The Friendly Road: New Adventures in Contentment

so smal

enjoyed

ved light

untry roads with my pack-strap resting warmly on my shoulder, and a song in my throat-just nameless words to a nameless tune-and all the birds singing, and all the brooks bright under their little bridges, I knew that I must soon step aside and put down, if I could, some faint impression of the feeling of this time and place. I cannot ho

orld at large considers not quite sensible, not quite sane? Try it! It is easier to commit a thundering crime. A friend of mine delights in walking to tow

little book held on his knee! Is not that the height of absurdity? Of all my friends the Scotch Preacher was the onl

thought-shapes which attend upon our lives?-if you could have had such a truthful picture of me, you would have seen, besides a farmer named Gr

s, the old mare a little lame in her right foreleg. About

ectable old farmhouse bumping and hobbling along as best it might in the rear. And in the doorway, Harriet Grayson, in her immacul

could run away. If you could have heard that motley crew of the barnyard as I did-the hens all cackling, the ducks quack

e humble servant, attending upon the commonest daily needs of sundry hens, ducks, geese, pigs, bees, and of a fussy and exacting old gray mare. And the habit of servitude, I

I must do the milking. So well disciplined had I become in my servitude that I instinctively thrust my leg o

thee behind me,

ting cockerel, that lordly and despotic bird stopped fairly in the middle of a crow, and his voice gurgled away in a spasm of astonishment. As for the old farmhouse, it grew so dim I could scarcely see it a

many things that dominate our lives by

akened again at five o'clock, but my leg did not make for the side of the bed; the third morning I was only partially awakened, and on

where upon the realities of life. I have related elsewhere how I thus came creeping like one sore wounded from the field of battle, and how, among our hills, in the hard, steady labour in the soil of the fields, with new and simple friends around me, I found a sort of rebirth or resurrection. I that was worn out, bankrupt both physically and morally, learned to live again. I have achieved something of high happiness in these years,

left home, I scarcely chose the direction in which I was to travel, but drifted out, as a boy might, into the great busy world.

ere good coin in my purse! And when I had passed the narrow horizon of my acquaintanceship, and reached country new to me, it seemed as though every sense I had began to awaken. I must have grown dull, unconsciousl

meadows richer and greener-and the lilacs are still blooming, and the catbirds and orioles are here. The oaks are not yet

ulars and reserves, is so fully drafted for service in the fields. And all the doors and windows, both in the little villages and on the farms, stand wide open to

nursery salesmen and fertilizer agents, all the tramps and scientists and poets-all abroad in the wide sunny roads. They, too, know well this hospitable moment of the spring; they, too, know that doors and hea

opped to watch some ploughman in the fields: I saw with a curious, deep satisfaction how the moist furrows, freshly turned, glistened in the warm sunshine. There seemed to be something right and fit about it, as well as human and beautiful. Or at evening I would stop to watch a ploughman driving homeward acro

tance in the road, and of the pungent scent at evening in the cool hollows of burning brush heaps and the smell of ba

gh the still air, or the low sounds of cattle in the barnyards, quieting down for the night, and often, if near a village, the distant, slumbrous sound of a church bell

ng of all the strange and interesting people who are working in their fields, or standing invitingly in their doorways, or so busily afoot in the country roads. Let me add, also, for this is one of the most important parts of my present experience, that this new desire was far from being

er, D

the first three or four days. Any man may brutally pay his way anywhere, but it is quite another thing to be accepted by your humankind not as a paid lodger but as a friend. Always, it seems to me, I have wanted to submit myself, and indeed submit the stranger, to that test. Moreover, how

we really live. What I mean here, if I may so express it, is an adventure in achieved poverty. In the lives of such true men as Francis of Assisi and Tolstoi, that which draws the world

er emoluments and hereditaments-but remain the slave of sundry cloth upon my back and sundry articles in my gray bag-including a fat pocket volume or so, and a tin whistle. Let them pass now. To-morrow I may wish

