By Bion H. Butler
The other day I was at the Pinehurst station, coming across to the General Office. As that section of the village is new, I had not learned the way except by the roads. But I was afoot, and as I came away from the station I noted a path entering the pine thicket through a gap in a rail fence, and leading in the direction I wanted to pursue. Now, there is nothing under the sun that is more fascinating to me than a path. One thing I have against the automobile is that it is a follower of main traveled roads, although wherever I can beat that game I do, for I take the unusual roads that are going the direction I want to go. But when you are on foot you are the master of your own route of travel, and you can cut cross lots and follow the path, and work out the puzzles of a path, and have all manner of diversion in doing it.
I saw the foot tracks leading away from the road, and through the gap in the rail fence. That is positive evidence that people have been going through the fence, for a track is testimony that some one has passed that way, and as the track goes on forward you know that some one has found a way through. As the direction of the path was toward the office it was clear enough that I would be on my way if I followed the path. For 60 years I have been nosing out the lure of the path when I find one, especially a path that I have never been acquainted with. A path is a sort of cross-word puzzle with humanity as the constant page of development. Where you find a path people have passed along, and they have explored an area that is more or less undiscovered, for many paths lead through the woods, across the field, up the hill, opening many interesting disclosures of Nature, and they all the time tell of people and of people’s actions.
Well, I crossed the fence by the gap, and I followed the trail through the pine woods, and it was a cheery bit of woodland there, with here and there a seat provided by some kindly fellow where the traveler may sit down to rest and watch the development of events. Through the trees I could see a bunch of golfers heading toward the Country Club. Out another direction a party of riders were bumping up and sitting down in their saddle, bumping up, sitting down, bumping up, sitting down like they do. Some children were among the trees, and a flock of wax-wings were chattering on the shrubbery where they seemed to be attending a dinner party. There is one thing about a path that is pleasing Every think about these social affairs of the birds? I think about two or three hundred wax-wings were attending an afternoon on the shrubbery in front of the General Office on day in February and they attracted as much attention as a gold tournament. You see a bird happens to see a good looking sissy bird and he stops to talk to her, and that naturally inclines one of the other sister birds to fly over and join the chat. And then of course some of the Willie Boys gather about, and before you know it the dancing about on the tree tops and the branches and the gossip and the persiflage that goes on is as noisy as the popping of firecrackers the day before the Fourth of July.
I can’t understand the bird language, but I often stop and listen to the talk when a lot of them get together, for the language is not of great consequence. I know what they say in a general way. It is just that the rest of us say, and that is the same things that have been said for the last fifty million years. One chap says to his honey girl that there never was such another, and she tells him that he is the greatest kidder that ever lived, and another honey bunch inject a gentle kick into the dialogue, and around and around the world movement goes, and they all have a tongue in the commotion. Whether it is birds, humans, or anything else that were made in twos and sent up to Adam to be named, they all say the same thing, no matter what the language, so I can keep a fair run on the conversation just by looking at them. I don’t care much what people or birds or anything else says. I know what they mean, and that is what they want to say whether they get it said or not.
Ever drive along in a car and come to across street and knot know which way to turn You catch the ye of a fellow sitting on a cracker box under an awning, and you point your finger down the right hand fork and yell at him “Hagerstown?” and he nods his head up and down a couple of times and you have had a real interesting visit with him. You have said to him that you ae headed for Gettysburg and that you intend to go the Hagerstown road, which is the only one to get there and that you are a stranger here at Podunk Cross roads, and you would love like a dog to gain some information which you know he possesses. He is tickled to death that you recognize how wise he is, and flattered that you came to him for counsel, and two nods of his head says that the right hand road is your route, and that you are making food time, but will be there in plenty of season to get on out the road you aim to go, and before you have got over your agreeable meeting you are ten miles down the road and remembering what a nice acquaintance you made there at the forks.
On a path you strike in with a lot of these agreeable encounters with folks and cats and birds and a new dogwood tree in blossom, and a lot of things that are highly informative and friendly. You saunter along for it is a crime to rush through a path and not see what is bountiful to be seen on all sides. That is one of the charms of life, and that is why at my age—for my head has grown clear up through my hair until the scalp sticks out—I can see ads much in life as I could see 60 years or more ago. So I wandered along that path through the pine grove and after a while I came to another break in the rail fence where the path led through the gap, and to make things perfectly natural just before the gap was reached a mudpuddle obtruded there in the way. It was not wholly objectionable, for a mudpuddle is land and water and that is what this big earth is made of, yet if the pathmaster, as they say in New York, will fix that place with a load or two of sand, it would maybe be better for those with light shoes.
I had a lot of pleasure out of that little journey, for it alle du so many things that are just as interesting as falling in with new ones. Memory could look down through the open pine forest and catch a glimpse of a big buck that crossed a path in the Pennsylvania mountains half a century ago, and the short cut to the lumber camp with its many variations, and the path down from the barn to the wood lot and pasture field where we used to drive the cows and sheep in those days when the grown men were away in the army with Meade and Sherman; and no doubt if we could lift the veil sufficiently we would see paths far in the distance with the legions climbing over the moors and highlands, and the plains of Thessaly and the deserts of Mesopotamia until we have traced our ancestry to the morning of light and creation. Some days when I can again break away from the everlasting senseless hurry of the flivver I am going to walk one more from the station to the office along that path. It never fails to have some new things to show a fellow, just as faithfully and new as the stars at night or the moon in its changes. A path is about the highest achievement of mankind, for it is the one thing that is done without design, and one in natural and unaffected style.
From page 4 of The Pinehurst Outlook, Saturday, April 24, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn91068725/1926-04-24/ed-1/seq-4/
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