The Friendly Road: New Adventures in Contentment

y I love best-a spicy, unexpected, amu

to watch me narrowly these days you would see I am slowly shedding my years. I suspect that some one of the clear hill streams f

n the hill, lurks the stuff of adventure. What a world it is! A mile south of here I shall

life-your life-is not all a gray smudge, as you think it is, but crammed, packed, loaded with miraculous things. I can show yo

imes I have had to learn this truth (what lesson so hard to learn as the lesson of humility!) and I suppose I shall have to learn it a th

hem in their garden with great delight most of the forenoon-I

the very roadside, all these things I love. They come to me with the same sort of charm and flavour, only vastly magnified, which I find often in the essays of the older writers-those leisurely old fellows who took time to write, REALLY write. T

a thank-you-ma'am to laugh over, nor a sinful hill to test your endurance-not so much as a dreamy valley! It pursues its hard, unshaded, practical way directly from some particula

hat very moment a motor-car whirled past me as I stood there and a girl with a merry face waved her hand at me. I lifted my h

oo," I said aloud-"and ma

amazing, interesting world. Here was I pitying them for their ben

ry thought in my mind and a song in m

f, "whether a man takes hold of life by the great

ied sorts of activity. Light winds stirred the tree-tops and rippled in the new grass; and from the thickets I heard the blackbirds crying. Everything animate and inanimate, that morning, seemed to have its own

never wished my own barn or fences to sing the praises of swamp root or sarsaparilla-and yet there is something wonderfully human about these painted and pasted vociferations of the roadside signs; and I don't know why they are less "natural" in their way than a house or ba

cks at the roadside: "Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand," and though I am certain that the kingdom of God is already here, I stop always and repent-just a little-knowing that there is always room for it. At the entrance of the little towns, also, or in the squares of the villages, I stop often to read the signs of taxes assessed, or of political meetings; I see the evidences of homes broken up in the notices of auction sales,

ndeed rather inconspicuous-consisting of a single word rather crudely painted in black (as by an amateur

RE

e of enlivenment, of pleasure

"Indeed I will," and I sat

es

ought, evidently put that up; some quietist offering this mild protest against the breathless progress of the age. How often I have felt the same way myself

the curiosity of the traveller for the disclosure which he will make a mile or so farther on. Or else some humourist wasting his wit upon the Fraternity of

ust be a zealot rather than a trader or humourist. (Confidentially, I could not make a picture of him in which he was not endowed with plentiful long hair). As I walked onward agai

somewhat nearer the ground I was able to examine it caref

two other signs with nothing

perversely: it made me more restless than ever. I felt that I could not rest properly until I

roadside, but I could not tell exactly what. As I hastened nearer I discovered that he was a short, strongly built, sun-bronzed man in

ous signs. He looked up at me with a broad smil

d, "but they

follow the adv

then the other. "I have from Grabow Brook, but not the bridge, to the top o' Sullivan Hill, and all the c

or a moment. I love to watch the motions of vigorous men at work, the easy play of the muscles, the swing of the shoulders, the vigour of stoutly planted legs. He evidently considered the conversation closed, and I, as-well,

plies, I put my bag down by the roadside and, going up to the wagon, got out a shovel, and witho

evidently astonished and interested, as I knew he would be: it was something entirely new on the road. He didn't quite know whether to be a

e you

time, during which I shovelled valiantly and with great inward amusement. Oh, there is noth

opping my work, he himself paused and

ally, "did YOU read those si

eren't for me, either. My

oad-worker, are you

n inspiration, "that's exac

ner," he said, with a broa

ing into each other's eyes. We both knew the trade and the tricks of the trade; all bars were d

section?" he

section. It begins at a place called Prosy Common-do you know it?-and reaches t

ad-worker; "'tain't round here, is

ite of people for specific information, a motor-car whizzed past, the driver holding up his hand in

y is it, I'd like to know, that every one wants to run in the same

me, too," I said. "Why WILL pe

o good to put up signs

fact is, people have got to be bu

voice dropped into the tone of one speaking to a m

in an equally m

one or two

e a good hard tru-I mean stone, with a bit of common dust sprinkled over it, in

husky road-worker, chuckling

said I-"g

ever, curiously related to roads. Working all day long with his old horse, removing obstructions, draining out the culverts, filling ruts and holes with new stone, and repairing the damage of rain and storm, the road-worker was filled with a world o

pth. If you get a good solid foundation, the

I responded. "Get down to bedrock

ave too many

through life. You have observed that nearly all t

are!" he

n too sharply on his wa

ns turtle in

mit of enthusiastic agreement. Of all things on the road, or above the road, or in th

ed much and it ain't messy. But sometimes when you see oil pumped on a road, you know that e

almost impassable with ruts and rocks and dust, and immedia

visor is always sayin'

with messy and ill-smelling oil. Above everything, he doesn't want the road dug up and rebuilt-says it will interfere with traffic, injure business, and even set people to talking about changing the route entirely

of my companion, and as I now glanced at him I saw him standing with a curious look of astonishment

s get a drink.

the road where we had been once before. As we were drinking, silently, I

ws his job. I thought how well he was equipped with unilluminated knowledge, and

blue eyes of my friend I had a sudden swift inspiration, and before I could r

n reality a spe

ed uncomfortably

r of spectacles," I said. "I

bl

ion on his face. His hand went involuntarily to his ey

I first met you. You don't know it yourself

n my talk with him half jestingly, with the amusing idea of breaking through his shell, but I now found myself tremendously engrossed, and

"are you sure you aren't-" He tapped

ion at all, but continued,

ook about, you see everything there is to see, but as a m

he, making as if to turn back to work, but remaini

fiers"-he glanced again at the gray bag. "When you put them

all!" he said, evidently trying

es him more uncomfortable-yes, downright mad!-than to feel that he is being played with. I could see that I had nearly reached the limit

earnest in all my life. When I told you I was a road-worker I meant

I thought of another sort of oil for another sort of roads, and when he spoke of curves in his roads I was thinking of curves in the roads I dealt

aid I, "it was only a way of telling you how much I wante

I know now how the surgeon must feel at the crucial moment

ng breath as he came out

e, "you're trying to put a

ad

I exclaim

the first to speak-wi

as always sayin' things that meant something else and when you found ou

aug

man begins to feel queer in the insides. It

ain, not saying much. After quite a time, when we had nearly cleaned up the landslide,

things in a road th

hat the new spectac

ker laughed

ht," he said. "I see what Y

not going to sell them to you at all. I'm going to present them to you-for I hav

elings; but I have learned that if the feeling is real a

ker simply, but with a world o

work the road-worker insisted th

see my wife and

side of the road near the foot of a fine hill. And from time to time all night long, it seemed to me, I could hear the rush of cars goi

en back of the house, and of all the road-worker and his

e out to the smooth macadam (his wife standing in the doorway

ort o' interested in ro

aughing, "and I'll stop in and show you my new stoc

he smiled a broad,

together like havin

-in the best of spirits-ready

sit the Stanleys, and the Vedders, and the Minister, and drop in and sell another pair o

am not as uneasy about it as I was. I have seen two more of them alr