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ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
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ADVENTURES OF 
 DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THOMAS FOGARTY 
 
 THE BOOK LEAGUE OF AMERICA 
 
 New York 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMVn, DOUBLED AY & CO., INC. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMVI, THE PHIULIPS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMVn, THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMX, DOUBLEDAY & CO., INC. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMVm, THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMIX, THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, MCMX, THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 GIFT 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
!• I 
 
 CONTENTS 
 BOOK I 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. "The Burden of the Valley of Vision" . . 3 
 
 II. I Buy a Farm 9 
 
 III. The Joy of Possession 15 
 
 IV. Entertain an Agent Unawares 26 
 
 V. The Axe-Helve 36 
 
 VI. The Marsh Ditch 48 
 
 VII. An Argument with a Millionnaire ... 58 
 
 VIII. A Boy and a Preacher 71 
 
 IX. The Tramp 79 
 
 X. The Infidel 90 
 
 XL The Country Doctor 104 
 
 XII. An Evening at Home ....... i i^ 
 
 XIII. The Politician 127 
 
 XIV. The Harvest 138 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 I. An Adventure in Fraternity 149 
 
 II. A Day of Pleasant Bread 158 
 
 ni. The Open Road 170 
 
 I , 237 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 IV. On Being Where You Belong 177 
 
 V. The Story of Anna 186 
 
 VI. The Drunkard 196 
 
 VII. An Old Maid 207 
 
 VIII. A Roadside Prophet 214 
 
 IX. The Gunsmith 222 
 
 X. The Mowing 234 
 
 XI. An Old Man 245 
 
 XII. The Celebrity 248 
 
 XIII. On Friendship 260 
 
BOOK I 
 ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
 
r^>*.-r^--^ 
 
 I 
 
 "THE BURDEN OF THE VALLEY OF VISION' 
 
 jL came here eight years ago as the renter of this farm, of which 
 soon afterward I became the owner. The time before that I like 
 to forget. The chief impression it left upon my memory, now 
 happily growing indistinct, is of being hurried faster than I 
 could well travel. From the moment, as a boy of seventeen, I 
 first began to pay my own way, my days were ordered by an 
 inscrutable power which drove me hourly to my task. I was 
 rarely allowed to look up or down, but always forward, toward 
 that vague Success which we Americans love to glorify. 
 
 My senses, my nerves, even my muscles were continually 
 strained to the utmost of attainment. If I loitered or paused by 
 the wayside, as it seems natural for me to do, I soon heard the 
 sharp crack of the lash. For many years, and I can say it truth- 
 fully, I never rested. I neither thought nor reflected. I had no 
 pleasure, even though I pursued it fiercely during the brief 
 respite of vacations. Through many feverish years I did not 
 work: I merely produced. 
 
 The only real thing I did was to hurry as though every mo- 
 ment were my last, as though the world, which now seems so 
 rich in everything, held only one prize which might be seized 
 
 3 
 
4 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 upon before I arrived. Since then I have tried to recall, like one 
 who struggles to restore the visions of a fever, what it was that 
 I ran to attain, or why I should have borne without rebellion 
 such indignities to soul and body. That life seems now, of all 
 illusions, the most distant and unreal. It is like the unguessed 
 eternity before we are born: not of concern compared with 
 that eternity upon which we are now embarked. 
 
 All these things happened in cities and among crowds. I like 
 to forget them. They smack of that slavery of the spirit which 
 is so much worse than any mere slavery of the body. 
 
 One day — it was in April, I remember, and the soft maples 
 in the city park were just beginning to blossom — ^I stopped sud- 
 denly. I did not intend to stop. I confess in humiUation that 
 it was no courage, no will of my own. I intended to go on 
 toward Success: but Fate stopped me. It was as if I had been 
 thrown violently from a moving planet: all the universe streamed 
 around me and past me. It seemed to me that of all animate 
 creation, I was the only thing that was still or silent. Until I 
 stopped I had not known the pace I ran; and I had a vague 
 sympathy and understanding, never felt before, for those who 
 left the running. I lay prostrate with fever and close to death 
 for weeks and watched the world go by: the dust, the noise, the 
 very colour of haste. The only sharp pang that I suffered was 
 the feeling that I should be broken-hearted and that I was not; 
 that I should care and that I did not. It was as though I had 
 died and escaped all further responsibility. I even watched with 
 dim equanimity my friends racing past me, panting as they 
 ran. Some of them paused an instant to comfort me where I lay, 
 but I could see that their minds were still upon the running 
 and I was glad when they went away. I cannot tell with what 
 weariness their haste oppressed me. As for them, they somehow 
 blamed me for dropping out. I knew. Until we ourselves under- 
 stand, we accept no excuse from the man who stops. While I 
 felt it all, I was not bitter. I did not seem to care. I said to my- 
 self: "This is Unfitness. I survive no longer. So be it." 
 
 Thus I lay, and presently I began to hunger and thirst. Desire 
 rose within me: the indescribable longing of the convalescent 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 5 
 
 for the food of recovery. So I lay, questioning wearily what it was 
 that I required. One morning I wakened with a strange, new 
 joy in my soul. It came to me at that moment with indescribable 
 poignancy, the thought of walking barefoot in cool, fresh plow 
 furrows as I had once done when a boy. So vividly the memory 
 came to me — the high airy world as it was at that moment, and 
 the boy I was walking free in the furrows— that the weak tears 
 filled my eyes, the first I had shed in many years. Then I 
 thought of sitting in quiet thickets in old fence corners, the 
 wood behind me rising still, cool, mysterious, and the fields 
 in front stretching away in illimitable pleasantness. I thought of 
 the good smell of cows at milking — you do not know, if you do 
 not know! — I thought of the sights and sounds, the heat and 
 sweat of the hay fields. I thought of a certain brook I knew 
 when a boy that flowed among alders and wild parsnips, where 
 I waded with a three-foot rod for trout. I thought of all these 
 things as a man thinks of his first love. Oh, I craved the soil. I 
 hungered and thirsted for the earth. I was greedy for growing 
 things. 
 
 And thus, eight years ago, I came here Uke one sore- 
 wounded creeping from the field of battle. I remember walking 
 in the sunshine, weak yet, but curiously satisfied. I that was 
 dead lived again. It came to me then with a curious certainty, 
 not since so assuring, that I understood the chief marvel of 
 nature hidden within the Story of the Resurrection, the marvel 
 of plant and seed, father and son, the wonder of the seasons, 
 the miracle of life. I, too, had died : I had lain long in darkness, 
 and now I had risen again upon the sweet earth. And I possessed 
 beyond others a knowledge of a former existence, which I 
 knew, even then, I could never return to. 
 
 For a time, in the new life, I was happy to drunkenness — 
 working, eating, sleeping. I was an animal again, let out to run 
 in green pastures. I was glad of the sunrise and the sunset. I 
 was glad at noon. It delighted me when my muscles ached 
 with work and when, after supper, I could not keep my eyes 
 open for sheer weariness. And sometimes I was awakened in 
 the night out of a sound sleep — seemingly by the very silences— 
 
6 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 and lay in a sort of bodily comfort impossible to describe. 
 
 I did not want to feel or to think: I merely wanted to live. In 
 the sun or the rain I wanted to go out and come in, and never 
 again know the pain of the unquiet spirit. I looked forward 
 to an awakening not without dread for we are as helpless before 
 birth as in the presence of death. 
 
 But like all birth, it came, at last, suddenly. All that summer I 
 had worked in a sort of animal content. Autumn had now come, 
 late autumn, with coolness in the evening air. I was plowing in 
 my upper field — not then mine in fact — and it was a soft after- 
 noon with the earth turning up moist and fragrant. I had been 
 walking the furrows all day long. I had taken note, as though 
 my life depended upon it, of the occasional stones or roots in 
 my field, I made sure of the adjustment of the harness, I drove 
 with pecuHar care to save the horses. With such simple details 
 of the work in hand I had found it my joy to occupy my mind. 
 Up to that moment the most important things in the world had 
 seemed a straight furrow and well-turned corners — to me, then, 
 a profound accomplishment. 
 
 I cannot well describe it, save by the analogy of an opening 
 door somewhere within the house of my consciousness. I had 
 been in the dark : I seemed to emerge. I had been bound down : 
 I seemed to leap up — and with a marvellous sudden sense of 
 freedom and joy. 
 
 I stopped there in my field and looked up. And it was as if I 
 had never looked up before. I discovered another world. It had 
 been there before, for long and long, but I had never seen nor 
 felt it. All discoveries are made in that way: a man finds the 
 new thing, not in nature but in himself. 
 
 It was as though, concerned with plow and harness and 
 furrow, I had never known that the world had height or colour 
 or sweet sounds, or that there was feeling in a hillside. I forgot 
 myself, or where I was. I stood a long time motionless. My 
 dominant feeling, if I can at all express it, was of a strange 
 new friendUness, a warmth, as though these hills, this field 
 about me, the woods, had suddenly spoken to me and caressed 
 me. It was as though I had been accepted in membership, 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 7 
 
 as though I was now recognised, after long trial, as belonging 
 here. 
 
 Across the town road which separates my farm from my near- 
 est neighbour's, I saw a field, familiar, yet strangely new and 
 unfamiliar, lying up to the setting sun, all red with autumn, 
 above it the incalculable heights of the sky, blue, but not quite 
 clear, owing to the Indian summer haze. I cannot convey the 
 sweetness and softness of that landscape, the airiness of it, the 
 mystery of it, as it came to me at that moment. It was as though, 
 looking at an acquaintance long known, I should discover that I 
 loved him. As I stood there I was conscious of the cool tang of 
 burning leaves and brush heaps, the lazy smoke of which floated 
 down the long valley and found me in my field, and finally I 
 heard, as though the sounds were then made for the first time, 
 all the vague murmurs of the country side — a cow-bell some- 
 where in the distance, the creak of a wagon, the blurred evening 
 hum of birds, insects, frogs. So much it means for a man to stop 
 and look up from his task. So I stood, and I looked up and 
 down with a glow and a thrill which I cannot now look back 
 upon without some envy and a little amusement at the very 
 grandness and seriousness of it all. And I said aloud to myself; 
 
 "I will be as broad as the earth. I will not be limited." 
 
 Thus I was born into the present world, and here I continue, 
 not knowing what other world I may yet achieve. I do not know, 
 but I wait in expectancy, keeping my furrows straight and my 
 corners well turned. Since that day in the field, though my 
 fences include no more acres, and I still plow my own fields, my 
 real domain has expanded until I crop wide fields and take 
 the profit of many curious pastures. From my farm I can see 
 most of the world; and if I wait here long enough all people 
 pass this way. 
 
 And I look out upon them not in the surroundings which they 
 have chosen for themselves, but from the vantage ground of 
 my familiar world. The symbols which meant so much in cities 
 mean Httle here. Sometimes it seems to me as though I saw men 
 naked. They come and stand beside my oak, and the oak passes 
 solemn judgment; they tread my furrows and the clods give 
 
8 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 silent evidence; they touch the green blades of my corn, the 
 corn whispers its sure conclusions. Stern judgments that will be 
 deceived by no symbols! 
 
 Thus I have delighted, secretly, in caUing myself an unHmited 
 farmer, and I make this confession in answer to the inner and 
 truthful demand of the soul that we are not, after all, the slaves 
 of things, whether corn, or banknotes, or spindles; that we 
 are not the used, but the users; that life is more than profit and 
 loss. And so I shall expect that while I am talking farm some of 
 you may be thinking of dry goods, banking, literature, carpentry, 
 or what-not. But if you can say: I am an unHmited dry goods 
 merchant, I am an unHmited carpenter, I will give you an old- 
 fashioned country haQd-shake, strong and warm. We are friends; 
 our orbits coincide. 
 
r.lt\»4<-" -'vN 
 
 B-^'t 
 
 II 
 I BUY A FARM 
 
 A 
 
 I HAVE SAID, when I came here I came as a renter, working 
 all of the first summer without that "open vision" of which the 
 prophet Samuel speaks. I had no memory of the past and no 
 hope of the future. I fed upon the moment. My sister Harriet 
 kept the house and I looked after the farm and the fields. In all 
 those months I hardly knew that I had neighbours, although 
 Horace, from whom I rented my place, was not infrequently a 
 visitor. He has since said that I looked at him as though he 
 were a "statute." I was "citified," Horace said; and "citified" 
 with us here in the country is nearly the limit of invective, 
 though not violent enough to discourage such a gift of sociabiUty 
 as his. The Scotch Preacher, the rarest, kindest man I know, 
 called once or twice, wearing the air of formality which so ill 
 becomes him. I saw nothing in him; it was my fault, not his, 
 that I missed so many weeks of his friendship. Once in that time 
 the Professor crossed my fields with his tin box slung from his 
 shoulder; and the only feeling I had, born of crowded cities, 
 was that this was an intrusion upon my property. Intrusion: and 
 the Professor! It is now unthinkable. I often passed the Car- 
 pentry Shop on my way to town. I saw Baxter many times at 
 
 9 
 
10 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 his bench. Even then Baxter's eyes attracted me: he always 
 glanced up at me as I passed, and his look had in it something 
 of a caress. So the home of Starkweather, standing aloof among 
 its broad lawns and tall trees, carried no meaning for me. 
 
 Of all my neighbours, Horace is the nearest. From the back 
 door of my house, looking over the hill, I can see the two red 
 chimneys of his home, and the top of the windmill. Horace's 
 barn and corn silo are more pretentious by far than his house, 
 but fortunately they stand on lower ground, where they are not 
 visible from my side of the hill. Five minutes' walk in a straight 
 line across the fields brings me to Horace's door; by the road 
 it takes at least ten minutes. 
 
 In the fall after my arrival I had come to love the farm and 
 its surroundings so much that I decided to have it for my own. 
 I did not look ahead to being a farmer. I did not ask Harriet's 
 advice. I found myself sitting one day in the justice's office. 
 The justice was bald and as dry as corn fodder in March. He 
 sat with spectacled impressiveness behind his ink-stained table. 
 Horace hitched his heel on the round of his chair and put his 
 hat on his knee. He wore his best coat and his hair was brushed 
 in deference to the occasion. He looked uncomfortable, but 
 important. I sat opposite him, somewhat overwhelmed by the 
 business in hand. I felt like an inadequate boy measured against 
 solemnities too large for him. The processes seemed curiously 
 unconvincing, Uke a game in which the important part is to 
 keep from laughing; and yet when I thought of laughing I felt 
 cold chills of horror. If I had laughed at that moment I cannot 
 think what that justice would have said! But it was a pleasure 
 to have the old man read the deed, looking at me over his 
 spectacles from time to time to make sure I was not playing 
 truant. There are good and great words in a deed. One of them 
 I brought away with me from the conference, a very fine, big 
 one, which I love to have out now and again to remind me of 
 the really serious things of life. It gives me a pecuHar dry, legal 
 feeling. If I am about to enter upon a serious bargain, like the 
 sale of a cow, I am more avaricious if I work with it under my 
 tongue. 
 
ADVENIURES IN CONTENTMENT 11 
 
 Hereditaments! Hereditaments! 
 
 Some words need to be fenced in, pig-tight, so that they can- 
 not escape us; others we prefer to have running at large, in- 
 definite but inclusive. I would not look up that word for any- 
 thing: I might find it fenced in so that it could not mean to 
 me all that it does now. 
 
 Hereditaments! May there be many of them — or it! 
 
 Is it not a fine Providence that gives us different things to 
 love.? In the purchase of my farm both Horace and I got the 
 better of the bargain — and yet neither was cheated. In reaUty 
 a fairly strong lantern light will shine through Horace, and I 
 could see that he was hugging himself with the joy of his bar- 
 gain; but I was content. I had some money left — what more does 
 anyone want after a bargain .^^ — and I had come into possession 
 of the thing I desired most of all. Looking at bargains from a 
 purely commercial point of view, someone is always cheated, 
 but looked at with the simple eye both seller and buyer always 
 win. 
 
 We came away from the gravity of that bargaining in Horace's 
 wagon. On our way home Horace gave me fatherly advice about 
 using my farm. He spoke from the height of his knowledge to 
 me, a humble beginner. The conversation ran something like 
 this: 
 
 Horace: Thar's a clump of plum trees along the lower pasture 
 fence. Perhaps you saw 'm 
 
 Myself: I saw them: that is one reason I bought the back 
 pasture. In May they will be full of blossoms. 
 
 Horace: They're wild plums: they ain't good for nothing. 
 
 Myself : But think how fine they will be all the year round. 
 
 Horace: Fine! They take up a quarter-acre of good land. I've 
 been going to cut 'em myself this ten years. 
 
 Myself: I don't think I shall want them cut out. 
 
 Horace: Humph. 
 
 After a pause: 
 
 Horace: There's a lot of good body cord-wood in that oak on 
 the knoll. 
 
 Myself: Cord-wood! Why, that oak is the treasure of the 
 
12 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 whole farm. I have never seen a finer one. I could not think of 
 cutting it. 
 
 Horace: It will bring you fifteen or twenty dollars cash in 
 hand. 
 
 Myself: But I rather have the oak. 
 
 Horace: Humph. 
 
 So our conversation continued for some time. I let Horace 
 know that I preferred rail fences, even old ones, to a wire fence, 
 and that I thought a farm should not be too large, else it might 
 keep one away from his friends. And what, I asked, is corn com- 
 pared with a friend.? Oh, I grew really oratorical! I gave it as my 
 opinion that there should be vines around the house (Waste of 
 time, said Horace), and that no farmer should permit anyone 
 to paint medicine advertisements on his barn (Brings you ten 
 dollars a year, said Horace), and that I proposed to fix the 
 bridge on the lower road (What's a path-master for? asked 
 Horace). I said that a town was a useful adjunct for a farm; but 
 I laid it down as a principle that no town should be too near a 
 farm. I finally became so enthusiastic in setting forth my con- 
 ceptions of a true farm that I reduced Horace to a series of 
 humphs. The early humphs were incredulous, but as I pro- 
 ceeded, with some joy, they became humorously contemptuous, 
 and finally began to voice a large, comfortable, condescending 
 tolerance. I could fairly feel Horace growing superior as he sat 
 there beside me. Oh, he had everything in his favour. He could 
 prove what he said: One tree + one thicket = twenty dollars. 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 13 
 
 One landscape = ten cords of wood = a quarter-acre of corn = 
 twenty dollars. These equations prove themselves. Moreover, 
 was not Horace the "best off" of any farmer in the country? 
 Did he not have the largest barn and the best corn silo? And 
 are there better arguments ? 
 
 Have you ever had anyone give you up as hopeless? And is 
 it not a pleasure? It is only after people resign you to your 
 fate that you really make friends of them. For how can you 
 win the friendship of one who is trying to convert you to his 
 superior beliefs? 
 
 As we talked, then, Horace and I, I began to have hopes of 
 him. There is no joy comparable to the making of a friend, and 
 the more resistant the material the greater the triumph. Baxter, 
 the carpenter, says that when he works for enjoyment he 
 chooses curly maple. 
 
 When Horace set me down at my gate that afternoon he gave 
 me his hand and told me that he would look in on me occasion- 
 ally, and that if I had any trouble to let him know. 
 
 A few days later I heard by the round-about telegraph com- 
 mon in country neighbourhoods that Horace had found a good 
 deal of fun in reporting what I said about farming and that 
 he had called me by a highly humorous but disparaging name. 
 Horace has a vein of humour all his own. I have caught him 
 alone in his fields chuckHng to himself, and even breaking out 
 in a loud laugh at the memory of some amusing incident that 
 happened ten years ago. One day, a month or more after our 
 bargain, Horace came down across his field and hitched his jean- 
 clad leg over my fence, with the intent, I am sure, of delving a 
 little more in the same rich mine of humour. 
 
 "Horace," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "did you call 
 me an — Agriculturist!" 
 
 I have rarely seen a man so pitifully confused as Horace was 
 at that moment. He flushed, he stammered, he coughed, the 
 perspiration broke out on his forehead. He tried to speak 
 and could not. I was sorry for him. 
 
 "Horace," I said, "you're a Farmer." 
 
 We looked at each other a moment with dreadful seriousness, 
 
14 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 and then both of us laughed to the point of holding our sides. 
 We slapped our knees, we shouted, we wriggled, we almost 
 rolled with merriment. Horace put out his hand and we shook 
 heartily. In five minutes I had the whole story of his humorous 
 reports out of him. 
 
 No real friendship is ever made without an initial clashing 
 which discloses the metal of each to each. Since that day 
 Horace's jean-clad leg has rested many a time on my fence 
 and we have talked crops and calves. We have been the best 
 of friends in the way of whifHe-trees, butter tubs and pig kill- 
 ings — but never once looked up together at the sky. 
 
 The chief objection to a joke in the country is that it is so 
 imperishable. There is so much room for jokes and so few 
 jokes to fill it. When I see Horace approaching with a pecuUar, 
 friendly, reminiscent smile on his face I hasten with all ardour 
 to anticipate him: 
 
 "Horace," I exclaim, "you're a Farmer." 
 
"The heat and sweat of the hay fields' 
 
 III 
 
 THE JOY OF POSSESSION 
 
 'How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees: 
 How graceful climb these shadows on my hilL" 
 
 Ala 
 
 -WAYS as I travel, I think, "Here I am, let anything happen!" 
 I do not want to know the future; knowledge is too certain, 
 too cold, too real. 
 
 It is true that I have not always met the fine adventure nor 
 won the friend, but if I had, what should I have more to look 
 for at other turnings and other hilltops ? 
 
 The afternoon of my purchase was one of the great after- 
 noons of my Hfe. When Horace put me down at my gate, I did 
 not go at once to the house; I did not wish, then, to talk with 
 Harriet. The things I had with myself were too important. I 
 skulked toward my barn, compelling myself to walk slowly 
 until I reached the corner, where I broke into an eager run 
 as though the old Nick himself were after me. Behind the barn 
 I dropped down on the grass, panting with laughter, and not 
 without some of the shame a man feels at being a boy. Close 
 along the side of the barn, as I sat there in the cool of the shade, I 
 could see a tangled mat of smartweed and catnip, and the 
 boards of the barn, brown and weather-beaten, and the gables 
 
 IS 
 
16 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 above with mud swallows' nests, now deserted; and it struck 
 me suddenly, as I observed these homely pleasant things: 
 
 "All this is mine." 
 
 I sprang up and drew a long breath. 
 
 "Mine," I said. 
 
 It came to me then like an inspiration that I might now go 
 out and take formal possession of my farm. I might experience 
 the emotion of a landowner. I might swell with dignity and 
 importance — for once, at least. 
 
 So I started at the fence corner back of the barn and walked 
 straight up through the pasture, keeping close to my boundaries, 
 that I might not miss a single rod of my acres. And oh, it was 
 a prime afternoon! The Lord made it! Sunshine— and autumn 
 haze — and red trees — and yellow fields — and blue distances 
 above the far-away town. And the air had a tang which got into 
 a man's blood and set him chanting all the poetry he ever knew. 
 
 "1 climb that was a clod, 
 
 I run whose steps were slow, 
 I reap the very wheat of God 
 That once had none to sowl" 
 
 So I walked up the margin of my field looking broadly about 
 me: and presently, I began to examine my fences — my fences — 
 with a critical eye. I considered the quality of the soil, though 
 in truth I was not much of a judge of such matters. I gloated 
 over my plowed land, lying there open and passive in the sun- 
 shine. I said of this tree : "It is mine," and of its companion be- 
 yond the fence: "It is my neighbour's." Deeply and sharply 
 within myself I drew the line between meum and tuum: for 
 only thus, by comparing ourselves with our neighbours, can 
 we come to the true realisation of property. Occasionally I 
 stopped to pick up a stone and cast it over the fence, thinking 
 with some truculence that my neighbour would probably 
 throw it back again. Never mind, I had it out of my field. Once, 
 with eager surplusage of energy, I pulled down a dead and 
 partly rotten oak stub, long an eye-sore, with an important 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 17 
 
 feeling of proprietorship. I could do anything I liked. The 
 farm was mine. 
 
 How sweet an emotion is possession! What charm is inherent 
 in ownership! What a foundation for vanity, even for the 
 greater quality of self-respect, lies in a little property! I fell 
 to thinking of the excellent wording of the old books in which 
 land is called "real property," or "real estate." Money we may 
 possess, or goods or chattels, but they give no such impression 
 of mineness as the feeling that one's feet rest upon soil that is 
 his: that part of the deep earth is his with all the water upon 
 it, all small animals that creep or crawl in the holes of it, all 
 birds or insects that fly in the air above it, all trees, shrubs, flow- 
 ers, and grass that grow upon it, all houses, barns and fences — 
 all, his. As I strode along that afternoon I fed upon possession. 
 I rolled the sweet morsel of ownership under my tongue. I 
 seemed to set my feet down more firmly on the good earth. I 
 straightened my shoulders: this land was mine. I picked up a 
 clod of earth and let it crumble and drop through my fingers: 
 it gave me a peculiar and poignant feeling of possession. I can 
 understand why the miser enjoys the very physical contact of his 
 gold. Every sense I possessed, sight, hearing, smell, touch, fed 
 upon the new joy. 
 
 At one corner of my upper field the fence crosses an abrupt 
 ravine upon leggy stilts. My line skirts the slope halfway up. 
 My neighbour owns the crown of the hill which he has shorn 
 until it resembles the tonsured pate of a monk. Every rain 
 brings the light soil down the ravine and lays it like a hand of 
 infertility upon my farm. It had always bothered me, this 
 wastage; and as I looked across my fence I thought to myself: 
 
 "I must have that hill. I will buy it. I will set the fence farther 
 up. I will plant the slope. It is no age of tonsures either in 
 religion or agriculture." 
 
 The very vision of widened acres set my thoughts on fire. 
 In imagination I extended my farm upon all sides, thinking 
 how much better I could handle my land than my neighbours. 
 I dwelt avariciously upon more possessions: I thought with 
 discontent of my poverty. More land I wanted. I was enveloped 
 
18 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 in clouds of envy. I coveted my neighbour's land: I felt my- 
 self superior and Horace inferior: I was consumed v^ith black 
 
 vanity. 
 
 So I dealt hotly v^ith these thoughts until I reached the top 
 of the ridge at the farther corner of my land. It is the highest 
 point on the farm. 
 
 For a moment I stood looking about me on a v^^onderful pros- 
 pect of serene beauty. As it came to me— hills, fields, v^oods— 
 the fever which had been consuming me died down. I thought 
 how the world stretched away from my fences— just such fields 
 —for a thousand miles, and in each small enclosure a man as 
 hot as I with the passion of possession. How they all envied, and 
 hated, in their longing for more land! How property kept 
 them apart, prevented the close, confident touch of friendship, 
 how it separated lovers and ruined families! Of all obstacles 
 to that complete democracy of which we dream, is there a greater 
 than property? 
 
 I was ashamed. Deep shame covered me. How Uttle of the 
 earth, after all, I said, hes within the Hmits of my fences. And I 
 looked out upon the perfect beauty of the world around me, 
 and I saw how little excited it was, how placid, how unde- 
 manding. 
 
 I had come here to be free and already this farm, which I 
 thought of so fondly as my possession, was coming to possess 
 me. Ownership is an appetite like hunger or thirst, and as we 
 may eat to gluttony and drink to drunkenness so we may 
 possess to avarice. How many men have I seen who, though 
 they regard themselves as models of temperance, wear the 
 marks of unbridled indulgence of the passion of possession, and 
 how like gluttony or Ucentiousness it sets its sure sign upon 
 their faces. 
 
 I said to myself. Why should any man fence himself in? 
 And why hope to enlarge one's world by the creeping acquisi- 
 tion of a few acres to his farm? I thought of the old scientist, 
 who, laying his hand upon the grass, remarked: "Everything 
 under my hand is a miracle"— forgetting that everything out- 
 side was also a miracle. 
 
19 
 
20 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 As I stood there I glanced across the broad valley wherein 
 lies the most of my farm, to the field of buckwheat which be- 
 longs to Horace. For an instant it gave me the illusion of a hill 
 on fire: for the late sun shone full on the thick ripe stalks 
 of the buckwheat, giving forth an abundant red glory that 
 blessed the eye. Horace had been proud of his crop, smacking 
 his lips at the prospect of winter pancakes, and here I was 
 entering his field and taking without hindrance another crop, a 
 crop gathered not with hands nor stored in granaries : a wonder- 
 ful crop, which, once gathered, may long be fed upon and 
 yet remain unconsumed. 
 
 So I looked across the countryside; a group of elms here, a 
 tufted hilltop there, the smooth verdure of pastures, the rich 
 brown of new-plowed fields — and the odours, and the sounds 
 of the country — all cropped by me. How little the fences keep 
 me out: I do not regard titles, nor consider boundaries. I enter 
 either by day or by night, but not secretly. Taking my fill, I leave 
 as much as I find. 
 
 And thus standing upon the highest hill in my upper pasture, 
 I thought of the quoted saying of a certain old abbot of the 
 middle ages — "He that is a true monk considers nothing as 
 belonging to him except a lyre." 
 
 What finer spirit? Who shall step forth freer than he who 
 goes with nothing save his lyre? He shall sing as he goes: he 
 shall not be held down nor fenced in. 
 
 With a lifting of the soul I thought of that old abbot, how 
 smooth his brow, how catholic his interest, how serene his out- 
 look, how free his friendships, how unHmited his whole life. 
 Nothing but a lyre! 
 
 So I made a covenant there with myself. I said: "I shall use, 
 not be used. I do not limit myself here. I shall not allow pos- 
 sessions to come between me and my life or my friends." 
 
 For a time— how long I do not know— I stood thinking. 
 Presently I discovered, moving slowly along the margin of the 
 field below me, the old professor with his tin botany box. And 
 somehow I had no feeling that he was intruding upon my new 
 land. His walk was slow and methodical, his head and even 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 21 
 
 his shoulders were bent — almost habitually — ^from looking close 
 upon the earth, and from time to time he stooped, and once 
 he knelt to examine some object that attracted his eye. It 
 seemed appropriate that he should thus kneel to the earth. So he 
 gathered his crop and fences did not keep him out nor titles 
 disturb him. He also was free! It gave me at that moment a 
 pecuHar pleasure to have him on my land, to know that I was, 
 if unconsciously, raising other crops than I knew. I felt friend- 
 ship for this old professor: I could understand him, I thought. 
 And I said aloud but in a low tone, as though I were addressing 
 him: 
 
 — Do not apologise, friend, when you come into my field. 
 You do not interrupt me. What you have come for is of more im- 
 portance at this moment than corn. Who is it that says I must 
 plow so many furrows this day? Come in, friend, and sit here 
 on these clods: we will sweeten the evening with fine words. We 
 will invest our time not in corn, or in cash, but in life. — 
 
 I walked with confidence down the hill toward the professor. 
 So engrossed was he with his employment that he did not see 
 me until I was within a few paces of him. When he looked up 
 at me it was as though his eyes returned from some far journey. 
 I felt at first out of focus, unplaced, and only gradually coming 
 into view. In his hand he held a lump of earth containing a 
 thrifty young plant of the purple cone-flower, having several 
 blossoms. He worked at the lump deftly, deUcately, so that the 
 earth, pinched, powdered and shaken out, fell between his 
 fingers, leaving the knotty yellow roots in his hand. I marked 
 how firm, slow, brown, the old man was, how Uttle obtrusive in 
 my field. One foot rested in a furrow, the other was set among 
 the grass of the margin, near the fence — his place, I thought. 
 
 His first words, though of little moment in themselves, gave 
 me a curious satisfaction, as when a coin, tested, rings true gold, 
 or a hero, tried, is heroic. 
 
 "I have rarely," he said, "seen a finer display of rudbeckia 
 than this, along these old fences." 
 
 If he had referred to me, or questioned, or apologised, I 
 should have been disappointed. He did not say, "your fences," 
 
22 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 he said "these fences," as though they were as much his as mine. 
 And he spoke in his own world, knowing that if I could enter 
 I would, but that if I could not, no stooping to me would avail 
 either of us. 
 
 "It has been a good autumn for flowers," I said inanely, for 
 so many things were flying through my mind that I could not 
 at once think of the great particular words which should bring 
 us together. At first I thought my chance had passed, but he 
 seemed to see something in me after all, for he said : 
 
 "Here is a peculiarly large specimen of the rudbeckia. Ob- 
 serve the deep purple of the cone, and the bright yellow of the 
 petals. Here is another that grew hardly two feet away, in the 
 grass near the fence where the rails and the blackberry bushes 
 have shaded it. How small and undeveloped it is." 
 
 "They crowd up to the plowed land," I observed. 
 
 "Yes, they reach out for a better chance in life — like men. With 
 more room, better food, freer air, you see how much finer they 
 grow." 
 
 It was curious to me, having hitherto barely observed the cone- 
 flowers along my fences, save as a colour of beauty, how simple 
 we fell to talking of them as though in truth they were people 
 like ourselves, having our desires and possessed of our capabili- 
 ties. It gave me then, for the first time, the feehng which has 
 since meant such varied enjoyment, of the peopling of the 
 woods. 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 23 
 
 "See here," he said, "how different the character of these 
 individuals. They are all of the same species. They all grow 
 along this fence within two or three rods; but observe the 
 difference not only in size but in colouring, in the shape of 
 the petals, in the proportions of the cone. What does it all 
 mean? Why, nature trying one of her endless experiments. 
 She sows here broadly, trying to produce better cone-flowers. A 
 few she plants on the edge of the field in the hope that they may 
 escape the plow. If they grow, better food and more sunshine 
 produce more and larger flowers." 
 
 So we talked, or rather he talked, finding in me an eager 
 listener. And what he called botany seemed to me to be life. 
 Of birth, of growth, of reproduction, of death, he spoke, and 
 his flowers became sentient creatures under my eyes. 
 
 And thus the sun went down and the purple mists crept 
 silently along the distant low spots, and all the great, great mys- 
 teries came and stood before me beckoning and questioning. 
 They came and they stood, and out of the cone-flower, as the 
 old professor spoke, I seemed to catch a glimmer of the true 
 light. I reflected how truly everything is in anything. If one 
 could really understand a cone-flower he could understand this 
 Earth. Botany was only one road toward the Explanation. 
 
 Always I hope that some traveller may have more news of the 
 way than I, and sooner or later, I find I must make inquiry of 
 the direction of every thoughtful man I meet. And I have al- 
 ways had especial hope of those who study the sciences: they 
 ask such intimate questions of nature. Theology possesses a 
 vain-gloriousness which places its faith in human theories; but 
 science, at its best, is humble before nature herself. It has no 
 thesis to defend: it is content to kneel upon the earth, in the 
 way of my friend, the old professor, and ask the simplest ques- 
 tions, hoping for some true reply. 
 
 I wondered, then, what the professor thought, after his years 
 of work, of the Mystery; and finally, not without confusion, I 
 asked him. He listened, for the first time ceasing to dig, shake 
 out and arrange his specimens. When I had stopped speaking 
 he remained for a moment silent, then he looked ?^ me^ with a 
 
24 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 new regard. Finally he quoted quietly, but with a deep note in 
 his voice: 
 
 "Canst thou by searching find God? Canst thou find out the Al- 
 mighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven: what canst thou do? 
 deeper than hell, what canst thou know?" 
 
 When the professor had spoken we stood for a moment 
 silent, then he smiled and said briskly: 
 
 "I have been a botanist for fifty-four years. When I was a 
 boy I believed impHcitly in God. I prayed to him, having a vision 
 of him — a person — before my eyes. As I grew older I concluded 
 that there was no God. I dismissed him from the universe. I 
 believed only in what I could see, or hear, or feel. I talked 
 about Nature and ReaUty." 
 
 He paused, the smile still lighting his face, evidently recalling 
 to himself the old days. I did not interrupt him. Finally he 
 turned to me and said abruptly, 
 
 "And now — it seems to me — there is nothing but God." 
 
 As he said this he lifted his arm with a pecuUar gesture that 
 seemed to take in the whole world. 
 
 For a time we were both silent. When I left him I offered my 
 hand and told him I hoped I might become his friend. So I 
 turned my face toward home. Evening was falling, and as I 
 walked I heard the crows calling, and the air was keen and 
 cool, and I thought deep thoughts. 
 
 And so I stepped into the darkened stable. I could not see 
 the outlines of the horse or the cow, but knowing the place so 
 well I could easily get about. I heard the horse step aside with 
 a soft expectant whinny. I smelled the smell of milk, the musty, 
 sharp odour of dry hay, the pungent smell of manure, not un- 
 pleasant. And the stable was warm after the cool of the fields 
 with a sort of animal warmth that struck into me soothingly. I 
 spoke in a low voice and laid my hand on the horse's flank. The 
 flesh quivered and shrunk away from my touch— coming back 
 confidently, warmly. I ran my hand along his back and up his 
 hairy neck. I felt his sensitive nose in my hand. "You shall have 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 25 
 
 your oats," I said, and I gave him to eat. Then I spoke as gently 
 to the cow, and she stood aside to be milked. 
 
 And afterward I came out into the clear bright night, and the 
 air was sweet and cool, and my dog came bounding to meet me, 
 — So I carried the milk into the house, and Harriet said in her 
 heartiest tone: 
 
 "You are late, David. But sit up, I have kept the biscuits 
 warm." 
 
 And that night my sleep was sound. 
 
IV 
 
 ENTERTAIN AN AGENT UNAWARES 
 
 Wn 
 
 iTH THE COMING OF WINTER I thought the life of a farmer 
 might lose something of its charm. So much interest lies in the 
 growth not only of crops but of trees, vines, flowers, sentiments 
 and emotions. In the summer the world is busy, concerned 
 with many things and full of gossip : in the winter I anticipated 
 a cessation of many active interests and enthusiasms. I looked 
 forward to having time for my books and for the quiet contem- 
 plation of the life around me. Summer indeed is for activity, 
 winter for reflection. But when winter really came every day 
 discovered some new work to do or some new adventure to 
 enjoy. It is surprising how many things happen on a small farm. 
 Examining the book which accounts for that winter, I find the 
 history of part of a forenoon, which will illustrate one of 
 the curious adventures of a farmer's life. It is dated January 5. 
 
 I went out this morning with my axe and hammer to mend the 
 fence along the public road. A heavy frost fell last night and 
 the brown grass and the dry ruts of the roads were powdered 
 white. Even the air, which was perfectly still, seemed full of 
 frost crystals, so that when the sun came up one seemed to walk 
 in a magic world. I drew in a long breath and looked out across 
 the wonderful shining country and I said to myself: 
 
 "Surely, there is nowhere I would rather be than here." For 
 I could have travelled nowhere to find greater beauty or a better 
 enjoyment of it than I had here at home. 
 
 26 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 27 
 
 As I worked with my axe and hammer, I heard a Hght wagon 
 come ratthng up the road. Across the valley a man had begun 
 to chop a tree. I could see the axe steel flash brilliantly in the 
 sunshine before I heard the sound o£ the blow. 
 
 The man in the wagon had a round face and a sharp blue 
 eye. I thought he seemed a businesslike young man. 
 
 "Say, there," he shouted, drawing up at my gate, "would you 
 mind holding my horse a minute ? It's a cold morning and he's 
 restless." 
 
 "Certainly not," I said, and I put down my tools and held his. 
 horse. 
 
 He walked up to my door with a brisk step and a certain 
 jaunty poise of the head. 
 
 "He is well contented with himself," I said. "It is a great 
 blessing for any man to be satisfied with what he has got." 
 
 I heard Harriet open the door — how every sound rang throughi 
 the still morning air! 
 
 The young man asked some question and I distinctly heard 
 Harriet's answer: 
 
 "He's down there." 
 
 The young man came back: his hat was tipped up, his quick 
 eye darted over my grounds as though in a single instant he had 
 appraised everything and passed judgment upon the cash value 
 of the inhabitants. He whistled a lively Uttle tune. 
 
 "Say," he said, when he reached the gate, not at all discon- 
 certed, "I thought you was the hired man. Your name's Grayson,, 
 ain't it? Well, I want to talk with you." 
 
 After tying and blanketing his horse and taking a black 
 satchel from his buggy he led me up to my house. I had a 
 pleasurable sense of excitement and adventure. Here was a 
 new character come to my farm. Who knows, I thought, what 
 he may bring with him: who knows what I may send away by 
 him? Here in the country we must set our little ships afloat on 
 small streams, hoping that somehow, some day, they will 
 reach the sea. 
 
 It was interesting to see the busy young man sit down sa 
 confidently in our best chair. He said his name was Dixon, and 
 
28 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 he took out from his satchel a book with a line showy coven 
 He said it was called "Living Selections from Poet, Sage and 
 Humourist." 
 
 "This," he told me, "is only the first of the series. We publish 
 six volumes full of hterchoor. You see what a heavy book this 
 is?" 
 
 I tested it in my hand; it was a heavy book. 
 
 "The entire set," he said, "weighs over ten pounds. There are 
 1,162 pages, enough paper if laid down flat, end to end, to reach 
 half a mile." 
 
 I cannot quote his exact language: there was too much of it, 
 but he made an impressive showing of the amount of literature 
 that could be had at a very low price per pound. Mr. Dixon was 
 a hypnotist. He fixed me with his glittering eye, and he talked 
 so fast, and his ideas upon the subject were so original that he 
 held me spellbound. At first I was inclined to be provoked; 
 one does not like to be forcibly hypnotised, but gradually the 
 situation began to amuse me, the more so when Harriet 
 came in. 
 
 "Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?" asked the 
 agent, holding his book admiringly at arm's length. "This up 
 here," he said, pointing to the illuminated cover, "is the Muse 
 of Poetry. She is scattering flowers — poems, you know. Fine 
 idea, ain't it? Colouring fine, too." 
 
 He jumped up quickly and laid the book on my table, to the 
 evident distress of Harriet. 
 
 "Trims up the room, don't it?" he exclaimed, turning his 
 head a Httle to one side and observing the effect with an ex- 
 pression of affectionate admiration. 
 
 "How much," I asked, "will you sell the covers for without 
 the insides?" 
 
 "Without the insides?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "the binding will trim up my table just as well 
 without the insides." 
 
 I thought he looked at me a little suspiciously, but he was evi- 
 dently satisfied by my expression of countenance, for he an- 
 swered promptly: 
 
 ^ 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 29 
 
 "Oh, but you want the insides. That's what the books are 
 for. The bindings are never sold alone." 
 
 He then went on to tell me the prices and terms of payment, 
 until it really seemed that it would be cheaper to buy the books 
 than to let him carry them away again. Harriet stood in the 
 doorway behind him frowning and evidently trying to catch my 
 eye. But I kept my face turned aside so that I could not see her 
 signal of distress and my eyes fixed on the young man Dixon. 
 It was as good as a play. Harriet there, serious-minded, thinking 
 I was being befooled, and the agent thinking he was befooling 
 me, and I, thinking I was befooHng both of them — and all of 
 us wrong. It was very like life wherever you find it. 
 
 Finally, I took the book which he had been urging upon me, 
 at which Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. 
 She knew the danger when I really got my hands on a book. 
 But I made up as innocent as a child. I opened the book almost 
 at random— and it was as though, walking down a strange road, 
 I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before in years. 
 For there on the page before me I read: 
 
 "The world is too much with us; late and soon, 
 Getting and spending we lay waste our powers: 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours; 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 
 The sea that bares her bosom to the moon; 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
 But are up-gathered now li\e sleeping flowers; 
 For this, for everything, we are out of tune; 
 It moves us not." 
 
 And as I read it came back to me — a scene like a picture — 
 the place, the time, the very feel of the hour when I first saw 
 those lines. Who shall say that the past does not live! An odour 
 will sometimes set the blood coursing in an old emotion, and a 
 line of poetry is the resurrection and the life. For a moment I 
 forgot Harriet and the agent, I forgot myself, I even forgot 
 the book on my knee — everything but that hour in the past — a 
 view of shimmering hot housetops, the heat and dust and 
 
30 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 noise of an August evening in the city, the dumb weariness of it 
 all, the loneliness, the longing for green fields; and then these 
 great lines of Wordsworth, read for the first time, flooding in 
 upon me: 
 
 "Great God! I'd rather be 
 A pagan suc\led in a creed outworn: 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 Have glimpses that would ma\e me less forlorn; 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 
 And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 
 
 When I had finished I found myself standing in my own 
 room with one arm raised, and, I suspect, a trace of tears in 
 my eyes — there before the agent and Harriet. I saw Harriet lift 
 one hand and drop it hopelessly. She thought I was captured 
 at last. I was past saving. And as I looked at the agent I saw 
 "grim conquest glowing in his eye!" So I sat down not a little 
 embarrassed by my exhibition — when I had intended to be 
 self-poised. 
 
 "You like it, don't you?" said Mr. Dixon unctuously. 
 
 "I don't see," I said earnestly, "how you can afford to sell such 
 things as this so cheap." 
 
 "They are cheap," he admitted regretfully. I suppose he wished 
 he had tried me with the half-morocco. 
 
 "They are priceless," I said, "absolutely priceless. If you were 
 the only man in the world who had that poem, I think I would 
 deed you my farm for it." 
 
 Mr. Dixon proceeded, as though it were all settled, to get out 
 his black order book and open it briskly for business. He drew 
 his fountain pen, capped it, and looked up at me expectantly. 
 My feet actually seemed slipping into some irresistible whirl- 
 pool. How well he understood practical psychology! I struggled 
 within myself, fearing engulfment: I was all but lost. 
 
 "Shall I dehver the set at once," he said, "or can you wait 
 until the first of February?" 
 
 At that critical moment a floating spar of an idea swept my 
 way and I seized upon it as the last hope of the lost. 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
 
 31 
 
 "Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?" 
 
 "I don't understand," I said, as though I had not heard his last 
 question, "how you dare go about with all this treasure upon 
 you. Are you not afraid of being stopped in the road and 
 robbed? Why, I've seen the time when, if I had known you 
 carried such things as these, such cures for sick hearts, I think 
 I should have stopped you myself!" 
 
 "Say, you are an odd one," said Mr. Dixon. 
 
 "Why do you sell such priceless things as these?" I asked, 
 looking at him sharply. 
 
 "Why do I sell them?" and he looked still more perplexed. 
 "To make money, of course; same reason you raise corn." 
 
32 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "But here is wealth," I said, pursuing my advantage. "I£ 
 you have these you have something more valuable than money." 
 
 Mr. Dixon politely said nothing. Like a wise angler, having 
 failed to land me at the first rush, he let me have Hne. Then I 
 thought of Ruskin's words, "Nor can any noble thing be wealth 
 except to a noble person." And that prompted me to say to 
 Mr. Dixon : 
 
 "These things are not yours; they are mine. You never owned 
 them; but I will sell them to you." 
 
 He looked at me in amazement, and then glanced around— ^ 
 evidently to discover if there were a convenient way of escape 
 
 "You're all straight, are you?" he asked, tapping his forehead; 
 "didn't anybody ever try to take you up?" 
 
 "The covers are yours," I continued as though I had not 
 heard him, "the insides are mine and have been for a long time: 
 that is why I proposed buying the covers separately." 
 
 I opened his book again. I thought I would see what had 
 been chosen for its pages. And I found there many fine and 
 great things. 
 
 "Let me read you this," I said to Mr. Dixon; "it has been mine 
 for a long time. I will not sell it to you. I will give it to you out- 
 right. The best things are always given." 
 
 Having some gift in imitating the Scotch dialect, I read : 
 
 "November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; 
 
 The short' fling winter day is near a close; 
 The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; 
 
 The blacJ(ning trains o' craws to their repose: 
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, 
 
 This night his wee\ly moil is at an end, 
 Collects his spades, his mattoc\s and his hoes, 
 
 Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend. 
 And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend" 
 
 So I read "The Cotter's Saturday Night." I love the poem very 
 much myself, sometimes reading it aloud, not so much for the 
 tenderness of its message, though I prize that, too, as for the 
 wonder of its music: 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 33 
 
 " Com par' d with these, Italian trills are tame; 
 The tic\rd ear no heart-felt raptures raise." 
 
 I suppose I showed my feeling in my voice. As I glanced up 
 from time to time I saw the agent's face change, and his look 
 deepen and the Hps, usually so energetically tense, loosen with 
 emotion. Surely no poem in all the language conveys so perfectly 
 
 the simple love of the home, the quiet joys, hopes, pathos of 
 those who live close to the soil. 
 When I had finished — I stopped with the stanza beginning: 
 
 "Then homeward all ta\e off their sev'ral way"; 
 
 the agent turned away his head trying to brave out his emo- 
 tion. Most of us, Anglo-Saxons, tremble before a tear when we 
 might fearlessly beard a tiger. 
 
 I moved up nearer to the agent and put my hand on his knee; 
 then I read two or three of the other things I found in his won- 
 derful book. And once I had him laughing and once again I had 
 the tears in his eyes. Oh, a simple young man, a little crusty with- 
 out, but soft inside — like the rest of us. 
 
