{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10592/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10592","id":"gutenberg_10592","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10592","summary":null,"tags":["Amherst Region (Mass.) -- Social life and customs","Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Farm life -- Massachusetts -- Amherst Region","Grayson, David, 1870-1946"],"text":"ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP\n\nBy David Grayson\n\n\n\nI\n\nAN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY\n\n\nThis, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I\nwas ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are\nthe most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest\nthings, the rarest.\n\nI have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.\n\nThis morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a\nMason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his\nvarious memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged\nto, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he\nhad known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he\nwas trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help\nfeeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a\nMason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much\nsurprised and disappointed.\n\n\"You ought to belong to one of our lodges,\" he said. \"You'd be sure of\nhaving loyal friends wherever you go.\"\n\nHe told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how\nmuch it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how\nmuch for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine\nfuneral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for\nmy widow and children.\n\n\"You're just the sort of a man,\" he said, \"that we'd like to have in our\nlodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship.\"\n\nHe was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky\nvoice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I\nthink (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling\ncorn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.\n\nAs I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the\nMasons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense\nof depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found\nthe pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is\nnot friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this\nworld? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out\nand touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of\nhuman achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I\nwondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught\nthe Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and\nimpenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.\n\n\"It must, indeed,\" I said to myself, \"be a precious sort of fraternity\nthat they choose to protect so sedulously.\"\n\nI felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to\nlive. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give\nme the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to\nit. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.\n\n\"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship,\" I said to myself.\n\nSo I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which\noften seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.\n\nBut on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long\ndepressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of the town and\ncame to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in\nupon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out\nacross the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat\nupon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned\nout to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon\nsunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come:\nand oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven\n(never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds:\nthe whole world was busy with spring!\n\nI straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half\nstartled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the\nspring.\n\n\"Here,\" I said aloud, \"is where I belong. I am native to this place; of\nall these things I am a part.\"\n\nBut presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented\nhound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.\nAnd do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter\nlay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which\nmet my eye so openly.\n\n\"Why!\" I exclaimed to myself, \"I need not envy my friend's lodges. I\nmyself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of\nthe Universal Brotherhood of Men.\"\n\nIt came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not\nhelp laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I\ndid not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a\nfarm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the\nroad, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:\n\n\"How are you, Brother?\"\n\nYou should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I\nglanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his\nhigh seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.\n\n\"Yes, my friend,\" I said to myself, \"I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine\nof spring!\"\n\nI reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as \"Brother.\" A\nstrange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was\nnot my Brother.\n\nSo I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I\nhave had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!\n\n\"I am glad,\" I said to myself, \"that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons\nhave no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And\nwe do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will\naccept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a\ncheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin.\"\n\n(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of\nit. You can get a better for nothing.)\n\nI cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out\nof my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just\nas I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the\ncreek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The\nhorses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man\nwas on his knees between the front wheels.\n\nInvoluntarily I said:\n\n\"Another member of my society: and in distress!\"\n\nI had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old\nneighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there\nhad been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite\ncertain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.\n\nAs I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown\nduck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His\ncap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in\nthe moist road, and his face was red and angry.\n\nA true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,\nbut only to her distress.\n\n\"What's the matter, Brother?\" I asked in the friendliest manner.\n\n\"Bolt gone,\" he said gruffly, \"and I got to get to town before\nnightfall.\"\n\n\"Get in,\" I said, \"and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road.\"\n\nSo he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out\nand looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got\nout and picked it up.\n\n\"It's all right,\" he said. \"I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm\nobliged to you for the lift.\"\n\n\"Hold on,\" I said, \"get in, I'll take you back.\"\n\n\"Oh, I can walk.\"\n\n\"But I can drive you faster,\" I said, \"and you've got to get the load\nto town before nightfall.\"\n\nI could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story\nbooks say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was\nhuman) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved\nwithout exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his\ndinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.\n\nMy farmer laughed and got in.\n\n\"You see,\" I said, \"when a member of my society is in distress I always\nlike to help him out.\"\n\nHe paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:\n\n\"How did you know I was a Mason?\"\n\n\"Well, I wasn't _sure_.\"\n\n\"I only joined last winter,\" he said. \"I like it first-rate. When you're\na Mason you find friends everywhere.\"\n\nI had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but\nthe distance was short and bolts were irresistibly uppermost. After\nhelping him to put in the bolt, I said:\n\n\"Here's the grip of fellowship.\"\n\nHe returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.\n\n\"I didn't feel the grip.\"\n\n\"Didn't you?\" I asked. \"Well, Brother, it was all there.\"\n\n\"If ever I can do anything for you,\" he said, \"just you let me know.\nName's Forbes, Spring Brook.\"\n\nAnd so he drove away.\n\n\"A real Mason,\" I said to myself, \"could not have had any better\nadvantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked right into it\nwithout a grip or a pass. And benefits have also been distributed.\"\n\nAs I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen to me before I\ngot home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all\ncrusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at\nevery turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost\ndiscouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the\nroad ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.\n\nWhen he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,\nsaving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked\naround nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past\nexpectation. I stopped the mare.\n\n\"Get in, Brother,\" I said; \"I am going your way.\"\n\nHe looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag\nroll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his\nneck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.\n\n\"Pretty heavy for your buggy,\" he remarked.\n\n\"Heavier for you,\" I replied.\n\nSo he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me\ndiffidently.\n\n\"Pull up the lap robe,\" I said, \"and be comfortable.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift,\" he remarked. \"A bag of seed wheat is\nabout all a man wants to carry for four miles.\"\n\n\"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?\" I asked.\n\n\"I'm that man.\"\n\n\"I've been intending to drop in and see you,\" I said.\n\n\"Have you?\" he asked eagerly.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"I live just across the hills from you, and I had a\nnotion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the\nsame society.\"\n\nHis face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know\nbeforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when\nI spoke of the society it clouded again.\n\n\"You must be mistaken,\" he said. \"I'm not a Mason!\"\n\n\"No more am I,\" I said.\n\n\"Nor an Oddfellow.\"\n\n\"Nor I.\"\n\nAs I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come\nto us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His\nface bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement\nhad done their best to obliterate them; his nose was thin and high, his\neye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker\nfarm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who\nhad found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If any one ever\nneeded the benefits of my fraternity, he was that man.\n\n\"What Society did you think I belonged to?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"when I was in town a man who wanted to sell me a\ncorn-planter asked me if I was a Mason----\"\n\n\"Did he ask you that, too?\" interrupted my companion.\n\n\"He did,\" I said. \"He did----\" and I reflected not without enthusiasm\nthat I had come away without a corn-planter. \"And when I drove out of\ntown I was feeling rather depressed because I wasn't a member of the\nlodge.\"\n\n\"Were you?\" exclaimed my companion. \"So was I. I just felt as though I\nhad about reached the last ditch. I haven't any money to pay into lodges\nand it don't seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without.\"\n\n\"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?\" I observed.\n\n\"You bet it is,\" he responded. \"You've been there yourself, haven't\nyou?\"\n\nThere may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; but surely it\ncannot be compared with the friendship of adversity. Men, stooping,\ncome close together.\n\n\"But when I got to thinking it over,\" I said, \"it suddenly occurred to\nme that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. And I recognized\nyou instantly as a charter member.\"\n\nHe looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't suppose he\nhad so far forgotten his miseries for many a day.\n\n\"What's that?\" he asked.\n\n\"The Universal Brotherhood of Men.\"\n\nWell, we both laughed--and understood.\n\nAfter that, what a story he told me!--the story of a misplaced man on an\nunproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all\npeople--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if\nonly you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been\ngrowing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;\nall he needed was a listener.\n\nHe was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we\nhad turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed:\n\n\"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all\nright now.\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" I said, \"I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing\nhow you came out with your pigs.\"\n\nAs we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.\nMy companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had\npreviously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),\nrushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently\nastonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length\ndiscovered his gold mine!\n\nWhen I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on\nmy arm and said in a confidential voice:\n\n\"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society.\"\n\nAs I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask\nsuspiciously:\n\n\"What society is that?\"\n\nI heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager\nexplanation.\n\nAnd so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the\nlane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and\nwarmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,\nwaiting.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nA DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD\n\nThey have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time\nthis evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind\nblustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking\nquestions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading\nlamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,\ncovered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere\nstill seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.\n\nThe parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:\n\n\"This,\" said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic\nhighlander in cloaks and tippets, \"has been a day of pleasant bread.\"\n\nOne of the very pleasantest I can remember!\n\nI sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd\ninto it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.\nAs for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through\nthe year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me\nunexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:\n\n\"Why, this is Christmas Day!\"\n\nHow the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of\nlife and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like\nthis--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.\nWho knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world\nthan I had ever dreamed it could be.\n\n[Illustration: \"Merry Christmas, Harriet!\"]\n\nSo I sing out to Harriet as I go down:\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Harriet\"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go\ndown and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then\nI get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around\nthe sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted\nsnow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and\nit frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily\nwith my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.\n\nCold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very\nstill. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From\nHorace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight\nupward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the\nsky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my\nblood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my\nshovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can\nno longer contain myself:\n\n\"Merry Christmas, Harriet.\"\n\nHarriet opens the door--just a crack.\n\n\"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!\"\n\nAnd she closes the door.\n\nUpon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear\nmy horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,\nand such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the\nstraw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!\n\n\"It's a friendly world,\" I say to myself, \"and full of business.\"\n\nI plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow\naway and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of\nthe warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the\nstanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable\nfloor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas\nmorning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.\n\nI lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let\nme go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go\nout into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and\nstalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's\nthe only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is\nquiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.\n\nTake my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I\nstand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction\nhow plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look\nup at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn\ncrib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with\nits mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended\nin growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit\nof that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to\nclose, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.\n\nAll the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of\nexpected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and\nadventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I\nwas there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know\nthe fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before\nbreakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that\nheaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,\nI fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then\n(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the\nbest solvent of secrecy is patience.\n\n\"David,\" said Harriet, presently, \"the cousins can't come!\"\n\n\"Can't come!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Why, you act as if you were delighted.\"\n\n\"No--well, yes,\" I said, \"I knew that some extraordinary adventure was\nabout to happen!\"\n\n\"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them.\"\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, \"adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to\nhave the Scotch Preacher and his wife?\"\n\n\"But I've got such a _good_ dinner.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You\nmay depend upon me to do my duty.\"\n\n\"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,\"\nsaid Harriet ruefully.\n\nI had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this\nproblem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes\nfixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I\nremarked:\n\n\"There aren't any.\"\n\n\"David,\" she exclaimed, \"how did you know what I was thinking about?\"\n\n\"I merely wanted to show you,\" I said, \"that my genius is not properly\nappreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?\nThen you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then\nof Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and\nthen I said, 'There aren't any.'\"\n\nHarriet laughed.\n\n\"It has come to a pretty pass,\" she said \"when there are no poor people\nto invite to dinner on Christmas day.\"\n\n\"It's a tragedy, I'll admit,\" I said, \"but let's be logical about it.\"\n\n\"I am willing,\" said Harriet, \"to be as logical as you like.\"\n\n\"Then,\" I said, \"having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily\ntry the rich. That's logical, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Who?\" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a\ngood healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit\nit, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which\nI maintain is _not_ logical.\n\n\"Well, there are the Starkweathers,\" I said.\n\n\"David!\"\n\n\"They're rich, aren't they?\"\n\n\"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,\nthey probably have a houseful of company.\"\n\n\"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really\nsuffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you\nadvising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding\nout--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble\nwas?\"\n\n\"But I was talking of _poor_ people.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good\nfor rich people? Aren't they proud?\"\n\n\"Oh, you can argue,\" observed Harriet.\n\n\"And I can act, too,\" I said. \"I am now going over to invite the\nStarkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I\nexpect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very\nhaughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually\nleave a diamond tiara in the front hall.\"\n\n\"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?\"\n\n\"Christmas,\" I said.\n\nI can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it\nsuggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I\nleft Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite\nforgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.\n\n\"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----\"\n\n\"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'\" I observed, \"'there is no such word\nas fail.'\"\n\nSo I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way\nand had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but\nthe air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the\nfields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I\nthink I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and\nbrook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow\neverywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees\nladen: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it\nwas soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head\nlike wine!\n\nSo I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was\ngoing to the barn with a pail on his arm.\n\n\"Merry Christmas,\" I shouted.