The wayfarer who called himself Farr came down the long hill and turned the corner of the highway where the alders crowded to the banks of the narrow brook; they whispered to one another as the breeze fluttered their leaves. He drank there, bending and scooping the water in his palm. He bathed the rose and stroked its wilted petals.
“Too bad, little one!” he said. “The long road is a killing proposition, and I'm afraid I had no business inviting you to go with me. Your sister must be a long way ahead of us.”
The rocks were cool where the alders cast shade, and he sat there for a little while, watching the drift of tiny flotsam down the eddying current and observing the skipper-bugs skating over the still shallows on their spraddled legs.
There was a pleasant hush all about. The bubbling ecstasy of a bobolink floated above the grasses of a meadow, and near at hand a wren hopped about in the alders and chirped dozy notes. Peace and restfulness brooded. The man at the brook leaned low and thrust his head into the water and then rose and shook the drops from his thick thatch of brown hair. He did it with a sort of canine wriggle and smiled at the thought which came to him.
“A stray dog!” he muttered. “Of as much account—and he'd better forget the sister of the rose. Here's a good place to put imagination to sleep—here's a place where all is asleep.”
He went on around the curtain of the alders.
There was a big old-fashioned house near at hand. Its walls were weather-worn, its yard was not tidy. The faded curtains at the windows hung crookedly. The glass of the panes was dirty. The entire aspect of the place indicated that there was no woman's hand to make it home. It was commonplace and uninteresting.
But the front door was flung open suddenly with a screech of rusty hinges.
Then came backing out of the doorway a very old man—a bent and wrinkled old man with long white hair which trailed down from under a broad-brimmed hat. He was dragging a coffin, single-handed. The free end of the solemn box bumped down the wooden steps with a hollow clatter that suggested emptiness. There was a woodpile at one side of the yard. The old man tugged the casket over the litter of chips and dropped the end. He wrenched an ax from its cleft in a chopping-block and caved in the top of the coffin with the first blow.
The man Farr, observing from the road, saw that the casket was empty. The old man continued to bash and batter.
The wayfarer, before the destruction was begun, had time to note that the coffin was a remarkably fine specimen of cabinet-maker's work. There were various sorts of wood inlaid with care, and the fretwork along its sides had been jig-sawed with much pains spent in detail, and the pilasters were turned with art. But the old man battered at all this excellence with savageness. It was evident that he was not merely providing kindling-wood—he was expending fury.
It was an affair that demanded undivided attention from the observer in the road; but a man came around the corner of the house just then and Farr promptly gave over his interest in the aged chopper.
The new arrival was clothed cap-a-pie in armor.
He stood quietly at a little distance and gazed from under his vizor on the energetic old man at the woodpile.
Farr noted that the armor was obviously home-made. The helmet, though burnished and adorned with a horse's tail, had the unmistakable outlines of a copper kettle. The cuirass could not disguise its obligation to certain parts of an air-tight stove. But the ensemble was peculiarly striking and the man in the road took a quick glance around at the New England landscape in order to assure himself that he was still where he supposed he was.
Farr went to the fence and folded his arms on the top.
The old man, resting a moment, seemed to feel that intent regard from behind and, without turning his body, hooked his narrow and bony chin over his shoulder and swapped a long stare with the stranger.
“Well,” inquired the venerable chopper, “what is on thy mind, sir?” His tone was sour.
“Seeing that the question is direct and remembering that age deserves the truth, I'll say that I was thinking that this seems to be an ideal location for a private lunatic-asylum, and that guests are allowed to enjoy themselves.”
“I will have thee to understand that I have sat for thirty long years at the head of the Friends' meeting in this town and never has it been said that my wits are cracked. Furthermore, this is none of thy affair. Move on.”
Farr merely shifted his feet and took an easier pose at the fence.
“Feeling as I do, it will not trouble me much to come over there and take a chop or two at thee,” warned the old man.
“I didn't know that Quakers ever allowed their feelings to get so highly spiced.”
“Along with thee, tramp!”
“You see, my dear sir,” drawled the man in the road, “I am out in search of peace of mind. If I should go on my way without understanding what this means my itching curiosity would never allow me another good night's sleep. A word from you to soothe curiosity, and then I go!”
“Thee has seen me knocking into pieces a coffin. Is there anything strange in seeing me knock into pieces a coffin I have made with my own hands?”
“No, sir. That is quite within your rights. But why? From what little I saw of it it seemed to me to be a mighty fine piece of work.”
“It was,” stated the old man, a bit mollified. “Walnut with bird's-eye maple inlaid.”
“May I ask if it was made for anybody who died lately?”