 Well, it was amazing once we began talking not of books but 
 of life, how really eloquent and human he became. From being 
 a distant and uncomfortable person, he became at once like a 
 
34 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 near neighbour and friend. It was strange to me — as I have 
 thought since — how he conveyed to us in a few words the 
 essential emotional note of his life. It was no vioUn tone, beauti- 
 fully complex with harmonics, but the clear simple voice of the 
 flute. It spoke of his wife and his baby girl and his home. The 
 very incongruity of detail — he told us how he grew onions in 
 his back yard — added somehow to the homely glamour of the 
 vision which he gave us. The number of his house, the fact 
 that he had a new cottage organ, and that the baby ran away 
 and lost herself in Seventeenth Street— were all, curiously, 
 fabrics of his emotion. 
 
 It was beautiful to see commonplace facts grow phosphor- 
 escent in the heat of true feeling. How Httle we may come to 
 know Romance by the cloak she wears and how humble must 
 be he who would surprise the heart of her! 
 
 It was, indeed, with an indescribable thrill that I heard him 
 add the details, one by one— the mortgage on his place, now 
 rapidly being paid off, the brother who was a plumber, the 
 mother-in-law who was not a mother-in-law of the comic papers. 
 And finally he showed us the picture of the wife and baby that 
 he had in the cover of his watch; a fat baby with its head resting 
 on its mother's shoulder. 
 
 "Mister," he said, "p'raps you think it's fun to ride around the 
 country like I do, and be away from home most of the time. But 
 it ain't. When I think of Minnie and the kid " 
 
 He broke off sharply, as if he had suddenly remembered the 
 shame of such confidences. 
 
 "Say," he asked, "what page is that poem on?" 
 
 I told him. 
 
 "One forty-six," he said. "When I get home I'm going to read 
 that to Minnie. She Ukes poetry and all such things. And 
 where's that other piece that tells how a man feels when he's 
 lonesome? Say, that fellow knew!" 
 
 We had a genuinely good time, the agent and I, and when 
 he finally rose to go, I said: 
 
 "Well, I've sold you a new book." 
 
 "I see now, mister, what you mean." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 35 
 
 I went down the path with him and began to unhitch his 
 horse. 
 
 "Let me, let me," he said eagerly. 
 
 Then he shook hands, paused a moment awkwardly as if 
 about to say something, then sprang into his buggy without say- 
 ing it. 
 
 When he had taken up his reins he remarked: 
 
 "Say! but you'd make an agent! You'd hypnotise 'em." 
 
 I recognised it as the greatest compliment he could pay me: 
 the craft compliment. 
 
 Then he drove off, but pulled up before he had gone five 
 yards. He turned in his seat, one hand on the back of it, his 
 whip raised. 
 
 "Say!" he shouted, and when I walked up he looked at me 
 with fine embarrassment. 
 
 "Mister, perhaps you'd accept one of these sets from Dixon 
 free gratis, for nothing." 
 
 "I understand," I said, "but you know I'm giving the books 
 to you — and I couldn't take them back again." 
 
 "Well," he said, "you're a good one, anyhow. Good-bye again," 
 and then, suddenly, business naturally coming uppermost, he 
 remarked with great enthusiasm: 
 
 "You've given me a new idea. Say, I'll sell 'em." 
 
 "Carry them carefully, man," I called after him; "they are 
 precious." 
 
 So I went back to my work, thinking how many fine people 
 there are in this world — if you scratch 'em deep enough. 
 
'Horace 'hefted' it' 
 
 THE AXE-HELVE 
 
 April the i^th, 
 
 Xhis morning I broke my old axe handle. I went out early 
 while the fog still filled the valley and the air was cool and moist 
 as it had come fresh from the filter of the night. I drew a long 
 breath and let my axe fall with all the force I could give it upon 
 a new oak log. I swung it unnecessarily high for the joy of 
 doing it and when it struck it communicated a sharp yet not 
 unpleasant sting to the palms of my hands. The handle broke 
 short off at the point where the helve meets the steel. The 
 blade was driven deep in the oak wood. I suppose I should have 
 regretted my fooUshness, but I did not. The handle was old 
 and somewhat worn, and the accident gave me an indefinable 
 satisfaction: the culmination of use, that final destruction which 
 is the complement of great effort. 
 
 This feeling was also partly prompted by the thought of the 
 new helve I already had in store, awaiting just such a catastrophe. 
 
 36 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 37 
 
 Having come somewhat painfully by that helve, I really wanted 
 to see it in use. 
 
 Last spring, walking in my fields, I looked out along the 
 fences for a well-fitted young hickory tree of thrifty second 
 growth, bare of knots at least head high, without the cracks or 
 fissures of too rapid growth or the doziness of early trans- 
 gression. What I desired was a fine, healthy tree fitted for a 
 great purpose and I looked for it as I would look for a perfect 
 man to save a failing cause. At last I found a sapUng growing 
 in one of the sheltered angles of my rail fence. It was set about 
 by dry grass, overhung by a much larger cherry tree, and bear- 
 ing still its withered last year's leaves, worn diaphanous but 
 curled delicately, and of a most beautiful ash gray colour, 
 something like the fabric of a wasp's nest, only yellower. I gave 
 it a shake and it sprung quickly under my hand like the muscle 
 of a good horse. Its bark was smooth and trim, its bole well set 
 and soUd. 
 
 A perfect tree! So I came up again with my short axe and after 
 clearing away the grass and leaves with which the wind had 
 mulched it, I cut into the clean white roots. I had no twinge 
 of compunction, for was this not fulfillment? Nothing comes 
 of sorrow for worthy sacrifice. When I had laid the tree low, I 
 clipped off the lower branches, snapped off the top with a single 
 clean stroke of the axe, and shouldered as pretty a second- 
 growth sapling stick as anyone ever laid his eyes upon. 
 
 I carried it down to my barn and put it on the open rafters 
 over the cow stalls. A cow stable is warm and not too dry, so 
 that a hickory log cures slowly without cracking or checking. 
 There it lay for many weeks. Often I cast my eyes up at it with 
 satisfaction, watching the bark shrink and slightly deepen in 
 colour, and once I cHmbed up where I could see the minute 
 seams making way in the end of the stick. 
 
 In the summer I brought the stick into the house, and put it 
 in the dry, warm storeroom over the kitchen where I keep my 
 seed corn. I do not suppose it really needed further attention, but 
 sometimes when I chanced to go into the storeroom, I turned it 
 over with my foot. I felt a sort of satisfaction in knowing that 
 
38 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 it was in preparation for service: good material for useful 
 work. So it lay during the autumn and far into the winter. 
 
 One cold night when I sat comfortably at my fireplace, listen- 
 ing to the wind outside, and feeling all the ease of a man at 
 peace with himself, my mind took flight to my snowy field sides 
 and I thought of the trees there waiting and resting through 
 the winter. So I came in imagination to the particular corner in 
 the fence where I had cut my hickory sapling. Instantly I started 
 up, much to Harriet's astonishment, and made my way mys- 
 teriously up the kitchen stairs. I would not tell what I was 
 after: I felt it a sort of adventure, almost like the joy of seeing a 
 friend long forgotten. It was as if my hickory stick had cried 
 out at last, after long chrysalishood : 
 
 "I am ready." 
 
 I stood it on end and struck it sharply with my knuckles: it 
 rang out with a certain clear resonance. 
 
 "I am ready." 
 
 I sniffed at the end of it. It exhaled a peculiar good smell, as 
 of old fields in the autumn. 
 
 "I am ready." 
 
 So I took it under my arm and carried it down. 
 
 "Mercy, what are you going to do?" exclaimed Harriet. 
 
 "Deliberately, and with malice aforethought," I responded, "I 
 am going to litter up your floor. I have decided to be reckless. 
 I don't care what happens." 
 
 Having made this declaration, which Harriet received with 
 becoming disdain, I laid the log by the fireplace — not too near 
 — and went to fetch a saw, a hammer, a small wedge, and a 
 draw-shave. 
 
 I spHt my log into as fine white sections as a man ever saw — 
 every piece as straight as morality, and without so much as a 
 sliver to mar it. Nothing is so satisfactory as to have a task come 
 out in perfect time and in good order. The Uttle pieces of bark 
 and sawdust I swept scrupulously into the fireplace, looking up 
 from time to time to see how Harriet was taking it. Harriet wai 
 5till disdainful. 
 
 Making an axe-helve is like writing a poem (though I never 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 39 
 
 wrote one). The material is free enough, but it takes a poet to 
 use it. Some people imagine that any fine thought is poetry, but 
 there was never a greater mistake. A fine thought, to become 
 poetry, must be seasoned in the upper warm garrets of the mind 
 for long and long, then it must be brought down and slowly 
 carved into words, shaped with emotion, polished with love. 
 Else it is no true poem. Some people imagine that any hickory 
 stick will make an axe-helve. But this is far from the truth. 
 When I had whittled away for several evenings with my draw- 
 shave and jack-knife, both of which I keep sharpened to the 
 keenest edge, I found that my work was not progressing as well 
 as I had hoped. 
 
 "This is more of a task," I remarked one evening, "than I had 
 imagined." 
 
 Harriet, rocking placidly in her arm-chair, was mending a 
 number of pairs of new socks. Poor Harriet! Lacking enough old 
 holes to occupy her energies, she mends holes that may possibly 
 appear. A frugal person! 
 
 "Well, David," she said, "I warned you that you could buy a 
 helve cheaper than you could make it." 
 
 "So I can buy a book cheaper than I can write it," I responded. 
 
 I felt somewhat pleased with my return shot, though I took 
 pains not to show it. I squinted along my hickory stick which 
 was even then beginning to assume, rudely, the outlines of an 
 axe-handle. I had made a prodigious pile of fine white shavings 
 and I was tired, but quite suddenly there came over me a sort 
 of love for that length of wood. I sprung it affectionately over 
 my knee, I rubbed it up and down with my hand, and then I set 
 it in the corner behind the fireplace. 
 
 "After all," I said, for I had really been disturbed by Harriet's 
 remark — "after all, power over one thing gives us power over 
 everything. When you mend socks prospectively — into futurity 
 — Harriet, that is an evidence of true greatness." 
 
 "Sometimes I think it doesn't pay," remarked Harriet, though 
 she was plainly pleased. 
 
 "Pretty good socks," I said, "can be bought for fifteen cents 
 a pair." 
 
40 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Harriet looked at me suspiciously, but I was as sober as the 
 face of nature. 
 
 For the next two or three evenings I let the axe-helve stand 
 alone in the corner. I hardly looked at it, though once in a while, 
 when occupied with some other work, I would remember, or 
 rather half remember, that I had a pleasure in store for the 
 evening. The very thought of sharp tools and something to 
 make with them acts upon the imagination with peculiar zest. 
 So we love to employ the keen edge of the mind upon a knotty 
 and difficult subject. 
 
 One evening the Scotch preacher came in. We love him very 
 much, though he sometimes makes us laugh — perhaps, in part, 
 because he makes us laugh. Externally he is a sort of human 
 cocoanut, rough, brown, shaggy, but within he has the true milk 
 of human kindness. Some of his qualities touch greatness. His 
 youth was spent in stony places where strong winds blew; the 
 trees where he grew bore thorns; the soil where he dug was full 
 of roots. But the crop was human love. He possesses that qual- 
 ity, unusual in one bred exclusively in the country, of magnanim- 
 ity toward the unlike. In the country we are tempted to throw 
 stones at strange hats! But to the Scotch preacher every man in 
 one way seems transparent to the soul. He sees the man him- 
 self, not his professions any more than his clothes. And I never 
 knew anyone who had such an abiding disbeUef in the wicked- 
 ness of the human soul. Weakness he sees and comforts; 
 wickedness he cannot see. 
 
 When he came in I was busy whittling my axe-helve, it being 
 my pleasure at that moment to make long, thin, curly shavings 
 so light that many of them were caught on the hearth and 
 bowled by the draught straight to fiery destruction. 
 
 There is a noisy zest about the Scotch preacher: he comes in 
 "stomping" as we say, he must clear his throat, he must strike 
 his hands together; he even seems noisy when he unwinds the 
 thick red tippet which he wears wound many times around his 
 neck. It takes him a long time to unwind it, and he accomplishes 
 the task with many slow gyrations of his enormous rough head. 
 When he sits down he takes merely the edge of the chair, 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 41 
 
 spreads his stout legs apart, sits as straight as a post, and blows 
 his nose with a noise like the falling of a tree. 
 
 His interest in everything is prodigious. When he saw what I 
 was doing he launched at once upon an account of the methods 
 of axe-helving, ancient and modern, with true incidents of his 
 childhood. 
 
 "Man," he exclaimed, "you've clean forgotten one of the 
 preenciple refinements of the art. When you chop, which hand 
 do you hold down?" 
 
 At the moment, I couldn't have told to save my life, so we 
 both got up on our feet and tried. 
 
 "It's the right hand down," I decided; "that's natural to 
 me." 
 
 "You're a normal right-handed chopper, then," said the Scotch 
 preacher, "as I was thinking. Now let me instruct you in the 
 art. Being right-handed, your helve must bow out — so. No first- 
 class chopper uses a straight handle." 
 
 He fell to explaining, with gusto, the mysteries of the bowed 
 handle, and as I listened I felt a new and peculiar interest in my 
 task. This was a final perfection to be accomplished, the finality 
 of technique! 
 
 So we sat with our heads together talking helves and axes, 
 axes with single blades and axes with double blades, and hand 
 axes and great choppers' axes, and the science of felling trees, 
 with the true philosophy of the last chip, and arguments as to 
 the best procedure when a log begins to "pinch" — until a listener 
 would have thought that the art of the chopper included the 
 whole philosophy of existence — as indeed it does, if you look at 
 it in that way. Finally I rushed out and brought in my old axe- 
 handle, and we set upon it like true artists, with critical proscrip- 
 tion for being a trivial product of machinery. 
 
 "Man," exclaimed the preacher, "it has no character. Now 
 your helve here, being the vision of your brain and work of 
 your hands, will interpret the thought of your heart." 
 
 Before the Scotch preacher had finished his disquisition upon 
 the art of helve-making and its relations with all other arts, I felt 
 like Peary discovering the Pole. 
 
42 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 In the midst o£ the discourse, while I was soaring high, the 
 Scotch preacher suddenly stopped, sat up, and struck his knee 
 with a tremendous resounding smack. 
 
 "Spoons!" he exclaimed. 
 
 Harriet and I stopped and looked at him in astonishment. 
 
 "Spoons," repeated Harriet. 
 
 "Spoons," said the Scotch preacher. "I've not once thought of 
 my errand; and my wife told me to come straight home. I'm 
 more thoughtless every day!" 
 
 Then he turned to Harriet: 
 
 "I've been sent to borrow some spoons," he said. 
 
 "Spoons!" exclaimed Harriet. * 
 
 "Spoons," answered the Scotch preacher. "We've invited 
 friends for dinner to-morrow, and we must have spoons." 
 
 "But why — how — I thought " began Harriet, still in as- 
 tonishment. 
 
 The Scotch preacher squared around toward her and cleared 
 her throat. 
 
 "It's the baptisms," he said : "when a baby is brought for bap- 
 tism, of course it must have a baptismal gift. What is the best 
 gift for a baby? A spoon. So we present it with a spoon. To-day 
 we discovered we had only three spoons left, and company 
 coming. Man, 'tis a proleefic neighbourhood." 
 
 He heaved a great sigh. 
 
 Harriet rushed out and made up a package. When she came 
 in I thought it seemed suspiciously large for spoons, but the 
 Scotch preacher having again launched into the lore of the 
 chopper, took it without at first perceiving anything strange. 
 Five minutes after we had closed the door upon him he sud- 
 denly returned holding up the package. 
 
 "This is an uncommonly heavy package," he remarked; "did 
 I say table-spoons?" 
 
 "Go on!" commanded Harriet; "your wife will understand." 
 
 "All right— good-bye again," and his sturdy figure soon dis- 
 appeared in the dark. 
 
 "The impractical man!" exclaimed Harriet. "People impose 
 on him." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
 
 43 
 
 'Let my axe fall 
 
 "What was in that package, Harriet?" 
 "Oh, I put in a few jars of jelly and a cake of honey." 
 After a moment Harriet looked up from her work. 
 "Do you know the greatest sorrow of the Scotch preacher and 
 his wife?" 
 "What is it?" I asked. 
 "They have no chick nor child of their own," said Harriet. 
 
 It is prodigious, the amount of work required to make a good 
 axe-helve — I mean to make it according to one's standard. I had 
 
44 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 times of humorous discouragement and times of high elation 
 when it seemed to me I could not work fast enough. Weeks 
 passed when I did not touch the helve but left it standing 
 quietly in the corner. Once or twice I took it out and walked 
 about with it as a sort of cane, much to the secret amusement, 
 I think, of Harriet. At times Harriet takes a really wicked de- 
 light in her superiority. 
 
 Early one morning in March the dawn came with a roaring 
 wind, sleety snow drove down over the hill, the house creaked 
 and complained in every clapboard. A blind of one of the upper 
 windows, wrenched loose from its fastenings, was driven shut 
 with such force that it broke a window pane. When I rushed 
 up to discover the meaning of the clatter and to repair the 
 damage, I found the floor covered with peculiar long fragments 
 of glass — the pane having been broken inward from the centre. 
 
 "Just what I have wanted," I said to myself. 
 
 I selected a few of the best pieces and so eager was I to try 
 them that I got out my axe-helve before breakfast and sat 
 scratching away when Harriet came down. 
 
 Nothing equals a bit of broken glass for putting on the final 
 perfect touch to a work of art like an axe-helve. Nothing will so 
 beautifully and delicately trim out the curves of the throat or 
 give a smoother turn to the waist. So with care and an indescrib- 
 able affection, I added the final touches, trimming the helve 
 until it exactly fitted my hand. Often and often I tried it in 
 pantomime, swinging nobly in the centre of the sitting-room 
 (avoiding the lamp), attentive to the feel of my hand as it ran 
 along the helve. I rubbed it down with fine sandpaper until it 
 fairly shone with whiteness. Then I borrowed a red flannel cloth 
 of Harriet and having added a few drops — not too much — of 
 boiled oil, I rubbed the helve for all I was worth. This I con- 
 tinued for upward of an hour. At that time the axe-helve had 
 taken on a yellowish shade, very clear and beautiful. 
 
 I do not think I could have been prouder if I had carved a 
 statue or built a parthenon. I was consumed with vanity; but I 
 set the new helve in the corner with the appearance of uttei 
 unconcern. 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 45 
 
 "There," I remarked, "it's finished." 
 
 I watched Harriet out of the corner of my eye : she made as if 
 to speak and then held silent. 
 
 That evening friend Horace came in. I was glad to see him. 
 Horace is or was a famous chopper. I placed him at the fire- 
 place where his eye, sooner or later, must fall upon my axe-helve. 
 Oh, I worked out my designs ! Presently he saw the helve, picked 
 it up at once and turned it over in his hands. I had a suffocating, 
 not unhumorous, sense of self-consciousness. I know how a poet 
 must feel at hearing his first poem read aloud by some other 
 person who does not know its authorship. I suffer and thrill 
 with the novelist who sees a stranger purchase his book in a 
 book-shop. I felt as though I stood that moment before the 
 Great Judge. 
 
 Horace "hefted" it and balanced it, and squinted along it; 
 he rubbed it with his thumb, he rested one end of it on the floor 
 and sprung it roughly. 
 
 "David," he said severely, "where did you git this ? " 
 
 Once when I was a boy I came home with my hair wet. My 
 father asked : 
 
 "David, have you been swimming?" 
 
 I had exactly the same feeling when Horace asked his ques- 
 lion. Now I am, generally speaking, a truthful man. I have writ- 
 ten a good deal about the immorality, the unwisdom, the short- 
 sightedness, the sinful wastefulness of a lie. But at that moment, 
 if Harriet had not been present — and that illustrates one of the 
 purposes of society, to bolster up a man's morals — I should have 
 evolved as large and perfect a prevarication as it lay within me 
 to do — cheerfully. But I felt Harriet's moral eye upon me : I was 
 a coward as well as a sinner. I faltered -so long that Horace 
 finally looked around at me. 
 
 Horace has no poetry in his soul, neither does he understand 
 the philosophy of imperfection nor the art of irregularity. 
 
 It is a tender shoot, easily blasted by cold winds, the creative 
 instinct: but persistent. It has many adventitious buds. A late 
 
46 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 frost destroying the freshness of its early verdure, may be the 
 means of a richer growth in later and more favourable days. 
 
 For a week I left my helve standing there in the corner. I did 
 not even look at it. I was slain. I even thought of getting up in 
 the night and putting the helve on the coals — secretly. Then, 
 suddenly, one morning, I took it up not at all tenderly, indeed 
 with a humorous appreciation of my own absurdities, and car- 
 ried it out into the yard. An axe-helve is not a mere ornament 
 but a thing of sober purpose. The test, after all, of axe-helves 
 is not sublime perfection, but service. We may easily find flaws 
 in the verse of the master — how far the rhythm fails of the final 
 perfect music, how often uncertain the rhyme— but it bears 
 within it, hidden yet evident, that certain incalculable fire which 
 kindles and will continue to kindle the souls of men. The final 
 test is not the perfection of precedent, not regularity, but life, 
 spirit. 
 
 It was one of those perfect, sunny, calm mornings that some- 
 times come in early April: the zest of winter yet in the air, but 
 a promise of summer. 
 
 I built a fire of oak chips in the middle of the yard, between 
 two flat stones. I brought out my old axe, and when the fire had 
 burned down somewhat, leaving a foundation of hot coals, I 
 thrust the eye of the axe into the fire. The blade rested on one of 
 the flat stones, and I kept it covered with wet rags in order that 
 it might not heat sufiiciently to destroy the temper of the steel. 
 Harriet's old gray hen, a garrulous fowl, came and stood on one 
 leg and looked at me first with one eye and then with the other. 
 She asked innumerable impertinent questions and was generally 
 disagreeable. 
 
 "I am sorry, madam," I said finally, "but I have grown ada- 
 mant to criticism. I have done my work as well as it lies in me 
 to do it. It is the part of sanity to throw it aside without com- 
 punction. A work must prove itself. Shoo!" 
 
 I said this with such conclusiveness and vigour that the critical 
 old hen departed hastily with ruffled feathers. 
 
 So I sat there in the glorious perfection of the forenoon, the 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 47 
 
 great day open around me, a few small clouds abroad in the 
 highest sky, and all the earth radiant with sunshine. The last 
 snow of winter was gone, the sap ran in the trees, the cows fed 
 further afield. 
 
 When the eye of the axe was sufficiently expanded by the heat 
 I drew it quickly from the fire and drove home the helve which 
 I had already whittled down to the exact size. I had a hickory 
 wedge prepared, and it was the work of ten seconds to drive it 
 into the cleft at the lower end of the helve until the eye of the 
 axe was completely and perfectly filled. Upon cooling the steel 
 shrunk upon the wood, clasping it with such firmness that 
 nothing short of fire could ever dislodge it. Then, carefully, 
 with knife and sandpaper I pohshed off the wood around the 
 steel of the axe until I had made as good a job of it as lay within 
 my power. 
 
 So I carried the axe to my log-pile. I swung it above my head 
 and the feel of it was good in my hands. The blade struck deep 
 into the oak wood. And I said to myself with satisfaction: 
 
 "It serves the purpose." 
 
t^W •( 
 
 VI 
 THE MARSH DITCH 
 
 "If the day and the night are such that you greet them 
 with joy and life emits a fragrance li\e -flowers and sweet- 
 smelling herbs — is more elastic, more starry, more immortal 
 — that is your Success," 
 
 In all the days of my life I have never been so well content as 
 I am this spring. Last summer I thought I was happy, the fall 
 gave me a finality of satisfaction, the winter imparted perspec- 
 tive, but spring conveys a wholly new sense of life, a quickening 
 the like of which I never before experienced. It seems to me that 
 everything in the world is more interesting, more vital, more 
 significant. I feel like "waving aside all roofs," in the way of 
 Le Sage's Asmodeus. 
 
 I even cease to fear Mrs. Horace, who is quite the most for- 
 midable person in this neighbourhood. She is so avaricious in 
 the saving of souls — and so covetous of mine, which I wish 
 especially to retain. When I see her coming across the hill I feel 
 Uke running and hiding, and if I were as bold as a boy, I should 
 do it, but being a grown-up coward I remain and dissemble. 
 
 48 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 49 
 
 She came over this morning. When I beheld her afar ofiF, I 
 drew a long breath : "One thousand," I quoted to myself, "shall 
 flee at the rebuke of one." 
 
 In calmness I waited. She came with colours flying and hurled 
 her biblical lance. When I withstood the shock with unexpected 
 jauntiness, for I usually fall dead at once, she looked at me with 
 severity and said: 
 
 "Mr. Grayson, you are a materialist." 
 
 "You have shot me with a name," I replied. "I am unhurt." 
 
 It would be impossible to slay me on a day like this. On a day 
 like this I am immortal. 
 
 It comes to me as the wonder of wonders, these spring days, 
 how surely everything, spiritual as well as material, proceeds 
 out of the earth. I have times of sheer Paganism when I could 
 bow and touch my face to the warm bare soil. We are so often 
 ashamed of the Earth — the soil of it, the sweat of it, the good 
 common coarseness of it. To us in our fine raiment and soft 
 ^manners, it seems indelicate. Instead of seeking that associa- 
 tion with the earth which is the renewal of life, we devise our- 
 selves distant palaces and seek strange pleasures. How often 
 and sadly we repeat the life story of the yellow dodder of the 
 moist lanes of my lower farm. It springs up fresh and clean from 
 the earth itself, and spreads its clinging viny stems over the hos- 
 pitable wild balsam and golden rod. In a week's time, having 
 reached the warm sunshine of the upper air, it forgets its humble 
 beginnings. Its roots wither swiftly and die out, but the sickly 
 yellow stems continue to flourish and spread, drawing their 
 nourishment not from the soil itself, but by strangling and suck- 
 ing the life juices of the hosts on which it feeds. I have seen 
 whole byways covered thus with yellow dodder — rootless, leaf- 
 less, parasitic — reaching up to the sunlight, quite cutting off and 
 smothering the plants which gave it life. A week or two it 
 flourishes and then most of it perishes miserably. So many of us 
 come to be like that: so much of our civilization is like that. 
 Men and women there are — the pity of it — who, eating plenti- 
 fully, have never themselves taken a mouthful from the earth. 
 They have never known a moment's real life of their own. 
 
50 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Lying up to the sun in warmth and comfort— but leafless — the) 
 do not think of the hosts under them, smothered, strangled, 
 starved. They take nothing at first hand. They experience de- 
 scribed emotion, and think prepared thoughts. They live not in 
 life, but in printed reports of Hfe. They gather the odour of 
 odours, not the odour itself: they do not hear, they overhear. 
 A poor, sad, second-rate existence! 
 
 Bring out your social remedies! They will fail, they will fail, 
 every one, until each man has his feet somewhere upon the soil! 
 
 My wild plum trees grow in the coarse earth, among excre- 
 mentitious mould, a physical life which finally blossoms and 
 exhales its perfect odour : which ultimately bears the seed of its 
 immortality. 
 
 Human happiness is the true odour of growth, the sweet 
 exhalation of work: and the seed of human immortality is borne 
 secretly within the coarse and mortal husk. So many of us crave 
 the odour without cultivating the earthly growth from which it 
 proceeds: so many, wasting mortality, expect immortality! 
 
 "Why," asks Charles Baxter, "do you always put the end 
 
 of your stories first?" 
 
 "You may be thankful," I replied, "that I do not make my 
 remarks all endings. Endings are so much more interesting than 
 beginnings." 
 
 Without looking up from the buggy he was mending, Charles 
 Baxter intimated that my way had at least one advantage: one 
 always knew, he said, that I really had an end in view — and hope 
 deferred, he said 
 
 How surely, soundly, deeply, the physical underlies the 
 
 spiritual. This morning I was up and out at half-past four, as 
 perfect a morning as I ever saw: mists yet huddled in the low 
 spots, the sun coming up over the hill, and all the earth fresh 
 with moisture, sweet with good odours, and musical with early 
 bird-notes. 
 
 It is the time of the spring just after the last seeding and be- 
 fore the early haying: a catch-breath in the farmer's year. I have 
 been utilising it in digging a drainage ditch at the lower end of 
 my farm. A spot of marsh grass and blue flags occupies nearly 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 51 
 
 half an acre of good land and I have been planning ever since I 
 bought the place to open a drain from its lower edge to the 
 creek, supplementing it in the field above, if necessary, with 
 submerged tiling. I surveyed it carefully several weeks ago and 
 drew plans and contours of the work as though it were an inter- 
 oceanic canal. I find it a real delight to work out in the earth 
 itself the details of the drawing. 
 
 This morning, after hastening with the chores, I took my bag 
 and my spade on my shoulder and set off (in rubber boots) for 
 the ditch. My way lay along the margin of my cornfield in the 
 deep grass. On my right as I walked was the old rail fence full 
 of thrifty young hickory and cherry trees with here and there a 
 clump of blackberry bushes. The trees beyond the fence cut off 
 the sunrise so that I walked in the cool broad shadows. On my 
 left stretched the cornfield of my planting, the young corn well 
 up, very attractive and hopeful, my really frightful scarecrow 
 standing guard on the knoll, a wisp of straw sticking up through 
 a hole in his hat and his crooked thumbs turned down — "No 
 mercy." 
 
 "Surely no corn ever before grew like this," I said to myself. 
 "To-morrow I must begin cultivating again." 
 
 So I looked up and about me — not to miss anything of the 
 morning — and I drew in a good big breath and I thought the 
 world had never been so open to my senses. 
 
 I wonder why it is that the sense of smell is so commonly 
 under-regarded. To me it is the source of some of my greatest 
 pleasures. No one of the senses is more often allied with 
 robustity of physical health. A man who smells acutely may be 
 set down as enjoying that which is normal, plain, wholesome. 
 He does not require seasoning: the ordinary earth is good 
 enough for him. He is likely to be sane — which means sound, 
 healthy — in his outlook upon life. 
 
 Of all hours of the day there is none like the early morning 
 for downright good odours — the morning before eating. Fresh 
 from sleep and unclogged with food a man's senses cut like 
 knives. The whole world comes in upon him. A still morning is 
 best, for the mists and the moisture seem to retain the odours 
 
52 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 which they have distilled through the night. Upon a breezy 
 morning one is Ukely to get a single predominant odour as of 
 clover when the wind blows across a hay field or of apple blos- 
 soms when the wind comes through the orchard, but upon a 
 perfectly still morning, it is wonderful how the odours arrange 
 themselves in upright strata, so that one walking passes through 
 them as from room to room in a marvellous temple of fragrance. 
 (I should have said, I think, if I had not been on my way to dig 
 a ditch, that it was Hke turning the leaves of some deUcate 
 volume of lyrics!) 
 
 So it was this morning. As I walked along the margin of my 
 field I was conscious, at first, coming within the shadows of the 
 wood, of the cool, heavy aroma which one associates with the 
 night: as of moist woods and earth mould. The penetrating 
 scent of the night remains long after the sights and sounds of 
 it have disappeared. In sunny spots I had the fragrance of the 
 open cornfield, the aromatic breath of the brown earth, giving 
 curiously the sense of fecundity — a warm, generous odour of 
 daylight and sunshine. Down the field, toward the corner, cut- 
 ting in sharply, as though a door opened (or a page turned to 
 another lyric), came the cloying, sweet fragrance of wild crab- 
 apple blossoms, almost tropical in their richness, and below 
 that, as I came to my work, the thin acrid smell of the marsh, 
 the place of the rushes and the flags and the frogs. 
 
 How few of us really use our senses! I mean give ourselves 
 fully at any time to the occupation of the senses. We do not 
 expect to understand a treatise on Economics without applying 
 our minds to it, nor can we really smell or hear or see or feel 
 without every faculty alert. Through sheer indolence we miss 
 half the joy of the world! 
 
 Often as I work I stop to see : really see : see everything, or to 
 listen, and it is the wonder of wonders, how much there is in 
 this old world which we never dreamed of, how many beautiful, 
 curious, interesting sights and sounds there are which ordinarily 
 make no impression upon our clogged, overfed and preoccupied 
 minds. I have also had the feehng— it may be unscientific but it 
 is comforting— that any man might see Uke an Indian or smell 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 53 
 
 like a hound if he gave to the senses the brains which the Indian 
 and the hound apply to them. And I'm pretty sure about the 
 Indian! It is marvellous what a man can do when he puts his 
 entire mind upon one faculty and bears down hard. 
 
 So I walked this morning, not hearing nor seeing, but smell- 
 ing. Without desiring to stir up strife among the peaceful senses, 
 there is this further marvel of the sense of smell. No other 
 possesses such an after-call. Sight preserves pictures: the com- 
 plete view of the aspect of objects, but it is photographic and 
 external. Hearing deals in echoes, but the sense of smell, while 
 saving no vision of a place or a person, will re-create in a way 
 almost miraculous the inner emotion of a particular time or 
 place. I know of nothing that will so "create an appetite under 
 the ribs of death." 
 
 Only a short time ago I passed an open doorway in the town. 
 I was busy with errands, my mind fully engaged, but suddenly I 
 caught an odour from somewhere within the building I was 
 passing. I stopped! It was as if in that moment I lost twenty 
 years of my life : I was a boy again, living and feeling a particu- 
 lar instant at the time of my father's death. Every emotion of 
 that occasion, not recalled in years, returned to me sharply and 
 clearly as though I experienced it for the first time. It was a 
 peculiar emotion: the first time I had ever felt the oppression 
 of space — can I describe it? — the utter bigness of the world and 
 the aloofness of myself, a little boy, within it — now that my 
 father was gone. It was not at that moment sorrow, nor re- 
 morse, nor love: it was an inexpressible cold terror — that any- 
 where I might go in the world, I should still be alone! 
 
 And there I stood, a man grown, shaking in the sunshine with 
 that old boyish emotion brought back to me by an odour! Often 
 and often have I known this strange rekindling of dead fires. 
 And I have thought how, if our senses were really perfect, we 
 might lose nothing, out of our lives : neither sights, nor sounds, 
 nor emotions: a sort of mortal immortality. Was not Shake- 
 speare great because he lost less of the savings of his senses 
 than other men? What a wonderful seer, hearer, smeller, taster, 
 feeler, he must have been — and how, all the time, his mind must 
 
54 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 have played upon the gatherings of his senses! All scenes, all 
 men, the very turn of a head, the exact sound of a voice, the 
 taste of food, the feel of the w^orld — all the emotions of his life 
 must he have had there before him as he wrote, his great mind 
 playing upon them, reconstructing, re-creating and putting them 
 down hot upon his pages. There is nothing strange about great 
 men; they are like us, only deeper, higher, broader: they think 
 as we do, but with more intensity: they suffer as we do, more 
 keenly: they love as we do, more tenderly. 
 
 I may be over-glorifying the sense of smell, but it is only 
 because I walked this morning in a world of odours. The great- 
 est of the senses, of course, is not smell or hearing, but sight. 
 What would not any man exchange for that: for the faces one 
 loves, for the scenes one holds most dear, for all that is beautiful 
 and changeable and beyond description? The Scotch Preacher 
 says that the saddest lines in all Uterature are those of Milton, 
 writing of his blindness. 
 
 "Seasons return; but not to me returns 
 Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 
 Or sight of vernal bloom or Summer's rose, 
 Or floc\s, or herds, or human face divine." 
 
 1 have wandered a long way from ditch-digging, but not 
 
 wholly without intention. Sooner or later I try to get back into 
 the main road. I throw down my spade in the wet trampled, 
 grass at the edge of the ditch. I take off my coat and hang it 
 over a limb of the little hawthorn tree. I put my bag near it. 
 I roll up the sleeves of my flannel shirt: I give my hat a twirl: 
 I'm ready for work. 
 
 The senses are the tools by which we lay hold upon the 
 
 world; they are the implements of consciousness and growth. 
 So long as they are used upon the good earth— used to whole- 
 some weariness — they remain healthy, they yield enjoyment, 
 they nourish growth; but let them once be removed from their 
 natural employment and they turn and feed upon themselves, 
 they seek the stimulation of luxury, they wallow in their own 
 corruption, and finally, worn out, perish from off the earth 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 55 
 
 which they have not appreciated. Vice is ever the senses gone 
 astray. 
 
 So I dug. There is something fine in hard physical labour, 
 
 straight ahead: no brain used, just muscles. I stood ankle-deep 
 in the cool water: every spadeful came out with a smack, and as 
 I turned it over at the edge of the ditch small turgid rivulets 
 coursed back again. I did not think of anything in particular. 
 I dug. A peculiar joy attends the very pull of the muscles. I drove 
 the spade home with one foot, then I bent and lifted and turned 
 with a sort of physical satisfaction difficult to describe. At first 
 
 I had the cool of the morning, but by seven o'clock the day was 
 hot enough! I opened the breast of my shirt, gave my sleeves 
 another roll, and went at it again for half an hour, until I 
 dripped with perspiration. 
 
 "I will knock oflF," I said, so I used my spade as a ladder and 
 climbed out of the ditch. Being very thirsty, I walked down 
 through the marshy valley to the clump of alders which grows 
 along the creek. I followed a cow-path through the thicket and 
 came to the creek side, where I knelt on a log and took a good 
 long drink. Then I soused my head in the cool stream, dashed 
 the water upon my arms and came up dripping and gasping! 
 Oh, but it was fine! 
 
 So I came back to the hawthorn tree, where I sat down com- 
 fortably and stretched my legs. There is a poem in stretched 
 
56 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 legs — after hard digging— but I can't write it, though I can feel 
 it! I got my bag and took out a half loaf of Harriet's bread. 
 Breaking off big crude pieces, I ate it there in the shade. How 
 rarely we taste the real taste of bread! We disguise it with 
 butter, we toast it, we eat it with milk or fruit. We even soak it 
 with gravy (here in the country where we aren't at all polite — 
 but very comfortable), so that we never get the downright de- 
 licious taste of the bread itself. I was hungry this morning and I 
 ate my half loaf to the last crumb — and wanted more. Then 
 I lay down for a moment in the shade and looked up into the 
 sky through the thin outer branches of the hawthorn. A turkey 
 buzzard was lazily circling cloud-high above me : a frog boomed 
 intermittently from the little marsh, and there were bees at 
 work in the blossoms. 
 
 1 had another drink at the creek and went back somewhat 
 
 reluctantly, I confess, to the work. It was hot, and the first joy of 
 effort had worn off. But the ditch was to be dug and I went at 
 it again. One becomes a sort of machine — unthinking, mechani- 
 cal : and yet intense physical work, though making no immediate 
 impression on the mind, often lingers in the consciousness. I 
 find that sometimes I can remember and enjoy for long after- 
 ward every separate step in a task. 
 
 It is curious, hard physical labour! One actually stops think- 
 ing. I often work long without any thought whatever, so far as 
 I know, save that connected with the monotonous repetition of 
 the labour itself — down with the spade, out with it, up with it, 
 over with it — and repeat. And yet sometimes — mostly in the 
 forenoon when I am not at all tired— I will suddenly have a 
 sense as of the world opening around me — a sense of its beauty 
 and its meanings— giving me a peculiar deep happiness, that is 
 near complete content 
 
 Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from 
 hard work. It is one of the follies of men to imagine that they 
 can enjoy mere thought, or emotion, or sentiment! As well try 
 to eat beauty! For happiness must be tricked! She loves to see 
 men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will 
 be found not in palaces but lurking in cornfields and factories 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 57 
 
 and hovering over littered desks: she crowns the unconscious 
 head of the busy child. If you look up suddenly from hard w^ork 
 you will see her, but if you look too long she fades sorrov^uUy 
 away. 
 
 Down toward the town there is a little factory for barrel 
 
 hoops and staves. It has one of the most musical whistles I ever 
 heard in my life. It toots at exactly twelve o'clock: blessed 
 sound! The last half-hour at ditch-digging is a hard, slow pull. 
 I'm warm and tired, but I stick down to it and wait with strain- 
 ing ear for the music. At the very first note of that whistle I 
 drop my spade. I will even empty out a load of dirt half way up 
 rather than expend another ounce of energy; and I spring out 
 of the ditch and start for home with a single desire in my heart 
 -MDr possibly lower down. And Harriet, standing in the door- 
 way, seems to me a sort of angel — a culinary angel! 
 
 Talk of joy: there may be things better than beef stew and 
 baked potatoes and homemade bread — there may be 
 
VII 
 
 AN ARGUMENT 
 WITH A MILLIONNAIRE 
 
 'Let the mighty and great 
 Roll in splendour and state, 
 I envy them not, I declare it. 
 I eat my own lamb, 
 My own chic\en and ham, 
 I shear my own sheep and wear it, 
 
 1 have lawns, I have bowers, ♦ 
 
 / have fruits, I have flowers. 
 
 The lar\ is my morning charmer; 
 
 So you jolly dogs now. 
 
 Here's God bless the plow — 
 
 Long life and content to the farmer." 
 
 — RHYME ON AN OLD PITCHER OF ENGLISH POTTERY. 
 
 I 
 
 HAVE BEEN HEARING o£ Johii Starkweather ever since I came 
 here. He is a most important personage in this community. He 
 is rich. Horace especially loves to talk about him. Give Horace 
 half a chance, whether the subject be pigs or churches, and he 
 will break in somewhere with the remark: "As I was saying to 
 
 58 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 59 
 
 Mr. Starkweather — " or, "Mr. Starkweather says to me — " How 
 we love to shine by reflected glory! Even Harriet has not gone 
 unscathed; she, too, has been affected by the bacillus of admira- 
 tion. She has wanted to know several times if I saw John Stark- 
 weather drive by : "the finest span of horses in this country," she 
 says, and "did you see his daughter.?" Much other information 
 concerning the Starkweather household, culinary and otherwise, 
 is current among our hills. We know accurately the number of 
 Mr. Starkweather's bedrooms, we can tell how much coal he 
 uses in winter and how many tons of ice in summer, and upon 
 such important premises we argue his riches. 
 
 Several times I have passed John Starkweather's home. It lies 
 between my farm and the town, though not on the direct road,' 
 and it is really beautiful with the groomed and guided beauty 
 possible to wealth. A stately old house with a huge end chimney 
 of red brick stands with dignity well back from the road; round 
 about lie pleasant lawns that once were cornfields : and there are 
 drives and walks and exotic shrubs. At first, loving my own hills 
 so well, I was puzzled to understand why I should also enjoy 
 Starkweather's groomed surroundings. But it came to me that 
 after all, much as we may love wildness, we are not wild, nor 
 our works. What more artificial than a house, or a barn, or a 
 fence? And the greater and more formal the house, the more 
 formal indeed must be the nearer natural environments. Per- 
 haps the hand of man might well have been less evident in 
 developing the surroundings of the Starkweather home — ^for art, 
 dealing with nature, is so often too accomplished! 
 
 But I enjoy the Starkweather place and as I look in from the 
 road, I sometimes think to myself with satisfaction: "Here is 
 this rich man who has paid his thousands to make the beauty 
 which I pass and take for nothing — and having taken, leave as 
 much behind." And I wonder sometimes whether he, inside his 
 fences, gets more joy of it than I, who walk the roads outside. 
 Anyway, I am grateful to him for using his riches so much to 
 my advantage. 
 
 On fine mornings John Starkweather sometimes comes out in 
 his slippers, bare-headed, his white vest gleaming in the sun- 
 
60 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 shine, and walks slowly around his garden. Charles Baxter says 
 that on these occasions he is asking his gardener the names of 
 the vegetables. However that may be, he has seemed to our 
 community the very incarnation of contentment and prosperity 
 — his position the acme of desirabiHty. 
 
 What was my astonishment, then, the other morning to see 
 John Starkweather coming down the pasture lane through my 
 farm. I knew him afar off, though I had never met him. May I 
 express the inexpressible when I say he had a rich look; he 
 walked rich, there was richness in the confident crook of his 
 elbow, and in the positive twitch of the stick he carried : a man 
 accustomed to having doors opened before he knocked. I stood 
 there a moment and looked up the hill at him, and I felt that 
 profound curiosity which every one of us feels every day of his 
 life to know something of the inner impulses which stir his 
 nearest neighbour. I should have Hked to know John Stark- 
 weather; but I thought to myself as I have thought so many 
 times how surely one comes finally to imitate his surroundings. 
 A farmer grows to be a part of his farm; the sawdust on his 
 coat is not the most distinctive insignia of the carpenter; the 
 poet writes his truest lines upon his own countenance. People 
 passing in my road take me to be a part of this natural scene. 
 I suppose I seem to them as a partridge squatting among dry 
 grass and leaves, so like the grass and leaves as to be invisible. 
 We all come to be marked upon by nature and dismissed — how 
 carelessly! — as genera or species. And is it not the primal strug- 
 gle of man to escape classification, to form new differentiations ? 
 
 Sometimes — I confess it — when I see one passing in my road, 
 I feel like hailing him and saying: 
 
 "Friend, I am not all farmer. I, too, am a person; I am differ- 
 ent and curious. I am full of red blood, I Uke people, all sorts of 
 people; if you are not interested in me, at least I am intensely 
 interested in you. Come over now and let's talk!" 
 
 So we are all of us calling and calling across the incalculable 
 gulfs which separate us even from our nearest friends! 
 
 Once or twice this feeling has been so real to me that I've 
 been near to the point of hailing utter strangers — only to be 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 61 
 
 instantly overcome with a sense of the humorous absurdity of 
 such an enterprise. So I laugh it ofJ and I say to myself: 
 
 "Steady now: the man is going to town to sell a pig; he is 
 coming back with ten pounds of sugar, five of salt pork, a can of 
 coffee and some new blades for his mowing machine. He hasn't 
 time for talk" — and so I come down with a bump to my digging, 
 or hoeing, or chopping, or whatever it is. 
 
 Here I've left John Starkweather in my pasture while I 
 
 remark to the extent of a page or two that I didn't expect him 
 to see me when he went by. 
 
 I assumed that he was out for a walk, perhaps to enliven a 
 worn appetite (do you know, confidentially, I've had some 
 pleasure in times past in reflecting upon the jaded appetites of 
 millionnaires!), and that he would pass out by my lane to the 
 country road; but instead of that, what should he do but cHmb 
 the yard fence and walk over toward the barn where I was at 
 work. 
 
 Perhaps I was not consumed with excitement: here was fresh 
 adventure! 
 
 "A farmer," I said to myself with exultation, "has only to wait 
 long enough and all the world comes his way." 
 
 I had just begun to grease my farm wagon and was experi- 
 encing some difficulty in lifting and steadying the heavy rear 
 axle while I took off the wheel. I kept busily at work, pretend- 
 ing (such is the perversity of the human mind) that I did not 
 see Mr. Starkweather. He stood for a moment watching me; 
 then he said : 
 
 "Good morning, sir." 
 
 I looked up and said: 
 
 "Oh, good morning!" 
 
 "Nice little farm you have here." 
 
 "It's enough for me," I repHed. I did not especially like the 
 "little." One is human. 
 
 Then I had an absurd inspiration : he stood there so trim and 
 iaunty and prosperous. So rich! I had a good look at him. He 
 was dressed in a woollen jacket coat, knee-trousers and leggins; 
 on his head he wore a jaunty, cocky Httle Scotch cap; a man, I 
 
62 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 should judge, about fifty years old, well-fed and hearty in ap- 
 pearance, with grayish hair and a good-humoured eye. I acted 
 on my inspiration : 
 
 "You've arrived," I said, "at the psychological moment." 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 "Take hold here and help me lift this axle and steady it. I'm 
 having a hard time of it." 
 
 The look of astonishment in his countenance was beautiful 
 to see. 
 
 For a moment failure stared me in the face. His expression 
 said with emphasis : "Perhaps you don't know who I am." But I 
 looked at him with the greatest good feeling and my expression 
 said, or I meant it to say: "To be sure I don't: and what differ- 
 ence does it make, anyway!" 
 
 "You take hold there," I said, without waiting for him to 
 catch his breath, "and I'll get hold here. Together we can easily 
 get the wheel off." 
 
 Without a word he set his cane against the barn and bent 
 his back, up came the axle and I propped it with a board. 
 
 "Now," I said, "you hang on there and steady it while I get 
 the wheel off" — though, indeed, it didn't really need much 
 steadying. 
 
 As I straightened up, whom should I see but Harriet standing 
 transfixed in the pathway half way down to the barn, transfixed 
 with horror. She had recognised John Starkweather and had 
 heard at least part of what I said to him, and the vision of that 
 important man bending his back to help lift the axle of my old 
 wagon was too terrible! She caught my eye and pointed and 
 mouthed. When I smiled and nodded, John Starkweather 
 straightened up and looked around. 
 
 "Don't, on your life," I warned, "let go of that axle." 
 
