed, but I never really lived 
 until I was reborn, that wonderful summer, 
 here among these hills. 
 
 I said I felt afraid in the streets of Kil- 
 burn, 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 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 261 
 
 rather a strange, deep, spiritual shrinking. 
 There seemed something so irresistible about 
 this life of the city, so utterly overpowering. 
 I had a sense of being smaller than I had 
 previously felt myself, that in some way my 
 personality, all that was strong or interesting 
 or original about me, was being smudged 
 over, rubbed out! In the country I had 
 in some measure come to command life, but 
 here, it seemed to me, life was commanding 
 me and crushing me down. It is a difficult 
 thing to describe: I never felt just that way 
 before. 
 
 I stopped at last on the main street of 
 Kilburn in the very heart of the town. I 
 stopped because it seemed necessary to me, 
 like a man in a flood, to touch bottom, to 
 get hold upon something immovable and 
 stable. It was just at that hour of evening 
 when the stores and shops are pouring forth 
 their rivulets of humanity to join the vast 
 flood of the streets. I stepped quickly aside 
 into a niche near the corner of ati immense 
 building of brick and steel and glass, and 
 there I stood with my back to the wall, 
 and I watched the restless, whirling, tor- 
 rential tide of the streets. I felt again, 
 
262 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 as I had not felt it before in years, the mys- 
 terious urge of the city — the sense of un- 
 ending, overpowering movement. 
 
 There was another strange, indeed un- 
 canny, 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 seemed to 
 glance through me to the building behind. 
 I wonder if this is at all a common experi- 
 ence, or whether I was unduly sensitive 
 that day, unduly wrought up? I began 
 to feel like one clad in garments of invis- 
 ibility. I could see, but was not seen. I 
 could feel, but was not felt. In the country 
 there are few who would not stop to speak 
 to me, or at least appraise me with their 
 eyes ; but here I was a wraith, a ghost — 
 not a palpable human being at all. For a mo- 
 ment I felt unutterably lonely. 
 
 It is this way with me. When I have 
 reached the very depths of any serious situa- 
 tion or tragic emotion, something within me 
 seems at last to stop — how shall I describe 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 263 
 
 it? — and I rebound suddenly and see the 
 world, as it were, double — see that my con- 
 dition instead of being serious or tragic is in 
 reality amusing — and I usually came out 
 of it with an utterly absurd or whimsical 
 idea. It was so upon this occasion. I think 
 it was the image of my robust self as a 
 wraith that did it. 
 
 "After all," I said aloud taking a firm 
 hold on the good hard flesh of one of my 
 legs, "this is positively David Grayson." 
 
 I looked out again into that tide of faces 
 — interesting, tired, passive, smiling, sad, but 
 above all, preoccupied faces. 
 
 * "No one," I thought, "seems to know 
 that David Grayson has come to town." 
 
 I had the sudden, almost irresistible notion 
 of climbing up a step near me, holding up 
 one hand, and crying out: 
 
 "Here I am, my friends. I am David 
 Grayson. I am real and solid and opaque; 
 I have plenty of red blood running in my 
 veins. I assure you that I am a person 
 well worth knowing." 
 
 I should really have enjoyed some such 
 outlandish enterprise, and I am not at alJ 
 sure yet that it would not have brought 
 
264 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 me adventures and made me friends worth 
 while. We fail far more often by under-daring 
 than by over-daring. 
 
 But this imaginary object had the result, 
 at least, of giving me a new grip on things. 
 I began to look out upon the amazing spec- 
 tacle before me in a different mood. It was 
 exactly like some enormous anthill into which 
 an idle traveller had thrust his cane. Every- 
 where the ants were running out of their 
 tunnels and burrows, many carrying burdens 
 and giving one strangely the impression 
 that while they were intensely alive and 
 active, not more than half of them had any 
 clear idea of where they were going. And 
 serious, deadly serious, in their haste! I felt 
 a strong inclination to stop a few of them 
 and say: 
 
 "Friends, cheer up. It isn't half as bad 
 as you think it is. Cheer up !" 
 
 After a time the severity of the human 
 flood began to abate, and here and there 
 at the bottom of that gulch of a street, 
 which had begun to fill with soft, bluish- 
 gray shadows, the evening lights appeared. 
 The air had grown cooler; in the distance 
 around a corner I heard a street organ break 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 265 
 
 suddenly and joyously into the lively strains 
 of "The Wearin' o' the Green." 
 
 I "Stepped out into the street with quite a 
 new feeling of adventure. And as if to testify 
 that I was now a visible person a sharp-eyed 
 newsboy discovered me — the first human 
 being in Kilburn who had actually seen me 
 — and came up with a paper in his hand. 
 
 "Her aid, hossV 
 
 I was interested in the shrewd, world- 
 wise, humorous look in the urchin's eyes. 
 
 "No," I began, with the full intent of 
 bantering him into some sort of acquaint- 
 ance; but he evidently measured my pur- 
 chasing capacity quite accurately, for he 
 turned like a flash to another customer. 
 
 " Herald,hoss}" 
 
 "You'll have to step lively, David Gray- 
 son," I said to myself, "if you get aboard 
 In this city." 
 
 A slouchy negro with a cigarette in his 
 fingers glanced at me in passing and then, 
 hesitating, turned quickly toward me. 
 
 "Got a match, boss?" 
 
 I gave him a match. 
 
 "Thank you, boss," and he passed on 
 down the street. 
 
266 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "I seem to be 'boss' around here," I said. 
 
 This contact, slight as it was, gave me a 
 feeling of warmth, removed a little the sensa- 
 tion 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 sizeis that rattled by on the 
 pavement. Even at that hour of the day I 
 think there were more of them in one minute 
 than I see in a whole month at my farm. 
 
 It's a great thing to wear shabby clothes 
 and an old hat. Some of the best things 
 I have ever known, like these experiences 
 of the streets, have resulted from coming up 
 to life from underneath; of being taken for 
 less than I am rather than for more than 
 I am. 
 
 I did not always believe in this doctrine. 
 For many years — the years before I was 
 rightly born into this alluring world — I 
 tried quite the opposite course. I was con- 
 stantly attempting to come down to life from 
 aboye. 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 crea- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 267 
 
 ture which, so clad, so housed, so fed, should 
 appear to be what I thought David Grayson 
 ought to appear in the eyes of the world- 
 Oh, I spent quite a lifetime trying to satisfy 
 other people ! 
 
 Once I remember staying at home, in bed, 
 reading "Huckleberry Finn," while I sent 
 my trousers out to be mended. 
 
 Well, that dummy Grayson perished in a 
 cornfield. His empty coat served well for 
 a scarecrow. A wisp of straw stuck out 
 through a hole in his finest hat. 
 
 And I — the man within — I escaped, 
 and have. been out freely upon the great ad- 
 venture of life. 
 
 If a shabby coat (and I speak here also 
 symbolically, not forgetful of spiritual sig- 
 nificances) lets you into the adventurous 
 world of those who are poor it does not on the 
 other hand rob you of any true friendship 
 among those who are rich or mighty. I say 
 true friendship, for unless a man who is rich 
 and mighty is able to see through my shabby 
 coat (as I see through his fine one), I shall 
 gain nothing by knowing him. 
 
 I've permitted myself all this digression 
 — left myself walking alone there in the 
 
268 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 streets of Kilburn while I philosophized 
 upon the ways and means of life — not 
 without design, for I could have had no 
 such experiences as I did have in Kilburn 
 if I had worn a better coat or carried upon 
 me the evidences of security in life. 
 
 I think I have already remarked upon the 
 extraordinary enlivenment of wits which 
 comes to the man who has been without a 
 meal or so and does not know when or where 
 he is again to break his fast. Try it, friend, 
 and see ! It was already getting along in the 
 evening, and I knew or supposed I knew no 
 one in Kilburn save only Bill Hahn, Socialist, 
 who was little better off than I was. 
 
 ■ In this emergency my mind began to wojk 
 swiftly. A score of fascinating plans for get- 
 ting my supper and a bed to sleep in flashed 
 through my mind. 
 
 "Why," said I, "when I come to think 
 of it, I'm comparatively rich. I'll warrant 
 there are plenty of places in Kilburn, and 
 good ones, too, where I could barter a chapter 
 of Montaigne and a little good conversation 
 for a first-rate supper, and I've no doubt 
 that < I could whistle up a bed almost any- 
 where!" 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 269 
 
 I thought of a Httle motto I often repeat 
 to myself: 
 
 To know life, begin anywhere! 
 
 There were several people on the streets 
 of Kilburn that night who don't know yet 
 how very near they were to being boarded 
 by a somewhat shabby looking farmer who 
 would have offered them, let us say, a notable 
 musical production called "Old Dan Tucker," 
 exquisitely performed on a tin whistle, in ex- 
 change for a good honest supper. 
 
 There was one man in particular — a 
 fine, pompous citizen who came down the 
 street swinging his cane and looking as 
 though the universe was a sort of Christmas 
 turkey, lying all brown and sizzling before 
 him ready to be carved — a fine pompous 
 citizen who never realized how- nearly Fate 
 with a battered volume of Montaigne in one 
 hand and a tin whistle in the other — canie 
 to pouncing upon him that evening! And 
 I am firmly convinced that if I had attacked 
 him with the Great Particular Word he 
 would have carved me off a juicy slice of the 
 white breast meat. 
 
270 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "I'm getting hungry," I said; "I must 
 find Bill Hahn!" 
 
 I had turned down a side street, and see- 
 ing there in front of a building a number 
 of lounging men with two or three cabs. 
 or carriages standing nearby in the street 
 I walked up to them. It was a livery 
 barn. 
 
