BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND PEOPLE 113 



ward sunset, on a Sunday afternoon, I had 

 been out of the village in an opposite direc- 

 tion, and was sitting by the wayside in the 

 Stewart woods, full of flowers and music, 

 where I loved often to linger, when three 

 men approached on foot. " How far have 

 you come?" I inquired. " From Franklin," 

 about twenty miles distant, they an- 

 swered. They were going to work " on the 

 new road up at Stooly " (Satulah Moun- 

 tain), or so I understood the oldest of the 

 trio, who acted throughout as spokesman. 

 (In my part of the country it is only the 

 professionally idle who walk twenty miles 

 at a stretch.) " Well," said I, none too 

 politely, being nothing but an outsider, 

 " I hope you '11 make it better than it was 

 when I came up." He replied, quite good- 

 humoredly, that they were making a good 

 road of it this time. And so they were, 

 comparatively speaking, for I went over the 

 mountain one day on purpose to see it, after I 

 knew who had laid it out, and had begun to 

 feel a personal interest in its success. One 

 of the men carried a hoe, and one a small 

 tin clock. They had no other baggage, I 

 think. When a man works on the road, he 



