<h2><SPAN name="topic21" id="topic21"></SPAN>The Old Road</h2>
<p>There is an old road that I love to follow. If one may judge by
appearances, it is but slightly used by travelers, for it seems to
lead nowhere, and is quite content in its wanderings, winding
through cañons, over hills, and down valleys. I am told by
one who ought to know—for he is an old resident—that if
you follow its tortuous course far enough, it will lead you to a
town called Walnut Creek, but I cannot vouch for the truth of this
assertion, as I have never found a town or hamlet along its winding
course. In fact, I remember but one place of abode along its entire
length, and this, a weather-beaten cottage nearly hidden by the
pepper and acacia trees that surround it.</p>
<p>It is a quaint little place, and might have inspired the poet to
write that beautiful poem containing the lines,</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i2">Let me live in a house by the side of the road,</p>
<p class="i4">And be a friend to man,</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>for the cooling draught passed out to me one hot afternoon from
this house would certainly class the occupant as a benefactor.</p>
<p>The dew was sparkling on the grass when I set out in the early
morning, gossamer spider webs strung from leaf and stem glistened
in the sunlight, and up from a tuft of grass a meadow lark sprang
on silent wing, scattering his silvery notes, a paean of praise to
the early dawn.</p>
<p>A bluebird's notes blend with those of the song sparrow, and a
robin swinging on the topmost branch of a eucalyptus, after a few
short notes as a prelude, pours forth a perfect rhapsody of
melody.</p>
<p>At this place a hill encroaches upon the road at the right,
covered thickly with underbrush and blackberry vines, its crest
surmounted with a stately grove of eucalyptus trees, while on the
left there is an almost perpendicular drop to the valley below. So
narrow is the road that teams can hardly pass each other. Why it
should crowd itself into such narrow quarters when there is room to
spare is its own secret.</p>
<p>Stretching its dusty length along, it soon broadens out as if
glad to escape from its cramped quarters, and glides under the wide
spreading branches of a California buckeye, which stands kneedeep
in the beautiful clarkia, with its rose-pink petals, and wand-like
stalks of the narrow-leaved milkweed, with silken pods bursting
with fairy sails ready to start out on unknown travels.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN href= "images/179.jpg" target="blank" name="image179" id="image179"> <ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src="images/179.jpg" alt="THE OLD ROAD" /></SPAN>THE OLD ROAD</div>
<p>Leaving the shade, it climbs the hill for a broader view of the
surrounding landscape, and looks down on the bay on one side, and
the rolling hills and valleys on the other. Yellow buttercups nod
to it from the meadow, and the lavender snap dragons wave their
threadlike fingers in silent greeting. Tall, stately teasels stand
like sentinels along the way, and the balsamic tarweed spreads its
fragrance along the outer edge.</p>
<p>Threading its way down a steep hill; through a wealth of tangled
grasses; past a grove of live oaks, from whose twisted and
contorted limbs the gray moss hangs in long festoons, by Indian
paintbrush and scarlet bugler gleaming like sparks of fire amid the
green and bronze foliage, it glides at last into a somber
cañon. There a bridge spans the brook that gurgles its elfin
song to cheer the dusty traveler on its way.</p>
<p>The laurel, madrone, and manzanitas keep it company for some
distance on either side, and a catbird mews and purrs from a clump
of willows on the margin of the stream. A dozen or more
yellow-winged butterflies gathered at a moist spot, scatter like
autumn leaves before a gust of wind at my approach, dancing away on
fairy wings like golden sunbeams.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN href= "images/181.jpg" target="blank" name="image181" id="image181"> <ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src="images/181.jpg" alt= "IT CLIMBS THE HILL FOR A BROADER VIEW" /></SPAN>IT CLIMBS THE HILL FOR A BROADER VIEW</div>
<p>At a place where the road makes a bend to the right, and the
cat-tails and rushes grow in profusion, a blue heron, that spirit
of the marsh, stands grotesque and sedate, and gazes with
melancholy air into the water. Bullfrogs pipe, running the whole
gamut of tones from treble to bass, hidden away amid the water
grasses. Darning needles dodge in and out among the rushes in
erratic flight, and a blackbird teeters up and down on a tulle stem
while repeating over and over his pleasant "O-ko-lee."</p>
<p>But the road does not stop to look or listen, and once more it
climbs the hill where the golden poppy basks in the sunshine, and
the dandelions spread their yellow carpet for it to pass over, or,
nodding silken heads scatter their tiny fleet of a hundred fairy
balloons upon the wings of the summer winds.</p>
<p>Down the road, whistling blithely, comes a slip of a boy, with
fishing rod, cut from the adjacent thicket, over his shoulder and a
can of bait tucked securely under his arm, happy as a king in
anticipation of the fish he may never catch. At his heels trots
contentedly a yellow dog. True companions of the highway are they,
for no country road would be complete without its boy and dog, and
as I pass them I call back, "Good luck, my doughty fisherman," and
the road answers—or was it an echo?—"Good luck, good
luck."</p>
<p>But at last the shadows creep down cañon and hillside,
the soft light of evening touches the tops of tree and shrub with a
rosy splendor, shading from green to gold, from gold to purple; and
through the gathering dusk the road sinks into the surrounding
gloom, toiling on in silence with only the stars for company, and
the lights from firefly lanterns to guide it on its lonely way.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><SPAN href= "images/finis.jpg" target="blank" name="finis" id="finis"> <ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src= "images/finis.jpg" alt="Finis" /></SPAN></div>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
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