 Now I like all sorts of out-of-door peo- 
 ple: I seem to be related to them through 
 horses and cattle and cold winds and sunshine. 
 I like them and understand them, and they 
 seem to like me and understand me. So I 
 walked up to the group of jolly drivers and 
 stablemen intending to ask my directions. 
 The talking died out and they all turned to 
 look at me. I suppose I was not altogether 
 a familiar type there in the city streets. 
 My bag, especially, seemed to set me apart 
 as a curious person. 
 
 "Friends," I said, "I am a farmer " 
 
 They all broke out laughing; they seemed 
 to know it already! I was just a little taken 
 aback, but I laughed, too, knowing that there 
 was a way of getting at them if only I could 
 find it. 
 
 "It may surprise you," I said, "but this 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 271 
 
 is the first time in some dozen years that 
 I've been in a big city like this." 
 
 "You nadn'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 
 rest of them, "you've been living right 
 here all the time, and don't realize how 
 amusing and curious the city looks to me. 
 Why, I feel as though I had been away 
 sleeping for twenty years, like Rip Van 
 Winkle. When I left the city there was 
 scarcely an automobile to be seen anywhere 
 — and now look at them snorting through 
 the streets. I ' counted twenty-two passing 
 that corner up there in five minutes by the 
 clock." 
 
 This was a fortunate remark, for I found 
 instantly that the invasion of the automobile 
 was a matter of tremendous import to such 
 Knights of Bucephalus as these. 
 
 At first the wit interrupted me with amusing 
 remarks, as wits will, but I soon had him as 
 quiet as the others. For I have found the 
 things that chiefly interest people are the 
 things they already know about — provided 
 you show them that these common things 
 
272 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 de- 
 veloped into an amusing comparison (I wish 
 I had room to repeat it here) between the city 
 and the country. I told them something 
 about my farm, how much I enjoyed it, 
 and what a wonderful free life one had in 
 the country. In this I was really taking an 
 unfair advantage of them, for I was trading 
 on the fact that every man, down deep in his 
 heart, has more or less of an instinct to get 
 back to the soil — at least all outdoor men 
 have. And when I described the simplest 
 things about my barn, and the cattle and 
 pigs, and the bees — and the good things we 
 have to eat — I had every one of them leaning 
 forward and hanging oa my words. 
 
 Harriet sometimes laughs at me for the 
 way I celebrate farm life. She says all my 
 apples are the size of Hubbard squashes, my 
 eggs all double-yolked, and my cornfields trop- 
 ical jungles. Practical Harriet! My apples 
 may not all be the size of Hubbard squashes, 
 but they are good, sizable apples, and as 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 273 
 
 for flavour — all the spices of Arcady ! 
 
 And I believe, I know, from my own expe- 
 rience that these fields and hills are capable 
 of healing men's souls. And when I see peo- 
 ple wandering around a lonesome city like 
 Kilburn, with never a. soft bit of soil to 
 put their heels into, nor a green thing to cul- 
 tivate, nor any corn or apples or honey to 
 harvest, I feel - — well, that they are wasting 
 their time. 
 
 (It's a fact, Harriet!) 
 
 Indeed, I had the most curious experi- 
 ence with my friend the wit — his name 
 I soon learned was Healy — a jolly, round, 
 red-nosed, outdoor chap with fists that looked 
 like small-sized hams, and a rich, warm 
 Irish voice. At first he was inclined to use 
 me as the ready butt of his lively mind, 
 but presently he became so much interested 
 in what I was saying that he sat squarely 
 in front of me with both his jolly eyes and 
 his smiling mouth wide open. 
 
 "If ever you pass my way," I said to 
 him, "just drop in and I'll give you a din- 
 ner of baked beans" — and I smacked — "and 
 home made bread" — and I smacked agaic 
 
274 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 — "and pumpkin pie" — and I smacked a 
 third time — "that will make your mouth 
 water." 
 
 All this smacking and the description of 
 baked beans and pumpkin pie had an odd 
 counter effect upon me; for I suddenly recalled 
 my own tragic state. So I jumped up quickly 
 and asked directioiis for getting down to the 
 mill neighbourhood, where I hoped to find 
 Bill Hahn. My friend Healy instantly vol- 
 unteered the information. 
 
 "And now," I said, "I want to ask a small 
 favour of you. I'm looking for a friend, 
 and I'd like to leave my bag here for the night." 
 
 "Sure, sure," said the Irishman heartily. 
 "Put it there in the office — on top o' the 
 desk. It'll be all right." 
 
 So I put it in the office and was about to 
 say good-bye, when my friend said to me: 
 
 "Come in, partner, and have a drink 
 before you go" — and he pointed to a nearby 
 saloon. 
 
 "Thank you," I answered heartily, for 
 I knew it was as fine a bit of hospitality as 
 he could offer me, "thank you, but I must 
 find my friend before it gets too late." 
 
 "Aw, come on now," he cried, taking 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 275 
 
 my arm. "Sure you'll be better off for a 
 bit o' warmth inside." 
 
 I had hard work to get away from them, 
 and I am as sure as can be that they would 
 have found supper and a bed for me if they 
 had known I needed either. 
 
 "Come agin," Healy shouted after me, 
 "we're glad to see a farmer any toime." 
 
 My way led me quickly out of the well- 
 groomed and glittering main streets of the 
 town. I passed first through several blocks 
 of quiet residences, and then came to a 
 street near the river which was garishly 
 lighted, and crowded with small, poor shops 
 and stores, with a saloon on nearly every 
 corner. I passed a huge, dark, silent box 
 of a mill, and I saw what I nevef saw before 
 in a city, armed men guarding the streets. 
 
 . Although it was growing late — it was 
 after nine o'clock — crowds of people were 
 still parading the streets, and there was 
 something intangibly restless, something tense, 
 in the very atmosphere of the neighbourhood. 
 It was very plain that I had reached the strike 
 district. I was about to make some further 
 inquiries for the headquarters of the mill 
 men or for Bill Hahn personally, when I saw. 
 
276 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 disap- 
 peared, and the little man stood there, bare- 
 headed, before that great audience. 
 
 My experience in the world is limited, 
 but I have never heard anything like that 
 speech for sheer power. It was as unruly 
 and powerful and resistless as life itself. It 
 was not like any other speech I ever heard, 
 for it was no mere giving out by the orator 
 of ideas aftd thoughts and feelings of his 
 own. It seemed' rather — how shall I de- 
 scribe it.? — as though the speaker was looking 
 into the very hearts of that vast gathering 
 of poor men and poor women and merely tell- 
 ing them what they themselves felt, but could 
 not tell. And I shall never forget the breath- 
 less hiish of the people or the quality of their 
 responses to the orator's words. It was as 
 though they said, "Yes, yes" — with a feeling 
 of vast relief — "Yes, yes — at last our own 
 
' THE FRIENDLY ROAD 277 
 
 hopes and fears and desires are being uttered — 
 yes, yes." 
 
 As for the orator himself, he held up one 
 maimed hand and leaned over the edge of 
 the platform, and his undistinguished face 
 glowed with the white light of a great passion 
 within. The man had utterly forgotten him- 
 self. 
 
 I confess, among those eager working 
 people, clad in their poor garments, I con- 
 fess I was profoundly moved. Faith is not 
 so bounteous a commodity in this world 
 that we can afford to treat even its unfamiliar 
 manifestations with contempt. And when 
 a movement is hot with life, when it stirs 
 common men to their depths, look out! look 
 out! 
 
 Up to that time I had never known much 
 of the practical workings of Socialism; and 
 the main contention of its philosophy has 
 never accorded wholly with my experience 
 in life. 
 
 But the Socialism of to-day is no mere 
 intellectual abstraction — as it was, perhaps, 
 in the days of Brook Farm. It is a mode of 
 action. Men whose view of life is perfectly 
 balanced rarely soil themselves with the 
 
278 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 dust of battle. The heat necessary to pro- 
 duce social conflict (and social progress - — 
 who knows?) is generated by a supreme faith 
 that certain principles are universal in their 
 application when in reality they are only local 
 or temporary. 
 
 Thus while one may not accept the philos- 
 pphy of Socialism as a final explanation of 
 human life, he may yet look upon Social- 
 ism in action as a powerful method of stimu- 
 lating human progress. The world has been 
 lagging behind in its sense of brotherhood; 
 and we now have the Socialists knit together 
 in a fighting friendship as fierce and narrow 
 in its motives as Calvinism, pricking us to 
 reform, asking the cogent question : 
 
 "Are we not all brothers?" 
 
 Oh, we are going a long way with these 
 Socialists, we are going to discover a new 
 world of social relationships — and then, and 
 then, like a mighty wave, will flow in upon us 
 a renewed and more wonderful sense of the 
 worth of the individual human soul. A new 
 individualism, bringing with it, perhaps, some 
 faint realization of our dreams of a race of 
 Supermen, lies just beyond! Its prophets, 
 girded with rude garments and feeding upon 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 279 
 
 the wild honey of poverty, are already crying 
 in the wilderness. 
 
 I think I could have remained there at the 
 Socialist meeting all night long: there was 
 something about it that brought a hard, dry 
 twist to my throat. But after a time my 
 friend Bill Hahn, evidently quite worn out, 
 yielded his place to another and far less 
 clairvoyant speaker, and the crowd, among 
 whom I now discovered quite a number of 
 policemen, began to thin out. 
 
 I made my way forward and saw Bill 
 Hahn and several other men just leaving the 
 platform. I stepped up to him, but it was 
 not until I called him by name (I knew how 
 absent minded he was !) that he recognized me. 
 