“I made it for myself—I have had it by me for twenty years! Seeing that thee must stick thy nose into my business!” His tone was pettish and he stooped down and began to toss splinters and broken boards upon the woodpile.
“Then I suppose it was—er—sort of out of date,” suggested Farr, blandly.
“I see thee is minded to tease me—the world is full of fools.” He straightened as best he could, propping hands on his hips, and divided angry gaze between the man at the fence and the armored figure. “I am not going to die—I have decided to stay alive. I have a fool on my hands.”
“Father, I think thee had better choose thy words a bit better in the presence of a stranger,” advised the man in armor.
“Can't thee see that he is a fool?” demanded the old man.
“I don't think I want to venture an opinion, sir. I'll simply say that your son's choice of a summer suit seems a little peculiar. But, of course, every man to his liking!”
The old man walked down to the fence. He was crooked at the waist and his legs were hooked with the curves of age, but he strode along with brisk vigor. His gaze was as sharp as a gimlet, though the puckered lids were cocked over his eyes with the effect of little tents whose flaps were partly closed. He put his face close to Farr's.
“Thee is as cheeky as a crow and as prying as a magpie and I venture to say thee is a roving scamp. But I may as well talk to thee as to anybody.”
With armor rattling and squeaking, the son started toward them.
“I do not care to have thee talk about me, father,” he warned.
Farr noted that the son had eyes as keen and as gray as those of the elder. The armored citizen was sturdy and of middle age and the face under the vizor revealed intelligence and self-possession.
The father paid no heed to the son.
“Has thee traveled around the world much?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thee has met many men?”
“Many and of all sorts and conditions.”
“Then I want to ask thee what thee thinks of the good wit of a man who declares that he will go forth into the world, faring here and there, to try to do good to all men, to try to settle the troubles between men, free of all price?”
Farr turned gaze from the father to the earnest countenance of the son, and then stared again into the searching eyes of the old man. Prolonged and embarrassed silence followed.
“Thy looks speak louder than words,” declared the father. “Thy eyes say it—he is a fool.”
“It may be as well not to say so with thy tongue,” advised the son. “I might not be as patient with a stranger as I am with my father. He is wholly practical, without imagination, and so I excuse him.”
“I offer no comments,” said Walker Farr with a frank smile which won an answering flicker from the face under the vizor. “I do not understand.”
“I would not expect a vagabond to understand anything or to be brave enough to say what he thinks,” piped the father. He turned on his son. “Here's a scalawag of a tramp. Go along with him and be another such.”
“I may be a peripatetic philosopher, for all you know,” said Farr, teasingly. “There are knights in fustian as well as knights in armor.”
“I think thee is of more account than thy clothing indicates,” stated the son, regarding the stranger keenly. “And thee carries a rose in thy hand. Little things tell much.”
Farr put the flower into his pocket. “Don't fool yourself about me,” he said, roughly.
“Thy speech has betrayed thee,” insisted the other.
“I have met crib-crackers who were college men—and pocket dictionaries are cheap. And so good day to you, gentlemen.”
“Wait one moment!” appealed the man in armor. His face softened when he approached his father.
“We have talked much and there is no more to say to each other now. I have served here patiently many years. If I leave thee for a little while there is old Ben to wait and tend. And I will come back after I have done my duty.”
“I will stay alive so that I can bail thee out of prison,” his father informed him, sourly. “Go on, thou fool; learn thy lesson! The world is all right as it is; it will cuff the ears of meddlers. But go on!”
“I would rather thee would show another spirit at parting—but have it thy way,” returned the son, with Quaker repression of all emotions. He came forth from the gate.
“I am going thy road,” he informed Farr, “because all ways are alike to me. I would be pleased to talk with one who has journeyed. Thee may have good counsel for me. May I walk with thee?”
The wayfarer opened his mouth and closed it suddenly on a half-spoken and indignant refusal of this honor. He pursed his lips and his thick brows drew together in a frown. Then, as if in spite of himself, he began to smile.
“I will be no burden to thee,” pleaded the home-made knight. “I have had my armor for a long time and have practised walking in it.”
“But why the tin suit?” expostulated Farr.
“I will explain as we walk.”
“Well, come along!” blurted the wayfarer. “Nothing more can happen to me, anyway.”
“So thee has found one of thy own kind to follow about in the world?” inquired the father, tauntingly. “Feathers on the head and rattles in the hand! Cockahoops and fiddle-de-lorums! Thee'll be back soon with thy folly cured after I have bailed thee from the calaboose! Then thee'll stick to thy forge and be sensible!”
Farr noted a small shop by the roadside as they started off.
“My father is a good man, but practical—wholly practical,” said his new comrade of the ways. “From my good mother I derive imagination. My life has not been happy here. But work has helped.”
