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.
It is a quaint little place, and might have inspired the poet to
write that beautiful poem containing the lines,
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
And be a friend to man,
for the cooling draught passed out to me one hot afternoon from this
house would certainly class the occupant as a benefactor.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[Illustration: THE OLD ROAD]
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.
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.
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.
[Illustration: IT CLIMBS THE HILL FOR A BROADER VIEW]
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."
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.
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."
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.
[Illustration]