 "Well, well," he said; "you came after all!" 
 
 He seized me by both arms and intro- 
 duced me to several of his companions as 
 "Brother Grayson." They all shook hands 
 with me warmly. 
 
 Although he was perspiring. Bill put on his 
 overcoat and the old fur hat with the ears, 
 and a« he now took my arm I could feel one 
 of his bulging pockets beating against my 
 leg. I had not the slightest idea where 
 
28o THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 they were going, but Bill held me by the 
 arm and presently we came, a block or so 
 distant, to a dark, narrow stairway leading 
 up from the street. I recall the stumbling 
 sound of steps on the wooden boards, a 
 laugh or two, the high voice of a woman 
 asserting and denying. Feeling our way 
 along the wall, we came to the top and went 
 into a long, low, rather dimly lighted room 
 set about with tables and chairs — a sort 
 of restaurant. A number of men and a 
 few women had already gathered there. 
 Among theni my eyes instantly singled out 
 a huge, rough-looking man who stood at the 
 centre of an animated group. He had thick, 
 shaggy hair, and one side of his face over 
 the cheekbone was of a dull blue-black and 
 raked and scarred, where it had been burned 
 in a powder blast. He had been a miner. 
 His gray eyes, which had a surprisingly 
 youthful and even humorous expression, 
 looked out from under coarse, thick, gray 
 brows. A very remarkable face and figure 
 he presented. I soon learned that he was 
 
 R D , the leader of whom I had 
 
 often heard, and heard no good thing. He 
 was quite a different type from Bill Hahn: 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 281 
 
 he was the man of authority, the organizer, 
 the diplomat — as Bill was the prophet, 
 preaching a holy war. 
 
 How wonderful human nature is ! Only a 
 short time before I had been thrilled by the 
 intensity of the passion of the throng, but here 
 the mood suddenly changed to one of friendly 
 gayety. Fully a third of those present were 
 women, some of them plainly from the mills 
 and some of them curiously different — women 
 from other walks in life who had thrown them- 
 selves heart and soul into the strike. With- 
 out ceremony but with much laughing and 
 joking, they found their places around the 
 tables. A cook who appeared in a dim door- 
 way was greeted with a shout, to which he 
 responded with a wide smile, waving the long 
 spoon which he held in his hand. 
 
 I shall not attempt to give any complete 
 description of the gathering or of what 
 they said or did. I think I could devote a 
 dozen pages to the single man who was 
 placed next to me. I was interested in him 
 from the outset. The first thing that struck 
 me about him was an air of neatness, even 
 fastidiousness, about his person — though 
 he wore no stiff collar, only a soft wooUeq 
 
282 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 English- 
 man by birth, and we had not talked two 
 minutes before I found that, v/hile he had 
 never had any education in the schools, he 
 had been a gluttonous reader of books — 
 all kinds of books — and, what is more, had 
 thought about them and was ready with 
 vigorous (and narrow) opinions about this 
 author or that. And he knew more about 
 economics and sociology, I firmly believe, 
 than half the college professors. A truly 
 remarkable man. 
 
 It was an Italian restaurant, and I re- 
 member 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 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 283 
 
 some one told a joke, which invariably wound 
 up with a roar of laughter. 
 
 "Why," I said, "these people have a 
 whole life, a whole society, of their own ! " 
 
 In the midst of this jollity the clear voice 
 of a girl rang out with the first lines of a 
 song. Instantly the room was hushed : 
 
 Arise, ye prisoners of starvation. 
 Arise, ye wretched of the earth. 
 
 For justice thunders condemnation 
 A better world's in birth. 
 
 These were the words she sang, and when 
 the clear, sweet voice died down the whole 
 company, as though by a common impulse, 
 arose from their chairs, and joined in a great 
 swelling chorus: 
 
 It is the final conflict. 
 
 Let each stand in his place, 
 The Brotherhood of Man 
 
 Shall be the human race. 
 
 It was beyond belief, to me, the spirit 
 with which these words were sung. In no 
 sense with jollity — ^all that seemed to have 
 been dropped when they came to their feet — 
 but with an unmistakable fervour of faith. 
 Some of the things I had thought and dreamed 
 about secretly among the hills of my farm 
 
284 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 all these years, dreamed about as being some- 
 thing far off and as unrealizable as the mil- 
 lennium, were here being sung abroad with 
 jaunty faith by these weavers of Kilburn, these 
 weavers and workers whom I had schooled 
 myself to regard with a sort of distant pity. 
 
 Hardly had the company sat down again, 
 with a renewal of the flow of jolly conversation 
 when I heard a rapping on one of the tables. 
 
 I saw the great form of R D 
 
 slowly rising. 
 
 "Brothers and sisters," he said, "a word 
 of caution. The authorities will lose no 
 chance of putting us in the wrong. Above 
 all w6 must comport ourselves here and in 
 the strike with great care. We .are fighting 
 a great battle, bigger than we are " 
 
 At this instant the door from the dark 
 hallway suddenly opened and a man in a 
 policeman's uniform stepped in. There fell 
 an instant's dead silence — an explosive 
 silence. Every person there seemed to be 
 petrified in the position in which his atten- 
 tion was attracted. Every eye was fixed 
 on the figure at the door. For an instant 
 no one said a word; then I heard a woman's 
 shrill voice, like a rifle-shot : 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 285 
 
 "Assassin!" 
 
 I cannot imagine what might have hap- 
 pened next, for the feeling in the room, as in 
 the tity itself, was at the tensest,, had not the 
 leader suddenly brought the goblet which he 
 held in his hand down with a bang upon the 
 table. 
 
 "As I was saying," he continued in a 
 steady, clear voice, "we are fighting to- 
 day the greatest of battles, and we cannot 
 permit trivial incidents, or personal bitter- 
 ness, or small persecutions, to turn us from 
 the great work we have in hand. However 
 our opponents may comport themselves, we 
 must be calm, steady, sure, patient, for we 
 know that our cause is just and will prevail." 
 
 "You're right," shouted a voice back in 
 the room. 
 
 Instantly the tension relaxed, conversa- 
 tion started again and every one turned 
 away from the policeman at the door. In a 
 few minutes, he disappeared without having 
 said a word. 
 
 There was no regular speaking, and about 
 midnight the party began to break up. 
 I leaned over and said to my friend Bill 
 Hahn: 
 
286 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Can you find me a place to sleep to- 
 night?" 
 
 "Certainly I can," he said heartily. 
 
 There was to be a brief conference of 
 the leaders after the supper, and most of 
 those present soon departed. I went down 
 the long, dark stairway and out into the 
 almost deserted street. Looking up between 
 the buildings I could see the clear blue sky 
 and the stars. And I walked slowly up and 
 down awaiting my friend and trying, vainly, 
 to calm my whirling emotions. 
 
 He came at last and I went with him. 
 That night I slept scarcely at all, but lay 
 looking up into the darkness. And it seemed 
 as though, as I lay there, listening, that I 
 could hear the city moving in its restless 
 sleep, and sighing as with heavy pain. All 
 night long I lay there thinking. 
 
I GRAPPLE WITH THE CITY 
 
 ^=-i<k 
 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 I GRAPPLE WITH THE CITY 
 
 I HAVE laughed heartily many times since 
 I came home to think of the Figure of 
 Tragedy I felt myself that morning in the 
 city of Kilburn. I had not slept well, had 
 not slept at all, I think, and the experiences 
 and emotions of the previous night still 
 lay heavy upon me. Not before in many 
 years had I felt such a depression of the 
 spirits. 
 
 It was all so different from the things I 
 love! Not so much as a spear of grass or a 
 leafy tree to comfort the eye, or a bird to 
 
 28g 
 
290 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 every- 
 where the evidences of poverty, dirt, and 
 ignorance — and the sweet, clean country 
 not two miles away — the thought of my 
 own home among the hills (with Harriet 
 there in the doorway) came upon me with 
 incredible longing. 
 
 "I must go home; I must go home!" 
 I caught myself saying aloud. 
 
 I remember how glad I was when I found 
 that my friend Bill Hahn and other leaders 
 of the strike were to be engaged in con- 
 ferences during the forenoon, for I wanted 
 to be alone, to try to get a few things straight- 
 ened out in my mind. 
 
 But I soon found that a city is a poor 
 place for reflection or contemplation. It 
 bombards one with an infinite variety of 
 new impressions and new adventures; and 
 I could not escape the impression made 
 by crowded houses, and ill-smelling streets, 
 and dirty sidewalks, and swarming human 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 291 
 
 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 know how such condi- 
 tions may affect other people, but for a time 
 I felt a sharp sense of impatience — yes, 
 anger — with it all. I had an impulse to 
 take off my coat then and there and go 
 at the job of setting things to rights. Oh, I 
 never was more serious in my life: I was 
 quite prepared to change the entire scheme 
 of things to my way of thinking whether 
 the people who lived there liked it or not. 
 It seemed to me for a few glorious moments 
 that I had only to tell them of the wonders 
 in our country, the pleasant, quiet roads, the 
 comfortable farmhouses, the fertile fields, 
 and the wooded hills — and, poof! all this 
 crowded poverty would dissolve and disap- 
 pear, and they would all come to the country 
 and be as happy as I was. 
 
292 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 I remember how, once in my life, I wasted 
 untold energy trying to make over my dear- 
 est friends. There was Harriet, for example, 
 dear, serious, practical Harriet. I used to 
 be fretted by the way she was forever trying 
 to clip my wing feathers — I suppose to keep 
 me close to the quiet and friendly and unad- 
 venturous 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 cu- 
 rious ideal of perfection of our own — until 
 one day we suddenly laugh aloud at our own 
 absurdity (knowing that they are probably 
 trying as hard to reconstruct us as we are 
 to reconstruct them!) and thereafter we try 
 no more to change them, we just love 'em 
 and enjoy 'em! 
 
