ght is for
rest, for that stillness that cities never know, broken only when human
necessity most sharply importunes, in the crises of birth, of death. On
Sundays all the world drives to church, or sits on its doorstep and
watches the rest. And Sunday and week days alike, every one's interest
goes out to the Road.

I venture to say that when we think of our city homes we think of their
interiors, but when we think of our farmhouse homes we think of the Road
as well. They are like little islands in a river,--one remembers them
together. For the Road is a river--a river of life. Most of our words
about roads imply motion. A road comes, we say, and it goes, it sweeps,
it curves, it climbs, it descends, it rises and drops, it bends and
turns. And, in fact, it means movement, it is always bringing life and
taking it again, or if for a time it does neither, it is always
inviting, always promising. We have all felt it. As we are whirled along
in a railway train even, the thing that stirs our imagination is the
roads, the paths. I can still remember glimpses of these that I had
years ago--a footpath over a rounded hilltop through long yellow grass,
a rough logging-road beside a foaming mountain river, a brushy wood road
leading through bars into deep shade, a country road at dusk, curving
past a low farmhouse with lights in the windows. I could never follow
these roads, but I remember them still, and still they allure me.

Our Road, as it flows placidly past our farm, suggests nothing very
exciting or spectacular. It is a pretty bit of road, rounding a rocky
corner of the farm and leading past the old house under cool depths of
maple shade, out again into a broad space of sunlight, dropping over a
little hill, around a curve, and out of sight. I know it well, of
course, every rock and flower of it, but its final appeal to me is not
through its beauty, it is not even through my sense of ownership in it;
it is simply that it is a Road--a road that leads out of Everywhere into
Everywhere Else, a road that goes on. About a road that ends there is no
glamour. It may be pretty or useful, but as a road it is a failure. For
the Road is the symbol of endless possibility. From the faintest
footpath across a meadow, where as a child one has always felt that some
elf or gnome _may_ appear, or along which, if one were to wander with
sufficient negligence, one _might_ be led into the realm of "faerie" to
the broad turnpike which fares throu