THE ROAD TO ARCADIA
Fiveboys sat matching pennies on the floor of a temple—the ruined temple of Hera in the ancient Greek city of Olympia. They were little boys, all in short trousers, and Theo and Alexander in the long-sleeved blue aprons worn by boys in the primary grades of school. Spiro and Andreas, a little older, wore brown woolen capes and little caps with tassels. Adoni, the oldest, had finished the primary school and wore afustanella, that is, a full white kilt, which stood out like a ballet dancer’s skirt. On his shoes were black pompons like his father’s.
The ruined temple was a favorite place to play, for the boys were very proud of the fact that it was one of the famous spots of the earth. Among the blackberry vines and the daisies, great blocks of marble lay about, like fallen checker towers on a carpet. The boys knew the stories about the wilderness of buildings, which were now marked only by foundation lines or rows of broken columns. Here the great Olympic Games had been begun more than two thousand years ago—the games that have been revived in our time, and in which it is such an honor to take part. To these boys the olden games seemed very real and the ancient place very living.
FIVE BOYS SAT MATCHING PENNIES ON THE FLOOR OF A TEMPLEFIVE BOYS SAT MATCHING PENNIES ON THE FLOOR OF A TEMPLE
FIVE BOYS SAT MATCHING PENNIES ON THE FLOOR OF A TEMPLE
FIVE BOYS SAT MATCHING PENNIES ON THE FLOOR OF A TEMPLE
Tired of matching pennies, they took off their shoes and sprang to a paved spot near by, where they began to wrestle. In the gymnasium that had once stood here, the Olympic athletes had begun their training. The pavement of tile was grooved, to keep the wrestlers from slipping, and as the five boys tussled, their bare feet gripped the friendly tiles.
When they stopped their play, out of breath, Theo caught sight of the figure of a stranger, and all of them turned to look, abashed. From where they stood they could not tell whether it was that of a man or a woman, for the person sat low in the grass. A gray coat collar was turned up to the ears and a black cap pulled down, against a keen breeze that set the delicate iris aquiver and rippled the daisies on their stems.
The boys stood for a moment full of curiosity, then began to jump forward from stone to stone, pretending to look for blackberries, but really closing in on the stranger. When they came near they saw that it was a woman, and that a paint box lay open at her side. She looked up and smiled, and a sigh of relief went up from the boys. She was not going to drive them away. Instead, she held out her hand and said ‘Good day’ intheir own tongue. This greeting appeared to be all the Greek that she knew, so the boys could only smile back at her and shake hands.
They would have liked to talk to her and tell her the stories about the ruins. They pointed to a fallen archway to show her the entrance to the famous stadium where races had taken place—a stretch of level ground now covered with wheat fields and olive trees, beneath which lay the great race course where the chariots had whirled and the spot where the victors had received their olive branches.
In the old days there had been no money prizes and no decorations. No professional runners or boxers or wrestlers were allowed to take part in the Olympic Games. It was a fair contest, for all the players had the same training, ten months in the gymnasium where the boys had just been wrestling. July was the month for the Games; and no matter what quarrels or wars there might be between the states of Greece, during that month they were forgotten. Peace was sworn, and all Greeks came together as brothers. It was not only the Greeks who gathered; people from other countries were welcomed, too, for in Olympia the word ‘stranger’ was sacred. To harm or cheat a guest was the meanest of crimes.
The five boys stood around the artist, and their courteous bearing seemed to show that they kept to the great tradition of the Games. Adoni jerked his head back scornfully and pointed to a row of large stones near by. On those blocks had once stood statues calledzanes, paid for by the fines of contestants who had not ‘played the game.’ The largest one perpetuated the shame of a boy who had run away the night before the race in which he was to take part, because he had been afraid of failing. That was more than fifteen hundred years ago! The artist nodded and said ‘Zanes!’ and the boys knew that she understood.
They drew closer to watch her as she sketched. Along the road to Arcadia, on the embankment above them, a broken line of people, on foot and on donkey-back, were passing on their way home from market. It made a bright moving picture in the sunlight, but it was not easy to paint. Before one donkey was finished, another had trotted into his place in the picture. The boys laughed when the waggly ears of one donkey were placed on another one that had passed out of sight. Orange and black saddlebags took the place of a wooden saddle that had been hung with bunches of onions and carrots; and one woman was painted with another woman’s baby.
Quite as fascinating were the materials with which the artist worked—sticks of charcoal, a soft eraser, which could be squeezed like putty between the fingers, and a box full of tiny porcelain dishes filled with bright colors, besides tubes from which soft paint could be pressed on a tin plate and mixed with water. The box lay on the grass close by the artist’s knee, and the boys longed to look it over, but were too shy and too well-bred to touch the things.
Andreas, looking up from watching this diverting business, spied two older boys coming toward their group. Uneasily the younger boys recognized Petro Negroponte, who was always bullying them on the school playground and elsewhere. The big boys lounged onto the scene and stood staring, their hands in their pockets. To show that they were not impressed by what was going on, they began to make scornful remarks, at which the little boys grinned nervously, hoping that after all they might be allowed to stay.
But Petro had no intention of letting them enjoy themselves. ‘Here, get out of this, you!’ he said roughly. As the five stood irresolute, he raised his arm threateningly.
‘Go!’ he commanded.
Reluctantly the little boys turned away and beganto play leap-frog in an open space where once had stood an altar to the great god Zeus. Looking back wistfully, they saw something that made them stop their game in horror.
The big boys, too, had moved away. One of them was halfway up the embankment, but Petro Negroponte had slipped behind the tree under which the artist sat. Suddenly his hand shot out, and the next instant he and his pal were dashing up the embankment and along the road to Arcadia.
‘My paint box!’ cried the artist, springing to her feet. She spoke in English, but the little boys understood. Their own particular stranger had appealed to them for help! Forgetting their fear, they started in full cry after the thieves.
Along the stony road to Arcadia they ran, the artist panting far behind. Shepherds waved to show which direction the fugitives had taken. Men in the field shouted encouragement, but no one joined the chase.
What the boys feared, happened. Petro and his companion made for a thick wood on a cliff above the road. There, rocks and brush made pursuit almost impossible. With thumping hearts and dry throats, the little boys scrambled up the steep incline and out of sight of the artist on the road below.
It was a long half-hour before they came sliding down the hill, dusty and sweating. Andreas carried the paint box, but it was empty. All of the boys were silent and ashamed, because they had failed, but, most of all, because a Greek boy had betrayed a stranger. There were stillzanesin Olympia!
The sun was dropping low. It touched the sheep in the meadows, rimming each one of them with silver. The road to Arcadia still lay in sunshine, and over it the little procession turned back.
Suddenly Spiro pounced on something lying in a rut—a stick of charcoal! Instantly five pairs of eyes sharpened, searching the edges of the road. Patiently they went over the course step by step, and shouts of triumph punctured the twilight when a lead pencil or a tube of paint was found among the rocks. At the top of the embankment, where Petro had stumbled over a pine root, they found the most. The box had slipped and, having no cover, many of the paints had dropped from it.
Eagerly the boys gathered the lost tubes. Not the very smallest piece of charcoal was withheld, not even the fascinating lump of rubber which trembled in Alexander’s grimy little hand, nor the empty porcelain pans which Adoni picked out of the moss. At the endof the search, a handful of odds and ends had been gathered, precious little bits of red and yellow and green saved from the wreck.
Then, since words meant little between them and their stranger, boys and artist smiled at each other in the dusk, in perfect understanding as they all shook hands again.
The honor of Olympia was clear when the wind and the sun went down at the end of the valley.