 Some such psychological process went on 
 in my consciousness that morning. As I 
 walked briskly through the streets I began 
 to look out more broadly around me. It was 
 really a perfect spring morning, the air 
 crisp, fresh, and sunny, and the streets full 
 of life and activity. I looked into the faces 
 of the people I met, and it began to strike 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 293 
 
 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 miser- 
 able they were (even acknowledging that 
 they Were slaves), and yet here they were this 
 morning looking positively good-humoured, 
 cheerful, some of them even gay. I warrant if 
 I had stepped up to one of them that morning 
 and intimated that he was a slave he would 
 have — well, I should have had serious trouble 
 with him! There was a degree of sociability 
 in those back streets, a visiting from window 
 to window, gossipy gatherings in front area- 
 ways, a sort of pavement domesticity, that 
 I had never seen before. Being a lover myself 
 of such friendly intercourse I could actually 
 feel the human warmth of that neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 A group of brightly clad girl strikers gath- 
 ered on a comer 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 arbund an Italian hand-organ 
 man who was filling the air with jolly music. 
 I recall what a sinking sensation I had at 
 
294 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 the pit of my reformer's stomach when it sud- 
 denly 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 hu- 
 mours of life to see absurdly serious little 
 human beings (like D. G. for exan^ple) try- 
 ing to stand in the place of the Almighty. 
 We are so confoundedly infallible in our judg- 
 ments, so sure of what is good for our neigh- 
 bour, so eager to force upon him our par- 
 ticular doctors or our particular remedies; 
 we are so willing to put our childish fingers 
 into the machinery of creation — and we howl 
 so lustily when we get them pinched ! 
 
 "Why!" I exclaimed, for it came to me 
 like a new discovery, "it's exactly the same 
 here as it is in the country! I haven't got 
 to make over the universe : I've only got to 
 do my own small job, and to look up often 
 at the trees and the hills and the sky and 
 be friendly with all men." 
 
 I cannot express the sense of comfort, 
 and of trust, which this reflection brought 
 me. I recall stopping just then at the corner 
 of a small green city square, for I had now 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 295 
 
 reached the better part of the city, and of 
 seeing with keen pleasure the green of the 
 grass and the bright colour of a bed of flowers, 
 and two or three clean nursemaids with 
 clean baby cabs, and a flock of pigeons 
 pluming themselves near a stone fountain, 
 and an old tired horse sleeping in the sun 
 with his nose buried in a feed bag. 
 
 "Why," I said, "all this, too, is beautiful!" 
 
 So I continued my walk with quite a new 
 feeling in- my heart, prepared again for any 
 adventure life might have to offer me. 
 
 I supposed I knew no living soul in Kilburn 
 but Bill the Socialist. What was my aston- 
 ishment and pleasure, then, in one of the 
 business streets to discover a familiar face 
 and figure. A man was just stepping from an 
 automobile to the sidewalk. For an instant, 
 in that unusual environment, I could not 
 place him, then I stepped up quickly and 
 said: 
 
 "Well, well. Friend Vedder." 
 
 He looked around with astonishment at 
 the man in the shabby clothes — but it was 
 only for an instant. 
 
 "David Grayson!" he exclaimed, "and 
 how did you get into the city ? " 
 
296 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Walked," I said. 
 
 "But I thought you were an incurable 
 and irreproachable countryman ! Why are you 
 here?" 
 
 "Love o' life," I said; "love o' life." 
 
 "Where are you stopping?" 
 
 I waved my hand. '' 
 
 "Where the road leaves me," I said. 
 "Last night I left my bag with some good 
 friends I made in front of a livery stable 
 and I spent the night in the mill district 
 with a Socialist named Bill Hahn." 
 
 " Bill Hahn ! " The effect upon Mr. Vedder 
 was magical. 
 
 "Why, yes," I said, "and a remarkable 
 man he is, too." 
 
 I discovered immediately that my friend 
 was quite as much interested in the strike as 
 Bill Hahn, but on the other side. He was. 
 Indeed, one of the directors of the greatest 
 mill in Kilburn — ■ the very one which I had 
 seen the night before surrounded by armed 
 sentinels. It was thrilling to me, this knowl- 
 edge, for it seemed to plump me down at 
 once in the middle of things — and soon, in- 
 deed, brought me nearer to the brink of great 
 events than ever I was before in all my days. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 297 
 
 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 unsophisti- 
 cated person) that I couldn't help laughing 
 outright. 
 
 "I assijre you " he began, apparently 
 
 much offended. 
 
 But I interrupted him. 
 
 "I'm sorry I laughed," I said, "but as 
 you were talking about Bill Hahn, I couldn't 
 help thinking of him as I first saw him." 
 And I gave Mr. Vedder as lively a description 
 as I could of the little man with his bulging 
 coat tails, his furry ears, his odd round 
 spectacles. He was greatly interested in 
 what I said and began to ask many questions. 
 I told him with all the earnestness I could com- 
 mand of Bill's history and of his conversion 
 to his present beliefs. I found that Mr. 
 Vedder had known Robert Winter very well 
 indeed, and was amazed at the incident which 
 I narrated of Bill Hahn's attempt upon his 
 life. 
 
 I have always believed that if men could 
 be made to understand one another they 
 
298 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 would necessarily be friendly, so I did my 
 best to explain Bill Hahn to Mr. Vedder. 
 
 "I'm tremendously interested in what you 
 say," he said, "and we must have more talk 
 about it." 
 
 He told me that he had now to put in an 
 appearance at his office, and wanted me 
 to go with him; but upon my objection he 
 pressed me to take luncheon with him a little 
 later, an invitation which I accepted with 
 real pleasure. 
 
 "We haven't had a word about gardens," 
 he said, "and there are no end of things that 
 Mrs. Vedder and I found that we wanted to 
 talk with you about after you had left us." 
 
 "Well," I said, much delighted, "let's have 
 a regular old-fashioned country talk." 
 
 So we parted for the time being, and I 
 set off in the highest spirits to see some- 
 thing more of Kilburn. 
 
 A city, after all, is a very wonderful 
 place. One thing, I recall, impressed^ me 
 powerfully that morning — the way in which 
 every one was working, apparently without 
 any common agreement or any common 
 purpose, and yet with a high sort of under- 
 standing. The first hearing of a difficult 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 299 
 
 piece of music (to an uncultivated ear like 
 mine) often yields nothing but a confused 
 sense of unrelated motives, but later and 
 deeper hearings reveal the harmony which 
 ran so clear in the master's soul. 
 
 Something of this sort happened to me 
 in looking out upon the life of that great 
 city of Kilburn. All about on the streets, 
 in the buildings, under ground and above 
 ground, men were walking, running, creeping, 
 crawling, climbing, lifting, digging, driving, 
 buying, selling, sweating, swearing, praying, 
 loving, hating, struggling, failing, sinning, 
 repenting — all working and living according 
 to a vast harmony, which sometimes we can 
 catch clearly and sometimes miss entirely. I 
 think, that morning, for a time, I heard the 
 true music of the spheres, the stars singing 
 together. 
 
 Mr. Vedder took me to a quiet restaurant 
 where we had a snug alcove all to ourselves. 
 I shall remember it always as one of the 
 truly pleasant experiences of my pilgrimage. 
 
 I could see that my friend was sorely 
 troubled, that the strike rested heavy upon 
 him, and so I led the conversation to the 
 hills and the roads and the fields we both 
 
300 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 love so much. I plied him with a thousand 
 questions about his garden. I told him in 
 the liveliest way of my adventures after 
 leaving his home, how I had telephoned him 
 from the hills, how I had taken a swim in 
 the mill-pond, and especially how I had lost 
 myself in the old cowpasture, with an account 
 of all my absurd and laughable adventures 
 and emotions. 
 
 Well, before we had finished our luncheon 
 I had every line ^ironed from the brow of 
 that poor plagued rich man, I had brought 
 jolly crinkles to the corners of his eyes, 
 and once or twice I had him chuckling down 
 deep inside (where chuckles are truly effect- 
 ive). Talk about cheering up the poor: I 
 think the rich are usually far more in need 
 of it! 
 
 But I couldn't keep the conversation 
 in these delightful channels. Evidently the 
 strike and all that it meant lay heavy upon 
 Mr. Vedder's consciousness, for he pushed 
 back his coffee and began talking about it, 
 almost in a tone of apology. He told me 
 how 'kind he had tried to make the mill 
 management in its dealings with its men. 
 
 "I would not speak of it save in explana- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 301 
 
 tion of our true attitude of helpfulness; but 
 we have really given our men many advan- 
 tages" — and he told me of the reading-room 
 the company had established, of the visiting 
 nurse they had employed, and of several 
 other excellent enterprises, which gave only 
 another proof of what I knew already of Mr. 
 Vedder's sincere kindness of heart. 
 
 "But," he said, "we find they don't appre- 
 ciate what we try to do for them." 
 
 I laughed outright. 
 
 "Why," I exclaimed, "you are having the 
 same trouble I have had!" 
 
 "How's that?" he inquired, I thought a 
 little sharply. Men don't like to have their 
 seriousness trifled with. 
 