\n\nHe looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I\nmet the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their\neyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's\nhouse, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window\na green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone\nmust be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should\nI meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!\n\n\"Well, well, David,\" he exclaimed heartily, \"Merry Christmas.\"\n\nI drew my face down and said solemnly:\n\n\"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand.\"\n\n\"Why, now, what's the matter?\" He was all sympathy at once.\n\n\"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this\nneighbourhood to come to our feast.\"\n\nThe Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle in his eye.\n\n\"David,\" he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak in my\near, \"there is a poor man you will na' have to compel.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't count,\" I said. \"You're coming anyhow.\"\n\nThen I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, into the\nspirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He was full of advice\nand much excited lest I fail to do a thoroughly competent job. For a\nmoment I think he wanted to take the whole thing out of my hands.\n\n\"Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do,\" he exclaimed, \"but I ha' me\ndoots--I ha' me doots.\"\n\nAt parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face inquired:\n\n\"Is it by any chance a goose?\"\n\n\"It is,\" I said, \"a goose--a big one.\"\n\nHe heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. \"You have comforted my mind,\"\nhe said, \"with the joys of anticipation--a goose, a big goose.\"\n\nSo I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. Presently I saw\nthe great house standing among its wintry trees. There was smoke in the\nchimney but no other evidence of life. At the gate my spirits, which had\nbeen of the best all the morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I\nwere well enough acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late\nmoment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair-brained scheme to\nthink of inviting them to dinner.\n\n\"Never mind,\" I said, \"they'll not be displeased to see me anyway.\"\n\nI waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. In the\nparlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of beauty--furniture,\npictures, books, so very, very much of everything--with which the room\nwas filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar\nsense of weariness. How all these things, though beautiful enough in\nthemselves, must clutter up a man's life!\n\nDo you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I\ncan successfully lack--and continue to grow happier. How many kinds of\nfood I do not need, nor cooks to cook them, how much curious clothing\nnor tailors to make it, how many books that I never read, and pictures\nthat are not worth while! The farther I run, the more I feel like\ncasting aside all such impedimenta--lest I fail to arrive at the far\ngoal of my endeavour.\n\nI like to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about, who\nornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living with it,\nabsorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of it, replacing it\nwith another. I wonder if he had the right way, and we, with so many\nobjects to hang on our walls, place on our shelves, drape on our chairs,\nand spread on our floors, have mistaken our course and placed our hearts\nupon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions!\n\nPresently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet\nsmoking-jacket and slippers; and somehow, for a bright morning like\nthis, he seemed old, and worn, and cold.\n\n\"Well, well, friend,\" he said, \"I'm glad to see you.\"\n\nHe said it as though he meant it.\n\n\"Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house that is\ncomfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to heat a place like\nthis in really cold weather. No sooner do I find a man who can run my\nfurnace than he goes off and leaves me.\"\n\n\"I can sympathize with you,\" I said, \"we often have trouble at our house\nwith the man who builds the fires.\"\n\nHe looked around at me quizzically.\n\n\"He lies too long in bed in the morning,\" I said.\n\nBy this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire was\nburning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak furnishings\nand books in cases along one wall, but this morning it had a dishevelled\nand untidy look. On a little table at one side of the fireplace were the\nremains of a breakfast; at the other a number of wraps were thrown\ncarelessly upon a chair. As I came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her\nplace, drawing a silk scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust,\nrather handsome woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of\nglasses hanging to a little gold hook on her ample bosom; but this\nmorning she, too, looked worried and old.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" she said with a rueful laugh, \"we're beginning a merry\nChristmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook in the house!\"\n\nI felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving millionaires!\n\nBut Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story.\n\n\"We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day,\" she said, \"and\nour cook was ill--or said she was--and had to go. One of the maids went\nwith her. The man who looks after the furnace disappeared on Friday, and\nthe stableman has been drinking. We can't very well leave the place\nwithout some one who is responsible in charge of it--and so here we are.\nMerry Christmas!\"\n\nI couldn't help laughing. Poor people!\n\n\"You might,\" I said, \"apply for Mrs. Heney's place.\"\n\n\"Who is Mrs. Heney?\" asked Mrs. Starkweather.\n\n\"You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!\" I exclaimed.\n\"Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' Daniels? You've missed one of our\ngreatest celebrities.\"\n\nWith that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, who has for\nyears performed a most important function in this community. Alone and\nunaided she has been the poor whom we are supposed to have always with\nus. If it had not been for the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at\nThanksgiving, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our\nWoman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have perished\nmiserably of undistributed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years Mrs.\nHeney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the natural outpourings\nof a rather jovial soul she could upon occasion look as deserving of\ncharity as any person that ever I met. But I pitied the little Heneys:\nit always comes hard on the children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving\nand Christmas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look.\nI only came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing public servant\nMrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the desperate\nalternative of marrying \"Penny\" Daniels.\n\n\"So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?\" laughed Mrs.\nStarkweather.\n\nUpon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to\ncome down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.\n\nWhen I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to\nthe door seeming greatly improved in spirits.\n\n\"You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson,\" said Mrs.\nStarkweather.\n\nSo I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later\nwho should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and\nhis wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally\ncovered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.\n\n\"We walked over,\" said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, \"and I haven't\nhad so much fun in years.\"\n\nMr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch Preacher stood\non the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.\n\nI can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose,\nand the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and\nthe pumpkin pie at the end--the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin\npie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought\nvisions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet\npresiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every\ntime she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of\nmiracle. And her coffee--but I must not and dare not elaborate.\n\nAnd what great talk we had afterward!\n\nI've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in\nquite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of\ntheir boyhood--and we laughed, and laughed--Mrs. Starkweather the most\nof all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her\nhome, I didn't think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she\ndiscovered Harriet's cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must\nsing for us.\n\n\"None of the new-fangled ones, Clara,\" cried her husband: \"some of the\nold ones we used to know.\"\n\nSo she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began\nto sing:\n\n\"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,\n  Which I gaze on so fondly to-day----,\"\n\nMr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with\nhis deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch Preacher's wife\nnodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her\neyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands\non his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he,\ntoo, joined in with his big sonorous voice:\n\n\"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art----,\"\n\nOh, I can't tell here--it grows late and there's work to-morrow--all the\nthings we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs.\nStarkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers\nand said with great earnestness:\n\n\"I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl.\nI shall never forget it.\"\n\nAnd the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up,\nwent out, saying:\n\n\"This has been a day of pleasant bread.\"\n\nIt has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and\ncommon human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in\npeople once you get them down together and persuade them that the things\nthey think serious are not serious at all.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nTHE OPEN ROAD\n\n\"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide.\"\n\n--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.\n\nI love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not\ncare to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full\nenjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the\nmorning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well\nenough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden\nof no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from\norchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold\neverything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw\nthem before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or\nopinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer\nof new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these\nwonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I\nshall make!\n\nSo I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the town road\nand climb the fence on the other side. I brush one shoulder among the\nbushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy pressure of the sod. The\nlong blades of the timothy-grass clasp at my legs and let go with\nreluctance. I break off a twig here and there and taste the tart or\nbitter sap. I take off my hat and let the warm sun shine on my head. I\nam an adventurer upon a new earth.\n\nIs it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to travel in\npursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at home? We mistake\nunfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our perceptions with idle\nforeignness. For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only\ntrue foundation for the appreciation of beauty--for beauty is inward,\nnot outward--we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering\nmere curious resemblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no\npower of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks and\npasses in Switzerland; how we come laden from England with vain\ncathedrals!\n\nBeauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wilderness, for\nforeignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to come up through\nmy thicket or cross my field from my own roadside--and behold, a new\nheaven and a new earth!\n\nThings grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because we\ncease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds around us disappear\nwithin the sombre mists of familiarity. Whichever way we look the roads\nare dull and barren. There is a tree at our gate we have not seen in\nyears: a flower blooms in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining\nheights of the Alps!\n\nIt has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before\nmy eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up an opening there. Naming\nthings! Objects fall into categories for them and wear little sure\nchannels in the brain. A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them,\na field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally\nhow everything wearies them and that is old age!\n\nIs it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see\nand feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend\nthe eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of\nyesterday before the surer observations of to-day?--is not that the best\nlife we know?\n\nAnd so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack\nswamp. The soft dark green of it fills the round bowl of a valley.\nAround it spread rising forests and fields; fences divide it from the\nknown land. Coming across my fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the\nhabit of avoidance. It is a custom, well enough in a practical land, to\nshun such a spot of perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open\nRoad, and it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the\ntamaracks. I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I\ntrod where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my passage\n(the bars to most passages when we came to them are only cobwebs), the\nearth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, and with many an autumn of\nfallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed the track of a muskrat, I saw the\nnest of a hawk--and how, how many other things of the wilderness I must\nnot here relate. And I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now\nthe feeling of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I;\nStanley tells me nothing I have not experienced!\n\nWhat more than that is the accomplishment of the great inventor, poet,\npainter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the\nOpen Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the\nnames of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight.\nA thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered\nwith the spirit of the Open Road!\n\nSometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I\ndevise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone\nthe thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. All this, I\nknow, to some will seem the acme of foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not\ntelling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of\nit. I am reporting it as an experience in life; those who understand\nwill understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring\nback to me with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a\ntime or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of my\npossessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, and the\nremembrance of them enables me to recall or live over a past experience\nwith scarcely diminished emotion.\n\nAnd one of these words--how it brings to me the very mood of a gray\nOctober day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields are bare, the corn\nshocks brown, and the long road looks flat and dull. Away in the marsh I\nhear a single melancholy crow. A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows\nflock to one's memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp\nand the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy\nonce----\n\nSo to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise with the\nhill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone man in the top of\na pasture crying \"Coo-ee, coo-ee.\" I do not see at first why he cries\nand then over the hill come the ewes, a dense gray flock of them,\nhuddling toward me. The yokel behind has a stick in each hand. \"Coo-ee,\ncoo-ee,\" he also cries. And the two men, gathering in, threatening,\nsidling, advancing slowly, the sheep turning uncertainly this way and\nthat, come at last to the boarded pen.\n\n\"That's the idee,\" says the helper.\n\n\"A poor lot,\" remarks the leader: \"such is the farmer's life.\"\n\nFrom the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to the fence and\nunhook their team. The leader throws off his coat and stands thick and\nmuscular in his blue jeans--a roistering fellow with a red face, thick\nneck and chapped hands.\n\n\"I'll pass 'em up,\" he says; \"that's a man's work. You stand in the\nwagon and put 'em in.\"\n\nSo he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into the corner,\nhere and there raising a timid head, here and there darting aside in a\npanic.\n\n\"Hi there, it's for you,\" shouts the leader, and thrusts his hands deep\nin the wool of one of the ewes.\n\n\"Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly,\" says the man in the\nwagon.\n\n\"That's my old game--wrastling,\" the leader remarks, struggling with the\nnext ewe. \"Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with you dang you!\"\n\n\"That's the idee,\" says the man in the wagon.\n\nSo I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go down the\nroad I hear the leader's thick voice, \"Stiddy, stiddy,\" and the response\nof the other, \"That's the idee.\" And so on into the gray day!\n\nMy Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh adventures in\nouter observation. I believe in the Open Road in religion, in education,\nin politics: there is nothing really settled, fenced in, nor finally\ndecided upon this earth, Nothing that is not questionable. I do not\nmean that I would immediately tear down well-built fences or do away\nwith established and beaten roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages\nis likely to be wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not\ninvite any other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a\nbetter way toward truth than that which time had established. And yet I\nwould have every man tread the Open Road; I would have him upon occasion\nquestion the smuggest institution and look askance upon the most ancient\nhabit. I would have him throw a doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I\nwould have him look straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He\nshould acknowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for\nhimself. The \"equality of men\" which we worship: is there not a higher\ninequality? The material progress which we deify: is it real progress?\nDemocracy--is it after all better than monarchy? I would have him\nquestion the canons of art, literature, music, morals: so will he\ncontinue young and useful!\n\nAnd yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why all this\nexcitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I go forth to\nfind? Am I better for keeping my roads open than my neighbour is who\ntravels with contentment the paths of ancient habit? I am gnawed by the\ntooth of unrest--to what end? Often as I travel I ask myself that\nquestion and I have never had a convincing answer. I am looking for\nsomething I cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is\nit that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered\nquestions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know who drives.\nWe travel, we inquire, we look, we work--only knowing that these\nactivities satisfy a certain deep and secret demand within us. We have\nFaith that there is a Reason: and is there not a present Joy in\nfollowing the Open Road?\n\n\"And O the joy that is never won,\nBut follows and follows the journeying sun.\"\n\nAnd at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with wisdom as\nwell as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For after all the Open\nRoad must return to the Beaten Path. The Open Road is for adventure;\nand adventure is not the food of life, but the spice.\n\nThus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked\ndown the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy\nexhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my\ndaily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I\nsaid to myself:\n\n\"Lord be praised for that which is common.\"\n\nAnd after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my supper.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG\n\nSunday Morning, May 20th.\n\nOn Friday I began planting my corn. For many days previously I went out\nevery morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, and thrust my hand\ndeep down in the soil of the field. I do not know that I followed any\nlearned agricultural rule, but somehow I liked to do it. It has seemed\nreasonable to me, instead of watching for a phase of the moon (for I do\nnot cultivate the moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I\nhad no response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death.\n\"I am not ready yet,\" it said; \"I have not rested my time.\"\n\nEarly in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of fecund\nwarmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. On Thursday\nmorning, though a white frost silvered the harrow ridges, when I thrust\nmy hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to feel, a curious response: a\nstrange answering of life to life. The stone had been rolled from the\nsepulchre!\n\nAnd I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting. That\nafternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made\nwooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for\na crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality. I brought down my seed corn\nfrom the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended\nseparately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected ears of\nlast year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips\nwell-covered--the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the\nhighest excellencies of the crop. I carried them to the shed next my\nbarn, and shelled them out in my hand machine: as fine a basket of\nyellow dent seed as a man ever saw. I have listened to endless\ndiscussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn. I here\ncast my vote emphatically for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do!\n\nI found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and\nHarriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist. I\ncleaned and sharpened my hoe.\n\n\"Now,\" I said to myself, \"give me a good day and I am ready to plant.