New Walks in Old Ways 



with it, as compared with that slender, 

 silver-mounted rosewood cane Potter 

 Palmer gave me in Paris twenty years 

 ago, or that nice bamboo one Senator 

 Philander C. Knox once used. These 

 are all well enough, worn with a silk 

 hat, a long-tailed coat and pointed 

 footwear upon state occasions, but they 

 are guaranteed to spoil anybody's walk 

 down any wagon track that winds "over 

 the hills and far away." 



I don't know which I used to envy 

 most, gypsies or peddlers that tramped 

 the country roads, with packs slung 

 from a stick carried over the shoulder. 

 I think I would have made a better 

 peddler than a horse-trader. But, re- 

 verting to that stick, when I get it in 

 my hand, and feel the soft earth of a 

 quiet roadway underneath good broad 

 shoes, I am the aboriginal man. My 

 club is my defense and argument, if 

 necessary. I am in that comfortable 

 frame of mind where I don't care for 

 men, beasts, angels or devils. I face 

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