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
little 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 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 always had on hand some such
work--once I remember, a pistol--which he was turning out at odd times
for the very satisfaction 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 kerosene lamp in front of him. He was
humming his inevitable tune and smoothing off with a fine file the nice
curves of a rifle trigger. 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.

[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... OFTEN RESTED IN THE DOORWAY OF HIS
SHOP"]

In the years since I have known the old gunsmith and something 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 young man thought it should be prevented by law. I said
nothing; but I listened 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 payment 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 commend 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 smith says, 'when I feel like
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 pretends to
know."

The more I circulated among my friends, the more I heard of Carlstrom.
It is odd that I should have gone all these years knowing Carlstrom, and
yet never consciously until last week 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 of familiarity. (This
stooped gray neighbour 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 accustomed to the
Carlstrom of the gunshop that I could not at once reconcile myself to
the Carlstrom of Dr. McAlway's sitting room. And, indeed, there was a
striking change in his appearance. 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 humility 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 good will; he had a native
desire to make everything pleasant. I did not realize before what a fund
of humour the old man had. The Scotch Preacher rallied him on the number
of houses he now 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, I suppose,
began to hum as he does in his shop--stopping instantly, however, when
he realized 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 sometimes 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 preparations 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
afternoon 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 Carlstrom with any work. But
this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
the gunsmith humming louder than ever.

"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" 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 perfectly 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.

X

THE MOWING

"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
the earth."

This 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 cackling triumphantly: 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 after each roll
with an equine delight 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 confusing 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 earlier if it had not been for the frequent and sousing spring
showers. Already half the blossoms of the clover had turned brown and
were shriveling away into inconspicuous 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 Thursday 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 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 underneath. 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 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 one calls
him Dick. A good, cheerful fellow, Dick, and a hard worker. I like 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 pealing 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 attainment through vigorous effort! It was a
steady swing and swish, swish and swing! When Dick led I have a picture
of him in my 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 broiling 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 that 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 common
weariness. 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 bumblebees 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.

"Hungry, Dick?" I asked.

"Hungry!" exclaimed Dick with all the eloquence of 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 delicious 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 tinkling 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 click 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 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--bearing a platter of her most famous
fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed 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 little 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 countryside.

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 raspberries heaped up all over
it. When It came in--and I am speaking 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 shortcake."

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 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 processes 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 afternoon, 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 whistling 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.

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, stumbling on my way to bed, my
whole being seemed to cry out: "Thank God, thank God!"

XI

AN OLD MAN

Today 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, or 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. Everything 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
neighbourhood about him--and the trees rising full and calm on one side,
and the still greenery of the cemetery stretching away on the 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 forgetfulness 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 incident. He said
that he, too, marveling at the old man's calmness, 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
life."

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. Much of the world is a little misty
to us, a little out of focus. Uncle Richard Summer's 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 fevered
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

Not for many weeks have 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 like you and me_.

It 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 lettering. Whatever the airs
of pompous importance they may assume 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.

"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 is 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 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 reception 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 matter:

"Arty Caldwell, Republican 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 Governor, drawing up at my
gate, deliberately 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
reality 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 wholly disappointed when I have had to content myself with the
Travelling Evangelist 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 politician! 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 observe 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 reëlection. And it was as plain as a
pikestaff that he was here to lay down the political law to me. He would
do it smilingly 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 panoplied 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 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 countered 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
little 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 reëlection."

Boom! the cannon's opening roar!

"Well," I replied, also smiling, 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!

"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 Republican ticket," I said, "but I confess that
recently I have not been able to distinguish Republicans from
Democrats--and I've had my doubts," said I, "whether there is any real
Republican 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 between 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. Caldwell, 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 arguing 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 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.

[Illustration: "HE MOVED HIS CHAIR CLOSER TO MINE"]

"You don't understand," he said, "what it means to be down there at
Washington in a time like 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 accept 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 Washington."

"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."

"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons 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
political 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 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 understand, 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 we've got the impression that a good many of the men 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 believe 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
understood 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?"

"I'd have it in one sentence," I said, "and something like this: We
believe in the passage of legislation which shall prevent 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 politician."

"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

I 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 beguile 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 of my friends that I have
scarcely ever stopped to reflect upon the abstract quality 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 running 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, to watching with eagerness
while my friend unwraps (exclaiming 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 conditions. 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 indirection. Quite
unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality 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 feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
near him. He literally 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 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 lawless 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 travelling 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 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 little 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 willingly) 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 capacity 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 disbelievers 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!

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Adventures In Friendship, by David Grayson