d, how difficult of at

e at the pleasant countryside, to enjoy a little of this show, to meet (and to help a little if I may) a few human beings, and thus to get nearly into the sweet kernel of human life. My friend, you may or may not think this a worthy object; i

t was all the sharper because I did not know how or where I could assuage it. In all my life, in spite of various ups and downs in a fat world, I don't think I was ever before genuinely hungry. Oh, I've been hungry in a reasonable, civilized way, but I have always known where in a

he Road ever quite understand the Man of the Fields. And here was I, for so long the stationary Man of the Fields, essaying the role of the Man of the Road. I experienced a sudden sense of the enlivenment of the faculties: I must now depend upon wit or cunning or human nature to win my way, not upon mere skill of the hand or strength in the bent back. Whereas in my form

liarly became a new and foreign land, full of strange possibilities. I spied out the men in the fields and did not fail, also, to see what I could of the commissary department of each farmstead as I passed. I walked for miles looking thus for a favour

nd the horse which had drawn it stood quietly, not far off, tied to the fence. The man and the boy, each with a basket on his arm, were at the farther end of the field, dropping potatoes. I stood q

here," I sa

s I stood there. Though I had not the slightest idea of wh

me until they had nearly re

n say with some impatience; "we've

the boy, "but it's awful hot. We can't

to-day," the man replied grimly

in planting time. The spring waits for no man. My heart went out to the man and boy stru

rious lift of the heart, "they ha

nting, the father also looked up and saw me. But neither said a word until

" I said, sparri

s work. I recalled the scores of times I had been exactly in

basket hand

rdially. The boy said nothing at all, but eyed me with absor

nside the fence. Then I found the basket and began to fill it from one of the bags

to hurry in order to get in your potatoes to-day. I can

hesitation or questioning, he said nothing at all. As for the boy, the change in his countenance was marvellous to see. Som

you planting,

ourteen

urable beginning of my enterprise; there is nothing which

y. His nose was as freckled as the belly of a trout. The whole situation, including the prospect of help in finishin

to step lively to

"how we used to drop po

tep ahead more quickly and

father, "must give these young s

tatoes at a prodigious speed. The father followed with more dignity, but wi

field!" remarked the lad, puffing and wipin

sure; there is nothing more pleasing

said to the man: "This lo

these parts," he replied w

eld to get a drink from a jug of water set in the shade of a fence corner, and once we set the horse in the thills and moved the seed farther up the field. And tired and hungry as I felt I really enjoyed the work; I really enjoyed talking with this busy father an

re's

he gateway a slim, bright girl of ab

!" roared Ben

hing up the horse,

n with us and ha

ied, trying not to make

bread to-day?" I heard

d the girl, "w

nt of mystery-"and dad don't kno

e'll he

tatoes. He dropped down o

?" she aske

works. But, Sis, did mo

ms. We turned finally into a lane and thus came promptly, for the horse was as eager as we, to the capacious farmyard. A motherly woman came out from the hou

a little cleanly swept, open shed. Rolling back my collar and baring my arms I washed myself in the cool water, dashing it over my head until I gasped, and then stepping back, breathless and refreshed, I

said the mother

. There was also an older son, who had been at the farm chores. It was altogether a fine, vigorous, independent American fami

we thank Thee. Preserve us and

h cheese. After the first ravenous appetite of hardworking men was satisfied, there came to be a good deal of lively conversation. The girls had some joke between them which Ben was trying in vain to fathom. The older son told how much milk a certain Alderney cow had given, and Mr. Stanley, quite changed now as he sat at his own table from the rather grim

s, and I admired his spring calves to his hearts content, for they really were a fine lot. When we came in again the lamps had been lighted in the sitting-room and the older daughter was at the tel

te

of music to-night?"

ve for the front room-the parlour-and came out with a

vely now," sa

eful voices, introduced a steamboat whistle and a musical clangour of bells. When it woun

e, f

older daughter, Kate, broke into the song with a full, strong

itting under the lamp with a bask

the signal," sa

bit sleepy," excl

e about. The older daughter gave me a hand lamp and showed m

leasant dignity, "you will

pleasure I rolled into bed or

rst day of my r