 "No longer ago than this morning," I 
 said, "I had exactly that idea of giving, them 
 advantages; but I found that the difficulty 
 lies not with the ability to give, but with the 
 inability or unwillingness to take. You see 
 I have a great deal of surplus wealth my- 
 self " 
 
 Mr. Vedder's eyes flickered up at me. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "I've got immense accu- 
 mulations of the wealth of the ages — ingots 
 of Emerson and Whitman, for example, gems 
 
302 'rHE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 com 
 and calves and cucumbers, and I've a bound- 
 less domain of exceedingly valuable land- 
 scapes. I am prepared to give bountifully 
 of all these varied riches (for I shall still 
 have plenty remaining), but the fact is that 
 this generation of vipers doesn't appreciate 
 what I am trying to do for them. I'm really 
 getting frightened, lest they permit me to 
 perish from undistributed riches!" 
 
 Mr, Vedder was still smiling. 
 
 "Oh," I said, warming up to my idea, 
 "I'm a regular multimillionaire. I've got 
 so much wealth that I'm afraid I shall not 
 be as fortunate as jolly Andy Carnegie, for 
 I don't see how I can possibly die poor!" 
 
 "Why not found a university or so?"^ 
 asked Mr. Vedder. 
 
 "Well, I had thought of that. It's a 
 good idea. Let's join our forces and establish 
 a university where truly serious people can 
 take courses in laughter." 
 
 "Fine idea!" exclaimed Mr. Vedder; "but 
 wouldn't it require an enormous endowment 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 303 
 
 to accommodate all the applicants ? You must 
 remember that this is a very benighted and 
 illiterate world, laughingly speaking." 
 
 "It is, indeed," I said, "but you must 
 remember that many people, for a long 
 time, will be too serious to apply: I wonder 
 sometimes if any one ever learns to laugh — 
 really laugh — much before he is forty." 
 
 "But," said Mr. Vedder anxiously, "do 
 you think such an institution would be 
 accepted by the proletariat of the serious- 
 minded?" 
 
 "Ah, that's the trouble," said I, "that's 
 the trouble. The proletariat doesn't ap- 
 preciate what we are trying to do for them! 
 They don't want your reading-rooms nor my 
 Emerson and cucumbers. The seat of the 
 difficulty seems to be that what seems wealth 
 to us isn't necessarily wealth for the other 
 fellow." 
 
 I cannot tell with what delight we fenced 
 our way through this foolery (which was not 
 all foolery, either). I never met a man more 
 quickly responsive than Mr. Vedder. But 
 he now paused for some moments, evidently 
 ruminating. 
 
 "Well, David," he said seriously, "what 
 
3P4 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 are we going to do about this obstreperous 
 other fellow ? " 
 
 "Why not try the experiment," I suggested, 
 "of giving him what he considers wealth, 
 instead of what you consider wealth ? " 
 
 "But what does he consider wealth?" 
 
 "Equality," said I. 
 
 Mr. Vedder threw up his hands. 
 
 " So you're a Socialist, too ! " 
 
 "That," I said, "is another story." 
 
 "Well, supposing we did or could give 
 him this equality you speak qf — what would 
 become of us? What would we get out of 
 it?" 
 
 "Why, equality, too!" I said. 
 
 Mr. Vedder threw up his hands with a 
 gesture of mock resignation. 
 
 "Come," said he, "let's get down out 
 of Utopia!" 
 
 We had some further good-humoured fenc- 
 ing and then returned to the inevitable 
 problem of the strike. While we were dis- 
 cussing the meeting of the night before 
 which, I learned, had been luridly reported 
 in the morning papers, Mr. Vedder suddenly 
 turned to me and asked earnestly: 
 
 "Are you really a Socialist?" 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 305 
 
 "Well," said I, "I'm sure of one thing. 
 I'm not all Socialist. Bill Hahn believes 
 with his whole soul (and his faith has made 
 him a remarkable man) that if only another 
 class of people — his class — could come into 
 the control of material property, that all the 
 ills that man is heir to would be speedily 
 cured. But I wonder if when men own prop- 
 .erty collectively — as they are going to one 
 of these days — they will quarrel and hate 
 one another any less than they do now. 
 It is riot the ownership of material property 
 that interests me so much as the independ- 
 ence of it. When I started out from my farm 
 on this pilgrimage it seemed to me the most 
 blessed thing in the world to get away from 
 property and possession." 
 
 "What are you then, anjrvvray?" asked 
 Mr. Vedder, smiling. 
 
 "Well, I've thought of a name I would 
 like to have applied to me sometimes," 
 I said. "You see I'm tremendously fond 
 of this world exactly as it is now. Mr. 
 Vedder, it's a wonderful and beautiful place! 
 I've never seen a better one. I confess I 
 could not possibly live in the rarefied atmos- 
 phere of a final solution. I want to live 
 
3o6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 right here and now for all I'm worth. The 
 other day a man asked me what I thought 
 was the best time of life. 'Why,' I answered 
 without a thought, 'Now.' It has always 
 seemed to me that if a man can't make a go of 
 it, yes, and be happy at this moment, he 
 can't be at the next moment. But most of 
 all, it seems to me, I want to get close to 
 people, to look into their hearts, and be 
 friendly with them. Mr. Vedder, do you 
 know what I'd like to be called ? " 
 
 "I cannot imagine," said he. 
 
 "Well, I'd like to be called an Introducer. 
 My friend, Mr. Blacksmith, let me introduce 
 you to my friend, Mr. Plutocrat. I could 
 almost swear that you were brothers, so 
 near alike are you! You'll find each other 
 wonderfully interesting once you get over 
 the awkwardness of the introduction. And, 
 Mr. White Man, let me present you partic- 
 ularly to my good friend, Mr. Negro. You 
 will see if you sit down to it that this curious 
 colour of the face is only skin deep." 
 
 "It's a good name!" said Mr. Vedder, 
 laughing. 
 
 "It's a wonderful name," said I, "and 
 it's about the biggest and finest work in 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 307 
 
 the world — to know human beings just 
 as they are, and to make them acquainted 
 with one another just as they are. Why, 
 it's the foundation of all the democracy 
 there is, or ever will be. Sometimes I think 
 that friendliness is the only achievement 
 of life worth while — and unfriendliness the 
 only tragedy." 
 
 I have since felt ashamed of myself when I 
 thought how I lectured my unprotected 
 host that day at luncheon; but it seemed 
 to boil out of me irresistibly. The ex- 
 periences 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 im- 
 pressed me — and to whom better than to 
 my good friend Vedder? 
 
 As we were leaving the table an idea flashed 
 across my mind which seemed, at first, so 
 wonderful that it quite turned me dizzy. 
 
 "See here, Mr. Vedder," I exclaimed, 
 "let me follow my occupation practically. 
 I know Bill Hahn and I ]inow you. Let 
 me introduce you. If you could only get 
 together, if you could only understand what 
 good fellows you both are, it might go far 
 toward solving these difficulties." 
 
3o8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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, jf 
 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, say- 
 jing to myself over and over (I have smiled 
 about it since!): "We'll settle this strike: 
 we'll settle this strike: we'll settle this strike." 
 After some searching I found my friend Bill 
 in the little room over a saloon that served 
 as strike headquarters. A dozen or more of 
 the leaders were there, faintly distinguishable 
 through clouds of tobacco smoke. Among 
 
 them sat the great R D , his burly 
 
 figure looming up at one end of the table, 
 and his strong, rough, iron-jawed face turning 
 first toward this speaker and then toward 
 that. The discussion, which had evidently 
 been lively, died down soon after I appeared at 
 the door, and Bill Hahn came out to me and 
 we sat down together in the adjoining room. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 309 
 
 Here I broke eagerly into an account of the 
 happenings of the day, described my chance 
 meeting with Mr. Vedder — who was well 
 known to Bill by reputation — and finally asked 
 him squarely whether he would meet him. I 
 think my enthusiasm quite carried him away. 
 
 "Sure, I will," said Bill Hahn heartily. 
 
 "When and where.?" I asked, "and will 
 any of the other men join you ? " 
 
 Bill was all enthusiasm at once, for that 
 was the essence of his temperament, but he 
 said that he must first refer it to the com- 
 mittee. I waited, in a tense state of im- 
 patience, 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." 
 
3IO THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 After a long talk they returned to the 
 other room, closing the door behind them, 
 and I waited again, still more impatiently. 
 
 It. seems rather absurd now, but at that 
 moment I felt firmly convinced that I was 
 on the way to the permanent settlement of a 
 struggle which had occupied the best brains 
 of Kilburn for many weeks. 
 
 While I was waiting in that dingy ante- 
 room, the other door slowly opened and a 
 boy stuck his head in. 
 
 "Is David Grayson here.?" he asked. 
 
 "Here he is," said I, greatly astonished 
 that any one in Kilburn should be inquir- 
 ing for me, or should know where I was. 
 
 The boy came in, looked at me with jolly 
 round eyes for a moment, and dug a letter 
 out of his pocket. I opened it at once, and 
 glancing at the signature discovered that it 
 was from Mr. Vedder. 
 
 "He said I'd probably find you at strike 
 headquarters," remarked the boy. 
 
 This was the letter: marked "Confidential." 
 
 My Dear Grayson : I think you must be something of a 
 hypnotist. After you left me I began to think of the proj- 
 ect you mentioned, and I have talked it over with one oi 
 two of my associates. I would gladly hold this conference, 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 311 
 
 but it does not now seem wise for us to do so. The in- 
 terests we represent are too important to be jeopardized. 
 In theory you are undoubtedly right, but in this case I 
 think you will agree with me (when you think it over), we 
 must not show any weakness. Come and stop with us 
 to-night: Mrs. Vedder will be overjoyed to see you and 
 we'll have another fine talk. 
 
 I confess I was a good deal cast down as 
 I read this letter.' 
 
