The Highway of Contentment 



By Miller Purvis 



SOMETIMES when I am idling 

 niy mind runs back to the days 

 that are gone, and when it does 

 the first person who comes into 

 view is Charlie Brown. 1 suppose 

 we liked each other because we were so 

 very unlike. Yhe general public, cr that 

 part of it which had cognizance of us in 

 those days, was united in its opinion of us. 

 We had the reputation of being lazy when 

 we were boys, and as we grew older we 

 were stigmatized as being "triBin,' " or 

 no account, ' accoiding to the dialect of 

 the person speaking. 



As I look back it does not seem that 

 this bothered us very much. Life in the 

 rather barren Oliio hills was not of the 

 kind that promised much for effort. On 

 the uplands grass grew and sheep grazed, 

 while in the narrow "creek bottoms" little 

 fields of corn, wheat and oats were rotated 

 with clover and pasture. I hated the sight 

 of a sheep, and herein Charlie and I were 

 enthusiastically alike. 1 did not take an 

 optimistic view of the farmer's life, and 

 again Charlie agreed with me. We both 

 rather liked to wander about the fields 

 and woods and gather trophies of our 

 wanderings. 



Herein we differed. I was interested 

 in birds, bees, bugs and reptiles, while 

 Charlie had no eye for anything but flow- 

 ers, trees and bushes. 1 he vireo, the gros- 

 beak, the woodpecker, the grackle, and 

 even the shy thrush and the cautious crow 

 were my friends in a way. I delighted in 

 the minor tones of the meadowlark or the 

 bubbling merriment of the bobolink. I 

 knew v\ here the robin lived and where the 

 dove built her nest carelessly. Charlie 

 knew where the first flowers could be 

 found in the spring, and the scarce cardi- 

 nal flower lu ed him like a siren to her 

 lonely self among the weedy growths of 

 the marshes. He knew where the jack- 

 in-the-pulpits would send their leaves up 

 from the tuber of last year, and where the 

 biggest and sweetest blackberries could be 

 found. He noted the increased size of 

 the trees from year to year and had a 

 knowledge of green things growing that 

 was utterly beyond me. 



We were queer in some ways, I suppose, 

 to the older people "about us, because we 

 both were insatiable readers. He read 

 bo any and I zoology and entomology. 



As we grew up to the time when boys 

 must work much and idle little, Charlie 

 developed a fondness for working in the 

 garden, and I could spend a day very 

 pleasantly watching a brood of chickens. 

 About this time Charlie and I parted. My 

 parents moved to a distant part of the 

 country and my subsequent career is of 

 interest to no one. It is Charlie's story 

 I want to tell you, not in my own words, 

 but as it was to'd to me. 



When Charlie and I parted thirty years 

 ago we promised to visit each other often. 



It was twenty-eight years before I saw 

 him ayun and almost as long before I had 

 any definite information concerning him. 

 Our days together had become a far-off 

 memory and this affected my mind very 

 much as would a faint perfume. The 

 sweet smell of spring always brought back 

 our days together, but year after year went 

 by and the things of everyday held me in 

 a grip from which I could not breakaway. 



Two or three years ago at the Ohio 

 State fair I met an old neighbor of the 

 days of my boyhood. It required some 

 effort for me to bring myself to his mind. 

 He had forgotten me entirely until I had 

 reminded him of some incidents in my 

 early career that were funnier after all the 

 years than they were just at the time they 

 happened. We fell a-talking of the peo- 

 ple in the old neighborhood. I asked 

 about Charlie. 



"Charlie's just the same queer chap he 

 alius was," said my old friend. "You 

 know he was alius a triflin' sort of a fellow, 

 moonin' 'round an' putterin' with sech 

 truck as flowers an' garden stuff an' berry 

 bushes. 



'When he growed up, I declare to 



goodness, he'd go 'round the back way 



to get rid of seein' a sheep, and he didn't 



take no sort of intrust in farmin' nohow." 



That's about the way they used to farm 



back on Ginger Ridge," I remarked. 



Have they kept it up all these years.?" 



Jest the same old way," answered the 



old man, missing my sarcastic intent; 



they raise sheep on the hills an' crops in 



the bottoms an' I guess it's as good as any 



way. It's alius suited me an' I'm still 



livin', you see. 



