Adventures in friendship
f K :ef 'V : '■■.: I ^^^k ,^<» 1fc«<.^S^Z :> Hl^^M.. '^^<^\. J '*»^Aj!^^*'" V .?j«. •ii\'* ** ^^ B^^BS^Hi ^*«w, ►- ••#«w^*> » •)««• //* ;.^; ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresinfrieOObal<euoft "7/ any one is sick she appears with her little basket." [An Old Maid] ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP By DAVID GRAYSON Author of "Adventures in Contentment''^ Illustrated by THOMAS FOGARTY NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS I'V 4U.L BIGHTS KKSESVZi), IKCLITOING THAT OT TSANSLATION INTO YOKEIGN LANGUAGES, INCLITDING TH£ SCAMOINAVIAH COraiGHT, I9IO, BY DOUBLXDAY, PAGE & COUFANT PUBLISHED, OCTOBIE, I9IO COfniGVX, 190S, ioog,.igio, bt tee Phillips publishing compaht 'tf ^w CONTENTS CHAPTEK I. An Adventure in Fraternity . « Mfoa I II. A Day of Pleasant Bread . , ►1 19 III. The Open Road . . , ► 43 IV. On Being Where You Belong , ' 57 V. The Story of Anna . . , • 73 VI. The Drunkard , . • , 95 VII. An Old Maid . . . , . 117 VIII. A Roadside Prophet • • , ► 131 IX. The Gunsmith • • • « » 147 X. The Mowing . • • , , 171 XI. An Old Man. • 193 XII. The Celebrity , •. • 201 XIII. On Friendship . ', , , 1 223 V-"'^ AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY g ( ! I I \^ I AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY THIS, 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 common- est 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 3 4 ADVENTURES IN 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 sur- prised 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 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 muth interested in telling me i FRIENDSHIP 5 about his lodges that I think (I think) 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 won- dered 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 friend- liness 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 achieve- ments. And it was with an indescribable depression that I wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and impene- trable 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 6 ADVENTURES IN 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 complicated matter, this fellow- ship," I said to myself. So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult. 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 countryside 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 FRIENDSHIP 7 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 depression. 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 be- long to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of the Universal Brother- hood 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 ab- sorbed with the Idea that I did not at first see the whiskery pld man who was coming 8 ADVENTURES IN my way In a farm wagon. He looked at me 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 f^i spring!" I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A strange word! He did not recognize it. He ac- tually 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 offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And we do not require « r FRIENDSHIP 9 money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sand- wich 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 any- thing. I felt like some old neighbourly Knight travelling 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. lo ADVENTURES IN 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 cleap 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. FRIENDSHIP . II "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 relieved 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 distress 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 like it first-rate. When you're a Mason you find friends everywhere." I had some excellent remarks that I could have made at this point, but the distance was short and bolts were irresistibly upper- most. After helping him to put in the bolt, I said: j 12 ADVENTURES IN "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." "If ever I can do anything for you," he said, "just you let me 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 any- thing 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 discour- aged 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 FRIENDSHIP 13 out of the road and stood silent, saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man 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 re- marked. "Heavier for you," I replied. So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me diffidently. "Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable." "Well, sir, Fm 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. 14 ADVENTURES IN "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 belong 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 bright- ened 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 dis- couragement had done their best to oblit- erate them; his nose was thin and high, his eye was blue, too blue, and his chin somehow did not go with the Rucker farm. I knew! A man who in his time had seen many an open door, but who had found them all closed when he attempted to enter! If FRIENDSHIP IS 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 I. I 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 some- times, isn't it?" I observed. "You bet it is," he responded. "You've been there yourself, haven't you?" There may be such a thing as the friend- ship of prosperity; but surely it cannot be i6 ADVENTURES IN compared with the friendship of adversity. 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 unpro- ductive 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 flood-, gates! As to my companion, he had been growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement; all he needed was a listener. He was so absorbed in his talk that he did not at first realize that we had turned into his own long lane. When he discovered it he exclaimed; FRIENDSHIP 17 "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 de- pressed (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: "I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society." As I drove away I could not help chuck- ling 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 i8 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP twilight, and as I came up the lane, the door of my home Opened, the light within gleamed kindly and warmly across the dark- ened yard: and Harriet was there on the step, waiting. A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD -» -»* II A DAY OF PLEASANT BREAD THEY have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, ask- ing 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 atmos- phere still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity. 22 ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP The parting voice of the Scotch Preachef 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 of the whole year. As for me, I like 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 unex- pectedly — 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 kindlier world than I had ever dreamed it could be. So I sing out to Harriet as I go down: [ "Merry Christmas, Harriet" — and not 24 ADVENTURES IN waiting for her sleepy reply I go down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest 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 path- way 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!" FRIENDSHIP 25 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 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 rises out of the warmth within. I step inside. My horse 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 play- fully. Thus I go out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's the only way to a6 ADVENTURES IN stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard Is quiet again except 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 ex- plain 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 abcut my chores I had a peculiar sense of expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and adventurous was about to hap- pen — and If It did not happen offhand, 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 vorked for an hour before breakfast on a FRIENDSHIP 27 morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider 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 adventure 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." "Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You may de- pend 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 I 28 ADVENTURES IN have liked to make upon this problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes fixed reflectively on the coffee- pot. I 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 high- ways, didn't you.