At the close of a glad day in early June, Nance and I stood watching a horse and van, driven by a stranger of captivating appearance, turn from the down-river turnpike and halt on a grassy knoll overlooking the Ohio. The cart, which was a large two-wheeled affair with little cupboard-like boxes beneath, and a short pair of stairs for mounting stored on the top among a medley of old umbrellas, bore an adventurous, foreign aspect. At least we had seen nothing before so wonderful. Its wheels were low and broad-tired; the shafts were thick and heavy with a prop suspended from each of them, that the weight might be balanced when not supported by the ragged brown mare now pulling it. The body, held rather high above the axle by a pair of big, bowed springs, was completely closed upon all sides like a circus wagon, though, more than anything else, this queer craft seemed a sort of private Noah's ark. The entrance was in the rear and, as we afterward discovered, could be reached by mounting a wheel, hauling the steps from the roof, and attaching them to small sockets in the door-sill. This amazing and spectacular vehicle was painted a brilliant yellow.

The man idling beside this magnificent equipage was the most picturesque being I have ever seen. He was of medium height with broad, muscular shoulders, sturdy legs like one used to walking much in the open, and a general ease and grace of movement, as if each motion were made to music, indicating a perfect health of body. His features were large and generous with penetrating quizzical gray eyes, a nose slightly Roman, and a wide mouth which seemed continuously to be struggling to suppress a smile. He wore a short bushy beard that needed brushing. His hair was red, heavy, unkempt, and a trifle long, completely covering his ears. On his feet were stout, heavy-soled, laced boots. Thrust into their tops were well-worn corduroy trousers. His shirt was of dark blue woolen material, open at the neck, showing a corded, hairy chest. He wore no hat.

Upon arriving at the knoll the master of the van sat hastily upon the ground and, as if gravel had been eating into his heels, quickly removed his boots. Then he rubbed his feet slowly and sensuously over the soft cool grass as if it were a specific for drawing fever from blistered soles. Next, quite as suddenly, he arose and went about the business of unhitching the mare from the cart. Just as he was leading her from her burden we, like curious children, drew near and mumbled a bashful good evening.

"How do you do, my dears," he said, with frank good humor.

"My name," I ventured, "is Charles Reubelt King, and hers is Nance Gwyn.... This is our common," I added, with the condescending air of the small proprietor whose vanity was touched because of not having been consulted concerning its occupancy by the daring incumbent.

"Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Charles Screwbelt Ring. Miss Nance Gwyn, I am distinctly honored.... And I," said he, with an elaborate bow in which he removed and swept the ground with an imaginary hat, while one hand pressed his heart, "am Jean FranÇois, sometimes known as the Umbrella Man, at others as the Happy Pedler.... I am pedler, poet, mender of umbrellas." Here he straightened to his full height, all the time yelling directly at me, "Umbrellas to mend! Umbrellas to mend! No?" he exclaimed with a comical shrug of his shoulders, and then continued, "I am philosopher, vagabond, musician,—a very sad gentleman you see, who am fifth cousin to Master William Shakespeare, and own brother to FranÇois Villon, one-time king of the French!" Then, again turning and addressing himself particularly to me, "I own the road, the river, the hills, the trees, and all the blue summer sky. The stars are mine, too, and I turn 'em out to pasture o' nights."

"O, I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he cried to Nance, as if he had forgotten something pertaining to good breeding.

"This lady," here he turned, including in his bow the patient little brown mare waiting at his elbow for the bridle to be removed, "is my mare Rogue. She's not a pretty lass, and she lacks a sense of humor. There are none like her for a pleasant ramble down the road. She loves her sugar like a child.... Shake hands with Miss Gwyn, my dove," he added, while Nance timidly touched the extended hoof.

"Also," continuing the presentations, "Mademoiselle Columbine," and he waved a hand whimsically toward the yellow van. "She is beautiful, now, isn't she, my dears? And she's sound, serviceable, and optimistic. She holds my dreams.... What more could you ask? Yes?"

"And last of all," said he, removing with a flourish a little, burned, villainous briar-root pipe from his mouth, "this is Pierrett. She's a dirty wench, but sweet and toothsome as parched corn. She is as philosophical as a fisherman, as independent as a church pillar, and she's my soul mate! Eh, Pierrett?"

"You see," he said, addressing me to the exclusion of Nance, as he turned Rogue onto the pasture, "I'm the lone male among all of these females. A sort of Mormon elder, I am; but, tut, man, it's only a brotherly kind of relationship which doesn't entail jealousy.... You see, son, everybody's children are mine—yes, you two's my kiddies—and I pretty much own the world; only, you see, I don't take it and use it except for traveling purposes. All I ask," said he, becoming quite serious, with a far-away expression in his splendid eyes while he pointed down the long white highway, "is a road to roam,—le long du trimard—a river now and then for variety, the sigh of my music in the greenwood, a bit of milk and cheese on a village common at night, for I love the homely gleam of distant lights, and the stars to sing me to sleep while browsing Rogue twinkles her grass.... Um, ah, doesn't make you sleepy, son, just to hear about it? Yes?"

"Now, Mr. Charles—"

"Reubelt King," I hastened to correct him, as he hesitated with a merry twinkle in his eye.

"—Reubelt King, run along and tell me whose house that is way down yonder on the river."

"The old home of the many pillars?" I questioned. "Monsieur l'abbÉ Jacques Picot."

"Father Picot?... The hell—O, I beg your pardon, Rogue, Pierrett, Columbine, and your young ladyship!... You females are terribly ubiquitous at times.... No, that's not a cuss-word, Mademoiselle. It means you women are always lingering around a good, healthy, pleasant, cussful male like me.

"Where'd I come from? Just down the chemin, my dears. And if you were impolite enough to ask me where I was going, that's where—down the road.... Where do I live?"

Jean FranÇois sings:

"Is that as you like it, my dears?... My cousin has quite a fancy for the song. He's a sort of trimardeur who once made plays.... He wrote 'em and acted 'em, but, son, I live 'em."

Then, seated upon the grass, he spoke half jestingly, and yet with a serious note of reminiscence in his voice:

"Sometimes I'm Jacques, that melancholy cuss. Sometimes I'm Puck—merry Robin Goodfellow. You wouldn't believe it, now, would you? Sometimes, Touchstone. Often I am Ariel—

"I have been Romeo, but no more for me.... Nance, you red-headed little jade, how old are you?"

We were preparing to leave. We weren't interested. What did we care about all of this? Who were Ariel and Puck, anyhow? I could see that Nance did not like one bit being a "red-headed jade." She was always very sensitive about the color of her hair and the freckles on her nose.

"Don't go, my kiddies," he suddenly pleaded. "Look-e-here. I'm going to make a big, crackling fire in a minute. Then we'll have a bucket of water from the river. I've a kettle and some eggs aboard the Columbine.... Say, we'll have the one great time of our lives!"

It took no unusual amount of insisting to make us enter into a game like that with zest. And O, the mysteries of the interior of Mademoiselle Columbine. O, the stories of caliphs and kings and grand viziers and robbers and things. And they were friends of his, too. Personal friends!

It was unpleasantly late when we stole away home to scoldings and to bed. He told us to refer 'em to him, and he'd fix things with the grown-ups. Our parting glimpse, as we ran across the pasture, was Jean FranÇois, seated in the grass within the circle of the glowing light of the embers, talking to his pipe. Pretty soon, we knew for he told us, he'd be in bed. He used the stars, he remarked, to button the covers down, and he'd dip 'em into the river to put them out in the morning.