\"\n\nThe sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a\nworld of misty and odorous freshness. When I climbed the fence I dropped\ndown in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward\nthis year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the\nadventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with\nHorace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable\nsatisfaction in answering, \"Present!\" to the roll-call of Nature; to\nplant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake\nand harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief\njoy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat\nin consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his\nseasons; its life his life.\n\nBehold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both\nover the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the\nscepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle\nof my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my\nfield on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that\nmoment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,\nprince, or president.\n\nAt first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have\ndone much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the\nsower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the\nflexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed\nhole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the\nkernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the\nsoil upon the seed. One falls into it and follows it as he would follow\nthe rhythm of a march.\n\nEven the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At first there\nis a conscious counting by the fingers--five seeds:\n\nOne for the blackbird,\nOne for the crow,\nOne for the cutworm,\nTwo to grow.\n\nBut after a time one ceases to count five, and _feels_ five,\ninstinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete an\ninferior four.\n\nI wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it answers to\nyour steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life always\ndoes)--and is there not something endlessly good and pleasant about it?\nAnd the movement of the arms and shoulders, falling easily into that\naction and reaction which yields the most service to the least energy!\nScientists tell us that the awkward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch\nthan the old, skilled eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his\nwork with half the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the\nartistry of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical\naccomplishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of reward,\nrepayment, which one experiences as he covers each planting of seeds.\n\nAs the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first toward the\nlower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; the morning coolness\npassed, the tops of the furrows dried out to a lighter brown, and still\nI followed the long planting. At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and\nsometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass.\nOften I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through\nthe clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously\nfrom the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from\nthe distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen\nsmoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the\nhill from the margin of my field--and my own pleasant home among its\ntrees--and my barn--all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to\nthe sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the\nsowing.\n\n[Illustration: \"OFTEN I STOOD A MOMENT BY THE FENCE\"]\n\nJoy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one\nbelongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the life we have\nchosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be\nsomething they are not, to do something they cannot do. In the\nadvertisements of the country paper I find men angling for money by\npromising to make women beautiful and men learned or rich--overnight--by\ninspiring good farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It\nis curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land to\npotatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how little wisdom we farm\nthe soils of our own natures. We try to grow poetry where plumbing would\nthrive grandly!--not knowing that plumbing is as important and\nhonourable and necessary to this earth as poetry.\n\nI understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. I\nthought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith become\ngreat, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, seeking I knew\nnot what. Consuming my days with the infinite distractions of travel, I\nmissed, as one who attempts two occupations at once, the sure\nsatisfaction of either. Beholding the exteriors of cities and of men, I\nwas deceived with shadows; my life took no hold upon that which is deep\nand true. Colour I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging\nby symbols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one\nthe general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to know the\nfertile exceptions.\n\nBut as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait quietly for the\nworld to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait, and we are satisfied.\nHere we stand among our clods; our feet are rooted deep within the soil.\nThe wind blows upon us and delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us,\nthe sun dries and sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we\nmeasure rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I.\n\nI would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot of earth.\nI belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old fable of the\nwrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus who was the wrestler\nof Irassa and drew his strength from the ground. So long as I tread the\nlong furrows of my planting, with my feet upon the earth, I am\ninvincible and unconquerable. Hercules himself, though he comes upon me\nin the guise of Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me--save as\nhe takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is\nrenewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me.\n\nSome there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not know reality. My\nfriend, did it ever occur to you that you are unhappy because you have\nlost connection with life? Because your feet are not somewhere firm\nplanted upon the soil of reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness,\ncomes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great\nhumilities--of not trying to make ourselves this or that (to conform to\nsome dramatized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to\nthe fullness of life--of letting life flow through us. To be used!--that\nis the sublimest thing we know.\n\nIt is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremendous hold\nupon real things. I have seen men who seemed to have behind them, or\nrather within them, whole societies, states, institutions: how they\ncome at us, like Atlas bearing the world! For they act not with their\nown feebleness, but with a strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak,\nand the words are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind.\n\nI don't know what to call it: being right with God or right with life.\nIt is strangely the same thing; and God is not particular as to the name\nwe know him by, so long as we know Him. Musing upon these secret things,\nI seem to understand what the theologians in their darkness have made so\nobscure. Is it not just this at-one-moment with life which sweetens and\nsaves us all?\n\nIn all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until I am\nashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for me, I decided\nlong ago, is the only place where I can flow strongly and surely. But to\nyou, my friend, life may present a wholly different aspect, variant\nnecessities. Knowing what I have experienced in the city, I have\nsometimes wondered at the happy (even serene) faces I have seen in\ncrowded streets. There must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at\none with that life, too. And let them handle their money, and make\nshoes, and sew garments, and write in ledgers--if that completes and\ncontents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, after all,\na big and various world, where men can be happy in many ways.\n\nFor every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw\nto them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some\ndraw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not\nof importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest\ntragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never\nhave the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness\nand labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live\nin unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a\nquestion foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we\ndraw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings\nabout it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we\nattract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives.\n\nThus flowing with life, self-surrendering to life a man becomes\nindispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the conduct of\nthis universe. And it is the feeling of being necessary, of being\ndesired, flowing into a man that produces the satisfaction of\ncontentment. Often and often I think to myself:\n\nThese fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he hears my step;\nmy dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, are glad of me. The corn\ncomes up fresh and green to my planting; my buckwheat bears richly. I am\nindispensable in this place. What is more satisfactory to the human\nheart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book\nof Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as\nthough it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced\nman. After relating the short and evil history of Jehoram, King of\nJudah, the account ends--with the appalling terseness which often crowns\nthe dramatic climaxes of that matchless writing:\n\n\"And (he) departed without being desired.\"\n\nWithout being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever cursed with a\nmore terrible epitaph!\n\nAnd so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness\nof physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful\nnerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which,\nafter supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat\ndown on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the\ncountryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I\nwanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves\nupon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nTHE STORY OF ANNA\n\nIt is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)\nthat you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this\nearth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your\nattention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of\nsimplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has\nits fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The\nTrue Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or\nlift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called\ncommon or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If\nyou despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.\nFor what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,\ntoo; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl\nwho withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the particular\nevening three years ago when I saw the Scotch Preacher come hurrying up\nthe road toward my house. It was June. I had come out after supper to\nsit on my porch and look out upon the quiet fields. I remember the\ngrateful cool of the evening air, and the scents rising all about me\nfrom garden and roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the\nday and sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which comes\nonly to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor places. I remember\nthe thought came to me, as it has come in various forms so many times,\nthat in such a big and beautiful world there should be no room for the\nfever of unhappiness or discontent.\n\nAnd then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew instantly that\nsomething was wrong. His step, usually so deliberate, was rapid; there\nwas agitation in every line of his countenance. I walked down through\nthe garden to the gate and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath\nhe did not speak at once. So I said:\n\n\"It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate.\"\n\n\"David,\" he said, and I think I never heard him speak more seriously,\n\"it is bad enough.\"\n\nHe laid his hand on my arm.\n\n\"Can you hitch up your horse and come with me--right away?\"\n\nMcAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten minutes,\ncertainly not more, we were driving together down the lane.\n\n\"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the\nthree corners?\" asked the Scotch Preacher.\n\nInstantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not\nunpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said; \"but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham\ngirl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''\n\n\"A girl!\" he said, with a curious note in his voice; \"but a woman now.\"\n\nHe paused a moment; then he continued sadly:\n\n\"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and\nchild. David, she has a child of her own,''\n\n\"But I didn't know--she isn't--\"\n\n\"A woods child,\" said the Scotch Preacher.\n\nI could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there\nin the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a\nwhippoorwill calling from the distant woods.\n\n\"They made it hard for her,\" said the Scotch Preacher, \"especially her\nolder brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking\nher baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see\nher alive. Her mother says she went toward the river.\"\n\nI touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,\nthinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.\n\n\"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she\nwas perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her\ndriven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,\nAnna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not\ndefiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory.\"\n\nHe remained silent again for a long time.\n\n\"David,\" he said finally, \"I sometimes think we don't know half as much\nabout human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more\ncareful in our judgments.\"\n\nHe said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.\nIt was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the\nsermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our\ncommunity. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,\nand that therefore he must be kind.\n\nAs I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the\nreins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.\n\n\"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river,\" McAlway\nsaid in a low voice.\n\nIt was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my legs were\nstrangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my breast so that my\nbreath came hard. We looked down into the shallow, placid water: the\ncalm of the evening was upon it; the middle of the stream was like a\nrumpled glassy ribbon, but the edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees,\nwere of a mysterious darkness. In all my life I think I never\nexperienced such a degree of silence--of breathless, oppressive silence.\nIt seemed as if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess\nof sound.\n\nSuddenly we heard a voice--in half-articulate exclamation. I turned,\nevery nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seemingly materialized\nout of darkness and silence, was moving on the bridge.\n\n\"Oh!--McAlway,\" a voice said.\n\nThen I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones.\n\n\"Have you seen Anna Williams?\"\n\n\"She is at the house,\" answered the voice.\n\n\"Get your horse,\" said the Scotch Preacher.\n\nI ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remember, in that\nsilence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose boards!) Just at the top\nof the little hill leading up from the bridge the two men turned in at a\ngate. I followed quickly and the three of us entered the house together.\nI remember the musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the\nfaint cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, but\nI saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new fire was blazing.\nTwo looked up as we entered, with feminine instinct moving aside to hide\nthe form of the third.\n\n\"She's all right, as soon as she gets dry,\" one of them said.\n\nThe other woman turned to us half complainingly:\n\n\"She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she won't\nlet go of the baby for a minute.\"\n\n\"She don't cry,\" said the other, \"but just sits there like a statue.\"\n\nMcAlway stepped forward and said:\n\n\"Well--Anna?\"\n\nThe girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in her face:\na look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had seen so often,\nand yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, but all marked upon\nwith inexplicable wan lines of a certain mysterious womanhood. It was\nchildish, but bearing upon it an inexpressible look of half-sad dignity,\nthat stirred a man's heart to its profoundest depths. And there was in\nit, too, as I have thought since, a something I have seen in the faces\nof old, wise men: a light (how shall I explain it?) as of experience--of\nboundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment about her head\nand shoulders, and she clung passionately to the child in her arms.\n\nThe Scotch Preacher had said, \"Well--Anna?\" She looked up and replied:\n\n\"They were going to take my baby away.\"\n\n\"Were they!\" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. \"Well, we'll never\npermit _that_. Who's got a better right to the baby than you, I'd like\nto know?\"\n\nWithout turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and rolled\nunheeded down her face.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Yes, sir, Dr. McAlway,\" the man said, \"I was coming across the bridge\nwith the cows when I see her standing there in the water, her skirts all\nfloating around her. She was hugging the baby up to her face and saying\nover and over, just like this: 'I don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I\nmust. I must,' She was sort of singin' the words: 'I don't dare, I don't\ndare, but I must.' I jumped the railing and run down to the bank of the\nriver. And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come\nout just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the house.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the girl and\nher child home to Harriet. She would not go back to her own home, though\nwe tried to persuade her, and the Scotch Preacher's wife was visiting in\nthe city, so she could not go there. But after I found myself driving\nhomeward with the girl--while McAlway went over the hill to tell her\nfamily--the mood of action passed. It struck me suddenly, \"What will\nHarriet say?\" Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume\nits natural position.\n\nIn the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itinerant\npreachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience--but this, I knew,\nwas different. For a few minutes I wished devoutly I were in Timbuctu or\nsome other far place. And then the absurdity of the situation struck me\nall at once, and I couldn't help laughing aloud.\n\n\"It's a tremendous old world,\" I said to myself. \"Why, anything may\nhappen anywhere!\"\n\nThe girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had frightened her.\n\n\"Are you cold?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, sir,\" she answered faintly.\n\nI could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it:\n\n\"Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" very faintly.\n\n\"With cream on it--rich yellow cream--and plenty of sugar?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nWe drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet opened the\ndoor. I led the small dark figure into the warmth and light of the\nkitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby tight in her arms--as\nforlorn and dishevelled a figure as one could well imagine.\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, \"this is Anna Williams.\"\n\nHarriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me at that moment\nthat it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was facing, but some\nstranger and much greater person than I had ever known. Every man has,\nupon occasion, beheld his wife, his sister, his mother even, become\nsuddenly unknown, suddenly commanding, suddenly greater than himself or\nany other man. For a woman possesses the occult power of becoming\ninstantly, miraculously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals\nand Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself slowly\nbut surely shrinking and shriveling up. It is a most uncomfortable\nsensation to find one's self face to face with Society-at-Large. Under\nsuch circumstances I always know what to do. I run. So I clapped my hat\non my head, declared that the mare must be unharnessed immediately, and\nstarted for the door. Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door\nbehind her.\n\n\"David, _David_, DAVID,\" she said.\n\nIt occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how stupid I am)\nthat Harriet had already heard the story of Anna Williams. And it had\ngained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in\nthe country, that I have no doubt the poor child seemed a sort of\ndevastating monster of iniquity. How the country scourges those who do\nnot walk the beaten path! In the, careless city such a one may escape to\nunfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still find a\nway of life, but here in the country the eye of Society never sleeps!\n\nFor a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then I thought of the\nHarriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart of her. With a sudden\ninspiration I opened the kitchen door and we both looked in. The girl\nstood motionless just where I left her: an infinitely pathetic figure.\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, \"that girl is hungry--and cold.\"\n\nWell, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at-Large and\nbecame the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite compassion for all\nweak creatures. When she had gone in I pulled my hat down and went\nstraight for the barn. I guess I know when it's wise to be absent from\nplaces.\n\nI unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the\nloft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture\nand set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the\nclear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,\nwith the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,\npoignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his\nactions are, how feeble his judgments.\n\nAnd I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,\nknows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because\nof any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society\nhas bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions\nuntil he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some\ndo not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly\ngood. