The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-11-24
The Roadmaker .

The Roadmdk er.
When he came West Chicago was In its
creeping clothes. He moved out Evans
ton way-onIy it wasn't Evanston way
then, or any way, unless, perhaps. 1t was
the minds way. He had a great deal %
fsurplus energy to expend. 1t was energy
cultivated by racing at college and throw
Ing quoits on the common at certain
| Rhode Island village. The East seemed
hardy big enough to give him swing,
but on the shores of Lake Michigan he
found plenty to do.
First he bought lot of land. He
liked it, too. 1t gave him a feeling Ct
tremendous satisfaction 10 walk across
| twenty acres Of good land and say: This
is mine. and then walk across forty
acres more and cry: Il own it," and fin
ish up by looking at still sixty acres be-
yond and reflect: ct is 1 who hold the
| title"
At this time, too, 1t seemed as II Lake
Michigan belonged to him. When he ran
along the beach Of summer morning.
with his dogs at his heels. he felt that
the wastes Of blue waves beyond were
/ his for exploration and subjugaIio1 and
everlasting possessorship.
| At first he lived in a tent and was nap
| pier than an Arab; then he built shack
and wos lordly as Solomonh. And then
an idea came to him that he would make
a road. He did not carry this idea into
! immediate execution, because it was so
| diverting that he was pleased to play with
! 1t in anticipatory dalliance. He decided
to cut the road through the heart OF
I his property, making It a thoroughfare
forever from the beach to the place where
the main Travelled road ought to be and
otoh would q
sity demanded Then 1t occurred TO him
further that he would himself make this
main road for the full length of his hold
| ings.
It was not a matter Of convenience
with him alone. It was his first and per-
haps his last really poetical concept. To
cut way through the wildernesses OF
earth for the goings and comings of men
"a road down which the busy might has
ten and the idle saunter for centuries
to come-appeared to him to be the finest
thing that life had given to him to do.
He dreamt about its proportions, prophe-
sled as to its eventual terminus, and had
visions Of the professions that might pass
along II. He himself carried the chain
for the surveyor. and he himself swung
the ak that felled the trees, and he drove
graded, and day by day he saw with more
clearness the setting of the sun beyond
the trees and the reach Of the prairie at
the north.
Never in his life before or after this did
ne sing so loud as on the mornings when
he hurried to his task: never did toll
seem to be rewarded with results so i'm
mediate.
At last it was done, and II was a SEEM
" road, sheltered with noble trees, in
gratiating itself in gentle fashion with
the forest and the prairie and the beach,
and shaped like a letter T. He could not
be content till he had brought little MI
nerva birmingham from her fathers
farm, three miles to the north, to visit
It, and she ran down it and back again,
and christened it with their joy and their
love. But it doesn't particularly matter
about their love. On that day love itself
seemed as incident to a mans work-and
the work of this man was his road.
The years go by little faster in and
about Chicago than they do anywhere
else, and the first thing this man knew
he had riches and many responsibilities,
and much honor and gray hairs. 1t SEEM
ed to him that it had all happened over
night. AS for the city, It fumed and
roared over it's elastic limits like some
wild dragon of the latter time, who was
determined to remain insatiate. The peo-
pie fed the dragon with their brains and
their bodies and their hearts-they were
consumed before his hunger IN mighty
numbers, but still he roared for more
and would not be content. So he thrived
and grew-this vast, hideous monster Of
a town, and among all the cities of earth
was counted, the most amazing-the most
formidable in his odolescent strength.
One day the son of the man and the
man went driving together. They bowled
on noiseless wheels along a perfect boule-
ward, wide, with batteries Of flowers and
plume-like elms and a concourse of people
and equipages. The man looked with eyes
into which there crept reminiscent look
almost mystic in its intensity. His white
hands lay before him, nerveless; the beat
In his body was too slow-much. much,
too slow-and the eyes with which he
looked upon the flashing cycles and the
lettering pedestrians and the drivers of
many vehicles were dim. His hair was
white and It lay long and thin upon his
bowed shoulders. He rested, inert, while
the pleasant tumult of the great city's
holiday hour saluted his ears
Once" said he to his son, ct had a
vision and it was wonderful and gay,
though it grew out of common time and
quiet solitude. And I worked with
tireless hands to help the vision TO its
attainment. But long since I have for
gotten the vision and even the toll. Only
tonight, hearing the beat of these myr-
lad hoofs and seeing these happy througs,
am reminded that it was I who first
laid the AK at the tree in this wilderness,
that it was I who first applied the TRAN
gle to this unmarked land. Now behold.