on a june day, years ago, i was walking along our country road. at the top of a steep little hill i paused to rest and let my eyes luxuriate in the billowing greens and tender blues of the valley below. while i stood there my neighbor came slowly up from the garden, her apron over her head, a basket of green peas on her arm.
"what a view you have up here on your hill!" i said.
she drew back her apron and turned to look off. "yes," she said indulgently; "ye-e-s." then her face brightened and she turned to me with real animation: "but it's better in winter when the leaves is off, 'n' you c'n see the passin' on the lower road."
fresh from the city as i was, with all its prejudices and intolerance upon me, i was partly amused, partly irritated, by her answer. so all this glory of greenness, all this wonder of[pg 115] the june woodland, was merely tolerated, while the baffled observer waited for the leaves to be "off"! and all for the sake of seeing—what? a few lumber wagons, forsooth, loaded with ties for the railway, a few cows driven along morning and evening, a few children trudging to and from school, the postman's buggy on its daily rounds, twice a week the meat cart, once a week the grocery wagon, once a month the "tea-man," and now and then a neighbor's team on its way to the feed-store or the blacksmith's shop down at "the corners."
for this, then,—not for the beauty of the winter landscape, but for this poor procession of wayfarers, my neighbors waited with impatience. if i could, i would have snatched up their view bodily and carried it off with me, back to my own farm for my own particular delectation. it should never again have shoved itself in their way.
but since that time i have lived longer in the country. if i have not made it my home for all twelve months, i have dwelt in it from early april to mid-december, and now, when i think of my neighbor's remark, it is with growing[pg 116] comprehension. i realize that i, in my patronizing one-sidedness, was quite wrong.
city folk go to the country, as they say, to "get away"—justifiable enough, perhaps, or perhaps not. they seek spots remote from the centres; they choose deserted districts, untraveled roads; they criticize their ancestors unmercifully for their custom of building houses close to the road and keeping the front dooryard clear of shrubbery. but they who built those homes which are our summer refuge did not want to get away; they wanted to get together. the country was not their respite, it was their life, and the road was to them the emblem of race solidarity—nay, more than the emblem, it was the means to it. this is still the case with the country people, and as i live among them i am coming to a realization of the meaning of the road.
in the city one can never get just this. there are streets, of course, but by their very multiplicity and complexity they lose their individual impressiveness and are merged in that great whole, the city. one recoils from them and takes refuge in the sense of one's own home.[pg 117]
but in the country there is just the road. recoil from it? one's heart goes out to it. the road is a part of home, the part that reaches out to our friends and draws them to us or brings us to them. it is our outdoor clubhouse, it is the avenue of the expected and the unexpected, it is the home road.
in a sense it does no more for us, and in some ways much less, than our city streets do. along these, too, our tradesmen's carts come to our doors, along these our friends must fare as they arrive or depart; we seek the streets at our outgoings and our incomings. but they are, after all, strictly a means. we use them, but when we enter our homes we forget them, or try to. our individual share in the street is not large. so much goes on and goes by that has only the most general bearing on our interests that we cease to give it our attention at all. it is not good form to watch the street, because it is not worth while. when children's voices fly in at our windows, we assume that they are other people's children, and they usually are. when we hear teams, we expect them to go by, and they usually do. when we hear a cab door slam, we take it for granted[pg 118] that it is before some other house, and usually it is. and if, having nothing better to do, we perchance walk to the window and glance out between the curtains, we are repaid by seeing nothing interesting and by feeling a little shamefaced besides.
not so in the country. what happens along the road is usually our intimate concern. most of those who go by on it are our own acquaintances and neighbors, and are interesting as such. the rest are strangers, and interesting as such. for it is the rarity of the stranger that gives him his piquancy.
and so in the country it is both good form and worth while to watch the road—to "keep an eye out," as they say. when jonathan and i first came to the farm, we were incased in a hard incrustation of city ways. when teams passed, we did not look up; when a wagon rattled, we did not know whose it was, and we said we did not care. when one of our neighbors remarked, casually, "heard bill smith's team go by at half-past eleven last night. wonder if the's anythin' wrong down his way," we stared at one another in amazement, and wondered, "now, how in the[pg 119] world did he know it was bill smith's team?" we smiled over the story of a postmistress who had the ill luck to be selling stamps when a carriage passed. she hastily shoved them out, and ran to the side window—too late! "sakes!" she sighed; "that's the second i've missed to-day!" we smiled, but i know now that if i had been in that postmistress's place i should have felt exactly as she did.
when we began to realize the change in ourselves, we were at first rather sheepish and apologetic about it. we fell into the way of sitting where we could naturally glance out of the windows, but we did this casually, as if by chance, and said nothing about it. when august came, and dusk fell early and lamps were lighted at supper-time, i drew down the shades.
but one night jonathan said, carelessly, "why do you pull them all the way down?"
