CHAPTER XI

THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD AND SOME TALES

Our particular breakfast consisted of a choice of several “flake” breakfast foods, a hard fried chop, an egg or two, fried, some German fried potatoes, and all done as an American small town hotelkeeper used to dealing with farmers and storekeepers and “hands” would imagine they ought to be done. Where did the average American first get the idea that meals of nearly all kinds need to be fried _hard_? Or that tea has to be made so strong that it looks black and tastes like weeds? Or that German fried potatoes ought to be soggy and that ’_all_ people prefer German fried potatoes? If you should ask for French fried potatoes or potatoes _au gratin_ or potatoes O'Brien in a small country town hotel you would be greeted with a look of uncertainty if not of resentment. French fried potatoes, pray—or meat medium or broiled? Impossible! And as for weak, clear, tasteful tea—shades of Buffalo Bill and Davy Crockett! “Whoever heard of weak, clear tea? The man has gone mad. He is some ‘city fellow,’ bent on showing off. It is up to us to teach him not to get smart. We must frown and delay and show that we do not approve of him at all.”

While we were eating, I was thinking where our car would take us this day, and the anticipation of new fields and strange scenes was enough to make a mere poor breakfast a very trivial matter indeed. Clouds and high hills, and spinning along the bank of some winding stream, were an ample exchange for any temporary inconvenience. After breakfast and while Franklin and I once more tightened up our belongings, Speed brought about the machine and in the presence of a few residents—a young girl of fifteen for one, who looked at us with wide, wishful eyes—we strapped on the bags and took our seats. I could not help feeling as I looked at some of them who observed us that they were wishing they were in our places. The car was good to look at. It was quite obvious from the various bags and wraps that we were en route somewhere. Someone was always asking us where we were from and where we were going—questions which the magic name of New York, particularly this distance away, seemed to make all the more significant. The night before in the garage at Scranton a youth, hearing us say that we were from there, had observed with an air: “How is old New York anyway?” And then, with a flourish: “I’ll have to be going over there pretty soon now. I haven’t been over in some time.”

Leaving Factoryville, we ran through country so beautiful that before long I regretted sincerely that we had done any traveling after dark the night before. We were making our way up a wide valley as I could see, the same green Susquehanna Valley, between high hills and through a region given over entirely to dairy farming. The hills looked as though they were bedded knee deep in rich, succulent grass. Groups of black and white Holstein cattle were everywhere to be seen. Some of the hills were laid out in checkerboard fashion by fields of grain or hay or buckwheat or great thick groves of trees. Before many a farm dooryard was a platform on which stood a milk can, or two or three: now and then a neighborhood creamery would come into view, where the local milk was churned wholesale and butter prepared and shipped. The towns for the most part were rarely factory towns, looking more as if they harbored summer boarders or were but now starting on a manufacturing career. Girls or women were reading or sewing on porches. The region of the mines was far behind.

And what a day! The everchanging panorama—how wonderful it was! Tr-r-r-r-r-r and we were descending a steep hill, at the bottom of which lay a railroad track (one of those against which we had been warned, no doubt), and in the distance more great hills, sentineling this wide valley; the road showing like a white thread, miles and miles away.

Tr-r-r-r-r-r, and now we were passing a prosperous farmyard, aglow with strident flowers, one woman sewing at a window, others talking with a neighbor at the door. Tr-r-r-r-r-r, here we were swinging around a sharp curve, over an iron bridge, noisy and shaky and beneath which ran a turbulent stream, and in the immediate foreground was an old mill or a barnyard alive with cattle and poultry. I had just time to think, “What if we should crash through this bridge into the stream below,” when T-r-r-r-r-r-r, and now came a small factory or foundry section with tall smokestacks, and beyond it a fair-sized town, clean, healthy, industrious. No tradition, you see, anywhere. No monuments or cathedrals or great hotels or any historic scene anywhere to look forward to: but Tr-r-r-r-r-r and here we are at the farther outskirts of this same small town with more green fields in the distance, the scuff and scar of manufacturing gone and only the blue sky and endless green fields and some birds flying and a farmer cutting his grain with a great reaper. Tr-r-r-r-r-r—how the miles do fly past, to be sure!

And T-r-r-r-r-r-r (these motors are surely tireless things), here is a lake now, just showing through the tall, straight trunks of trees, a silvery flash with a grey icehouse in the distance; and then, Tr-r-r-r-r-r, a thick green wall of woods, so rich and dark, from which pour the sweetest, richest, most invigorating odors and into the depth of which the glance sinks only to find cooler and darker shadows and even ultimate shadow or a green blackness; and then—Tr-r-r-r-r—a line of small white cottages facing a stream and a boy scuffing his toes in the warm, golden dust—oh, happy boyland!—and then, Tr-r-r-r-r—but why go on? It was all beautiful. It was all so refreshing. It was all like a song—only—Tr-r-r-r-r—and here comes another great wide spreading view, which Franklin wishes to sketch. He has a large pad of some peculiarly white porous paper, on which he works and from which he tears the sketches when they are done and deposits them in a convenient portfolio. By now Speed has become resigned to _not_ getting to Indiana as fast as he would like.