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the\nbuilt-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise\nwhen we hear of a \"foremost citizen,\" the \"leader in all good works,\"\nsuddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he\nthat was moral, but Society. Individually he had never been tested, and\nwhen the test came he fell. It will give us a large measure of true\nwisdom if we stop sometimes when we have resisted a temptation and ask\nourselves why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the\ndeep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the compulsion of\nthe Society around us? And I think most of us will be astonished to\ndiscover what fragile persons we really are--in ourselves.\n\nI stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I dared to go\nin. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I had come rushing up\nto the house without a doubt in my mind--I even whistled--and opened the\ndoor jauntily. And had my pains for nothing!\n\nThe kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike odours. There\nwas undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few minutes later Harriet came\ndown the stairs. She held up one finger warningly. Her face was\ntransfigured.\n\n\"David,\" she whispered, \"the baby's asleep.\"\n\nSo I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I faced about,\nand we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding our breath--at least I\nheld mine.\n\n\"David,\" Harriet whispered, \"did you see the baby?\"\n\n\"No,\" I whispered.\n\n\"I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life.\"\n\nWhen I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many years in a\nlittle room with dormer windows at the top of my father's house, used\nto tell me stories (the best I ever heard), I was never content with the\nendings of them. \"What happened next?\" I remember asking a hundred\ntimes; and if I did not ask the question aloud it arose at least in my\nown mind.\n\nIf I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the\nstory of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to\nquick fruition, and withering away after having cast the seeds of their\nimmortality.\n\n\"Did you see the baby?\" Harriet had asked. She said no word about Anna:\na BABY had come into the world. Already the present was beginning to\ndraw the charitable curtains of its forgetfulness across this simple\ndrama; already Harriet and Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to\nlook to the \"finest baby we ever saw in all our lives.\"\n\nI might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys and\nwherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is strange\nor unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with us worked\nmiraculous changes in the girl; like some stray kitten brought in\ncrying from the cold, she curled herself up comfortably there in our\nhome, purring her contentment. She was not in the least a tragic figure:\nthough down deep under the curves and dimples of youth there was\nsomething finally resistant, or obstinate, or defiant--which kept its\ncounsel regarding the past.\n\nIt is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. We classify\nstrangers into whose careers the newspapers or our friends give us\nglimpses as \"bad\" or \"good\"; we separate humanity into inevitable\ngoathood and sheephood. But upon closer acquaintance a man comes to be\nnot bad, but Ebenezer Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good,\nbut Nellie Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases.\nSome people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty good\npeople; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the possibilities (if\nnot the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of things not at all good.\nWe are exceedingly charitable persons--toward ourselves. And thus we let\nother people live!\n\nThe other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the upper\nroad, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a passion for\nhollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapidated picket fence\nbehind which, crowding up to the sociable road, stands the house. As I\ndrive that way it always seems to look out at me like some half-earnest\nworker, inviting a chat about the weather or the county fair; hence,\nprobably, its good-natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice,\nand a boy about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy,\nblue-eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent\nbreakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A moment later a\nwoman was at the gate between the rows of hollyhocks; when she saw me\nshe began hastily to roll down her sleeves.\n\n\"Why, Mr. Grayson!\"\n\n\"How's the boy, Anna?\"\n\nAnd it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and the sight\nof the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine--and the hollyhocks, and the\ndilapidated house--that brought to memory the old story of Anna which I\nhere set down, not because it carries any moral, but because it is a\ncommon little piece out of real life in which Harriet and I have been\ninterested.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nTHE DRUNKARD\n\nIt is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for\nher low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I\nhad neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I\nlooked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and\nunderneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial\ngarment; and I went with her into a new world.\n\nI have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I\nhave seen new things which are also true.\n\nMy friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of\nthe country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I\ncould hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still\ndays one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in\na peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,\nnor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was\nstill--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of\nhis song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my\nfarm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he\nchanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a\ngrandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he\npassed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in\nthe north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the\ndistance.\n\nOnce I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and\nHarriet said:\n\n\"There goes that drunkard.\"\n\nIt gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and\nyet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer\nas _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in\nmy fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in\npassing.\n\nAfter Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds\nconcerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to\ndiscipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he\nnot a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our\nrealities!\n\nAnd then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone\nin my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an\nindescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and\npretended to be hard at work.\n\n\"After all,\" I said to myself, \"this is a large world, with room in it\nfor many curious people.\"\n\nI waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as\nthough I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me\nI lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.\n\n\"How are you, neighbour?\" I asked.\n\nHe paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his\nhat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went\non up the road.\n\nMy next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the\nstreet in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have\nrecognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could\nimagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore\nneat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He\nhad brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.\n\nI stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers\nhad been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to\nbe a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little\nin a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still\nkeener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery\nbetter worth making?\n\n[Illustration: \"HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING\"]\n\nAfter that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on\nhis way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his\nhorse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours\nlater he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of\nback, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very\nHyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his\nhead higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went\ntoward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my\nfield; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to\nhis bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.\n\nOne day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was\nsome distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and\nheld out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the\nfirst time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the\nforehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was\nslightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.\n\n\"I had hoped,\" I said, \"that you would stop sometime as you went by.\"\n\n\"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters\nin hand almost all the time.\"\n\n\"You usually drive.\"\n\n\"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine\nspan of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm\nin style. My wife and I both enjoy driving.\"\n\nI wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these\nwords. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me\naway. He told me that he was now \"working with the experts\"--those were\nhis words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would\nastonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back\nand with fine courtesy shook my hand.\n\n\"You see,\" he said, \"I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man.\"\n\nSo he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing\nagain in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not\nunmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!\n\nGradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the\nexuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly\nwith the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an\nadventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met\nhim near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to\nget at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:\n\n\"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the\npost-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for\nme in the box since the carrier started?'\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly\naside again.\n\nOn his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about\nthe way he would run the post-office if he were \"in a place of suitable\nauthority.\"\n\n\"Great things are possible,\" he said, \"to the man of ideas.\"\n\nAt this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the\nbee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy\nbee-man.\n\n\"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I\nwas up half the night; but I feel all right now.\"\n\nThe next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the\nexuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,\n\"I think you will understand.\" I grasped his hand, and left him with a\nwan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a\nwholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,\nhail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;\nbut to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,\nfor I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a\nfriend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in\nhis visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.\n\nI told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.\nShe said I was encouraging a vice.\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, \"go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks\nabout it.\"\n\n\"Thinks!\" exclaimed Harriet. \"What should the wife of a drunkard\nthink?\"\n\nBut she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was\nwrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily\npreoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she\ncame into my room.\n\n\"David,\" she said, \"I can't understand some things.\"\n\n\"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?\" I asked.\n\nBut she was not to be joked with.\n\n\"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home\ndrunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you\nthink she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that\nwhen he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it\nbelievable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,\nbut when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems\nto understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,\nbut she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do\nwith a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?\"\n\nIt is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often\nthe answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!\nOur stories won't turn out.\n\nShe told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the\norchard, the well-kept garden. \"When he's sober,\" she said, \"he seems to\nbe a steady, hard worker.\"\n\nAfter that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the\nstrange bee-man. Why was he what he was?\n\nAnd at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them\nfaithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,\nwhen the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never\nsofter, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the\nroadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He\nwas a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his\nknees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at\nme, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down\nbeside him.\n\n\"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?\" I asked.\n\nHe glanced up at the sky.\n\n\"Fine?\" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.\n\nI saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in\nprocess of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how\nit came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him\nto talk of himself.\n\n\"After it is all over,\" he said, \"of course I am ashamed of myself. You\ndon't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,\nand yet I know I shall do it again.\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"you will not do it again.\"\n\n\"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?\nWere you not free for a whole afternoon?\"\n\n\"Free?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I\nhave friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my\nwife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock\nwhich I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know\nhow to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I\nnever take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as\nthough I were really doing them.\"\n\n\"But you never do?\"\n\n\"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the\nwall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel\nfriendly and neighbourly.\"\n\nHe was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his\nlife, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how\nbeautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and\nfriendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his\nhome seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man\nhad a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence\nthat stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where\nhis magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I\nsaid:\n\n\"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.\nThey all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own\nlimitations.\"\n\n\"That's it! That's it!\" he exclaimed eagerly.\n\nWe sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help\nthinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of\nintoxication:\n\n\"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds.\"\n\nInstead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the\nfinest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When\nFate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to\nthink one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward\nstimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy\nsatisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from\nunity within. No man can be two men successfully.\n\nSo we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another\nunder such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of\nhis own experience:\n\n\"What's done we partly may compute\nBut know not what's resisted.\"\n\nI've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the\nwarm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy\nbee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say\nsomething. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?\nShall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are\nrealities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly\nseparated.\n\n\"Most of us,\" I said finally, \"are in some respects drunkards. We don't\ngive it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere\nmatter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness\nis the failure of a man to control his thoughts.\"\n\nThe bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in\nthe hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement\nand I said:\n\n\"I often get drunk myself.\"\n\n\"You?\"\n\n\"Yes--dreadfully drunk.\"\n\nHe looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do\nyou know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think\nyou are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!\n\n\"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now,\" he said. \"I've\nbeen through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I\nwill not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.\nThen I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not\norder anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself\ntalking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.\n'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very\nangry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or\nrather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I\nsee things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing.\"\n\n\"And you do sing,\" I said.\n\n\"I do, indeed,\" he responded, laughing, \"and it seems to me the most\nbeautiful music in the world.\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" I said, \"when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much\nto empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my\nmind with other, stronger thoughts----\"\n\nBefore I could finish he had interrupted:\n\n\"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of\nbees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of\nputting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I\nthink how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see\na dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_\nof the liquor. And there you are!\"\n\nWe did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked\neach other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back\nhesitatingly.\n\n\"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold\nagain. I have been in hell for years----\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I said. \"You needed a friend. You and I will come up\ntogether.\"\n\nAs I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of\nsatisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that\nare to be found upon this miraculous earth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I\nam dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience\nwith satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at\nthe end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and\nhave it yet, for I have not done with him--but----\n\nLast evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole\nstory, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant\nbee-man. I heard him singing afar off.\n\nHe did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it\ncame over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun\nshone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not\nturn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.\n\n\"He also belongs here,\" I said.\n\nAnd I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no\nlonger hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me\nthat something human, in passing, had touched me.\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nAN OLD MAID\n\nOne of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in\nthese writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my\nfarm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden\nwith well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone\nsave for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the\nfarm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here\nabove a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or\nrather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most\nimportant in a country community, of a sensitive social\ntentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger. Harriet was\namused at first by what she considered an almost unwarrantable\ncuriosity, but we soon formed a genuine liking for the little old lady,\nand since then we have often seen her in her home, and often she has\ncome to ours.\n\nShe was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rocking in\nfront of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have had much to\nsay of contentment. She seems really to live it, although I have found\nthat contentment is easier to discover in the lives of our neighbours\nthan in our own. All her life long she has lived here in this community,\na world of small things, one is tempted to say, with a sort of expected\nand predictable life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently\nstirring her rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small,\noften-repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows what\nother orderly, habitual, minute affairs? Who knows? Who knows when he\nlooks at you or at me that there is anything in us beyond the\nhumdrummery of this day?\n\nIn front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old-fashioned\nflowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over the small, very white\ndoor with its shiny knob, creeps a white clematis vine. Just inside the\nhall-door you will discover a bright, clean, oval rag rug, which\nprepares you, as small things lead to greater, for the larger, brighter,\ncleaner rug of the sitting-room. There on the centre-table you will\ndiscover \"Snow Bound,\" by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper's Poems; a\nlarge embossed Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt\nladder on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the \"Path\nof Life.