"why not?" i asked, with perhaps just a suspicion.
"oh," he said, "it always seems so cheerful from the road to look in at a lighted window."
i left them up, but i noticed that jonathan[pg 120] kept a careful eye on the shadowy road outside. was he trying to cheer it by pleasant looks, i wondered, or was he just trying to see all that went by?
jonathan's seat is not so good as mine for observation. a big deutzia bush looms between his window and the road, while at my window only the tips of a waxberry bush obscure the view, and there is a door beside me. therefore jonathan was distinctly at a disadvantage. he offered to change seats, suggesting that there was a draft where i was, and that the light was bad for my eyes, but i found that i did not mind either of these things.
one day a team passed while jonathan was carving. he looked up too late, hesitated, then said, rather consciously: "who was that? did you see?"
"i don't know," i said, with a far-away, impersonal air, as though the matter had no interest for me. but i hadn't the heart to keep up the pose, and i added: "perhaps you'll know. it was a white horse, and a business wagon with red wheels, and the man wore a soft felt hat, and there was a dog on the seat beside him."[pg 121]
before i had finished, jonathan was grinning delightedly. "suppose we shake these city ways," he said. he deliberately got up, raised the shades, pushed back a curtain, and moved a jug of goldenrod. "there! can you see better now?" he asked.
and i said cheerfully, "yes, quite a good deal better. and after this, jonathan, when you hear a team coming, why don't you stop carving till it goes by?"
"i will," said jonathan.
it was our final capitulation, and since then we have been much more comfortable. we run to the window whenever we feel inclined, and we leave our shades up at dusk without apology or circumlocution. we are coming to know our neighbors' teams by their sound, and we are proud of it. why, indeed, should we be ashamed of this human interest? why should we be elated that we can recognize a bluebird by his flight, and ashamed of knowing our neighbor's old bay by his gait? why should we boast of our power to recognize the least murmur of the deceptive grosbeak, and not take pride in being able to "spot" bill smith's team by the[pg 122] peculiar rattle of its board bottom as it crosses the bridge by the mill? is he not of more value than many grosbeaks? but how can we love our neighbor if we do not pay some attention to him—him and his horse and his cart and all that is his? and how shall we pay attention to him if we neglect the opportunities of the road, since for the rest he is busy and we are busy, and we belong each to our own farm?
i stopped at a friendly door one day to ask, "have phil and jimmy gone by? i wanted to see them."
"no, i haven't seen them." the bright-faced little lady stood in the doorway glancing over my shoulder out toward the sunny road. "have you seem them to-day, nellie?" she called into the dusky sitting-room. "no," she turned back to me, "we haven't seen them. and," she added, with gay directness, "nobody could get by the house without our seeing them; i'm sure of that!"
her remark pleased me immensely. i like this frank interest in the road very much. when i am at home, i have it myself, and i have stopped being ashamed of it. when i[pg 123] am on the road, i like to know that i am an object of interest to the dwellers in the houses i pass. i look up at the windows, whose tiny panes reflect the brightness of outdoors and tell me nothing of the life within, and i like to think that some one behind them knows that i am going by. often there is some sign of recognition—a motion of the hand through a parted curtain, or rarely a smiling face; now and then some one looks out from a doorway to send a greeting, or glances up from the garden or the well; but even without these tokens i still have the sense of being noticed, and i find it pleasant and companionable. in the city, when i go to see a friend, i approach a house that gives no sign. i mount to a noncommittal vestibule and push an impersonal button, and after the other necessary preliminaries i find my friends. in the country as i drive up to the house i notice curtains stirring, i hear voices, and before i have had time to get out and find the hitch-rope every person in the house is either at the gate or standing in the doorway. our visit is begun before we have left the road, the hospitable, social road. such ways would probably not[pg 124] do for the city. so much the worse for the city. the country ways are best.
everything that happens along the road has the social touch. in the city, orders are given by telephone, and when the delivery wagon comes, it sweeps up with a rush, the boy seizes a basket and jumps out, runs to the back door, shouts the name of the owner, slams down his goods, and dashes back to the wagon, with a crisp "git-up!" to the well-trained horse, who starts forward while his driver is still mounting to his seat.
not so in the country. the wagon draws peacefully out to the side of the road, and the horse falls to nibbling grass if he is unchecked, or to browsing on my rosebushes if he is not. if it is the grocer's wagon, the boy comes around to the back porch and we discuss what supplies will probably be needed by the time of his next visit. incidentally, we talk about weather and crops and woodchucks and trout, or bass or partridges, according to the season. if it is the meat cart or the fish wagon, i seize a platter and go out, the back flap of the cart is lifted up, i step under its shade and peer in, considering what is offered[pg 125] me and deciding what i will have plucked out for me to carry back to the house.