 "What interests are so important.'"' I asked 
 myself, "that they should keep friends apart?" 
 
 But I was given only a moment for reflec- 
 tion for the door opened and my friend Bill, 
 
 together with R D and several 
 
 other members of the committee, came out. 
 I put the letter in my pocket, and for a mo- 
 ment my brain never worked under higher 
 pressure. What should I say to them now.^ 
 How could I explain myself.? 
 
 Bill Hahn was evidently labouring under 
 
 considerable excitement, but R D 
 
 was as calm as a judge. He sat down in the 
 chair opposite and said to me: 
 
 "We've been figuring out this proposition 
 of Mr. Vedder's. Your idea is all right, and 
 it would be a fine thing if we could really 
 get together as you suggest upon terms of 
 common understanding and friendship." 
 
312 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Just what Mr. Vedder said, " I exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," he continued, "it*s all right in 
 theory; t>ut in this case it simply won't work. 
 Don't you see it's got to be war? Your 
 friend and I could probably understand each 
 other — but this is a class war. It's all or 
 nothing with us, and your friend Vedder 
 knows it as well as we do." 
 
 After some further argument and explana- 
 tion, I said: 
 
 "I see: and this is Socialism." 
 
 "Yes," said the great R D , "this 
 
 is Socialism." 
 
 "And it's force you would use," I said. 
 
 "It's force they use," he replied. 
 
 After I left the strike headquarters that 
 evening — for it was almost dark before I 
 parted with the committee — I walked straight 
 out through the crowded streets, so absorbed 
 in m^ thoughts that I did not know in the 
 least where I was going. The street lights 
 came out, the crowds began to thin away, I 
 heard a strident song from a phonograph at 
 the entrance to a -picture show, and as I 
 passed again in front of the great, dark, 
 many-windowed mill which had made my 
 friend Vedder a rich man I saw a sentinel 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 313 
 
 turn slowly at the corner. The light glinted 
 on the steel of his bayonet. He had a 
 fresh, fine, boyish face. 
 
 "We have some distance yet to go in 
 this world," I said to myself, "no man need 
 repine for lack of good work ahead." 
 
 It was only a little way beyond this mill 
 that an incident occurred which occupied 
 probably not ten minutes of time, and yet 
 I have thought about it since I came home 
 as much as I have thought about any other 
 incident of my pilgrimage. I have thought 
 how I might have acted differently under the 
 circumstances, how I could have said this 
 or how I ought to have done that — all, of 
 course, now to no purpose whatever. But 
 I shall not attempt to tell what I ought 
 to have done or said, but what I actually 
 did do and say on the spur of the moment. 
 
 It was in a narrow, dark street which 
 opened off the brightly lighted main thorough- 
 fare of that mill neighbourhood. A girl 
 standing in the shadows between two build- 
 ings said to me as I passed: 
 
 "Good evening." 
 
 I stopped instantly, it was such a pleasant, 
 friendly voice. 
 
314 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Good evening," I said, lifting my hat 
 and wondering that there should be any- 
 one here in this back street who knew 
 me. 
 
 "Where are you going?" she asked. 
 
 I stepped over quickly toward her, hat 
 in hand. She was a mere slip of a girl, 
 rather comely, I thought, with small childish 
 features and a half-timid, half-bold look in 
 her eyes. I could not remember having seen 
 her before. 
 
 She smiled at me — and then I knew! 
 
 Well, if some one had struck me a brutal 
 blow in the face I could not have been more 
 astonished. 
 
 We know of things ! — and yet how little 
 we know until they are presented to us 
 in concrete form. Just such a little school 
 girl as I have seen a thousand times in the 
 country, the pathetic childish curve of the 
 chin, a small rebellious curl hanging low on 
 her temple. 
 
 I could not say a word. The girl evidently 
 saw in my face that something was the matter, 
 for she turned and began to move quickly 
 away. Such a wave of compassion (and 
 anger, too) swept over me as I cannot well 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 315 
 
 describe. I stepped after her and asked in a 
 low voice : 
 
 " Do you work in the mills ? " 
 
 "Yes, when there's work." 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 "Maggie " 
 
 "Well, Maggie," I said, "let's be friends." 
 
 She looked around at me curiously, ques- 
 tioningly. 
 
 "And friends," I said, "should know some- 
 thing about each other. You see I am a farmer 
 from the country. I used to live in a city 
 myself, a good many years ago, but I got 
 tired and sick and hopeless. There was so 
 much that was wrong about it. I tried to 
 keep the pace and could not. I wish I could 
 tell you what the country has done for 
 me." 
 
 We were walking along slowly, side by 
 side, the girl perfectly passive but glancing 
 around at me from time to time with a 
 wondering look. I don't know in the least 
 now what prompted me to do it, but I began 
 telling in a quiet, low voice — for, after all, 
 she was only a child — I began telling her 
 about our chickens at the farm and how 
 Harriet had named them all, and one was 
 
3i6 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 Frances E. Willard, and one, a speckled 
 one, was Martha Washington, and I told 
 her of the curious antics of Martha Wash- 
 ington and of the number of eggs she laid, 
 and of the sweet new milk we had to 
 drink, and the honey right out of our own 
 hives, and of the things growing in the 
 garden. 
 
 Once she smiled a little, and once she 
 looked around at me with a curious, timid, 
 half- wistful expression in her eyes. 
 
 "Maggie," I said, "I wish you could go 
 to the country." 
 
 "I wish to God I could," she replied. 
 
 We walked for a moment in silence. My 
 head was whirling with thoughts: again I 
 had that feeling of helplessness, of inad- 
 equacy, which I had felt so sharply on the 
 previous evening. What could I do.f" 
 
 When we reached the corner, I said : 
 
 " Maggie, I will see you safely home." 
 
 She laughed — a hard, bitter laugh. 
 
 "Oh, I don't need any one to show me 
 around these streets ! " 
 
 "I will see you home," I said. 
 
 So we walked quickly along the street to- 
 gether. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 317 
 
 "Here it is," she said finally, pointing 
 to a dark, mean-looking, one-story house, set 
 in a dingy, barren areaway. 
 
 "Well, good night, Maggie," I said, "and 
 good luck to you." 
 
 "Good night,',' she said faintly. 
 
 When I had walked to the corner, I stopped 
 and looked back. She was standing stock- 
 still just where I had left her — a figure I 
 shall never forget. 
 
 I have hesitated about telling of a further 
 strange thing that happened to me that 
 night — but have decided at last to put it 
 in. I did not accept Mr. Vedder's invitation: 
 I could not; but I returned to the room in the 
 tenement where I had spent the previous 
 night with Bill Hahn the Socialist. It was 
 a small, dark, noisy room, but I was so weary 
 that I fell almost immediately into a heavy 
 sleep. An hour or more later — I don't know 
 how long indeed — I was suddenly awakened 
 and found myself sitting bolt upright in bed. 
 It was close and dark and warm there in 
 the room, and from without came the muffled 
 sounds of the city. For an instant I waited, 
 rigid with expectancy. And then I heard 
 
3i8 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 as clearly and plainly as ever I heard any- 
 thing: 
 
 "David! David!" in my sister Harriet's 
 voice. 
 
 It was exactly the voice in which she has 
 called me a thousand times. Without an 
 instant's hesitation, I stepped out of bed 
 and called out : 
 
 "I'm coming, Harriet! I'm coming!" 
 
 "What's the matter?" inquired Bill Hahn 
 sleepily. 
 
 "Nothing," I replied, and crept back into 
 bed. 
 
 It may have b'^en the result of the strain 
 and excitement of the previous two days. I 
 don't explain it — I can only tell what 
 happened. 
 
 Before I went to sleep again I determined 
 to start straight for home in the morning: 
 and having decided, I turned over, drew a long, 
 comfortable breath and did not stir again, I 
 think, until long after the morning sun shone 
 in at the window. 
 
THE RETURN 
 
 ^i"^^^m 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 "Everything divine runs with light feet." 
 
 SURELY the chief delight of going away 
 from home is the joy of getting back again. 
 I shall never forget that spring morning when 
 I walked from the city of Kilburn into the 
 open country — my bag on my back, a song 
 in my throat, and the gray road stretching 
 straight before me. I remember how eagerly, 
 I looked out across the fields and meadows 
 and rested my eyes upon the distant hills. 
 
 321 
 
322 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 How roomy it all was! I looked up into the 
 clear blue of the sky. There was space here 
 to breathe, and distances in which the spirit 
 might spread its wings. As the old prophet 
 says, it was a place where a man might be 
 placed alone in the midst of the earth. 
 
 I was strangely glad that morning of 
 every little stream that ran under the bridges, 
 I was glad of the trees I passed, glad of every 
 bird and squirrel in the branches, glad of the 
 cattle grazing in the fields, glad of the jolly 
 boys I saw on their way to school with their 
 dinner pails, glad, of the bluff, red-faced 
 teamster I met, and of the snug farmer who 
 waved his hand at me and wished me a 
 friendly good morning. It seemed to me 
 that I liked every one I saw, and that every 
 one liked me. 
 
 So I walked onward that morning, nor ever 
 have had such a sense of relief and escape, 
 nor ever such a feeling of gayety. 
 
 "Here is where I belong," I said. "This 
 is my own country. Those hills are mine, 
 and all the fields, and the trees and the sky — 
 and the road here belongs to me as much as 
 it does to any one." 
 
