Adventures In Friendship.

by David Grayson.

I

AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY

This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest things, the rarest.

I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.

This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in pa.s.sing, that he was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much surprised and disappointed.

"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of having loyal friends wherever you go."

He told me all about his grips and pa.s.ses and benefits; he told me how much it would cost me to get in and how much more to stay in and how much for a uniform (which was not compulsory). He told me about the fine funeral the Masons would give me; he said that the Elks would care for my widow and children.

"You're just the sort of a man," he said, "that we'd like to have in our lodge. I'd enjoy giving you the grip of fellowship."

He was a rotund, good-humoured man with a shining red nose and a husky voice. He grew so much interested in telling me about his lodges that I think (I _think_) he forgot momentarily that he was selling corn-planters, which was certainly to his credit.

As I drove homeward this afternoon I could not help thinking of the Masons, the Oddfellows and the Elks--and curiously not without a sense of depression. I wondered if my friend of the corn-planters had found the pearl of great price that I have been looking for so long. For is not friendliness the thing of all things that is most pleasant in this world? Sometimes it has seemed to me that the faculty of reaching out and touching one's neighbour where he really lives is the greatest of human achievements. And it was with an indescribable depression that I wondered if these Masons and Oddfellows and Elks had in reality caught the Elusive Secret and confined it within the insurmountable and impenetrable walls of their mysteries, secrets, grips, pa.s.ses, benefits.

"It must, indeed," I said to myself, "be a precious sort of fraternity that they choose to protect so sedulously."

I felt as though life contained something that I was not permitted to live. I recalled how my friend of the corn-planters had wished to give me the grip of the fellowship--only he could not. I was not ent.i.tled to it. I knew no grips or pa.s.ses. I wore no uniform.

"It is a complicated matter, this fellowship," I said to myself.

So I jogged along feeling rather blue, marveling that those things which often seem so simple should be in reality so difficult.

But on such an afternoon as this no man could possibly remain long depressed. The moment I pa.s.sed the straggling outskirts of the town and came to the open road, the light and glow of the countryside came in upon me with a newness and sweetness impossible to describe. Looking out across the wide fields I could see the vivid green of the young wheat upon the brown soil; in a distant high pasture the cows had been turned out to the freshening gra.s.s; a late pool glistened in the afternoon sunshine. And the crows were calling, and the robins had begun to come: and oh, the moist, cool freshness of the air! In the highest heaven (never so high as at this time of the year) floated a few gauzy clouds: the whole world was busy with spring!

I straightened up in my buggy and drew in a good breath. The mare, half startled, p.r.i.c.ked up her ears and began to trot. She, too, felt the spring.

"Here," I said aloud, "is where I belong. I am native to this place; of all these things I am a part."

But presently--how one's mind courses back, like some keen-scented hound, for lost trails--I began to think again of my friend's lodges.

And do you know, I had lost every trace of depression. The whole matter lay as clear in my mind, as little complicated, as the countryside which met my eye so openly.

"Why!" I exclaimed to myself, "I need not envy my friend's lodges. I myself belong to the greatest of all fraternal orders. I am a member of the Universal Brotherhood of Men."

It came to me so humorously as I sat there in my buggy that I could not help laughing aloud. And I was so deeply absorbed with the idea that I did not at first see the whiskery old man who was coming my way in a farm wagon. He looked at me curiously. As he pa.s.sed, giving me half the road, I glanced up at him and called out cheerfully:

"How are you, Brother?"

You should have seen him look--and look--and look. After I had pa.s.sed I glanced back. He had stopped his team, turned half way around in his high seat and was watching me--for he did not understand.

"Yes, my friend," I said to myself, "I _am_ intoxicated--with the wine of spring!"

I reflected upon his astonishment when I addressed him as "Brother." A strange word! He did not recognize it. He actually suspected that he was not my Brother.

So I jogged onward thinking about my fraternity, and I don't know when I have had more joy of an idea. It seemed so explanatory!

"I am glad," I said to myself, "that I am a Member. I am sure the Masons have no such benefits to offer in their lodges as we have in ours. And we do not require money of farmers (who have little to pay). We will accept corn, or hen's eggs, or a sandwich at the door, and as for a cheerful glance of the eye, it is for us the best of minted coin."

(Item: to remember. When a man asks money for any good thing, beware of it. You can get a better for nothing.)

I cannot undertake to tell where the amusing reflections which grew out of my idea would finally have led me if I had not been interrupted. Just as I approached the Patterson farm, near the bridge which crosses the creek, I saw a loaded wagon standing on the slope of the hill ahead. The horses seemed to have been unhooked, for the tongue was down, and a man was on his knees between the front wheels.

Involuntarily I said:

"Another member of my society: and in distress!"

I had a heart at that moment for anything. I felt like some old neighbourly Knight travelling the earth in search of adventure. If there had been a distressed mistress handy at that moment, I feel quite certain I could have died for her--if absolutely necessary.

As I drove alongside, the stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in the moist road, and his face was red and angry.

A true knight, I thought to myself, looks not to the beauty of his lady, but only to her distress.

"What's the matter, Brother?" I asked in the friendliest manner.

"Bolt gone," he said gruffly, "and I got to get to town before nightfall."

"Get in," I said, "and we'll drive back. We shall see it in the road."

So he got in. I drove the mare slowly up the hill and we both leaned out and looked. And presently there in the road the bolt lay. My farmer got out and picked it up.

"It's all right," he said. "I was afraid it was clean busted. I'm obliged to you for the lift."

"Hold on," I said, "get in, I'll take you back."

"Oh, I can walk."

"But I can drive you faster," I said, "and you've got to get the load to town before nightfall."

I could not let him go without taking tribute. No matter what the story books say, I am firmly of the opinion that no gentle knight (who was human) ever parted with the fair lady whose misery he had relieved without exchanging the time of day, or offering her a bun from his dinner pail, or finding out (for instance) if she were maid or married.

My farmer laughed and got in.

"You see," I said, "when a member of my society is in distress I always like to help him out."

He paused; I watched him gradually evolve his reply:

"How did you know I was a Mason?"

"Well, I wasn't _sure_."