It is a strange thing: Adventure. I looked for her high and I looked for
her low, and she passed my door in a tattered garment--unheeded. For I
had neither the eye of simplicity nor the heart of humility. One day I
looked for her anew and I saw her beckoning from the Open Road; and
underneath the tags and tatters I caught the gleam of her celestial
garment; and I went with her into a new world.
I have had a singular adventure, in which I have made a friend. And I
have seen new things which are also true.
My friend is a drunkard--at least so I call him, following the custom of
the country. On his way from town he used often to come by my farm. I
could hear him singing afar off. Beginning at the bridge, where on still
days one can hear the rattle of a wagon on the loose boards, he sang in
a peculiar clear high voice. I make no further comment upon the singing,
nor the cause of it; but in the cool of the evening when the air was
still--and he usually came in the evening--I often heard the cadences of
his song with a thrill of pleasure. Then I saw him come driving by my
farm, sitting on the spring seat of his one-horse wagon, and if he
chanced to see me in my field, he would take off his hat and make me a
grandiloquent bow, but never for a moment stop his singing. And so he
passed by the house and I, with a smile, saw him moving up the hill in
the north road, until finally his voice, still singing, died away in the
distance.
Once I happened to reach the house just as the singer was passing, and
Harriet said:
"There goes that drunkard."
It gave me an indescribable shock. Of course I had known as much, and
yet I had not directly applied the term. I had not thought of my singer
as _that_, for I had often been conscious in spite of myself, alone in
my fields, of something human and cheerful which had touched me, in
passing.
After Harriet applied her name to my singer, I was of two minds
concerning him. I struggled with myself: I tried instinctively to
discipline my pulses when I heard the sound of his singing. For was he
not a drunkard? Lord! how we get our moralities mixed up with our
realities!
And then one evening when I saw him coming--I had been a long day alone
in my fields--I experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. With an
indescribable joyousness of adventure I stepped out toward the fence and
pretended to be hard at work.
"After all," I said to myself, "this is a large world, with room in it
for many curious people."
I waited in excitement. When he came near me I straightened up just as
though I had seen him for the first time. When he lifted his hat to me
I lifted my hat as grandiloquently as he.
"How are you, neighbour?" I asked.
He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his
hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went
on up the road.
My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the
street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have
recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could
imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore
neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He
had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man.
I stopped and asked him about his honey, and whether the fall flowers
had been plenty; I ran my eye over his horse, and said that it seemed to
be a good animal. But I could get very little from him, and that little
in a rather low voice. I came away with my interest whetted to a still
keener edge. How a man has come to be what he is--is there any discovery
better worth making?
[Illustration: "HE USUALLY CAME IN THE EVENING"]
After that day in town I watched for the bee-man, and I saw him often on
his way to town, silent, somewhat bent forward in his seat, driving his
horse with circumspection, a Dr. Jekyll of propriety; and a few hours
later he would come homeward a wholly different person, straight of
back, joyous of mien, singing his songs in his high clear voice, a very
Hyde of recklessness. Even the old horse seemed changed: he held his
head higher and stepped with a quicker pace. When the bee-man went
toward town he never paused, nor once looked around to see me in my
field; but when he came back he watched for me, and when I responded to
his bow he would sometimes stop and reply to my greeting.
One day he came from town on foot and when he saw me, even though I was
some distance away, he approached the fence and took off his hat, and
held out his hand. I walked over toward him. I saw his full face for the
first time: a rather handsome face. The hair was thin and curly, the
forehead generous and smooth; but the chin was small. His face was
slightly flushed and his eyes--his eyes _burned_! I shook his hand.
"I had hoped," I said, "that you would stop sometime as you went by."
"Well, I've wanted to stop--but I'm a busy man. I have important matters
in hand almost all the time."
"You usually drive."
"Yes, ordinarily I drive. I do not use a team, but I have in view a fine
span of roadsters. One of these days you will see me going by your farm
in style. My wife and I both enjoy driving."
I wish I could here convey the tone of buoyancy with which he said these
words. There was a largeness and confidence in them that carried me
away. He told me that he was now "working with the experts"--those were
his words--and that he would soon begin building a house that would
astonish the country. Upon this he turned abruptly away, but came back
and with fine courtesy shook my hand.
"You see," he said, "I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson--and a happy man."
So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing
again in his high voice. I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not
unmixed with sorrow. It was a strange case!
Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the
exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly
with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man. It was quite an
adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man. I was driving home; I met
him near the lower bridge. I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to
get at him. As he passed, I leaned out and said:
"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
me in the box since the carrier started?'"
"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
aside again.
On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
authority."
"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."
At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
bee-man.
"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
was up half the night; but I feel all right now."
The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.
I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
She said I was encouraging a vice.
"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
about it."
"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
think?"
But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
came into my room.
"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."
"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.
But she was not to be joked with.
"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
but when he comes home that way he seems so full of--life. He--he seems
to understand me better then!' She was heartbroken, one could see that,
but she would not admit it. I leave it to you, David, what can anyone do
with a woman like that? How is the man ever to overcome his habits?"
It is a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often
the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical!
Our stories won't turn out.
She told much more about her interview: the neat home, the bees in the
orchard, the well-kept garden. "When he's sober," she said, "he seems to
be a steady, hard worker."
After that I desired more than ever to see deep into the life of the
strange bee-man. Why was he what he was?
And at last the time came, as things come to him who desires them
faithfully enough. One afternoon not long ago, a fine autumn afternoon,
when the trees were glorious on the hills, the Indian summer sun never
softer, I was tramping along a wood lane far back of my farm. And at the
roadside, near the trunk of an oak tree, sat my friend, the bee-man. He
was a picture of despondency, one long hand hanging limp between his
knees, his head bowed down. When he saw me he straightened up, looked at
me, and settled back again. My heart went out to him, and I sat down
beside him.
