The Friendly Road | Page 8

and
say nothing--though indeed I never could do that, being far too much
interested in every one who came my way--and the invader was soon
repelled. There is nothing so resistant as the dull security of possession
the stolidity of ownership!
Many times that day I stopped by a field side or at the end of a lane, or
at a house-gate, and considered the possibilities of making an attack.
Oh, I measured the houses and barns I saw with a new eye! The kind of
country I had known so long and familiarly became a new and foreign
land, full of strange possibilities. I spied out the men in the fields and
did not fail, also, to see what I could of the commissary department of
each farmstead as I passed. I walked for miles looking thus for a

favourable opening--and with a sensation of embarrassment at once
disagreeable and pleasurable. As the afternoon began to deepen I saw
that I must absolutely do something: a whole day tramping in the open
air without a bite to eat is an irresistible argument.
Presently I saw from the road a farmer and his son planting potatoes in
a sloping field. There was no house at all in view. At the bars stood a
light wagon half filled with bags of seed potatoes, and the horse which
had drawn it stood quietly, not far off, tied to the fence. The man and
the boy, each with a basket on his arm, were at the farther end of the
field, dropping potatoes. I stood quietly watching them. They stepped
quickly and kept their eyes on the furrows: good workers. I liked the
looks of them. I liked also the straight, clean furrows; I liked the
appearance of the horse.
"I will stop here," I said to myself.
I cannot at all convey the sense of high adventure I had as I stood there.
Though I had not the slightest idea of what I should do or say, yet I was
determined upon the attack.
Neither father nor son saw me until they had nearly reached the end of
the field.
"Step lively, Ben," I heard the man say with some impatience; "we've
got to finish this field to-day."
"I AM steppin' lively, dad," responded the boy, "but it's awful hot. We
can't possibly finish to-day. It's too much."
"We've got to get through here to-day," the man replied grimly; "we're
already two weeks late."
I know just how the man felt; for I knew well the difficulty a farmer has
in getting help in planting time. The spring waits for no man. My heart
went out to the man and boy struggling there in the heat of their field.
For this is the real warfare of the common life.
"Why," I said to myself with a curious lift of the heart, "they have need
of a fellow just like me."
At that moment the boy saw me and, missing a step in the rhythm of
the planting, the father also looked up and saw me. But neither said a
word until the furrows were finished, and the planters came to refill
their baskets.
"Fine afternoon," I said, sparring for an opening.
"Fine," responded the man rather shortly, glancing up from his work. I

recalled the scores of times I had been exactly in his place, and had
glanced up to see the stranger in the road.
"Got another basket handy?" I asked.
"There is one somewhere around here," he answered not too cordially.
The boy said nothing at all, but eyed me with absorbing interest. The
gloomy look had already gone from his face.
I slipped my gray bag from my shoulder, took off my coat, and put
them both down inside the fence. Then I found the basket and began to
fill it from one of the bags. Both man and boy looked up at me
questioningly. I enjoyed the situation immensely.
"I heard you say to your son," I said, "that you'd have to hurry in order
to get in your potatoes to-day. I can see that for myself. Let me take a
hand for a row or two."
The unmistakable shrewd look of the bargainer came suddenly into the
man's face, but when I went about my business without hesitation or
questioning, he said nothing at all. As for the boy, the change in his
countenance was marvellous to see. Something new and astonishing
had come into the world. Oh, I know what a thing it is to be a boy and
to work in trouting time!
"How near are you planting, Ben?" I asked.
"About fourteen inches."
So we began in fine spirits. I was delighted with the favourable
beginning of my enterprise; there is nothing which so draws men