besides the routine visitors, there are others—peddlers with wonderful collections of things to sell (whole clothing shops or furniture stores some of them bring with them), peddlers with books, peddlers with silver, peddlers with jewelry. in the course of a few months one is offered everything from shoe-strings to stoves. there are men who want to buy, too,—buyers of old iron, of old rags, of old rubber. "anny-ting, anny-ting vat you vill sell me, madame, i vill buy it," said one, with outspread hands.
cattle go by, great droves of them, being driven along the road and sold from farm to farm until all are gone. i love the day that brings them. a dust haze down the road, the mooing of cows and the baaing of calves, the shouts of the drovers, the sound of many hoofs, and the cattle are here. the farmer and the "hired man" leave their work and saunter out to the road to "look 'em over," the children come running out to watch the pretty creatures, sleek or tousled, soft-eyed or wild-eyed, yearlings with bits of horns, stocky[pg 126] two-year-olds, and wabbly-legged youngsters hardly able to keep pace with the rest, all of them glad enough of the chance to pause in the shade and nibble at the rich, cool grass. one or two of the "critters" are approved of, perhaps, and bought, and the rest move on, the sunny dust haze rises and clears, the shouts of the drovers grow faint, and the road is still again.
men go by looking for work; they will clean your well for you, they will file your horses' teeth for you, they will mend your umbrellas and repair your clocks and sharpen your scissors. in the city, when we hear the scissors-grinder ding-ding-dinging along the street, we wonder in an impersonal way how he makes a living; but in the country we espy him from afar and are out at the gate to meet him, with all the scissors and knives in the house.
there are tramps, too, of course. not the kind one finds near cities, or in crowded summer watering-places. our road does not lead to rome, at least not very directly, and the tramp who chooses it is sure to be a mild and unenterprising creature, a desultory[pg 127] tramp who does not really know his business. some of the same ones come back year after year, and, in defiance of modern sociological science, we offer them the hospitality of the back porch with sandwiches and coffee, while we exchange the commonplaces of the season. it is the custom of the road.
and so the procession of the road moves on. if we wait long enough—and it is not so long either—everything goes by: gay wedding parties, christening parties, slow funerals, the road bears them all; and to those who live beside it nothing is alien, nothing indifferent. throughout the week the daytime is for business—remembering always that on the country road business is never merely business, but always sociability too; the early evening is for pleasure; the night is for rest, for that stillness that cities never know, broken only when human necessity most sharply importunes, in the crises of birth, of death. on sundays all the world drives to church, or sits on its doorstep and watches the rest. and sunday and week days alike, every one's interest goes out to the road.[pg 128]
i venture to say that when we think of our city homes we think of their interiors, but when we think of our farmhouse homes we think of the road as well. they are like little islands in a river,—one remembers them together. for the road is a river—a river of life. most of our words about roads imply motion. a road comes, we say, and it goes, it sweeps, it curves, it climbs, it descends, it rises and drops, it bends and turns. and, in fact, it means movement, it is always bringing life and taking it again, or if for a time it does neither, it is always inviting, always promising. we have all felt it. as we are whirled along in a railway train even, the thing that stirs our imagination is the roads, the paths. i can still remember glimpses of these that i had years ago—a footpath over a rounded hilltop through long yellow grass, a rough logging-road beside a foaming mountain river, a brushy wood road leading through bars into deep shade, a country road at dusk, curving past a low farmhouse with lights in the windows. i could never follow these roads, but i remember them still, and still they allure me.[pg 129]
our road, as it flows placidly past our farm, suggests nothing very exciting or spectacular. it is a pretty bit of road, rounding a rocky corner of the farm and leading past the old house under cool depths of maple shade, out again into a broad space of sunlight, dropping over a little hill, around a curve, and out of sight. i know it well, of course, every rock and flower of it, but its final appeal to me is not through its beauty, it is not even through my sense of ownership in it; it is simply that it is a road—a road that leads out of everywhere into everywhere else, a road that goes on. about a road that ends there is no glamour. it may be pretty or useful, but as a road it is a failure. for the road is the symbol of endless possibility. from the faintest footpath across a meadow, where as a child one has always felt that some elf or gnome may appear, or along which, if one were to wander with sufficient negligence, one might be led into the realm of "faerie" to the broad turnpike which fares through open country, plunges through the surging cities, and escapes to broad lands beyond—any path, any road, makes this appeal. and so long as one has faith that what may be is more than what is, so long as one has the buoyant patience to await it or the will to go forth and seek it, so long as one has the imagination and the heart of the wayfarer, the charm of the road will be potent.
