A WORD TO HIM WHO OPENS
THIS BOOK
I did not plan when I began writing these chapters to make an entire
book, but only to put down the more or less unusual impressions, the
events and adventures, of certain quiet pilgrimages in country roads. But
when I had written down all of these things, I found I had material in
plenty.
"What shall I call it now that I have written it?" I asked myself.
At first I thought I should call it "Adventures on the Road," or "The
Country Road," or something equally simple, for I would not have the title
arouse any appetite which the book itself could not satisfy. One pleasant
evening I was sitting on my porch with my dog sleeping near me, and
Harriet not far away rocking and sewing, and as I looked out across the
quiet fields I could see in the distance a curving bit of the town road. I
could see the valley below it and the green hill beyond, and my mind went
out swiftly along the country road which I had so recently travelled on
foot, and I thought with deep satisfaction of all the people I had met on my
pilgrimages--the Country Minister with his problems, the buoyant
Stanleys, Bill Hahn the Socialist, the Vedders in their garden, the Brush
Peddler. I thought of the Wonderful City, and of how for a time I had been
caught up into its life. I thought of the men I met at the livery stable,
especially Healy, the wit, and of that strange Girl of the Street. And it was
good to think of them all living around me, not so very far away,
connected with me through darkness and space by a certain mysterious
human cord. Most of all I love that which I cannot see beyond the hill.