CHAPTER TEN
ON THE MORNING ROAD
The morning road—jocund, robust, strong, and bright—dropped slowly over the long hill, crossed a merry little river through a covered bridge, turned to the right, ran sinuously through a green valley for a mile and a half, quickly gathered a cluster of houses about it, and promptly became the street of a small town of southern Kentucky. The crimson of the sunrise, like blushes on the cheeks of a child, patched the eastern sky. A haze of misty blue lingered above the stream, the eye thus being able to follow it for miles through the bottom lands. The mountain tops to the west wore their eternal gray, the shade of the uniforms of Confederate soldiers. The sun's yellow splendor shimmered warm and soft as if caressing the pregnant fields. The air was charged with gentle breezes perfumed from the woodland of the ridges and the fresh, mellow scent of rich earth, newly stirred by the plow. Orioles, robins, blue jays, larks: a perfect medley of rollicking song flew by on joyous wing. A solitary man standing on the hilltop turned slowly from mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and drink and breathe—to make a part of him by some paganish transubstantiation—the very day itself. Like a brother to Pan, he belonged to it all, and the impulse to make himself felt, as the other forces abroad, was strong within him.... No wonder the entire earth was happy: there had been born that dawn, full-grown like Athena sprung from the head of Zeus, the spirit of June.
A solitary man standing on the hilltop turned slowly from mountain to valley, from sky to field, seeming to eat and think and breathe—to make a part of him by some paganish transubstantiation—the very day itself.
A few moments later the eyes of this lone son of the morning sought the distant village. The gray smoke of wood-fires, bespeaking the approach of the breakfast hour, arose from the chimneys of friendly kitchens. Far-away voices, calling the cows to be milked, mingled with snatches of song, the rattle of well-sweeps and the chopping of wood lent a human note of melody to the hour. The man's nostrils extended as in imagination he scented the smell of frying ham. He had slept by the roadside on the hilltop, and his appetite was healthful and ample. He had provisions with him, it was true, but for ten days he had eaten his own cooking by the camp-fire, and he had promised himself a change of food at the table of the little hotel the virtue of whose menu he had learned years ago. Besides, while the roving spirit of the road was strong in his blood, he loved human companionship. This morning he wanted the touch of some congenial hand.