less it might have been a humourist, to whom sometimes a
single small word is more blessed than all the verbal riches of Webster
himself. For it is nothing short of genius that uses one word when
twenty will say the same thing!

Or, would he, after all, turn out to be only a more than ordinarily
alluring advertiser? I confess my heart went into my throat that
morning, when I first saw the sign, lest it read:

[ RESTaurant 2 miles east ]

nor should I have been surprised if it had.

I caught a vicarious glimpse of the sign-man to-day, through the eyes
of a young farmer. Yes, he s'posed he'd seen him, he said; wore a slouch
hat, couldn't tell whether he was young or old. Drove into the bushes
(just down there beyond the brook) and, standin' on the seat of his
buggy, nailed something to a tree. A day or two later--the dull wonder
of mankind!--the young farmer, passing that way to town, had seen the
odd sign "Rest" on the tree: he s'posed the fellow put it there.

"What does it mean?"

"Well, naow, I hadn't thought," said the young farmer.

"Did the fellow by any chance have long hair?"

"Well, naow, I didn't notice," said he.

"Are you sure he wore a slouch hat?"

"Ye-es--or it may a-been straw," replied the observant young farmer.

So I tramped that morning; and as I tramped I let my mind go out warmly
to the people living all about on the farms or in the hills. It is
pleasant at times to feel life, as it were, in general terms: no
specific Mr. Smith or concrete Mr. Jones, but just human life. I love to
think of people all around going out busily in the morning to their work
and returning at night, weary, to rest. I like to think of them growing
up, growing old, loving, achieving, sinning, failing--in short, living.

In such a live-minded mood as this it often happens that the most
ordinary things appear charged with new significance. I suppose I had
seen a thousand rural-mail boxes along country roads before that day,
but I had seen them as the young farmer saw the sign-man. They were mere
inert objects of iron and wood.

But as I tramped, thinking of the people in the hills, I came quite
unexpectedly upon a sandy by-road that came out through a thicket
of scrub oaks and hazel-brush, like some shy countryman, to join
the turn-pike. As I stood looking into it--for it seemed peculiarly
inviting--I saw at the entrance a familiar group of rural-mail boxes.
And I saw them not as dead things, but for the momen