\" On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat child, in\nfaded gilt frames, one called \"Wide Awake\" the other \"Fast Asleep.\" Not\nfar away, in a corner, on the top of the walnut whatnot, is a curious\nvase filled with pampas plumes; there are sea-shells and a piece of\ncoral on the shelf below. And right in the midst of the room are three\nvery large black rocking-chairs with cushions in every conceivable and\navailable place--including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for\nyou and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat.\n\nWhen you sit down you can look out between the starchiest of starchy\ncurtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable busy flock of\nchickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important ones are named. She\nhas one called Martin Luther, another is Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once\nshe came over to our house with a basket, from one end of which were\nthrust the sturdy red legs of a pullet. She informed us that she had\nbrought us one of Evangeline's daughters.\n\nBut I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into it. The\nsitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, somehow, as the\nimmaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon one occasion, I was\npermitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was of an incomparable neatness\nand order, all hung about--or so it seemed to me--with white starchy\nthings, and ornamented with bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this\nwonderful bedroom there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once\nin her life, Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently\nfolded, exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear\nwhen she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this earth. In\nsuch calm readiness she awaits her time.\n\nUpon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rosewood box,\nwhich is locked, into which no one in our neighbourhood has had so much\nas a single peep. I should not dare, of course, to speculate upon its\ncontents; perhaps an old letter or two, \"a ring and a rose,\" a ribbon\nthat is more than a ribbon, a picture that is more than art. Who can\ntell? As I passed that way I fancied I could distinguish a faint,\nmysterious odour which I associated with the rosewood box: an\nold-fashioned odour composed of many simples.\n\nOn the stand near the head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a\nBible--a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the\nportentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table\nin the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It\nhas been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is\nthere a care or a trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She\nseeks (and finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she\nseizes the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her.\nThen she goes forth like some David with his sling, so panoplied with\ncourage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the Philistines. Also she\nhas a worshipfulness of all ministers. Sometimes when the Scotch\nPreacher comes to tea and remarks that her pudding is good, I firmly\nbelieve that she interprets the words into a spiritual message for her.\n\nBesides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, there is a\ncertain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt a description, but I\ncan say with some assurance that it also occupies a shrine. It may not\nbe in the inner sanctuary, but it certainly occupies a goodly part of\nthe outer porch of the temple. All this, of course, is figurative, for\nthe cape hangs just inside the closet door on a hanger, with a white\ncloth over the shoulders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the\nworld enter even such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you\ncould see Miss Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when\nshe comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black hat, her\nold-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unimpressive sound\nas she moves down the aisle. With what dignity she steps into her pew!\nWith what care she sits down so that she may not crush the cookies in\nher ample pocket; with what meek pride--if there is such a thing as meek\npride--she looks up at the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his\npulpit announcing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to\nlook turns with affection.\n\nSeveral times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like many another\ngenius, she has no conception of her own art in such matters as apple\npuddings. She herself prefers graham gems, in which she believes there\ninheres a certain mysterious efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has\nthem steamed during the remainder of the week--with tea.\n\nAnd as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the Aikens and\nthe Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, her progenitors. We\ngravitate into the other room, and presently she shows us, in the plush\nalbum, the portraits of various cousins, aunts and uncles. And by-and-by\nHarriet warms up and begins to tell about the Scribners, the\nMacIntoshes, and the Strayers, who are _our_ progenitors.\n\n\"The Aikens,\" says Miss Aiken, \"were always like that--downright and\noutspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could ever help blurting out\nthe truth if he knew he were to die for it the next minute.\"\n\n\"That was like the Macintoshes,\" Harriet puts in. \"Old Grandfather\nMacintosh----\"\n\nBy this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking-chair to\nwatch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet counters with a\nStrayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in open order, upon which\nHarriet entrenches herself with the heroic Scribners and lets fly a\nMacintosh who was a general in the colonial army. Surprised, but not\ndefeated, Miss Aiken withdraws in good order, covering her retreat with\ntwo _Mayflower_ ancestors, the existence of whom she establishes with a\nblue cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of fighting\nrelatives until he has watched such a battle, following the complete\ncomfort of a good supper.\n\nIf any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly of it by\na sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would astonish a\nmystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her little basket, which\nhas two brown flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring\nin them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she\ntakes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of\ndelectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the\npatient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he\ndies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several\noccasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.\n\nIn telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe\nher, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable\ndetails. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman\nand ask myself: \"How, after all, does this person live?\" For we all\nknow it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or\nthe friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which\nfurnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,\nthen, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a\nspirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?\n\nOf the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is\nprecious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise\nout of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such\nthings never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading\nthe useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in\nthis neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before\nher. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old\ninhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our\nfriend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how\npeople try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came\nand went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are\nnot important, of course, after so many years----\n\nBut I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the\nlittle house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on\nthe privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,\nsitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon\nunlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard\nHarriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were\ntears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of\nher skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm around\nHarriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In response to\nHarriet's question she said:\n\n\"Oh, an old, old trouble. No _new_ trouble.\"\n\nThat was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the troubles of\nother people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; well it isn't, and\nyet I like to have it in mind. It gives me somehow the _other_ woman who\nis not expected or predictable or commonplace. I seem to understand our\nOld Maid the better; and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive,\nhelpful, gentle ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't\nknow what we should do without her in this community.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nA ROADSIDE PROPHET\n\nFrom my upper field, when I look across the countryside, I can see in\nthe distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It winds out of a\nlittle wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again beyond the trees of\nan old orchard. I love that spot in my upper field, and the view of the\nroad beyond. When I am at work there I have only to look up to see the\nworld go by--part of it going down to the town, and part of it coming up\nagain. And I never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be\nafoot, without feeling that if I met him I should like him, and that\nwhatever he had to say I should like to hear.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most of the\ntravellers I see from my field are like the people I commonly meet--so\nintent upon their destination that they take no joy of the road they\ntravel. They do not even see me here in the fields; and if they did,\nthey would probably think me a slow and unprofitable person. I have\nnothing that they can carry away and store up in barns, or reduce to\npercentages, or calculate as profit and loss; they do not perceive what\na wonderful place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a\ncrop of contentment.\n\nBut apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw him stop on\nthe knoll and look widely about him. Then he stooped down as though\nsearching for something, then moved slowly forward for a few steps. Just\nat that point in the road lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers\nlong since dead had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my\nastonishment I saw him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one\nhand with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood up,\nand retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the boulder\nnarrowly.\n\n\"This,\" I said to myself, \"may be something for me.\"\n\nSo I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring field. It was an\nIndian summer day with hazy hillsides, and still sunshine, and\nslumbering brown fields--the sort of a day I love. I leaped the little\nbrook in the valley and strode hastily up the opposite slope. I cannot\ndescribe what a sense I had of new worlds to be found here in old\nfields. So I came to the fence on the other side and looked over. My man\nwas kneeling again at the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him,\nbut so earnestly was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good\nlook at him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his\ncollar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His coat was\nof black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I observed, as a further\nevidence of fastidiousness rare upon the Road, that he was saving his\ntrousers by kneeling on a bit of carpet. What he could be doing there so\nintently by the roadside I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence,\nmaking some little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately.\nThen I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his\nhands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the words he\nhad been painting on the boulder:\n\nGOD IS LOVE\n\nA meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me advancing he said,\nwith a deference that was almost timidity:\n\n\"Good morning, sir.\"\n\n\"Good morning, brother,\" I returned heartily.\n\nHis face brightened perceptibly.\n\n\"Don't stop on my account,\" I said; \"finish off your work.\"\n\nHe knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with his\nbrushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was somewhat crude, but\nhe had the swift deftness of long practice.\n\n\"How long,\" I inquired, \"have you been at this sort of work?\"\n\n\"Ten years,\" he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. \"Off and on\nfor ten years. Winters I work at my trade--I am a journeyman\npainter--but when spring comes, and again in the fall, I follow the\nroad.\"\n\nHe paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in words of the\nutmost seriousness:\n\n\"I live by the Word.\"\n\n\"By the Word?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, by the Word,\" and putting down his brushes he took from an inner\npocket a small package of papers, one of which he handed to me. It bore\nat the top this sentence in large type:\n\n\"Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer that\nbreaketh the rock in pieces?\"\n\nI stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man is stranger\nthan any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I had never met a\nmore curious person. And I was consumed with a desire to know why he was\nwhat he was.\n\n\"Do you always paint the same sign?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" he answered. \"I have a feeling about what I should paint. When\nI came up the road here this morning I stopped a minute, and it all\nseemed so calm and nice\"--he swept his arm in the direction of the\nfields--\"that I says to myself, 'I will paint \"God is Love.\"'\"\n\n\"An appropriate text,\" I said, \"for this very spot.\"\n\nHe seemed much gratified.\n\n\"Oh, you can follow your feelings!\" he exclaimed. \"Sometimes near towns\nI can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare to meet thy God.'\nI don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but it seems like I had to\npaint 'em. Now, when I was in Arizona----\"\n\nHe paused a moment, wiping his brushes.\n\n\"When I was in Arizona,\" he was saying, \"mostly I painted 'Repent ye.'\nIt seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and in some places I felt\nmoved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the same rock.\"\n\nI began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found how little\nhe, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for he seemed to have\nbrought back memories only of the texts he painted and the fact that in\nsome places good stones were scarce, and that he had to carry extra\nturpentine to thin his paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that\nhe is a lone representative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in\ntravelling, saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers\nwho, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry away only a\nmusty text or two. I pity some of those who expect to go to heaven: they\nwill find so little to surprise them in the golden streets.\n\nBut I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before we were\ntalking with the greatest friendliness. Having now finished his work, he\nshook out his bit of carpet, screwed the tops on his paint cans, wrapped\nup his brushes, and disposed of them all with the deftness of long\nexperience in his small black bag. Then he stood up and looked\ncritically at his work.\n\n\"It's all right,\" I said; \"a great many people coming this way in the\nnext hundred years will see it.\"\n\n\"That's what I want,\" he said eagerly; \"that's what I want. Most people\nnever hear the Word at all.\"\n\nHe paused a moment and then continued:\n\n\"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that\nthe best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift.\"\n\n\"I've noticed it,\" I said.\n\n\"It's strange, isn't it?\" he again remarked.\n\n\"Very strange,\" I said.\n\n\"I don't know's I can blame them,\" he continued. \"I was that way myself\nfor a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious\njewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and\ntake them--but I didn't do it.\"\n\nI saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and\nwrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like\nJacob, wasn't it, with the angel?\n\n\"Do you do all this without payment?\"\n\nHe looked at me in an injured way.\n\n\"Who'd pay me?\" he asked. \"Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I\nknow, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am\npaying myself.\"\n\nBy this time he was ready to start. So I said, \"Friend, I'm going your\nway, and I'll walk with you.\"\n\nSo we set off together down the hill.\n\n\"You see, sir,\" he said, \"when a man has got the best thing in the\nworld, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know\nabout it.\"\n\nHe walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the long road--an\neasy, swinging, steady step--carrying his small black bag. So I\ngradually drew him out, and when I had his whole story it was as simple\nand common, but as wonderful, as daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a\nrock.\n\n\"You see, Mister,\" he said, \"I was a wild sort when I was young. The\ndrink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if they'd known what\nwas right they'd have done it. But I think that conscience never stops\nringing little bells in the back of a man's head; and that if he doesn't\ndo what is right, it's because he _wants_ to do what is wrong. He thinks\nit's more amusing and interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and\nplenty more besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh,\nI was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that wanted to see\nme. If you never got down that low, Mister, you don't know what it is.\nYou are just as much dead as if you were in your grave. I'm telling you.\n\n\"I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I wanted to be\nhelped. I said to myself, 'You're just naturally born weak and it isn't\nyour fault,' It makes a lot of men easier in their minds to lay up their\ntroubles to the way they are born. I made all sorts of excuses for\nmyself, but all the time I knew I was wrong; a man can't fool himself.\n\n\"So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little girl.\"\n\nHe paused for a long moment.\n\n\"I thought _that_ was going to help me. I thought the world and all of\nthat little girl----\" He paused again.\n\n\"Well, _she_ died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on down to\nhell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything he loves and\neverything that loves him. He's on the road to loneliness and despair,\nthat man. I'm telling you.\n\n\"One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main street in\nQuinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even money enough to\nbuy drink with, and yet I was then more'n half drunk, I happened to look\nup on the end of that stone wall near the bridge--were you ever there,\nMister?--and I saw the words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit\nme hard. I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well,\nsays I to myself if God is Love, he's the only one that _is_ Love for a\nchap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save me--I says. So\nI stopped right there in the street, and you may believe it or explain\nit anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed to me a kind of light came all\naround me, and I said, solemn-like, 'I will try God.'\"\n\nHe stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all about us on\neither side spread the quiet fields. In the high air above a few lacy\nclouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story of tragic human life\ncrept in pleasantly the calm of the countryside.\n\n\"And I did try Him,\" my companion was saying, \"and I found that the\nwords on the wall were true. They were true back there and they've been\ntrue ever since. When I began to be decent again and got back my health\nand my job, I figured that I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and\nno writer and I had no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, I'm a\npainter. I'll help God with paint.' So here I am a-travelling up and\ndown the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Repent\nye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion--but I do know\nthat His Word is like a fire, and that a man can live by it, and if once\na man has it he has everything else he wants.\"\n\nHe paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set steadily\nahead--a plain face showing the marks of his hard earlier life, and yet\nmarked with a sort of high beauty.\n\n\"The trouble with people who are unhappy, Mister,\" he said, \"is that\nthey won't try God.\"\n\nI could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, nothing more to\nbe said. All my own speculative incomings and outgoings--how futile\nthey seemed compared with this!\n\nNear the foot of the hill there is a little-bridge. It is a pleasant,\nquiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag.\n\n\"What do you think,\" said he, \"I should paint here?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"you know better than I do. What would _you_ paint?\"\n\nHe looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a quiet little\njoke with himself.\n\n\"When in doubt,\" he said, \"I always paint 'God is Love,' I'm sure of\nthat. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be painted--near\ntowns--but I much rather paint 'God is Love.'\"\n\nI left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under his\nknees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I turned to\nlook back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in it, and I waved\nmine in return. I have never seen him since, though it will be a long,\nlong time before the sign of him disappears from our roadsides.\n\nAt the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I climbed the fence,\npausing a moment on the top rail to look off across the hazy\ncountryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. In the distance,\nabove the crown of a little hill, I could see the roof of my own\nhome--and the barn near it--and the cows feeding quietly in the\npastures.\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nTHE GUNSMITH\n\nHarriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since called the\n\"gunsmith problem\" about ten days ago. It came to us, as was to be\nexpected, from that accomplished spreader of burdens, the Scotch\nPreacher. When he came in to call on us that evening after supper I\ncould see that he had something important on his mind; but I let him get\nto it in his own way.