The Friendly Road [65]
and yet here they were this morning looking positively good-humoured, cheerful, some of them even gay. I warrant if I had stepped up to one of them that morning and intimated that he was a slave he would have--well, I should have had serious trouble with him! There was a degree of sociability in those back streets, a visiting from window to window, gossipy gatherings in front area-ways, a sort of pavement domesticity, that I had never seen before. Being a lover myself of such friendly intercourse I could actually feel the hum and warmth of that neighbourhood.
A group of brightly clad girl strikers gathered on a corner were chatting and laughing, and children in plenty ran and shouted at their play in the street. I saw a group of them dancing merrily around an Italian hand-organ man who was filling the air with jolly music. I recall what a sinking sensation I had at the pit of my reformer's stomach when it suddenly occurred to me that these people some of them, anyway, might actually LIKE this crowded, sociable neighbourhood! "They might even HATE the country," I exclaimed.
It is surely one of the fundamental humours of life to see absurdly serious little human beings (like D. G. for example) trying to stand in the place of the Almighty. We are so confoundedly infallible in our judgments, so sure of what is good for our neighbour, so eager to force upon him our particular doctors or our particular remedies; we are so willing to put our childish fingers into the machinery of creation--and we howl so lustily when we get them pinched!
"Why!" I exclaimed, for it came to me like a new discovery, "it's exactly the same here as it is in the country! I haven't got to make over the universe: I've only got to do my own small job, and to look up often at the trees and the hills and the sky and be friendly with all men."
I cannot express the sense of comfort, and of trust, which this reflection brought me. I recall stopping just then at the corner of a small green city square, for I had now reached the better part of the city, and of seeing with keen pleasure the green of the grass and the bright colour of a bed of flowers, and two or three clean nursemaids with clean baby cabs, and a flock of pigeons pluming themselves near a stone fountain, and an old tired horse sleeping in the sun with his nose buried in a feed bag.
"Why," I said, "all this, too, is beautiful!" So I continued my walk with quite a new feeling in my heart, prepared again for any adventure life might have to offer me.
I supposed I knew no living soul in Kilburn but Bill the Socialist. What was my astonishment and pleasure, then in one of the business streets to discover a familiar face and figure. A man was just stepping from an automobile to the sidewalk. For an instant; in that unusual environment, I could not place him, then I stepped up quickly and said:
"Well, well, Friend Vedder."
He looked around with astonishment at the man in the shabby clothes--but it was only for an instant.
"David Grayson!" he exclaimed, "and how did YOU get into the city?"
"Walked," I said.
"But I thought you were an incurable and irreproachable countryman! Why are you here?"
"Love o' life," I said; "love o' life."
"Where are you stopping?" I waved my hand.
"Where the road leaves me," I said. "Last night I left my bag with some good friends I made in front of a livery stable and I spent the night in the mill district with a Socialist named Bill Hahn."
"Bill Hahn!" The effect upon Mr. Vedder was magical.
"Why, yes," I said, "and a remarkable man he is, too."
I discovered immediately that my friend was quite as much interested in the strike as Bill Hahn, but on the other side. He was, indeed, one of the directors of the greatest mill in Kilburn--the very one which I had seen the night before surrounded by armed sentinels. It was thrilling to me, this knowledge, for it seemed to plump me down at once in the middle of things--and soon, indeed, brought me nearer to the brink of great events than ever I was before in all my days.
I could see
A group of brightly clad girl strikers gathered on a corner were chatting and laughing, and children in plenty ran and shouted at their play in the street. I saw a group of them dancing merrily around an Italian hand-organ man who was filling the air with jolly music. I recall what a sinking sensation I had at the pit of my reformer's stomach when it suddenly occurred to me that these people some of them, anyway, might actually LIKE this crowded, sociable neighbourhood! "They might even HATE the country," I exclaimed.
It is surely one of the fundamental humours of life to see absurdly serious little human beings (like D. G. for example) trying to stand in the place of the Almighty. We are so confoundedly infallible in our judgments, so sure of what is good for our neighbour, so eager to force upon him our particular doctors or our particular remedies; we are so willing to put our childish fingers into the machinery of creation--and we howl so lustily when we get them pinched!
"Why!" I exclaimed, for it came to me like a new discovery, "it's exactly the same here as it is in the country! I haven't got to make over the universe: I've only got to do my own small job, and to look up often at the trees and the hills and the sky and be friendly with all men."
I cannot express the sense of comfort, and of trust, which this reflection brought me. I recall stopping just then at the corner of a small green city square, for I had now reached the better part of the city, and of seeing with keen pleasure the green of the grass and the bright colour of a bed of flowers, and two or three clean nursemaids with clean baby cabs, and a flock of pigeons pluming themselves near a stone fountain, and an old tired horse sleeping in the sun with his nose buried in a feed bag.
"Why," I said, "all this, too, is beautiful!" So I continued my walk with quite a new feeling in my heart, prepared again for any adventure life might have to offer me.
I supposed I knew no living soul in Kilburn but Bill the Socialist. What was my astonishment and pleasure, then in one of the business streets to discover a familiar face and figure. A man was just stepping from an automobile to the sidewalk. For an instant; in that unusual environment, I could not place him, then I stepped up quickly and said:
"Well, well, Friend Vedder."
He looked around with astonishment at the man in the shabby clothes--but it was only for an instant.
"David Grayson!" he exclaimed, "and how did YOU get into the city?"
"Walked," I said.
"But I thought you were an incurable and irreproachable countryman! Why are you here?"
"Love o' life," I said; "love o' life."
"Where are you stopping?" I waved my hand.
"Where the road leaves me," I said. "Last night I left my bag with some good friends I made in front of a livery stable and I spent the night in the mill district with a Socialist named Bill Hahn."
"Bill Hahn!" The effect upon Mr. Vedder was magical.
"Why, yes," I said, "and a remarkable man he is, too."
I discovered immediately that my friend was quite as much interested in the strike as Bill Hahn, but on the other side. He was, indeed, one of the directors of the greatest mill in Kilburn--the very one which I had seen the night before surrounded by armed sentinels. It was thrilling to me, this knowledge, for it seemed to plump me down at once in the middle of things--and soon, indeed, brought me nearer to the brink of great events than ever I was before in all my days.
I could see