vat you vill sell me, madame, I vill buy it," said
one, with outspread hands.

Cattle go by, great droves of them, being driven along the Road and sold
from farm to farm until all are gone. I love the day that brings them. A
dust haze down the Road, the mooing of cows and the baaing of calves,
the shouts of the drovers, the sound of many hoofs, and the cattle are
here. The farmer and the "hired man" leave their work and saunter out to
the Road to "look 'em over," the children come running out to watch the
pretty creatures, sleek or tousled, soft-eyed or wild-eyed, yearlings
with bits of horns, stocky two-year-olds, and wabbly-legged youngsters
hardly able to keep pace with the rest, all of them glad enough of the
chance to pause in the shade and nibble at the rich, cool grass. One or
two of the "critters" are approved of, perhaps, and bought, and the rest
move on, the sunny dust haze rises and clears, the shouts of the drovers
grow faint, and the Road is still again.

Men go by looking for work; they will clean your well for you, they will
file your horses' teeth for you, they will mend your umbrellas and
repair your clocks and sharpen your scissors. In the city, when we hear
the scissors-grinder ding-ding-dinging along the street, we wonder in an
impersonal way how he makes a living; but in the country we espy him
from afar and are out at the gate to meet him, with all the scissors and
knives in the house.

There are tramps, too, of course. Not the kind one finds near cities, or
in crowded summer watering-places. Our Road does not lead to Rome, at
least not very directly, and the tramp who chooses it is sure to be a
mild and unenterprising creature, a desultory tramp who does not really
know his business. Some of the same ones come back year after year, and,
in defiance of modern sociological science, we offer them the
hospitality of the back porch with sandwiches and coffee, while we
exchange the commonplaces of the season. It is the custom of the Road.

And so the procession of the Road moves on. If we wait long enough--and
it is not so long either--everything goes by: gay wedding parties,
christening parties, slow funerals, the Road bears them all; and to
those who live beside it nothing is alien, nothing indifferent.
Throughout the week the daytime is for business--remembering always that
on the country Road business is never merely business, but always
sociability too; the early evening is for pleasure; the ni