October Vagabonds | Page 3

wilderness of bramble-bushes, poke-berries, myrtle-berries,
mandrakes, milkweed, mullein, daisies and what not--a paradise of
every sauntering vine and splendid, saucy weed. In the centre stood a
sycamore-tree, beneath which it was my custom to smoke a morning
pipe and revolve my profound after-breakfast thoughts.
Judge, then, of my indignant shock, one morning, at finding a stranger
calmly occupying my place. I stood for a moment rooted to the spot, in
the shadow of the encircling woods, and he had not yet seen me. As I
stood, pondering on the best way of dealing with the intruder, a sudden
revulsion of kindness stole over me. For here indeed was a very
different figure from what, in my first shock of surprise, I had expected
to see. No common intruder this. In fact, who could have dreamed of
coming upon so incongruous an apparition as this in an American
woodland? How on earth did this picturesque waif from the Quartier
Latin come to stray so far away from the Boul' Miche! For the little
boyish figure of a man that sat sketching in my place was the
Frenchiest-looking Frenchman you ever saw--with his dark,

smoke-dried skin, his long, straight, blue-black hair, his fine, rather
ferocious brown eyes, his long, delicate French nose, his bristling black
moustache and short, sting-shaped imperial. He wore on his head a soft
white felt hat, somewhat of the shape affected by circus clowns, and
too small for him. His coat was of green velveteen corduroy and he
wore knickerbockers of an eloquent plaid.
He was intently absorbed in sketching a prosperous group of weeds, a
crazy quilt of wildly jostling colour, that had grown up around the
decay of a fallen tree, and made a fine blazon of contrast against the
massed foliage in the background. There was no mistake how the
stranger loved this patch of coloured weeds. Here was a man whose
whole soul was evidently--colour. There was a look in his face as if he
could just eat those oranges and purples, and soft greens; and there was
a sort of passionate assurance in the way in which he handled his
brushes, and delicately plunged them here and there in his colour-box,
that spoke a master. So intent was he upon his work that, when I came
up behind him, he seemed unaware of my presence; though his oblivion
was actually the conscious indifference of a landscape painter,
accustomed to the ambling cow and the awe-struck peasant looking
over his shoulder as he worked.
"Great bunch of weeds," he said presently, without looking up, and still
painting, drawing the while at a quaint pipe about an inch long.
"O, you are not the Boul' Miche, after all," I exclaimed in
disappointment.
"Aren't I, though?" he said at last, looking up in interested surprise.
"Ever at--?" mentioning the name of a well-known cafe, one of the
many rally-points of the Quartier.
"I should say," I answered.
"Well!"
And thereupon we both plunged into delighted reminiscence of that city
which, as none other, makes immediate friends of all her lovers. For a

while the woods faded away, and in that tangled clearing rose the
towers of Notre Dame, and the Seine glittered on under its great bridges,
and again the world smelled of absinthe, and picturesque madmen
gesticulated in clouds of tobacco smoke, and propounded fantastic
philosophies amid the rattle of dominoes--and afar off in the street a
voice was crying "Haricots verts!" My new friend's talk had the pathos
of spiritual exile, for, as French in blood as a man could be, born in
Bordeaux of Provençal parentage, he had lived most of his life in
America. The decoration of a rich man's house in the neighbourhood
had brought him thus into my solitude, and, that work completed, he
would return to his home in New York.
Meanwhile the morning was going by as we talked, and, putting up his
sketch-box, he accepted my invitation to join me at lunch.
Such was the manner of my meeting, in the guise of a trespasser, with
the dear friend to whom I had brought the decisive news of the death of
Summer, as he was innocently making a salad, in antiquam silvam, on
that sad September evening.
CHAPTER IV
SALAD AND MOONSHINE
"Do you remember that first salad you made us, Colin?" I said, as we
sat over our coffee, and Colin was filling his little pipe. "A daring work
of art, a fantastic tour de force, of apples, and lettuce, and wild
strawberries, and I don't know what else."
"I believe I mixed in some May-apples, too. It was a great stunt ... well,
no more May-apples and strawberries this year," he finished, with a
sigh, and we both sat silently smoking, thinking over the good Summer
that