ADVENTURES IN FRIENDSHIP

By David Grayson



I

AN ADVENTURE IN FRATERNITY


This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I
was ever in. Looking about me I perceive that the simplest things are
the most difficult, the plainest things, the darkest, the commonest
things, the rarest.

I have had an amusing adventure--and made a friend.

This morning when I went to town for my marketing I met a man who was a
Mason, an Oddfellow and an Elk, and who wore the evidences of his
various memberships upon his coat. He asked me what lodge I belonged
to, and he slapped me on the back in the heartiest manner, as though he
had known me intimately for a long time. (I may say, in passing, that he
was trying to sell me a new kind of corn-planter.) I could not help
feeling complimented--both complimented and abashed. For I am not a
Mason, or an Oddfellow, or an Elk. When I told him so he seemed much
surprised and disappointed.

"You ought to belong to one of our lodges," he said. "You'd be sure of
having loyal friends wherever you go."