 Coming presently to a smaill house near 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 323 
 
 the side of the road, I saw a woman working 
 with a trowel in her sunny garden. It was 
 good to see her turn over the warm brown soil; 
 it was good to see the plump green rows 
 of lettuce and the thin green rows of onions, 
 and the nasturtiums and sweet peas; it was 
 good — after so many days in that desert 
 of a city — to get a whiff of blossoming things. 
 I stood for a moment looking quietly over 
 the fence before the woman saw me. When 
 at last she turned and looked up, I said: 
 
 "Good morning." 
 
 She paused, trowel in hand. 
 
 "Good morning," she replied; "you look 
 happy." 
 
 I wasn't conscious that I was smiling out- 
 wardly. 
 
 "Well, I am," I said; "I'm going home." 
 
 "Then you ought to be happy," said she. 
 
 "And I'm glad to escape that" and I pointed 
 toward the city. 
 
 "What.?" 
 
 "Why, that old monster lying there in the 
 valley." 
 
 I could see that she was surprised and even 
 a little alarmed. So I began intently to ad- 
 mire her young cabbages and comment on the 
 
324 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 perfection of her geraniums. But I caught 
 her eying me from time to time as I leaned 
 there on the fence, and I knew that she would 
 come back sooner or later to my remark about 
 the monster. Having shocked your friend 
 (not too unpleasantly), abide your time, and 
 he will want to be shocked again. So I was 
 not at all surprised to he^r her ask: 
 
 "Have you travelled far.?" 
 
 "I should say so!" I replied. "I've been 
 on a very long journey. I've seen many 
 strange sights and met many wonderful 
 people." 
 
 "You may have been in California, then, 
 I have a daughter in California." 
 
 "No," said I, "I was never in California." 
 
 "You've been a long time from home, you 
 say.?" 
 
 "A very long time from home." 
 
 "How long?" 
 
 "Three weeks." 
 
 "Three weeks! And how far did you say 
 you had travelled.?" 
 
 "At the farthest point, I should say sixty 
 miles from horrie." 
 
 "But how can you say that in travelling 
 only sixty miles and being gone three weeks 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 325 
 
 that you have seen so many strange places 
 and people?" 
 
 "Why," I exclaimed, "haven't you seen 
 anything strange around here?" 
 
 "Why, no " glancing quickly around 
 
 her. 
 
 "Well, I'm strange, am I not?" 
 
 "Well " 
 
 "And you're strange." 
 
 She looked at me with the utmost amaze- 
 ment. I could scarcely keep from laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 "I assure you," I said, "that if you travel 
 a thousand miles you will find no one stranger 
 than I am — or you are — nor anjrthing more 
 
 wonderful than all this " and I waved 
 
 my hand. 
 
 This time she looked really alarmed, glanc- 
 ing quickly toward the house, so that I began 
 to laugh. 
 
 "Madam," I said, "good morning!'' 
 
 So I left her standing there by the fence 
 looking after me, and I went on down the road. 
 
 "Well," I said, "she'll have something 
 new to talk about. It may add a month 
 to her life. Was there ever such an amusing 
 world!" 
 
326 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 About noon that day I had an adventure 
 that I have to laugh over every time I think 
 of it. It was unusual, too, as being almost 
 the only incident of my journey which was 
 of itself in the least thrilling or out of the 
 ordinary. Why, this might have made an 
 item in the country paper! 
 
 For the first time on my trip I saw a man 
 that I really felt like calling a tramp '■ — a 
 tramp in the generally accepted sense of the 
 term. When I left home I imagined I should 
 meet many tramps, and perhaps learn from 
 them odd and curious things about life; but 
 when I actually came into contact with the 
 shabby men of the road, I began to be puzzled.. 
 What was a tramp, anyway.'' 
 
 I found them all strangely different, each 
 with his own distinctive history, and each 
 accounting for himself as logically as I could 
 for myself. And save for the fact that in 
 none of them I met were the outward graces 
 and virtues too prominently displayed, I have 
 come back quite uncertain as to what a 
 scientist might call type-characteristics.. I 
 had thought of following Emerson in his 
 delightfully optimistic definition of a weed. 
 A weed, he says, is a plant whose virtues 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 327 
 
 have not been discovered. A tramp, then, 
 is a man whose virtues have not been dis- 
 covered. Or, I might follow my old friend 
 the Professor (whlpdearly loves all growing 
 things) in his even kindlier definition of a 
 weed. He says that it is merely a plant mis- 
 placed. The virility of this definition has 
 often impressed me when I have tried to 
 grub the excellent and useful horseradish 
 plants out of my asparagus bed] Let it be 
 then — a tramp is a misplaced man, whose 
 virtues have not been discovered. 
 
 Whether this is an adequate definition 
 or not, it fitted admirably the man I overtook 
 that morning on the road. He was certainly 
 misplaced, and during my brief but exciting 
 experience with him I discovered no virtues 
 whatever. 
 
 In one way he was quite difi"erent 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 
 
328 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 bit of" song. What a devil-may-care chap he 
 seemed, anyway! I was greatly interested. 
 
 When at length I drew alongside he did 
 not seem in the least su»rised. He turned, 
 glanced at me with his bold black eyes, and 
 broke out again into the song he was singing. 
 And these were the words of his song — at 
 least, all I can remember of them: 
 
 Oh, I'm so fine and gay, 
 I'm so fine and gay, 
 I have to take a dog along. 
 To kape the ga-irls away. 
 
 What droll zest he put into It! He had 
 a red nose, a globular red nose set on his 
 face like an overgrown strawberry, and from 
 under the worst derby hat in the world burst 
 his thick curly hair. 
 
 "Oh, I'm so fine and gay," he sang, step- 
 ping to the rhythm of his song, and looking 
 the very image of good-humoured impu- 
 dence. I can^t tell how amused and pleased 
 I was — though if I had known what was to 
 happen later I might not have been quite so 
 friendly — yes, I would too! 
 
 We fell into conversation, and it wasn't 
 long before I suggested that we stbp for. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 329 
 
 luncheon together somewhere along the road. 
 He cast a quick appraising eye at my bag, and 
 assented with alacrity. We climbed a fence 
 and found a quiet spot near a little brook. 
 
 I was much astonished to observe the 
 resources of my jovial companion. Al- 
 though he carried neither bag nor pack 
 and appeared to have nothing whatever 
 in his pockets, he proceeded, like a pro- 
 fessional prestidigitator, to produce from 
 his shabby clothing an extraordinary number 
 of curious things — a black tin can with a 
 wire handle, a small box of matches, a soiled 
 package which I soon learned contained tea, 
 a miraculously big dry sausage wrapped in an 
 old newspaper, and a clasp-knife. I watched 
 him with breathless interest. 
 
 He cut a couple of crotched sticks to hang 
 the pail on and in two or three minutes had 
 a little fire, no larger than a man's hand, 
 burning brightly under it. ("Big fires," said 
 he wisely, "are not for us.") This he fed 
 with dry twigs, and in a very few minutes he 
 had a pot of tea from which he offered me 
 the first drink. This, with my luncheon and 
 •part of his sausage, made up a very good 
 meal. ^ , 
 
330 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 While we were eating, the little dog sat 
 sedately by the fire. From tinae to time his 
 master would say, "Speak, Jimmy." 
 
 Jimmy would sit up on his haunches, his 
 two front paws hanging limp, turn his head 
 to one side in the drollest way imaginable 
 and give a yelp. His master would toss 
 him a bit of sausage or bread and he would 
 ' catch it with a snap. 
 
 "Fine dog!" commented my companion. 
 
 "So he seems," said I. 
 
 After the meal was over my companion 
 proceeded to produce • other surprises from 
 his pockets — a bag of tobacco, a brier pipe 
 (which he kindly offered to me and which 
 I kindly refused), and a soiled packet of 
 cigarette papers. Having rolled a cigar- 
 ette 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 in- 
 credible air of satisfaction. * 
 
 "Solid comfort this here — hey!" he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 We had some further talk, but for so 
 jovial a specimen he was surprisingly un- 
 communicative. Indeed, I think he soon 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 331 
 
 decided that I somehow did not belong to the 
 fraternity, that I was a "farmer" — in the 
 most opprobrious sense — and he soon began 
 to drowse, rousing himself once or twice to 
 roll another cigarette, but finally dropping 
 (apparently, at least) fast asleep. 
 
 I was glad enough of the rest and quiet 
 after the strenuous experience of the last 
 two days — and I, too, soon began to 
 drowse. It didn't seem to me then that I 
 lost consciousness at ail, 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 gather- 
 ing up his pail and packages so noiselessly 
 and getting away so quickly is a mystery 
 to me. 
 
 "Well," I said, "that's odd." 
 
 Rousing myself deliberately I put on my 
 hat and was aboutto take up my bag when I 
 suddenly discovered that it was open. My 
 rain-cape was missing! It wasn't a very 
 good rain-cape, but it was missing. 
 
 At first I was inclined to be angry, but 
 when I thought of my jovial companion 
 and the cunning way in which he had tricked 
 me, I couldn't help laughing. At the same 
 
332 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 time I jumped up quickly and ran down to 
 the road. 
 
 "I may get him yet," I said. 
 
 Just as I stepped out of the woods I 
 caught a glimpse of a man some hundreds 
 of yards away, turning quickly from the 
 main road into a lane or by-path. I wasn't 
 altogether sure that he was my man, but I 
 ran across the road and climbed the fence. 
 I had formed the plan instantly of cutting 
 across the field and so striking the by-road 
 farther up the hill. I had a curious sense of 
 amused exultation, the very spirit of the 
 chase, and rriy mind dwelt with the liveliest 
 excitement on what I should say or do if I 
 really caught that jolly spark of impudence. 
 
