itself was alive with a hundred
varied sorts of activity. Light winds stirred the tree-tops and rippled
in the new grass; and from the thickets I heard the blackbirds crying.
Everything animate and inanimate, that morning, seemed to have its
own clear voice and to cry out at me for my interest, or curiosity, or
sympathy. Under such circumstances it could not have been long--nor
was it long--before I came plump upon the first of a series of odd
adventures.

A great many people, I know, abominate the roadside sign. It seems to
them a desecration of nature, the intrusion of rude commercialism upon
the perfection of natural beauty. But not I. I have no such feeling.
Oh, the signs in themselves are often rude and unbeautiful, and I
never wished my own barn or fences to sing the praises of swamp root or
sarsaparilla--and yet there is something wonderfully human about these
painted and pasted vociferations of the roadside signs; and I don't
know why they are less "natural" in their way than a house or barn or
a planted field of corn. They also tell us about life. How eagerly they
cry out at us, "Buy me, buy me!" What enthusiasm they have in their
own concerns, what boundless faith in themselves! How they speak of the
enormous energy, activity, resourcefulness of human kind!

Indeed, I like all kinds of signs. The autocratic warnings of the road,
the musts and the must-nots of traffic, I observe in passing; and I
often stand long at the crossings and look up at the finger-posts, and
consider my limitless wealth as a traveller. By this road I may, at my
own pleasure, reach the Great City; by that--who knows?--the far wonders
of Cathay. And I respond always to the appeal which the devoted pilgrim
paints on the rocks at the roadside: "Repent ye, for the kingdom of God
is at hand," and though I am certain that the kingdom of God is already
here, I stop always and repent--just a little--knowing that there is
always room for it. At the entrance of the little towns, also, or in
the squares of the villages, I stop often to read the signs of taxes
assessed, or of political meetings; I see the evidences of homes broken
up in the notices of auction sales, and of families bereaved in the dry
and formal publications of the probate court. I pause, too, before
the signs of amusements flaming red and yellow on the barns (boys, the
circus is coming to town!), and I pause also, but no longer, to read
the silent signs carved in stone in the li