 He held on and Harriet turned and retreated ingloriously. 
 John Starkweather's face was a study! 
 
 "Did you ever grease a wagon?" I asked him genially. 
 
 "Never," he said. 
 
 "There's more of an art in it than you think," I said, and as I 
 worked I talked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 63 
 
 him exactly how to put it on — neither too much nor too little, 
 and so that it would distribute itself evenly when the wheel was 
 replaced. 
 
 "There's a right way of doing everything," I observed. 
 
 "That's so," said John Starkweather: "if I could only get 
 workmen that believed it." 
 
 By that time I could see that he was beginning to be inter- 
 ested. I put back the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on 
 the nut. He helped me with the other end of the axle with all 
 good humour. 
 
 "Perhaps," I said, as engagingly as I knew how, "you'd like to 
 try the art yourself? You take the grease this time and I'll steady 
 the wagon." 
 
 "All right!" he said, laughing, "I'm in for anything." 
 
 He took the grease box and the paddle— less gingerly than I 
 thought he would. 
 
 "Is that right?" he demanded, and so he put on the grease. 
 And oh, it was good to see Harriet in the doorway! 
 
 "Steady there," I said, "not so much at the end : now put the 
 box down on the reach." 
 
 And so together we greased the wagon, talking all the time 
 in the friendliest way. I actually believe that he was having a 
 pretty good time. At least it had the virtue of unexpectedness. 
 He wasn't bored! 
 
 When he had finished we both straightened our backs and 
 looked at each other. There was a twinkle in his eye: then we 
 both laughed. "He's all right," I said to myself. I held up my 
 hands, then he held up his : it was hardly necessary to prove that 
 wagon-greasing was not a deUcate operation. 
 
 "It's a good wholesome sign," I said, "but it'll come off. Do 
 you happen to remember a story of Tolstoi's called Ivan the 
 Fool'?" 
 
 ("What is a farmer doing quoting Tolstoi!" remarked his 
 countenance — though he said not a word.) 
 
 "In the kingdom of Ivan, you remember," I said, "it was the 
 rule that whoever had hard places on his hands came to table, 
 but whoever had not must eat what the others left." 
 
64 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Thus I led him up to the back steps and poured him a basin 
 of hot water — which I brought myself from the kitchen, Harriet 
 having marvellously and completely disappeared. We both 
 washed our hands, talking with great good humour. 
 
 When we had finished I said : 
 
 "Sit down, friend, if you've time, and let's talk." 
 
 So he sat down on one of the logs of my woodpile: a solid 
 sort of man, rather warm after his recent activities. He looked 
 me over with some interest and, I thought, friendliness. 
 
 "Why does a man like you," he asked finally, "waste himself 
 on a little farm back here in the country?" 
 
 For a single instant I came nearer to being angry than I have 
 been for a long time. Waste myself! So we are judged without 
 knowledge. I had a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) 
 wdth the nearest sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of 
 himself! "Oh well," I thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he 
 doesn't know." So I said: 
 
 "What would you have me be — a millionnaire.?" 
 
 He smiled, but with a sort of sincerity. 
 
 "You might be," he said: "who can tell!" 
 
 I laughed outright: the humour of it struck me as delicious. 
 Here I had been, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, 
 rather gloating over him as a poor suffering millionnaire (of 
 course miUionnaires are unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of 
 face and hearty of body, pitying me for a poor unfortunate 
 farmer back here in the country! Curious, this human nature of 
 ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling! 
 
 So I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed 
 my legs. I felt as though I had set foot in a new country. 
 
 "Would you really advise me," I asked, "to start in to be a 
 millionnaire?" 
 
 He chuckled : 
 
 "Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to a 
 star; but begin by making a few dollars more a year than you 
 
 spend. When I began " he stopped short with an amused 
 
 smile, remembering that I did not know who he was. 
 
 "Of course," I said, "I understand that." 
 
65 
 
(^ ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "A man must begin small"— he was on pleasant ground — "and 
 anywhere he likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must 
 work hard, he must save, he must be both bold and cautious. 
 I know a man who began when he was about your age with 
 total assets of ten dollars and a good digestion. He's now con- 
 sidered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in the city, a place 
 in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes. He has so 
 arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and he 
 draws the dividends — and all in a little more than twenty years. 
 I made every single cent — but as I said, it's a penny business to 
 start with. The point is, I like to see young men ambitious." 
 
 "Ambitious," I asked, "for what.?" 
 
 "Why, to rise in the world ; to get ahead." 
 
 "I know you'll pardon me," I said, "for appearing to cross* 
 examine you, but Pm tremendously interested in these things. 
 What do you mean by rising? And who am I to get ahead of?" 
 
 He looked at me in astonishment, and with evident im- 
 patience at my consummate stupidity. 
 
 "I am serious," I said. "I really want to make the best I can 
 of my life. It's the only one I've got." 
 
 "See here," he said: "let us say you clear up five hundred a 
 year from this farm " 
 
 "You exaggerate — " I interrupted. 
 
 "Do I?" he laughed; "that makes my case all the better. Now, 
 isn't it possible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand 
 or five thousand or even fifty thousand a year?" 
 
 It seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars! 
 
 "I suppose I might," I said, "but do you think I'd be any 
 better off or happier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? 
 You see, I like all these surroundings better than any other 
 place I ever knew. That old green hill over there with the oak on 
 it is an intimate friend of mine. I have a good cornfield in which 
 every year I work miracles. I've a cow and a horse, and a few 
 pigs. I have a comfortable home. My appetite is perfect, and I 
 have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep every night like a boy, 
 for I haven't a trouble in this world to disturb me. I enjoy the 
 mornings here in the country: and the evenings are pleasant. 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 67 
 
 Some of my neighbours have come to be my good friends. I Hke 
 them and I am pretty sure they hke me. Inside the house there 
 I have the best books ever written and I have time in the eve- 
 nings to read them — I mean really read them. Now the question 
 is, would I be any better off, or any happier, if I had fifty thou- 
 sand a year?" 
 
 John Starkweather laughed. 
 
 '*Well, sir," he said, "I see I've made the acquaintance of a 
 philosopher." 
 
 "Let us say," I continued, "that you are willing to invest 
 twenty years of your life in a million dollars." ("Merely an illus- 
 tration," said John Starkweather.) "You have it where you can 
 put it in the bank and take it out again, or you can give it form 
 in houses, yachts, and other things. Now twenty years of my 
 life — to me — is worth more than a million dollars. I simply can't 
 afford to sell it for that. I prefer to invest it, as somebody or 
 other has said, unearned in life. I've always had a liking for 
 intangible properties." 
 
 "See here," said John Starkweather, "you are taking a narrow 
 view of life. You are making your own pleasure the only 
 standard. Shouldn't a man make the most of the talents given 
 hirci} Hasn't he a duty to society?" 
 
 "Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the ques- 
 tion of personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, 
 too. Let me ask you: Isn't it important to society that this piece 
 of earth be plowed and cultivated?" 
 
 "Yes, but " 
 
 "Isn't it honest and useful work?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well 
 done?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good 
 farmer." 
 
 "But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties 
 applied to other things yield better and bigger results?" 
 
 "That is a problem, of course," I said. "I tried money-making 
 
68 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 once — in a city — and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am 
 both successful and happy. I suppose I was one of the young 
 men who did the work while some millionnaire drew the divi- 
 dends." (I was cutting close, and I didn't venture to look at 
 him). "No doubt he had his houses and yachts and went to 
 Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs — back — where 
 there wasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill, 
 or a brook: only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord 
 be thanked for my escape! Sometimes I think that Success has 
 formed a silent conspiracy against Youth. Success holds up a 
 single glittering apple and bids Youth strip and run for it; and 
 Youth runs and Success still holds the apple." 
 
 John Starkweather said nothing. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "there are duties. We realise, we farmers, that 
 we must produce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or 
 burn. We realise that we are the foundation : we connect human 
 life with the earth. We dig and plant and produce, and having 
 eaten at the first table ourselves, we pass v/hat is left to the 
 bankers and millionnaires. Did you ever think, stranger, that 
 most of the wars of the world have been fought for the control 
 of this farmer's second table ? Have you thought that the surplus 
 of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads are strug- 
 gling to carry ? Upon our surplus run all the factories and mills ; 
 a little of it gathered in cash makes a millionnaire. But we 
 farmers, we sit back comfortably after dinner, and joke with our 
 wives and play with our babies, and let all the rest of you fight 
 for the crumbs that fall from our abundant tables. If once we 
 really cared and got up and shook ourselves, and said to the 
 maid: 'Here, child, don't waste the crusts: gather 'em up and 
 to-morrow we'll have a cottage pudding,' where in the world 
 would all the millionnaires be?" 
 
 Oh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Stark- 
 weather, or any other man, get away with the conviction that a 
 millionnaire is better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think 
 of the position of the millionnaire. He spends his time playing 
 not with life, but with the symbols of life, whether cash or 
 houses. Any day the symbols may change; a little war may hap- 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 69 
 
 pen along, there may be a defective flue or a western breeze, or 
 even a panic because the farmers aren't scattering as many 
 crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but I've noticed that 
 the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat) and then what 
 happens to your millionnaire ? Not knowing how to produce 
 anything himself, he would starve to death if there were not 
 always, somewhere, a farmer to take him up to the table." 
 
 "You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather, 
 
 "Strong!" I said. "It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon 
 society a few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of 
 horses gives a man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the 
 hardest sort of a man to dislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, 
 a farmer is like an oak, his roots strike deep in the soil, he draws 
 a sufficiency of food from the earth itself, he breathes the free 
 air around him, his thirst is quenched by heaven itself — and 
 there's no tax on sunshine." 
 
 I paused for very lack of breath. John Starkweather was 
 laughing. 
 
 "When you commiserate me, therefore" ("I'm sure I shall 
 never do it again," said John Starkweather) — "when you com- 
 miserate me, therefore, and advise me to rise, you must give me 
 really good reasons for changing my occupation and becoming 
 a millionnaire. You must prove to me that I can be more inde- 
 pendent, more honest, more useful as a millionnaire, and that I 
 shall have better and truer friends!" 
 
 John Starkweather looked around at me (I knew I had been 
 absurdly eager and I was rather ashamed of myself) and put his 
 hand on my knee (he has a wonderfully fine eye ! ) . 
 
 "I don't believe," he said, "you'd have any truer friends." 
 
 "Anyway," I said repentantly, "I'll admit that millionnaires 
 have their place — at present I wouldn't do entirely away with 
 them, though I do think they'd enjoy farming better. And if I 
 were to select a millionnaire for all the best things I know, I 
 should certainly choose you, Mr. Starkweather." 
 
 He jumped up. 
 
 "You know who I am.f*" he asked. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
70 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "And you knew all the time?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "Well, you're a good one!" 
 
 We both laughed and fell to talking with the greatest friendli- 
 ness. I led him down my garden to show him my prize pie-plant, 
 of which I am enormously proud, and I pulled for him some of 
 the finest stalks I could find. 
 
 "Take it home," I said, "it makes the best pies of any pie- 
 plant in this country." 
 
 He took it under his arm. 
 
 "I want you to come over and see me the first chance you 
 get," he said. "I'm going to prove to you by physical demonstra- 
 tion that it's better sport to be a millionnaire than a farmer — not 
 that I am a millionnaire: I'm only accepting the reputation you 
 give me." 
 
 So I walked with him down to the lane. 
 
 "Let me know when you grease up again," he said, "and I'D 
 come over." 
 
 So we shook hands: and he set oflF sturdily down the road 
 with the pie-plant leaves waving cheerfully over his shoulder. 
 

 'Somehow, and suddenly, I was a boy again" 
 
 VIII 
 A BOY AND A PREACHER 
 
 XHis MORNING I Went to church with Harriet. I usually have 
 some excuse for not going, but this morning I had them out one 
 by one and they were altogether so shabby that I decided not to 
 use them. So I put on my stiff shirt and Harriet came out in her 
 best black cape with the silk fringes. She looked so immaculate, 
 so ruddy, so cheerfully sober (for Sunday) that I was reconciled 
 to the idea of driving her up to the church. And I am glad I 
 went, for the experience I had. 
 
 It was an ideal summer Sunday : sunshiny, clear and still. I be- 
 lieve if I had been some Rip Van Winkle waking after twenty 
 years' sleep I should have known it for Sunday. Away off over 
 the hill somewhere we could hear a lazy farm boy singing at the 
 top of his voice: the higher cadences of his song reached us 
 pleasantly through the still air. The hens sitting near the lane 
 fence, fluffing the dust over their backs, were holding a small 
 
 71 
 
72 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 and talkative service of their own. As we turned into the main 
 road we saw the Patterson children on their way to church, all 
 the little girls in Sunday ribbons, and all the Httle boys very un- 
 comfortable in knit stockings. 
 
 "It seems a pity to go to church on a day like this," I said to 
 Harriet. 
 
 "A pity!" she exclaimed. "Could anything be more appro- 
 priate?" 
 
 Harriet is good because she can't help it. Poor woman!— but 
 I haven't any pity for her. 
 
 It sometimes seems to me the more worshipful I feel the less 
 I want to go to church. I don't know why it is, but these forms, 
 simple though they are, trouble me. The moment an emotion, 
 especially a religious emotion, becomes an institution, it some- 
 how loses life. True emotion is rare and costly and that which is 
 awakened from without never rises to the height of that which 
 springs spontaneously from within. 
 
 Back of the church stands a long low shed where we tied our 
 horse. A number of other buggies were already there, several 
 women were standing in groups, preening their feathers, a 
 neighbour of ours who has a tremendous bass voice was talking 
 to a friend : 
 
 "Yas, oats is showing up well, but wheat is backward." 
 
 His voice, which he was evidently trying to subdue for Sun- 
 day, boomed through the still air. So we walked among the trees 
 to the door of the church. A smiling elder, in an unaccustomed 
 long coat, bowed and greeted us. As we went in there was an 
 odour of cushions and our footsteps on the wooden floor echoed 
 in the warm emptiness of the church. The Scotch preacher was 
 finding his place in the big Bible; he stood solid and shaggy be- 
 hind the yellow oak pulpit, a peculiar professional look on his 
 face. In the pulpit the Scotch preacher is too much minister, too 
 little man. He is best down among us with his hand in ours. 
 He is a sort of human solvent. Is there a twisted and hardened 
 heart in the community he beams upon it from his cheerful eye, 
 he speaks out of his great charity, he gives the friendly pressure 
 of his large hand, and that hardened heart dissolves and its 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 73 
 
 frozen hopelessness loses itself in tears. So he goes through life, 
 seeming always to understand. He is not surprised by wicked- 
 ness nor discouraged by weakness: he is so sure of a greater 
 Strength! 
 
 But I must come to my experience, which I am almost 
 tempted to call a resurrection— the resurrection of a boy, long 
 since gone away, and of a tall lank preacher who, in his humility, 
 looked upon himself as a failure. I hardly know how it all came 
 back to me; possibly it was the scent-laden breeze that came in 
 from the woods and through the half-open church window, 
 perhaps it was a line in one of the old songs, perhaps it was the 
 droning voice of the Scotch preacher — somehow, and suddenly, 
 I was a boy again. 
 
 To this day I think of death as a valley: a dark shadowy 
 
 valley : the Valley of the Shadow of Death. So persistent are the 
 impressions of boyhood! As I sat in the church I could see, as 
 distinctly as though I were there, the church of my boyhood and 
 the tall dyspeptic preacher looming above the pulpit, the peculiar 
 way the light came through the coarse colour of the windows, 
 the barrenness and stiffness of the great empty room, the raw 
 girders overhead, the prim choir. There was something in that 
 preacher, gaunt, worn, sodden though he appeared: a spark 
 somewhere, a little flame, mostly smothered by the gray dreari- 
 ness of his surroundings, and yet blazing up at times to some 
 warmth. 
 
 As I remember it, our church was a church of failures. They 
 sent us the old gray preachers worn out in other fields. Such a 
 succession of them I remember, each with some peculiarity, 
 some pathos. They were of the old sort, indoctrinated Presby- 
 terians, and they harrowed well our barren field with the tooth 
 of their hard creed. Some thundered the Law, some pleaded 
 Love; but of all of them I remember best the one who thought 
 himself the greatest failure. I think he had tried a hundred 
 churches — a hard life, poorly paid, unappreciated — in a new 
 country. He had once had a family, but one by one they had 
 died. No two were buried in the same cemetery; and finally, 
 before he came to our village, his wife, too, had gone. And he 
 
74 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 was old, and out of health, and discouraged : seeking some final 
 warmth from his own cold doctrine. How I see him, a trifle 
 bent, in his long worn coat, walking in the country roads: not 
 knowing of a boy who loved him! 
 
 He told my father once: I recall his exact words: 
 
 "My days have been long, and I have failed. It was not given 
 me to reach men's hearts." 
 
 Oh, gray preacher, may I now make amends? Will you for- 
 give me? I was a boy and did not know; a boy whose emotions 
 were hidden under mountains of reserve : who could have stood 
 up to be shot more easily than he could have said: "I love you!" 
 
 Of that preacher's sermons I remember not one word, though 
 I must have heard scores of them — only that they were inter- 
 minably long and dull and that my legs grew weary of sitting 
 and that I was often hungry. It was no doubt the dreadful old 
 doctrine that he preached, thundering the horrors of disobedi- 
 ence, urging an impossible love through fear and a vain belief 
 without reason. All that touched me not at all, save with a sort 
 of wonder at the working of his great Adam's apple and the 
 strange rolUngs of his cavernous eyes. This he looked upon as 
 the work of God; thus for years he had sought, with self- 
 confessed failure, to touch the souls of his people. How we 
 travel in darkness and the work we do in all seriousness counts 
 for naught, and the thing we toss off in play-time, unconsciously, 
 God uses! 
 
 One tow-headed boy sitting there in a front row dreaming 
 dreams, if the sermons touched him not, was yet thrilled to the 
 depths of his being by that tall preacher. Somewhere, I said, 
 he had a spark within him. I think he never knew it: or if he 
 knew it, he regarded it as a wayward impulse that might lead 
 him from his God. It was a spark of poetry: strange flower in 
 such a husk. In times of emotion it bloomed, but in daily life it 
 emitted no fragrance. I have wondered what might have been 
 if some one— some understanding woman— had recognised his 
 gift, or if he himself as a boy had once dared to cut free! We do 
 not know: we do not know the tragedy of our nearest friend! 
 
 By some instinct the preacher chose his readings mostly from 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 75 
 
 the Old Testament — those splendid, marching passages, full of 
 oriental imagery. As he read there would creep into his voice 
 a certain resonance that lifted him and his calling suddenly 
 above his gray surroundings. 
 
 How vividly I recall his reading of the twenty-third Psalm — a 
 particular reading. I suppose I had heard the passage many times 
 before, but upon this certain morning 
 
 Shall I ever forget ? The windows were open, for it was May, 
 and a boy could look out on the hillside and see with longing 
 eyes the inviting grass and trees. A soft wind blew in across 
 the church; it was full of the very essence of spring. I smell it 
 yet. On the pulpit stood a bunch of crocuses crowded into a 
 vase: some Mary's offering. An old man named Johnson who sat 
 near us was already beginning to breathe heavily, preparatory to 
 sinking into his regular Sunday snore. Then those words from 
 the preacher, bringing me suddenly — how shall I express it? — 
 out of some formless void, to intense consciousness — a miracle 
 of creation: 
 
 "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
 I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they 
 comfort me." 
 
 Well, I saw the way to the place of death that morning; 
 far more vividly I saw it than any natural scene I know: and 
 myself walking therein. I shall know it again when I come to 
 pass that way; the tall, dark, rocky cHffs, the shadowy path 
 within, the overhanging dark branches, even the whitened dead 
 bones by the way — and as one of the vivid phantasms of boy- 
 hood — cloaked figures I saw, lurking mysteriously in deep re- 
 cesses, fearsome for their very silence. And yet I with magic rod 
 and staff walking within— boldly, fearing no evil, full of faith, 
 hope, courage, love, invoking images of terror but for the joy 
 of braving them. Ah, tow-headed boy, shall I tread as lightly that 
 dread pathway when I come to it? Shall I, Hke you, fear no evil! 
 
 So that great morning went away. I heard nothing of singing 
 or sermon and came not to myself until my mother, touching 
 my arm, asked me if I had been asleep! And I smiled and 
 
76 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 thought how little grown people knew — and I looked up at the 
 sad sick face of the old preacher with a new interest and friend- 
 Hness. I felt, somehow, that he too was a familiar of my secret 
 valley. I should have liked to ask him, but I did not dare. So I 
 followed my mother when she went to speak to him, and when 
 he did not see, I touched his coat. 
 
 After that how I watched when he came to the reading. And 
 one great Sunday, he chose a chapter from Ecclesiastes, the one 
 that begins sonorously: 
 
 "Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth." 
 
 Surely that gaunt preacher had the true fire in his gray 
 soul. How his voice dwelt and quivered and softened upon the 
 words! 
 
 "While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not 
 darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain " 
 
 Thus he brought in the universe to that small church and 
 filled the heart of a boy. 
 
 "In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the 
 strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because 
 they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened. 
 
 "And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of 
 the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird and 
 all the daughters of music shall be brought low." 
 
 Do not think that I understood the meaning of those pas- 
 sages : I am not vain enough to think I know even now — but the 
 sound of them, the roll of them, the beautiful words, and above 
 all, the pictures! 
 
 Those Daughters of Music, how I Hved for days imagining 
 them! They were of the trees and the hills, and they were very 
 beautiful but elusive; one saw them as he heard singing afar ofiF, 
 sweet strains fading often into silences. Daughters of Music! 
 Daughters of Music! And why should they be brought low? 
 
 Doors shut in the street— how I saw them— a long, long street, 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 77 
 
 silent, full of sunshine, and the doors shut, and no sound any- 
 where but the low sound of the grinding: and the mill with the 
 wheels drowsily turning and no one there at all save one boy 
 with fluttering heart, tiptoeing in the sunlit doorway. 
 
 And the voice of the bird. Not the song but the voice. Yes, 
 a bird had a voice. I had known it always, and yet somehow I had 
 not dared to say it. I felt that they would look at me with that 
 questioning, incredulous look which I dreaded beyond belief. 
 They might laugh! But here it was in the Book — the voice of a 
 bird. How my appreciation of that Book increased and what a 
 new confidence it gave me in my own images! I went about for 
 days, Hstening, listening, listening — and interpreting. 
 
 So the words of the preacher and the fire in them: 
 
 "And when they shall be afraid of that which is high and fears 
 shall be in the way " 
 
 I knew the fear of that which is high: I had dreamed of it 
 commonly. And I knew also the Fear that stood in the way: him 
 I had seen in a myriad of forms, looming black by darkness in 
 every lane I trod; and yet with what defiance I met and slew 
 him! 
 
 And then, more thrilling than all else, the words of the 
 preacher: 
 
 "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, 
 or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at 
 the cistern." 
 
 Such pictures: that silver cord, that golden bowl! And why 
 and wherefore? 
 
 A thousand ways I turned them in my mind— and always 
 with the sound of the preacher's voice in my ears — the resonance 
 of the words conveying an indescribable fire of inspiration. 
 Vaguely and yet with certainty I knew the preacher spoke out of 
 some unfathomable emotion which I did not understand — which 
 I did not care to understand. Since then I have thought what 
 those words must have meant to him! 
 
78 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Ah, that tall lank preacher, who thought himself a failure: 
 how long I shall remember him and the words he read and the 
 mournful yet resonant cadences of his voice — and the barren 
 church, and the stony religion! Heaven he gave me, unknowing, 
 while he preached an ineffectual hell. 
 
 As we rode home Harriet looked into my face. 
 
 "You have enjoyed the service," she said softly. 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "It was a good sermon," she said. 
 
 "Was it?" I replied. 
 
IX 
 THE TRAMP 
 
 1 HAVE HAD a new and strange experience — droll in one way, 
 grotesque in another and when everything is said, tragic: at 
 least an adventure. Harriet looks at me accusingly, and I have 
 had to preserve the air o£ one deeply contrite now for two 
 days (no easy accompHshment for me!), even though in secret 
 I have smiled and pondered. 
 
 How our life has been warped by books! We are not con- 
 tented with reahties: we crave conclusions. With what ardour 
 our minds respond to real events with literary deductions. Upon 
 a train of incidents, as unconnected as life itself, we are wont to 
 clap a booky ending. An instinctive desire for completeness ani- 
 mates the human mind (a struggle to circumscribe the infinite). 
 We would like to have life "turn out" — but it doesn't — it doesn't. 
 Each event is the beginning of a whole new genealogy of events. 
 In boyhood I remember asking after every story I heard : "What 
 happened next?" for no conclusion ever quite satisfied me — even 
 when the hero died in his own gore. I always knew there was 
 something yet remaining to be told. The only sure conclusion we 
 can reach is this : Life changes. And what is more enthralling to 
 the human mind than this splendid, boundless, coloured muta- 
 bility! — life in the making? How strange it is, then, that we 
 should be contented to take such small parts of it as we can 
 grasp, and to say, "This is the true explanation." By such de^ 
 
 79 
 
80 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 vices we seek to bring infinite existence within our finite egoistic 
 grasp. We solidify and define where soHdification means loss of 
 interest; and loss of interest, not years, is old age. 
 
 So I have mused since my tramp came in for a moment out of 
 the Mystery (as we all do) and went away again into the Mys- 
 tery (in our way, too). 
 
 There are strange things in this world! 
 
 As I came around the corner I saw sitting there on my steps 
 the very personification of Ruin, a tumble-down, dilapidated 
 wreck of manhood. He gave one the impression of having been 
 dropped where he sat, all in a heap. My first instinctive feeUng 
 was not one of recoil or even of hostility, but rather a sudden de- 
 sire to pick him up and put him where he belonged, the instinct, 
 I should say, of the normal man who hangs his axe always on 
 rhe same nail. When he saw me he gathered himself together 
 with reluctance and stood fully revealed. It was a curious atti- 
 tude of mingled effrontery and apology. "Hit me if you dare," 
 blustered his outward personality. "For God's sake, don't hit 
 me," cried the innate fear in his eyes. I stopped and looked at 
 him sharply. His eyes dropped, his look sHd away, so that I 
 experienced a sense of shame, as though I had trampled upon 
 him. A damp rag of humanity! I confess that my first impulse, 
 and a strong one, was to kick him for the good of the human 
 race. No man has a right to be like that. 
 
 And then, quite suddenly, I had a great revulsion of feeling. 
 What was I that I should judge without knowledge? Perhaps,' 
 after all, here was one bearing treasure. So I said : 
 
 "You are the man I have been expecting." 
 
 He did not reply, only flashed his eyes up at me, wherein 
 fear deepened. 
 
 "I have been saving up a coat for you," I said, "and a pair of 
 shoes. They are not much worn," I said, "but a little too small 
 for me. I think they will fit you." 
 
 He looked at me again, not sharply, but with a sort of weak 
 cunning. So far he had not said a word. 
 
 "I think our supper is nearly ready," I said: "let us go in." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 81 
 
 "No, mister," he mumbled, "a bite out here — no, mister" — 
 and then, as though the sound of his own voice inspired him, he 
 grew declamatory. 
 
 "I'm a respectable man, mister, plumber by trade, but " 
 
 "But," I interrupted, "you can't get any work, you're cold 
 and you haven't had anything to eat for two days, so you are 
 walking out here in the country where we farmers have no 
 plumbing to do. At home you have a starving wife and three 
 small children " 
 
 "Six, mister " 
 
 "Well, six — And now we will go in to supper." 
 
 I led him into the entry way and poured for him a big basin 
 of hot water. As I stepped out again with a comb he was slinking 
 toward the doorway. 
 
 "Here," I said, "is a comb; we are having supper now in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 I wish I could picture Harriet's face when I brought him into 
 her immaculate kitchen. But I gave her a look, one of the com- 
 manding sort that I can put on in times of great emergency, and 
 she silently laid another place at the table. 
 
 When I came to look at our Ruin by the full lamplight I was 
 surprised to see what a change a little warm water and a comb 
 had wrought in him. He came to the table uncertain, bUnking, 
 apologetic. His forehead, I saw, was really impressive — high, 
 narrow and thin-skinned. His face gave one somehow the im- 
 pression of a carving once full of significant lines, now blurred 
 and worn as though Time, having first marked it with the lines 
 of character, had grown discouraged and brushed the hand of 
 forgetfulness over her work. He had pecuhar thin, silky hair 
 of no particular colour, with a certain almost childish pathetic 
 waviness around the ears and at the back of the neck. Some- 
 thing, after all, about the man aroused one's compassion. 
 
 I don't know that he looked dissipated, and surely he was not 
 as dirty as I had at first supposed. Something remained that sug- 
 gested a care for himself in the past. It was not dissipation, I 
 decided; it was rather an indefinable looseness and weakness, 
 »:hat gave one alternately the feeling I had first experienced, that 
 
82 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 of anger, succeeded by the compassion that one feels for a child. 
 To Harriet, when she had once seen him, he was all child, and 
 she all compassion. 
 
 We disturbed him with no questions. Harriet's fundamental 
 quality is homeliness, comfortableness. Her tea-kettle seems al- 
 ways singing; an indefinable tabbiness, as of feather cushions, 
 lurks in her dining-room, a right warmth of table and chairs, in- 
 describably comfortable at the end of a chilly day. A busy 
 good-smelling steam arises from all her dishes at once, and the 
 light in the middle of the table is of a redness that enthralls the 
 human soul. As for Harriet herself, she is the personification of 
 comfort, airy, clean, warm, inexpressibly wholesome. And never 
 in the world is she so engaging as when she ministers to a man's 
 hunger. Truthfully, sometimes, when she comes to me out of 
 the dimmer light of the kitchen to the radiance of the table 
 with a plate of muffins, it is as though she and the muffins were 
 a part of each other, and that she is really offering some of her- 
 self. And down in my heart I know she is doing just that! 
 
 Well, it was wonderful to see our Ruin expand in the warmth 
 of Harriet's presence. He had been doubtful of me; of Harriet, 
 I could see, he was absolutely sure. And how he did eat, saying 
 nothing at all, while Harriet pHed him with food and talked to 
 me of the most disarming commonplaces. I think it did her 
 heart good to see the way he ate; as though he had had nothing 
 before in days. As he buttered his muffin, not without some 
 refinement, I could see that his hand was long, a curious, lean, 
 ineffectual hand, with a curving little finger. With the drinking 
 of the hot coffee colour began to steal up into his face, and when 
 Harriet brought out a quarter of pie saved over from our din- 
 ner and placed it before him — a fine brown pie with small hiero- 
 glyphics in the top from whence rose sugary bubbles— he 
 seemed almost to escape himself. And Harriet fairly purred with 
 hospitality. 
 
 The more he ate the more of a man he became. His manners 
 improved, his back straightened up, he acquired a not unimpres- 
 sive poise of the head. Such is the miraculous power of hot 
 muffins and pie! 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 83 
 
 *'As you came down," I asked finally, "did you happen to 
 see old man Masterson's threshing machine?" 
 
 "A big red one, with a yellow blow-ofl?" 
 
 "That's the one," I said. 
 
 "Well, it was just turning into a field about two miles above 
 here," he replied. 
 
 "Big gray, banked barn?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, and a little unpainted house," said our friend: 
 
 "That's Parsons'," put in Harriet, with a mellow laugh. "I 
 wonder if he ever will paint that house. He builds bigger barns 
 every year and doesn't touch the house. Poor Mrs. Parsons " 
 
 And so we talked of barns and threshing machines in the way 
 we farmers love to do and I lured our friend slowly into talking 
 about himself. At first he was non-committal enough and what 
 he said seemed curiously made to order; he used certain set 
 phrases with which to explain simply what was not easy to ex- 
 plain — a device not uncommon to all of us. I was fearful of not 
 getting within this outward armouring, but gradually as we 
 talked and Harriet poured him a third cup of hot coffee he 
 dropped into a more familiar tone. He told with some spright- 
 liness of having seen threshings in Mexico, how the grain was 
 beaten out with flails in the patios, and afterwards thrown up in 
 the wind to winnow out. 
 
 "You must have seen a good deal of life," remarked Harriet 
 sympathetically. 
 
 At this remark I saw one of our Ruin's long hands draw up 
 and clinch. He turned his head toward Harriet. His face was 
 partly in the shadow, but there was something striking and 
 strange in the way he looked at her, and a deepness in his voice 
 when he spoke: 
 
 "Too much! I've seen too much of life." He threw out one 
 arm and brought it back with a shudder. 
 
 "You see what it has left me," he said, "I am an example of 
 too much life." 
 
 In response to Harriet's melting compassion he had spoken 
 with unfathomable bitterness. Suddenly he leaned forward to- 
 ward me with a piercing gaze as though he would look into my 
 
84 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 soul. His face had changed completely; from the loose and va- 
 cant mask of the early evening it had taken on the utmost 
 tensity of emotion. 
 
 "You do not know," he said, "what it is to live too much — and 
 to be afraid." 
 
 "Live too much?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, live too much, that is what I do — and I am afraid." 
 
 He paused a moment and then broke out in a higher key: 
 
 "You think I am a tramp. Yes — you do. I know — a worthless 
 fellow, lying, begging, steaHng when he can't beg. You have 
 taken me in and fed me. You have said the first kind words 
 I have heard, it seems to me, in years. I don't know who you 
 are. I shall never see you again." 
 
 I cannot well describe the intensity of the passion with which 
 he Spoke, his face shaking with emotion, his hands trembling. 
 
 "Oh, yes," I said easily, "we are comfortable people here — 
 and it is a good place to live." 
 
 "No no," he returned. "I know, I've got my call — " Then lean- 
 ing forward he said in a lower, even more intense voice — "I live 
 everything beforehand." 
 
 I was startled by the look of his eyes: the abject terror of it: 
 and I thought to myself, "The man is not right in his mind." 
 And yet I longed to know of the life within this strange husk 
 of manhood. 
 
 "I know," he said, as if reading my thought, "you think"— 
 and he tapped his forehead with one finger — "but I'm not. I'm as 
 sane as you are." 
 
 It was a strange story he told. It seems almost unbelievable to 
 me as I set it down here, until I reflect how little any one of 
 us knows of the deep life within his nearest neighbour — what 
 stories there are, what tragedies enacted under a calm exterior I 
 What a drama there may be in this commonplace man buying 
 ten pounds of sugar at the grocery store, or this other one driv- 
 ing his two old horses in the town road! We do not know. And 
 how rarely are the men of inner adventure articulate ! Therefore 
 I treasure the curious story the tramp told me. I do not question 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 85 
 
 its truth. It came as all truth does, through a clouded and un- 
 clean medium: and any judgment of the story itself must be 
 based upon a knowledge of the personal equation of the Ruin 
 who told it. 
 
 "I am no tramp," he said, "in reality, I am no tramp. I began 
 as well as anyone — It doesn't matter now, only I won't have any 
 of the sympathy that people give to the man who has seen bet- 
 ter days. I hate sentiment. / hate it " 
 
 I cannot attempt to set down the story in his own words. It 
 was broken with exclamations and involved with wandering 
 sophistries and diatribes of self-blame. His mind had trampled 
 upon itself in throes of introspection until it was often difficult 
 to say which way the paths of the narrative really led. He had 
 thought so much and acted so little that he travelled in a veri- 
 table bog of indecision. And yet, withal, some ideas, by con- 
 stant attrition, had acquired a really striking form. "I am afraid 
 before life," he said. "It makes me dizzy with thought." 
 
 At another time he said, "If I am a tramp at all, I am a men- 
 tal tramp. I have an unanchored mind." 
 
 It seems that he came to a realisation that there was some- 
 thing peculiar about him at a very early age. He said they would 
 look at him and whisper to one another and that his sayings 
 were much repeated, often in his hearing. He knew that he was 
 considered an extraordinary child: they baited him with ques- 
 tions that they might laugh at his quaint replies. He said that as 
 early as he could remember he used to plan situations so that 
 he might say things that were strange and even shocking in a 
 child. His father was a small professor in a small college — a 
 "worm" he called him bitterly — "one of those worms that bores 
 in books and finally dries up and blows oflf." But his mother — he 
 said she was an angel. I recall his exact expression about her 
 eyes that "when she looked at one it made him better." He 
 spoke of her with a softening of the voice, looking often at 
 Harriet. He talked a good deal about his mother, trying to ac- 
 count for himself through her. She was not strong, he said, and 
 very sensitive to the contact of either friends or enemies — 
 evidently a nervous, high-strung woman. 
 
86 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "You have known such people," he said, "everything hurt 
 her." 
 
 He said she "starved to death." She starved for affection and 
 understanding. 
 
 One of the first things he recalled of his boyhood w^as his 
 passionate love for his mother. 
 
 "I can remember," he said, "lying aw^ake in my bed and think- 
 ing how I would love her and serve her — and I could see myself 
 in all sorts of impossible places saving her from danger. When 
 she came to my room to bid me good night, I imagined how I 
 should look — for I have always been able to see myself doing 
 things — when I threw my arms around her neck to kiss her." 
 
 Here he reached a strange part of his story. I had been watch- 
 ing Harriet out of the corner of my eye. At first her face was 
 tearful with compassion, but as the Ruin proceeded it became a 
 study in wonder and finally in outright alarm. He said that when 
 his mother came in to bid him good night he saw himself so 
 plainly beforehand ("more vividly than I see you at this mO' 
 ment") and felt his emotion so keenly that when his mother ac- 
 tually stooped to kiss him, somehow he could not respond. He 
 could not throw his arms around her neck. He said he often lay 
 quiet, in waiting, trembling all over until she had gone, not only 
 suffering himself but pitying her, because he understood how she 
 must feel. Then he would follow her, he said, in imagination 
 through the long hall, seeing himself stealing behind her, just 
 touching her hand, wistfully hoping that she might turn to 
 him again — and yet fearing. He said no one knew the agonies 
 he suffered at seeing his mother's disappointment over his ap- 
 parent coldness and unresponsiveness. 
 
 "I think," he said, "it hastened her death." 
 
 He would not go to the funeral; he did not dare, he said. He 
 cried and fought when they came to take him away, and when 
 the house was silent he ran up to her room and buried his head 
 in her pillows and ran in swift imagination to her funeral. He 
 said he could see himself in the country road, hurrying in the 
 cold rain — ^for it seemed raining— he said he could actually 
 feel the stones and the ruts, although he could not tell how it 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 87 
 
 was possible that he should have seen himself at a distance 
 and felt in his own feet the stones of the road. He said he saw 
 the box taken from the wagon — saw it — and that he heard the 
 sound of the clods thrown in, and it made him shriek until they 
 came running and held him. 
 
 As he grew older he said he came to live everything before- 
 hand, and that the event as imagined was so far more vivid and 
 affecting that he had no heart for the reality itself. 
 
 "It seems strange to you," he said, "but I am telling you exactly 
 what my experience was." 
 
 It was curious, he said, when his father told him he must not 
 do a thing, how he went on and imagined in how many different 
 ways he could do it — and how, afterward, he imagined he was 
 punished by that "worm," his father, whom he seemed to hate 
 bitterly. Of those early days, in which he suffered acutely — in 
 idleness, apparently — and perhaps that was one of the causes 
 of his disorder — he told us at length, but many of the incidents 
 were so evidently worn by the constant handling of his mind that 
 they gave no clear impression. 
 
 Finally, he ran away from home, he said. At first he found 
 
88 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 that a wholly new place and new people took him out of him- 
 self ("surprised me," he said, "so that I could not live everything 
 beforehand"). Thus he fled. The slang he used, "chased himself 
 all over the country," seemed peculiarly expressive. He had been 
 in foreign countries; he had herded sheep in Australia (so he 
 said), and certainly from his knowledge of the country he had 
 wandered with the gamboleros of South America; he had gone 
 for gold to Alaska, and worked in the lumber camps of the 
 Pacific Northwest. But he could not escape, he said. In a short 
 time he was no longer "surprised." His account of his travels, 
 while fragmentary, had a peculiar vividness. He saw what he 
 described, and he saw it so plainly that his mind ran off into 
 curious details that made his words strike sometimes like flashes 
 of lightning. A strange and wonderful mind — uncontrolled. How 
 that man needed the discipline of common work! 
 
 I have rarely Hstened to a story with such rapt interest. It was 
 not only what he said, nor how he said it, but how he let me see 
 the strange workings of his mind. It was continuously a story 
 of a story. When his voice finally died down I drew a long 
 breath and was astonished to perceive that it was nearly mid- 
 night — and Harriet speechless with her emotions. For a moment 
 he sat quiet and then burst out: 
 
 "I cannot get away: I cannot escape,", and the veritable look 
 of some trapped creature came into his eyes, fear so abject that 
 I reached over and laid my hand on his arm: 
 
 "Friend," I said, "stop here. We have a good country. You 
 have travelled far enough. I know from experience what a 
 cornfield will do for a man." 
 
 "I have lived all sorts of life," he continued as if he had not 
 heard a word I said, "and I have lived it all twice, and I am 
 afraid." 
 
 "Face it," I said, gripping his arm, longing for some power 
 to "blow grit into him." 
 
 "Face it!" he exclaimed, "don't you suppose I have tried. If I 
 could do a thing — anything— a few times without thinking — 
 once would be enough— I might be all right. I should be all 
 right." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 89 
 
 He brought his fist down on the table, and there was a note of 
 resolution in his voice. I moved my chair nearer to him, feeling 
 as though I were saving an immortal soul from destruction. I 
 told him of our life, how the quiet and the work of it would 
 solve his problems. I sketched with enthusiasm my own experi- 
 ence and I planned swiftly how he could live, absorbed in simple 
 work — and in books. 
 
 "Try it," I said eagerly. 
 
 "I will," he said, rising from the table, and grasping my hand. 
 "I'll stay here." 
 
 I had a peculiar thrill of exultation and triumph. I know how 
 the priest must feel, having won a soul from torment! 
 
 He was trembling with excitement and pale with emotion 
 and weariness. One must begin the quiet life with rest. So I 
 got him off to bed, first pouring him a bathtub of warm water. 
 I laid out clean clothes by his bedside and took away his old 
 ones, talking to him cheerfully all the time about common things. 
 When I finally left him and came downstairs I found Harriet 
 standing with frightened eyes in the middle of the kitchen. 
 
 "I'm afraid to have him sleep in this house," she said. 
 
 But I reassured her. "You do not understand," I said. 
 
 Owing to the excitement of the evening I spent a restless 
 night. Before daylight, while I was dreaming a strange dream of 
 two men running, the one who pursued being the exact counter- 
 part of the one who fled, I heard my name called aloud: 
 
 "David, David!" 
 
 I sprang out of bed. 
 
 "The tramp has gone," called Harriet. 
 
 He had not even slept in his bed. He had raised the window, 
 dropped out on the ground and vanished. 
 
THE INFIDEL 
 
 I 
 
 FIND THAT WE HAVE an infidel in this community. I don't know 
 that I should set down the fact here on good white paper; the 
 walls, they say, have eyes, the stones have ears. But consider 
 these words written in bated breath! The worst of it is — I 
 gather from common report — this infidel is a Cheerful Infidel, 
 whereas a true infidel should bear upon his face the living mark 
 of his infamy. We are all tolerant enough of those who do not 
 agree with us, provided only they are sufficiently miserable! I 
 confess when I first heard of him — through Mrs. Horace (with 
 shudders) — I was possessed of a consuming secret desire to 
 see him. I even thought of climbing a tree somewhere along the 
 public road— like Zaccheus, wasn't it?— and watching him go 
 by. If by any chance he should look my way I could easily avoid 
 discovery by crouching among the leaves. It shows how pleasant 
 must be the paths of unrighteousness that we are tempted to 
 climb trees to see those who walk therein. My imagination 
 busied itself with the infidel. I pictured him as a sort of Moloch 
 
 90 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 91 
 
 treading our pleasant countryside, flames and smoke proceeding 
 from his nostrils, his feet striking fire, his voice like the sound 
 of a great wind. At least that was the picture I formed of him 
 from common report. 
 
 And yesterday afternoon I met the infidel and I must here 
 set down a true account of the adventure. It is, surely, a little 
 new door opened in the house of my understanding. I might 
 travel a whole year in a city, brushing men's elbows, and not 
 once have such an experience. In country spaces men develop 
 sensitive surfaces, not calloused by too frequent contact, accept- 
 ing the new impression vividly and keeping it bright to think 
 upon. 
 
 I met the infidel as the result of a rather unexpected series of 
 incidents. I don't think I have said before that we have for some 
 time been expecting a great event on this farm. We have raised 
 corn and buckwheat, we have a fertile asparagus bed and onions 
 and pie-plant (enough to supply the entire population of this 
 community) and I can't tell how many other vegetables. We have 
 had plenty of chickens hatched out (I don't like chickens, espe- 
 cially hens, especially a certain gaunt and predatory hen named 
 [so Harriet says] Evangeline, who belongs to a neighbour of 
 ours) and we have had two litters of pigs, but until this bright 
 moment of expectancy we never have had a calf. 
 
 Upon the advice of Horace, which I often lean upon as upon 
 a staff, I have been keeping my young heifer shut up in the 
 cow-yard now for a week or two. But yesterday, toward the mid- 
 dle of the afternoon, I found the fence broken down and the 
 cow-yard empty. From what Harriet said, the brown cow must 
 have been gone since early morning. I knew, of course, what that 
 meant, and straightway I took a stout stick and set off over the 
 hill, tracing the brown cow as far as I could by her tracks. She 
 had made way toward a clump of trees near Horace's wood lot, 
 where I confidently expected to find her. But as fate would have 
 it, the pasture gate, which is rarely used, stood open and the 
 tracks led outward into an old road. I followed rapidly, half 
 pleased that I had not found her within the wood. It was a 
 promise of new adventure which I came to with downright en- 
 
92 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 joyment (confidentially — ^I should have been cultivating corn!). 
 I peered into every thicket as I passed: once I climbed an old 
 fence and, standing on the top rail, intently surveyed my neigh- 
 bour's pasture. No brown cow was to be seen. At the crossing 
 of the brook I shouldered my way from the road down a path 
 among the alders, thinking the brown cow might have gone that 
 way to obscurity. 
 
 It is curious how, in spite of domestication and training, Na- 
 ture in her great moments returns to the primitive and instinc- 
 tive! My brown cow, never having had anything but the kindest 
 treatment, is as gentle an animal as could be imagined, but she 
 had followed the nameless, ages-old law of her breed: she had 
 escaped in her great moment to the most secret place she 
 knew. It did not matter that she would have been safer in my 
 yard—both she and her calf— that she would have been surer 
 of her food; she could only obey the old wild law. So turkeys 
 will hide their nests. So the tame duck, tame for unnumbered 
 generations, hearing from afar the shrill cry of the wild drake, 
 will desert her quiet surroundings, spread her little-used wings 
 and become for a time the wildest of the wild. 
 
 So we think — ^you and I — that we are civiHsed! But how often, 
 how often, have we felt that old wildness which is our common 
 heritage, scarce shackled, clamouring in our blood! 
 
 I stood listening among the alders, in the deep cool shade. 
 Here and there a ray of sunshine came through the thick 
 foHage: I could see it where it silvered the cobweb ladders of 
 those moist spaces. Somewhere in the thicket I heard an un- 
 alarmed catbird triUing her exquisite song, a startled frog leaped 
 with a splash into the water; faint odours of some blossoming 
 growth, not distinguishable, filled the still air. It was one of 
 those rare moments when one seems to have caught Nature un- 
 aware. I lingered a full minute, listening, looking; but my brown 
 cow had not gone that way. So I turned and went up rapidly to 
 the road, and there I found myself almost face to face with a 
 ruddy Httle man whose countenance bore a look of round as- 
 tonishment. We were both surprised. I recovered first. 
 
 "Have you seen a brown cow?" I asked. 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 93 
 
 He was still so astonished that he began to look around him;, 
 he thrust his hands nervously into his coat pockets and pulled 
 them out again. 
 
 "I think you won't find her in there," I said, seeking to relieve 
 his embarrassment. 
 
 But I didn't know, then, how very serious a person I had en- 
 countered. 
 
 "No — no," he stammered, "I haven't seen your cow." 
 
 So I explained to him with sobriety, and at some length, the 
 problem I had to solve. He was greatly interested and in&smuch 
 as he was going my way he offered at once to assist me in my 
 search. So we set off together. He was rather stocky o£ build, and 
 decidedly short of breath, so that I regulated my customary 
 stride to suit his deliberation. At first, being filled with the 
 spirit of my adventure, I was not altogether pleased with this 
 arrangement. Our conversation ran something like this: 
 
 Stranger: Has she any spots or marks on her? 
 
 Myself: No, she is plain brown. 
 
 Stranger: How old a cow is she? 
 
 Myself: This is her first calf. 
 
 Stranger: Valuable animal? 
 
