I said not a word to the husky road-worker and pretended not to look at him, but I saw him well enough out of the corner of my eye. He was evidently astonished and interested, as I knew he would be: it was something entirely new on the road. He didn't quite know whether to be angry, or amused, or sociable. I caught him looking over at me several times, but I offered no response; then he cleared his throat and said:
"Where you from?"
I answered with a monosyllable which I knew he could not quite catch. Silence again for some time, during which I shovelled valiantly and with great inward amusement. Oh, there is nothing like cracking a hard human nut! I decided at that moment, to have him invite me to supper.
Finally, when I showed no signs of stopping my work, he himself paused and leaned on his shovel. I kept right on.
"Say, partner," said he, finally, "did YOU read those signs as you come up the road?"
"Yes," I said, "but they weren't for me, either. My section's a long one, too."
"Say, you ain't a road-worker, are you?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes," said I, with a sudden inspiration, "that's exactly what I am--a road-worker."
"Put her there, then, partner," he said, with a broad smile on his bronzed face.
He and I struck hands, rested on our shovels (like old hands at it), and looked with understanding into each other's eyes. We both knew the trade and the tricks of the trade; all bars were down between us. The fact is, we had both seen and profited by the peculiar signs at the roadside.
"Where's your section?" he asked easily.
"Well," I responded after considering the question, "I have a very long and hard section. It begins at a place called Prosy Common--do you know it?--and reaches to the top of Clear Hill.
There are several bad spots on the way, I can tell you."
"Don't know it," said the husky road-worker; "'tain't round here, is it? In the town of Sheldon, maybe?"
Just at this moment, perhaps fortunately, for there is nothing so difficult to satisfy as the appetite of people for specific information, a motor-car whizzed past, the driver holding up his hand in greeting, and the road-worker and I responding in accordance with the etiquette of the Great Road.
"There he goes in the ruts again," said the husky road-worker.
"Why is it, I'd like to know, that every one wants to run in the same identical track when they've got the whole wide road before 'em?"
"That's what has long puzzled me, too," I said. "Why WILL people continue to run in ruts?"
"It don't seem to do no good to put up signs," said the road-worker.
"Very little indeed," said I. "The fact is, people have got to be bumped out of the ruts they get into."
"You're right," said he enthusiastically, and his voice dropped into the tone of one speaking to a member of the inner guild. "I know how to get 'em."
"How?" I asked in an equally mysterious voice.
"I put a stone or two in the ruts!"
"Do you?" I exclaimed. "I've done that very thing myself--many a time! Just place a good hard tru--I mean stone, with a bit of common dust sprinkled over it, in the middle of the rut, and they'll look out for THAT rut for some time to come."
"Ain't it gorgeous," said the husky road-worker, chuckling joyfully, "to see 'em bump?"
"It is," said I--"gorgeous."
After that, shovelling part of the time in a leisurely way, and part of the time responding to the urgent request of the signs by the roadside (it pays to advertise!), the husky road-worker and I discussed many great and important subjects, all, however, curiously related to roads. Working all day long with his old horse, removing obstructions, draining out the culverts, filling ruts and holes with new stone, and repairing the damage of rain and storm, the road-worker was filled with a world of practical information covering roads and road-making. And having learned that I was of the same calling, we exchanged views with the greatest enthusiasm. It was astonishing to see how nearly in agreement we were as to what constituted an ideal road.
"Almost everything," said he, "depends on depth. If you get a good solid foundation, the' ain't anything that can break up your road."
"Exactly what I have discovered," I responded. "Get down to bedrock and do an honest job of building."
"And don't have too many sharp turns."
"No," said I, "long, leisurely curves are best--all through life.
You have observed that nearly all the accidents on the road are due to sharp turnings."
"Right you are!" he exclaimed.
"A man who tries to turn too sharply on his way nearly always skids."
"Or else turns turtle in the ditch."
But it was not until we reached the subject of oiling that we mounted to the real summit of enthusiastic agreement. Of all things on the road, or above the road, or in the waters under the road, there is nothing that the road-worker dislikes more than oil.
"It's all right," said he, "to use oil for surfacin' and to keep down the dust. You don't need much and it ain't messy. But sometimes when you see oil pumped on a road, you know that either the contractor has been jobbin', or else the road's worn out and ought to be rebuilt."
"That's exactly what I've found," said I. "Let a road become almost impassable with ruts and rocks and dust, and immediately some man says, 'Oh, it's all right--put on a little oil--'"
"That's what our supervisor is always sayin'," said the road-worker.
"Yes," I responded, "it usually is the supervisor. He lives by it. He wants to smooth over the defects, he wants to lay the dust that every passerby kicks up, he tries to smear over the truth regarding conditions with messy and ill-smelling oil. Above everything, he doesn't want the road dug up and rebuilt--says it will interfere with traffic, injure business, and even set people to talking about changing the route entirely! Oh, haven't I seen it in religion, where they are doing their best to oil up roads that are entirely worn out--and as for politics, is not the cry of the party-roadster and the harmony-oilers abroad in the land?"