"As I was a-sayin', Charlie didn't take 

 to farmin' an' the hull neighborhood was 

 a-wonderin' whatever would become of 

 him, when he up and got married." 



The old man paused for this bit of news 

 to strike in and to give me an opportunity 

 to e,\press my disapprobation; but he was 

 disappointed, for I had lived long enough 

 to learn that worse things might have hap- 

 pened to Charlie. 



Yes, sir, he got married," resumed 

 the old man, "an' 'most everybody was 

 sorry for MoUie Jame.s, to think she'd 

 take up with such a triflin' feller. Ol' 

 man Brown — he's dead now — was jest 

 put to it to know what to do with the 

 young couple, ^'ou know that place where 

 the Widow Sager used to li\e — that little 

 place where the creek runs catacornerways 

 acrost the Brennan place.'" 



I nodded. 



"Well, the old woman died that spring 

 and Brown he bought the place an' give 

 it to Charlie. There was six or seven acres 

 of it an' the ol' man told Chai lie he could 

 li\e there an' work on the home farm an' 

 he would pay him a dollar a day for what 

 time he put in. 



"The ol' man told me that he expected 



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he'd have to kind o' keep Charlie goin' an' 

 git what work he could out o' him. The 

 place where Charlie an' Mollie was to 

 live wasn't much of a place, but it was 

 better'n nothin', an' they moved in an' 

 began their mortal pilgrimage, as the bible 

 says, without much prospects of nothin'. 



"Now you'd natur'ly think Charlie 

 would a-perked up an' took to work, seein's 

 he'd took on himself the responsibility of 

 becomin' a man o' fam'ly; but he didn'i. 



"The very first thing he done was to 

 borry a team of his father an' turn up a 

 patch o' ground an' plant it to raspberry 

 an' blackberry bushes, when every thicket 

 in the hull country was full o' the things. 



"An' he actually planted flowers around 

 the house an' wasted a lot o' time tendin' 

 them when he might a-been raisin' real 

 crops. He sent off somewhere an' got 

 some strawberry plants an' begun a-raisin' 

 of 'em as if he thought he was doin' big 

 things. 



"He worked for his father an' kep' 

 himself an' Mollie in stuff to eat, an' he 

 planted out apple trees an' cherry trees 

 ontil you'd a thought he wanted to raise 

 a woods lot on the very gromid that the 

 early settlers worked early an' late to get 

 the woods off of. 



He acted redicklus, he did, an' no one 

 knowed it better'n his old dad; but you 

 can't take a growed up man with a wife 

 an' baby an' tan his jacket to make him 

 see things straight; so the ol' man let natiir' 

 take her course, as the preacher says, an' 

 took it as a sort of dispensation of provi- 

 dence, because he hadn't brought Charlie 

 up more stricter." 



As I recalled the many times v\hen 

 Charlie's father had "tanned his jncket" 

 I wondered what my old friend would 

 call strict bringing up, but I did not dis- 

 cuss the matter with him. 



"Well, time went on an' Charlie got to 

 sellin' berries an' truck to the stores an' 

 the tavern and to Judge Windacker's 

 fam'ly and to Dr. Kinney and Squire 

 Moss, an' he managed to make both en is 

 meet, though it was mighty small periateis 

 for a man to be piittin' in his time at. He 

 took more papers 'n the hull neighborhood, 

 an' spent a good deal o' time readin' when 

 he might, ben workin'. He didn't care 

 no more for visitin' an' goin' to town than 

 if there wasn't no such things. At first 

 we pitied Mollie because she was sluit up 

 so, but she didn't seem to mind it, an' after 

 while we got to lakin' it as a matter o' 

 course an' got used to the way things was 

 goin'^ 



"Charlie kep' right on grov\'iii' more an' 

 more strawberries an' things, ;in' he built 

 an addition to his hoi se an' put a nice 

 fence all around his lot, an' he got so alfired 

 putterin' that he put in his hull time on 

 that little farm. 



"He e\en got a name for it, an' called 

 it 'Marydell Fruit Farm', namin' it after 



