"You that are always travelling, did you ever meet a contented person
in all your travels?"
"Yes," said I, "I met a man yesterday, three hills away from here, and
he told me he was happy."
"Maybe he wasn't a poor man?"
"I asked him that, and he said he had enough to be going on with."
"I wonder what he had."
"I wondered too, and he told me.--He said that he had a wife, a son, an
apple-tree, and a fiddle.
"He said, that his wife was dumb, his son was deaf, his apple-tree was
barren, and his fiddle was broken."
"It didn't take a lot to satisfy that man."
"And he said, that these things, being the way they were, gave him no
trouble attending on them, and so he was left with plenty of time for
himself."
"I think the man you are telling me about was a joker; maybe you are a
joker yourself for that matter."
"Tell me," said I, "the sort of things a person should want, for I am a
young man, and everything one learns is so much to the good."
He rested his hammer and stared sideways down the road, and he remained
so, pursing and relaxing his lips, for a little while. At last he said
in a low voice--
"A person wants respect from other people.--If he doesn't get that,
what does he signify more than a goat or a badger? We live by what
folk think of us, and if they speak badly of a man doesn't that finish
him for ever?"
"Do people speak well of you?" I asked.
"They speak badly of me," said he, "and the way I am now is this, that
I wouldn't have them say a good word of me at all."
"Would you tell me why the people speak badly of you?"
"You are travelling down the road," said he, "and I am staying where I
am. We never met before in all the years, and we may never meet again,
and so I'll tell you what is in my mind.--A person that has neighbours
will have either friends or enemies, and it's likely enough that he'll
have the last unless he has a meek spirit. And it's the same way with
a man that's married, or a man that has a brother. For the neighbours
will spy on you from dawn to dark, and talk about you in every place,
and a wife will try to rule you in the house and out of the house until
you are badgered to a skeleton, and a brother will ask you to give him
whatever thing you value most in the world."
He remained silent for a few minutes, with his hammer eased on his
knee, and then, in a more heated strain, he continued--
"These are three things a man doesn't like--he doesn't like to be spied
on, and he doesn't like to be ruled and regulated, and he doesn't like
to be asked for a thing he wants himself. And, whether he lets himself
be spied on or not, he'll be talked about, and in any case he'll be
made out to be a queer man; and if he lets his wife rule him he'll be
scorned and laughed at, and if he doesn't let her rule him he'll be
called a rough man; and if he once gives to his brother he will have to
keep on giving for ever, and if he doesn't give in at all he'll get the
bad name and the sour look as he goes about his business."
"You have bad neighbours, indeed," said I.
"I'd call them that."
"And a brother that would ask you for a thing you wanted yourself
wouldn't be a decent man."
"He would not."
"Tell me," said I, "what kind of a wife have you?"
"She's the same as any one else's wife to look at, but I fancy the
other women must be different to live with."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you can hear men laughing and singing in every public-house
that you'd go into, and they wouldn't do that if their wives were hard
to live with, for nobody could stand a bad comrade. A good wife, a
good brother, a good neighbour--these are three good things, but you
don't find them lying in every ditch."
"If you went to a ditch for your wife----!" said I.
He pursed up his lips at me.
"I think," said I, "that you need not mind the neighbours so very much
for no one can spy on you but yourself. If your mind was in a glass
case instead of in a head it would be different; and no one can really
rule and regulate you but yourself, and that's well worth doing."
"Different people," said he shortly, "are made differently."
"Maybe," said I, "your wife would be a good wife to some other husband,
and your brother might be decent enough if he had a different brother."