\n\n\"David,\" he said finally, \"Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going home to\nSweden.\"\n\n\"At last!\" I exclaimed.\n\nDr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly:\n\n\"He _says_ he is going.\"\n\nHarriet laughed. \"Then it's all decided,\" she said; \"he isn't going.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the Scotch Preacher, \"it's not decided--yet.\"\n\n\"Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind,\" I said, \"whether Carlstrom is to\ngo or not.\"\n\nBut the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking.\n\n\"David,\" he said, \"did you ever know anything about the homesickness of\nthe foreigner?\"\n\nHe paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great shaggy head:\n\n\"Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind how a sprig of\nheather would bring the tears to her eyes; and for twenty years I dared\nnot whistle \"Bonnie Doon\" or \"Charlie Is My Darling\" lest it break her\nheart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, I'm thinking, Davy.\"\n\n\"We all know the longing for old places and old times,\" I said.\n\n\"No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the longing\nto see the hills of your own land, and the town where you were born, and\nthe street where you played, and the house----\"\n\nHe paused, \"Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it.\"\n\n\"But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years,\" I said. \"Is\nit homesickness, or just old age?\"\n\n\"There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!\" exclaimed the\nScotch Preacher. \"Is it homesickness, or is he just old and tired?\"\n\nWith that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. I have known\nhim pretty nearly ever since I came here, now more than ten years\nago--and liked him well, too--but it seemed, as Dr. McAlway talked that\nevening, as though we were making the acquaintance of quite a new and\nwonderful person. How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the\nScotch Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay around us!\nIt takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness.\n\nIn an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and me much\nexcited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that I promised to call\non Carlstrom the next day when I went to town.\n\nI scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for Carlstrom's\ngunshop has for years been one of the most interesting places in town\nfor me. I went to it now with a new understanding.\n\nAfar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and presently I heard\nthe familiar sounds. There were two or three mellow strokes, and I knew\nthat Carlstrom was making the sparks fly from the red iron. Then the\nhammer rang, and I knew he was striking down on the cold steel of the\nanvil. It is a pleasant sound to hear.\n\nCarlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main street. You may\nknow it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun fastened over the doorway,\npointing in the daytime at the sky, and in the night at the stars. A\nstranger passing that way might wonder at the great gun and possibly say\nto himself:\n\n\"A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in such a peaceful\ncommunity!\"\n\nSuch a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, nor the shop,\nnor _us_.\n\nI tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with a peculiar\nnew interest. I saw as if for the first time the old wheels which have\nstood weathering so long at one end of the building. I saw under the\nshed at the other end the wonderful assortment of old iron pipes,\nkettles, tires, a pump or two, many parts of farm machinery, a broken\nwater wheel, and I don't know what other flotsam of thirty years of\ndiligent mending of the iron works of an entire community. All this, you\nmay say--the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the\nyard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and boneset\nwhich at this time of the year grows thick along the neighbouring\nfences--all this, you say, makes no inviting picture. You are wrong.\nWhere honest work is, there is always that which invites the eye.\n\nI know of few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open\ndoors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half\nof cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements\non the benches, the guns in the corners--how all of these things form\nthe subdued background for the flaming forge and the square chimney\nabove it.\n\nAt one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows and you\nwill hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the old brown anvil\nset upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep made of peeled hickory wood\ncontrols the bellows, and as you look in upon this lively and pleasant\nscene you will see that the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the\nhickory sweep. As he draws it down and lets it up again with the\npeculiar rhythmic swing of long experience--heaping up his fire with a\nlittle iron paddle held in the other hand--he hums to himself in a high\ncurious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of contented employment\nin consonance with the breathing of the bellows and the mounting flames\nof the forge.\n\nAs I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before Carlstrom\nsaw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the typical blacksmith\nwith the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep voice and all that. But as\nI looked at him newly, the Scotch Preacher's words still in my ears, he\nseemed, with his stooping shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept,\nand his thin gray hair, more than ordinarily small and old.\n\nI remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first time\nCarlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my early blind\ndays at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a horse-rake which I\nhad broken on one of my stony hills'.\n\n\"Can you mend it?\" I asked.\n\nIf I had known him better I should never have asked such a question. I\nsaw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right thing; but how\ncould I know then that Carlstrom never let any broken thing escape him?\nA watch, or a gun, or a locomotive--they are all alike to him, if they\nare broken. I believe he would agree to patch the wrecked chariot of\nPha\u00ebthon!\n\nA week later I came back to the shop.\n\n\"Come in, come in,\" he said when he saw me.\n\nHe turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a\nmoment with feigned seriousness.\n\n\"So!\" he said. \"You have come for your job?\"\n\nHe softened the \"j\" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging\ninflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon the English words.\n\n\"So,\" he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an air of\nalmost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of my hay-rake without\na word. I looked them over carefully.\n\n\"I can't see where you mended them,\" I said.\n\nYou should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He allowed me to\nadmire the work in silence for a moment and then he had it out of my\nhand, as if I couldn't be trusted with anything so important, and he\nexplained how he had done it. A special tool for his lathe had been\nfound necessary in order to do my work properly. This he had made at his\nforge, and I suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special\ntool as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would have paid\nhim for it he would take nothing save for the mending itself. Nor was\nthis a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted him to do a difficult\nthing, to show the really great skill he had. Indeed, I think our\nfriendship began right there and was based upon the favour I did in\nbringing him a job that I thought he couldn't do!\n\nWhen he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he seemed greatly\npleased.\n\n\"Come in, come in,\" he said.\n\n\"What is this I hear,\" I said, \"about your going back to Sweden?\"\n\n\"For forty years,\" he said, \"I've been homesick for Sweden. Now I'm an\nold man and I'm going home.\"\n\n\"But, Carlstrom,\" I said, \"we can't get along without you. Who's going\nto keep us mended up?\"\n\n\"You have Charles Baxter,\" he said, smiling.\n\nFor years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between Carlstrom and\nBaxter, though Baxter is in the country and works chiefly in wood.\n\n\"But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to save his\nlife,\" I said. \"You know that.\"\n\nThe old man seemed greatly pleased: he had the simple vanity which is\nthe right of the true workman. But for answer he merely shook his head.\n\n\"I have been here forty years,\" he said. \"and all the time I have been\nhomesick for Sweden.\"\n\nI found that several men of the town had been in to see Carlstrom and\ntalked with him of his plans, and even while I was there two other\nfriends came in. The old man was delighted with the interest shown.\nAfter I left him I went down the street. It seemed as though everybody\nhad heard of Carlstrom's plans, and here and there I felt that the\nsecret hand of the Scotch Preacher had been at work. At the store where\nI usually trade the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I\nwent in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the\nharness-maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, for\none learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed to me that\nday as though his history stood out as something separate and new and\nimpressive.\n\nWhen he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom was not\nunlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our shores, fired with\nfaith in a free country. He was poor--as poor as a man could possibly\nbe. For several years he worked on a farm--hard work, for which, owing to\nhis frail physique, he was not well fitted. But he saved money\nconstantly, and after a time he was able to come to town and open a\nlittle shop. He made nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he\nbuilt his own chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun\nwhich stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his\ntrade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a gun, but\nhe could make one outright, even to the barrel and the wooden stock. In\nall the years I have known him he has always had on hand some such\nwork--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times\nfor the very satisfaction it gave him. He could not sell one of his\nhand-made guns for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want\nto sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of his\nshop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible spirit of the\nartist!\n\nWhat a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom worked. He was up\nearly in the morning to work, and he worked in the evening as long as\ndaylight lasted, and once I found him in his shop in the evening,\nbending low over his bench with a kerosene lamp in front of him. He was\nhumming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice\ncurves of a rifle trigger. When he had trouble--and what a lot of it he\nhas had in his time!--he worked; and when he was happy he worked all the\nharder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all the children\nand the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his shop. He made them\nall welcome: he talked with them, but he never stopped working. Clang,\nclang, would go his anvil, whish, whish, would respond his bellows,\ncreak, creak, would go the hickory sweep--he was helping the world go\nround!\n\nAll this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his wife\ndied, and then his children one after another until only one now\nremains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and built a house to\nrent; then he built another house; then he bought the land where his\nshop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was an epic of homely work.\nHe took part in the work of the church and on election days he changed\nhis coat, and went to the town hall to vote.\n\n[Illustration: \"THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS\nSHOP\"]\n\nIn the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something of the\ntown where he works, I have seen young men, born Americans, with every\nopportunity and encouragement of a free country, growing up there and\ngoing to waste. One day I heard one of them, sitting in front of a\nstore, grumbling about the foreigners who were coming in and taking up\nthe land. The young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said\nnothing; but I listened and heard from the distance the steady clang,\nclang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil.\n\nKetchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed and planned\nand saved to be able to go back once more to the old home he had left.\nAgain and again he had got almost enough money ahead to start, and then\nthere would be an interest payment due, or a death in the family, and\nthe money would all go to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker.\n\n\"Of recent years,\" said Ketchell, \"we thought he'd given up the idea.\nHis friends are all here now, and if he went back, he certainly would\nbe disappointed.\"\n\nA sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his family lie on\nthe quiet hill, old things and old times have grown distant, and upon\nthat anvil of his before the glowing forge he has beaten out for himself\na real place in this community. He has beaten out the respect of a whole\ntown; and from the crude human nature with which he started he has\nfashioned himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which\nsees that God is in his world. There are men I know who read many books,\nhoping to learn how to be happy; let me commend them to Carlstrom, the\ngunsmith.\n\nI have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one man upon a\ncommunity. The town is better for having stood often looking into the\nfire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his hammer strike. I don't know\nhow many times I have heard men repeat observations gathered in\nCarlstrom's shop. Only the other day I heard the village school teacher\nsay, when I asked him why he always seemed so merry and had so little\nfault to find with the world.\n\n\"Why,\" he replied, \"as Carlstrom, the smith says, 'when I feel like\nfinding fault I always begin with myself and then I never get any\nfarther,'\"\n\nAnother of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country.\n\n\"It's a good thing,\" he says, \"when a man knows what he pretends to\nknow.\"\n\nThe more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.\nIt is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and\nyet never consciously until last week setting him in his rightful place\namong the men I know. It makes me wonder what other great souls about me\nare thus concealing themselves in the guise of familiarity. (This\nstooped gray neighbour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his\nfield that he has almost become a part of the landscape--who can tell\nwhat heroisms may be locked away from my vision under his old brown\nhat?)\n\nOn Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house--with Charles\nBaxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. And I had still another\nview of him.\n\nI think there is always something that surprises one in finding a\nfamiliar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accustomed to the\nCarlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to\nthe Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a\nstriking change in his appearance. He came dressed in the quaint black\ncoat which he wears at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from\nhis broad, smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an\nespecially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more like\nsome old-fashioned college professor than he did like a smith.\n\nThe old gunsmith had that pride of humility which is about the best\npride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the Scotch Preacher's\nhearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming good will; he had a native\ndesire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund\nof humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number\nof houses he now owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep\nat least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a twinkle in\nhis eye.\n\n\"When I was a poor man,\" he said, \"and carried boxes from Ketchell's\nstore to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had a wheelbarrow.\nNow I have four. When I had no house to keep my family in, I used to\nwish that I had one. Now I have four. I have thought sometimes I would\nlike a wife--but I have not dared to wish for one.\"\n\nThe old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, I suppose,\nbegan to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when\nhe realized what he was doing.\n\nDuring the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side and said:\n\n\"David, we can't let the old man go.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" I said, \"we can't.\"\n\n\"All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world sometimes to the\nold.\"\n\nI suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all the other\nmen of the company.\n\nWhen we were preparing to go, Dr. McAlway turned to Carlstrom and said:\n\n\"How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place in this\ncommunity? How is it that you have got ahead so rapidly?\"\n\nThe old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, and said\neagerly:\n\n\"It ist America; it ist America.\"\n\n\"No, Carlstrom, no--it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. You\nwork, Carlstrom, and you save.\"\n\nEvery day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure on Carlstrom;\nnot so much said in words, but people stopping in at the shop and\npassing a good word. But up to Monday morning the gunsmith went forward\nsteadily with his preparations to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch\nPreacher and found him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet\npositively, that he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday\nafternoon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town with a\nbroken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I\ndon't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But\nthis morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found\nthe gunsmith humming louder than ever.\n\n\"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?\" I asked.\n\n\"I'm not going,\" he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to\nhis bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of\nthe high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together\nso that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match\naccurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.\n\n\"Charles Baxter brought it in,\" answered the old gunsmith, unable to\nconceal his delight. \"He thought I couldn't mend it!\"\n\nTo the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.\nIt was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.\nCarlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of\nit all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.\n\nThe more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many\nof the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,\nand the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he\naccepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than\nthat of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all\ntowns, and the people he knows the best people.\n\nYes, it _is_ greatness.\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nTHE MOWING\n\n\"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,\nIt is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with\nthe earth.\"\n\nThis is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,\nand I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with\nthat luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which\ncomes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of\nhard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,\nand clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains\nat my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy\nsounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a\nmorning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the\nhouse Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously\nunobservant of the Sabbath day.\n\nI turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled herself\nagain and again in the warm earth and shaken herself after each roll\nwith an equine delight most pleasant to see. Now, from time to time, I\ncan hear her gossipy whickerings as she calls across the fields to my\nneighbour Horace's young bay colts.\n\nWhen I first woke up this morning I said to myself:\n\n\"Well, nothing happened yesterday.\"\n\nThen I lay quiet for some time--it being Sunday morning--and I turned\nover in my mind all that I had heard or seen or felt or thought about in\nthat one day. And presently I said aloud to myself:\n\n\"Why, nearly everything happened yesterday.\"\n\nAnd the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more wonderful,\nthe more explanatory of high things, appeared the common doings of that\nJune Saturday. I had walked among unusual events--and had not known the\nwonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see--and ears, but I heard\nnot. It may be, it _may_ be, that the Future Life of which we have had\nsuch confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full\nunderstanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full\nunderstanding this day, this moment even--here in this quiet room--would\ncontain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet--playing\nwith things much too large for us--much too full of meaning.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have been at it a\nfull week earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring\nshowers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and\nwere shriveling away into inconspicuous seediness. The leaves underneath\non the lower parts of the stems were curling up and fading; many of\nthem had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of\nclover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be taken at its\nflood.\n\nI began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thursday I was\ndelighted to see the weather become clearer, and a warm dry wind spring\nup from the southwest. On Friday there was not so much as a cloud of the\nsize of a man's hand to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the\nsun with lively diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of\nthe past week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting\nhay-maker.\n\nEncouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to Dick Sheridan (by\none of Horace's men) to come over bright and early on Saturday morning.\nMy field is only a small one and so rough and uneven that I had\nconcluded with Dick's help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch\nit could all be done in one day.\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, \"we'll cut the clover to-morrow.\"\n\n\"That's fortunate,\" said Harriet, \"I'd already arranged to have Ann\nSpencer in to help me.\"\n\nYesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It was a perfect\nJune morning, one of the brightest and clearest I think I ever saw. The\nmists had not yet risen from the hollows of my lower fields, and all the\nearth was fresh with dew and sweet with the mingled odours of growing\nthings. No hour of the whole day is more perfect than this.