 Myself (fencing) : I have never put a price on her; she is a 
 promising young heifer. 
 
 Stranger: Pure blood? 
 
 Myself : No, grade. 
 
 After a pause : 
 
 Stranger: Live around here? 
 
 Myself: Yes, half a mile below here. Do you? 
 
 Stranger: Yes, three miles above here. My name's Purdy. 
 
 Myself: Mine is Grayson. 
 
 He turned to me solemnly and held out his hand. "I'm glad 
 to meet you, Mr. Grayson," he said. "And I'm glad," I said, "to 
 meet you, Mr. Purdy." 
 
 I will not attempt to put down all we said : I couldn't. But by 
 such devices is the truth in the country made manifest. 
 
 So we continued to walk and look. Occasionally I would un- 
 consciously increase my pace until I was warned to desist by 
 
94 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 the puffing of Mr. Purdy. He gave an essential impression of 
 genial timidity: and how he did love to talk! 
 
 We came at last to a rough bit of land grown up to scrubby 
 oaks and hazel brush. 
 
 "This," said Mr. Purdy, "looks hopeful." 
 
 We followed the old road, examining every bare spot of 
 earth for some evidence of the cow's tracks, but without finding 
 so much as a sign. I was for pushing onward but Mr. Purdy 
 insisted that this clump of woods was exactly such a place as a 
 cow would like. He developed such a capacity for argumentation 
 and seemed so sure of what he was talking about that I yielded, 
 and we entered the wood. 
 
 "We'll part here," he said: "you keep over there about fifty 
 yards and I'll go straight ahead. In that way we'll cover the 
 ground. Keep a-shoutin\" 
 
 So we started and I kept a-shoutin*. He would answer from 
 time to time: "Hulloo, hulloo!" 
 
 It was a wild and beautful bit of forest. The ground under 
 the trees was thickly covered with enormous ferns or bracken, 
 with here and there patches of light where the sun came through 
 the foUage. The low spots were filled with the coarse green 
 verdure of skunk cabbage. I was so sceptical about finding the 
 cow in a wood where concealment was so easy that I confess I 
 rather idled and enjoyed the surroundings. Suddenly, however, 
 J heard Mr. Purdy's voice, with a new note in it: 
 
 "Hulloo, hulloo " 
 
 "What luck?" 
 
 "Hulloo, hulloo- 
 
 Tm coming — " and I turned and ran as rapidly as I could 
 through the trees, jumping over logs and dodging low 
 branches, wondering what new thing my friend had discovered. 
 So I came to his side. 
 
 "Have you got trace of her?" I questioned eagerly. 
 
 "Sh!" he said, "over there. Don't you see her?" 
 
 "Where, where?" 
 
 He pointed, but for a moment I could see nothing but the 
 trees and the bracken. Then all at once, Hke the puzzle in a pic- 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 95 
 
 ture, I saw her plainly. She was standing perfectly motionless, 
 her head lowered, and in such a peculiar clump o£ bushes and 
 ferns that she was all but indistinguishable. It was wonderful, 
 the perfection with which her instinct had led her to conceal 
 herself. 
 
 All excitement, I started toward her at once. But Mr. Purdy 
 put his hand on my arm. 
 
 "Wait," he said, "don't frighten her. She has her calf there." 
 
 "No!" I exclaimed, for I could see nothing of it. 
 
 We went, cautiously, a few steps nearer. She threw up her 
 head and looked at us so wildly for a moment that I should 
 hardly have known her for my cow. She was, indeed, for the 
 time being, a wild creature of the wood. She made a low sound 
 and advanced a step threateningly. 
 
 "Steady," said Mr. Purdy, "this is her first calf. Stop a minute 
 and keep quiet. She'll soon get used to us." 
 
 Moving to one side cautiously, we sat down on an old log. 
 The brown heifer paused, every muscle tense, her eyes literally 
 blazing. We sat perfectly still. After a minute or two she lowered 
 her head, and with curious guttural sounds she began to Uck 
 her calf, which lay quite hidden in the bracken. 
 
 "She has chosen a perfect spot," I thought to myself, for it 
 was the wildest bit of forest I had seen anywhere in this neigh- 
 bourhood. At one side, not far ofif, rose a huge gray rock, partly 
 covered on one side with moss, and round about were oaks 
 and a few ash trees of a poor scrubby sort (else they would 
 long ago have been cut out). The earth underneath was soft and 
 springy with leaf mould. 
 
 Mr. Purdy was one to whom silence was painful; he fidgeted 
 about, evidently bursting with talk, and yet feeHng compelled to 
 follow his own injunction of silence. Presently he reached into 
 his capacious pocket and handed me a little paper-covered book- 
 let. I took it, curious, and read the title : 
 
 "Is There a Hell?" 
 
 It struck me humorously. In the country we are always — at 
 least some of us are — more or less in a religious ferment. The 
 city may distract itself to the point where faith is unnecessary; 
 
96 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 but in the country we must, perforce, have something to believe 
 in. And we talk about it, too! I read the title aloud, but in a 
 low voice: 
 
 "Is There a Hell?" Then I asked: "Do you really want to 
 know?" 
 
 "The argument is all there," he replied. 
 
 "Well," I said, "I can tell you off-hand, out of my own experi- 
 ence, that there certainly is a hell " 
 
 He turned toward me with evident astonishment, but I pro- 
 ceeded with tranquillity: 
 
 "Yes, sir, there's no doubt about it. I've been near enough my- 
 self several times to smell the smoke. It isn't around here," I 
 said. 
 
 As he looked at me his china-blue eyes grew larger, if that 
 were possible, and his serious, gentle face took on a look of 
 pained surprise. 
 
 "Before you say such things," he said, "I beg you to read my 
 book." 
 
 He took the tract from my hands and opened it on his knee. 
 
 "The Bible tells us," he said, "that in the beginning God cre- 
 ated the heavens and the earth. He made the firmament and 
 divided the waters. But does the Bible say that He created a 
 hell or a devil? Does it?'* 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "Well, then!" he said triumphantly, "and that isn't all, either. 
 The historian Moses gives in detail a full account of what was 
 made in six days. He tells how day and night were created, how 
 the sun and the moon and the stars were made; he tells how 
 God created the flowers of the field, and the insects, and the 
 birds, and the great whales, and said, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' 
 He accounts for every minute of the time in the entire six days 
 — and of course God rested on the seventh — and there is not 
 one word about hell. Is there?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "Well then—" exultantly, "where is it? I'd like to have any 
 man, no matter how wise he is, answer that. Where is it?" 
 
 "That," I said, "has troubled me, too. We don't always know 
 
*He reached into his pocket and handed me a little 
 paper-covered booklet" 
 
 97 
 
98 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 just where our hells are. I£ we did we might avoid them. We arc 
 not so sensitive to them as we should be — do you think?" 
 
 He looked at me intently: I went on before he could answer: 
 
 "Why, I've seen men in my time living from day to day in 
 the very atmosphere of perpetual torment, and actually arguing 
 that there was no hell. It is a strange sight, I assure you, and one 
 that will trouble you afterwards. From what I know of hell, 
 it is a place of very loose boundaries. Sometimes I've thought we 
 couldn't be quite sure when we were in it and when we were 
 not." 
 
 I did not tell my friend, but I was thinking of the remark of 
 old Swedenborg: "The trouble with hell is we shall not know 
 it when we arrive." 
 
 At this point Mr. Purdy burst out again, having opened his 
 little book at another page. 
 
 "When Adam and Eve had sinned," he said, "and the God 
 of Heaven walked in the garden in the cool of the evening and 
 called for them and they had hidden themselves on account of 
 their disobedience, did God say to them: Unless you repent of 
 your sins and get forgiveness I will shut you up in yon dark and 
 dismal hell and torment you (or have the devil do it) for ever 
 and ever? Was there such a word?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "No, sir," he said vehemently, "there was not." 
 
 "But does it say," I asked, "that Adam and Eve had not them- 
 selves been using their best wits in creating a hell? That point 
 has occurred to me. In my experience I've known both Adams 
 and Eves who were most adroit in their capacity for making 
 places of torment — and afterwards of getting into them. Just 
 watch yourself some day after you've sown a crop of desires 
 and you'll see promising little hells starting up within you like 
 pigweeds and pusley after a warm rain in your garden. And 
 our heavens, too, for that matter — they grow to our own plant- 
 ing: and how sensitive they are too! How soon the hot wind of 
 a passion withers them away! How surely the fires of selfishness 
 blacken their perfection!" 
 
 I'd almost forgotten Mr. Purdy — and when I looked around, 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 99 
 
 his face wore a peculiar puzzled expression not unmixed with 
 alarm. He held up his little book eagerly, almost in my face. 
 
 "If God had intended to create a hell," he said, "I assert 
 without fear of successful contradiction that when God was 
 there in the Garden of Eden it was the time for Him to have 
 put Adam and Eve and all their posterity on notice that there 
 was a place of everlasting torment. It would have been only a 
 square deal for Him to do so. But did He?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "He did not. If He had mentioned hell on that occasion I 
 should not now dispute its existence. But He did not. This is 
 what He said to Adam — the very words: 'In the sweat of thy 
 face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground: for 
 out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
 thou return.' You see He did not say 'Unto hell shalt thou 
 return.' He said, 'Unto dust.' That isn't hell, is it?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "there are in my experience a great many dif- 
 ferent kinds of hells. There are almost as many kinds of hells 
 as there are men and women upon this earth. Now, your hell 
 wouldn't terrify me in the least. My own makes me no end of 
 trouble. Talk about burning pitch and brimstone: how futile 
 were the imaginations of the old fellows who conjured up such 
 puerile torments. Why, I can tell you of no end of hells that 
 are worse — and not half try. Once I remember, when 1 was 
 younger " 
 
 I happened to glance around at my companion. He sat there 
 looking at me with horror — fascinated horror. 
 
 "Well, I won't disturb your peace of mind by telling that 
 story," I said. 
 
 "Do you beheve that we shall go to hell?" he asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "That depends," I said. "Let's leave out the question of 'we'; 
 let's be more comfortably general in our discussion. I think we 
 can safely say that some go and some do not. It's a curious and 
 noteworthy thing," I said, "but I've known of cases — There are 
 some people who aren't really worth good honest tormenting — 
 let alone the rewards of heavenly bliss. They just haven't any- 
 
100 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 thing to torment! What is going to become of such folks? I con- 
 fess I don't know. You remember when Dante began his journey 
 into the infernal regions " 
 
 "I don't believe a word of that Dante," he interrupted ex- 
 citedly; "it's all a made up story. There isn't a word of truth 
 in it; it is a blasphemous book. Let me read you what I say 
 about it in here." 
 
 h "I will agree with you without argument," I said, "that it is 
 not all true. I merely wanted to speak of one of Dante's experi- 
 ences as an illustration of the point I'm making. You remember 
 that almost the first spirits he met on his journey were those who 
 had never done anything in this life to merit either heaven or 
 hell. That always struck me as being about the worst plight 
 imaginable for a human being. Think of a creature not even 
 worth good honest brimstone!" 
 
 Since I came home, I've looked up the passage; and it is a 
 wonderful one. Dante heard waiUngs and groans and terrible 
 things said in many tongues. Yet these were not the souls of the 
 wicked. They were only those "who had lived without praise 
 or blame, thinking of nothing but themselves." "Heaven would 
 not dull its brightness with those, nor would lower hell receive 
 them." 
 
 "And what is it," asked Dante, "that makes them so grievously 
 suffer.?" 
 
 "Hopelessness of death," said Virgil. "Their blind existence 
 here, and immemorable former life, make them so wretched 
 that they envy every other lot. Mercy and Justice alike disdain 
 them. Let us speak of them no more. Look, and pass!" 
 
 But Mr. Purdy, in spite of his timidity, was a man of much 
 persistence. 
 
 "They tell me," he said, "when they try to prove the reason- 
 ableness of hell, that unless you show sinners how they're goin' 
 to be tormented, they'd never repent. Now, I say that if a 
 man has to be scared into religion, his religion ain't much good." 
 
 "There," I said, "I agree with you completely." 
 
 His face lighted up, and he continued eagerly : 
 
 "And I tell 'em: You just go ahead and try for heaven; don't 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 101 
 
 pay any attention to all this talk about everlasting punishment." 
 
 "Good advice!" I said. 
 
 It had begun to grow dark. The brown cow was quiet at 
 last. We could hear small faint sounds from the calf. I started 
 slowly through the bracken. Mr. Purdy hung at my elbow^ 
 stumbHng sideways as he walked, but continuing to talk 
 eagerly. So we came to the place where the calf lay. I spoke in 
 a low voice : 
 
 "So boss, so boss." 
 
 I would have laid my hand on her neck but she started back 
 with a wild toss of her horns. It was a beautiful calf! I looked at 
 it with a pecuUar feeling of exultation, pride, ownership. It was 
 red-brown, with a round curly pate and one white leg. As it lay 
 curled there among the ferns, it was really beautiful to look at. 
 When we approached, it did not so much as stir. I lifted it to 
 its legs, upon which the cow uttered a strange half-wild cry 
 and ran a few steps ofiF, her head thrown in the air. The calf 
 fell back as though it had no legs. 
 
 "She is telling it not to stand up," said Mr. Purdy. 
 
 I had been afraid at first that something was the matter! 
 
 "Some are like that," he said. "Some call their calves to run. 
 
102 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Others won't let you come near 'em at all; and I've even known 
 of a case where a cow gored its calf to death rather than let 
 anyone touch it." 
 
 I looked at Mr. Piirdy not without a feeHng of admiration. 
 This was a thing he knew: a language not taught in the uni- 
 versities. How well it became him to know it; how simply he 
 expressed it! I thought to myself: There are not many men in 
 this world, after all, that it will not pay us to go to school to — 
 for something or other. 
 
 I should never have been able, indeed, to get the cow and calf 
 home, last night at least, if it had not been for my chance friend. 
 He knew exactly what to do and how to do it. He wore a stout 
 coat of denim, rather long in the skirts. This he slipped off, while 
 I looked on in some astonishment, and spread it out on the 
 ground. He placed my staff under one side of it and found an- 
 other stick nearly the same size for the other side. These he 
 wound into the coat until he had made a sort of stretcher. Upon 
 this we placed the unresisting calf. What a fine one it was! 
 Then, he in front and I behind, we carried the stretcher and its 
 burden out of the wood. The cow followed, sometimes threaten- 
 ing, sometimes bellowing, sometimes starting off wildly, head 
 and tail in the air, only to rush back and, venturing up with 
 trembling muscles, touch her tongue to the calf, uttering low 
 maternal sounds. 
 
 "Keep steady," said Mr. Purdy, "and everything'll be all 
 right." 
 
 When we came to the brook we stopped to rest. I think my 
 companion would have liked to start his argument again, but 
 he was too short of breath. 
 
 It was a prime spring evening! The frogs were tuning up. I 
 heard a drowsy cowbell somewhere over the hills in the pas- 
 ture. The brown cow, with eager, outstretched neck, was licking 
 her calf as it lay there on the improvised stretcher. I looked 
 up at the sky, a blue avenue of heaven between the tree tops; I 
 felt the peculiar sense of mystery which nature so commonly 
 conveys. 
 
 "I have been too sure!" I said. "What do we know after all! 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 103 
 
 Why may there not be future heavens and hells — 'other heavens 
 for other earths'? We do not know — we do not ]{now " 
 
 So, carrying the calf, in the cool of the evening, we came at 
 last to my yard. We had no sooner put the calf down than it 
 jumped nimbly to its feet and ran, wobbling absurdly, to meet 
 its mother. 
 
 "The rascal," I said, "after all our work." 
 
 "It's the nature of the animal," said Mr. Purdy, as he put on 
 his coat. 
 
 I could not thank him enough. I invited him to stay with us 
 to supper, but he said he must hurry home. 
 
 ''Then come down soon to see me," I said, "and we will settle 
 this question as to the existence of a hell." 
 
 He stepped up close to me and said, with an appeaUng note 
 in his voice : 
 
 "You do not really believe in a hell, do you?" 
 
 How human nature loves conclusiveness : nothing short of the 
 categorical will satisfy us! What I said to Mr. Purdy evidently 
 appeased him, for he seized my hand and shook and shook. 
 
 "We haven't understood each other," he said eagerly. "You 
 don't beheve in eternal damnation any more than I do." Then he 
 added, as though some new uncertainty puzzled him, "Do you?" 
 
 At supper I was telling Harriet with gusto of my experiences. 
 Suddenly she broke out: 
 
 "What was his name?" 
 
 "Purdy." 
 
 "Why, he's the infidel that Mrs. Horace tells about!" 
 
 "Is that possible?" I said, and I dropped my knife and fork. 
 The strangest sensation came over me. 
 
 "Why," I said, "then I'm an infidel too!" 
 
 So I laughed and I've been laughing gloriously ever since — at 
 myself, at the infidel, at the entire neighbourhood. I recalled 
 that delightful character in "The Vicar of Wakefield" (my friend 
 the Scotch Preacher loves to tell about him), who seasons error 
 by crying out "Fudge!" 
 
 "Fudge!" I said. 
 
 We're all poor sinners! 
 
XI 
 
 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 
 
 Wh 
 
 Sunday afternoon, June g. 
 
 E HAD A FUNERAL TODAY in this Community and the longest 
 funeral procession, Charles Baxter says, he has seen in all the 
 years o£ his memory among these hills. A good man has gone 
 away — and yet remains. In the comparatively short time I have 
 been here I never came to know him well personally, though I 
 saw him often in the country roads, a ruddy old gentleman 
 with thick, coarse, iron-gray hair, somewhat stern of counte- 
 nance, somewhat shabby of attire, sitting as erect as a trooper in 
 his open buggy, one muscular hand resting on his knee, the 
 other holding the reins of his familiar old white horse. I said I 
 did not come to know him well personally, and yet no one who 
 knows this community can help knowing Doctor John North. 
 I never so desired the gift of moving expression as I do at this 
 moment, on my return from his funeral, that I may give some 
 faint idea of what a good man means to a community like ours 
 — as the more complete knowledge of it has come to me to-day. 
 
 104 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 105 
 
 In the district school that I attended when a boy we used to 
 love to leave our mark, as we called it, wherever our rovings led 
 us. It was a bit of boyish mysticism, unaccountable now that we 
 have grown older and wiser (perhaps) ; but it had its meaning. 
 It was an instinctive outreaching of the young soul to perpetu- 
 ate the knowledge of its existence upon this forgetful earth. My 
 mark, I remember, was a notch and a cross. With what secret 
 fond diligence I carved it in the gray bark of beech trees, on 
 fence posts, or on barn doors, and once, I remember, on the 
 roof-ridge of our home, and once, with high imaginings of how 
 long it would remain, I spent hours chiseling it deep in a hard- 
 headed old boulder in the pasture, where, if man has been as 
 kind as Nature, it remains to this day. If you should chance to 
 see it you would not know of the boy who carved it there. 
 
 So Doctor North left his secret mark upon the neighbourhood 
 — as all of us do, for good or for ill, upon our neighbourhoods, in 
 accordance with the strength of that character which abides 
 within us. For a long time I did not know that it was he, though 
 it was not difficult to see that some strong good man had often 
 passed this way. I saw the mystic sign of him deep-lettered in 
 the hearthstone of a home; I heard it speaking bravely from the 
 weak lips of a friend; it is carved in the plastic heart of many a 
 boy. No, I do not doubt the immortalities of the soul; in this 
 community, which I have come to love so much, dwells more 
 than one of John North*s immortalities— and will continue to 
 dwell. I, too, live more deeply because John North was here. 
 
 He was in no outward way an extraordinary man, nor was his 
 life eventful. He was born in this neighbourhood: I saw him 
 lying quite still this morning in the same sunny room of the same 
 house where he first saw the light of day. Here among these com- 
 mon hills he grew up, and save for the few years he spent at 
 school or in the army, he lived here all his life long. In old neigh- 
 bourhoods and especially farm neighbourhoods people come to 
 know one another — not clothes knowledge, or money knowl- 
 edge — ^but that sort of knowledge which reaches down into the 
 hidden springs of human character. A country community may 
 be deceived by a stranger, too easily deceived, but not by one 
 
106 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 of its own people. For it is not a studied knowledge ; it resembles 
 that slow geologic uncovering before which not even the deep 
 buried bones of the prehistoric saurian remain finally hidden. 
 
 I never fully realised until this morning what a supreme tri- 
 umph it is, having grown old, to merit the respect of those who 
 know us best. Mere greatness offers no reward ' to compare 
 with it, for greatness compels that homage which we freely 
 bestow upon goodness. So long as I live I shall never forget this 
 morning. I stood in the door-yard outside of the open window 
 of the old doctor's home. It was soft, and warm, and very still — 
 a June Sunday morning. An apple tree not far off was still in 
 blossom, and across the road on a grassy hillside sheep fed un- 
 concernedly. Occasionally, from the roadway where the horses 
 of the countryside were waiting, I heard the clink of a bit-ring 
 or the low voice of some new-comer seeking a place to hitch. 
 Not half those who came could find room in the house: they 
 stood uncovered among the trees. From within, wafted through 
 the window, came the faint odour of flowers, and the occasional 
 minor intonation of someone speaking — and finally our own 
 Scotch Preacher! I could not see him, but there lay in the 
 cadences of his voice a peculiar note of peacefulness, of finality. 
 The day before he died Dr. North had said : 
 
 "I want McAlway to conduct my funeral, not as a minister 
 but as a man. He has been my friend for forty years; he will 
 know what I mean." 
 
 The Scotch Preacher did not say much. Why should he.? 
 Everyone there knew: and speech would only have cheapened 
 what we knew. And I do not now recall even the little he said, 
 for there was so much all about me that spoke not of the death 
 of a good man, but of his life. A boy who stood near me — a boy 
 no longer, for he was as tall as a man — ^gave a more eloquent 
 tribute than any preacher could have done. I saw him stand his 
 ground for a time with that grim courage of youth which dreads 
 emotion more than a battle : and then I saw him crying behind a 
 tree! He was not a relative of the old doctor's; he was only one 
 of many into whose deep life the doctor had entered. 
 
 They sang "Lead, Kindly Light," and came out through the 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 107 
 
 narrow doorway into the sunshine with the coffin, the hats o£ 
 the pall-bearers in a row on top, and there was hardly a dry 
 eye among us. 
 
 And as they came out through the narrow doorway, I thought 
 how the Doctor must have looked out daily through so many, 
 many years upon this beauty of hills and fields and of sky above, 
 grown dearer from long familiarity — which he would know no 
 more. And Kate North, the Doctor's sister, his only relative, 
 followed behind, her fine old face gray and set, but without a 
 tear in her eye. How like the Doctor she looked : the same stern 
 control! 
 
 In the hours which followed, on the pleasant winding way to 
 the cemetery, in the groups under the trees, on the way home- 
 ward again, the community spoke its true heart, and I have 
 come back with the feeling that human nature, at bottom, is 
 sound and sweet. I knew a great deal before about Doctor 
 North, but I knew it as knowledge, not as emotion, and there- 
 fore it was not really a part of my life. 
 
 I heard again the stories of how he drove the country roads, 
 winter and summer, how he had seen most of the population 
 into the world and had held the hands of many who went out! 
 It was the plain, hard life of a country doctor, and yet it seemed 
 to rise in our community like some great tree, its roots deep 
 buried in the soil of our common life, its branches close to the 
 sky. To those accustomed to the outward excitements of city 
 life it would have seemed barren and uneventful. It was signifi- 
 cant that the talk was not so much of what the Doctor did as of 
 how he did it, not so much of his actions as of the natural expres- 
 sion of his character. And when we come to think of it, good- 
 ness is uneventful. It does not flash, it glows. It is deep, quiet 
 and very simple. It passes not with oratory, it is commonly for- 
 eign to riches, nor does it often sit in the places of the mighty: 
 but may be felt in the touch of a friendly hand or the look of a 
 kindly eye. 
 
 Outwardly, John North often gave the impression of brusque- 
 ness. Many a woman, going to him for the first time, and until 
 she learned that he was in reality as gentle as a girl, was fright- 
 
108 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON "" 
 
 ened by his manner. The country is full of stories of such en- 
 counters. We laugh yet over the adventure of a woman w^ho 
 formerly came to spend her summers here. She dressed very 
 beautifully and was "nervous." One day she went to call on the 
 Doctor. He made a careful examination and asked many ques- 
 tions. Finally he said, with portentous solemnity: 
 
 "Madam, you're suffering from a very common complaint." 
 
 The Doctor paused, then continued, impressively: 
 
 "You haven't enough work to do. This is what I would advise. 
 Go home, discharge your servants, do your own cooking, wash 
 your own clothes and make your own beds. You'll get well." 
 
 She is reported to have been much offended, and yet to-day 
 there was a wreath of white roses in Doctor North's room sent 
 from the city by that woman. 
 
 If he really hated anything in this world the Doctor hated 
 whimperers. He had a deep sense of the purpose and need of 
 punishment, and he despised those who fled from wholesome 
 discipline. 
 
 A young fellow once went to the Doctor— so they tell the 
 story — and asked for something to stop his pain. 
 
 "Stop it!" exclaimed the Doctor: "why, it's good for you. 
 You've done wrong, haven't you? Well, you're being punished; 
 take it like a man. There's nothing more wholesome than good 
 honest pain." 
 
 And yet how much pain he alleviated in this community— in 
 forty years! 
 
 The deep sense that a man should stand up to his fate was 
 one of the key-notes of his character; and the way he taught it, 
 not only by word but by every action of his life, put heart into 
 many a weak man and woman. Mrs. Patterson, a friend of ours, 
 tells of a reply she once had from the Doctor to whom she had 
 gone with a new trouble. After telling him about it she said: 
 
 "I've left it all with the Lord." 
 
 "You'd have done better," said the Doctor, "to keep it your- 
 self. Trouble is for your discipUne: the Lord doesn't need it.'" 
 
 It was thus out of his wisdom that he was always telling people 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 109 
 
 what they knew, deep down in their hearts, to be true. It some- 
 times hurt at first, but sooner or later, if the man had a spark of 
 real manhood in him, he came back, and gave the Doctor an 
 abiding affection. 
 
 There were those who, though they loved him, called him 
 intolerant. I never could look at it that way. He did have the 
 only kind of intolerance which is at all tolerable, and that is the 
 intolerance of intolerance. He always set himself with vigour 
 against that unreason and lack of sympathy which are the es- 
 sence of intolerance; and yet there was a rock of conviction on 
 many subjects behind which he could not be driven. It was not 
 intolerance: it was with him a reasoned certainty of belief. He 
 had a phrase to express that not uncommon state of.mind, in this 
 age particularly, which is politely willing to yield its foothold 
 within this universe to almost any reasoner who suggests some 
 other universe, however shadowy, to stand upon. He called it 
 a "mush of concession." He might have been wrong in his con- 
 victions, but he, at least, never floundered in a "mush of con- 
 cession." I heard him say once: 
 
 "There are some things a man can't concede, and one is, that 
 a man who has broken a law, like a man who has broken a leg, 
 has got to suffer for it." 
 
 It was only with the greatest difficulty that he could be pre- 
 vailed upon to present a bill. It was not because the community 
 was poor, though some of our people are poor, and it was cer- 
 tainly not because the Doctor was rich and could afford such 
 philanthropy, for, saving a rather unproductive farm which 
 during the last ten years of his life lay wholly uncultivated, he 
 was as poor as any man in the community. He simply seemed to 
 forget that people owed him. 
 
 It came to be a common and humorous experience for people 
 to go to the Doctor and say: 
 
 "Now, Doctor North, how much do I owe you? You re- 
 member you attended my wife two years ago when the baby 
 came — and John when he had the diphtheria " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the Doctor, "I remember." 
 
no ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "I thought I ought to pay you." 
 "Well, ril look it up when I get time." 
 But he wouldn't. The only way was to go to him and sayc 
 "Doctor, I want to pay ten dollars on account." 
 "All right," he'd answer, and take the money. 
 To the credit of the community I may say with truthfulness 
 that the Doctor never suffered. He was even able to supply him- 
 self with the best instruments that money could buy. To him 
 nothing was too good for our neighbourhood. This morning I 
 saw in a case at his home a complete set of ocuHst's instruments, 
 said to be the best in the county — a very unusual equipment for 
 a country doctor. Indeed, he assumed that the responsibility for 
 the health of the community rested upon him. He was a sort of 
 self-constituted health officer. He was always sniffing about for 
 old wells and damp cellars — and somehow, with his crisp 
 humour and sound sense, getting them cleaned. In his old 
 age he even grew querulously particular about these things — 
 asking a little more of human nature than it could quite ac- 
 complish. There were innumerable other ways — how they came 
 out to-day all glorified now that he is gone! — in which he served 
 the community. 
 
 Horace tells how he once met the Doctor driving his old white 
 horse in the town road. 
 "Horace," called the Doctor, "why don't you paint your barn?" 
 "Well," said Horace, "it is beginning to look a bit shabby." 
 "Horace," said the Doctor, "you're a prominent citizen. We 
 look to you to keep up the credit of the neighbourhood*" 
 Horace painted his barn. 
 
 I think Doctor North was fonder of Charles Baxter than of 
 anyone else, save his sister. He hated sham and cant: if a man 
 had a single reality in him the old Doctor found it; and Charles 
 Baxter in many ways exceeds any man I ever knew in the 
 downright quaUty of genuineness. The Doctor was never tired 
 of telling — and with humour — how he once went to Baxter to 
 have a table made for his office. When he came to get it 
 he found the table upside down and Baxter on his knees finish- 
 ing off the under part of the drawer sUdes. Baxter looked up and 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 111 
 
 smiled in the engaging way he has, and continued his work. 
 After watching him for some time the Doctor said: 
 
 "Baxter, why do you spend so much time on that table? 
 Who's going to know whether or not the last touch has been put 
 on the under side of it?" 
 
 Baxter straightened up and looked at the Doctor in surprise. 
 
 "Why, I will," he said. 
 
 How the Doctor loved to tell that story! I warrant there is 
 no boy who ever grew up in this country who hasn't heard it. 
 
 It was a part of his pride in finding reality that made the 
 Doctor such a lover of true sentiment and such a hater of senti- 
 mentality. I prize one memory of him which illustrates this 
 point. The district school gave a "speaking" and we all went. 
 One boy with a fresh young voice spoke a "soldier piece" — the 
 soliloquy of a one-armed veteran who sits at a window and sees 
 the troops go by with dancing banners and glittering bayonets, 
 and the people cheering and shouting. And the refrain went 
 something like this : 
 
 "Never again call 'Comrade' 
 
 To the men who were comrades for years; 
 Never again call 'Brother 
 
 To the men we thinf^^ of with tears." 
 
 I happened to look around while the boy was speaking, and 
 there sat the old Doctor with the tears rolling unheeded down 
 his ruddy face; he was thinking, no doubt, of his war time and 
 the comrades he knew. 
 
 On the other hand, how he despised fustian and bombast. His 
 "Bah!" delivered explosively, was often Uke a breath of fresh 
 air in a stuffy room. Several years ago, before I came here — and 
 it is one of the historic stories of the county — there was a semi- 
 political Fourth of July celebration with a number of ambitious 
 orators. One of them, a young fellow of small worth who wanted 
 to be elected to the legislature, made an impassioned address on 
 "Patriotism." The Doctor was present, for he Hked gatherings: 
 he Hked people. But he did not like the young orator, and did 
 not want him to be elected. In the midst of the speech, while 
 
112 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 the audience was being carried through the clouds of oratory, 
 the Doctor was seen to be growing more and more uneasy. 
 Finally he burst out: 
 
 "Bah!" 
 
 The orator caught himself, and then swept on again. 
 
 "Bahl" said the Doctor. 
 
 By this time the audience was really interested. The orator 
 stopped. He knew the Doctor, and he should have known bet- 
 ter than to say what he did. But he was very young and he 
 knew the Doctor was opposing him. 
 
 "Perhaps," he remarked sarcastically, "the Doctor can make 
 a better speech than I can." 
 
 The Doctor rose instantly, to his full height — and he was an 
 impressive-looking man. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said, "I can, and what is more, I will." He stood 
 up on a chair and gave them a talk on Patriotism— real patriotism 
 — the patriotism of duty done in the small concerns of life. That 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 113 
 
 speech, which ended the political career of the orator, is not 
 forgotten to-day. 
 
 One thing I heard to-day about the old Doctor impressed me 
 deeply. I have been talking about it ever since: it illuminates 
 his character more than anything I have heard. It is singular, 
 too, that I should not have known the story before. I don't be- 
 lieve it was because it all happened so long ago; it rather re- 
 mained untold out of deference to a sort of neighbourhood 
 delicacy. 
 
 I had, indeed, wondered why a man of such capacities, so 
 many qualities of real greatness and power, should have escaped 
 a city career. I said something to this effect to a group of men 
 with whom I was talking this morning. I thought they ex- 
 changed glances; one said: 
 
 "When he first came out of the army he'd made such a fine 
 record as a surgeon that everyone urged him to go to the city 
 and practice " 
 
 A pause followed which no one seemed inclined to fill. 
 
 "But he didn't go," I said. 
 
 "No, he didn't go. He was a brilliant young fellow. He \new 
 a lot, and he was popular, too. He'd have had a great suc- 
 cess " 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 "But he didn't go?" I asked promptingly. 
 
 "No; he staid here. He was better educated than any man in 
 this county. Why, I've seen him more'n once pick up a book 
 of Latin and read it jor pleasure" 
 
 I could see that all this was purposely irrelevant, and I liked 
 them for it. But walking home from the cemetery Horace gave 
 me the story; the community knew it to the last detail. I sup- 
 pose it is a story not uncommon among men, but this morn- 
 ing, told of the old Doctor we had just laid away, it struck me 
 with a tragic poignancy difficult to describe. 
 
 "Yes," said Horace, "he was to have been married, forty 
 years ago, and the match was broken off because he was a 
 drunkard." 
 
 "A drunkard!" I exclaimed, with a shock I cannot convey. 
 
114 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Horace, "one o' the worst you ever see. He 
 got it in the army. Handsome, wild, brilliant— that was the Doc- 
 tor. I was a Httle boy but I remember it mighty well." 
 
 He told me the whole distressing story. It was all a long time 
 ago and the details do not matter now. It was to be expected 
 that a man like the old Doctor should love, love once, and 
 love as few men do. And that is what he did — and the girl left 
 him because he was a drunkard! 
 
 "They all thought," said Horace, "that he'd up an' kill him- 
 self. He said he would, but he didn't. Instid o' that he put an 
 open bottle on his table and he looked at it and said: 'Which 
 is stronger, now, you or John North? We'll make that the test,' 
 he said, 'we'll live or die by that.' Them was his exact words. He 
 couldn't sleep nights and he got haggard like a sick man, but he 
 left the bottle there and never touched it." 
 
 How my heart throbbed with the thought of that old silent 
 struggle! How much it explained; how near it brought all these 
 people around him! It made him so human. It is the tragic neces- 
 sity (but the salvation) of many a man that he should come 
 finally to an irretrievable experience, to the assurance that 
 everything is lost. For with that moment, if he be strong, he is 
 saved. I wonder if anyone ever attains real human sympathy who 
 has not passed through the fire of some such experience. Or to 
 humour either! For in the best laughter do we not hear con- 
 stantly that deep minor note which speaks of the ache in the 
 human heart? It seems to me I can understand Doctor North! 
 
 He died Friday morning. He had been lying very quiet all 
 night; suddenly he opened his eyes and said to his sister: 
 "Good-bye, Kate," and shut them again. That was all. The last 
 call had come and he was ready for it. I looked at his face 
 after death. I saw the iron lines of that old struggle in his mouth 
 and chin; and the humour that it brought him in the lines around 
 his deep-set eyes. 
 
 And as I think of him this - afternoon, I can see him — 
 
 curiously, for I can hardly explain it — carrying a banner as in 
 battle right here among our quiet hills. And those he leads seem 
 to be the people we know, the men, and the women, and tht 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 115 
 
 boys! He is the hero of a new age. In olden days he might have 
 been a pioneer, carrying the hght of civiHsation to a new land; 
 here he has been a sort of moral pioneer — a pioneering far 
 more difficult than any we have ever known. There are no 
 heroics connected with it, the name of the pioneer will not go 
 ringing down the ages ; for it is a silent leadership and its success 
 is measured by victories in other lives. We see it now, only too 
 dimly, when he is gone. We reflect sadly that we did not stop 
 to thank him. How busy we were with our own affairs when he 
 was among us! I wonder is there anyone here to take up the 
 banner he has laid down! 
 
 1 forgot to say that the Scotch Preacher chose the most 
 
 impressive text in the Bible for his talk at the funeral: 
 
 "He that is greatest among you, let him be ... as he that doth 
 serve." 
 
 And we came away with a nameless, aching sense of loss, 
 thinking how, perhaps, in a small way, we might do something 
 for somebody else— as the old Doctor did. 
 
XII 
 AN EVENING AT HOME 
 
 'How calm and quiet a delight 
 
 Is it, alone, 
 To read and meditate and write. 
 
 By none offended, and offending none. 
 To wal\, ride, sit or sleep at one's own ease, 
 
 And, pleasing a mans self, none other to displease." 
 
 — CHARLES COTTON, A FRIEND OF IZAAK WALTON, 165O. 
 
 JL/uRiNG THE LAST FEW MONTHS SO many of the real adventures 
 of life have been out of doors and so much of the beauty, too, 
 that I have scarcely w^ritten a word about my books. In the 
 summer the days are so long and the work so engrossing that a 
 farmer is quite willing to sit quietly on his porch after supper 
 and watch the long evenings fall — and rest his tired back, and 
 go to bed early. But the winter is the true time for indoor en- 
 joyment! 
 
 Days like these! A cold night after a cold day! Well wrapped, 
 you have made arctic explorations to the stable, the chicken-yard 
 and the pig-pen; you have dug your way energetically to the 
 front gate, stopping every few minutes to beat your arms around 
 your shoulders and watch the white plume of your breath in the 
 still air— and you have rushed in gladly to the warmth of the 
 
 116 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 117 
 
 dining-room and the lamp-lit supper. After such a day how- 
 sharp your appetite, how good the taste of food! Harriet's brown 
 bread (moist, with thick, sweet, dark crusts) was never quite so 
 delicious, and when the meal is finished you push back your 
 chair feeling like a sort of lord. 
 
 "That was a good supper, Harriet," you say expansively. 
 
 "Was it?" she asks modestly, but with evident pleasure. 
 
 "Cookery," you remark, "is the greatest art in the world " 
 
 "Oh, you were hungry!" 
 
 "Next to poetry," you conclude, "and much better appreciated. 
 Think how easy it is to find a poet who will turn you a pre- 
 sentable sonnet, and how very difficult it is to find a cook who 
 will turn you an edible beefsteak " 
 
 I said a good deal more on this subject which I shall not 
 attempt to repeat. Harriet did not listen through it all. She 
 knows what I am capable of when I really get started; and 
 she has her well-defined limits. A practical person, Harriet! 
 When I have gone about so far, she begins clearing the table or 
 takes up her mending— but I don't mind it at all. Having begun 
 talking, it is wonderful how pleasant one's own voice becomes. 
 And think of having a clear field — and no interruptions! 
 
 My own particular room, where I am permitted to revel in 
 the desert of my own disorder, opens comfortably oflF the sitting- 
 room. A lamp with a green shade stands invitingly on the table 
 shedding a circle of light on the books and papers underneath, 
 but leaving all the remainder of the room in dim pleasantness. 
 At one side stands a comfortable big chair with everything in 
 arm's reach, including my note books and ink bottle. Where I 
 sit I can look out through the open doorway and see Harriet 
 near the fireplace rocking and sewing. Sometimes she hums a 
 little tune which I never confess to hearing, lest I miss some 
 of the unconscious cadences. Let the wind blow outside and the 
 snow drift in piles around the doorway and the blinds rattle — 
 I have before me a whole long pleasant evening. 
 
 What a convenient and delightful world is this world of 
 books!— if you bring to it not the obligations of the student, or 
 
118 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 look upon it as an opiate for idleness, but enter it rather with 
 the enthusiasm of the adventurer! It has vast advantages over the 
 ordinary world of daylight, of barter and trade, of work and 
 worry. In this world every man is his own King — the sort of 
 King one loves to imagine, not concerned in such petty matters 
 as wars and parliaments and taxes, but a mellow and moderate 
 despot who is a true patron of genius — a mild old chap who 
 has in his court the greatest men and women in the world — 
 and all of them vying to please the most vagrant of his moods! 
 Invite any one of them to talk, and if your highness is not 
 pleased with him you have only to put him back in his corner 
 — and bring some jester to sharpen the laughter of your highness, 
 or some poet to set your faintest emotion to music! 
 
 I have marked a certain servility in books. They entreat you 
 for a hearing: they cry out from their cases — like men, in an 
 eternal struggle for survival, for immortality. 
 
 "Take me," pleads this one, "I am responsive to every mood 
 You will find in me love and hate, virtue and vice. I don't 
 preach: I give you life as it is. You will find here adventures 
 cunningly linked with romance and seasoned to suit the most 
 fastidious taste. Try me." 
 
 "Hear such talk!" cries his neighbour. "He's fiction. What he 
 says never happened at all. He tries hard to make you beUeve it, 
 but it isn't true, not a word of it. Now, I'm fact. Everything 
 you find in me can be depended upon." 
 
 "Yes," responds the other, "but who cares! Nobody wants 
 to read you, you're dull." 
 
 "You're false!" 
 
 As their voices grow shriller with argument your highness 
 listens with the indulgent smile of royalty when its courtiers 
 contend for its favour, knowing that their very life depends 
 upon a wrinkle in your august brow. 
 
 As for me I confess to being a rather crusty despot. When 
 Horace was over here the other evening talking learnedly about 
 silos and ensilage I admit that I became the very pattern of 
 humility, but when I take my place in the throne of my arm- 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 119 
 
 chair with the light from the green-shaded lamp falling on the 
 open pages of my book, I assure you I am decidedly an autocratic 
 person. My retainers must distinctly keep their places! I have my 
 court favourites upon whom I lavish the richest gifts of my 
 attention. I reserve for them a special place in the worn case 
 nearest my person, where at the mere outreaching of an idle 
 hand I can summon them to beguile my moods. The necessary 
 Slavics of literature I have arranged in indistinct rows at the 
 farther end of the room where they can be had if I require their 
 special accompHshments. 
 
 How httle, after all, learning counts in this world either in 
 books or in men. I have often been awed by the wealth of 
 information I have discovered in a man or a book: I have been 
 awed and depressed. How wonderful, I have thought, that 
 one brain should hold so much, should be so infallible in a 
 world of fallibihty. But I have observed how soon and com- 
 pletely such a fount of information dissipates itself. Having 
 only things to give, it comes finally to the end of its things: 
 it is empty. What it has hived up so painfully through many a 
 studious year comes now to be common property. We pass 
 that way, take our share, and do not even say "Thank you." 
 Learning is like money; it is of prodigious satisfaction to the 
 possessor thereof, but once given forth it diffuses itself swiftly. 
 
 "What have you?" we are ever asking of those we meet. 
 "Information, learning, money?" 
 
 We take it cruelly and pass onward, for such is the law of 
 material possessions. 
 
 "What have you?" we ask. "Charm, personality, character, 
 the great gift of unexpectedness?" 
 
 How we draw you to us! We take you in. Poor or ignorant 
 though you may be, we link arms and loiter; we love you 
 not for what you have or what you give us, but for what you 
 are. 
 
 I have several good friends (excellent people) who act always 
 as I expect them to act. There is no flight! More than once I 
 have listened to the edifying conversation of a certain sturdy 
 
120 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 old gentleman whom I know, and I am ashamed to say that 
 I have thought : 
 
 "Lord! if he would jump up now and turn an intellectual 
 handspring, or slap me on the back (figuratively, of course: the 
 other would be unthinkable), or — yes, swear! I — think I could 
 love him." 
 
 But he never does — and I'm afraid he never will! 
 
 When I speak then of my books you will know what I mean. 
 The chief charm of literature, old or new, Hes in its high 
 quality of surprise, unexpectedness, spontaneity: high spirits 
 applied to life. We can fairly hear some of the old chaps you and 
 I know laughing down through the centuries. How we love 
 'em! They laughed for themselves, not for us! 
 
 Yes, there must be surprise in the books that I keep in the 
 worn case at my elbow, the surprise of a new personality per- 
 ceiving for the first time the beauty, the wonder, the humour, 
 the tragedy, the greatness of truth. It doesn't matter at all 
 whether the writer is a poet, a scientist, a traveller, an essayist or 
 a mere daily space-maker, if he have the God-given grace of 
 wonder. 
 
 "What on earth are you laughing about?" cries Harriet from 
 the sitting-room. 
 When I have caught my breath, I say, holding up my book: 
 "This absurd man here is teUing of the adventures of a certain 
 chivalrous Knight." 
 
 "But I can't see how you can laugh out like that, sitting all 
 alone there. Why, it's uncanny." 
 "You don't know the Knight, Harriet, nor his squire Sancho." 
 "You talk of them just as though they were real persons." 
 "Real!" I exclaim, "real! Why they are much more real than 
 most of the people we know. Horace is a mere wraith compared 
 with Sancho." 
 And then I rush out. 
 
 "Let me read you this," I say, and I read that matchless chap- 
 ter wherein the Knight, having clapped on his head the helmet 
 which Sancho has inadvertently used as a receptacle for a 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 121 
 
 dinner of curds and, sweating whey profusely, goes forth to 
 fight two fierce lions. As I proceed with that prodigious story, I 
 can see Harriet gradually forgetting her sewing, and I read on 
 the more furiously until, coming to the point of the conflict 
 wherein the generous and gentle lion, having yawned, "threw 
 out some half yard of tongue wherewith he licked and washed 
 his face," Harriet begins to laugh. 
 
 "There!" I say triumphantly. 
 
 Harriet looks at me accusingly. 
 
 "Such foolishness!" she says. "Why should any man in his 
 senses try to fight caged lions!" 
 
 "Harriet," I say, "you are incorrigible." 
 
 She does not deign to reply, so I return with meekness to my 
 room. 
 
 The most distressing thing about the ordinary fact writer is 
 his cock-sureness. Why, here is a man (I have not yet dropped 
 him out of the window) who has written a large and sober book 
 explaining Hfe. And do you know when he gets through he is 
 apparently much discouraged about this universe. This is the 
 veritable moment when I am in love with my occupation as a 
 despot! At this moment I will exercise the prerogative of 
 tyranny: 
 
 "0£[ with his head!" 
 
 I do not beheve this person though he have ever so many 
 titles, to jingle after his name, nor in the colleges which gave 
 them, if they stand sponsor for that which he writes. I do not 
 believe he has compassed this universe. I believe him to be an 
 inconsequent being like myself — oh, much more learned, of 
 course — and yet only upon the threshold of these wonders. It 
 goes too deep — life — to be solved by fifty years of living. There 
 is far too much in the blue firmament, too many stars, to be dis- 
 solved in the feeble logic of a single brain. We are not yet great 
 enough, even this explanatory person, to grasp the "scheme of 
 things entire." This is no place for weak pessimism — this uni- 
 verse. This is Mystery and out of Mystery springs the fine ad- 
 venture! What we have seen or felt, what we think we know> 
 
122 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 are insignificant compared with that which may be known. 
 
 What this person explains is not, after all, the Universe — but 
 himself, his own limited, faithless personality. I shall not ac- 
 cept his explanation. I escape him utterly! 
 
 Not long ago, coming in from my fields, I fell to thinking of 
 the supreme wonder of a tree; and as I walked I met the Pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 "How," I asked, "does the sap get up to the top of these 
 great maples and elms ? What power is there that should draw it 
 upward against the force of gravity ? " 
 
 He looked at me a moment with his peculiar slow smile. 
 
 "I don't know," he said. 
 
 "What!" I exclaimed, "do you mean to tell me that science 
 has not solved this simplest of natural phenomena?" 
 
 "We do not know," he said. "We explain, but we do not 
 know." 
 
 No, my Explanatory Friend, we do not know— we do not 
 know the why of the flowers, or the trees, or the suns; we do 
 not even know why, in our hearts, we should be asking this 
 curious question — and other deeper questions. 
 
 No man becomes a great writer unless he possesses a highly 
 developed sense of Mystery, of wonder. A great writer is never 
 blase; everything to him happened not longer ago than this 
 forenoon. 
 
 The other night the Professor and the Scotch Preacher hap- 
 pened in here together and we fell to discussing, I hardly know 
 how, for we usually talk the neighbourhood chat of the Stark- 
 weather's, of Horace and of Charles Baxter, we fell to dis- 
 cussing old Izaak Walton — and the nonsense (as a scientific age 
 knows it to be) which he sometimes talked with such delightful 
 sobriety. 
 
 "How superior it makes one feel, in behalf of the enlighten- 
 ment and progress of his age," said the Professor, "when he reads 
 Izaak's extraordinary natural history." 
 