"Have you ever seen a finer afternoon?" I asked.
He glanced up at the sky.
"Fine?" he answered vaguely, as if it had never occurred to him.
I saw instantly what the matter was; the exuberant bee-man was in
process of transformation into the shy bee-man. I don't know exactly how
it came about, for such things are difficult to explain, but I led him
to talk of himself.
"After it is all over," he said, "of course I am ashamed of myself. You
don't know, Mr. Grayson, what it all means. I am ashamed of myself now,
and yet I know I shall do it again."
"No," I said, "you will not do it again."
"Yes, I shall. Something inside of me argues: Why should you be sorry?
Were you not free for a whole afternoon?"
"Free?" I asked.
"Yes--free. You will not understand. But every day I work, work, work. I
have friends, but somehow I can't get to them; I can't even get to my
wife. It seems as if a wall hemmed me in, as if I were bound to a rock
which I couldn't get away from, I am also afraid. When I am sober I know
how to do great things, but I can't do them. After a few glasses--I
never take more--I not only know I can do great things, but I feel as
though I were really doing them."
"But you never do?"
"No, I never do, but I _feel_ that I can. All the bonds break and the
wall falls down and I am free. I can really touch people. I feel
friendly and neighbourly."
He was talking eagerly now, trying to explain, for the first time in his
life, he said, how it was that he did what he did. He told me how
beautiful it made the world, where before it was miserable and
friendless, how he thought of great things and made great plans, how his
home seemed finer and better to him, and his work more noble. The man
had a real gift of imagination and spoke with an eagerness and eloquence
that stirred me deeply. I was almost on the point of asking him where
his magic liquor was to be found! When he finally gave me an opening, I
said:
"I think I understand. Many men I know are in some respects drunkards.
They all want some way to escape themselves--to be free of their own
limitations."
"That's it! That's it!" he exclaimed eagerly.
We sat for a time side by side, saying nothing. I could not help
thinking of that line of Virgil referring to quite another sort of
intoxication:
"With Voluntary dreams they cheat their minds."
Instead of that beautiful unity of thought and action which marks the
finest character, here was this poor tragedy of the divided life. When
Fate would destroy a man it first separates his forces! It drives him to
think one way and act another; it encourages him to seek through outward
stimulation--whether drink, or riches, or fame--a deceptive and unworthy
satisfaction in place of that true contentment which comes only from
unity within. No man can be two men successfully.
So we sat and said nothing. What indeed can any man _say_ to another
under such circumstances? As Bobbie Burns remarks out of the depths of
his own experience:
"What's done we partly may compute
But know not what's resisted."
I've always felt that the best thing one man can give another is the
warm hand of understanding. And yet when I thought of the pathetic, shy
bee-man, hemmed in by his sunless walls, I felt that I should also say
something. Seeing two men struggling shall I not assist the better?
Shall I let the sober one be despoiled by him who is riotous? There are
realities, but there are also moralities--if we can keep them properly
separated.
"Most of us," I said finally, "are in some respects drunkards. We don't
give it so harsh a name, but we are just that. Drunkenness is not a mere
matter of intoxicating liquors; it goes deeper--far deeper. Drunkenness
is the failure of a man to control his thoughts."
The bee-man sat silent, gazing out before him. I noted the blue veins in
the hand that lay on his knee. It came over me with sudden amusement
and I said:
"I often get drunk myself."
"You?"
"Yes--dreadfully drunk."
He looked at me and laughed--for the first time! And I laughed, too. Do
you know, there's a lot of human nature in people! And when you think
you are deep in tragedy, behold, humour lurks just around the corner!
"I used to laugh at it a good deal more than I do now," he said. "I've
been through it all. Sometimes when I go to town I say to myself, 'I
will not turn at that corner,' but when I come to the corner, I do turn.
Then I say 'I will not go into that bar,' but I do go in. 'I will not
order anything to drink,' I say to myself, and then I hear myself
talking aloud to the barkeeper just as though I were some other person.
'Give me a glass of rye,' I say, and I stand off looking at myself, very
angry and sorrowful. But gradually I seem to grow weaker and weaker--or
rather stronger and stronger--for my brain begins to become clear, and I
see things and feel things I never saw or felt before. I want to sing."
"And you do sing," I said.
"I do, indeed," he responded, laughing, "and it seems to me the most
beautiful music in the world."
"Sometimes," I said, "when I'm on _my_ kind of spree, I try not so much
to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my
mind with other, stronger thoughts----"
Before I could finish he had interrupted:
"Haven't I tried that, too? Don't I think of other things? I think of
bees--and that leads me to honey, doesn't it? And that makes me think of
putting the honey in the wagon and taking it to town. Then, of course, I
think how it will sell. Instantly, stronger than you can imagine, I see
a dime in my hand. Then it appears on the wet bar. I _smell_ the _smell_
of the liquor. And there you are!"
We did not talk much more that day. We got up and shook hands and looked
each other in the eye. The bee-man turned away, but came back
hesitatingly.
"I am glad of this talk, Mr. Grayson. It makes me feel like taking hold
again. I have been in hell for years----"
"Of course," I said. "You needed a friend. You and I will come up
together."
As I walked toward home that evening I felt a curious warmth of
satisfaction in my soul--and I marvelled at the many strange things that
are to be found upon this miraculous earth.
* * * * *
I suppose, if I were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I
am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience
with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at
the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man--and
have it yet, for I have not done with him--but----
Last evening, and that is why I have been prompted to write the whole
story, my bee-man came again along the road by my farm; my exuberant
bee-man. I heard him singing afar off.
He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
"He also belongs here," I said.
And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
that something human, in passing, had touched me.