\n\nI walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the fence of the\nfield beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the heavy sweet odour of\nthe clover blossoms. I could see the billowy green sweep of the\nglistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the tangled stems and laid the\npalm of my hand on the earth underneath. It was neither too wet nor too\ndry.\n\n\"We shall have good cutting to-day,\" I said to myself.\n\nSo I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to describe\nacross the acres of my small domain, marking where in the low spots the\ncrop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged and tangled by the wind and\nthe rain, and where in the higher spaces it grew scarce thick enough to\ncover the sad baldness of the knolls. How much more we get out of life\nthan we deserve!\n\nSo I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, which I\nopened wide.\n\n\"Here,\" I said, \"is where we will begin.\"\n\nSo I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other side of the\norchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan himself, coming in at\nthe lane gate. He had an old, coarse-woven straw hat stuck resplendently\non the back of his head. He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his\nshoulder and whistling \"Good-bye, Susan\" at the top of his capacity.\n\nDick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown face and\n(milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple which has an odd way\nof moving up and down when he talks--and one large tooth out in front.\nHis body is like a bundle of wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as\nthat of a broncho pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the\nlodge-hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really\nsee him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click his heels\ntwice together before he comes down again! On such occasions he is\nmarvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he really is, but this\nmorning he wore a faded shirt and one of his suspender cords behind was\nfastened with a nail instead of a button. His socks are sometimes pale\nblue and sometimes lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his\ntrouser legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull\nworld. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every one calls\nhim Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like him.\n\n\"Hello, Dick,\" I shouted.\n\n\"Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson,\" he replied.\n\nHe hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we both turned\ninto the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. I wanted to delay\ncutting as long as I could--until the dew on the clover should begin--at\nleast--to disappear.\n\nBy half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back our sleeves,\nstood our scythes on end and gave them a final lively stoning. You could\nhear the brisk sound of the ringing metal pealing through the still\nmorning air.\n\n\"It's a great day for haying,\" I said.\n\n\"A dang good one,\" responded the laconic Dick, wetting his thumb to feel\nthe edge of his scythe.\n\nI cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the feeling of\njauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest and fresh adventure, as\nof great things to be done in a great world! You may say if you like\nthat this exhilaration was due to good health and the exuberance of\nyouth. But it was more than that--far more. I cannot well express it,\nbut it seemed as though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into\nsome vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe\nitself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men.\n\nI stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and cut the first\nshort sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass of tangled green stems\ninto the open space just outside the gate. Three or four more strokes\nand Dick stopped whistling suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively\n\"Here she goes!\" came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had\nbegun.\n\nAt first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, then,\nwith dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about it. Oh, there\nis something incomparable about such work--the long steady pull of\nwilling and healthy muscles, the mind undisturbed by any disquieting\nthought, the feeling of attainment through vigorous effort! It was a\nsteady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture\nof him in my mind's eye--his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each\nstep and held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks\nabove his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from his\ntight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he led or\nfollowed.\n\nAt each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for and found a\ngray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up with me filled with\ncool water from the pump. Dick had a way of swinging it up with one\nhand, resting it in his shoulder, turning his head just so and letting\nthe water gurgle into his throat. I have never been able myself to reach\nthis refinement in the art of drinking from a jug.\n\nAnd oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long swathes in\nthe broiling sun! We would stand a moment in the shade, whetting our\nscythes, not saying much, but glad to be there together. Then we would\ngo at it again with renewed energy. It is a great thing to have a\nworking companion. Many times that day Dick and I looked aside at each\nother with a curious sense of friendliness--that sense of friendliness\nwhich grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a common\nweariness. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial matters.\n\n\"Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday.\"\n\n\"This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt.\"\n\nDick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular prophecy of\nhis did not materialize.\n\n\"Dang it all,\" says Dick, \"the moon's drawin' water.\"\n\n\"Something is undoubtedly drawing it,\" said I, wiping my dripping face.\n\nA meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, a few heavy\nold bumblebees droned in the clover as we cut it, and once a frightened\nrabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the orchard fence.\n\nSo the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed endless, and yet\nwe were surprised when we heard the bell from the house (what a sound it\nwas!) and we left our cutting in the middle of the field, nor waited for\nanother stroke.\n\n\"Hungry, Dick?\" I asked.\n\n\"Hungry!\" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of a lengthy oration\ncrowded into one word.\n\nSo we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see the house with\nsmoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade of the big maple where it\nrested upon the porch. And not far from the maple we could see our\nfriendly pump with the moist boards of the well-cover in front of it. I\ncannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry\nfields.\n\n\"After you,\" says Dick.\n\nI gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the\nmoist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the\npump spout.\n\n\"Pump, Dick,\" said I.\n\nAnd Dick pumped.\n\n\"Harder, Dick,\" said I in a strangled voice.\n\nAnd Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my\nhead and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.\n\n\"Gee, but that's good,\" says Dick.\n\nHarriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked\ntogether in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat\ndown for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our\nknees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging\nsounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and\nagreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better\nmoments in life than this!\n\nSo we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the\nscreen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:\n\n\"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner.\"\n\nHarriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and\nshady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was\na great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on\ntop, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of\nbaked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;\nand two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any\nother planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had\neven begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with\nhospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the\nbated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it\nwithout a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous\nfried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young\nroosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing\nthat Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of\nher genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or\nindeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.\n\nSo we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet\nhovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the\nbuttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every possible occasion passed the\nchicken.\n\n\"More chicken, Mr. Grayson?\" she would inquire in a tone of voice that\nmade your mouth water.\n\n\"More chicken, Dick?\" I'd ask.\n\n\"More chicken, Mr. Grayson,\" he would respond--and thus we kept up a\ntenuous, but pleasant little joke between us.\n\nJust outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while\nwe ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one\neye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be\ntrifled with--and far away to the North and East one could catch\nglimpses--if he had eyes for such things--of the wide-stretching\npleasantness of our countryside.\n\nI soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the kitchen.\nHarriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and Ann Spencer, who\ncould scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, would look significantly\nat Harriet. As for me, I sat there with perfect confidence in myself--in\nmy ultimate capacity, as it were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it!\n\nAnd the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a great, big, red,\njuicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with raspberries heaped up all over\nit. When It came in--and I am speaking of it in that personal way\nbecause it radiated such an effulgence that I cannot now remember\nwhether it was Harriet or Ann Spencer who brought it in--when It came\nin, Dick, who pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift\nglance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. When\nBeethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable emotions he\ncomposed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things stirring within him he\nwrote an ode to an urn, but my friend Dick, quite as evidently on fire\nwith his emotions, merely whistled--and then looked around evidently\nembarrassed lest he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that\noccasion.\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, \"you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of the human\nrace.\"\n\n\"Go 'way now,\" said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with pleasure, \"and\neat your shortcake.\"\n\nAnd after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length for a\nfew minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree and look up\nthrough the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If ever a man feels the\nblissfulness of complete content it is at such a moment--every muscle in\nthe body deliciously resting, and a peculiar exhilaration animating the\nmind to quiet thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the\nhay-fields, but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many\nmoments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and the hottest\nwork.\n\nI think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in the full\ncurrent of natural things the happier he is. If he can become a part of\nthe Universal Process and know that he is a part, that is happiness. All\nday yesterday I had that deep quiet feeling that I was somehow not\nworking for myself, not because I was covetous for money, nor driven by\nfear, not surely for fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in\nthe processes of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the\nindispensable Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve!\n\nOh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a man\nknow God without yielding himself fully to the processes of God?\n\nI _lived_ yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all hard\nthings grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, and all\nroads were open and clear before me. Many times that day I paused and\nlooked up from my work knowing that I had something to be happy for.\n\nAt one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to work\nagain--rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would now surely\nbe unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The scythes were oddly\nheavy and hot to the touch, and the stones seemed hardly to make a sound\nin the heavy noon air. The cows had sought the shady pasture edges, the\nbirds were still, all the air shook with heat. Only man must toil!\n\n\"It's danged hot,\" said Dick conclusively.\n\nHow reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it seemed compared\nwith the task of the morning! In half an hour, however, the reluctance\npassed away and we were swinging as steadily as we did at any time in\nthe forenoon. But we said less--if that were possible--and made every\nounce of energy count. I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the\nevents of the afternoon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how\nwe went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, or how,\nas the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily toward the\nhouse. The day's work was done.\n\nDick had stopped whistling long before the middle of the afternoon, but\nnow as he shouldered his scythe he struck up \"My Fairy Fay\" with some\nmarks of his earlier enthusiasm.\n\n\"Well, Dick,\" said I, \"we've had a good day's work together.\"\n\n\"You bet,\" said Dick.\n\nAnd I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant friendly\nfeeling of companionship. We had done great things together.\n\nI wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: not\nexhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat down, as I did\nlast night, and felt as though you would like to remain just there\nalways--without stirring a single muscle, without speaking, without\nthinking even!\n\nSuch a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse--it is supremely\npleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my porch. The cool, still\nnight had fallen sweetly after the burning heat of the day. I heard all\nthe familiar sounds of the night. A whippoorwill began to whistle in the\ndistant thicket. Harriet came out quietly--I could see the white of her\ngown--and sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a\ncowbell, and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the\nperfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was on. I\ndon't know that I said it aloud--such things need not be said aloud--but\nas I turned almost numbly into the house, stumbling on my way to bed, my\nwhole being seemed to cry out: \"Thank God, thank God!\"\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nAN OLD MAN\n\nToday I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: and cannot\nget him out of my mind. I think I never knew any one who wears so\nplainly the garment of Detached Old Age as he. One would not now think\nof calling him a farmer, any more than one would think of calling him a\ndoctor, or a lawyer, or a justice of the peace. No one would think now\nof calling him \"Squire Summers,\" though he bore that name with no small\ncredit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, or able, or\ngrasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Everything seems to have\nbeen stripped away from Uncle Richard except age.\n\nHow well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers impressed\nhimself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his old wife, now\nseveral years ago. I saw him standing at the open grave with his\nbroad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His head was bowed and his\nthin, soft, white hair stirred in the warm breeze. I wondered at his\nquietude. After fifty years or more together his nearest companion and\nfriend had gone, and he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again\nimpressed with the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down\nthe long drive to the main road with all the friends of our\nneighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,\nand the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the other.\nHalf way down the drive he turned aside to the fence and all unconscious\nof the halted procession, he picked a handful of the large leaves of the\nwild grape. It was a hot day; he took off his hat, and put the cool\nleaves in the crown of it and rejoined the procession. It did not seem\nto me to be the mere forgetfulness of old age, nor yet callousness to\nhis own great sorrow. It was rather an instinctive return to the\nimmeasurable continuity of the trivial things of life--the trivial\nnecessary things which so often carry us over the greatest tragedies.\n\nI talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the incident. He said\nthat he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, had referred to it in\nhis presence. Uncle Richard turned to him and said slowly:\n\n\"I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned to accept\nlife.\"\n\nSince that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many times walking on\nthe country roads with his cane. He always looks around at me and slowly\nnods his head, but rarely says anything. At his age what is there to say\nthat has not already been said?\n\nHis trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets too far down,\nhis hands are long and thin upon the head of his cane. But his face is\ntranquil. He has come a long way; there have been times of tempest and\nkeen winds, there have been wild hills in his road, and rocky places,\nand threatening voices in the air. All that is past now: and his face is\ntranquil.\n\nI think we younger people do not often realize how keenly dependent we\nare upon our contemporaries in age. We get little understanding and\nsympathy either above or below them. Much of the world is a little misty\nto us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's contemporaries have\nnearly all gone--mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his\nhome--I have been there often to see his son--he sits in a large rocking\nchair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean upon. No\none else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is not there. It is\nnot far from the window; and when he sits down he can lean his cane\nagainst the wall where he can easily reach it again.\n\nThere is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fevered\nincomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter and tears and joy\nand anger. He watches it all, for his mind is still clear, but he does\nnot take sides. He accepts everything, refuses nothing; or, if you like,\nhe refuses everything, accepts nothing.\n\nHe once owned the house where he now lives, with the great barns behind\nit and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. From his chair he\ncan look out through a small window, and see the sun on the quiet\nfields. He once went out swiftly and strongly, he worked hotly, he came\nin wearied to sleep.\n\nNow he lives in a small room--and that is more than is really\nnecessary--and when he walks out he does not inquire who owns the land\nwhere he treads. He lets the hot world go by, and waits with patience\nthe logic of events.\n\nOften as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as I have been\nwondering to-day, how he must look out upon us all, upon our excited\ncomings and goings, our immense concern over the immeasurably trivial. I\nhave wondered, not without a pang, and a resolution, whether I shall\never reach the point where I can let this eager and fascinating world go\nby without taking toll of it!\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nTHE CELEBRITY\n\nNot for many weeks have I had a more interesting, more illuminating, and\nwhen all is told, a more amusing experience, than I had this afternoon.\nSince this afternoon the world has seemed a more satisfactory place to\nlive in, and my own home here, the most satisfactory, the most central\nplace in all the world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may\nhappen here!\n\nWe have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as the\nPsalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees have\nclapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday evening and\nspoke at the School House. I was not there myself; if I had been, I\nshould not, perhaps, have had the adventure which has made this day so\nlivable, nor met the Celebrity face to face.\n\nLet me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities:\n\n_They cannot survive without common people like you and me_.\n\nIt follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or later he will\npursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. So I wait here very\ncomfortably on my farm, and as I work in my fields I glance up casually\nfrom time to time to see if any celebrities are by chance coming up the\ntown road to seek me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner\nor later they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the\nphilosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not,\nindeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance\nthat they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or\nmore gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs\nof pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we\nfarmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know\nwell enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness\nregard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a\nsack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that\ntickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality\nfor them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a\npuffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!\n\nThis afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content\nwith myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a\none-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify\nthe horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the\ndriver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and\nplainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town\nlivery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in\nthese parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this\nway? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore\na black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of\nsome presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.\nThus the logic of the country bore fruitage.