BOOK TWO
ONE OF THE JOLLY ONES
CHAPTER I
INTENTIONS, BEFORE HAVING HIS HAIR CUT, OF A WAGONER
In this company, and with this highly appropriate beginning of legs dangling carelessly above the dusty highroad from a stolen seat on the tail-board of a wagon, there began to befall Mr. Wriford many adventures which, peculiar and unusual for any man, were, for one of Mr. Wriford's station in life and of his character and antecedents, in the highest degree extraordinary. His dangling legs—and the fact that he swung them as they dangled—were, indeed, emblematic of the frame of mind which took him into these adventures and which—save when the old torments clutched him and held him—carried him through each and very irresponsibly into the next. Through all the later years of his former life he had very much cared what happened to him and what people thought of him when they looked at him. He was filled now with a spirit of not caring at all. It was more than a reckless spirit; it was a conscious spirit. He had often, in the days of his torment, cried aloud that he wished he might die. He told himself now that he did not mind if he did die, and did not mind if he was hurt or what suffering befell him. Through all the later years of his former life he often had cried aloud, his brain most dreadfully surging, his panic desire to get out of it all. He told himself that he now was out of it all. He had been frantic to be free; he now was free. A very giddiness of freedom possessed him and caused him, at the dizziness of it, to laugh aloud. A very intoxication of irresponsibility filled him and caused in him a fierce lust to exercise it in feats of maddest folly. He only wanted to laugh, as before he very often had wanted to cry or scream. He only wanted to perform wild, senseless pranks, as before he only had desired to be shut away from people—by himself, alone, in the dark. All this increased with every day of the early days in Mr. Puddlebox's company. Now, as he sat beside Mr. Puddlebox on the tail-board of the wagon, and swung his legs and often laughed aloud, he sometimes reflected upon where the wagon was taking them and what would happen, and at the thought that he did not care whither or what, laughed again; and more than once looked at Mr. Puddlebox, blowing and puffing in exhaustion beside him, and scarcely could control an impulse to push him off the tail-board and laugh to see him clutch and expostulate and fall; and once struck his fist against the revolving wheel beside him and laughed aloud to feel the pain and to see his bruised and dusty knuckles.
"Loony," said Mr. Puddlebox, catching the gleaming eyes that were turned upon him in mischievous thought to push him off, "Loony, you're getting unspooked already."
"It's very jolly," said Mr. Wriford, and laughed. "I like this."
"You shall learn to like everything," said Mr. Puddlebox, "and so to be jolly always."
"How do you live?" inquired Mr. Wriford.
"Why," said Mr. Puddlebox, "by liking everything, for that is the only way to live. Sun, snow; rain, storm; heat, cold; hunger, fullness; fatigue, rest; pain, pleasure; I take all as they come and welcome each by turn or all together. They come from the Lord, boy, and that is how I take them, love them, and return them to the Lord again in form of praise. Selah."
"Dash it," said Mr. Wriford, "you might be a Salvationist, you know."