He pointed to the shop. Over the main door a faded, weather-worn sign advertised “Eastup Chick & Son, Blacksmiths.” On the gable was a newer sign heralding “Jared Chick & Father, Inventors.”
“I am Jared Chick, my friend.”
He talked slowly, pausing to pick words, phrasing with the carefulness of the man of method, talking as those persons talk who have read many books and use their tongue but seldom. Farr found much quaintness in the solemn man's discourse.
“My father put my name on the sign when I was young, and it pleased me. I put his name on the other sign when he was old and it did not please him, though I have insisted that he must share in all credit which comes to me. But my father does not possess imagination. I am sorry he lost his temper to-day and broke up his coffin. Not that I approved of having it in the house all these years, but he was very proud of it. He made it soon after my mother died. I think, now that he has destroyed it, he will live many years longer. He is very strong-minded.”
“I'm glad to have my suspicions confirmed,” said Farr.
“He was extremely angry when his eldest brother died at eighty. He stood over him in the last moments and made us all very uncomfortable by telling Uncle Joachim that there was no need of his dying—that if he would only show a little Chick spunk he could stay alive just as well as not and would not go fushing out just when he was most needed in the Friends' meeting.”
“Considering that the old fellow was eighty and probably felt like quitting, seems as if your father was rubbing it in just a little.”
“Perhaps he was a mite harsh, but there is another side of it. There were only three of us left of the Friends' society to go to the old meeting-house on First Day so that it might not be said that after one hundred years we had allowed the society of the fathers to perish in our town. Thee may have noted that my father and I still use the plain language, keeping up the ways of the founders. My father sat at the head of the meeting, my Uncle Joachim was next to him on the facing seat. I am the only worshiper. I am not fitted to be a minister. My father, when Joachim died, had no one with whom to exchange the hand-shake at the end of the meeting.”
“And now he's losing his congregation?”
“Yes, my friend, and so my father blames me for going, just as he blamed Uncle Joachim for dying. He has the meeting much at heart.”
“What will he do for a crowd after you go away?”
“He will continue to sit at the head of the meeting, sir.”
There was silence between them for some time. The blacksmith clanked on his way sturdily.
“He will still sit at the head of the meeting! Only a little fire is left there, sir, but he will not allow it to go out as long as he is alive to blow the bellows of devotion.”
“Look here, Brother Chick,” demanded Farr. “I don't want to be prying or impertinent, but what's your idea?”
“I'm not ashamed of anything I'm going to do. Even though it is a very strange plan, as the world would look at it, I'm not ashamed of it. A very few words will tell you: I'm going out among men and spread the gospel of mercy and forbearance, teach the lessons of peace, urge men to forgive instead of fight—showing them that courts of law are more often the devil's playground than the abode of real justice. I have worked hard, I have read many books, I have stored information in my mind, I have laid up money enough. You behold my armor—I have wrought at it patiently for a long time.”
“Expect to have 'em throw things at you?”
But the blacksmith, replying, gave no sign that he resented this brusque humor.
“It is well known that it is hard to attract the attention of the world from its own affairs. For instance, if I had stood in the yard to-day, dressed as a plain man, thee would have passed on thy way—providing father had been chopping up kindling-wood instead of a coffin. If I had stopped thee and started to explain my views thee would have paid little attention to me. Isn't that so?”
“It's so.”
“Well, then, thee have my theory and know my plan and have noted how it has worked,” said Mr. Chick.
“I don't want to discourage you in a good thing, but how long do you think a policeman would let you stand on a street corner?”
“I shall find places where I can deliver my message without offending.”
“There's another point—a rather delicate point to consider, Brother Chick. There are plenty of persons who are a bit dull when they are examining a man's motives, but who think they are almighty smart in detecting a man's mental failings; when somebody does anything they wouldn't do they say he's crazy.”
The blacksmith turned his serene face and smiled at Farr.
“I appeal to thy good judgment, sir. Would thee, after talking with me, even if I do wear iron outside my wool garments, send me to an asylum?”
“No,” acknowledged Farr, “I don't believe I would send you to an asylum.”
“Thank thee! I believe thee can speak quite generally for the average man.”
“But the armor scheme—it's a little risky, Friend Chick.”
“But it has been the trade-mark of unselfishness ever since the days of the Crusaders,” declared Mr. Chick. “Why shouldn't its significance be revived in these modern times? At any rate,” he added, with Yankee shrewdness, “it's necessary to give the world quite a jump these days before it will stop, look, and listen.”
“Some advertising concern will make you an offer that will pull you into camp your second day out, if you're not careful. You've certainly got a good idea of the business.”
“I am sincere. I am not trifling. I have pondered on this for a long time. I shall be misjudged—but I shall not be afraid!”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg