Public-domain ebook
Language: en1,626 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Essays, Letters & Speeches·Travel Writing
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #2479.
The work is a first‑person travel memoir that blends personal reflection with a series of loosely linked sketches of rural life. It opens with the narrator, David Grayson, musing on possible titles before settling on The Friendly Road, then inviting the reader to accompany him on a journey that promises “contentment” and a pause from hurried ambition. The opening chapter situates him on a sunny spring morning, having left his farm and walked three hours toward the town of Holt, describing the landscape, the sounds of birds and brooks, and the simple pleasure of a song in his throat. From there he launches into a series of vivid vignettes, farmyard animals, a Scotch preacher, a “strange Girl of the Street,” and assorted country characters, each presented as part of a “mysterious human cord” that binds him to the world he wanders through.
Grayson’s voice is conversational, peppered with rhetorical flourishes and occasional philosophical asides that echo late‑19th‑century American essayists. The prose is rich in sensory detail, employing a lyrical cadence that captures both the immediacy of the countryside and the narrator’s introspective mood. Readers who enjoy reflective travel writing, pastoral sketches, and a blend of humor with earnest moral observation will find this memoir rewarding; it especially appeals to those interested in turn‑of‑the‑century American life and the gentle, sometimes self‑deprecating humor of a farmer‑turned‑wanderer.
The opening · free to read
“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.
“Harriet,” I said aloud, “it grows more wonderful every year how full the world is of friendly people!”
So I got up quickly and came in here to my room, and taking a fresh sheet of paper I wrote down the title of my new book:
“The Friendly Road.”
I invite you to travel with me upon this friendly road. You may find, as I did, something which will cause you for a time, to forget yourself into contentment. But if you chance to be a truly serious person, put down my book. Let nothing stay your hurried steps, nor keep you from your way.
As for those of us who remain, we will loiter as much as ever we please. We'll take toll of these spring days, we'll stop wherever evening overtakes us, we'll eat the food of hospitality--and make friends for life!
DAVID GRAYSON.
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