\n\n\"Harriet,\" I said, calling through the open doorway, \"I think the\nHonourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here.\"\n\n\"Mercy me!\" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly\ndisappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively\nthat she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated\nrocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible\nparticles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of\nimportance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.\nHarriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,\nsubsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.\n\nAs for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a\nmoment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my\ncoat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of\nmy dominion--my favourite daily newspaper--in my hand. Let all kings,\nqueens, and other potentates approach!\n\nAnd besides, though I am really much afraid that the Honourable Arthur\nCaldwell will not stop at my gate but will pass on towards Horace's, I\nam nursing a somewhat light opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at\nthe School House on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my\nopinion greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. I\ntake both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add the news\nof both together, divide by two to strike a fair average, and then ask\nHorace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch Preacher what really happened.\nThe Republican county paper said of the meeting:\n\n\"The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who is seeking a\nreelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic reception by a large and\nsympathetic audience of the citizens of Blandford township on Tuesday\nevening.\"\n\nStrangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly the same\nhistoric events, took this jaundiced view of the matter:\n\n\"Arty Caldwell, Republican boss of the Sixth District, who is out\nmending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at\nthe School House near Blandford Crossing on Tuesday evening.\"\n\nAnd here was Mr. Caldwell himself, Member of Congress, Leader of the\nSixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Governor, drawing up at my\ngate, deliberately descending from his buggy, with dignity stopping to\ntake the tie-rein from under the seat, carefully tying his horse to my\nhitching-post.\n\nI confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here was a\nveritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! I would not\nhave it known, of course, outside of our select circle of friends, but I\nconfess that although I am a pretty independent person (when I talk) in\nreality there are few things in this world I would rather see than a new\nperson coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the\ncelebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top-loftiness,\nbut if they must have us, we cannot well get along without them--without\nthe colour and variety which they lend to a gray world. I have spent\nmany a precious moment alone in my fields looking up the road (with what\nwistful casualness!) for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not\nbeen wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the\nTravelling Evangelist or the Syrian Woman who comes this way monthly\nbearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue bandana handkerchiefs.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson,\" said the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, taking\noff his large hat and pausing with one foot on my step.\n\n\"Good afternoon, sir,\" I responded, \"won't you come up?\"\n\nHe sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured and\naltogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was exactly\ncondescending in his manners, yet he made me feel that it was no small\nhonour to have so considerable a person sitting there on the porch with\nme. At the same time he was outwardly not without a sort of patient\ndeference which was evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he\nhad all the arts of the schooled politician! He knew to the last\nshading just the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress,\na dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor (and\nyet always a seeker for the votes of the people!) must observe in\napproaching a free farmer--like me--sitting at ease in his shirt-sleeves\non his own porch, taking a moment's rest after dinner. It was a perfect\nthing to see!\n\nHe had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I was a\nquestioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, and that\n(concretely) I was opposing him for re\u00eblection. And it was as plain as a\npikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would\ndo it smilingly and patiently, but firmly. He would use all the leverage\nof his place, his power, his personal appearance, to crush the\npresumptuous uprising against his authority.\n\nI confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world is more\nenthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary upon the open\nfield, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some modern Robin Hood\nfacing the panoplied authority of the King's man.\n\nAnd what a place and time it was for a combat--in the quietude of the\nsummer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the still warmth and\nsweetness except the buzzing of bees in the clematis at the end of the\nporch--and all about the green countryside, woods and fields and old\nfences--and the brown road leading its venturesome way across a distant\nhill toward the town.\n\nAfter explaining who he was--I told him I had recognized him on\nsight--we opened with a volley of small shot. We peppered one another\nwith harmless comments on the weather and the state of the crops. He\nadvanced cabbages and I countered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware\nthat there are good tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines\nand the desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance\nin grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their biggest\nguns.\n\nBut such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the\nbattle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like him! It\nwouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all.\n\n\"It's a warm day,\" observes my opponent, and I take a sure measure of\nhis fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye.\n\n\"I never saw the corn ripening better,\" I observe, and let him feel a\nlittle of the cunning of the arrangement of my forces.\n\nThere is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, the turn\nof a phrase. I can be your servant with a \"Yes sir,\" or your master with\na \"No sir.\"\n\nThus we warm up to one another--a little at a time--we mass our forces,\neach sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even see my\nopponent--with some joy--trotting up his reserves, having found the\nopposition stronger than he at first supposed.\n\n\"I hear,\" said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended to be\ndisarming, \"that you are opposing my re\u00eblection.\"\n\nBoom! the cannon's opening roar!\n\n\"Well,\" I replied, also smiling, and not to be outdone in the directness\nof my thrust, \"I have told a few of my friends that I thought Mr.\nGaylord would represent us better in Congress than you have done.\"\n\nBoom! the fight is on!\n\n\"You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?\"\n\nIt was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was a doubtful\nfollower of him personally, he marshalled the Authority of the\nInstitution which he represented.\n\n\"I have voted the Republican ticket,\" I said, \"but I confess that\nrecently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from\nDemocrats--and I've had my doubts,\" said I, \"whether there is any real\nRepublican party left to vote with.\"\n\nI cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, now that\nthe battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, shall I attempt to\nchronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of that great conflict.\n\nThis much is certain: there was something universal and primal about the\nbattle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch between Mr. Caldwell and\nme; it was the primal struggle between the leader and the follower;\nbetween the representative and the represented. And it is a never-ending\nconflict. When the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of\ncivilization swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning\nto think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then the\npendulum inclines toward democracy.\n\nAnd always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they are only\nservants, and would be masters. \"The unending audacity of elected\npersons!\" And always, and always, there must be a following bold enough\nto prick the pretensions of the leaders and keep them in their places!\n\nThus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon my porch.\nHarriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Caldwell, and sat and\nlistened, and presently went in again, without having got half a dozen\nwords into the conversation. And the bees buzzed, and in the meadows the\ncows began to come out of the shade to feed in the open land.\n\nGradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; he put off his\nappeal to party authority; he even stopped arguing the tariff and the\nrailroad question. Gradually, he ceased to be the great man, Favourably\nMentioned for Governor, and came down on the ground with me. He moved\nhis chair up closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first\ntime I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how much real\nfight he had in him.\n\n[Illustration: \"HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE\"]\n\n\"You don't understand,\" he said, \"what it means to be down there at\nWashington in a time like this. Things clear to you are not clear when\nyou have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who\nhave a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as\nyou do to your views.\"\n\nWell, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job\nwas like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,\nand what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.\n\n\"Do you know,\" I said to him, with some enthusiasm, \"I am more than ever\nconvinced that farming is good enough for me.\"\n\nHe threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still\ncloser.\n\n\"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson,\" he said, \"is that you are looking\nfor a giant intellect to represent you at Washington.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I'm afraid I am.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he returned, \"they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see\nthe House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and\nWebsters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century.\"\n\nHe paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:\n\n\"And any quantity of Caldwells!\"\n\nThat took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of\npolitical artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped\naway from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human\nbeings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.\nHe was not a great leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of\ndetermination, with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had\na human desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him,\nand while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt--what I had\nnot felt before in regard to him--that he was sincerely anxious to serve\nthe best interests of his constituents. Added to these qualities he was\na man who was loyal to his friends; and not ungenerous to his enemies.\n\nUp to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, having reached\na common basis, I leaned forward with some eagerness.\n\n\"You won't mind,\" I said, \"if I give you my view--my common country view\nof the political situation. I am sure I don't understand, and I don't\nthink my neighbours here understand, much about the tariff or the\ntrusts or the railroad question--in detail. We get general\nimpressions--and stick to them like grim death--for we know somehow that\nwe are right. Generally speaking, we here in the country work for what\nwe get----\"\n\n\"And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel,\" nodded Mr.\nCaldwell.\n\n\"And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter,\" I added--\"all\nthat, but on the whole we get only what we earn by the hard daily work\nof ploughing and planting and reaping: You admit that.\"\n\n\"I admit it,\" said Mr. Caldwell.\n\n\"And we've got the impression that a good many of the men down in New\nYork and Boston, and elsewhere, through the advantages which the tariff\nlaws, and other laws, are giving them, are getting more than they\nearn--a lot more. And we feel that laws must be passed which will\nprevent all that.\"\n\n\"Now, I believe that, too,\" said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly.\n\n\"Then we belong to the same party,\" I said. \"I don't know what the name\nof it is yet, but we both belong to it.\"\n\nMr. Caldwell laughed.\n\n\"And I'll appoint you,\" I said, \"my agent in Washington to work out the\nchanges in the laws.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll accept the appointment,\" said Mr. Caldwell--continuing very\nearnestly, \"if you'll trust to my honesty and not expect too much of me\nall at once.\"\n\nWith that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each other and\nlaughed with the greatest good humour and common understanding.\n\n\"And now,\" said I, rising quickly, \"let's go and get a drink of\nbuttermilk.\"\n\nSo we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in the shade of the\noak tree which stands near the spring-house. Harriet came out in the\nwhitest of white dresses, carrying a tray with the glasses, and I opened\nthe door of the spring-house, and felt the cool air on my face and smelt\nthe good smell of butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the\ncool pitcher to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and\ntalked and laughed.\n\nI walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my arm and said to\nme:\n\n\"I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though I\nunderstood my job better for it.\"\n\n\"Let's organize a new party,\" I said, \"let's begin with two members, you\nand I, and have only one plank in the platform.\"\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank,\" he said.\n\n\"Not at all,\" I responded.\n\n\"What would you have it?\"\n\n\"I'd have it in one sentence,\" I said, \"and something like this: We\nbelieve in the passage of legislation which shall prevent any man taking\nfrom the common store any more than he actually earns.\"\n\nMr. Caldwell threw up his arms.\n\n\"Mr. Grayson,\" he said, \"you're an outrageous idealist.\"\n\n\"Mr. Caldwell,\" I said, \"you'll say one of these days that I'm a\npractical politician.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Well, Harriet,\" I said, \"he's got my vote.\"\n\n\"Well, David,\" said Harriet, \"that's what he came for.\"\n\n\"It's an interesting world, Harriet,\" I said.\n\n\"It is, indeed,\" said Harriet.\n\nAs we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the hill, where the\ntown road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, and through the open\ncurtain at the back the heavy form of our Congressman with his slouch\nhat set firmly on his big head.\n\n\"We may be fooled, Harriet,\" I observed, \"on dogmas and doctrines and\nplatforms--but if we cannot trust human nature in the long run, what\nhope is there? It's men we must work with, Harriet.\"\n\n\"And women.\" said Harriet.\n\n\"And women, of course,\" said I.\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nON FRIENDSHIP\n\nI come now to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As I go out--I\nhope not for long--I wish you might follow me to the door, and then as\nwe continue to talk quietly, I may beguile you, all unconsciously, to\nthe top of the steps, or even find you at my side when we reach the gate\nat the end of the lane. I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself\nhate to go!--And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long\nenough) you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that I\nam still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part unwillingly.\n\nNot long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an absurdly\ndifficult question--difficult because so direct and simple.\n\n\"What is friendship, anyway?\" queried this philosophical correspondent.\n\nThe truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as something quite\nnew. For I have spent so much time thinking of my friends that I have\nscarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality of\nfriendship. My attention being thus called to the subject, I fell to\nthinking of it the other night as I sat by the fire, Harriet not far\naway rocking and sewing, and my dog sleeping on the rug near me (his\ntail stirring whenever I made a motion to leave my place). And whether I\nwould or no my friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our\nneighbour Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our\nmuch loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and of his\nboisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old Maid, and how\nshe talks, for all the world like a rabbit running in a furrow (all on\nthe same line until you startle her out, when she slips quickly into the\nnext furrow and goes on running as ardently as before). And I thought of\nJohn Starkweather, our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And\nit was good to think of them all living around me, not far away,\nconnected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious\nhuman cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific\nearth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one,\nremembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that\ncharacteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best thing to\nhearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the door fly open\n(letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying a hearty greeting,\nto drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, to watching with eagerness\nwhile my friend unwraps (exclaiming all the while of the state of the\nweather: \"Cold, Grayson, mighty cold!\") and finally sits down beside me,\nnot too far away.\n\nThe truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any\ntheory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few\nthings that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I\ncome to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for\nadequate language.\n\nFriendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is\nshy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite\nunexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand\nin ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it\nis rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at\nwork in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,\nor looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I\nhave had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench\nnear him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!\n\nIt is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us\nfriends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,\nnor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance\nto belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us\nfriendly. Nor is it because we entertain the same views or respond to\nthe same emotions. All these things may serve to bring us nearer\ntogether but no one of them can of itself kindle the divine fire of\nfriendship. A friend is one with whom we are fond of being when no\nbusiness is afoot nor any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be\nsilent with a friend. \"I do not need to ask the wounded person how he\nfeels,\" says the poet, \"I myself became the wounded person.\"\n\nNot all people come to friendship in the same way. Some possess a\nveritable genius for intimacy and will be making a dozen friends where I\nmake one. Our Scotch Preacher is such a person. I never knew any man\nwith a gift of intimacy so persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct\nthat he cuts through the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those\npersonal things which with all of us are so far more real than any\noutward interest. \"Good-morning, friend,\" I have heard him say to a\ntotal stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads together\nand were talking of things which make men cry. It is an extraordinary\ngift.\n\nAs for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity which\ncauses me to stop almost any man by the way, and to take something of\nwhat he has--because it pleases me to do so. I try to pay in coin as\ngood as I get, but I recognize it as a lawless procedure, For the coin I\ngive (being such as I myself secretly make) is for them sometimes only\nspurious metal, while what I get is for me the very treasure of the\nIndies. For a lift in my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word\nacross my fences, I have taken argosies of minted wealth!\n\nEspecially do I enjoy all travelling people. I wait for them (how\neagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in daily tides upon\nthe road, flowing outward in the morning toward the town, and as surely\nat evening drifting back again. I look out with a pleasure impossible to\nconvey upon those who come this way from the town: the Syrian woman\ngoing by in the gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and\nher oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, jangling\nhis little bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor in his faded\nhat, and the Signman with his mouth full of nails--how they are all\nmarked upon by the town, all dusted with the rosy bloom of human\nexperience. How often in fancy I have pursued them down the valley and\nwatched them until they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how\noften I have stopped them or they (too willingly) have stopped me--and\nwe have fenced and parried with fine bold words.\n\nIf you should ever come by my farm--you, whoever you are--take care lest\nI board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you away to the Enchanted\nIsle where I make my rendezvous.\n\nIt is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's capacity for\nfriendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room in my heart for a\nsingle friend, who am now so wealthy in friendships. It is a phenomenon\nworthy of consideration by all hardened disbelievers in that which is\nmiraculous upon this earth that when a man's heart really opens to a\nfriend he finds there room for two, And when he takes in the second,\nbehold the skies lift, and the earth grows wider, and he finds there\nroom for two more!\n\nIn a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) old mystical\nSwedenborg tells of his wonderment that the world of spirits (which he\nsays he visited so familiarly) should not soon become too small for all\nthe swelling hosts of its ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with\nthe discovery that the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold\nthem!\n\nSo let it be with our friendships!\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Adventures in Friendship","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":34820}