 So I came by way of a thicket along an 
 old stone fence to the by-road, and there, 
 sure enough, only a little way ahead of 
 me, was my man with the shaggy little 
 dog close at his heels. He was making 
 pretty good time, but I skirted swiftly 
 along the edge of the road until I had nearly 
 overtaken him. Then I slowed down to a 
 walk and stepped out into the middle of the 
 road. I confess my heart was pounding at a 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 333 
 
 lively rate. The next time he looked behind 
 him — guiltily enough, too! — I said in the 
 calmest voice I could command : 
 
 "Well, brother, you almost left me be- 
 hind." 
 
 He stojrped and I stepped up to him. 
 
 I wish I could describe the look in his face 
 — mingled astonishment, fear, and defiance. 
 
 ."My friend," I said, "I'm disappointed in 
 you." 
 
 He made no reply. 
 
 "Yes, I'm disappointed. You did such a 
 very poor job." \ 
 
 "Poor job!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," I said, and I slipped my bag off 
 my shoulder and began to rummage inside. 
 My companion watched me silently and sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 "You should not have left the rubbers." 
 
 With that I handed him my old rubbers. 
 A peculiar expression came into the man's 
 face. 
 
 "Say, pardner, what you drivin' at.?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "I don't like to see such 
 evidences of haste and inefficiency." 
 
 He stood staring at me helplessly, hold- 
 ing my old rubbers at arm's length. 
 
334 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Come on now," I said, "that's over. 
 We'll walk along together." 
 
 I was about to take his arm, but quick 
 as a flash he dodged, cast both rubbers and 
 rain-cape away from him, and ran down the 
 road for all he was worth, the little dog, look- 
 ing exactly like a rolling ball of fur, pelting 
 after him. He never once glanced back, but 
 ran for his life. I stood there and laughed 
 until the tears came, and ever since then, at 
 the thought of the expression on the jolly 
 rover's face when I gave him my rubbers, I've 
 had to smile. I put the rain-cape and riibbers 
 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' ex- 
 perience in the city had been more exhausting 
 for me, I think, than a whole month of hard 
 labour on my farm. I found haven with a 
 friendly farmer, whom I joined while he was 
 driving his cows in from the pasture. I helped 
 him with his milking both that night and 
 the next morning, and found his situation 
 and family most interesting — but I shall 
 not here enlarge upon that experience. 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 335 
 
 It was late afternoon when I finally sur- 
 mounted the hill from which I knew well 
 enough I could catch the first glimpse of my 
 farm. For a moment after I reached the 
 top I could not raise my eyes, and when 
 finally I was able to raise them I could not see. 
 
 "There is a spot in Arcady — a spot in 
 
 Arcady — a spot in Arcady " So runs 
 
 the old song. 
 
 There is a spot in Arcady, and at the 
 centre of it there is a weather-worn old 
 house, and not far away a perfect oak tree, 
 and green fields all about, and a pleasant 
 stream fringed with alders in the little 
 valley. And out of the chimney into the 
 sweet, still evening air rises the slow white 
 smoke of the supper-fire. 
 
 I turned from the main road, and climbed 
 the fence and walked across my upper field 
 to the old wood lane. The air was heavy 
 and sweet with clover blossoms, and along 
 the fences I could see that the raspberry 
 bushes were ripening their fruit. 
 
 So I came down the lane and heard the 
 comfortable grunting of pigs in the pasture 
 lot and saw the calves licking one another 
 as they stood at the gate. 
 
336 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "How they've grown!" I said. 
 
 I stopped at the corner of the barn a 
 moment. From within I heard the rattling 
 of milk in a pail (a fine sound), and heard 
 a man's voice saying: 
 
 "Whoa, there! Stiddy now!" - 
 
 "Dick's milking," I said. 
 
 So I stepped in at the doorway. 
 
 "Lord, Mr. Grayson!" exclaimed Dick, ris- 
 ing instantly and clasping my hand like a 
 long-lost brother. 
 
 "Fpiglad to see you!" 
 
 "I'm glad to see you!" 
 
 The warm smell of the new milk, the 
 pleasant sound of animals stepping about 
 in the stable, the old mare reaching her long 
 head over the stanchion to welcome me, and 
 nipping at my fingers when I rubbed her 
 nose 
 
 And there was the old house with the 
 late sun upon it, the vines hanging green 
 over the porch, Harriet's trim flower bed — 
 I crept along quietly to the corner. The 
 kitchen door stood open. 
 
 "Well, Harriet!" I said, stepping in- ' 
 side. 
 
 "Mercy! David!" 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 337 
 
 I have rarely known Harriet to be in 
 quite such a reckless mood. She kept think- 
 ing of a new kind of sauce or jam for supper 
 (I think there were seven, or were there 
 twelve? on the table before I got through). 
 And there was a new rhubarb pie such as only- 
 Harriet can make, just brown enough on 
 top, and not too brown, with .just the right 
 sort of hills and hummocks in the crust, and 
 here and there little sugary bubbles where a 
 suggestion of the goodness came through 
 
 — ■ such a pie ! and such an appetite to 
 
 go with it! 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "you're spoiling me. 
 Haven't you heard how dangerous it is to 
 set such a supper as this before a man who is 
 perishing with hunger? Have you no mercy 
 forme?" 
 
 . This remark produced the most extraordi- 
 nary effect. Harriet was at that moment stand- 
 ing in the corner near the pump. Her shoul- 
 ders suddenly began to shake convulsively. 
 
 "She's so glad I'm home that she can't 
 help laughing," I thought, which shows how 
 penetrating I really am. 
 
 She was crying. 
 
 "Why, Harriet!" I exclaimed. 
 
338 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 "Hungry!" she burst out, "and j-joking 
 about it!" 
 
 I couldn't say a single word; something — 
 it must have been a piece of the rhubarb 
 pie — stuck in my throat. So I sat there and 
 watched her moving quietly about in that im- 
 maculate kitchen. After a time I walked over 
 to where she stood by the table and put my 
 arm around her quickly. She half turned her 
 head, in her quick, businesslike way. I noted 
 how firm and clean and sweet her face was. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "you grow younger 
 every year." 
 
 No response. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "I haven't seen a single 
 person anywhere on my journey that I like 
 as much as I do you." 
 
 The quick blood came up. 
 
 "There — there — David ! " she said. 
 
 So I stepped away. 
 
 "And as for rhubarb pie, Harriet " 
 
 When I first came to my farm years ago 
 there were mornings when I woke up with 
 the strong impression that I had just been 
 hearing the most exquisite music. I don't 
 know whether this is at all a common experi- 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 339 
 
 ence, but in those days (and farther back in 
 my early boyhood) I had it frequently. It 
 did not seem exactly like music either, but 
 was rather a sense of harmony, so wonderful, 
 so pervasive that it cannot be described. 
 I have not had it so often in recent years, 
 but on the morning after I reached home 
 it came to me as I awakened with a strange 
 depth and sweetness. I lay for a moment 
 there in my clean bed. The morning sun was 
 up and coming in cheerfully through the 
 vines at the window; a gentle breeze stirred 
 the clean white curtains, and I could smell 
 even there the odours of the garden. 
 
 I wish I had room to tell, but I cannot, 
 of all the crowded experiences of that day — • 
 the renewal of acquaintance with the fields, 
 the cattle, the fowls, the bees, of my long 
 talks with Harriet and Dick Sheridan, who 
 had cared for my work while I was away; of 
 the wonderful visit of the Scotch Preacher, 
 of Horace's shrewd and whimsical comments 
 upon the general absurdity of the head of the 
 Grayson family — oh, of a thousand things — 
 and how when I went into my study and took 
 up the nearest book in my favourite case — 
 it chanced to be "The Bible in Spain" — it 
 
340 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 opened of itself at one of my favourite pas- 
 sages, the one beginning: 
 
 "Mistos amande, I am content " 
 
 So it's all over! It has been a great experi- 
 ence; 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 Modem 
 Utopia," the writer provides in his imaginary 
 perfect state of society a class of leaders 
 known as Samurai. And, from time to 
 time, it is the custom of these Samurai to 
 cut themselves loose from the crowding 
 world of men, and with packs on their backs 
 go away alone to far places in the deserts or 
 on Arctic ice caps. I am convinced that 
 every man needs some such change as this, 
 an opportunity to think things out, to get a 
 new grip on life, and a new hold on God. But 
 not for me the Arctic ice cap or the desert! 
 I choose the Friendly Road — and all the com- 
 mon people who travel in it or live along it — >■ 
 I choose even the busy city at the end of it. 
 
 I assure you, friend, that it is a wonderful 
 thing for a man to cast himself freely for a 
 time upon the world, not knowing where his 
 
THE FRIENDLY ROAD 341 
 
 next meal is coming from, nor where he is 
 going to sleep for the night. It is a surprising 
 readjuster of values. I paid my way, I 
 think, throughout my pilgrimage; but I 
 discovered that stamped metal is far from 
 being the world's only true coin. As a 
 matter of fact, there are many things that 
 men prize more highly — because they are 
 rarer and more precious. 
 
 My friend, if you should chance your- 
 self 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 IV^usk," or "Old Dan 
 Tucker," or he may produce a battered old 
 volume of Montaigne from which he will 
 read you a passage. If such an adventure 
 should befall you, know that you have met 
 Your friend, 
 
 David Grayson. 
 
 P. S. — Harriet bemoans most of all the 
 unsolved mystery of the sign man. But 
 
342 THE FRIENDLY ROAD 
 
 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 thou- 
 sand signs on my roadways are still as un- 
 explainable, as mysterious, and as beguiling 
 as this. And I can close my narrative with 
 no better motto for tired spirits than that of 
 the country roadside: 
 
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