The Spirit of the Wanderlust seizes all the World in the early days of
Spring--the so-called hobo takes to the open road, the millionaire to
his country home, each rejoices that the long imprisonment of winter
is passed, for all men are akin in their love of freedom. It is a
search for the ideal. With De Soto we would say, "Somewhere, if ye seek
untiringly, ye shall discover and drinke of ye Fountaine of Youth and
Happiness."
"Men have said they do not understand my restless wanderings," remarked
Lakewood Tom. "Can it be they have never watched the coming of the
first robin, and do not know that he ushers in the new regime of
promise and prosperity?
"Other men may linger in the failing twilight of the tired day. I go to
greet the rising sun. Even the very birds--little hoboes of the air,
break camp cheerfully in early May. Like them I, too, take to the open
road and walk by faith.
"But you, my lords, with your worldly goods, are vagabonds no less than
I. Out of the inexhaustible larder of the Divine, God gives you--as
it were--a crust of bread, and men call you mighty in riches. Take a
vagabond's advice, and put your mark upon the house where you found
favor, lest after many years, disheartened, you pass that way again and
need another 'handout'--maybe not a crust of bread, but, a more lasting
gift--an ideal perchance, that may not fail so soon. Sometimes methinks
it sad, there is given to man only the thing for which he asks.
"Adieu," said Lakewood Tom, taking up his staff, "when the snow falls
next year I may visit your Monastery again with your permission, if by
happy chance I am on this earth. If not, I'll meet you some Christmas
day on the planet Mars, for I never forget a friend. Good cheer! Adieu."
"Much privation has crazed the old man," said a comrade who, with me,
watched the old vagabond walking slowly down the drive.
"I do not know," I said.