Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-01-17
THE WINDING ROAD
By John Brock

w TE all love winding roads. This is very
w illogical. Since the primary purpose
of road is to permit travel between
two points, we ought to prefer the nice
direct route laid on surveyors line; yet the
fact remains that the straight road is to the
winding one table of statistics is to a
warm, thrilling piece of fiction, and we like
to read it we rum
The winding road is in itself bit of his
tory. Why was it placed there? The oldest
1nhabitant may prOffer the information that
Its always been there or Guess it was
an Indian TRAIL
But ten to one it is older still, laid out by
natures surveyors the grazing beasts
wonder how many of them were first trOdden
by the deer!
The first railroads laid across the Great
Divide followed the cattle trails. There is
a wisdom in the ways of beasts which the old
travellers found. Those trails were cunning
ly devised, moulded according to the con-
tours of the land, keeping to waterways or
cutting from spring to spring, marking the
route where the settler, who followed in the
fulness of time, would find the richest soil
and the needful water. l expect that in
those early days it also meant the most
abundant game, for man has always lived by
flocks and herds, whether of his own or
natures herding.
[ asked an old prospector how he vent
ured into the unknown mountain country.
'Fo1IOw a deer TRAIL he told me. 'They
have to drink, just the same as mel" And
those who followed him widened it to their
USES and it became a road.
And [ followed an old, old road, all over
grown, leading to a part of the country that
was burnt out and never rebuilt again. The
only footsteps which had marked it for many
a year were those of the deer. I could trace
their daily life along it, from the morning
drink to the grassy plain, the cool glade
where they crouch in the fern through the
heat of the day, and the sheltered cup be-
meath the trees that stables them through
the storm. W ere it wound about the foot
of peak there would sometimes be single
track where the buck had climbed for his
l1ookout-to see if the coast was clear. 1t
suits them now as we'll as it suited their
ancestors who showed the way to man. and
it suited the man who settled there because
his needs were the same as the deer Slow
ing water and rich earth and the easiest path
to reach it.
The winding road is a bit of life. Who
of us would want to live. the deadly ,monot-
ony of straight lines and levelled grades?
Who of us, indeed, would have the courage
to face our lot if we could see it stretched
before us, the long miles of years we must
travel through, with but little hazy goal
at the end? 1t is the thrill of the unexpect-
ed, the rounding of the turns the constantly
changing view, which makes us content to
follow it. Will it drop into that canyon
which splits the peak or skirts the opposite
hill? We 40 not know. Or will there be
the TOLL OF an ascent! we live through
this sometimes, so burdened by the
struggle that we forget the broad
vision which will reward us if we ever reach
it's end. Only the climbers know the glory
Of what lies beyond, and only they are the
breakers of new trails. For the level path,
the easy Way, has it's lesser charms, but it
never leads us to a land of dreams. It is
the way of the grazing beasts, the easiest
road between food and drink. Perhaps their
eyes miss the view man finds from the peaks,
love the winding road, the climbing road,
by which we climbed from the simple con-
tentment of the beasts to the breadth of
vision which is our reward for being men