 "Does it make you feel that way?" asked the Scotch Preacher. 
 "It makes me want to go fishing." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 123 
 
 And he took the old book and turned the leaves until he 
 came to page 54. 
 
 "Let me read you," he said, "what the old fellow says about the 
 'fearfulest of fishes.' " 
 
 " *. . . Get secretly behind a tree, and stand as free from motion 
 as possible; then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let your 
 hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the water, to which end 
 you must rest your rod on some bough of a tree; but it is likely that 
 the Chubs will sink down towards the bottom of the water at the 
 first shadow of your rod, for a Chub is the fearfulest of fishes, and 
 will do so if but a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow 
 on the water; but they will presently rise up to the top again, 
 and there lie soaring until some shadow affrights them again; I 
 say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look at the best Chub, 
 which you, getting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see, and 
 move your rod as slowly as a snail moves, to that Chub you intend 
 to catch, let your bait fall gently upon the water three or four 
 inches before him, and he will infallibly take the bait, and you 
 will be as sure to catch him. . . . Go your way presently, take my 
 rod, and do as I bid you, and I will sit down and mend my tackling 
 till you return back ' " 
 
 "Now I say," said the Scotch Preacher, "that it makes me 
 want to go fishing." 
 
 "That," I said, "is true of every great book: it either makes 
 us want to do things, to go fishing, or fight harder or endure 
 more patiently — or it takes us out of ourselves and beguiles 
 us for a time with the friendship of completer lives than our 
 own." 
 
 The great books indeed have in them the burning fire of life; 
 
 .... "nay, they do preserve, as in a violl, the purest efficacie 
 and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know 
 they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous 
 Dragon's teeth; which being sown up and down, may chance to 
 spring up armed men." 
 
 How soon we come to distinguish the books of the mere 
 writers from the books of real men! For true literature, like 
 
124 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 happiness, is ever a by-product; it is the half -conscious expres- 
 sion of a man greatly engaged in some other undertaking; it 
 is the song of one working. There is something inevitable, unre- 
 strainable about the great books; they seemed to come despite 
 the author. "I could not sleep," says the poet Horace, "for the 
 pressure of unwritten poetry." Dante said of his books that 
 they "made him lean for many days." I have heard people say 
 of a writer in explanation of his success: 
 "Oh, well, he has the Uterary knack." 
 
 "The beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the 
 greatness of truth" 
 
 It is not so! Nothing is further from the truth. He writes 
 well not chiefly because he is interested in writing, or because 
 he possesses any especial knack, but because he is more pro- 
 foundly, vividly interested in the activities of life and he tells 
 about them — over his shoulder. For writing, like farming, is ever 
 a tool, not an end. 
 
 How the great one-book men remain with us! I can see 
 Marcus Aurelius sitting in his camps among the far barbarians 
 writing out the reflections of a busy Ufe. I see William Penn 
 engaged in great undertakings, setting down "Some of the 
 Fruits of Sohtude," and Abraham Lincoln striking, in the 
 hasty paragraphs written for his speeches, one of the highest 
 notes in our American literature. 
 
 "David?" 
 "Yes, Harriet." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 125 
 
 "I am going up now; it is very late." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You will bank the fire and see that the doors are locked?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 After a pause: "And, David, I didn't mean — about the story 
 you read. Did the Knight finally kill the lions?" 
 
 "No," I said with sobriety, "it was not finally necessary." 
 
 "But I thought he set out to kill them." 
 
 "He did; but he proved his valour without doing it." 
 
 Harriet paused, made as if to speak again, but did not do so. 
 
 "Valour" — I began in my hortatory tone, seeing a fair opening, 
 but at the look in her eye I immediately desisted. 
 
 "You won't stay up late?" she warned. 
 
 -'N-o," I said. 
 
 Take John Bunyan as a pattern of the man who forgot him- 
 self into immortality. How seriously he wrote sermons and 
 pamphlets, now happily forgotten! But it was not until he was 
 shut up in jail (some writers I know might profit by his example) 
 that he "put aside," as he said, "a more serious and important 
 work" and wrote "Pilgrim's Progress." It is the strangest thing 
 in the world — the judgment of men as to what is important and 
 serious! Bunyan says in his rhymed introduction: 
 
 "1 only thought to ma\e 
 1 \new not what: nor did I undertake 
 Thereby to please my neighbour; no, not I: 
 I did it my own self to gratify" 
 
 Another man I love to have at hand is he who writes of 
 Blazing Bosville, the Flaming Tinman, and of The Hairy Ones. 
 
 How Borrow escapes through his books! His object was not to 
 produce literature but to display his erudition as a master of 
 language and of outlandish custom, and he went about the task 
 in all seriousness of demolishing the Roman Catholic Church. 
 We are not now so impressed with his erudition that we do 
 not smile at his vanity and we are quite contented, even after 
 reading his books, to let the church survive; but how shall we 
 
126 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 spare our friend with his inextinguishable love of life, his 
 pugilists, his gypsies, his horse traders? We are even willing to 
 plow through arid deserts of dissertation in order that we may 
 enjoy the perfect oases in which the man forgets himself! 
 
 Reading such books as these and a hundred others, the books 
 of the worn case at my elbow, 
 
 "The bulged and the bruised octavos, 
 The dear and the dumpy twelves " 
 
 I become like those initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries who, 
 as Cicero tells us, have attained "the art of living joyfully and of 
 dying with a fairer hope." 
 
 It is late, and the house is still. A few bright embers glow in 
 the fireplace. You look up and around you, as though coming 
 back to the world from some far-off place. The clock in the 
 dining-room ticks with solemn precision; you did not recall that 
 it had so loud a tone. It has been a great evening, in this quiet 
 room on your farm, you have been able to entertain the worthies 
 of all the past! 
 
 You walk out, resoundingly, to the kitchen and open the 
 door. You look across the still white fields. Your barn looms 
 black in the near distance, the white mound close at hand is 
 your wood-pile, the great trees stand like sentinels in the moon- 
 light; snow has drifted upon the doorstep and Hes there un- 
 tracked. It is, indeed, a dim and untracked world : coldly beauti- 
 ful but silent — and of a strange unreaUty! You close the door 
 with half a shiver and take the real world with you up to bed. 
 For it is past one o'clock. 
 
XIII 
 THE POLITICIAN 
 
 I 
 
 N THE CITY, as I now recall it (having escaped), it seemed to be 
 the instinctive purpose of every citizen I knew not to get into 
 politics but to keep out. We sedulously avoided caucuses and 
 school-meetings, our time was far too precious to be squandered 
 in jury service, we forgot to register for elections, we neglected 
 to vote. We observed a sort of aristocratic contempt for political 
 activity and then fretted and fumed over the low estate to which 
 our government had fallen — and never saw the humour of it all. 
 
 At one time I experienced a sort of political awakening: a 
 "boss" we had was more than ordinarily piratical. I think he had 
 a scheme to steal the city hall and sell the monuments in the 
 park (something of that sort), and I, for one, was disturbed. 
 For a time I really wanted to bear a man's part in helping to 
 correct the abuses, only I did not know how and could not find 
 out. 
 
 In the city, when one would learn anything about pubHc 
 matters, he turns, not to life, but to books or newspapers. What 
 we get in the city is not life, but what someone else tells us 
 about life. So I acquired a really formidable row of works on 
 
 127 
 
128 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Political Economy and Government (I admire the word "works" 
 in that appHcation) where I found Society laid out for me in 
 the most perfect order — with pennies on its eyes. How often, 
 looking back, I see myself as in those days, reading my learned 
 books with a sort of fury of interest! — 
 
 From the reading of books I acquired a sham comfort. 
 Dwelling upon the excellent theory of our institutions, I was 
 content to disregard the realities of daily practice. I acquired 
 a mock assurance under which I proceeded complacently to 
 the polls, and cast my vote without knowing a single man on 
 the ticket, what he stood for, or what he really intended to do. 
 The ceremony of the ballot bears to politics much the relation- 
 ship that the sacrament bears to religion: how often, observing 
 the formality, we yet depart wholly from the spirit of the institu- 
 tion. 
 
 It was good to escape that place of hurrying strangers. It was 
 good to get one's feet down into the soil. It was good to be in a 
 place where things are because they grow, and politics, not less 
 than corn! Oh, my friend, say what you please, argue how you 
 like, this crowding together of men and women in unnatural 
 surroundings, this haste to be rich in material things, this at- 
 tempt to enjoy without production, this removal from first-hand 
 life, is irrational, and the end of it is ruin. If our cities were not 
 recruited constantly with the fresh, clean blood of the country, 
 with boys who still retain some of the power and the vision 
 drawn from the soil, where would they be! 
 
 "We're a great people," says Charles Baxter, "but we don't 
 always work at it." 
 
 "But we talk about it," says the Scotch Preacher. 
 
 "By the way," says Charles Baxter, "have you seen George 
 Warren? He's up for supervisor." 
 
 "I haven't yet." 
 
 "Well, go around and see him. We must find out exactly 
 what he intends to do with the Summit Hill road. If he is 
 weak on that we'd better look to Matt Devine. At least Matt is 
 safe." 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 129 
 
 The Scotch Preacher looked at Charles Baxter and said to 
 me with a note of admiration in his voice : 
 
 "Isn't this man Baxter getting to be intolerable as a poUtica^ 
 boss!" 
 
 Baxter's shop! Baxter's shop stands close to the road and just 
 in the edge of a grassy old apple orchard. It is a low, unpainted 
 building, with generous double doors in front, standing ir- 
 resistibly open as you go by. Even as a stranger coming here first 
 from the city I felt the call of Baxter's shop. Shall I ever forget! 
 It was a still morning — one of those days of warm sunshine — 
 and perfect quiet in the country — and birds in the branches 
 — and apple trees all in bloom. Baxter was whistUng at his work 
 in the sunlit doorway of his shop, in his long, faded apron, 
 much worn at the knees. He was bending to the rhythmic 
 movement of his plane, and all around him as he worked 
 rose billows of shavings. And oh, the odours of that shop! the 
 fragrant, resinous odour of new-cut pine, the pungent smell of 
 black walnut, the dull odour of oak wood— how they stole out 
 in the sunshine, waylaying you as you came far up the road, 
 beguiling you as you passed the shop, and steaUng reproachfully 
 after you as you went onward down the road. 
 
 Never shall I forget that grateful moment when I first passed 
 Baxter's shop — a failure from the city — and Baxter looking out 
 at me from his deep, quiet, gray eyes— eyes that were almost 
 a caress! 
 
 My wayward feet soon took me, unintroduced, within the 
 doors of that shop, the first of many visits. And I can say no 
 more in appreciation of my ventures there than that I came 
 out always with more than I had when I went in. 
 
 The wonders there! The long bench with its huge-jawed 
 wooden vises, and the Uttle dusty windows above looking out 
 into the orchard, and the brown planes and the row of shiny 
 saws, and the most wonderful pattern squares and triangles 
 and curves, each hanging on its own peg; and above, in the 
 rafters, every sort and size of curious wood. And oh! the old 
 bureaus and whatnots and high-boys in the corners waiting their 
 
130 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 turn to be mended; and the sticky glue-pot waiting, too, on 
 the end of the sawhorse. There is family history here in this 
 shop — no end of it — the small and yet great (because intensely 
 human) tragedies and humours of the long, quiet years among 
 these sunny hills. That whatnot there, the one of black walnut 
 with the top knocked oflF, that belonged in the old days to 
 
 "Charles Baxter," calls my friend Patterson from the roadway, 
 "can you fix my cupboard?" 
 
 "Bring it in," says Charles Baxter, hospitably, and Patterson 
 brings it in, and stops to talk — and stops — and stops — There is 
 great talk in Baxter's shop — the slow-gathered wisdom of the 
 country, the lore of crops and calves and cabinets. In Baxter's 
 shop we choose the next President of these United States! 
 
 You laugh! But we do — exactly that. It is in the Baxters* 
 shops (not in Broadway, not in State Street) where the presi- 
 dents are decided upon. In the little grocery stores you and I 
 know, in the blacksmithies, in the schoolhouses back in the 
 country! 
 
 Forgive me! I did not intend to wander away. I meant to keep 
 to my subject — but the moment I began to talk of politics in the 
 country I was beset by a compelling vision of Charles Baxter 
 coming out of his shop in the dusk of the evening, carrying his 
 curious old reflector lamp and leading the way down the road to 
 the schoolhouse. And thinking of the lamp brought a vision of 
 the joys of Baxter's shop, and thinking of the shop brought me 
 naturally around to politics and presidents; and here I am again 
 where I started! 
 
 Baxter's lamp is, somehow, inextricably associated in my mind 
 with poHtics. Being busy farmers, we hold our caucuses and 
 other meetings in the evening and usually in the schoolhouse. 
 The schoolhouse is conveniently near to Baxter's shop, so we 
 gather at Baxter's shop. Baxter takes his lamp down from the 
 bracket above his bench, reflector and all, and you will see us, a 
 row of dusky figures, Baxter in the lead, proceeding down the 
 roadway to the schoolhouse. Having arrived, someone scratches 
 a match, shields it with his hand (I see yet the sudden fitful illu- 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 
 
 131 
 
 mination of the brown-bearded, watchful faces of my neigh- 
 bours!) and Baxter guides us into the schoolhouse — with its 
 shut-in dusty odours of chalk and varnished desks and — yes, 
 left-over lunches! 
 
 Baxter's lamp stands on the table, casting a vast shadow of 
 the chairman on the wall. 
 
 
 "Come to order," says the chairman, and we have here at this 
 moment in operation the greatest institution in this round 
 world ; the institution of free self-government. Great in its sim- 
 pHcity, great in its unselfishness! And Baxter's old lamp with 
 its smoky tin reflector, is not that the veritable torch of our 
 liberties ? 
 
 This, I forgot to say, though it makes no special difference — 
 a caucus would be the same — is a school meeting. 
 
 You see, ours is a prolific community. When a young man and 
 a young woman are married they think about babies; they want 
 
132 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 babies, and what is more, they have them! and love them 
 afterward! It is a part of the complete life. And having babies, 
 there must be a place to teach them to live. 
 
 Without more explanation you will understand that we needed 
 an addition to our schoolhouse. A committee reported that the 
 amount required would be $800. We talked it over. The Scotch 
 Preacher was there with a plan which he tacked up on the black- 
 board and explained to us. He told us of seeing the stone-mason 
 and the carpenter, he told us what the seats would cost, and 
 the door knobs and the hooks in the closet. We are a careful 
 people; we want to know where every penny goes! 
 
 "If we put it all in the budget this year what will that make 
 the rate?" inquires a voice from the end of the room. 
 
 We don't look around; we know the voice. And when the 
 secretary has computed the rate, if you Usten closely you can 
 ilmost hear the buzz of multipHcations and additions which is 
 going on in each man's head as he calculates exactly how much 
 the addition will mean to him in taxes on his farm, his daughter's 
 piano, his wife's top-buggy. 
 
 And many a man is saying to himself: 
 
 "If we build this addition to the schoolhouse, I shall have to 
 give up the new overcoat I have counted upon, or Amanda 
 won't be able to get the new cooking-range." 
 
 That's real poHtics: the voluntary surrender of some private 
 good for the upbuilding of some community good. It is in such 
 exercises that the fibre of democracy grows sound and strong. 
 There is, after all, in this world no real good for which we do 
 not have to surrender something. In the city the average voter 
 is never conscious of any surrender. He never realises that he is 
 giving anything himself for good schools or good streets. Under 
 such conditions how can you expect self-government? No 
 service, no reward! 
 
 The first meeting that I sat through watching those bronzed 
 farmers at work gave me such a conception of the true meaning 
 of self-government as I never hoped to have. 
 
 "This is the place where I belong," I said to myself. 
 
 It was wonderful in that school meeting to see how every 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 133 
 
 essential element of our government was brought into play. 
 Finance? We discussed whether we should put the entire $800 
 into the next year's budget or divide it, paying part in cash 
 and bonding the district for the remainder. The question of 
 credit, of interest, of the obligations of this generation and 
 the next, were all discussed. At one time long ago I was amazed 
 when I heard my neighbours arguing in Baxter's shop about the 
 issuance of certain bonds by the United States government: how 
 completely they understood it! I know now where they got 
 that understanding. Right in the school meetings and town 
 caucuses where they raise money yearly for the expenses of 
 our small government! There is nothing like it in the city. 
 
 The progress of a people can best be judged by those things 
 which they accept as matters-of-fact. It was amazing to me, 
 coming from the city, and before I understood, to see how in- 
 grained had become some of the principles which only a few 
 years ago were fiercely-mooted problems. It gave me a new pride 
 in my country, a new appreciation of the steps in civilisation 
 which we have already permanently gained. Not a question have 
 I ever heard in any school meeting of the necessity of educating 
 every American child — at any cost. Think of it! Think how far 
 we have come in that respect, in seventy — yes, fifty — years. Uni- 
 versal education has become a settled axiom of our life. 
 
 And there was another point— so common now that we do 
 not appreciate the significance of it. I refer to majority rule. In 
 our school meeting we were voting money out of men's pockets 
 — money that we all needed for private expenses — and yet the 
 moment the minority, after full and honest discussion, failed 
 to maintain its contention in opposition to the new building, it 
 yielded with perfect good humour and went on with the dis- 
 cussion of other questions. When you come to think of it, in the 
 light of history, is not that a wonderful thing ? 
 
 One of the chief property owners in our neighbourhood is a 
 rather crabbed old bachelor. Having no children and heavy taxes 
 to pay, he looks with jaundiced eye on additions to schoolhouses. 
 He will object and growl and growl and object, and yet pin 
 him down as I have seen the Scotch Preacher pin him more 
 
134 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 than once, he will admit that children ("o£ course," he will say, 
 "certainly, of course") must be educated. 
 
 "For the good of bachelors as well as other people?" the Scotch 
 Preacher will press it home. 
 
 "Certainly, of course." 
 
 And when the final issue comes, after full discussion, after he 
 has tried to lop off a few yards of blackboard or order cheaper 
 desks or dispense with the clothes-closet, he votes for the addi- 
 tion with the rest of us. 
 
 It is simply amazing to see how much grows out of those dis- 
 cussions — how much of that social sympathy and understanding 
 which is the very tap-root of democracy. It's cheaper to put up a 
 miserable shack of an addition. Why not do it? So we discuss 
 architecture — blindly, it is true; we don't know the books on 
 the subject — but we grope for the big true things, and by our 
 own discussion we educate ourselves to know why a good build- 
 ing is better than a bad one. Heating and ventilation in their 
 relation to health, the use of "fad studies" — how I have heard 
 those things discussed! 
 
 How Dr. North, who has now left us forever, shone in those 
 meetings, and Charles Baxter and the Scotch Preacher— broad 
 men, every one — how they have explained and argued, with 
 what patience have they brought into that small schoolhouse, 
 lighted by Charles Baxter's lamp, the grandest conceptions of 
 human society — not in the big words of the books, but in the 
 simple, concrete language of our common Hfe. 
 
 "Why teach physiology?" 
 
 What a talk Dr. North once gave us on that! 
 
 "Why pay a teacher $40 a month when one can be had for 
 
 $30?" 
 
 You should have heard the Scotch Preacher answer that 
 question! Many a one of us went away with some of the edu- 
 cation which we had come, somewhat grudgingly, to buy for 
 our children. 
 
 These are our political bosses: these unknown patriots, who 
 preach the invisible patriotism which expresses itself not in 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 135 
 
 flags and oratory, but in the quiet daily surrender of private 
 advantage to the pubhc good. 
 
 There is, after all, no such thing as perfect equaUty; there 
 must be leaders, flag-bearers, bosses — whatever you call them. 
 Some men have a genius for leading; others for following; 
 each is necessary and dependent upon the other. In cities, that 
 leadership is often perverted and used to evil ends. Neither 
 leaders nor followers seem to understand. In its essence poli- 
 tics is merely a mode of expressing human sympathy. In the 
 country many and many a leader Hke Baxter works faithfully 
 year in and year out, posting notices of caucuses, school meet- 
 ings and elections, opening cold schoolhouses, talking to candi- 
 dates, prodding selfish voters— and mostly without reward. 
 Occasionally they are elected to petty offices where they do far 
 more work than they are paid for (we have our eyes on 'em) ; 
 often they are rewarded by the power and place which leader- 
 ship gives them among their neighbours, and sometimes — and 
 that is Charles Baxter's case — they simply like it! Baxter is of 
 the social temperament: it is the natural expression of his per- 
 sonaHty. As for thinking of himself as a patriot, he would never 
 dream of it. Work with the hands, close touch with the com- 
 mon life of the soil, has given him much of the true wisdom 
 of experience. He knows us and we know him; he carries the 
 banner, holds it as high as he knows how, and we follow. 
 
 Whether there can be a real democracy (as in a city) where 
 there is not that elbow-knowledge, that close neighbourhood 
 sympathy, that conscious surrender of little personal goods 
 for bigger public ones, I don't know. 
 
 We haven't many foreigners in our district, but all three were 
 there on the night we voted for the addition. They are Polish. 
 Each has a farm where the whole family works — and puts on a 
 little more Americanism each year. They're good people. It is 
 surprising how much all these Poles, ItaUans, Germans and 
 others, are like us, how perfectly human they are, when we 
 know them personally! One Pole here, named Kausky, I have 
 come to know pretty well, and I declare I have forgotten that he 
 is a Pole. There's nothing like the rub of democracy! The reason 
 
136 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 why we are so suspicious of the foreigners in our cities is that 
 they are crowded together in such vast, unknown, undigested 
 masses. We have swallowed them too fast, and we suffer from a 
 sort of national dyspepsia. 
 
 Here in the country we promptly digest our foreigners and 
 they make as good Americans as anybody. 
 
 "Catch a foreigner when he first comes here," says Charles 
 Baxter, "and he takes to our poUtics like a fish to water." 
 
 The Scotch Preacher says they "gape for education." And 
 when I see Kausky's six children going by in the morning to 
 school, all their round, sleepy, fat faces shining with soap, I 
 believe it! Baxter tells with humour how he persuaded Kausky 
 to vote for the addition to the schoolhouse. It was a pretty stifl 
 tax for the poor fellow to pay, but Baxter "figgered children with 
 him," as he said. With six to educate, Baxter showed him 
 that he was actually getting a good deal more than he paid for! 
 
 Be it far from me to pretend that we are always right or 
 that we have arrived in our country at the perfection of self- 
 government. I do not wish to imply that all of our people are 
 interested, that all attend the caucuses and school-meetings 
 (some of the most prominent never come near — they stay away, 
 and if things don't go right they blame Charles Baxter!). Nor 
 must I over-emphasise the seriousness of our public interest. But 
 we certainly have here, if anywhere in this nation, real self- 
 government. Growth is a slow process. We often fail in our 
 election of delegates to State conventions; we sometimes vote 
 wrong in national affairs. It is an easy thing to think school 
 district; difficult, indeed, to think State or nation. But we 
 grow. When we make mistakes, it is not because we are evil, 
 but because we don't know. Once we get a clear understanding 
 of the right or wrong of any question you can depend upon us 
 — absolutely — to vote for what is right. With more education we 
 shall be able to think in larger and larger circles — until we be- 
 come, finally, really national in our interests and sympathies. 
 Whenever a man comes along who knows how simple we are, 
 and how much we really want to do right, if we can be con- 
 vinced that a thing is right — who explains how the railroad 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 137 
 
 question, for example, afifects us in our intimate daily lives, what 
 the rights and wrongs of it are, why, we can understand and do 
 understand — and we are ready to act. 
 
 It is easy to rally to a flag in times of excitement. The pa- 
 triotism of drums and marching regiments is cheap; blood is 
 material and cheap; physical weariness and hunger are cheap. 
 But the struggle I speak of is not cheap. It is dramatised by few 
 symbols. It deals with hidden spiritual quahties within the 
 conscience of men. Its heroes are yet unsung and unhonoured. 
 No combats in all the world's history were ever fought so high 
 upward in the spiritual air as these; and, surely, not for nothing! 
 
 And so, out of my experience both in city and country, I feel — 
 yes, I \now — that the real motive power of this democracy lies 
 back in the little country neighbourhoods like ours where men 
 gather in dim schoolhouses and practice the invisible patriotism 
 of surrender and service. 
 

 
 XIV 
 THE HARVEST 
 
 "Oh, Universe, what thou wishest, 1 wish" 
 
 — MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 JL COME TO THE END of thcsc Advcntures with a regret I can 
 scarcely express. I, at least, have enjoyed them. I began setting 
 them down with no thought of pubUcation, but for my own 
 enjoyment; the possibiHty of a book did not suggest itself until 
 afterwards. I have tried to relate the experiences of that secret, 
 elusive, invisible life which in every man is so far more real, so 
 far more important than his visible activities — the real ex- 
 pression of a life much occupied in other employment. 
 
 When I first came to this farm, I came empty-handed. I was 
 the veritable pattern of the city-made failure. I believed that 
 life had nothing more in store for me. I was worn out physically, 
 
 138 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 139 
 
 mentally and, indeed, morally. I had diligently planned for 
 Success; and I had reaped defeat. I came here without plans. 
 I plowed and harrowed and planted, expecting nothing. In 
 due time I began to reap. And it has been a growing marvel to 
 me, the diverse and unexpected crops that I have produced 
 within these uneven acres of earth. With sweat I planted corn, 
 and I have here a crop not only of corn but of happiness and 
 hope. My tilled fields have miraculously sprung up to friends! 
 
 This book is one of the unexpected products of my farm. It 
 is this way with the farmer. After the work of planting and 
 cultivating, after the rain has fallen in his fields, after the sun 
 has warmed them, after the new green leaves have broken the 
 earth — one day he stands looking out with a certain new joy 
 across his acres (the wind bends and half turns the long blades 
 of the corn) and there springs up within him a song of the 
 fields. No matter how little poetic, how little articulate he is, the 
 song rises irrepressibly in his heart, and he turns aside from his 
 task with a new glow of fulfillment and contentment. At harvest 
 time in our country I hear, or I imagine I hear, a sort of chorus 
 rising over all the hills, and I meet no man who is not, deep down 
 within him, a singer! So song follows work: so art grows out of 
 life! 
 
 And the friends I have made! They have come to me naturally, 
 as the corn grows in my fields or the wind blows in my trees. 
 Some strange potency abides within the soil of this earth! When 
 two men stoop (there must be stooping) and touch it together, 
 a magnetic current is set up between them: a flow of common 
 understanding and confidence. I would call the attention of all 
 great Scientists, Philosophers, and Theologians to this phenome- 
 non: it will repay investigation. It is at once the rarest and the 
 commonest thing I know. It shows that down deep within us, 
 where we really live, we are all a good deal aUke. We have 
 much the same instincts, hopes, joys, sorrows. If only it were 
 not for the outward things that we commonly look upon as 
 important (which are in reaUty not at all important) we might 
 come together without fear, vanity, envy, or prejudice and bt 
 friends. And what a world it would be! If civilisation means 
 
140 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 anything at all it means the increasing ability of men to look 
 through material possessions, through clothing, through differ- 
 ences of speech and colour of skin, and to see the genuine man 
 that abides within each of us. It means an escape from symbols! 
 
 I tell this merely to show what surprising and unexpected 
 things have grown out of my farm. All along I have had more 
 than I bargained for. From now on I shall marvel at nothing! 
 When I ordered my own life I failed; now that I work from 
 day to day, doing that which I can do best and which most 
 dehghts me, I am rewarded in ways that I could not have 
 imagined. Why, it would not surprise me if heaven were at the 
 end of all this! 
 
 Now, I am not so foolish as to imagine that a farm is a perfect 
 place. In these Adventures I have emphasised perhaps too 
 forcibly the joyful and pleasant features of my life. In what I 
 have written I have naturally chosen only those things which 
 were most interesting and charming. My life has not been 
 without discouragement and loss and loneliness (loneliness 
 most of all). I have enjoyed the hard work; the little troubles 
 have troubled me more than the big ones. I detest unharnessing 
 a muddy horse in the rain! I don't like chickens in the barn. 
 And somehow Harriet uses an inordinate amount of kindUng 
 wood. But once in the habit, unpleasant things have a way of 
 fading quickly and quietly from the memory. 
 
 And you see after living so many years in the city the worst 
 experience on the farm is a sort of joy! 
 
 In most men as I come to know them — I mean men who dare 
 to look themselves in the eye — I find a deep desire for more 
 naturalness, more directness. How weary we all grow of this 
 fabric of deception which is called modern life. How passion- 
 ately we desire to escape but cannot see the way! How our 
 hearts beat with sympathy when we find a man who has turned 
 his back upon it all and who says "I will live it no longer." How 
 we flounder in possessions as in a dark and suffocating bog, 
 wasting our energies not upon life but upon things. Instead of 
 employing our houses, our cities, our gold, our clothing, we let 
 these inanimate things possess and employ us— to what utter 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 141 
 
 weariness. "Blessed be nothing," sighs a dear old lady of my 
 knowledge. 
 
 Of all ways of escape I know, the best, though it is far from 
 perfection, is the farm. There a man may yield himself most 
 nearly to the quiet and orderly processes of nature. He may at- 
 tain most nearly to that equilibrium between the material and 
 spiritual, with time for the exactions of the first, and leisure 
 for the growth of the second, which is the ideal of life. 
 
 In times past most farming regions in this country have suf- 
 fered the disadvantages of isolation, the people have dwelt far 
 distant from one another and from markets, they have had Httle 
 to stimulate them intellectually or socially. Strong and peculiar 
 individuals and families were often developed at the expense 
 of a friendly community life: neighbourhood feuds were com- 
 mon. Country life was marked with the rigidity of a hard pro- 
 vinciaUsm. All this, however, is rapidly changing. The closer 
 settlement of the land, the rural delivery of mails (the morning 
 newspaper reaches the tin box at the end of my lane at noon), 
 the farmer's telephone, the spreading country trolleys, more 
 schools and churches, and cheaper railroad rates, have all helped 
 to bring the farmer's life well within the stimulating currents 
 of world thought without robbing it of its ancient advantages. 
 And those advantages are incalculable: Time first for thought 
 and reflection (narrow streams cut deep) leading to the growth 
 of a sturdy freedom of action — which is, indeed, a natural 
 characteristic of the man who has his feet firmly planted upon 
 his own land. 
 
 A city hammers and polishes its denizens into a defined 
 model: it worships standardisation; but the country encourages 
 differentiation, it loves new types. Thus it is that so many great 
 and original men have lived their youth upon the land. It would 
 be impossible to imagine Abraham Lincoln brought up in a 
 street of tenements. Family life on the farm is highly educative; 
 there is more discipline for a boy in the continuous care of a 
 cow or a horse than in many a term of school. Industry, patience, 
 perseverance are qualities inherent in the very atmosphere of 
 country life. The so-called manual training of city schools is 
 
142 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 only a poor makeshift for developing in the city boy those habits 
 which the country boy acquires naturally in his daily life. An 
 honest, hard-working country training is the best inheritance a 
 father can leave his son. 
 
 And yet a farm is only an opportunity, a tool. A cornfield, a 
 plow, a woodpile, an oak tree, will cure no man unless he have 
 it in himself to be cured. The truth is that no life, and least of 
 all a farmer's life, is simple — ^unless it is simple. I know a man 
 
 and his wife who came out here to the country with the avowed 
 purpose of becoming, forthwith, simple. They were unable to 
 keep the chickens out of their summer kitchen. They discovered 
 microbes in the well, and mosquitoes in the cistern, and wasps 
 in the garret. Owing to the resemblance of the seeds, their 
 radishes turned out to be turnips! The last I heard of them they 
 were living snugly in a flat in Sixteenth Street — all their troubles 
 solved by a dumb-waiter. 
 
 The great point of advantage in the life of the country is 
 that if a man is in reaUty simple, if he love true contentment, 
 it is the place of all places where he can live his life most freely 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 143 
 
 and fully, where he can grow. The city affords no such oppor- 
 tunity; indeed, it often destroys, by the seductiveness with 
 which it flaunts its carnal graces, the desire for the higher life 
 which animates every good man. 
 
 While on the subject of simplicity it may be well to observe 
 that simplicity does not necessarily, as some of those who 
 escape from the city seem to think, consist in doing without 
 things, but rather in the proper use of things. One cannot return, 
 unless with affectation, to the crudities of a former existence. We 
 do not believe in Diogenes and his tub. Do you not think the 
 good Lord has given us the telephone (that we may better reach 
 that elbow-rub of brotherhood which is the highest of human 
 ideals) and the railroad (that we may widen our human 
 knowledge and sympathy) — and even the motor-car? (though, 
 indeed, I have sometimes imagined that the motor-cars passing 
 this way had a different origin!). He may have given these 
 things to us too fast, faster than we can bear; but is that any 
 reason why we should denounce them all and return to the 
 old, crude, time-consuming ways of our ancestors? I am no 
 reactionary. I do not go back. I neglect no tool of progress. I 
 am too eager to know every wonder in this universe. The motor- 
 car, if I had one, could not carry me fast enough! I must yet 
 fly! 
 
 After my experience in the countryj if I were to be cross- 
 examined as to the requisites of a farm, I should say that the 
 chief thing to be desired in any sort of agriculture, is good 
 health in the farmer. What, after all, can touch that! How 
 many of our joys that we think intellectual are purely physical! 
 This joy o' the morning that the poet carols about so cheer- 
 fully, is often nothing more than the exuberance produced by a 
 good hot breakfast. Going out of my kitchen door some morn- 
 ings and standing for a moment, while I survey the green and 
 spreading fields of my farm, it seems to me truly as if all 
 nature were making a bow to me. It seems to me that there never 
 was a better cow than mine, never a more really perfect horse, 
 and as for pigs, could any in this world herald my approach 
 with more cheerful gruntings and squealings! 
 
144 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 But there are other requisites for a farm. It must not be too 
 large, else it will keep you away from your friends. Provide a 
 town not too far off (and yet not too near) where you can buy 
 your flour and sell your grain. If there is a railroad convenient 
 (though not so near that the whistling of the engines reaches 
 you), that is an added advantage. Demand a few good old oak 
 trees, or walnuts, or even elms will do. No well-regulated farm 
 should be without trees; and having secured the oaks — buy your 
 fuel of your neighbours. Thus you will be blessed with beauty 
 both summer and winter. 
 
 As for neighbours, accept those nearest at hand; you will find 
 them surprisingly human, like yourself. If you like them you 
 will be surprised to find how much they all like you (and will 
 upon occasion lend you a spring-tooth harrow or a butter tub, 
 or help you with your plowing); but if you hate them they 
 will return your hatred with interest. I have discovered that 
 those who travel in pursuit of better neighbours never find them. 
 
 Somewhere on every farm, along with the other implements, 
 there should be a row of good books, which should not be al- 
 lowed to rust with disuse: a book, like a hoe, grows brighter 
 with employment. And no farm, even in this country where we 
 enjoy the even balance of the seasons, rain and shine, shine and 
 rain, should be devoid of that irrigation from the currents of 
 the world's thought which is so essential to the complete life. 
 From the papers which the postman puts in the box flow the 
 true waters of civilisation. You will find within their columns 
 how to be good or how to make pies : you will get out of them 
 what you look for! And finally, down the road from your farm, 
 so that you can hear the bell on Sunday mornings, there should 
 be a little church. It will do you good even though, Hke me, you 
 do not often attend. It's a sort of Ark of the Covenant; and 
 when you get to it, you will find therein the True Spirit — if 
 you take it with you when you leave home. Of course you will 
 look for good land and comfortable buildings when you buy 
 your farm: they are, indeed, prime requisites. I have put them 
 last for the reason that they are so often first. I have observed, 
 however, that the joy of the farmer is by no means in propor- 
 
ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT 145 
 
 tion to the area of his arable land. It is often a nice matter to 
 decide between acres and contentment: men perish from too 
 much as well as from too little. And if it be possible there should 
 be a long table in the dining-room and little chairs around it, 
 and small beds upstairs, and young voices caUing at their play 
 in the fields — if it be possible. 
 
 Sometimes I say to myself: I have grasped happiness! Here it 
 is; I have it. And yet, it always seems at that moment of com- 
 plete fulfillment as though my hand trembled, that I might not 
 take it! 
 
 I wonder if you recall the story of Christian and Hopeful, 
 how, standing on the hill Clear (as we do sometimes — at our 
 best) they looked for the gates of the Celestial City (as we look 
 —how fondly!): 
 
 "Then they essayed to look, but the remembrance of that last 
 thing that the shepherds had showed them made their hands 
 shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily 
 through the glass: yet they thought they saw something like the 
 gate, and also some of the glory of the place." 
 
 How often I have thought that I saw some of the glory of the 
 place (looking from the hill Clear) and how often, lifting the 
 glass, my hand has trembled! 
 
BOOK II 
 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
I 
 
 AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY 
 
 XHis, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a 
 one as I was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the 
 simplest things are the most difficult, the plainest things, the 
 darkest, the commonest things, the rarest. 
 
 I have had an amusing adventure — and made a friend. 
 
 This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a 
 man who was a Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who 
 wore the evidences of his various memberships upon his coat. 
 He asked me what lodge I belonged to, and he slapped me on 
 the back in the heartiest manner, as though he had known me 
 intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he was 
 trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help 
 feeling complimented — both complimented and abashed. For 
 I am not a Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him 
 so he seemed much surprised and disappointed. 
 
 "You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd 
 be sure of having loyal friends wherever you go. 
 
 He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he 
 told me how much it would cost me to get in and how much 
 more to stay in and how much for a uniform (which was not 
 
 149 
 
150 ADVE^^TUR£S OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 compulsory). He told me about the fine funeral the Masons 
 would give me; he said that the Elks would care for my widow 
 and children. 
 
 "You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to 
 have in our lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship." 
 
 He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red 
 nose and a husky voice. He grew so much interested in telling 
 me about his lodges that I think (I thinJ() he forgot momentarily 
 that he was selling corn-planters, which was certainly to his 
 credit. 
 
 As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking 
 of the Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks— and curiously not 
 without a sense of depression. I wondered if my friend of the 
 corn-planters had found the pearl of great price that I have 
 been looking for so long. For is not friendliness the thing of 
 all things that is most pleasant in this world ? Sometimes it has 
 seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out and touching 
 one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of human 
 achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that 
 I wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in 
 reahty caught the Elusive Secret and confined it within the 
 insurmountable and impenetrable walls of their mysteries, 
 secrets, grips, passes, benefits. 
 
 "It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of 
 fraternity that they choose to protect so sedulously." 
 
 I felt as though life contained something that I was not 
 permitted to live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters 
 had wished to give me the grip of the fellowship — only he could 
 not. I was not entitled to it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore 
 no uniform. 
 
 "It is a compHcated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself. 
 
 So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveUing that those 
 things which often seem so simple should be in reality so diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain 
 long depressed. The moment I passed the straggling outskirts of 
 the town and came to the open road, the light and glow of the 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 151 
 
 coufltryside came in upon me with a newness and sweetness 
 impossible to describe. Looking out across the wide fields I 
 could see the vivid green of the young wheat upon the brown 
 soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned out 
 to the freshening grass; a late pool glistened in the afternoon 
 sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun 
 to come: and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the 
 highest heaven (never so high as at this time of the year) floated 
 a few gauzy clouds: the whole world was busy with spring! 
 
 I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. 
 The mare, half startled, pricked up her ears and began to trot. 
 She, too, felt the spring. 
 
 "Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this 
 place; of all these things I am a part." 
 
 But presently — how one's mind courses back, like some keen- 
 scented hound, for lost trails — I began to think again of my 
 friend's lodges. And do you know, I had lost every trace of de- 
 pression. The whole matter lay as clear in my mind, as little 
 complicated, as the countryside which met my eye so openly. 
 
 "Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's 
 lodges. I myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. 
 I am a member of the Universal Brotherhood of Men." 
 
 It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that 
 I could not help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed 
 with the idea that I did not at first see the whiskery old man 
 who was coming my way in a farm wagon. He looked at me 
 
152 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 curiously. As he passed, giving me half the road, I glanced up 
 at him and called out cheerfully : 
 
 "How are you. Brother?" 
 
 You should have seen him look — and look — and look. After I 
 had passed I glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned 
 half way around in his high seat and was watching me — for he 
 did not understand. 
 
 "Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I am intoxicated — with 
 the wine of spring!" 
 
 I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as 
 "Brother." A strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually 
 suspected that he was not my Brother. 
 
 So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I 
 don't know when I have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so 
 explanatory! 
 
 "I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am 
 sure the Masons have no such benefits to ofler in their lodges 
 as we have in ours. And we do not require money of farmers 
 (who have little to pay). We will accept corn, or hen*s eggs, or 
 a sandwich at the door, and as for a cheerful glance of the 
 eye, it is for us the best of minted coin." 
 
 (Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good 
 thing, beware of it. You can get a better for nothing.) 
 
 I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which 
 grew out of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been 
 interrupted. Just as I approached the Patterson farm, near the 
 bridge which crosses the creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing 
 on the slope of the hill ahead. The horses seemed to have been 
 unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man was on his 
 knees between the front wheels. 
 
 Involuntarily I said : 
 
 "Another member of my society: and in distress!" 
 
 I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old 
 neighbourly Knight traveUing the earth in search of adventure. 
 If there had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, 
 I feel quite certain I could have died for her— if absolutely 
 necessary. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 153 
 
 As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his 
 brown duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from 
 between the wheels. His cap was awry, his trousers were 
 muddy at the knees where he had knelt in the moist road, 
 and his face was red and angry. 
 
 A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty 
 of his lady, but only to her distress. 
 
 "What's the matter. Brother?" I asked in the friendliest 
 manner. 
 
 "Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before 
 nightfall." 
 
 "Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in 
 the road." 
 
 So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both 
 leaned out and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt 
 lay. My farmer got out and picked it up. 
 
 "It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm 
 obliged to you for the lift." 
 
 "Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back." 
 
 "Oh, I can walk." 
 
 "But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get 
 the load to town before nightfall." 
 
 I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter 
 what the story books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no 
 gentle knight (who was human) ever parted with the fair 
 lady whose misery he had reUeved without exchanging the 
 time of day, or offering her a bun from his dinner pail, or 
 finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married. 
 
 My farmer laughed and got in. 
 
 "You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in dis- 
 tress I always like to help him out." 
 
 He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply: 
 
 "How did you know I was a Mason?" 
 
 "Well, I wasn't sure." 
 
 "I only joined last winter," he said. "I Uke it first-rate. When 
 you're a Mason you find friends everywhere." 
 
 I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this 
 
154 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 point, but the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly 
 uppermost. After helping him to put in the bolt, I said: 
 
 "Here's the grip of fellowship." 
 
 He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully: 
 
 "I didn't feel the grip." 
 
 "Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there." 
 
 J% 
 
 "If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let mc 
 know. Name's Forbes, Spring Brook." 
 
 And so he drove away. 
 
 "A real Mason," I said to myself, "could not have had any 
 better advantage of his society at this moment than I. I walked 
 right into it without a grip or a pass. And benefits have also 
 been distributed." 
 
 As I drove onward I felt as though anything might happen 
 to me before I got home. I know now exactly how all old 
 knights, all voyageurs, all crusaders, all poets in new places, 
 must have felt! I looked out at every turn of the road; and, 
 finally, after I had grown almost discouraged of encountering 
 further adventure I saw a man walking in the road ahead of 
 me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag. 
 
 When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and 
 stood silent, saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 155 
 
 will. He neither looked around nor spoke, but waited for me 
 to go by. He was weary past expectation. I stopped the mare.. 
 
 "Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way." 
 
 He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he 
 let his bag roll off his back into his arms. I could see the 
 swollen veins of his neck; his face had the drawn look of the 
 man who bears burdens. 
 
 "Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked. 
 
 "Heavier for you," I replied. 
 
 So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped ia 
 beside me diffidently. 
 
 "Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable." 
 
 "Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed 
 wheat is about all a man wants to carry for four miles." 
 
 "Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I'm that man." 
 
 "I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said. 
 
 "Have you?" he asked eagerly. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had 
 a notion that we ought to be neighbourly — seeing that we be- 
 long to the same society." 
 
 His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he 
 didn't know beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), 
 had brightened up, but when I spoke of the society it clouded 
 again. 
 
 "You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason." 
 
 "No more am I," I said. 
 
 "Nor an Oddfellow." 
 
 "Nor I." 
 
 As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some 
 people come to us like that, all at once, opening out to some 
 unsuspected key. His face bore not a few marks of refinement, 
 though work and discouragement had done their best to obHt- 
 erate them; his nose was thin and high, his eye was blue, too 
 biue^ and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker farm. 
 1 knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door,, 
 
156 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 but who had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! 
 If any one ever needed the benefits of my fraternity, he was 
 that man. 
 
 "What Society did you think I belonged to?" he asked. 
 
 "Well," I said, "when I was in town a man who wanted to 
 sell me a corn-planter asked me if I was a Mason " 
 
 "Did he ask you that, too?" interrupted my companion. 
 
 "He did," I said. "He did " and I reflected not without 
 
 enthusiasm that I had come away without a corn-planter. "And 
 when I drove out of town I was feeling rather depressed because 
 I wasn't a member of the lodge." 
 
 "Were you?" exclaimed my companion. "So was 1. 1 just felt 
 as though I had about reached the last ditch. I haven't any 
 money to pay into lodges and it don't seem's if a man could get 
 acquainted and friendly without." 
 
 "Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, isn't it?" I ob' 
 served. 
 
 "You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, 
 liaven't you?" 
 
 There may be such a thing as the friendship of prosperity; 
 but surely it cannot be compared with the friendship of adver- 
 sity. Men, stooping, come close together. 
 
 "But when I got to thinking it over," I said, "it suddenly 
 -occurred to me that I belonged to the greatest of all fraternities. 
 And I recognized you instantly as a charter member." 
 
 He looked around at me expectantly, half laughing. I don't 
 suppose he had so far forgotten his miseries for many a day. 
 
 "What's that?" he asked. 
 
 "The Universal Brotherhood of Men." 
 
 Well, we both laughed— and understood. 
 
 After that, what a story he told me! — the story of a misplaced 
 man on an unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full 
 people are — all people — of humour, tragedy, passionate human 
 longings, hopes, fears — if only you can unloosen the floodgates! 
 As to my companion, he had been growing bitter and sickly 
 with the pent-up humours of discouragement; all he needed was 
 a listener. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 157 
 
 He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first reaUze 
 that we had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered 
 it he exclaimed : 
 
 "I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage 
 the bag all right now." 
 
 "Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing 
 of hearing how you came out with your pigs." 
 
 As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman 
 came to the door. My companion sprang out of the buggy as 
 much elated now as he had previously been depressed (for that 
 was the coinage of his temperament), rushed up to his wife and 
 led her down to the gate. She was evidently astonished at his 
 enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length discovered 
 his gold mine! 
 
 When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid 
 his hand on my arm and said in a confidential voice: 
 
 "Fm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society." 
 
 As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his 
 wife ask suspiciously: 
 
 "What society is that?" 
 
 I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of 
 eager explanation. 
 
 And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came 
 up the lane, the door of my home opened, the light within 
 gleamed kindly and warmly across the darkened yard : and Har- 
 riet was there on the step, waiting. 
 
II 
 
 A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD 
 
 Xhey have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the 
 first time this evening I can hear the familiar sound o£ the 
 December w^ind blustering about the house, complaining at 
 closed doorways, asking questions at the shutters; but here in 
 my room, under the green reading lamp, it is warm and still. 
 Although Harriet has closed the doors, covered the coals in the 
 fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere still seems to 
 tingle with the electricity of genial humanity. 
 
 The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my 
 ears: 
 
 "This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped 
 like an Arctic highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day 
 of pleasant bread." 
 
 One of the very pleasantest I can remember! 
 
 I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We 
 try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity 
 
 158 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 159 
 
 of the whole year. As for me, I Hke to take my Christmas a little 
 at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the 
 holidays — let them overtake me unexpectedly — waking up some 
 fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: 
 
 "Why, this is Christmas Day!" 
 
 How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a 
 new sense of life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything 
 may happen on a day like this — one thinks. I may meet friends 
 I have not seen before in years. Who knows? I may discover 
 that this is a far better and kindUer world than I had ever 
 dreamed it could be. 
 
 So I sing out to Harriet as I go down: 
 
 "Merry Christmas, Harriet" — and not waiting for her sleepy 
 reply I go down and build the biggest, warmest, friendUest fire 
 of the year. Then I get into my thick coat and mittens and open 
 the back door. All around the sill, deep on the step, and all 
 about the yard lies the drifted snow: it has transformed my 
 wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and it frosts the roof 
 of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily with my 
 wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate. 
 
 Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had — ^but clear 
 and very still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near 
 Horace's farm. From Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke 
 of an early fire rises straight upward, all golden with sunshine, 
 into the measureless blue of the sky — on its way to heaven, for 
 aught I know. When I reach the gate my blood is racing warmly 
 in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my shovel into the 
 snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can no longer 
 contain myself: 
 
 "Merry Christmas, Harriet." 
 
 Harriet opens the door — ^just a crack. 
 
 "Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo— but it's 
 cold!" 
 
 And she closes the door. 
 
 Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly 
 awakens. I hear my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens 
 begin to crow and cackle, and such a grunting and squealing 
 
160 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 as the pigs set up from behind the straw stack, it would do a 
 
 man's heart good to hear! 
 "It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business." 
 I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp 
 
 the snow away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of 
 
 steam arises out of the warmth within. I step inside. My horse 
 
 Merry Christmas, Harriet' 
 
 raises his head above the stanchion, looks around at me, and 
 strikes his forefoot on the stable floor — the best greeting he has 
 at his command for a fine Christmas morning. My cow, until 
 now silent, begins to bawl. 
 
 I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his 
 stall to let me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears 
 playfully. Thus I go out into the passageway and give my horse 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 161 
 
 his oats, throw corn and stalks to the pigs and a handful of 
 grain to Harriet's chickens (it's the only way to stop the 
 cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is quiet again ex- 
 cept for the sound of contented feeding. 
 
 Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of 
 life. I stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with 
 satisfaction how plump they are and how well they are bearing 
 the winter. Then I look up at my mountainous straw stack with 
 its capping of snow, and my corn crib with the yellow ears 
 visible through the slats, and my barn with its mow full of hay 
 — all the gatherings of the year, now being expended in growth. 
 I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit of that 
 dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems 
 to close, and the full current of contentment flows through our 
 lives. 
 
 All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar 
 sense of expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that some- 
 thing unusual and adventurous was about to happen — and if it 
 did not happen ofifhand, why I was there to make it happen! 
 When I went in to breakfast (do you know the fragrance of 
 broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before 
 breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, con- 
 sider that heaven still has gifts in store for you!) — when I went 
 in to breakfast, I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but 
 I was too busy just then (hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, 
 and I knew by experience that the best solvent of secrecy is 
 patience. 
 
 "David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!" 
 
 "Can't come!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Why, you act as if you were delighted." 
 
 "No — well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary ad- 
 venture was about to happen!" 
 
 "Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment — I was all ready for 
 them." 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And 
 aren't we to have the Scotch Preacher and his wife.?" 
 
 "But I've got such a good dinner." 
 
162 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be. 
 eaten! You may depend upon me to do my duty." 
 
 "We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them 
 to come in," said Harriet ruefully. 
 
 I had several choice observations I should have liked to make 
 upon this problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she 
 sat with her eyes fixed reflectively on the cofFee-pot. 1 watched 
 her for a moment, then I remarked : 
 
 "There aren't any." 
 
 "David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was 
 thinking about?" 
 
 "I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not 
 properly appreciated in my own household. You thought of 
 highways, didn't yoii? Then you thought of the poor; especially 
 the poor on Christmas day; then of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor 
 any more, having married John Daniels; and then I said, 'There 
 aren't any.' " 
 
 Harriet laughed. 
 
 "It has come to a pretty pass," she said, "when there are no 
 poor people to invite to dinner on Christmas day." 
 
 "It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical abou^ 
 it." 
 
 "I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like." 
 
 "Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner, we must 
 necessarily try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?" 
 
 "Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever 
 you get a good healthy argument started with her, she will 
 suddenly short-circuit it, and want to know if you mean Mr. 
 Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which I maintain is not logical. 
 
 "Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said. 
 
 "David!" 
 
 "They're rich, aren't they?" 
 
 "Yes, but you know how they live — what dinners they have— 
 and besides, they probably have a houseful of company." 
 
 "Weren't you telling me the other day how many people 
 who were really suffering were too proud to let anyone know 
 about it? Weren't you advising the necessity of getting ac- 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 163 
 
 quainted with people and finding out— tactfully, of course— you 
 made a point of tact — what the trouble was?" 
 
 "But I was talking of poor people." 
 
 "Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally 
 as good for rich people ? Aren't they proud ? " 
 
 "Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet. 
 
 "And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite 
 the Starkweathers. I heard a rumour that their cook has left 
 them and I expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of 
 course they'll be very haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and 
 when I go away I'll casually leave a diamond tiara in the front 
 hall." 
 
 "What is the matter with you this morning?" 
 
 "Christmas," I said. 
 
 I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in 
 mind: it suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising develop- 
 ments. Moreover, I left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, 
 having quite forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival 
 of the cousins. 
 
 "If you should get the Starkweathers " 
 
 " 'In the bright lexicon of youth,' " I observed, " 'there is no 
 such word as fail.' " 
 
 So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been 
 that way and had broken a track through the snow. The sun 
 was now fully up, but the air still tingled with the electricity of 
 zero weather. And the fields! I have seen the fields of June and 
 the fields of October, but I think I never saw our countryside, 
 hills and valleys, tree spaces and brook bottoms, more enchant- 
 ingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow everywhere — the 
 fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees laden: where 
 the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it was 
 soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head 
 like wine! 
 
 So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy 
 old fellow, was going to the barn with a pail on his arm. 
 
 "Merry Christmas," I shouted. 
 
 He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At 
 
164 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 the corners I met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that 
 I could see only their eyes and the red ends of their small noses. 
 I passed the Williams's house, where there was a cheerful smoke 
 in the chimney and in the window a green wreath with a lively 
 red bow. And I thought how happy everyone must be on a 
 Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should I 
 meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him! 
 
 "Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 I drew my face down and said solemnly: 
 
 "Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand." 
 
 "Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once. 
 
 "I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this 
 neighbourhood to come to our feast." 
 
 The Scotch Preacher observed me v^th a tv^nkle in his eye. 
 
 "David," he said, putting his hand to his mouth as if to speak 
 in my ear, "there is a poor man you will na' have to compel." 
 
 "Oh, you don't count," I said. "You're coming anyhow." 
 
 Then I told him of the errand with our millionaire friends, 
 into the spirit of which he entered with the greatest zest. He 
 was full of advice and much excited lest I fail to do a thor- 
 oughly competent job. For a moment I think he wanted to take 
 the whole thing out of my hands. 
 
 "Man, man, it's a lovely thing to do," he exclaimed, "but I ha* 
 me doots — I ha' me doots." 
 
 At parting he hesitated a moment, and with a serious face 
 inquired : 
 
 "Is it by any chance a goose?" 
 
 "It is," I said, "a goose— a big one." 
 
 He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. "You have com- 
 forted my mind," he said, "with the joys of anticipation — a 
 goose, a big goose." 
 
 So I left him and went onward toward the Starkweathers'. 
 Presently I saw the great house standing among its wintry trees. 
 There was smoke in the chimney but no other evidence of life. 
 At the gate my spirits, which had been of the best all the morn- 
 ing, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I were well enough 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 165 
 
 acquainted with the Starkweathers, yet at this late moment on 
 Christmas morning it did seem rather a hare-brained scheme to 
 think of inviting them to dinner. 
 
 "Never mind," I said, "they'll not be displeased to see me 
 anyway." 
 
 I waited in the reception-room, which was cold and felt damp. 
 In the parlour beyond I could see the innumerable things of 
 beauty — furniture, pictures, books, so very, very much of every- 
 thing — with which the room was filled. I saw it now, as I had 
 
 often seen it before, with a pecuHar sense of weariness. How all 
 these things, though beautiful enough in themselves, must clut- 
 ter up a man's life! 
 
 Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it 
 seems to me I can successfully lack — and continue to grow hap- 
 pier. How many kinds of food I do not need, nor cooks to cook 
 them, how much curious clothing nor tailors to make it, how 
 many books that I never read, and pictures that are not worth 
 while! The farther I run, the more I feel like casting aside all 
 such impedimenta — lest I fail to arrive at the far goal of my 
 endeavour. 
 
 I hke to think of an old Japanese nobleman I once read about^ 
 who ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living 
 
166 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 with it, absorbing its message of beauty, and when he tired of 
 it, replacing it with another. I wonder if he had the right way, 
 and we, with so many objects to hang on our walls, place on our 
 shelves, drape on our chairs, and spread on our floors, have 
 mistaken our course and placed our hearts upon the multipHcity 
 rather than the quality of our possessions! 
 
 Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He 
 wore a velvet smoking-jacket and sHppers; and somehow, for a 
 bright morning like this, he seemed old, and worn, and cold. 
 
 "Well, well, friend," he said, "I'm glad to see you." 
 
 He said it as though he meant it. 
 
 "Come into the library; it's the only room in the whole house 
 that is comfortably warm. You've no idea what a task it is to 
 heat a place like this in really cold weather. No sooner do I find 
 a man who can run my furnace than he goes off and leaves me." 
 
 "I can sympathize with you," I said, "we often have trouble 
 at our house with the man who builds the fires." 
 
 He looked around at me quizzically. 
 
 "He Hes too long in bed in the morning," I said. 
 
 By this time we had arrived at the library, where a bright fire 
 was burning in the grate. It was a fine big room, with dark oak 
 furnishings and books in cases along one wall, but this morning 
 it had a dishevelled and untidy look. On a little table at one side 
 of the fireplace were the remains of a breakfast; at the other 
 a number of wraps were thrown carelessly upon a chair. As I 
 came in Mrs. Starkweather rose from her place, drawing a silk 
 scarf around her shoulders. She is a robust, rather handsome 
 woman, with many rings on her fingers, and a pair of glasses 
 hanging to a Httle gold hook on her ample bosom; but this 
 morning she, too, looked worried and old. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said with a rueful laugh, "we're beginning a 
 merry Christmas, as you see. Think of Christmas with no cook 
 in the house!" 
 
 I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine. Poor starving mil- 
 lionaires! 
 
 But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrow- 
 ful story. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 167 
 
 **We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she 
 said, "and our cook was ill — or said she was — and had to go. 
 One of the maids went with her. The man who looks after the 
 furnace disappeared on Friday, and the stableman has been 
 drinking. We can't very well leave the place without some one 
 who is responsible in charge of it — and so here we are. Merry 
 Christmas!" 
 
 I couldn't help laughing. Poor people! 
 
 "You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place." 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Starkweather. 
 
 "You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" 
 I exclaimed. "Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. Tenny' Daniels? 
 You've missed one of our greatest celebrities." 
 
 With that, of course, I had to tell them about Mrs. Heney, 
 who has for years performed a most important function in this 
 community. Alone and unaided she has been the poor whom 
 we are supposed to have always with us. If it had not been for 
 the devoted faithfulness of Mrs. Heney at Thanksgiving, Christ- 
 mas and other times of the year, I suppose our Woman's Aid 
 Society and the King's Daughters would have perished miser- 
 ably of undisturbed turkeys and tufted comforters. For years 
 Mrs. Heney filled the place most acceptably. Curbing the 
 natural outpourings of a rather jovial soul she could upon occa- 
 sion look as deserving of charity as any person that ever I met. 
 But I pitied the little Heneys: it always comes hard on the 
 children. For weeks after every Thanksgiving and Christmas 
 they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look. I only 
 came to appreciate fully what a self-sacrificing pubHc servant 
 Mrs. Heney really was when I learned that she had taken the 
 desperate alternative of marrying "Penny" Daniels. 
 
 "So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?" 
 laughed Mrs. Starkweather. 
 
 Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and 
 asked them to come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and 
 the goose. 
 
 When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came 
 with me to the door seeming greatly improved in spirits. 
 
168 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "You've given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson," said 
 Mrs. Starkweather. 
 
 So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or 
 more later who should we see in the top of our upper field but 
 Mi. Starkweather and his wife floundering in the snow. They 
 reached the lane literally covered from top to toe with snow and 
 both of them ruddy with the cold. 
 
 "We walked over," said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, "and 
 I haven't had so much fun in years." 
 
 Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch 
 Preacher stood on the steps to receive them, and we all went in 
 together. 
 
 I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous 
 brown goose, and the apple sauce, and all the other things that 
 best go with it, and the pumpkin pie at the end — the finest, 
 thickest, most delicious pumpkin pie I ever ate in all my life. 
 It melted in one's mouth and brought visions of celestial bliss. 
 And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet presiding. I have 
 never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every time she 
 brought in a new dish or took ofl a cover it was a sort of miracle. 
 And her coffee — but I must not and dare not elaborate. 
 
 And what great talk we had afterward! 
 
 I've known the Scotch Preacher for a long time, but I never 
 saw him in quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Stark- 
 weather told stories of their boyhood — and we laughed, and 
 laughed — Mrs. Starkweather the most of all. Seeing her so often 
 in her carriage, or in the dignity of her home, I didn't think she 
 had so much jollity in her. Finally she discovered Harriet's 
 cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must sing for 
 us. 
 
 "None of the new-fangled ones, Clara," cried her husband: 
 "some of the old ones we used to know." 
 
 So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back 
 and began to sing: 
 
 "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms. 
 Which I gaz^ <^n so fondly to-day /' 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 169 
 
 Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and 
 joined in with his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The 
 Scotch Preacher's wife nodded in time with the music, and 
 presently I saw the tears in her eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he 
 sat on the edge of his chair with his hands on his knees and 
 wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he, too, 
 joined in with his big sonorous voice: 
 
 "Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou 
 art r 
 
 Oh, I can't tell here — it grows late and there's work to- 
 morrow — all the things we did and said. They stayed until it 
 was dark, and when Mrs. Starkweather was ready to go, she 
 took both of Harriet's hands in hers and said with great earnest- 
 ness: 
 
 "I haven't had such a good time at Christmas since I was a 
 little girl. I shall never forget it." 
 
 And the dear old Scotch Preacher, when Harriet and I had 
 wrapped him up, went out, saying: 
 
 "This has been a day of pleasant bread." 
 
 It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness 
 and common human nature — childlike simplicity, if you will- 
 there is in people once you get them down together and per- 
 suade them that the things they think serious are not serious 
 at all. 
 

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 III 
 
 THE OPEN ROAD 
 
 "To ma\e space for wandering it is that the world 
 was made so wide," 
 
 — GOETHE, Wilhelm Meister. 
 
 JL LOVE SOMETIMES to havc 3 day alone — a riotous day. Sometimes 
 I do not care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up 
 to the full enjoyment of the w^orld around me. I go out of my 
 door in the morning — preferably a sunny morning, though any 
 morning will do well enough — and walk straight out into the 
 world. I take with me the burden of no duty or responsibiUty. 
 I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from orchard and wood. I 
 look about me as if everything were new — and behold every- 
 thing is new. My barn, my oaks, my fences— I declare I never 
 saw them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, 
 or opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a 
 discoverer of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, 
 taste all these wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea 
 what discoveries I shall make! 
 
 170 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 171 
 
 So I go down the lane, looking up and about me. I cross the 
 town road and climb the fence on the other side. I brush one 
 shoulder among the bushes as I pass: I feel the solid yet easy 
 pressure of the sod. The long blades of the timothy-grass clasp 
 at my legs and let go with reluctance. I break off a twig here and 
 there and taste the tart or bitter sap. I take off my hat and let 
 the warm sun shine on my head. I am an adventurer upon a new 
 earth. 
 
 Is it not marvellous how far afield some of us are willing to 
 travel in pursuit of that beauty which we leave behind us at 
 home? We mistake unfamiliarity for beauty; we darken our 
 perceptions with idle foreignness. For want of that ardent inner 
 curiosity which is the only true foundation for the appreciation 
 of beauty — for beauty is inward, not outward — we find our- 
 selves hastening from land to land, gathering mere curious re- 
 semblances which, like unassimilated property, possess no power 
 of fecundation. With what pathetic diligence we collect peaks 
 and passes in Switzerland; how we come laden from England 
 with vain cathedrals! 
 
 Beauty? What is it but a new way of approach? For wdlder- 
 ness, for foreignness, I have no need to go a mile: I have only to 
 come up through my thicket or cross my field from my own 
 roadside — and behold, a new heaven and a new earth! 
 
 Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but be- 
 cause we cease to see them. Whole vibrant significant worlds 
 around us disappear within the sombre mists of familiarity. 
 Whichever way we look the roads are dull and barren. There 
 is a tree at our gate we have not seen in years : a flower blooms 
 in our door-yard more wonderful than the shining heights of 
 the Alps! 
 
 It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men 
 hardening before my eyes, drawing in a feeler here, walling up 
 an opening there. Naming things! Objects fall into categories 
 for them and wear little sure channels in the brain. A mountain 
 is a mountain, a tree a tree to them, a field forever a field. Life 
 solidifies itself in words. And finally how everything wearies 
 them and that is old age! 
 
172 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? 
 To see and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as 
 settled; to defend the eternal right of the questioner? To reject 
 every conclusion of yesterday before the surer observations of 
 to-day? — is not that the best life we know? 
 
 And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm 
 there is a tamarack swamp. The soft dark green of it fills the 
 round bowl of a valley. Around it spread rising forests and 
 fields; fences divide it from the known land. Coming across my 
 fields one day, I saw it there. I felt the habit of avoidance. It is 
 
 a custom, well enough in a practical land, to shun such a spot of 
 perplexity; but on that day I was following the Open Road, and 
 it led me straight to the moist dark stillness of the tamaracks. 
 I cannot here tell all the marvels I found in that place. I trod 
 where human foot had never trod before. Cobwebs barred my 
 passage (the bars to most passages when we came to them are 
 only cobwebs), the earth was soft with the thick swamp mosses, 
 and with many an autumn of fallen dead, brown leaves. I crossed 
 the track of a muskrat, I saw the nest of a hawk — and how, how 
 many other things of the wilderness I must not here relate. And 
 I came out of it renewed and refreshed; I know now the feeling 
 of the pioneer and the discoverer. Peary has no more than I; 
 Stanley tells me nothing I have not experienced! 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 173 
 
 What more than that is the accompHshment of the great in- 
 ventor, poet, painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wilder- 
 nesses. They follow the Open Road, they see for themselves, 
 and will not accept the paths or the names of the world. And 
 Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously. Insight. A thousand had 
 seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered with 
 the spirit of the Open Road! 
 
 Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything 
 newly, I devise secret words for the things I see: words that 
 convey to me alone the thought, or impression, or emotion of a 
 peculiar spot. All this, I know, to some will seem the acme of 
 fooHsh illusion. Indeed, I am not telling of it because it is practi- 
 cal; there is no cash at the end of it. I am reporting it as an ex- 
 perience in Hfe; those who understand will understand. And 
 thus out of my journeys I have words which bring back to me 
 with indescribable poignancy the particular impression of a time 
 or a place. I prize them more highly than almost any other of 
 my possessions, for they come to me seemingly out of the air, 
 and the remembrance of them enables me to recall or live over 
 a past experience with scarcely diminished emotion. 
 
 And one of these words — how it brings to me the very mood 
 of a gray October day! A sleepy west wind blowing. The fields 
 are bare, the corn shocks brown, and the long road looks flat 
 and dull. Away in the marsh I hear a single melancholy crow. 
 A heavy day, namelessly sad! Old sorrows flock to one's 
 memory and old regrets. The creeper is red in the swamp and 
 the grass is brown on the hill. It comes to me that I was a boy 
 once 
 
 So to the flat road and away! And turn at the turning and rise 
 with the hill. Will the mood change: will the day? I see a lone 
 man in the top of a pasture crying "Coo-ee, coo-ee." I do not see 
 at first why he cries and then over the hill comes the ewes, a 
 dense gray flock of them, huddling toward me. The yokel behind 
 has a stick in each hand. "Coo-ee, coo-ee," he also cries. And the 
 two men, gathering in, threatening, sidling, advancing slowly, 
 the sheep turning uncertainly this way and that, come at last to 
 the boarded pen. 
 
174 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "That's the idee," says the helper. 
 
 "A poor lot," remarks the leader: "such is the farmer's life." 
 
 From the roadway they back their frame-decked wagon to 
 the fence and unhook their team. The leader throws off his coat 
 and stands thick and muscular in his blue jeans — a roistering 
 fellow with a red face, thick neck and chapped hands. 
 
 "I'll pass 'em up," he says; "that's a man's work. You stand in 
 the wagon and put 'em in." 
 
 So he springs into the yard and the sheep huddle close into 
 the corner, here and there raising a timid head, here and there 
 darting aside in a panic. 
 
 "Hi there, it's for you," shouts the leader, and thrusts his 
 hands deep in the wool of one of the ewes. 
 
 "Come up here, you Southdown with the bare belly," says the 
 man in the wagon. 
 
 "That's my old game — wrastling," the leader remarks, strug- 
 gling with the next ewe. "Stiddy, stiddy, now I got you, up with 
 you, dang you!" 
 
 "That's the idee," says the man in the wagon. 
 
 So I watch and they pass up the sheep one by one and as I go 
 down the road I hear the leader's thick voice, "Stiddy, stiddy," 
 and the response of the other, "That's the idee." And so on into 
 the gray day! 
 
 My Open Road leads not only to beauty, not only to fresh 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 175 
 
 adventures in outer observation. I believe in the Open Road in 
 religion, in education, in politics : there is nothing really settled, 
 fenced in, nor finally decided upon this earth. Nothing that is 
 not questionable. I do not mean that I would immediately tear 
 down well-built fences or do away with established and beaten 
 roads. By no means. The wisdom of past ages is likely to be 
 wiser than any hasty conclusions of mine. I would not invite any 
 other person to follow my road until I had well proven it a bet- 
 ter way toward truth than that which time had established. And 
 yet I would have every man tread the Open Road; I would have 
 him upon occasion question the smuggest institution and look 
 askance upon the most ancient habit. I would have him throw a 
 doubt upon Newton and defy Darwin! I would have him look 
 straight at men and nature with his own eyes. He should ac- 
 knowledge no common gods unless he proved them gods for 
 himself. The "equality of men" which we worship : is there not 
 a higher inequality ? The material progress which we deify : is it 
 real progress? Democracy — is it after all better than monarchy.? 
 I would have him question the canons of art, literature, music, 
 morals: so will he continue young and useful! 
 
 And yet sometimes I ask myself. What do I travel for? Why 
 all this excitement and eagerness of inquiry? What is it that I 
 go forth to find? Am I better for keeping my roads open than 
 my neighbour is who travels with contentment the paths of 
 ancient habit? I am gnawed by the tooth of unrest — to what 
 end? Often as I travel I ask myself that question and I have 
 never had a convincing answer. I am looking for something I 
 cannot find. My Open Road is open, too, at the end! What is it 
 that drives a man onward, that scourges him with unanswered 
 questions! We only know that we are driven; we do not know 
 who drives. We travel, we inquire, we look, we work — only 
 knowing that these activities satisfy a certain deep and secret 
 demand within us. We have Faith that there is a Reason: and 
 is there not a present Joy in following the Open Road ? 
 
 **And the joy that is never won, 
 But follows and follows the journeying sun" 
 
176 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 And at the end of the day the Open Road, if we follow it with 
 wisdom as well as fervour, will bring us safely home again. For 
 after all the Open Road must return to the Beaten Path. The 
 Open Road is for adventure; and adventure is not the food of 
 life, but the spice. 
 
 Thus I came back this evening from rioting in my fields. As I 
 walked down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a 
 certain earthy exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, 
 the duties of my daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant 
 calmness of spirit, and I said to myself: 
 
 "Lord be praised for that which is common." 
 
 And after I had done my chores I came in, hungry, to my 
 supper. 
 
o, 
 
 IV 
 
 ON BEING WHERE YOU BELONG 
 
 Sunday Morning, May 20th, 
 
 'n FRIDAY I began planting my corn. For many days previ- 
 ously I went out every morning at sun-up, in the clear, sharp air, 
 and thrust my hand deep down in the soil of the field. I do not 
 know that I followed any learned agricultural rule, but some- 
 how I liked to do it. It has seemed reasonable to me, instead of 
 watching for a phase of the moon (for I do not cultivate the 
 moon), to inquire of the earth itself. For many days I had no 
 response; the soil was of an icy, moist coldness, as of death. "I 
 am not ready yet," it said; "I have not rested my time." 
 
 Early in the week we had a day or two of soft sunshine, of 
 fecund warmth, to which the earth lay open, willing, passive. 
 On Thursday morning, though a white frost silvered the harrow 
 ridges, when I thrust my hand into the soil I felt, or seemed to 
 feel, a curious response : a strange answering of Ufe to life. The 
 stone had been rolled from the sepulchre! 
 
 And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my 
 planting. That afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving 
 
 177 
 
178 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 the mare to my home-made wooden marker, carefully observant 
 of the straightness of the rows; for a crooked corn-row is a sort 
 of immorality. I brought down my seed corn from the attic, 
 where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended sepa- 
 rately by the white, up-turned husks. They were the selected 
 ears of last year's crop, even of size throughout, smooth of 
 kernel, with tips well-covered — the perfect ones chosen among 
 many to perpetuate the highest excellencies of the crop. I car- 
 ried them to the shed next my barn, and shelled them out in 
 my hand machine : as fine a basket of yellow dent seed as a man 
 ever saw. I have listened to endless discussions as to the relative 
 merits of flint and dent corn. I here cast my vote emphatically 
 for yellow dent: it is the best Nature can do! 
 
 I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, 
 and Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the 
 waist. I cleaned and sharpened my hoe. 
 
 "Now," I said to myself, "give me a good day and I am ready 
 to plant." 
 
 The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the 
 trees into a world of misty and odorous freshness. When I 
 climbed the fence I dropped down in the grass at the far corner 
 of the field. I had looked forward this year with pleasure to the 
 planting of a small field by hand — the adventure of it — after a 
 number of years of horse planting (with Horace's machine) of 
 far larger fields. There is an indescribable satisfaction in answer- 
 ing, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature: to plant when the 
 earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake and 
 harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief 
 joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to 
 beat in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons be- 
 come his seasons; its life his life. 
 
 Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, 
 buckled both over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny 
 hoe in my hand (the scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, 
 rested feehng in every muscle of my body, standing at the end 
 of the first long furrow there in my field on Friday morning— 
 a whole spring day open before me! At that moment I would 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 179 
 
 not have changed my place for the place of any king, prince, or 
 president. 
 
 At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time 
 since I have done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the 
 rhythmic swing of the sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the 
 turn of the body and the flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes 
 downward; the deftly hollowed hole; the swing of the hand to 
 the seed-bag; the sure fall of the kernels; the return of the hoe; 
 
 the final determining pressure of the soil upon the seed. One 
 falls into it and follows it as he would follow the rhythm of a 
 march. 
 
 Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive. At 
 first there is a conscious counting by the fingers — ^five seeds: 
 
 One for the blac\bird. 
 
 One for the crow, 
 One for the cutworm. 
 
 Two to grow. 
 
 But after a time one ceases to count five, and feels five, in- 
 stinctively rejecting a monstrous six, or returning to complete 
 an inferior four. 
 
 I wonder if you know the feel of the fresh, soft soil, as it 
 
180 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 answers to your steps, giving a little, responding a little (as life 
 always does) — and is there not something endlessly good and 
 pleasant about it? And the movement of the arms and shoulders, 
 falling easily into that action and reaction which yields the 
 most service to the least energy! Scientists tell us that the awk- 
 ward young eagle has a wider wing-stretch than the old, skilled 
 eagle. So the corn planter, at noon, will do his work with half 
 the expended energy of the early morning: he attains the artistry 
 of motion. And quite beyond and above this physical accom- 
 plishment is the ever-present, scarcely conscious sense of re- 
 ward, repayment, which one experiences as he covers each 
 planting of seeds. 
 
 As the sun rose higher the mists stole secretly away, first 
 toward the lower brook-hollows, finally disappearing entirely; 
 the morning coolness passed, the tops of the furrows dried out 
 to a lighter brown, and still I followed the long planting. At 
 each return I refilled my seed-bag, and sometimes I drank from 
 the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass. Often I stood 
 a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through the 
 clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vainglori- 
 ously from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occa- 
 sionally from the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I 
 noted the slow kitchen, smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip 
 of which I could just see over the hill from the margin of my 
 field — and my own pleasant home among its trees — and my 
 barn — all most satisfying to look upon. Then I returned to the 
 sweat and heat of the open field, and to the steady swing of the 
 sowing. 
 
 Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where 
 one belongs, as I feel right here; of being foursquare with the 
 life we have chosen. All the discontented people I know are try- 
 ing sedulously to be something they are not, to do something 
 they cannot do. In the advertisements of the country paper I 
 find men angUng for money by promising to make women beau- 
 tiful and men learned or rich — overnight — by inspiring good 
 farmers and carpenters to be poor doctors and lawyers. It is 
 curious, is it not, with what skill we will adapt our sandy land 
 
181 
 
182 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 to potatoes and grow our beans in clay, and with how littk 
 wisdom we farm the soils of our own natures. We try to grow 
 poetry where plumbing would thrive grandly! — not knowing 
 that plumbing is as important and honourable and necessary to 
 this earth as poetry. 
 
 I understand it perfectly; I too, followed long after false gods. 
 I thought I must rush forth to see the world, I must forthwith 
 become great, rich, famous; and I hurried hither and thither, 
 seeking I knew not what. Consuming my days with the infinite 
 distractions of travel, I missed, as one who attempts two occu- 
 pations at once, the sure satisfaction of either. Beholding the 
 exteriors of cities and of men, I was deceived with shadows; 
 my hfe took no hold upon that which is deep and true. Colour 
 I got, and form, and a superficial aptitude in judging by sym- 
 bols. It was like the study of a science: a hasty review gives one 
 the general rules, but it requires a far profounder insight to 
 know the fertile exceptions. 
 
 But as I grow older I remain here on my farm, and wait 
 quietly for the world to pass this way. My oak and I, we wait^ 
 and we are satisfied. Here we stand among our clods; our feet 
 are rooted deep within the soil. The wind blows upon us and 
 delights us, the rain falls and refreshes us, the sun dries and 
 sweetens us. We are become calm, slow, strong; so we measure 
 rectitudes and regard essentials, my oak and I. 
 
 I would be a hard person to dislodge or uproot from this spot 
 of earth. I belong here; I grow here. I like to think of the old 
 fable of the wrestler of Irassa. For I am veritably that Anteus 
 who was the wrestler of Irassa and drew his strength from the 
 ground. So long as I tread the long furrows of my planting, with 
 my feet upon the earth, I am invincible and unconquerable. 
 Hercules himself, though he comes upon me in the guise of 
 Riches, or Fame, or Power, cannot overthrow me — save as he 
 takes me away from this soil. For at each step my strength is 
 renewed. I forget weariness, old age has no dread for me. 
 
 Some there may be who think I talk dreams; they do not 
 know reality. My friend, did it ever occur to you that you are 
 unhappy because you have lost connection with life? Because, 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 183 
 
 your feet are not somewhere firm planted upon the soil of 
 reality? Contentment, and indeed usefulness, comes as the in- 
 fallible result of great acceptances, great humilities — of not try- 
 ing to make ourselves this or that (to conform to some drama- 
 tized version of ourselves), but of surrendering ourselves to the 
 fullness of Hfe — of letting life flow^ through us. To be used! — 
 that is the sublimest thing we know. 
 
 It is a distinguishing mark of greatness that it has a tremen- 
 dous hold upon real things. I have seen men who seemed to 
 have behind them, or rather within them, whole societies, states, 
 institutions: how they come at us, like Atlas bearing the 
 world! For they act not with their own feebleness, but with a 
 strength as of the Whole of Life. They speak, and the words 
 are theirs, but the voice is the Voice of Mankind. 
 
 I don't know what to call it: being right with God or right 
 with life. It is strangely the same thing; and God is not particu- 
 lar as to the name we know him by, so long as we know Him. 
 Musing upon these secret things, I seem to understand what the 
 theologians in their darkness have made so obscure. Is it not 
 just this at-one-ment with life which sweetens and saves us all? 
 
 In all these writings I have glorified the life of the soil until 
 I am ashamed. I have loved it because it saved me. The farm for 
 me, I decided long ago, is the only place where I can flow 
 strongly and surely. But to you, my friend, life may present a 
 wholly different aspect, variant necessities. Knowing what I 
 have experienced in the city, I have sometimes wondered at the 
 happy (even serene) faces I have seen in crowded streets. There 
 
184 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 must be, I admit, those who can flow and be at one with th^/ 
 life, too. And let them handle their money, and make shoes, 
 and sew garments, and write in ledgers — if that completes and 
 contents them. I have no quarrel with any one of them. It is, 
 after all, a big and various world, where men can be happy in 
 many ways. 
 
 For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. 
 Some draw to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn 
 in return; and some draw swift streets and the riches which 
 are known to cities. It is not of importance what we draw, but 
 that we really draw. And the greatest tragedy in life, as I see it, 
 is that thousands of men and women never have the opportu- 
 nity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness and 
 labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who 
 live in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. 
 But that is a question foreign to present considerations. We 
 may be assured, if we draw freely, like the magnet of steel 
 which gathers its iron filings about it in beautiful and symmetric 
 cal forms, that the things which we attract will also become 
 symmetrical and harmonious with our lives. 
 
 Thus flowing with Ufe, self-surrendering to life a man be- 
 comes indispensable to life, he is absolutely necessary to the 
 conduct of this universe. And it is the feeling of being neces- 
 sary, of being desired, flowing into a man that produces the 
 satisfaction of contentment. Often and often I think to myself: 
 
 These fields have need of me; my horse whinnies when he 
 hears my step; my dog barks a welcome. These, my neighbours, 
 are glad of me. The corn comes up fresh and green to my plant- 
 ing; my buckwheat bears richly. I am indispensable in this 
 place. What is more satisfactory to the human heart than to be 
 needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book of 
 Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed 
 page as though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old 
 agony of a misplaced man. After relating the short and evil 
 history of Jehoram, King of Judah, the account ends — with the 
 appalling terseness which often crowns the dramatic cUmaxes 
 of that matchless writing: 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 185 
 
 "And (he) departed without being desired." 
 
 Without being desired! I have wondered if any man was ever 
 cursed with a more terrible epitaph! 
 
 And so I planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb 
 weariness of physical toil. Many times in older days I have 
 known the wakeful nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It 
 was the weariness which, after supper, seizes upon one's Umbs 
 with half-aching numbness. I sat down on my porch with a 
 nameless content. I looked off across the countryside. I saw the 
 evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I wanted 
 nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves 
 upon me and I stumbled up to bed — and sank into dreamless 
 slumber. 
 
V 
 
 THE STORY OF ANNA 
 
 It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it 
 aloud) that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise 
 nothing upon this earth. As you travel, many things both great 
 and small will come to your attention; you are to regard all with 
 open eyes and a heart of simplicity. BeUeve that everything be- 
 longs somewhere; each thing has its fitting and luminous place 
 within this mosaic of human life. The True Road is not open 
 to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or lift the chin 
 of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called common or 
 unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If you 
 despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beauti- 
 ful. For what is beauty but completeness ? The roadside beggar 
 belongs here, too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the 
 open fields; and the girl who withholds (secretly) the name of 
 the father of her child. 
 
 I remember as distinctly as though it happened yesterday the 
 particular evening three years ago when I saw the Scotch 
 Preacher come hurrying up the road toward my house. It was 
 June. I had come out after supper to sit on my porch and look 
 out upon the quiet fields. I remember the grateful cool of the 
 evening air, and the scents rising all about me from garden and 
 roadway and orchard. I was tired after the work of the day and 
 sat with a sort of complete comfort and contentment which 
 comes only to those who work long in the quiet of outdoor 
 
 186 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 187 
 
 places. I remember the thought came to me, as it has come in 
 various forms so many times, that in such a big and beautiful 
 world there should be no room for the fever of unhappiness or 
 discontent. 
 
 And then I saw McAlway coming up the road. I knew in- 
 stantly that something was wrong. His step, usually so de- 
 deliberate, was rapid; there was agitation in every line of his 
 countenance. I walked down through the garden to the gate 
 and met him there. Being somewhat out of breath he did not 
 speak at once. So I said : 
 
 "It is not, after all, as bad as you anticipate." 
 
 "David," he said, and I think I never heard him speak more 
 seriously, "it is bad enough." 
 
 He laid his hand on my arm. 
 
 "Can you hitch up your horse and come with me — right 
 away?" 
 
 McAlway helped with the buckles and said not a word. In ten 
 minutes, certainly not more, we were driving together down the 
 lane. 
 
 "Do you know a family named WilUams living on the north 
 road beyond the three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher. 
 
 Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing 
 not unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind. 
 
 "Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except 
 a gingham girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to 
 school." 
 
 "A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a 
 woman now." 
 
 He paused a moment; then he continued sadly: 
 
 "As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between 
 child and child. David, she has a child of her own." 
 
 "But I didn't know— she isn't " 
 
 "A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher. 
 
 I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the 
 evening there in the country road, the soft light fading in the 
 fields. I heard a whippoorwill caUing from the distant woods. 
 
 "They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "espe- 
 
188 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 cially her older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she 
 ran away, taking her baby with her. They found a note saying 
 they would never again see her aUve. Her mother says she went 
 toward the river." 
 
 I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher 
 sat silent, thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kind- 
 ness in his voice, 
 
 "She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yester- 
 day she was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot 
 imagine her driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 
 Why did you do it, Anna.?' She answered, 'I don't know: I— 
 I don't know!' Her reply was not defiant or remorseful: it was 
 merely explanatory." 
 
 He remained silent again for a long time. 
 
 "David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know 
 half as much about human nature as we — we preach. If we did, 
 I think we'd be more careful in our judgments." 
 
 He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from 
 his heart. It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more 
 than the sermons he preached, that made him in reality the 
 minister of our community. He went about thinking that, after 
 all, he didn't know much, and that therefore he must be kind. 
 
 As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one 
 liand on the reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and 
 we both stepped out. 
 
 "She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the 
 river," McAlway said in a low voice. 
 
 It was growing dark. When I walked out on the bridge my 
 legs were strangely unsteady; a weight seemed pressing on my 
 breast so that my breath came hard. We looked down into the 
 shallow, placid water: the calm of the evening was upon it; the 
 middle of the stream was like a rumpled glassy ribbon, but the 
 edges, deep-shaded by overhanging trees, were of ? mysterious 
 darkness. In all my life I think I never experienced such a de- 
 gree of silence — of breathless, oppressive silence. It seemed as 
 if, at any instant, it must burst into some fearful excess of 
 50und. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 189 
 
 Suddenly we heard a voice — in half-articulate exclamation. I 
 turned, every nerve strained to the uttermost. A figure, seem- 
 ingly materialized out of darkness and silence, was moving on 
 the bridge. 
 
 "Oh!— McAlway," a voice said. 
 
 Then I heard the Scotch Preacher in low tones. 
 
 "Have you seen Anna Williams?" 
 
 "She is at the house," answered the voice. 
 
 "Get your horse," said the Scotch Preacher. 
 
 I ran back and led the mare across the bridge (how I remem- 
 ber, in that silence, the thunder of her hoofs on the loose 
 boards!). Just at the top of the Uttle hill leading up from the 
 bridge the two men turned in at a gate. I followed quickly and 
 the three of us entered the house together. I remember the 
 musty, warm, shut-in odour of the front room. I heard the faint 
 cry of a child. The room was dim, with a single kerosene lamp, 
 but I saw three women huddled by the stove, in which a new 
 fire was blazing. Two looked up as we entered, with feminine 
 instinct moving aside to hide the form of the third. 
 
 "She's all right, as soon as she gets dry," one of them said. 
 
 The other woman turned to us half complainingly : 
 
 "She ain't said a single word since we got her in here, and she 
 won't let go of the baby for a minute." 
 
 "She don't cry," said the other, "but just sits there like a 
 statue." 
 
 McAlway stepped forward and said: 
 
 "Well— Anna?" 
 
 The girl looked up for the first time. The light shone full in 
 her face: a look I shall never forget. Yes, it was the girl I had 
 seen so often, and yet not the girl. It was the same childish face, 
 but all marked upon with inexplicable wan lines of a certain 
 mysterious womanhood. It was childish, but bearing upon it an 
 inexpressible look of half-sad dignity, that stirred a man's heart 
 to its profoundest depths. And there was in it, too, as I have 
 thought since, a something I have seen in the faces of old, wise 
 men: a Hght (how shall I explain it?) as of experience — of 
 boundless experience. Her hair hung in wavy dishevelment 
 
190 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 about her head and shoulders, and she clung passionately to the 
 child in her arms. 
 
 The Scotch Preacher had said, "Well — ^Anna?" She looked 
 up and replied: 
 
 "They were going to take my baby away." 
 
 "Were they!" exclaimed McAlway in his hearty voice. "Well, 
 we'll never permit that. Who's got a better right to the baby 
 than you, I'd like to know?" 
 
 Without turning her head, the tears came to her eyes and 
 rolled unheeded down her face. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Dr. McAlway," the man said, "I was coming across 
 the bridge with the cows when I see her standing there in the 
 water, her skirts all floating around her. She was hugging the 
 baby up to her face and saying over and over, just like this: 'I 
 don't dare! Oh, I don't dare! But I must. I must.' She was sort 
 of singin' the words: 1 don't dare. I don't dare, but I must.' I 
 jumped the raiUng and run down to the bank of the river. 
 And I says, 'Come right out o' there'; and she turned and come 
 out just as gentle as a child, and I brought her up here to the 
 house." 
 
 It seemed perfectly natural at this time that I should take the 
 girl and her child home to Harriet. She would not go back to 
 her own home, though we tried to persuade her, and the Scotch 
 Preacher's wife was visiting in the city, so she could not go there. 
 But after I found myself driving homeward with the girl — while 
 McAlway went over the hill to tell her family — the mood of 
 action passed. It struck me suddenly, "What will Harriet say?" 
 Upon which my heart sank curiously, and refused to resume its 
 natural position. 
 
 In the past I had brought her tramps and peddlers and itin- 
 erant preachers, all of whom she had taken in with patience — 
 but this, I knew, was different. For a few minutes I wished de- 
 voutly I were in Timbuctu or some other far place. And then 
 the absurdity of the situation struck me all at once, and I 
 couldn't help laughing aloud. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 191 
 
 "It's a tremendous old world," I said to myself. "Why, any- 
 thing may happen anywhere!" 
 
 The girl stirred, but did not speak. I was afraid I had 
 frightened her, 
 
 "Are you cold?" I asked. 
 
 "No, sir," she answered faintly. 
 
 I could think of nothing whatever to say, so I said it: 
 
 "Are you fond of hot corn-meal mush?" 
 
 **Yes, sir," very faintly. 
 
 A<\\ 
 
 
 "With cream on it — rich yellow cream — ^and plenty of sugar?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Well, I'll bet a nickel that's what we're going to get!" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 We drove up the lane and stopped at the yard gate. Harriet 
 opened the door. I led the small dark figure into the warmth 
 and light of the kitchen. She stood helplessly holding the baby 
 tight in her arms — as forlorn and dishevelled a figure as one 
 could well imagine. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "this is Anna Williams." 
 
 Harriet gave me her most tremendous look. It seemed to me 
 at that moment that it wasn't my sister Harriet at all that I was 
 facing, but some stranger and much greater person than I had 
 ever known. Every man has, upon occasion, beheld his wife, his 
 sister, his mother even, become suddenly unknown, suddenly 
 commanding, suddenly greater than himself or any other man. 
 
192 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 For d woman possesses the occult power of becoming instantly, 
 mir^iCulously, the Accumulated and Personified Customs, Morals 
 and Institutions of the Ages. At this moment, then, I felt myself 
 slowly but surely shrinking and shrivelUng up. It is a most un- 
 comfortable sensation to find one's self face to face with Society- 
 at-Large. Under such circumstances I always know what to do. 
 I run. So I clapped my hat on my head, declared that the mare 
 must be unharnessed immediately, and started for the door. 
 Harriet followed. Once outside she closed the door behind 
 her. 
 
 "David, David, DAVID," she said. 
 
 It occurred to me now for the first time (which shows how 
 stupid I am) that Harriet had already heard the story of Anna 
 Williams. And it had gained so much bulk and robustity in 
 travelling, as such stories do in the country, that I have no 
 doubt the poor child seemed a sort of devastating monster of 
 iniquity. How the country scourges those who do not walk 
 the beaten path! In the careless city such a one may escape to 
 unfamiliar streets and consort with unfamiliar people, and still 
 find a way of life, but here in the country the eye of Society 
 never sleeps! 
 
 For a moment I was appalled by what I had done. Then 1 
 thought of the Harriet I knew so well: the inexhaustible heart 
 of her. With a sudden inspiration I opened the kitchen door and 
 we both looked in. The girl stood motionless just where I left 
 her: an infinitely pathetic figure. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "that girl is hungry— and cold." 
 
 Well, it worked. Instantly Harriet ceased to be Society-at- 
 Large and became the Harriet I know, the Harriet of infinite 
 compassion for all weak creatures. When she had gone in I 
 pulled my hat down and went straight for the barn. 1 guess 
 I know when it's wise to be absent from places. 
 
 I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed 
 up into the loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows 
 out into the pasture and set up the bars. And then I stood by 
 the gate and looked up into the clear June sky. No man, I think, 
 can remain long silent under the stars, with the brooding, mys- 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 193 
 
 terious night around about him, without feeling, poignantly, how 
 little he understands anything, how inconsequential his actions 
 are, how feeble his judgments. 
 
 And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down 
 in his heart, knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an 
 outcast, not because of any real moral strength or resolution of 
 his own, but because Society has bolstered him up, hedged him 
 about with customs and restrictions until he never has had a 
 really good opportunity to transgress. And some do not sin 
 for very lack of courage and originaUty : they are helplessly good. 
 
 How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for 
 the built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for 
 surprise when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all 
 good works," suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for sur- 
 prise. For it was not he that was moral, but Society. Individually 
 he had never been tested, and when the test came he fell. It 
 will give us a large measure of true wisdom if we stop some- 
 times when we have resisted a temptation and ask ourselves 
 why, at that moment, we did right and not wrong. Was it the 
 deep virtue, the high ideals in our souls, or was it the com- 
 pulsion of the Society around us? And I think most of us will 
 be astonished to discover what fragile persons we really are — 
 in ourselves. 
 
 I stopped for several minutes at the kitchen door before I 
 dared to go in. Then I stamped vigorously on the boards, as if I 
 had come rushing up to the house without a doubt in my mind — 
 
19^ ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 I even whistled — and opened the door jauntily. And had my 
 pains for nothing! 
 
 The kitchen was empty, but full of comforting and homelike 
 odours. There was undoubtedly hot mush in the kettle. A few 
 minutes later Harriet came down the stairs. She held up one 
 finger warningly. Her face was transfigured. 
 
 "David," she whispered, "the baby's asleep." 
 
 So I tiptoed across the room. She tiptoed after me. Then I 
 faced about, and we both stood there on our tiptoes, holding 
 our breath — at least I held mine. 
 
 "David," Harriet whispered, "did you see the baby.?" 
 
 "No," I whispered. 
 
 "I think it's the finest baby I ever saw in my life." 
 
 When I was a boy, and my great-aunt, who lived for many 
 years in a little room with dormer windows at the top of my 
 father's house, used to tell me stories (the best I ever heard), 
 I was never content with the endings of them. "What happened 
 next.?" I remember asking a hundred times; and if I did not 
 ask the question aloud it arose at least in my own mind. 
 
 If I were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with 
 the story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of 
 coming to quick fruition, and withering away after having cast 
 the seeds of their immortality. 
 
 "Did you see the baby?" Harriet had asked. She said no 
 word about Anna: a BABY had come into the world. Already 
 the present was beginning to draw the charitable curtains of its 
 forgetfulness across this simple drama; already Harriet and 
 Anna and all the rest of us were beginning to look to the "finest 
 baby we ever saw in all our lives." 
 
 I might, indeed, go into the character of Anna and the whys 
 and wherefores of her story; but there is curiously little that is 
 strange or unusual about it. It was just Life. A few days with 
 us worked miraculous changes in the girl; like some stray 
 kitten brought in crying from the cold, she curled herself up 
 comfortably there in our home, purring her contentment. She 
 was not in the least a tragic figure: though down deep under 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 195 
 
 the curves and dimples of youth there was something finally 
 resistant, or obstinate, or defiant — which kept its counsel re- 
 garding the past. 
 
 It is curious how acquaintanceship mitigates our judgments. 
 We classify strangers into whose careers the newspapers or our 
 friends give us glimpses as "bad" or "good"; we separate hu- 
 manity into inevitable goathood and sheephood. But upon 
 closer acquaintance a man comes to be not bad, but Ebenezer 
 Smith or J. Henry Jones; and a woman is not good, but Nellie 
 Morgan or Mrs. Arthur Cadwalader. Take it in our own cases. 
 Some people, knowing just a little about us, might call us pretty 
 good people; but we know that down in our hearts lurk the 
 possibilities (if not the actual accomplishment) of all sorts of 
 things not at all good. We are exceedingly charitable persons — 
 toward ourselves. And thus we let other people live! 
 
