Evening star., 1915-04-18


by everybody, but to many
q persons it is full of meaning.
Ii is a call that is loudest. longest and
rheeriest in spring and autumn. but to
some men it is alluring when the sun
shines its hottest or chill winds blow.
There is rough and tempting charm
in an old road when the trees are bare,
the wayside shrubbery shriveled and the
landscape gray or white. The winter
mood of the country makes stirring call
10 some men It demands a certain kind
Of effort. and challenges a man to
p'easurable struggle. There is buffeting
and combat in the experience which gives
man sensations he does not get when
the weather is genial and the roadside
embroidered with bright flowers or hung
with autumn leaves. But most men hear
The call of the road, and answer it when
the country takes on new green, when the
spring fowers-blue and white-unfold
themselves and the air is bland. 1t makes
men feel hopeful and bouyant or wistful
and dreamy, but 1uxuriously content
Every old road is a picture. No two
stretches of it are the same, yet each
=
nan the sense of looking at one vast pic
lure which requires many miles of walk
ing to pick out few details Every road
has its dominant tone. There is the ir-
regular row of cedar trees always rather
diSnfied and solemn. and always wishing
You health and happiness as you pass
along. Usually they have stood bv that
same roadside for a great many wears
ana perhaps know all the travellers who
commonly come and go that way. and
they have known great numbers Of men
VINO nave ceased to pass that way
A stranger following that road can
fancy. II he Will. that the old cedars,
though they hold to their dignity and
calm, are mildly curious as to who he
may ne, what business brings him
loiterIng by them, how far down that
road he means to go, and who the folk
are he goes to visit Of course, a
walker need never be embarrassed hy
me curiosity of the cedars. for they
are good-mannered trees, and though
they have picked out conspicuous
places in which to grow, they are re-
served instead of garrulous. There is
another thing about these roadside
cedars which has impressed the Ram
bier. 1t is that they seem to pay Just
as friendly attention to the man who
walks by them and says. How DIDO,
old trees, as they do to the richest
man who whirls by them in an auo-
drapery.
The Rambler has known men who
hold contrary opinions to these, but
there are many opinions-often too
many-among men. Men have to have
their opinions. even though those opin-
ions are unjust. unbalanced and un-
sound A good many men would rather
be wrong and have an opinion than to
be right and not have one.
xx
However. the Rambler has heard
complain of the constant surveillance
by the cedar tree. The cedars line
themselves along the road and stare at
YOU as you pass by. They seem to
rivet their attention on you. And you
cannot get away from them. They
have you under their eye always. AS
soon as you pass one you come to an
other. They seem like sentinels stand
ing guard. Even if the cedar does not
stand directly on the roadside casting
his shadow as though to block your
way, you will see one, or group of
them, over in a field looking at you
from afar. Even in a copse of tangled
wood beyond the road there grows the
inevitable cedar as though skulking
there. and screening himself or seek
ing to cover under other kinds of
your progress.
But the Rambler believes that all
persons who hold these views of the
cedar tree are wrong, and that perhaps
their suspicious are a result of a dis
ordered conscience. Perhaps at some
time they have chopped down a cedar
tree and feel that it's pungent sap is
still red upon their heads, or it may
he that they have shot bird that
sought shelter in the dense and berry
sprinkled greenery of the cedar. Per-
haps the man who does not like the
cedar tree is he who has done some in
jury to il, or has received some favor
from il Some men act toward trees
they do toward other men, The
Rambler walks along by long lines of
cedars. and feels that they are his
friends. and that they cast their long
shadows across the sunny road in the
same spirit which prompts a man to
hold a umbrella over friend.
often in the country near Washing
ron. and especially to the south of the
city, a road Will leave the open and
pass into pines-usuaily densely grow
ing pines with a rude lacework of