“Shucks!” I heard him say once, as he was oiling up his engine, “if we didn’t have to stop this way every few minutes, we’d soon get into Indiana. Give me half way decent roads and this little old motor will eat up the miles as good as anyone....” But when you have two loons aboard who are forever calling “Whoa!” and jumping up or out or both and exclaiming, “Well now, what do you think of that?—isn’t it beautiful?”—what are you going to do? No real chauffeur can get anywhere that way—you know that.

Here we were now backing the machine in the shade of a barn while Franklin fixed himself on the edge of a grey, lichen covered wall and I strolled off down a steep hill to get a better view of a railroad which here ran through a granite gorge. Perhaps Franklin worked as many as thirty or forty minutes. Perhaps I investigated even longer. There was a field on this slope with a fine spring on it. I had to speculate on what a fine pool could be made here. In the distance some horizon clouds made a procession like ships. I had to look at those. The spear pines here at the edge of this field were very beautiful and reminded me of the cypresses of Italy. I had to speculate as to the difference. Then Tr-r-r-r-r-r, and we were on again at about thirtyfive miles an hour.

While we were riding across this country in the bright morning sunshine, Speed fell into a reminiscent or tale-telling mood. Countrymen born have this trait at times and Speed was country bred. He began, as I had already found was his way, without any particular announcement, or a “Didjah ever hear of the old fellow,” etc., and then he would be off on a series of yarns the exact flavor and charm of which I cannot hope to transcribe, but some of which I nevertheless feel I must paraphrase as best I may.

Thus one of his stories concerned a wedding somewhere in the country. All the neighbors had been invited and the preacher and the justice of the peace. The women were all in the house picking wool for a pastime. The men were all out at the edge of the woods around a log heap they had built, telling stories. The bride-to-be was all washed and starched and her hair done up for once, and she was picking wool, too. When the fatal moment came the preacher and the prospective husband came in, followed by all the men, and the two stood in the proper position for a wedding before the fireplace; but the girl never moved. She just called, “Go on; it’ll be all right.” So the preacher read or spoke the ceremony, and when it came to the place where he asked her, “Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, etc.,” she stopped, took a chew of tobacco out of her mouth, threw it in the fire, expectorated in the same direction, and said, “I reckon.” Then she went on working again.

Another of these yarns concerned the resurveying of the county line between Brown and Monroe counties in Indiana which a little while before had been moved west about two hundred and fifty yards. That put the house of an old Brown County farmer about ten yards over the Monroe County line. A part of Monroe County in this region was swampy and famous for chills and fever—or infamous. When the old farmer came home that night his wife met him at the gate and said: “Now we just got tuh move, paw; that’s all there is to it. I’m not goin' to live over there in Monroe with all these here swamps. We’ll all die with chills and yuh know it.”

Fishing was great sport in some county in Indiana—I forget which. They organized fishing parties, sometimes thirty or forty in a drove, and went fishing, camping out for two or three days at a time, only they weren’t so strong for hooks and lines, except for the mere sport of it. To be sure of having enough fish to go ’round, they always took a few sticks of dynamite and toward evening or noon someone would light a fuse and attach it to a stick of dynamite and, just as it was getting near the danger line, throw it in the water.

Well, once upon a time there was just such a fishing party and they had a stick of dynamite, or two or three. There was also an old fat hotel man who had come along and he had a very fine big dog with him—a retriever—that he thought a great deal of. Whenever anyone would shoot a duck or throw a stick into the water, the dog would go and get it. On this occasion toward evening someone threw a stick of dynamite in the water with the fuse lit. Only instead of falling in the water it fell on some brush floating there and the darn fool dog seeing it jumped in and began to swim out toward it. They all commenced to holler at the dog to come back, but in vain. He swam to the dynamite stick, got it in his mouth, and started for shore—the fuse burning all the while. Then they all ran for their lives—all but the old fat hotel man, who couldn’t run very well, though he did his best, and it was his dog. He lit out, though, through the green briars and brush, hollering, “Go home, Tige! Go home, Tige!” at every jump. But old Tige was just a-bounding on along behind him and a-wagging his tail and a-shaking the water off him. What saved the old man was that at one place the dog stopped to shake the water off and that gave him a fair start, but he only missed him by about forty feet at that. The dog was just that near when, bang! and say, there wasn’t a thing left but just about a half inch of his tail, which somebody found and which the old man used to wear as a watch-charm and for good luck. He always said it was mighty good luck for him that the dog didn’t get any nearer.