 The other day, at Harriet's suggestion, I drove to town by the 
 upper road, passing the Williams place. The old lady has a pas- 
 sion for hollyhocks. A ragged row of them borders the dilapi- 
 dated picket fence behind which, crowding up to the sociable 
 road, stands the house. As I drive that way it always seems to 
 look out at me like some half-earnest worker, inviting a chat 
 about the weather or the county fair; hence, probably, its good- 
 natured dilapidation. At the gate I heard a voice, and a boy 
 about three years old, in a soiled gingham apron, a sturdy, blue- 
 eyed little chap, whose face was still eloquent of his recent 
 breakfast, came running to meet me. I stopped the mare. A 
 moment later a woman was at the gate between the rows of 
 hollyhocks; when she saw me she began hastily to roll down 
 her sleeves. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Grayson!" 
 
 "How's the boy, Anna?" 
 
 And it was the cheerful talk we had there by the roadside, and 
 the sight of the sturdy boy playing in the sunshine — and the 
 hollyhocks, and the dilapidated house — that brought to memory 
 the old story of Anna which I here set down, not because k 
 carries any moral, but because it is a common little piece out of 
 real life in which Harriet and I have been interested. 
 
VI 
 
 THE DRUNKARD 
 
 I 
 
 T IS A STRANGE THING! Adventurc I lookcd for her high and I 
 looked for her low, and she passed my door in a tattered gar- 
 ment — unheeded. For I had neither the eye of simplicity nor the 
 heart of humiUty. One day I looked for her anew and I saw her 
 beckoning from the Open Road; and underneath the tags and 
 tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial garment; and I went 
 with her into a new world. 
 
 I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a 
 friend. And I have seen new things which are also true. 
 
 My friend is a drunkard — at least so I call him, following the 
 custom of the country. On his way from town he used often 
 to come by my farm. I could hear him singing afar off. Begin- 
 ning at the bridge, where on still days one can hear the rattle 
 of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in a peculiar clear high 
 voice. I make no further comment upon the singing, nor the 
 cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was still 
 — and he usually came in the evening— I often heard the cadences 
 
 196 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 197 
 
 of his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving 
 by my farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, 
 and if he chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his 
 hat and make me a grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment 
 stop his singing. And so he passed by the house and I, with a 
 smile, saw him moving up the hill in the north road, until finally 
 his voice, still singing, died away in the distance. 
 
 Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was 
 passing, and Harriet said: 
 
 "There goes that drunkard." 
 
 It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known 
 as much, and yet I had not directly appHed the term. I had not 
 thought of my singer as that, for I had often been conscious in 
 spite of myself, alone in my fields, of something human and 
 cheerful which had touched me, in passing. 
 
 After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two 
 minds concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinc- 
 tively to discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his 
 singing. For was he not a drunkard.? Lord! how we get our 
 moralities mixed up with our realities! 
 
 And then one evening when I saw him coming — I had been 
 a long day alone in my fields — I experienced a sudden revulsion 
 of feeling. With an indescribable joyousness of adventure I 
 stepped out toward the fence and pretended to be hard at work. 
 
 "After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room 
 in it for many curious people." 
 
 I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened 
 up just as though I had seen him for the first time. When he 
 lifted his hat to me I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he. 
 
 "How are you, neighbour?" I asked. 
 
 He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he 
 replaced his hat as though he had far more important business 
 to attend to, and went on up the road. 
 
 My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw 
 him on the street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should 
 never have recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as 
 different as one could imagine from the singer I had seen so 
 
198 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 often passing my farm. He wore neat, worn clothes; and his 
 horse stood tied in front of the store. He had brought his honey 
 to town to sell. He was a bee-man. 
 
 I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the 
 fall flowers had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said 
 that it seemed to be a good animal. But I could get very little 
 from him, and that little in a rather low voice. I came away 
 with my interest whetted to a still keener edge. How a man 
 has come to be what he is — is there any discovery better worth 
 making? 
 
 After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw 
 him often on his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in 
 his seat, driving his horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of 
 propriety; and a few hours later he would come homeward a 
 wholly different person, straight of back, joyous of mien, sing- 
 ing his songs in his high clear voice, a very Hyde of reckless- 
 ness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his head 
 higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man 
 went toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to 
 see me in my field; but when he came back he watched for me, 
 and when I responded to his bow he would sometimes stop 
 and reply to my greeting. 
 
 One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even 
 though I was some distance away, he approached the fence and 
 took off his hat, and held out his hand. I walked over toward 
 him. I saw his full face for the first time: a rather handsome 
 face. The hair was thin and curly, the forehead generous and 
 smooth; but the chin was small. His face was slightly flushed 
 and his eyes — his eyes burned! I shook his hand. 
 
 "I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you 
 went by." 
 
 "Well, I've wanted to stop — ^but Fm a busy man. I have im- 
 portant matters in hand almost all the time." 
 
 "You usually drive." 
 
 "Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view 
 a fine span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going 
 by your farm in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving." 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 199 
 
 I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which 
 he said these words. There was a largeness and confidence in 
 them that carried me away. He told me that he was now 
 "working with the experts" — those were his words — and that he 
 would soon begin building a house that would astonish the coun- 
 try. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back and 
 with fine courtesy shook my hand. 
 
 "You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson — and a 
 happy man." 
 
 So he set oflF down the road, and as he passed my house he be- 
 gan singing again in his high voice. I walked away with a feel- 
 ing of wonder, not unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case! 
 
 Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at 
 first with the exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going 
 bee-man; far more slowly with the shy, reserved, town ward- 
 bound bee-man. It was quite an adventure, my first talk with 
 the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met him near the lower 
 bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to get at 
 him. As he passed, I leaned out and said : 
 
 "Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the 
 post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been 
 left for me in the box since the carrier started?" 
 
 "Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head 
 swiftly aside again. 
 
 On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me 
 volubly about the way he would run the post-office if he were 
 "in a place of suitable authority." 
 
 "Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas." 
 
 At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance 
 with the bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly 
 to the shy bee-man. 
 
 "I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on 
 my way in. I was up half the night; but I feel all right now." 
 
 The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologized 
 for the exuberant bee-man — hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up 
 with the words, "I think you will understand." I grasped his 
 hand, and left him with a wan smile on his face. Instinctively 
 
200 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 I came to treat the two men in a wholly different manner. With 
 the one I was blustering, hail-fellow-well-met, listening with 
 eagerness to his expansive talk; but to the other I said little, feel- 
 ing my way slowly to his friendship, for I could not help looking 
 upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a friend! The ex- 
 uberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in his 
 visions, and I had from him no Httle entertainment. 
 
 I told Harriet about my adventures : they did not meet with 
 her approval. She said I was encouraging a vice. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what 
 she thinks about it." 
 
 "Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a 
 drunkard think.?" 
 
 But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that some- 
 thing was wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she 
 was extraordinarily preoccupied, and it was not until an hour 
 or more afterward that she came into my room. 
 
 "David," she said, "I can't understand some things." 
 
 "Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked. 
 
 But she was not to be joked with. 
 
 "David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 201 
 
 comes home drunken every week or two! I talked with her 
 about it and what do you think she said? She said she knew it 
 was wrong, but she intimated that when he was in that state she 
 loved — Hked— him all the better. Is it beUevable? She said: 
 'Perhaps you won't understand— it's wrong, I know, but when 
 he comes home that way he seems so full of — life. He — ^he seems 
 io understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could 
 see that, but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, 
 what can anyone do with a woman like that? How is the man 
 ever to overcome his habits?" 
 
 It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, 
 how often the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic 
 becomes illogical! Our stories won't turn out. 
 
 She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the 
 bees in the orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," 
 she said, "he seems to be a steady, hard worker." 
 
 After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life 
 of the strange bee-man. Why was he what he was ? 
 
 And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires 
 them faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine 
 autumn afternoon, when the trees were glorious on the hills, 
 the Indian summer sun never softer, I was tramping along a 
 wood lane far back of my farm. And at the roadside, near the 
 trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He was a 
 picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between 
 his knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straight- 
 ened up, looked at me, and settled back again. My heart went 
 out to him, and I sat down beside him. 
 
 "Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked. 
 
 He glanced up at the sky. 
 
 "Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to 
 him. 
 
 I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man 
 was in process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't 
 know exactly how it came about, for such things are difficult to 
 txplain, but I led him to talk of himself. 
 
 "After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of my- 
 
202 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 self. You don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am 
 ashamed of myself now, and yet I know I shall do it again." 
 
 "No," I said, "you will not do it again." 
 
 "Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should 
 you be sorry? Were you not free for a whole afternoon?" 
 
 "Free?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes — free. You will not understand. But every day I work- 
 work, work. I have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; 
 I can't even get to my wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me 
 in, as if I were bound to a rock which I couldn't get away from. 
 I am also afraid. When I am sober I know how to do great 
 things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses — I never take 
 more — I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as 
 though I were really doing them." 
 
 "But you never do?" 
 
 "No, I never do, but I feel that I can. All the bonds break 
 and the wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people, 
 I feel friendly and neighbourly." 
 
 He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first 
 time in his life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. 
 He told me how beautiful it made the world, where before it 
 was miserable and friendless, how he thought of great things 
 and made great plans, how his home seemed finer and better to 
 him, and his work more noble. The man had a real gift of 
 imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence that 
 stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him 
 where his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave 
 me an opening, I said: 
 
 "I think I understand. Many men I know are in some re- 
 spects drunkards. They all want some way to escape themselves 
 — to be free of their own limitations." 
 
 "That's it I That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly. 
 
 We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help 
 thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort 
 of intoxication: 
 
 "With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds,'' 
 
203 
 
204 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which 
 marks the finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the 
 divided hfe. When Fate would destroy a man it first separates 
 his forces! It drives him to think one way and act another; it 
 encourages him to seek through outward stimulation — whether 
 drink, or riches, or fame — a deceptive and unworthy satisfaction 
 in place of that true contentment which comes only from unity 
 within. No man can be two men successfully. 
 
 So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man say 
 to another under such circumstances ? As Bobbie Burns remarks 
 out of the depths of his own experience : 
 
 "What's done we partly may compute 
 But i{now not what's resisted." 
 
 Fve always felt that the best thing one man can give another 
 is the warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of 
 the pathetic, shy bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I 
 felt that I should also say something. Seeing two men struggling 
 shall I not assist the better? Shall I let the sober one be despoiled 
 by him who is riotous? There are reaHties, but there are also 
 moralities — if we can keep them properly separated. 
 
 "Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. 
 We don't give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunken- 
 ness is not a mere matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper 
 — far deeper. Drunkenness is the failure of a man to control his 
 thoughts." 
 
 The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue 
 veins in the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with 
 sudden amusement and I said: 
 
 "I often get drunk myself." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 "Yes-dreadfully drunk." 
 
 He looked at me and laughed — for the first time! And I 
 laughed, too. Do you know, there's a lot of human nature in 
 people! And when you think you are deep in tragedy, behold, 
 humour lurks just around the corner! 
 
 "I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 205 
 
 said. "I've been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town 
 I say to myself, 'I will not turn at that corner,' but when I come 
 to the corner, I do turn. Then I say 1 will not go into that bar,' 
 but I do go in. 'I will not order anything to drink,' I say to 
 myself, and then I hear myself talking aloud to the barkeeper 
 just as though I were some other person. 'Give me a glass of 
 rye,' I say, and I stand oil looking at myself, very angry and sor- 
 
 rov^^ful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker — or 
 rather stronger and stronger — for my brain begins to become 
 clear, and I see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. 
 I want to sing." 
 
 "And you do sing," I said. 
 
 "I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me 
 the most beautiful music in the world." 
 
 "Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on my kind of spree, I try 
 not so much to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother 
 me, but rather to fill my mind with other, stronger thoughts " 
 
 Before I could finish he had interrupted : 
 
 "Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I 
 think of bees — and that leads me to honey, doesn't it ? And that 
 
206 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 makes me think of putting the honey in the wagon and taking it 
 to town. Then, of course, I think how it will sell. Instantly, 
 stronger than you can imagine, I see a dime in my hand. Then 
 it appears on the wet bar. I smell the smell of the Hquor. And 
 there you are!" 
 
 We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook 
 hands and looked each other in the eye. The bee-man turned 
 away, but came back hesitatingly. 
 
 "I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like 
 taking hold again. I have been in hell for years '* 
 
 "Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will 
 come up together." 
 
 As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth 
 of satisfaction in my soul — and I marvelled at the many strange 
 things that are to be found upon this miraculous earth. 
 
 I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this 
 point; but I am dealing in life. And life does not always respond 
 to our impatience with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is 
 inconclusive: quite open at the end. I had a vision of a new 
 life for my neighbour, the bee-man — and have it yet, for I have 
 not done with him — but 
 
 Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write 
 the whole story, my bee-man came again along the road by my 
 farm; my exuberant bee-man. I heard him singing afar off. 
 
 He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out 
 at him, it came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and 
 quietude that the sun shone on him as genially as it did on 
 me, and that the leaves did not turn aside from him, nor the 
 birds stop singing when he passed. 
 
 "He also belongs here," I said. 
 
 And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I 
 could no longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And 
 it seemed to me that something human, in passing, had touched 
 me. 
 
VII 
 AN OLD MAID 
 
 O, 
 
 'ne of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to men- 
 tion before in these writings is a certain Old Maid. She Uves 
 about two miles from my farm in a small white house set in 
 the midst of a modest, neat garden with well-kept apple trees 
 in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone save for a good- 
 humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the 
 farm — and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been 
 here above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss 
 Aiken, or rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the 
 place, most important in a country community, of a sensitive 
 social tentacle — reaching out to touch with sympathy the 
 stranger. Harriet was amused at first by what she considered an 
 almost unwarrantable curiosity, but we soon formed a genuine 
 liking for the little old lady, and since then we have often seen 
 her in her home, and often she has come to ours. 
 
 She was here only last night. I considered her as she sat rock- 
 ing in front of our fire; a picture of wholesome comfort. I have 
 had much to say of contentment. She seems really to live it, 
 although I have found that contentment is easier to discover 
 
 207 
 
208 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 in the lives of our neighbours than in our own. All her life long 
 she has lived here in this community, a w^orld of small things, 
 one is tempted to say, vv^ith a sort of expected and predictable 
 life. I thought last night, as I observed her gently stirring her 
 rocking-chair, how her life must be made up of small, often- 
 repeated events: pancakes, puddings, patchings, who knows 
 what other orderly, habitual, minute affairs ? Who knows ? Who 
 knows when he looks at you or at me that there is anything 
 in us beyond the humdrummery of this day? 
 
 In front of her house are two long, boarded beds of old- 
 fashioned flowers, mignonette and petunias chiefly, and over 
 the small, very white door with its shiny knob, creeps a white 
 clematis vine. Just inside the hall-door you will discover a bright, 
 clean, oval rag rug, which prepares you, as small things lead to 
 greater, for the larger, brighter, cleaner rug of the sitting-room. 
 There on the centre-table you will discover "Snow Bound," 
 by John Greenleaf Whittier; Tupper*s Poems; a large embossed 
 Bible; the family plush album; and a book, with a gilt ladder 
 on the cover which leads upward to gilt stars, called the "Path 
 of Life." On the wall are two companion pictures of a rosy fat 
 child, in faded gilt frames, one called "Wide Awake," the other 
 "Fast Asleep." Not far away, in a corner, on the top of the wal- 
 nut whatnot, is a curious vase filled with pampas plumes; there 
 are sea-shells and a piece of coral on the shelf below. And right 
 in the midst of the room are three very large black rocking- 
 chairs with cushions in every conceivable and available place — 
 including cushions on the arms. Two of them are for you 
 and me, if we should come in to call; the other is for the cat. 
 
 When you sit down you can look out between the starchiest 
 of starchy curtains into the yard, where there is an innumerable 
 busy flock of chickens. She keeps chickens, and all the important 
 ones are named. She has one called Martin Luther, another is 
 Josiah Gilbert Holland. Once she came over to our house with 
 a basket, from one end of which were thrust the sturdy red legs 
 of a pullet. She informed us that she had brought us one of 
 Evangeline's daughters. 
 
 But I am getting out of the house before I am fairly well into 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 209 
 
 it. The sitting-room expresses Miss Aiken; but not so well, 
 somehow, as the immaculate bedroom beyond, into which, upon 
 one occasion, I was permitted to steal a modest glimpse. It was 
 of an incomparable neatness and order, all hung about — or so it 
 seemed to me — with white starchy things, and ornamented with 
 bright (but inexpensive) nothings. In this wonderful bedroom 
 there is a secret and sacred drawer into which, once in her life, 
 Harriet had a glimpse. It contains the clothes, all gently folded. 
 
 exhaling an odour of lavender, in which our friend will appear 
 when she has closed her eyes to open them no more upon this 
 earth. In such calm readiness she awaits her time. 
 
 Upon the bureau in this sacred apartment stands a small rose- 
 wood box, which is locked, into which no one in our neighbour- 
 hood has had so much as a single peep. I should not dare, of 
 course, to speculate upon its contents; perhaps an old letter or 
 two, "a ring and a rose," a ribbon that is more than a ribbon, a 
 picture that is more than art. Who can tell? As I passed that 
 way I fancied I could distinguish a faint, mysterious odour which 
 I associated with the rosewood box: an old-fashioned odour 
 composed of many simples. 
 
210 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 On the stand near the head of the bed and close to the 
 candlestick is a Bible — a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different 
 indeed from the portentous and imposing family Bible which 
 reposes on the centre-table in the front room, which is never 
 opened except to record a death. It has been well worn, this 
 small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is there a care or a 
 trouble in this world, here is the sure talisman. She seeks (and 
 finds) the inspired text. Wherever she opens the book she seizes 
 the first words her eyes fall upon as a prophetic message to her. 
 Then she goes forth like some David with his sling, so pan- 
 oplied with courage that she is daunted by no Goliath of the 
 Philistines. Also she has a worship fulness of all ministers. Some- 
 times when the Scotch Preacher comes to tea and remarks that 
 her pudding is good, I firmly believe that she interprets the 
 words into a spiritual message for her. 
 
 Besides the drawer, the rosewood box, and the worn Bible, 
 there is a certain Black Cape. Far be it from me to attempt 
 a description, but I can say with some assurance that it also 
 occupies a shrine. It may not be in the inner sanctuary, but it 
 certainly occupies a goodly part of the outer porch of the temple. 
 All this, of course, is figurative, for the cape hangs just inside 
 the closet door on a hanger, with a white cloth over the shoul- 
 ders to keep off the dust. For the vanities of the world enter even 
 such a sanctuary as this. I wish, indeed, that you could see Miss 
 Aiken wearing her cape on a Sunday in the late fall when she 
 comes to church, her sweet old face shining under her black 
 hat, her old-fashioned silk skirt giving out an audible, not unim- 
 pressive sound as she moves down the aisle. With what dignity 
 she steps into her pew! With what care she sits down so that she 
 may not crush the cookies in her ample pocket; with what meek 
 pride — if there is such a thing as meek pride — she looks up at 
 the Scotch Preacher as he stands sturdily in his pulpit announc- 
 ing the first hymn! And many an eye turning that way to look 
 turns with affection. 
 
 Several times Harriet and I have been with her to tea. Like 
 many another genius, she has no conception of her own art in 
 such matters as apple puddings. She herself prefers graham 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 211 
 
 gems, in which she beHeves there inheres a certain mysterious 
 efficacy. She bakes gems on Monday and has them steamed dur- 
 ing the remainder o£ the week — with tea. 
 
 And as a sort of dessert she tells us about the Danas, the 
 Aikens and the Carnahans, who are, in various relationships, 
 her progenitors. We gravitate into the other room, and presently 
 she shows us, in the plush album, the portraits of various cousins, 
 aunts and uncles. And by-and-by Harriet warms up and begins 
 to tell about the Scribners, the Macintoshes, and the Strayers, 
 who are our progenitors. 
 
 "The Aikens," says Miss Aiken, "were always like that- 
 downright and outspoken. It is an Aiken trait. No Aiken could 
 ever help blurting out the truth if he knew he were to die for 
 it the next minute." 
 
 "That was like the Macintoshes," Harriet puts in. "Old Grand- 
 father Macintosh " 
 
 By this time I am settled comfortably in the cushioned rocking- 
 chair to watch the fray. Miss Aiken advances a Dana, Harriet 
 counters with a Strayer. Miss Aiken deploys the Carnahans in 
 open order, upon which Harriet entrenches herself with the 
 heroic Scribners and lets fly a Macintosh who was a general in 
 the colonial army. Surprised, but not defeated, Miss Aiken with- 
 
212 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 draws in good order, covering her retreat with two Mayflower 
 ancestors, the existence of whom she estabUshes with a blue 
 cup and an ancient silver spoon. No one knows the joy of 
 fighting relatives until he has watched such a battle, following 
 the complete comfort of a good supper. 
 
 If any one is sick in the community Miss Aiken hears instantly 
 of it by a sort of wireless telegraphy, or telepathy which would 
 astonish a mystery-loving East Indian. She appears with her 
 little basket, which has two brown flaps for covers opening from 
 the middle and with a spring in them somewhere so that they 
 fly shut with a snap. Out of this she takes a bowl of chicken 
 broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of delectable honey and a 
 bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the patient will only eat, 
 he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he dies, it is a 
 pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several occasions 
 of being taken with a brief fit of sickness. 
 
 In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to 
 describe her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or 
 predictable details. Often and often I pause when I see an inter- 
 esting man or woman and ask myself: "How, after all, does this 
 person live?" For we all know it is not chiefly by the clothes 
 we wear or the house we occupy or the friends we touch. There 
 is something deeper, more secret, which furnishes the real mo- 
 tive and character of our lives. What a triumph, then, is every 
 fine old man! To have come out of a long Hfe with a spirit still 
 sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment? 
 
 Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that 
 thing is precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim 
 Alps that rise out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing 
 very definite — such things never are; and yet I like to think of 
 it when I see her treading the useful round of her simple life. 
 As I said, she has lived here in this neighbourhood — oh, sixty 
 years. The country knew her father before her. Out of that 
 past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old inhabitants, 
 I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our friend 
 must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer 
 (how people try to account for every old maid!)— a long time 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 213 
 
 ago— who came and went away again. No one remembers much 
 about him — such things are not important, of course, after so 
 many years 
 
 But I must get to the thing I treasure. One day Harriet called 
 at the little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; 
 she presumed on the privilege of friendship and walked straight 
 in. There she saw, sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a 
 curious girlish abandon unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew 
 so well, our Old Maid. When she heard Harriet's step she 
 started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were tears in her 
 eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of her 
 skirt then impulsively — unUke her, too— she threw an arm 
 around Harriet and buried her face on Harriet's shoulder. In re- 
 sponse to Harriet's question she said: 
 
 "Oh, an old, old trouble. No new trouble." 
 
 That was all there was to it. All the new troubles were the 
 troubles of other people. You may say this isn't much of a clue; 
 well it isn't, and yet I like to have it in mind. It gives me some- 
 how the other woman who is not expected or predictable or 
 commonplace. I seem to understand our Old Maid the better; 
 and when I think of her bustling, inquisitive, helpful, gentle 
 ways and the shine of her white soul, I'm sure I don't know 
 what we should do without her in this community. 
 
VIII 
 A ROADSIDE PROPHET 
 
 17 ROM MY UPPER FIELD, when I look across the countryside, I can 
 see in the distance a short stretch of the gray town road. It 
 winds out of a Httle wood, crosses a knoll, and loses itself again 
 beyond the trees of an old orchard. I love that spot in my upper 
 field, and the view of the road beyond. When I am at work 
 there I have only to look up to see the world go by — part of it 
 going down to the town, and part of it coming up again. And I 
 never see a traveller on the hill, especially if he be afoot, with- 
 out feeling that if I met him I should Uke him, and that whatever 
 he had to say I should like to hear. 
 
 At first I could not make out what the man was doing. Most 
 of the travellers I see from my field are like the people I com- 
 monly meet — so intent upon their destination that they take 
 no joy of the road they travel. They do not even see me here in 
 the fields; and if they did, they would probably think me a slow 
 and unprofitable person. I have nothing that they can carry 
 away and store up in barns, or reduce to percentages, or calcu- 
 late as profit and loss; they do not perceive what a wonderful 
 
 214 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 215 
 
 place this is; they do not know that here, too, we gather a 
 crop of contentment. 
 
 But apparently this man was the pattern of a loiterer. I saw 
 him stop on the knoll and look widely about him. Then he 
 stooped down as though searching for something, then moved 
 slowly forward for a few steps. Just at that point in the road 
 lies a great smooth boulder which road-makers long since dead 
 had rolled out upon the wayside. Here to my astonishment I saw 
 him kneel upon the ground. He had something in one hand 
 with which he seemed intently occupied. After a time he stood 
 up, and retreating a few steps down the road, he scanned the 
 boulder narrowly. 
 "This," I said to myself, "may be something for me." 
 So I crossed the fence and walked down the neighbouring 
 field. It was an Indian summer day with hazy hillsides, and 
 still sunshine, and slumbering brown fields — the sort of a day I 
 love. I leaped the little brook in the valley and strode hastily up 
 the opposite slope. I cannot describe what a sense I had of new 
 worlds to be found here in old fields. So I came to the fence on 
 the other side and looked over. My man was kneeUng again at 
 the rock. I was scarcely twenty paces from him, but so earnestly 
 was he engaged that he never once saw me. I had a good look at 
 him. He was a small, thin man with straight gray hair; above his 
 collar I could see the weather-brown wrinkles of his neck. His 
 coat was of black, of a noticeably neat appearance, and I ob- 
 served, as a further evidence of fastidiousness rare upon the 
 Road, that he was saving his trousers by kneeling on a bit of 
 carpet. What he could be doing there so intently by the road- 
 side I could not imagine. So I climbed the fence, making some 
 little intentional noise as I did so. He arose immediately. Then 
 I saw at his side on the ground two small tin cans, and in his 
 hands a pair of paint brushes. As he stepped aside I saw the 
 words he had been painting on the boulder: 
 
 GOD IS LOVE 
 
 A meek figure, indeed, he looked, and when he saw me ad- 
 vancing he said, with a deference that was almost timidity : 
 
216 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "Good morning, sir." 
 
 "Good morning, brother," I returned heartily. 
 
 His face brightened perceptibly. 
 
 "Don't stop on my account," I said; "finish ofl your work." 
 
 He knelt again on his bit of carpet and proceeded busily with 
 his brushes. I stood and watched him. The lettering was some^ 
 what crude, but he had the swift deftness of long practice. 
 
 "How long," I inquired, "have you been at this sort of work.?" 
 
 "Ten years," he replied, looking up at me with a pale smile. 
 
 **OfI and on for ten years. Winters I work at my trade — I am 
 a journeyman painter — ^but when spring comes, and again in the 
 fall, I follow the road." 
 
 He paused a moment and then said, dropping his voice, in 
 words of the utmost seriousness: 
 
 "I live by the Word." 
 
 "By the Word?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, by the Word," and putting down his brushes he took 
 from an inner pocket a small package of papers, one of which 
 he handed to me. It bore at the top this sentence in large type: 
 
 "Is not my word Hke fire, saith the Lord: and like a hammer 
 that breaketh the rock in pieces?" 
 
 I stood and looked at him a moment. I suppose no one man 
 is stranger than any other, but at that moment it seemed to me I 
 had never met a more curious person. And I was consumed with 
 a desire to know why he was what he was. 
 
 "Do you always paint the same sign?" I asked. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 217 
 
 "Oh, no," he answered. "I have a feeUng about what I should 
 paint. When I came up the road here this morning I stopped a 
 minute, and it all seemed so calm and nice" — he swept his arm 
 in the direction o£ the fields — "that I says to myself, 'I will paint 
 "God is Love." ' " 
 
 "An appropriate text," I said, "for this very spot." 
 
 He seemed much gratified. 
 
 "Oh, you can follow your feelings!" he exclaimed. "Sometimes 
 near towns I can't paint anything but 'Hell yawns,' and 'Prepare 
 to meet thy God.' I don't like 'em as well as 'God is Love,' but 
 it seems Uke I had to paint 'em. Now, when I was in Ari- 
 zona " 
 
 He paused a moment, wiping his brushes. 
 
 "When Lwas in Arizona," he was saying, "mosdy I painted 
 'Repent ye.' It seemed like I couldn't paint anything else, and 
 in some places I felt moved to put 'Repent ye' twice on the 
 same rock." 
 
 I began to ask him questions about Arizona, but I soon found 
 how Httle he, too, had taken toll of the road he travelled: for 
 he seemed to have brought back memories only of the texts 
 he painted and the fact that in some places good stones were 
 scarce, and that he had to carry extra turpentine to thin his 
 paint, the weather being dry. I don't know that he is a lone repre- 
 sentative of this trait. I have known farmers who, in travelling, 
 saw only plows and butter-tubs and corn-cribs, and preachers 
 who, looking across such autumn fields as these would carry 
 away only a musty text or two. I pity some of those who expect 
 to go to heaven: they will find so little to surprise them in the 
 golden streets. 
 
 But I persevered with my painter, and it was not long before 
 we were talking with the greatest friendliness. Having now 
 finished his work, he shook out his bit of carpet, screwed the 
 tops on his paint cans, wrapped up his brushes, and disposed 
 of them all with the deftness of long experience in his small black 
 bag. Then he stood up and looked critically at his work. 
 
 "It's all right," I said ; "a great many people coming this way 
 in the next hundred years will see it." 
 
218 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "That's what I want," he said eagerly; "that's what I want. 
 Most people never hear the Word at all." 
 
 He paused a moment and then continued: 
 
 "It's a curious thing, Mister — ^perhaps you've noticed it your- 
 self—that the best things of all in the world people won't have as 
 a gift." 
 
 "I've noticed it," I said. 
 
 "It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked. 
 
 "Very strange," I said. 
 
 "I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was 
 that way myself for a good many years: all around me gold 
 and diamonds and precious jewels, and me never once seeing 
 them. All I had to do was to stoop and take them — ^but I didn't 
 do it." 
 
 I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I 
 would stop and wrestle with him and not let him go without 
 his story — something like Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel? 
 
 "Do you do all this without payment?" 
 
 He looked at me in an injured way. 
 
 "Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort 
 of fool. Oh, I know, but I don t mind. I live by the Word. No, 
 nobody pays me : I am paying myself." 
 
 By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm 
 going your way, and I'll walk with you." 
 
 So we set off together down the hill. 
 
 "You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in 
 the world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other 
 people know about it." 
 
 He walked with the unmistakable step of those who knew the 
 long road — an easy, swinging, steady step — carrying his small 
 black bag. So I gradually drew him out, and when I had his 
 whole story it was as simple and common, but as wonderful, as 
 daylight: as fundamental as a tree or a rock. 
 
 "You see. Mister," he said, "I was a wild sort when I was 
 young. The drink, and worse. I hear folks say sometimes that if 
 they'd known what was right they'd have done it. But I think 
 that conscience never stops ringing little bells in the back of. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 219 
 
 a man's head; and that if he doesn't do what is right, it's because 
 he wants to do what is wrong. He thinks it's more amusing and 
 interesting. I went through all that, Mister, and plenty more 
 besides. I got pretty nearly as low as a man ever gets. Oh, I 
 was down and out: no home, no family, not a friend that 
 wanted to see me. If you never got down that low. Mister, you 
 don't know what it is. You are just as much dead as if you were 
 in your grave. I'm telling you. 
 
 "I thought there was no help for me, and I don't know's I 
 wanted to be helped. I said to myself, Tou're just naturally born 
 
 weak and it isn't your fault.' It makes a lot of men easier in their 
 minds to lay up their troubles to the way they are born. I made 
 all sorts of excuses for myself, but all the time I knew I was 
 wrong; a man can't fool himself. 
 
 "So it went along for years. I got married and we had a little 
 girl." 
 
 He paused for a long moment. 
 
 "I thought that was going to help me. I thought the world 
 and all of that little girl " He paused again. 
 
 "Well, she died. Then I broke my wife's heart and went on 
 down to hell. When a man lets go that way he kills everything 
 he loves and everything that loves him. He's on the road to 
 loneUness and despair, that man. I'm teUing you. 
 
 "One day, ten years ago this fall, I was going along the main 
 
220 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 street in Quinceyville. I was near the end of my rope. Not even 
 money enough to buy drink with, and yet I was then more'n 
 half drunk. I happened to look up on the end of that stone wall 
 near the bridge— were you ever there, Mister? — and I saw the 
 words 'God is Love' painted there. It somehow hit me hard. 
 I couldn't anyways get it out of my mind. 'God is Love.' Well, 
 says I to myself, if God is Love, he's the only one that is Love 
 for a chap like me. And there's no one else big enough to save 
 me — I says. So I stopped right there in the street, and you may 
 believe it or explain it anyhow you like, Mister, but it seemed 
 to me a kind of light came all around me, and I said, solemn- 
 Uke, 1 will try God.'" 
 
 He stopped a moment. We were walking down the hill: all 
 about us on either side spread the quiet fields. In the high air 
 above a few lacy clouds were drifting eastward. Upon this story 
 of tragic human life crept in pleasantly the calm of the country- 
 side. 
 
 "And I did try Him," my companion was saying, "and I 
 found that the words on the wall were true. They were true 
 back there and they've been true ever since. When I began to be 
 decent again and got back my health and my job, I figured that 
 I owed a lot to God. I wa'n't no orator, and no writer and I had 
 no money to give, 'but,' says I to myself, 'I'm a painter. I'll 
 help God with paint.' So here I am a-traveUing up and down 
 the roads and mostly painting 'God is Love,' but sometimes 'Re- 
 pent ye' and 'Hell yawns.' I don't know much about religion — 
 but I do know that His Word is like a fire, and that a man can 
 live by it, and if once a man has it he has everything else he 
 wants." 
 
 He paused: I looked around at him again. His face was set 
 steadily ahead— a plain face showing the marks of his hard earUer 
 life, and yet marked with a sort of high beauty. 
 
 "The trouble with people who are unhappy. Mister," he said, 
 "is that they won't try God." 
 
 I could not answer my companion. There seemed, indeed, 
 nothing more to be said. All my own speculative incomings and 
 outgoings— how futile they seemed compared with thisl 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 221 
 
 Near the foot of the hill there is a little bridge. It is a pleasant, 
 quiet spot. My companion stopped and put down his bag. 
 
 "What do you think," said he, "I should paint here?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "you know better than I do. What would you 
 paint?" 
 
 He looked around at me and then smiled as though he had a 
 quiet little joke with himself. 
 
 "When in doubt," he said, "I always paint 'God is Love.' I'm 
 sure of that. Of course 'Hell yawns' and 'Repent ye' have to be 
 painted — near towns — but I much rather paint 'God is Love.' " 
 
 I left him kneeling there on the bridge, the bit of carpet under 
 his knees, his two little cans at his side. Half way up the hill I 
 turned to look back. He lifted his hand with the paint brush in 
 it, and I waved mine in return. I have never seen him since, 
 though it will be a long, long time before the sign of him dis- 
 appears from our roadsides. 
 
 At the top of the hill, near the painted boulder, I cUmbed 
 the fence, pausing a moment on the top rail to look off across 
 the hazy countryside, warm with the still sweetness of autumn. 
 In the distance, above the crown of a little hill, I could see the 
 roof of my own home — and the barn near it — and the cows 
 feeding quietly in the pastures. 
 
IX 
 
 THE GUNSMITH 
 
 XTarriet and I had the first intimation of what we have since 
 called the "gunsmith problem" about ten days ago. It came to 
 us, as was to be expected, from that accompHshed spreader of 
 burdens, the Scotch Preacher. When he came in to call on us 
 that evening after supper I could see that he had something im- 
 portant on his mind ; but I let him get to it in his own way. 
 
 "David," he said finally, "Carlstrom, the gunsmith, is going 
 home to Sweden." 
 
 "At last!" I exclaimed. 
 
 Dr. McAlway paused a moment and then said hesitatingly: 
 
 "He says he is going." 
 
 Harriet laughed. "Then it's all decided," she said; "he isn't 
 going." 
 
 "No," said the Scotch Preacher, "it's not decided— yet." 
 
 "Dr. McAlway hasn't made up his mind," I said, "whether 
 Carlstrom is to go or not." 
 
 222 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 223 
 
 But the Scotch Preacher was in no mood for joking. 
 
 "David," he said, "did you ever know anything about the 
 homesickness of the foreigner?" 
 
 He paused a moment and then continued, nodding his great 
 shaggy head: 
 
 "Man, man, how my old mither greeted for Scotland! I mind 
 how a sprig of heather would bring the tears to her eyes; and 
 for twenty years I dared not whistle 'Bonnie Doon' or 'Charlie 
 Is My Darhng' lest it break her heart. 'Tis a pain you've not had, 
 I'm thinking, Davy." 
 
 "We all know the longing for old places and old times," I said. 
 
 "No, no, David, it's more than that. It's the wanting and the 
 longing to see the hills of your own land, and the town where 
 you were born, and the street where you played, and the 
 house " 
 
 He paused, "Ah, well, it's hard for those who have it." 
 
 "But I haven't heard Carlstrom refer to Sweden for years," 
 I said. "Is it homesickness, or just old age?" 
 
 "There ye have it, Davy; the nail right on the head!" ex- 
 claimed the Scotch Preacher. "Is it homesickness, or is he just 
 old and tired?" 
 
 With that we fell to talking about Carlstrom, the gunsmith. 
 I have known him pretty nearly ever since I came here, now 
 more than ten years ago — and liked him well, too — but it seemed, 
 as Dr. McAlway talked that evening, as though we were mak- 
 ing the acquaintance of quite a new and wonderful person. 
 How dull we all are! How we need such an artist as the Scotch 
 Preacher to mould heroes out of the common human clay 
 around us! It takes a sort of greatness to recognize greatness. 
 
 In an hour's time the Scotch Preacher had both Harriet and 
 me much excited, and the upshot of the whole matter was that 
 I promised to call on Carlstrom the next day when I went to 
 town. 
 
 I scarcely needed the prompting of the Scotch Preacher, for 
 Carlstrom's gunshop has for years been one of the most inter- 
 esting places in town for me. I went to it now with a new un- 
 derstanding. 
 
224 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 Afar off I began to listen for Carlstrom's hammer, and pres- 
 ently I heard the famiUar sounds. There were two or three mel- 
 low strokes, and I knew that Carlstrom was making the sparks 
 fly from the red iron. Then the hammer rang, and I knew he 
 was striking down on the cold steel of the anvil. It is a pleasant 
 sound to hear. 
 
 Carlstrom's shop is just around the corner from the main 
 street. You may know it by a great weather-beaten wooden gun 
 
 fastened over the doorway, pointing in the daytime at the sky, 
 and in the night at the stars. A stranger passing that way might 
 wonder at the great gun and possibly say to himself: 
 
 "A gunshop! How can a man make a living mending guns in 
 such a peaceful community!" 
 
 Such a remark merely shows that he doesn't know Carlstrom, 
 iior the shop, nor us. 
 
 I tied my horse at the corner and went down to the shop with 
 a peculiar new interest. I saw as if for the first time the old 
 wheels which have stood weathering so long at one end of the 
 building. I saw under the shed at the other end the wonderful 
 assortment of old iron pipes, kettles, tires, a pump or two, many 
 parts of farm machinery, a broken water wheel, and I don't 
 know what other flotsam of thirty years of diligent mending of 
 the iron works of an entire community. All this, you may say — 
 the disorder of old iron, the cinders which cover part of the 
 yard but do not keep out the tangle of goldenrod and catnip and 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 225 
 
 boneset which at this time of the year grows thick along the 
 neighbouring fences — all this, you say, makes no inviting pic- 
 ture. You are wrong. Where honest work is, there is always that 
 which invites the eye. 
 
 I know of few things more inviting than to step up to the 
 wide-open doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard 
 worn boards, half of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the 
 confusion of implements on the benches, the guns in the cor- 
 ners — how all of these things form the subdued background for 
 the flaming forge and the square chimney above it. 
 
 At one side of the forge you will see the great dusty bellows 
 and you will hear its stertorous breathing. In front stands the 
 old brown anvil set upon a gnarly maple block. A long sweep 
 made of peeled hickory wood controls the bellows, and as you 
 look in upon this lively and pleasant scene you will see that 
 the grimy hand of Carlstrom himself is upon the hickory sweep. 
 As he draws it down and lets it up again with the peculiar 
 rhythmic swing of long experience— heaping up his fire with 
 a little iron paddle held in the other hand — ^he hums to himself 
 in a high curious old voice, no words at all, just a tune of con- 
 tented employment in consonance with the breathing of the 
 bellows and the mounting flames of the forge. 
 
 As I stood for a moment in the doorway the other day before 
 Carlstrom saw me, I wished I could picture my friend as the 
 typical blacksmith with the brawny arms, the big chest, the deep 
 voice and all that. But as I looked at him newly, the Scotch 
 Preacher's words still in my ears, he seemed, with his stooping 
 shoulders, his gray beard not very well kept, and his thin gray 
 hair, more than ordinarily small and old. 
 
 I remember as distinctly as though it were yesterday the first 
 time Carlstrom really impressed himself upon me. It was in my 
 early blind days at the farm. I had gone to him with a part of a 
 horse-rake which I had broken on one of my stony hills. 
 
 "Can you mend it?" I asked. 
 
 If I had known him better I should never have asked such a 
 question. I saw, indeed, at the time that I had not said the right 
 thing; but how could I know then that Carlstrom never let any 
 
226 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 broken thing escape him? A watch, or a gun, or a locomotive— 
 they are all alike to him, if they are broken. I believe he would 
 agree to patch the wrecked chariot of Phaethon! 
 
 A week later I came back to the shop. 
 
 "Come in, come in," he said when he saw me. 
 
 He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked 
 at me a moment with feigned seriousness. 
 
 "So!" he said. "You have come for your job?" 
 
 He softened the "j" in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the 
 engaging inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid upon 
 the English words. 
 
 "So," he said, and went to his bench with a quick step and an 
 air of almost childish eagerness. He handed me the parts of 
 my hay-rake without a word. I looked them over carefully. 
 
 "I can't see where you mended them," I said. 
 
 You should have seen his face brighten with pleasure! He al- 
 lowed me to admire the work in silence for a moment and then 
 he had it out of my hand, as if I couldn't be trusted with any- 
 thing so important, and he explained how he had done it. A 
 special tool for his lathe had been found necessary in order 
 to do my work properly. This he had made at his forge, and I 
 suppose it had taken him twice as long to make the special tool 
 as it had to mend the parts of my rake; but when I would 
 have paid him for it he would take nothing save for the mending 
 itself. Nor was this a mere rebuke to a doubter. It had delighted 
 him to do a difficult thing, to show the really great skill he had. 
 Indeed, I think our friendship began right there and was based 
 upon the favour I did in bringing him a job that I thought he 
 couldn't do! 
 
 When he saw me the other day in the door of his shop he 
 seemed greatly pleased. 
 
 "Come in, come in," he said. 
 
 "What is this I hear," I said, "about your going back to 
 Sweden?" 
 
 "For forty years," he said, "I've been homesick for Sweden. 
 Now I'm an old man and I'm going home." 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 227 
 
 "But, Carlstrom," I said, "we can't get along without you. 
 Who's going to keep us mended up?" 
 
 "You have Charles Baxter," he said, smiling. 
 
 For years there had been a quiet sort of rivalry between 
 Carlstrom and Baxter, though Baxter is in the country and works 
 chiefly in wood. 
 
 "But Baxter can't mend a gun or a hay-rake, or a pump, to 
 save his hfe," I said. "You know that." 
 
 The old man seemed greatly pleased : he had the simple vanity 
 which is the right of the true workman. But for answer he 
 merely shook his head. 
 
 "I have been here forty years," he said, "and all the time I 
 have been homesick for Sweden." 
 
 I found that several men of the town had been in to see Carl- 
 strom and talked with him of his plans, and even while I was 
 there two other friends came in. The old man was delighted 
 with the interest shown. After I left him I went down the street. 
 It seemed as though everybody had heard of Carlstrom's plans, 
 and here and there I felt that the secret hand of the Scotch 
 Preacher had been at work. At the store where I usually trade 
 the merchant talked about it, and the postmaster when I went 
 in for my mail, and the clerk at the drug store, and the harness- 
 maker. I had known a good deal about Carlstrom in the past, 
 for one learns much of his neighbours in ten years, but it seemed 
 to me that day as though his history stood out as something 
 separate and new and impressive. 
 
 When he first came here forty years ago I suppose Carlstrom 
 was not unlike most of the foreigners who immigrate to our 
 shores, fired with faith in a free country. He was poor — as poor 
 as a man could possibly be. For several years he worked on a 
 farm — hard work, for which, owing to his frail physique, he was 
 not well fitted. But he saved money constantly, and after a time 
 he was able to come to town and open a Uttle shop. He made 
 nearly all of his tools with his own hands, he built his own 
 chimney and forge, he even whittled out the wooden gun which 
 stands for a sign over the door of his shop. He had learned his 
 trade in the careful old-country way. Not only could he mend a 
 
228 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 gun, but he could make one outright, even to the barrel and 
 the wooden stock. In all the years I have known him he has al- 
 ways had on hand some such work — once I remember, a pistol 
 — which he was turning out at odd times for the very satisfac- 
 tion it gave him. He could not sell one of his hand-made guns 
 for half as much as it cost him, nor does he seem to want to 
 sell them, preferring rather to have them stand in the corner of 
 his shop where he can look at them. His is the incorruptible 
 spirit of the artist! 
 
 What a tremendous power there is in work. Carlstrom 
 worked. He was up early in the morning to work, and he worked 
 in the evening as long as daylight lasted, and once I found him in 
 his shop in the evening, bending low over his bench with a kero- 
 sene lamp in front of him. He was humming his inevitable tune 
 and smoothing off with a fine file the nice curves of a rifle trig- 
 ger. When he had trouble— and what a lot of it he has had in 
 his time! — ^he worked; and when he was happy he worked all 
 the harder. All the leisurely ones of the town drifted by, all 
 the children and the fools, and often rested in the doorway of his 
 shop. He made them all welcome: he talked with them, but 
 he never stopped working. Clang, clang, would go his anvil, 
 whish, whish, would respond his bellows, creak, creak, would 
 go the hickory sweep — he was helping the world go round! 
 
 All this time, though he had sickness in his family, though his 
 wife died, and then his children one after another until only 
 one now remains, he worked and he saved. He bought a lot and 
 built a house to rent; then he built another house; then he bought 
 the land where his shop stands and rebuilt the shop itself. It was 
 an epic of homely work. He took part in the work of the church 
 and on election days he changed his coat, and went to the town 
 hall to vote. 
 
 In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and some- 
 thing of the town where he works, I have seen young men, born 
 Americans, with every opportunity and encouragement of a 
 free country, growing up there and going to waste. One day I 
 heard one of them, sitting in front of a store, grumbling about 
 the foreigners who were coming in and taking up the land. The 
 
229 
 
230 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said noth- 
 ing; but I hstened and heard from the distance the steady clang, 
 clang, of Carlstrom's hammer upon the anvil. 
 
 Ketchell, the store-keeper, told me how Carlstrom had longed 
 and planned and saved to be able to go back once more to the 
 old home he had left. Again and again he had got almost enough 
 money ahead to start, and then there would be an interest pay- 
 ment due, or a death in the family, and the money would all go 
 to the banker, the doctor, or the undertaker. 
 
 "Of recent years," said Ketchell, "we thought he'd given up 
 the idea. His friends are all here now, and if he went back, he 
 certainly would be disappointed." 
 
 A sort of serenity seemed, indeed, to come upon him: his 
 family lie on the quiet hill, old things and old times have grown 
 distant, and upon that anvil of his before the glowing forge he 
 has beaten out for himself a real place in this community. He 
 has beaten out the respect of a whole town; and from the crude 
 human nature with which he started he has fashioned himself 
 wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which sees 
 that God is in his world. There are men I know who read 
 many books, hoping to learn how to be happy; let me com- 
 mend them to Carlstrom, the gunsmith. 
 
 I have often reflected upon the incalculable influence of one 
 man upon a community. The town is better for having stood 
 often looking into the fire of Carlstrom's forge, and seeing his 
 hammer strike. I don't know how many times I have heard men 
 repeat observations gathered in Carlstrom's shop. Only the 
 other day I heard the village school teacher say, when I asked 
 him why he always seemed so merry and had so little fault to 
 find with the world. 
 
 "Why," he replied, "as Carlstrom, the gunsmith says, 'when 
 I feel Hke finding fault I always begin with myself and then I 
 never get any farther.' " 
 
 Another of Carlstrom's sayings is current in the country. 
 
 "It's a good thing," he says, "when a man knows what he pre- 
 tends to know." 
 
