te know whether to be
angry, or amused, or sociable. I caught him looking over at me several
times, but I offered no response; then he cleared his throat and said:

"Where you from?"

I answered with a monosyllable which I knew he could not quite catch.
Silence again for some time, during which I shovelled valiantly and with
great inward amusement. Oh, there is nothing like cracking a hard human
nut! I decided at that moment, to have him invite me to supper.

Finally, when I showed no signs of stopping my work, he himself paused
and leaned on his shovel. I kept right on.

"Say, partner," said he, finally, "did YOU read those signs as you come
up the road?"

"Yes," I said, "but they weren't for me, either. My section's a long
one, too."

"Say, you ain't a road-worker, are you?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes," said I, with a sudden inspiration, "that's exactly what I am--a
road-worker."

"Put her there, then, partner," he said, with a broad smile on his
bronzed face.

He and I struck hands, rested on our shovels (like old hands at it), and
looked with understanding into each other's eyes. We both knew the trade
and the tricks of the trade; all bars were down between us. The fact is,
we had both seen and profited by the peculiar signs at the roadside.

"Where's your section?" he asked easily.

"Well," I responded after considering the question, "I have a very long
and hard section. It begins at a place called Prosy Common--do you know
it?--and reaches to the top of Clear Hill. There are several bad spots
on the way, I can tell you."

"Don't know it," said the husky road-worker; "'tain't round here, is it?
In the town of Sheldon, maybe?"

Just at this moment, perhaps fortunately, for there is nothing so
difficult to satisfy as the appetite of people for specific information,
a motor-car whizzed past, the driver holding up his hand in greeting,
and the road-worker and I responding in accordance with the etiquette of
the Great Road.

"There he goes in the ruts again," said the husky road-worker. "Why is
it, I'd like to know, that every one wants to run in the same identical
track when they've got the whole wide road before 'em?"

"That's what has long puzzled me, too," I said. "Why WILL people
continue to run in ruts?"

"It don't seem to do no good to put up signs," said the road-worker.

"Very little indeed," said I. "The fact is, people have got to be bumped
out of the ruts they get into."

"You're right,"