On a bright sunny day in the middle of the month of August, a merry group of gaily dressed children were romping upon the green lawn of a country place, that, from its well kept and cleanly surroundings, could not have been mistaken for any other than the home of some prosperous and perhaps retired gentleman of wealth and refinement.

The old-fashioned stone house, with its wide porch and heavily carved wooden columns green-coated with climbing ivy, rose amid the stately trees of the lawn, until it seemed lost in a bower of shadowy foliage. The low, thatch-roofed out-buildings and long lines of far-reaching fence, carefully coated with fresh whitewash, stood glistening in the sunlight, quite in harmony with the polished marble window sills of the great stone mansion.

Standing in the very centre of the scene, like some still lingering remnant of the long gone and almost forgotten past, arose the tall, rustic arm of an old-fashioned well-sweep, that raised or lowered a moss-covered, old oaken bucket, filled to overflowing and dripping wet with cool, clear water, not unfrequently visited by this gamboling group of merry children both during and after their play.

As the children rested for a moment beneath the sheltering arms of an old oak tree, they were much surprised to behold the form of a wandering vagabond ambling along the dusty road. His hat was well drawn down over his eyes to avoid the glaring rays of the mid-day sun. Over his shoulder and made fast to the end of a crooked stick, that might have answered as well for a defence as for a staff, hung his sum total of earthly possessions, tied carefully into a small bundle and as carefully hid from view within the folds of a red bandanna handkerchief.

A passing glance only was needed to tell that the wanderer was weary; and as his eyes, glistening with envy, beheld the cool shade of the trees, and the still more inviting bucket above the well, that, half-filled and leaking, hung suspended in mid-air, he halted his weary pace in the road near the gate and beckoned the children to approach.

No second invitation was needed. The boys, more daring and venturesome, bounded toward him with a merry shout and were soon standing on the edge of the lawn near the wanderer; but the little girls, like so many timid fawns of the forest, with a feeling more of fear than of curiosity, lingered tardily behind; and it was some time before they joined their less cautious companions.

He was a curious-looking, but quite jolly vagabond indeed; and although his face was begrimed and smeared with mingled perspiration and dust, his eyes shone with a merry, good-natured twinkle, as he doffed his well worn and dusty black hat and bowed with an air of politeness, quite unknown to the common everyday tramp of the highways of the world.

One of the children laughingly exclaimed:

"Where are you going?"

And another: "Where did you come from?"

And still a third: "Where is your home?"

And so on, until the now smiling vagabond, waiting for a chance to reply, stood bowing and scraping in the middle of the sunbaked road as he calmly received volley after volley of almost unanswerable questions.

"Well!" he exclaimed at last, as the children became suddenly silent, "you ask me where I am from and where I am going, so now let me say: just at present I am from everywhere in general and bound nowhere in particular!"

And he began pounding the dust from his body and limbs with his old hat, as if wishing to make himself look presentable, even if out in the middle of a hot, dusty roadway; and looking up with a longing glance, he asked permission to obtain a drink of water from the well on the lawn.

The big gate was still closed to "His Most Royal Highness," and as the mere thought of his entering the lawn dawned upon the minds of the now silent children, they drew back in affright and with solemn faces; nor would they think of granting the stranger's request until finally one little fellow called his companions together for a moment, as he almost pleadingly said:

"It is wrong to deny a poor man a drink of water. He is weary and perhaps far from home, while God gives us the water so freely. Beside, he cannot take the shade of these trees away with him when he goes, so, while he rests on the lawn, I will bring him a drink from the well myself."

And with a light foot, but a much lighter heart, the boy bounded away in haste, while the weary "Knight of the Road" entered the shadow of a big maple tree on the lawn and stood waiting for him to return.

As he gulped down the cool, refreshing water in a manner as though famished, he blinked his bright sparkling eyes in evidence of much relish; then casting a thankful glance upon the face of his new found friend, he turned toward him with a smile as he said:

"My little lad, for your kind act to a weary and thirsty man let me say; if you will gather your little friends about me under the shade of this tree, I will tell you an interesting story, which, if you will listen carefully, may give you something of my past wanderings as well as an answer to some of the questions you asked of me while I was out in the road."

Without a word of reply, the children, anxious to know what the stranger's story might be, sank here and there upon the grass, as the vagabond thus began his strange tale.