New-York tribune., 1917-07-15
The Scholar -Roadmaker
Bu c. Vince

torials who kept shoveling in the stones as
the endless line of cars went up and down.
That road must have been worn out and re-
made every day and every night for many
months.
I'VE work too hard in the open air to
dream at night When lie down | tumble
straight into deep sleep. But sometimes
have a half dream in the mornings before
am fully awake. 1t is a dream always of the
road that at the moment we are making
across the shell-broken, pitiful country; but
ever as | go along it It becomes that white
road over the hill that | knew when I was a
boy. know that they are the same road,
but | never see where they join. There is
always a bit Of dead ground between them,
and | always wake before come TO it. But
beyond ! see the old road very clear going
over the hill.
81 had rather a success with the battalion
the other night. We were back in bilets. It
had been a day Of continual rain, awful 70
work in; and there had been fairly heavy
shelling that had cut up our work We were
sodden and discontented and cursed roads
and roadmaking and prayed to be in the
trenches and sneered at ourselves because
We were not real soldiers. 1t was then that
broke in and told them of the Roman roads,
and what awful labor they were 10 make,
built in stone across the hills, and how those
roads made the empire. | talked of that
great old road under the trees above Mcke-
ham that crosses Epson Downs by the race
course (they all knew that, and talked Of
~ Il. -
stone Edge, with the heavy flags as the Ro-
mans laid them. And had them listening.
Then a man who had worked on the
Uganda Railway Joined in, and navy who
had laid wood pavements in London. and
another man who was working when the war
came on the new road by the Ouse down TO
the sea. Before we had done talking we all
knew that roadmaking was the finest work
in the world.
81 shall never smell the heavy smell Of
damp clothes again without thinking of that
scene, and how the man from East Africa
spoke. in little unexpected flashes, of the
romance of his work; and how the NAVY
from London laid down the law of roads and.
Whatever you might say OF Roman stone,
would not allow that any road was a real
road unless it were built Of wood
II often think of what de Musset wrote
that If man despared of being a poet he
should shoulder his pack and march in the
ranks. 1t is when we march that do all my
thinking With this perpetual work in the
open, II sit down 10 think fall asleep and
there is no thinking as we work. Then the
body takes possession of the mind. Some
times line Of song or the last sentence I
thought before we took up tools will occupy
1t all the day. II can go no further. But
when we are marching, then it can roam
While my body drones on in the mud below
1t travels on the poplar tops. | have never
known IL so free. have never before so
dreamed and planned and loved the distant
and delightful things as now in the prison
house OF this concentrated. unresting labor
Of war"
When the roadmaker was shot the last of
his letters was still in his pocket
81 had that dream of the two roads again
the other night, but il was different While
always before have looked forward 70 rho
old road from the road that we were making.
this time ! was on that old road and eoinr
up to the edge OF the hill was nearly AT il
when stopped to look back But the ground
where the two joined was still hidden.
must nave crossed It before the dream began
wonder what had happened there?"