II
The Tailor and the Florist
Now the story begins all over again with the episode of the well-known tailor and the unknown florist. Just off the main street of Greenville, Tennessee, there is a log cabin with the century old inscription, Andrew Johnson, Tailor. That sign is the fittest monument to the indomitable but dubious man who could not cut the mantle of the railsplitter to fit him. I was told by the citizens of Greenville that there was a monument to their hero on the hill. So I climbed up. It was indeed wonderful—a weird straddling archway, supporting an obelisk. The archway also upheld two flaming funeral urns with buzzard contours, and a stone eagle preparing to screech. There was a dog-eared scroll inscribed, “His faith in the people never wavered.” Around all was, most appropriately, a spiked fence.
But I was glad I came, because near the Tailor’s resting-place was a Florist’s grave, on which depends the rest of this adventure, and which reaches back to the beginning of it. It had a wooden headstone, marked “John Kenton of Flagpond, Florist. 1870-1900.” And in testimony to his occupation, a great rosebush almost hid the inscription. Any man who could undertake to sell flowers in Flagpond might have it said of him also, “His faith in the people never wavered.”
And now in my tramping the spirit of John Kenton, or some other Florist, seemed to lead me. My season of panic, preparation, and trial was over. It was indeed Sunday on this planet for awhile. I passed bush after bush of the same sort as that marking Kenton’s place of sleep. The sight of them was all that I had to give me strength till noon. I had had neither breakfast nor supper. People would have fed this poor tramp, but I love sometimes the ecstasy that comes with healthy fasting. And now that I reflect upon it, it was indeed appropriate that the Religion of the Rose should begin with abstinence.
I have burdened you further back with an elaborate description of the landscape of Flagpond. Now that landscape was repeated with the addition of roses. And what a difference they made! They quenched the Seven Suspicions. They made gray dresses seem rather tolerable. On either side loomed the steepest cornfields yet, but they did not make me tremble now.
At noon I turned aside where a log cabin on stilts, leaning against its own chimney, stood astride a little gully. It was about as big as a dove-cote. Straggling rose-hedges led to the green-banked spring at the foot of a ladder that took the place of steps. The old lady that came to the door was a dove in one respect only; she was dressed in gray.
She was drawn to the pattern of the tub-like peasants of the German funny paper Simplicissimus. I told her my name was Nicholas. She took it for granted that I wanted my dinner, and asked me up the ladder without ado. She did an unusual thing. She began to talk family affairs. “You must be kin to Lawyer Nicholas of Flagpond.... He defended my son ten years ago ... in a trial for murder.”
I said: “I am no kin to Lawyer Nicholas, but I hope he won his case.”
“No. My son is in the state’s prison for life.... He surely killed Florist Kenton.” But she added, as if it nullified all guilt, “they were both drunk.”
She was busy cooking at the open fireplace. She turned to the boy, about ten years old. “Call your Ma and your Aunt to dinner.” He climbed the steep and shouted. Presently two figures came over the ridge. The larger woman took the boy’s hand.