Adventures In Friendship - David Grayson
ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP
By David Grayson
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 commonest
things, the rarest.
I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.
This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
surprised and disappointed.
"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
having loyal friends wherever you go."
He told me all about his grips and passes and benefits; he told me how
much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how
much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine
funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for
my widow and children.
"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our
lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."
He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky
voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I
think (I _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 wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found
the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is
not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this
world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out
and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of
human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I
wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught
the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and
impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, passes, benefits.
"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity
that they choose to protect so sedulously."
I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to
live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give
me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not entitled to
it. I knew no grips or passes. I wore no uniform.
"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," 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 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 belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of
the Universal Brotherhood of Men."
It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not
help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I
did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a
farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he passed, giving me half the
road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:
"How are you, Brother?"
You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had passed I
glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his
high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.
"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine
of spring!"
I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A
strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was
not my Brother.
So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I
have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!
"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons
have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And
we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will
accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a
cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."
(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of
it. You can get a better for nothing.)
I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out
of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just
as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the
creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The
horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man
was on his knees between the front wheels.
Involuntarily I said:
"Another member of my society: and in distress!"
I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old
neighbourly Knight 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.
As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown
duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His
cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in
the moist road, and his face was red and angry.
A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady,
but only to her distress.
"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.
"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before
nightfall."
"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."
So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out
and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got
out and picked it up.
"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm
obliged to you for the lift."
"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."
"Oh, I can walk."
"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load
to town before nightfall."
I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story
books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was
human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had 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 uppermost. After
helping him to put in the bolt, I said:
"Here's the grip of fellowship."
He returned it with a will, but afterward he said doubtfully.
"I didn't feel the grip."
"Didn't you?" I asked. "Well, Brother, it was all there."
"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 anything might happen to me before I
got home. I know now exactly how all old knights, all voyageurs, all
crusaders, all poets in new places, must have felt! I looked out at
every turn of the road; and, finally, after I had grown almost
discouraged of encountering further adventure I saw a man walking in the
road ahead of me. He was much bent over, and carried on his back a bag.
When he heard me coming he stepped out of the road and stood silent,
saving every unnecessary motion, as a weary man will. He neither looked
around nor spoke, but waited for me to go by. He was weary past
expectation. I stopped the mare.
"Get in, Brother," I said; "I am going your way."
He looked at me doubtfully; then, as I moved to one side, he let his bag
roll off his back into his arms. I could see the swollen veins of his
neck; his face had the drawn look of the man who bears burdens.
"Pretty heavy for your buggy," he remarked.
"Heavier for you," I replied.
So he put the bag in the back of my buggy and stepped in beside me
diffidently.
"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."
"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
about all a man wants to carry for four miles."
"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.
"I'm that man."
"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.
"Have you?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we 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 brightened up, but when
I spoke of the society it clouded again.
"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"
"No more am I," I said.
"Nor an Oddfellow."
"Nor I."
As I looked at the man I seemed to know all about him. Some people come
to us like that, all at once, opening out to some unsuspected key. His
face bore not a few marks of refinement, though work and discouragement
had done their best to obliterate 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 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 seems if a man could get acquainted and friendly without."
"Farming is rather lonely work sometimes, 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 friendship of prosperity; but surely it
cannot be 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
unproductive farm. Is it not marvellous how full people are--all
people--of humour, tragedy, passionate human longings, hopes, fears--if
only you can unloosen the floodgates! As to my companion, he had been
growing bitter and sickly with the pent-up humours of discouragement;
all he needed was a listener.
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:
"I didn't mean to bring you out of your way. I can manage the bag all
right now."
"Never mind," I said, "I want to get you home, to say nothing of hearing
how you came out with your pigs."
As we approached the house, a mournful-looking woman came to the door.
My companion sprang out of the buggy as much elated now as he had
previously been depressed (for that was the coinage of his temperament),
rushed up to his wife and led her down to the gate. She was evidently
astonished at his enthusiasm. I suppose she thought he had at length
discovered his gold mine!
When I finally turned the mare around, he stopped me, laid his hand on
my arm and said in a confidential voice:
"I'm glad we discovered that we belong to the same society."
As I drove away I could not help chuckling when I heard his wife ask
suspiciously:
"What society is that?"
I heard no word of his answer: only the note in his voice of eager
explanation.
And so I drove homeward in the late twilight, and as I came up the
lane, the door of my home opened, the light within gleamed kindly and
warmly across the darkened yard: and Harriet was there on the step,
waiting.
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, asking
questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity 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
unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
than I had ever dreamed it could be.
[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
down and build the biggest, warmest, 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 pathway to the gate.
Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
no longer contain myself:
"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
And she closes the door.
Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
quiet again 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 explain it, but at such moments the circuit
of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
adventurous was about to happen--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 worked for an hour before
breakfast on a 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 depend upon me to do my duty."
"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
said Harriet ruefully.
I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. 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 highways, 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?"
"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
I maintain is _not_ logical.
"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
"David!"
"They're rich, aren't they?"
"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
they probably have a houseful of company."
"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
advising the necessity of getting 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 heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
"Christmas," I said.
I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
as fail.'"
So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
brook bottoms more enchantingly 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 himself, God bless him!
"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."
I drew my face down and said solemnly:
"Dr. McAlway, I am on a most serious errand."
"Why, now, what's the matter?" He was all sympathy at once.
"I am out in the highways trying to compel the poor of this
neighbourhood to come to our feast."
The Scotch Preacher observed me 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.