“I'll be along again some of these days,” said I, laughing, “and I'll stop in and show you my new stock of spectacles. Maybe I can sell you another pair!”
“Maybe you kin,” and he smiled a broad, understanding smile.
Nothing brings men together like having a joke in common.
So I walked off down the road—in the best of spirits—ready for the events of another day.
It will surely be a great adventure, one of these days, to come this way again—and to visit the Stanleys, and the Vedders, and the Minister, and drop in and sell another pair of specs to the Road-worker. It seems to me I have a wonderfully rosy future ahead of me!
P. S.—I have not yet found out who painted the curious signs; but I am not as uneasy about it as I was. I have seen two more of them already this morning—and find they exert quite a psychological influence.
CHAPTER VI. AN EXPERIMENT IN HUMAN NATURE
In the early morning after I left the husky road-mender (wearing his new spectacles), I remained steadfastly on the Great Road or near it. It was a prime spring day, just a little hazy, as though promising rain, but soft and warm.
“They will be working in the garden at home,” I thought, “and there will be worlds of rhubarb and asparagus.” Then I remembered how the morning sunshine would look on the little vine-clad back porch (reaching halfway up the weathered door) of my own house among the hills.