^ 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 about 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?" frie:ndship 29 "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 wxre really suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you advising the necessity of getting acquainted 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 30 ADVENTURES IN 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 morn- ing.?" "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 for- gotten her disappointment over the non- arrival of the cousins. "If you should get the Starkweathers " "*In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I ob- served, "'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 FRIENDSHIP ji •paces 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 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 him- self, God bless him! "Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas." I drew my face down and said solemnly: 32 ADVENTURES IN "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 com- pel the poor of this neighbourhood to come to our feast." The Scotch Preacher observed me with a twinkle 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 thoroughly 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?" FRIENDSHIP 33 "It is," I said, "a goose — a big one." He heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. **You have comforted 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 morning, began to fail me. Though Harriet and I were well enough acquainted with the Stark- weathers, yet at this late moment on Christmas morning it did seem rather a hair- 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 everything — with which the room was filled. I saw it now, as I had often seen it before, with a peculiar sense of weariness. How all these things, though 34 ADVENTURES IN beautiful enough in themselves, must clutter up a man's life! Do you know, the more I look into life, the more things it seems to me I can suc- cessfully 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 like to think of an old Japanese noble- man I once read about, who ornamented his house with a single vase at a time, living 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 mis- taken our course and placed our hearts upon the multiplicity rather than the quality of our possessions! Presently Mr. Starkweather appeared in the doorway. He wore a velvet smoking- FRIENDSHIP' 35 jacket and slippers; 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. i "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 lies 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 furnish- ings 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 36 ADVENTURES IN 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, wit'i many rings on her fingers, and a pair of glasses hanging to a little 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 millionaires ! But Mrs. Starkweather had not told the whole of her sorrowful story. "We had a company of friends invited for dinner to-day," she said, "and our cook was 111 — 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 drink- ing. 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! FRIENDSHIP 37 "You might," I said, "apply for Mrs. Heney's place." "Who is Mrs. Heney?" asked Mrs. Stark- weather. "You don't mean to say that you never heard of Mrs. Heney!" I exclaimed. "Mrs. Heney, who is now Mrs. 'Penny' 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 per- formed 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, Christmas and other times of the year, I suppose our Woman's Aid Society and the King's Daughters would have per- ished miserably of undistributed 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 occasion 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 Christ- 38 ADVENTURES IN mas they always wore a painfully stuffed and suffocated look. I only came to appre- ciate fully what a self-sacrificing public 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. "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 Mr. 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. " FRIENDSHIP 39 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 pump- kin 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 off 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. Starkweather 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 or- 40 ADVENTURES IN gan, 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 gaze on so fondly to-day ," 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 en his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and be- fore we got through he, too, joined in with his big sonorous voice: ** Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art ,'* 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. *>tarkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet's hands in hers and said with great earnestness: FRIENDSHIP 41 **I haven't had such a good time at Christ- mas 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 persuade them that the things they think serious are not serious at all. THE OPEN ROAD Ill THE OPEN ROAD "To make space for wandering is it that the world wa» made so wide." — GdETHE, Wilhglm Meister. I LOVE sometimes to have a 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 world around me. I go out of my door in the morn- ing — 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 responsi- bility. I draw in the fresh air, odour- 45 46 ADVENTURES IN laden from orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new — and behold everything 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! 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: !• 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. FRIENDSHIP 47 For want of that ardent inner curiosity which is the only true foundation for the apprecia- tion of beauty — for beauty is inward, not outward — we find ourselves hastening from land to land, gathering mere curious resem- blances 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 wilderness, 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 be- hold, a new heaven and a new earth! Things grow old and stale, not because they are old, but because 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 won- derful than the shining heights of the Alps! It has seemed to me sometimes as though I could see men hardening before my eyes, 48 ADVENTURES IN drawing in a feeler here, walling up an open- ing 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 for- ever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally how everything wearies them: and that is old age! 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 FRIENDSHIP 49 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 musk- rat, 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! What more than that is the accomplish- ment of the great inventor, poet, painter? Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. 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 so ADVENTURES IN' 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 foolish illusion. Indeed, I am not telling of it because it is practical; there is no cash at the end of it. I am ref>orting it as an ex- perience in life; those who understand will understand. And thus out of my journeys I have words which bring back to me with indescribable poignancy the particular im- pression 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. 