 The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 231 
 
 Carlstrom. It is odd that I should have gone all these years 
 knowing Carlstrom, and yet never consciously until last v^eek 
 setting him in his rightful place among the men I know. It makes 
 me wonder what other great souls about me are thus concealing 
 themselves in the guise o£ familiarity. This stooped gray neigh- 
 bour of mine whom I have seen so often working in his field 
 that he has almost become a part of the landscape — who can 
 tell what heroisms may be locked away from my vision under 
 his old brown hat ? 
 
 On Wednesday night Carlstrom was at Dr. McAlway's house 
 — with Charles Baxter, my neighbour Horace, and several others. 
 And I had still another view of him. 
 
 I think there is always something that surprises one in finding 
 a familiar figure in a wholly new environment. I was so accus- 
 tomed to the Carlstrom of the gunshop that I coiild not at once 
 reconcile myself to the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting 
 room. And, indeed, there was a striking change in his appear- 
 ance. He came dressed in the quaint black coat which he wears 
 at funerals. His hair was brushed straight back from his broad, 
 smooth forehead and his mild blue eyes were bright behind an 
 especially shiny pair of steel-bowed spectacles. He looked more 
 like some old-fashioned college professor than he did like a 
 smith. 
 
 The old gunsmith had that pride of humiUty which is about 
 the best pride in this world. He was perfectly at home at the 
 Scotch Preacher's hearth. Indeed, he radiated a sort of beaming 
 
232 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 good will; he had a native desire to make everything pleasant. I 
 did not realize before v^hat a fund of humour the old man had. 
 The Scotch Preacher ralUed him on the number of houses he 
 nov^^ owns, and suggested that he ought to get a wife to keep at 
 least one of them for him. Carlstrom looked around with a 
 twinkle in his eye. 
 
 "When I was a poor man," he said, "and carried boxes from 
 Ketchell's store to help build my first shop, I used to wish I had 
 a wheelbarrow. Now I have four. When I had no house to keep 
 my family in, I used to wish that I had one. Now I have four. 
 I have thought sometimes I would like a wife — but I have not 
 dared to wish for one." 
 
 The old gunsmith laughed noiselessly, and then from habit, 1 
 suppose, began to hum as he does in his shop — stopping in- 
 stantly, however, when he reaHzed what he was doing. 
 
 During the evening the Scotch Preacher got me to one side 
 and said: 
 
 "David, we can't let the old man go." 
 
 "No, sir," I said, "we can't." 
 
 "All he needs, Davy, is cheering up. It's a cold world some- 
 times to the old." 
 
 I suppose the Scotch Preacher was saying the same thing to all 
 the other men of the company. 
 
 When we were preparing to go. Dr. McAlway turned to 
 Carlstrom and said: 
 
 "How is it, Carlstrom, that you have come to hold such a place 
 in this community? How is it that you have got ahead so 
 rapidly." 
 
 The old man leaned forward, beaming through his spectacles, 
 and said eagerly: 
 
 "It ist America; it ist America." 
 
 "No, Carlstrom, no— it is not all America. It is Carlstrom, too. 
 You work, Carlstrom, and you save." 
 
 Every day since Wednesday there has been a steady pressure 
 on Carlstrom; not so much said in words, but people stopping 
 in at the shop and passing a good word. But up to Monday 
 morning the gunsmith went forward steadily with his prepara- 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 233 
 
 tions to leave. On Sunday I saw the Scotch Preacher and found 
 him perplexed as to what to do. I don't know yet positively, that 
 he had a hand in it, though I suspect it, but on Monday after- 
 noon Charles Baxter went by my house on his way to town 
 with a broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival 
 artists that I don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carl- 
 strom with any work. But this morning when I went to town 
 and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found the gunsmith hum- 
 ming louder than ever. 
 
 "Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-bye?" I asked. 
 
 "I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led 
 me over to his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. 
 Now, a broken saw is one of the high tests of the genius of the 
 mender. To put the pieces together so that the blade will be per- 
 fectly smooth, so that the teeth match accurately, is an art which 
 few workmen of to-day would even attempt. 
 
 "Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, 
 unable to conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!'* 
 
 To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation 
 of a rival. It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the 
 deciding factor. Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's 
 saws unmended! But back of it all, I know, is the hand and 
 the heart of the Scotch Preacher. 
 
 The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith 
 possesses many of the qualities of true greatness. He has the 
 serenity, and the humour, and the humility of greatness. He has 
 a real faith in God. He works, he accepts what comes. He thinks 
 there is no more honourable calling than that of gunsmith, and 
 that the town he lives in is the best of all towns, and the people 
 he knows the best people. 
 
 Yes, it is greatness. 
 
^^'P'^rfB?^ 
 
 <C^***^./^ 
 
 THE MOWING 
 
 "Now I see the secret of the ma\ing of the best persons, 
 It is to grow in the open air and to eat' and sleep with 
 the earth." 
 
 J.HIS is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all 
 done long ago, and I am sitting down here after a late and 
 leisurely breakfast with that luxurious feeling of irresponsible 
 restfulness and comfort which comes only upon a clean, still 
 Sunday morning like this— after a week of hard work— a clean 
 Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin, and clean 
 thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains 
 at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the 
 drowsy sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard 
 here except on a morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the 
 barnyard back of the house Harriet's hens are cackUng trium- 
 phantly: they are impiously unobservant of the Sabbath day. 
 I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She has rolled 
 herself again and again in the warm earth and shaken herself 
 
 234 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 235 
 
 after each roll with an equine deHght most pleasant to see. 
 Now, from time to time, I can hear her gossipy whickerings 
 as she calls across the fields to my neighbour Horace's young 
 bay colts. 
 
 When I first woke up this morning I said to myself: 
 
 "Well, nothing happened yesterday." 
 
 Then I lay quiet for some time — it being Sunday morning 
 — and I turned over in my mind all that I had heard or seen or 
 felt or thought about in that one day. And presently I said 
 aloud to myself: 
 
 "Why, nearly everything happened yesterday." 
 
 And the more I thought of it the more interesting, the more 
 wonderful, the more explanatory of high things, appeared the 
 common doings of that June Saturday. I had walked among 
 unusual events — and had not known the wonder of them! I had 
 eyes, but I did not see— and ears, but I heard not. It may be, it 
 may be, that the Future Life of which we have had such con- 
 fusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full 
 understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a 
 full understanding this day, this moment even — here in this quiet 
 room— would contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are 
 children yet — playing with things much too large for us — much 
 too full of meaning. 
 
 Yesterday I cut my field of early clover. I should have 
 been at it a full week earHer if it had not been for the frequent 
 and sousing spring showers. Already half the blossoms of the 
 clover had turned brown and were shrivelling away into incon- 
 spicuous seediness. The leaves underneath on the lower parts 
 of the stems were curling up and fading; many of them 
 had already dropped away. There is a tide also in the affairs of 
 clover and if a farmer would profit by his crop, it must be 
 taken at its flood. 
 
 I began to watch the skies with some anxiety, and on Thurs- 
 day I was delighted to see the weather become clearer, and a 
 warm dry wind spring up from the southwest. On Friday 
 there was not so much as a cloud of the size of a man's hand 
 
236 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 to be seen anywhere in the sky, not one, and the sun with lively 
 diligence had begun to make up for the listlessness of the past 
 week. It was hot and dry enough to suit the most exacting hay- 
 maker. 
 
 Encouraged by these favourable symptoms I sent word to 
 Dick Sheridan (by one of Horace's men) to come over bright 
 and early on Saturday morning. My field is only a small one 
 and so rough and uneven that I had concluded with Dick's 
 help to cut it by hand. I thought that on a pinch it could all be 
 done in one day. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "we'll cut the clover to-morrow." 
 
 "That's fortunate," said Harriet, "I'd already arranged to have 
 Ann Spencer in to help me." 
 
 Yesterday morning, then, I got out earlier than usual. It 
 was a perfect June morning, one of the brightest and clearest I 
 think I ever saw. The mists had not yet risen from the hollows 
 of my lower fields, and all the earth was fresh with dew and 
 sweet with the mingled odours of growing things. No hour 
 of the whole day is more perfect than this. 
 
 I walked out along the edge of the orchard and climbed the 
 fence of the field beyond. As I stooped over I could smell the 
 heavy sweet odour of the clover blossoms. I could see the billowy 
 green sweep of the glistening leaves. I lifted up a mass of the 
 tangled stems and laid the palm of my hand on the earth under- 
 neath. It was neither too wet nor too dry. 
 
 "We shall have good cutting to-day," I said to myself. 
 
 So I stood up and looked with a satisfaction impossible to 
 describe across the acres of my small domain, marking where 
 in the low spots the crop seemed heaviest, where it was lodged 
 and tangled by the wind and the rain, and where in the higher 
 spaces it grew scarce thick enough to cover the sad baldness of 
 the knolls. How much more we get out of life than we deserve! 
 
 So I walked along the edge of the field to the orchard gate, 
 which I opened wide. 
 
 "Here," I said, "is where we will begin." 
 
 So I turned back to the barn. I had not reached the other 
 side of the orchard when who should I see but Dick Sheridan 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 
 
 237 
 
 himself, coming in at the lane gate. He had an old, coarse- 
 woven straw hat stuck resplendently on the back of his head. 
 He was carrying his scythe jauntily over his shoulder and 
 whistling "Good-bye, Susan" at the top of his capacity. 
 
 Dick Sheridan is a cheerful young fellow with a thin brown 
 face and (milky) blue eyes. He has an enormous Adam's apple 
 which has an odd way of moving up and down when he talks — 
 and one large tooth out in front. His body is like a bundle of 
 
 wires, as thin and muscular and enduring as that of a broncho 
 pony. He can work all day long and then go down to the lodge- 
 hall at the Crossing and dance half the night. You should really 
 see him when he dances! He can jump straight up and click 
 his heels twice together before he comes down again! On such 
 occasions he is marvellously clad, as befits the gallant that he 
 really is, but this morning he wore a faded shirt and one of his 
 suspender cords behind was fastened with a nail instead of a 
 button. His socks are sometimes pale blue and sometimes 
 lavender and commonly, therefore, he turns up his trouser 
 legs so that these vanities may not be wholly lost upon a dull 
 world. His full name is Richard Tecumseh Sheridan, but every 
 
238 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 one calls him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard 
 worker. I Uke him. 
 
 "Hello, Dick," I shouted. 
 
 "Hello yourself, Mr. Grayson," he replied. 
 
 He hung his scythe in the branches of a pear tree and we 
 both turned into the barnyard to get the chores out of the way. 
 I wanted to delay cutting as long as I could — until the dew on 
 the clover should begin — at least — to disappear. 
 
 By half-past-seven we were ready for work. We rolled back 
 our sleeves, stood our scythes on end and gave them a final 
 lively stoning. You could hear the brisk sound of the ringing 
 metal peaHng through the still morning air. 
 
 "It's a great day for haying," I said. 
 
 "A dang good one," responded the laconic Dick, wetting his 
 thumb to feel the edge of his scythe. 
 
 I cannot convey with any mere pen upon any mere paper the 
 feeling of jauntiness I had at that moment, as of conquest 
 and fresh adventure, as of great things to be done in a great 
 world! You may say if you like that this exhilaration was due 
 to good health and the exuberance of youth. But it was more 
 than that — far more. I cannot well express it, but it seemed as 
 though at that moment Dick and I were stepping out into some 
 vast current of human activity: as though we had the universe 
 itself behind us, and the warm regard and approval of all men. 
 
 I stuck my whetstone in my hip-pocket, bent forward and 
 cut the first short sharp swath in the clover. I swept the mass 
 of tangled green stems into the open space just outside the 
 gate. Three or four more strokes and Dick stopped whistling 
 suddenly, spat on his hands and with a lively "Here she goes!" 
 came swinging in behind me. The clover-cutting had begun. 
 
 At first I thought the heat would be utterly unendurable, and, 
 then, with dripping face and wet shoulders, I forgot all about 
 it. Oh, there is something incomparable about such work — the 
 long steady pull of willing and healthy muscles, the mind 
 undisturbed by any disquieting thought, the feeling of attain- 
 ment through vigorous effort! It was a steady swing and swish, 
 swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture of him in my 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 239 
 
 mind's eye— his wiry thin legs, one heel lifted at each step and 
 held rigid for a single instant, a glimpse of pale blue socks above 
 his rusty shoes and three inches of whetstone sticking from 
 his tight hip-pocket. It was good to have him there whether he 
 led or followed. 
 
 At each return to the orchard end of the field we looked for 
 and found a gray stone jug in the grass. I had brought it up 
 with me filled with cool water from the pump. Dick had a 
 way of swinging it up with one hand, resting it in his shoulder, 
 turning his head just so and letting the water gurgle into his 
 throat. I have never been able myself to reach this refinement 
 in the art of drinking from a jug. 
 
 And oh! the good feel of a straightened back after two long 
 swathes in the boiling sun! We would stand a moment in the 
 shade, whetting our scythes, not saying much, but glad to be 
 there together. Then we would go at it again with renewed 
 energy. It is a great thing to have a working companion. Many 
 times thar day Dick and I looked aside at each other with a 
 curious sense of friendliness — that sense of friendliness which 
 grows out of common rivalries, common difficulties and a com- 
 mon wearmess. We did not talk much: and that little of trivial 
 matters. 
 "Jim Brewster's mare had a colt on Wednesday." 
 "This'll go three tons to the acre, or I'll eat my shirt." 
 Dick was always about to eat his shirt if some particular 
 prophecy of his did not materialize. 
 "Dang it all," says Dick, "the moon's drawin' water." 
 "Something is undoubtedly drawing it," said I, wiping my 
 dripping face. 
 
 A meadow lark sprang up with a song in the adjoining field, 
 a few heavy old bumble-bees droned in the clover as we cut it, 
 and once a frightened rabbit ran out, darting swiftly under the 
 orchard fence. 
 
 So the long forenoon slipped away. At times it seemed 
 endless, and yet we were surprised when we heard the bell from 
 the house (what a sound it was!) and we left our cutting in 
 the middle of the field, nor waited for another stroke. 
 
240 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "Hungry, Dick?" I asked. 
 
 "Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence o£ a lengthy 
 oration crowded into one word. 
 
 So we drifted through the orchard, and it was good to see 
 the house with smoke in the kitchen chimney, and the shade 
 of the big maple where it rested upon the porch. And not far 
 from the maple we could see our friendly pump with the moist 
 boards of the well-cover in front of it. I cannot tell you how 
 good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry fields. 
 
 "After you," says Dick. 
 
 I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and 
 turned in the moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over 
 and put my head under the pump spout. 
 
 "Pump, Dick," said I. 
 
 And Dick pumped. 
 
 "Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice. 
 
 And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up 
 gasping with my head and hair dripping with the cool water. 
 Then I pumped for Dick. 
 
 "Gee, but that's good," says Dick. 
 
 Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, 
 and talked together in low voices. And feeling a deUcious sense 
 of coolness we sat down for a moment in the shade of the maple 
 and rested our arms on our knees. From the kitchen, as we sat 
 there, we could hear the engaging sounds of preparation, and 
 busy voices, and the tinkUng of dishes, and agreeable odours! 
 Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better moments in 
 life than this! 
 
 So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we 
 heard the screen door cHck and Ann Spencer's motherly voice: 
 
 "Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner." 
 
 Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was 
 cool and shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and 
 between us there was a great brown bowl of moist brown beans 
 with crispy strips of pork on top, and a good steam rising 
 from its depths; and a small mountain of baked potatoes, 
 each a little broken to show the snowy white interior; and 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 241 
 
 two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in 
 any other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And 
 before we had even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann 
 Spencer, quaking with hospitality, and bearing a platter — let me 
 here speak of it with the bated breath of a proper respect, for I 
 cannot even now think of it without a sort of inner thrill — bear- 
 ing a platter of her most famous fried chicken. Harriet had sacri- 
 ficed the promising careers of two young roosters upon the 
 altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing that Ann 
 Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue 
 of her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or 
 Socrates, or indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one. 
 
 So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. 
 Harriet hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured 
 the tea and the buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon every 
 possible occasion passed the chicken. 
 
 "More chicken, Mr. Grayson?" she would inquire in a tone 
 of voice that made your mouth water. 
 
 "More chicken, Dick?" I'd ask. 
 
 "More chicken, Mr. Grayson," he would respond — and thus 
 we kept up a tenuous, but pleasant Uttle joke between us. 
 
 Just outside the porch in a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang 
 to us while we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose 
 on his paws and one eye open just enough to show any stray 
 flies that he was not to be trifled with — and far away to the 
 North and East one could catch glimpses — if he had eyes for 
 such things — of the wide-stretching pleasantness of our country- 
 side. 
 
 I soon saw that something mysterious was going on in the 
 kitchen. Harriet would look significantly at Ann Spencer and 
 Ann Spencer, who could scarcely contain her overflowing smiles, 
 would look significantly at Harriet. As for me, I sat there with 
 perfect confidence in myself— in my ultimate capacity, as it 
 were. Whatever happened, I was ready for it! 
 
 And the great surprise came at last: a SHORT-CAKE: a 
 great, big, red, juicy, buttery, sugary short-cake, with rasp- 
 berries heaped up all over it. When It came in — and I am speak- 
 
242 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 ing of it in that personal way because it radiated such an 
 effulgence that I cannot now remember whether it was Harriet 
 or Ann Spencer who brought it in — when It came in, Dick, who 
 pretends to be abashed upon such occasions, gave one swift 
 glance upward and then emitted a long, low, expressive whistle. 
 When Beethoven found himself throbbing with undescribable 
 emotions he composed a sonata; when Keats felt odd things 
 stirring within him he wrote an ode to an urn, but my friend 
 Dick, quite as evidently on fire with his emotions, merely 
 whistled — and then looked around evidently embarrassed lest 
 
 he should have infringed upon the proprieties of that occasion. 
 
 "Harriet," I said, "you and Ann Spencer are benefactors of 
 the human race." 
 
 "Go 'way now," said Ann Spencer, shaking all over with 
 pleasure, "and eat your short-cake." 
 
 And after dinner how pleasant it was to stretch at full length 
 for a few minutes on the grass in the shade of the maple tree 
 and look up through the dusky thick shadows of the leaves. If 
 ever a man feels the blissfulness of complete content it is at 
 such a moment — every muscle in the body deliciously resting, 
 and a peculiar exhilaration animating the mind to quiet 
 thoughts. I have heard talk of the hard work of the hay-fields, 
 but I never yet knew a healthy man who did not recall many 
 moments of exquisite pleasure connected with the hardest and 
 the hottest work. 
 
 I think sometimes that the nearer a man can place himself in 
 the full current of natural things the happier he is. If he can 
 become a part of the Universal Process and know that he is a 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 243 
 
 part, that is happiness. All day yesterday I had that deep quiet 
 feeling that I was somehow not working for myself, not because 
 I was covetous for money, nor driven by fear, not surely for 
 fame, but somehow that I was a necessary element in the proc- 
 esses of the earth. I was a primal force! I was the indispensable 
 Harvester. Without me the earth could not revolve! 
 
 Oh, friend, there are spiritual values here, too. For how can a 
 man know God without yielding himself fully to the processes of 
 God? 
 
 I lived yesterday. I played my part. I took my place. And all 
 hard things grew simple, and all crooked things seemed straight, 
 and all roads were open and clear before me. Many times that 
 day I paused and looked up from my work knowing that I had 
 something to be happy for. 
 
 At one o'clock Dick and I lagged our way unwillingly out to 
 work again— rusty of muscles, with a feeling that the heat would 
 now surely be unendurable and the work impossibly hard. The 
 scythes were oddly heavy and hot to the touch, and the stones 
 seemed hardly to make a sound in the heavy noon air. The cows 
 had sought the shady pasture edges, the birds were still, all the 
 air shook with heat. Only man must toil! 
 
 "It's danged hot," said Dick conclusively. 
 
 How reluctantly we began the work and how difficult it 
 seemed compared with the task of the morning! In half an hour, 
 however, the reluctance passed away and we were swinging as 
 steadily as we did at any time in the forenoon. But we said less — 
 if that were possible — and made every ounce of energy count. 
 I shall not here attempt to chronicle all the events of the after- 
 noon, how we finished the mowing of the field and how we 
 went over it swiftly and raked the long windrows into cocks, 
 or how, as the evening began to fall, we turned at last wearily 
 toward the house. The day's work was done. 
 
 Dick had stopped whistHng long before the middle of the 
 afternoon, but now as he shouldered his scythe he struck up 
 "My Fairy Fay" with some marks of his earlier enthusiasm. 
 
 "Well, Dick," said I, "we've had a good day's work together.'" 
 
 "You bet," said Dick. 
 
244 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 And I watched him as he went down the lane with a pleasant 
 friendly feeling of companionship. We had done great things 
 together. 
 
 I wonder if you ever felt the joy of utter physical weariness: 
 not exhaustion, but weariness. I wonder if you have ever sat 
 down, as I did last night, and felt as though you would like to 
 remain just there always — without stirring a single muscle, 
 without speaking, without thinking even! 
 
 Such a moment is not painful, but quite the reverse — ^it is 
 supremely pleasant. So I sat for a time last evening on my 
 porch. The cool, still night had fallen sweetly after the burning 
 heat of the day. I heard all the familiar sounds of the night. A 
 whippoorwill began to whistle in the distant thicket. Harriet 
 came out quietly — I could see the white of her gown — and 
 sat near me. I heard the occasional sleepy tinkle of a cowbell, 
 and the crickets were calling. A star or two came out in the 
 perfect dark blue of the sky. The deep, sweet, restful night was 
 on. I don't know that I said it aloud — such things need not be 
 said aloud — but as I turned almost numbly into the house, stum- 
 bling on my way to bed, my whole being seemed to cry out: 
 "Thank God, thank God." 
 
XI 
 
 AN OLD MAN 
 
 Ao-DAY I saw Uncle Richard Summers walking in the town road: 
 and cannot get him out of my mind. I think I never knew any 
 one who wears so plainly the garment of Detached Old Age 
 as he. One would not now think of calling him a farmer, any 
 more than one would think of calling him a doctor, a lawyer, or 
 a justice of the peace. No one would think now of calling him 
 "Squire Summers," though he bore that name with no small 
 credit many years ago. He is no longer known as hardworking, 
 or able, or grasping, or rich, or wicked: he is just Old. Every- 
 thing seems to have been stripped away from Uncle Richard 
 except age. 
 
 How well I remember the first time Uncle Richard Summers 
 impressed himself upon my mind. It was after the funeral of his 
 old wife, now several years ago. I saw him standing at the open 
 grave with his broad-brimmed felt hat held at his breast. His 
 head was bowed and his thin, soft, white hair stirred in the 
 warm breeze. I wondered at his quietude. After fifty years or 
 more together his nearest companion and friend had gone, and 
 he did not weep aloud. Afterward I was again impressed with 
 the same fortitude or quietude. I saw him walking down the 
 long drive to the main road with all the friends of our neighbour- 
 hood about him — and the trees rising full and calm on one side, 
 and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the 
 
 245 
 
246 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 other. Half way down the drive he turned aside to the fence 
 and all unconscious of the halted procession, he picked a handful 
 of the large leaves of the wild grape. It was a hot day; he took off 
 his hat, and put the cool leaves in the crown of it and rejoined 
 the procession. It did not seem to me to be the mere forgetful- 
 ness of old age, nor yet callousness to his own great sorrow. It 
 was rather an instinctive return to the immeasurable continuity 
 of the trivial things of life — the trivial necessary things which 
 so often carry us over the greatest tragedies. 
 
 I talked with the Scotch Preacher afterward about the inci- 
 dent. He said that he, too, marvelling at the old man's calm- 
 ness, had referred to it in his presence. Uncle Richard turned 
 to him and said slowly: 
 
 "I am an old man, and I have learned one thing. I have learned 
 to accept Hfe." 
 
 Since that day I have seen Uncle Richard Summers many 
 times walking on the country roads with his cane. He always 
 looks around at me and slowly nods his head, but rarely says 
 anything. At his age what is there to say that has not already 
 been said.? 
 
 His trousers appear a size too large for him, his hat sets 
 too far down, his hands are long and thin upon the head of his 
 cane. But his face is tranquil. He has come a long way; there 
 have been times of tempest and keen winds, there have been 
 wild hills in his road, and rocky places, and threatening voices 
 in the air. All that is past now: and his face is tranquil. 
 
 I think we younger people do not often realize how keenly 
 dependent we are upon our contemporaries in age. We get 
 little understanding and sympathy either above or below them. 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 247 
 
 Much of the world is a Httle misty to us, a little out of focus. 
 Uncle Richard Summers' contemporaries have nearly all gone 
 — mostly long ago: one of the last, his old wife. At his home — 
 I have been there often to see his son — he sits in a large rocking- 
 chair with a cushion in it, and a comfortable high back to lean 
 upon. No one else ventures to sit in his chair, even when he is 
 not there. It is not far from the window; and when he sits 
 down he can lean his cane against the wall where he can easily 
 reach it again. 
 
 There is a turmoil of youth and life always about him; of fe- 
 vered incomings and excited outgoings, of work and laughter 
 and tears and joy and anger. He watches it all, for his mind is 
 still clear, but he does not take sides. He accepts everything, 
 refuses nothing; or, if you like, he refuses everything, accepts 
 nothing. 
 
 He once owned the house where he now lives, with the great 
 barns behind it and the fertile acres spreading far on every hand. 
 From his chair he can look out through a small window, and 
 see the sun on the quiet fields. He once went out swiftly and 
 strongly, he worked hotly, he came in wearied to sleep. 
 
 Now he lives in a small room — and that is more than is really 
 necessary — and when he walks out he does not inquire who 
 owns the land where he treads. He lets the hot world go by, 
 and waits with patience the logic of events. 
 
 Often as I have passed him in the road, I have wondered, as 
 I have been wondering to-day, how he must look out upon us 
 all, upon our excited comings and goings, our immense concern 
 over the immeasurably trivial. I have wondered, not without a 
 pang, and a resolution, whether I shall ever reach the point 
 where I can let this eager and fascinating world go by without 
 taking toll of it! 
 
XII 
 
 THE CELEBRITY 
 
 Nc 
 
 OT FOR MANY WEEKS havc I had a more interesting, more 
 illuminating, and when all is told, a more amusing experience, 
 than I had this afternoon. Since this afternoon the world has 
 seemed a more satisfactory place to live in, and my own home 
 here, the most satisfactory, the most central place in all the 
 world. I have come to the conclusion that anything may happen 
 here! 
 
 We have had a celebrity in our small midst, and the hills, as 
 the Psalmist might say, have lifted up their heads, and the trees 
 have clapped their hands together. He came here last Tuesday 
 evening and spoke at the School House. I was not there myself; 
 if I had been, I should not, perhaps, have had the adventure 
 which has made this day so livable, nor met the Celebrity face 
 to face. 
 Let me here set down a close secret regarding celebrities : 
 They cannot survive without common people li\e you and me, 
 
 248 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 249 
 
 ft follows that if we do not pursue a celebrity, sooner or 
 later he will pursue us. He must; it is the law of his being. 
 So I wait here very comfortably on my farm, and as I work 
 in my fields I glance up casually from time to time to see if 
 any celebrities are by chance coming up the town road to seek 
 me out. Oh, we are crusty people, we farmers! Sooner or later 
 they all come this way, all the warriors and the poets, all the 
 philosophers and the prophets and the politicians. If they do not, 
 indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full 
 assurance that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in 
 sheepskin, or more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt letter- 
 ing. Whatever the airs of pompous importance they may as- 
 sume as they come, back of it all we farmers can see the look 
 of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know well enough 
 that they must give us something which we in our commonness 
 regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our 
 potatoes, or a sack of our white onions. No poem that we can 
 enjoy, no speech that tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us — 
 neither dinner nor immortality for them! And we are hard- 
 headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a puffed-up celebrity 
 loses his puffiness at our doors! 
 
 This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, 
 feeling content with myself and all the world, I saw a man 
 driving our way in a one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is 
 our custom first to identify the horse, and that gives us a sure 
 clue to the identification of the driver. This horse plainly did 
 not belong in our neighbourhood and plainly as it drew nearer, 
 it bore the unmistakable marks of the town livery. Therefore, 
 the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in these parts. 
 What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this 
 way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow- 
 looking; he wore a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black 
 coat, a man evidently of some presence. And he drove slowly 
 and awkwardly; not an agent plainly. Thus the logic of the 
 country bore fruitage. 
 
250 
 
 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think 
 the Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here." 
 
 "Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, 
 and as quickly disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I 
 knew instinctively that she was slipping off her apron, moving 
 our most celebrated rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, 
 and whisking a few invisible particles of dust from the centre 
 
 table. Every time any one of importance comes our way, or U 
 distantly likely to come our way, Harriet resolves herself into 
 an amiable whirlwind of good order, subsiding into placidity 
 at the first sound of a step on the porch. 
 
 As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch 
 resting a moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not 
 go in and get my coat. I am an American citizen, at home in 
 my house with the sceptre of my dominion — my favourite daily 
 newspaper — in my hand. Let all kings, queens, and other 
 potentates approach! 
 
 And besides, though I am really much afraid that the 
 Honourable Arthur Caldwell will not stop at my gate but will 
 pass on towards Horace's, I am nursing a somewhat light 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 251 
 
 opinion of Mr. Caldwell. When he spoke at the School House 
 on Tuesday, I did not go to hear him, nor was my opinion 
 greatly changed by what I learned afterward of the meeting. 
 I take both of our weekly county papers. This is necessary. I add 
 the news of both together, divide by two to strike a fair 
 average, and then ask Horace, or Charles Baxter, or the Scotch 
 Preacher what really happened. The Republican county paper 
 said of the meeting: 
 
 "The Honourable Arthur Caldwell, member of Congress, who 
 is seeking a reelection, was accorded a most enthusiastic re- 
 ception by a large and sympathetic audience of the citizens of 
 Blandford township on Tuesday evening." 
 
 Strangely enough the Democratic paper, observing exactly 
 the same historic events, took this jaundiced view of the mat- 
 ter: 
 
 "Arty Caldwell, RepubUcan boss of the Sixth District, who 
 is out mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of 
 his henchmen at the School House near Blandford Crossing 
 on Tuesday evening." 
 
 And here was Mr. Caldwell himself. Member of Congress, 
 Leader of the Sixth District, Favourably Mentioned for Gover- 
 nor, drawing up at my gate, deUberately descending from his 
 buggy, with dignity stopping to take the tie-rein from under 
 the seat, carefully tying his horse to my hitching-post. 
 
 I confess I could not help feeling a thrill of excitement. Here 
 was a veritable Celebrity come to my house to explain himself! 
 I would not have it known, of course, outside of our select 
 circle of friends, but I confess that although I am a pretty 
 independent person (when I talk) in reaUty there are few 
 things in this world I would rather see than a new person 
 coming up the walk to my door. We cannot, of course, let the 
 celebrities know it, lest they grow intolerable in their top- 
 loftiness, but if they must have us, we cannot well get along 
 without them— without the colour and variety which they lend 
 to a gray world. I have spent many a precious moment alone 
 in my fields looking up the road (with what wistful casualness!) 
 for some new Socrates or Mark Twain, and I have not been 
 
252 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with 
 the Travelling EvangeUst or the Syrian Woman who comes 
 this way monthly bearing her pack of cheap suspenders and blue 
 bandana handkerchiefs. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Mr. Grayson," said the Honourable Mr. 
 Caldwell, taking off his large hat and pausing with one foot 
 on my step. 
 
 "Good afternoon, sir," I responded, "won't you come up?" 
 
 He sat down in the chair opposite me with a certain measured 
 and altogether impressive dignity. I cannot say that he was 
 exactly condescending in his manners, yet he made me feel 
 that it was no small honour to have so considerable a person 
 sitting there on the porch with me. At the same time he was 
 outwardly not without a sort of patient deference which was 
 evidently calculated to put me at my ease. Oh, he had all the 
 arts of the schooled poUtician! He knew to the last shading just 
 the attitude that he as a great man, a leader in Congress, a 
 dominant force in his party, a possible candidate for Governor 
 (and yet always a seeker for the votes of the people!), must ob- 
 serve in approaching a free farmer — like me — sitting at ease in 
 his shirt-sleeves on his own porch, taking a moment's rest after 
 dinner. It was a perfect thing to see! 
 
 He had evidently heard, what was not altogether true, that I 
 was a questioner of authority, a disturber of the political peace, 
 and that (concretely) I was opposing him for reelection. And 
 it was as plain as a pike-staff that he was here to lay down the 
 poUtical law to me. He would do it smiHngly and patiently, but 
 firmly. He would use all the leverage of his place, his power, his 
 personal appearance, to crush the presumptuous uprising 
 against his authority. 
 
 I confess my spirits rose at the thought. What in this world 
 is more enthralling than the meeting of an unknown adversary 
 upon the open field, and jousting him a tourney. I felt like some 
 modern Robin Hood facing the panopHed authority of the 
 King's man. 
 
 And what a place and time it was for a combat — in the quietude 
 of the summer afternoon, no sound anywhere breaking the 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 253 
 
 still warmth and sweetness except the buzzing of bees in the 
 clematis at the end of the porch — and all about the green 
 countryside, woods and fields and old fences — and the brown 
 road leading its venturesome way across a distant hill toward 
 the town. 
 
 After explaining who he was — I told him I had recognized 
 him on sight — we opened with a volley of small shot. We 
 peppered one another with harmless comments on the weather 
 and the state of the crops. He advanced cabbages and I coun- 
 tered with sugar-beets. I am quite aware that there are good 
 tacticians who deprecate the use of skirmish lines and the 
 desultory fire of the musketry of small talk. They would advance 
 in grim silence and open at once with the crushing fire of their 
 biggest guns. 
 
 But such fighting is not for me. I should lose half the joy of the 
 battle, and kill off my adversary before I had begun to like 
 him! It wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all. 
 
 "It's a warm day," observes my opponent, and I take a sure 
 measure of his fighting form. I rather like the look of his eye. 
 
 "I never saw the corn ripening better," I observe, and let 
 him feel a Uttle of the cunning of the arrangement of my 
 forces. 
 
 There is much in the tone of the voice, the cut of the words, 
 the turn of a phrase. I can be your servant with a "Yes sir,'* or 
 your master with a "No sir." 
 
 Thus we warm up to one another — a little at a time— we mass 
 our forces, each sees the white of his adversary's eyes. I can even 
 see my opponent — with some joy — trotting up his reserves, 
 having found the opposition stronger than he at first supposed. 
 
 "I hear," said Mr. Caldwell, finally, with a smile intended 
 to be disarming, "that you are opposing my reelection." 
 
 Boom! the cannon's opening roar! 
 
 "Well," I rephed, also smiUng, and not to be outdone in the 
 directness of my thrust, "I have told a few of my friends that I 
 thought Mr. Gaylord would represent us better in Congress 
 than you have done." 
 
 Boom! the fight is on! 
 
254 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 "You are a Republican, aren't you, Mr. Grayson?" 
 
 It was the inevitable next stroke. When he found that I was 
 a doubtful follower of him personally, he marshalled the 
 Authority of the Institution which he represented. 
 
 "I have voted the RepubHcan ticket," I said, "but I confess 
 that recently I have not been able to distinguish RepubUcans 
 from Democrats— and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether 
 there is any real RepubUcan party left to vote with." 
 
 I cannot well describe the expression on his face, nor indeed, 
 now that the battle was on, horsemen, footmen, and big guns, 
 shall I attempt to chronicle every stroke and counter-stroke of 
 that great conflict. 
 
 This much is certain: there was something universal and 
 primal about the battle waged this quiet afternoon on my porch 
 between Mr. Caldwell and me; it was the primal struggle be- 
 tween the leader and the follower; between the representative 
 and the represented. And it is a never-ending conflict. When 
 the leader gains a small advantage the pendulum of civilization 
 swings toward aristocracy; and when the follower, beginning 
 to think, beginning to struggle, gains a small advantage, then 
 the pendulum inclines toward democracy. 
 
 And always, and always, the leaders tend to forget that they 
 are only servants, and would be masters. "The unending audacity 
 of elected persons!" And always, and always, there must be a 
 following bold enough to prick the pretensions of the leaders 
 and keep them in their places! 
 
 Thus, through the long still afternoon, the battle waged upon 
 my porch. Harriet came out and met the Honourable Mr. Cald- 
 well, and sat and listened, and presently went in again, without 
 having got half a dozen words into the conversation. And the 
 bees buzzed, and in the meadows the cows began to come 
 out of the shade to feed in the open land. 
 
 Gradually, Mr. Caldwell put off his air of condescension; 
 he put off his appeal to party authority; he even stopped argu- 
 ing the tariff and the railroad question. Gradually, he ceased to 
 be the great man. Favourably Mentioned for Governor, and 
 came down on the ground with me. He moved his chair up 
 
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 255 
 
256 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 closer to mine; he put his hand on my knee. For the first time 
 I began to see what manner of man he was: to find out how 
 much real fight he had in him. 
 
 "You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down 
 there at Washington in a time Hke this. Things clear to you are 
 not clear when you have to meet men in the committees and on 
 the floor of the house who have a contrary view from yours and 
 hold to it just as tenaciously as you do to your views." 
 
 Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a 
 Congressman's job was like, of what difficulties and dissensions 
 he had to meet at home, and what compromises he had to ac- 
 cept when he reached Washington. 
 
 "Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am 
 more than ever convinced that farming is good enough for me." 
 
 He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then 
 moved up still closer. 
 
 "The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you 
 are looking for a giant intellect to represent you at Washing- 
 ton." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am." 
 
 "Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd 
 Hke to see the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and 
 JefEersons and Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln 
 only once in a century." 
 
 He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile : 
 
 "And any quantity of Caldwells!" 
 
 That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The 
 armour of poHtical artifice, the symbols of political power, 
 had now all dropped away from him, and we sat there together, 
 two plain and friendly human beings, arriving through stress 
 and struggle at a common understanding. He was not a great 
 leader, not a statesman at all, but plainly a man of determination, 
 with a fair measure of intelligence and sincerity. He had a human 
 desire to stay in Congress, for the life evidently pleased him, and 
 while he would never be crucified as a prophet, I felt — what 
 I had not felt before in regard to him — that he was sincerely 
 anxious to serve the best interests of his constituents. Added to 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 257 
 
 these qualities he was a man who was loyal to his friends; and 
 not ungenerous to his enemies. 
 
 Up to this time he had done most of the talking; but now, 
 having reached a common basis, I leaned forward with some 
 eagerness. 
 
 "You won't mind," I said, "if I give you my view — my common 
 country view of the political situation. I am sure I don't under- 
 
 stand, and I don't think my neighbours here understand, much 
 about the tariff or the trusts or the railroad question — ^in detail. 
 We get general impressions — and stick to them like grim death 
 —for we know somehow that we are right. Generally speaking, 
 we here in the country work for what we get " 
 
 "And sometimes put the big apples at the top of the barrel," 
 nodded Mr. Caldwell. 
 
 "And sometimes put too much salt on top of the butter," I 
 added — "all that, but on the whole we get only what we earn 
 by the hard daily work of ploughing and planting and reaping: 
 You admit that." 
 
 "I admit it," said Mr. Caldwell. 
 
 "And weVe got the impression that a good many of the men 
 
258 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 down in New York and Boston, and elsewhere, through the 
 advantages which the tariff laws, and other laws, are giving 
 them, are getting more than they earn — a lot more. And we 
 feel that laws must be passed which will prevent all that." 
 
 "Now, I beheve that, too," said Mr. Caldwell very earnestly. 
 
 "Then we belong to the same party," I said. "I don't know 
 what the name of it is yet, but we both belong to it." 
 
 Mr. Caldwell laughed. 
 
 "And I'll appoint you," I said, "my agent in Washington to 
 work out the changes in the laws." 
 
 "Well, I'll accept the appointment," said Mr. Caldwell — 
 continuing very earnestly, "if you'll trust to my honesty and not 
 expect too much of me all at once." 
 
 With that we both sat back in our chairs and looked at each 
 other and laughed with the greatest good humour and common 
 understanding. 
 
 "And now," said I, rising quickly, "let's go and get a drink of 
 buttermilk." 
 
 So we walked around the house arm in arm and stopped in 
 the shade of the oak tree which stands near the spring-house. 
 Harriet came out in the whitest of white dresses, carrying a 
 tray with the glasses, and I opened the door of the spring-house, 
 and felt the cool air on my face and smelt the good smell of 
 butter and milk and cottage cheese, and I passed the cool pitcher 
 to Harriet. And so we drank together there in the shade and 
 talked and laughed. 
 
 I walked down with Mr. Caldwell to the gate. He took my 
 arm and said to me : 
 
 "I'm glad I came out here and had this talk. I feel as though 
 I understand my job better for it." 
 
 "Let's organize a new party," I said, "let's begin with two 
 members, you and I, and have only one plank in the platform." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "You'd have to crowd a good deal into that one plank," he 
 said. 
 
 "Not at all," I responded. 
 
 "What would you have it?" 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 259 
 
 "I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like 
 this: We beUeve in the passage of legislation which shall pre- 
 vent any man taking from the common store any more than he 
 actually earns." 
 
 Mr. Caldwell threw up his arms. 
 
 "Mr. Grayson," he said, "you're an outrageous idealist." 
 
 "Mr. Caldwell," I said, "you'll say one of these days that I'm 
 a practical poUtician." 
 
 "Well, Harriet," I said, "he's got my vote." 
 
 "Well, David," said Harriet, "that's what he came for." 
 
 "It's an interesting world, Harriet," I said. 
 
 "It is, indeed," said Harriet. 
 
 As we stood on the porch we could see at the top of the 
 hill, where the town road crosses it, the slow moving buggy, 
 and through the open curtain at the back the heavy form of 
 our Congressman with his slouch hat set firmly on his big head. 
 
 "We may be fooled, Harriet," I observed, "on dogmas and 
 doctrines and platforms — but if we cannot trust human nature 
 in the long run, what hope is there? It's men we must work 
 with, Harriet." 
 
 "And women," said Harriet. 
 
 "And women, of course," said I. 
 
XIII 
 ON FRIENDSHIP 
 
 COME NOW to the last of these Adventures in Friendship. As 
 I go out — I hope not for long — I wish you might follow me 
 to the door, and then as we continue to talk quietly, I may be- 
 guile you, all unconsciously, to the top of the steps, or even find 
 you at my side when we reach the gate at the end of the lane. 
 I wish you might hate to let me go, as I myself hate to go! — 
 And when I reach the top of the hill (if you wait long enough) 
 you will see me turn and wave my hand; and you will know that 
 I am still relishing the joy of our meeting, and that I part 
 unwillingly. 
 
 Not long ago, a friend of mine wrote a letter asking me an 
 absurdly difficult question — difficult because so direct and 
 simple. 
 
 "What is friendship, anyway?" queried this philosophical 
 correspondent. 
 
 The truth is, the question came to me with a shock, as 
 something quite new. For I have spent so much time thinking 
 
 260 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 261 
 
 of my friends that I have scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon 
 the abstract quaHty of friendship. My attention being thus called 
 to the subject, I fell to thinking of it the other night as I sat by 
 the fire, Harriet not far away rocking and sewing, and my dog 
 sleeping on the rug near me (his tail stirring whenever I made 
 a motion to leave my place). And whether I would or no my 
 friends came trooping into my mind. I thought of our neighbour 
 Horace, the dryly practical and sufficient farmer, and of our 
 much loved Scotch Preacher; I thought of the Shy Bee-man and 
 
 of his boisterous double, the Bold Bee-man; I thought of the Old 
 Maid, and how she talks, for all the world like a rabbit running 
 in a furrow (all on the same line until you startle her out, 
 when she slips quickly into the next furrow and goes on run- 
 ning as ardently as before). And I thought of John Starkweather, 
 our rich man; and of the life of the girl Anna. And it was good 
 to think of them all living around me, not far away, connected 
 with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious 
 human cord. (Oh, there are mysteries still left upon this scientific 
 earth!) As I sat there by the fire I told them over one by one, 
 remembering with warmth or amusement or concern this or that 
 characteristic thing about each of them. It was the next best 
 thing to hearing the tramp of feet on my porch, to seeing the 
 door fly open (letting in a gust of the fresh cool air!), to crying 
 a hearty greeting, to drawing up an easy chair to the open fire, 
 
262 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 to watching with eagerness while my friend unwraps (exclaim- 
 ing all the while of the state of the weather: "Cold, Grayson, 
 mighty cold!") and finally sits down beside me, not too far 
 away. 
 
 The truth is, — my philosophical correspondent — I cannot 
 formulate any theory of friendship which will cover all the con- 
 ditions. I know a few things that friendship is not, and a 
 few things that it is, but when I come to generalize upon 
 the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for adequate language. 
 
 Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, 
 she is shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by in- 
 direction. Quite unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the 
 open road, she puts her hand in ours, like a child. Friendship is 
 neither a formaHty nor a mode: it is rather a life. Many and 
 many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at work in his carpentry- 
 shop — ^just working, or talking in his quiet voice, or looking 
 around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I 
 have had the feeHng that I should like to go over and sit on the 
 bench near him. He Uterally talks me over! I even want to touch 
 him! 
 
 It is not the substance of what we say to one another that 
 makes us friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what 
 you do or I do, nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor 
 is it because we chance to belong to the same church, or society 
 or party that makes us friendly. Nor is it because we entertain 
 the same views or respond to the same emotions. All these things 
 may serve to bring us nearer together but no one of them can 
 of itself kindle the divine fire of friendship. A friend is one 
 with whom we are fond of being when no business is afoot nor 
 any entertainment contemplated. A man may well be silent with 
 a friend. "I do not need to ask the wounded person how he 
 feels," says the poet, "I myself became the wounded person." 
 
 Not all people come to friendship in the same way. Some 
 possess a veritable genius for intimacy and will be making a 
 dozen friends where I make one. Our Scotch Preacher is such 
 a person. I never knew any man with a gift of intimacy so 
 persuasive as his. He is so simple and direct that he cuts through 
 
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP 263 
 
 the stoniest reserve and strikes at once upon those personal 
 things which with all of us are so far more real than any outward 
 interest. "Good-morning, friend," I have heard him say to a 
 total stranger, and within half an hour they had their heads 
 together and were talking of things which make men cry. It is 
 an extraordinary gift. 
 
 As for me, I confess it to be a selfish interest or curiosity 
 which causes me to stop almost any man by the way, and to 
 
 take something of what he has — ^because it pleases me to do so. 
 I try to pay in coin as good as I get, but I recognize it as a law- 
 less procedure. For the coin I give (being such as I myself 
 secretly make) is for them sometimes only spurious metal, while 
 what I get is for me the very treasure of the Indies. For a lift in 
 my wagon, a drink at the door, a flying word across my fences, 
 I have taken argosies of minted wealth! 
 
 Especially do I enjoy all travelHng people. I wait for them 
 (how eagerly) here on my farm. I watch the world drift by in 
 daily tides upon the road, flowing outward in the morning 
 toward the town, and as surely at evening drifting back again. I 
 look out with a pleasure impossible to convey upon those who 
 
264 ADVENTURES OF DAVID GRAYSON 
 
 come this way from the town : the Syrian woman going by in the 
 gray town road, with her bright-coloured head-dress, and her 
 oil-cloth pack; and the Old-ironman with his dusty wagon, 
 jangling his Httle bells, and the cheerful weazened Herb-doctor 
 in his faded hat, and the Signman with his mouth full of 
 nails — how they are all marked upon by the town, all dusted 
 with the rosy bloom of human experience. How often in fancy 
 I have pursued them down the valley and watched them until 
 they drifted out of sight beyond the hill! Or how often I have 
 stopped them or they (too wilHngly) have stopped me— and 
 we have fenced and parried with fine bold words. 
 
 If you should ever come by my farm — you, whoever you are — 
 take care lest I board you, hoist my pirate flag, and sail you 
 away to the Enchanted Isle where I make my rendezvous. 
 
 It is not short of miraculous how, with cultivation, one's ca- 
 pacity for friendship increases. Once I myself had scarcely room 
 in my heart for a single friend, who am now so wealthy in 
 friendships. It is a phenomenon worthy of consideration by all 
 hardened disbeUevers in that which is miraculous upon this 
 earth that when a man's heart really opens to a friend he finds 
 there room for two. And when he takes in the second, behold the 
 skies lift, and the. earth grows wider, and he finds there room 
 for two more! 
 
 In a curious passage (which I understand no longer darkly) 
 old mystical Swedenborg tells of his wonderment that the 
 world of spirits (which he says he visited so familiarly) should 
 not soon become too small for all the swelling hosts of its 
 ethereal inhabitants, and was confronted with the discovery that 
 the more angels there were, the more heaven to hold them! 
 
 So let it be with our friendships! 
 
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