And once more upon a time there was a very stingy old man who owned a field opposite the railway station of a small town. A shed was there which made a rather good billboard and itinerant showmen and medicine men occasionally posted bills on it—not without getting the permission of the owner, however, who invariably extracted tickets or something—medicine even.

One day, however, the station agent, who was idling in front of his office, saw a man pasting showbills. He fancied Zeke Peters' (the owner’s) permission had not been obtained, but he wasn’t sure. It must be remembered that he was in no way related to Peters. Walking over to the man, he inquired:

“Does paw know you’re putting up them bills here?”

“Why, no, I didn’t think there’d be any trouble. They’re only small bills, as you see.”

The agent pulled a long face.

“I know,” he replied, “but I don’t think paw’d like this.”

The showman handed him a ticket for the circus—one ticket.

“Well, I don’t know about this,” said the station agent heavily. “If you didn’t ask paw, I don’t know whether you’d better do this or not.”

The billposter handed him another ticket.

“Won’t that fix it?” he asked.

“Well,” replied the agent, seemingly somewhat mollified, “paw’s awful particular, but I guess I can fix it. I’ll try anyhow”—and he walked solemnly back to the station.

Old Peters didn’t chance to see the bills until a day or two before the circus. He was very angry, but at this time there were no circus men around to complain to. When the show came to town he looked up the box-office and found he had been done. Then he hurried to the agent.

“Where’s them tickets?” he demanded.

“What tickets?” replied the agent.

“That you got from that billposter.”

“Well, I’m usin' ’em. He gave ’em to me.”

“What fer, I'd like to know? It’s my billboard, ain’t it?”

“Well, it was my idea, wasn’t it?”

There Speed stopped.

“Well, did he get the tickets?” I asked.

“Course not. Nobody liked him, so he couldn’t do nothing.”

I liked the ending philosophy of this the best of all.

And once upon a time in some backwoods county in Indiana there was an election for president. There weren’t but sixtynine voters in the district and they kept straggling in from six A. M., when the polls opened, to six P. M., when they closed. Then they all hung around to see how the vote stood. And guess how it stood?

“Well?”

“It was this-a-way. W. J. Bryan, 15; Andrew Jackson, 12; Jeff Davis, 9; Abraham Lincoln, 8; Thomas Jefferson, 8; Moses, 6; Abraham, 15; John the Baptist, 3; Daniel Boone, 2; William McKinley, 1.”

“What about George Washington, Speed?”

“Well, I guess they musta fergot him.”

And, once more now, not every family in Indiana or elsewhere is strong for education, and especially in the country. So once upon a time there was a family—father and mother, that is—that got into a row over this very thing. An old couple had married after each had been married before and each had had children. Only, now, each of ’em only had one son apiece left, that is, home with ’em. The old man believed in education and wanted his boy educated, whereas the woman didn’t. “No, siree,” she said, “I don’t want any of my children to ever git any of that book learnin'. None o' the others had any and I ’low as Luke can git along just as well as they did.”

But the old man he didn’t feel quite right about it and somehow his boy liked books. So, since he was really the stronger of the two, he sent the two boys off and made ’em go. The old woman grieved and grieved. She felt as though her boy was being spoiled, and she said so.

[Illustration: FACTORYVILLE BIDS US FAREWELL]

“Shucks!” said the old man, “he’ll git along all right. What’s the matter with you, anyhow? If my boy don’t go to school he’ll feel bad, and if I send him to school and keep yours at home to work the neighbors will talk—now I just can’t manage it, that’s all.”

So the two boys kept on going for awhile longer. Only the old woman kept feelin' worse and worse about it. All at once one day she got to feelin' so terrible bad that she just gathered up her boy’s clothes and took him over to his grandfather’s to live, and gee! the old grandfather was sore about it. Say!

“Send that boy to school!” he says. “Never! Why, he ain’t the same boy any more at all already. I’ll be hanged if he ain’t even fergot how to cuss,” and he wouldn’t even let the boy’s fosterfather come near him. Not a bit of it, no siree.

And once upon a time, in the extreme southern part of Indiana where the ice doesn’t get very thick—not over three inches—there was a backwoods preacher who made a trip to Evansville and saw an ice machine making ice a foot thick, and he came back and told his congregation about it.

“Whaddy think of that!” one of the old members exclaimed. “The Lord can’t make it more’n three inches around here, and he says men in Evansville can make it a foot thick!”

So they turned the old preacher out for lying, b’gosh!

Once upon a time there was an old Irishman got on the train at Carmel, Indiana, and walked in the car, but the seats were all taken. One was occupied by an Indiana farmer and his dog. The Irishman knew, if he tried to make the dog get down and give him the seat, he would have the farmer and the dog to fight.

“That’s a very fine darg ye have.”

“Yes, stranger; he’s the finest dog in the county.”

“And he has the marks of a good coon darg.”

“That’s right. He can come as near findin' coons where there ain’t any as the next one.”

“What brade of darg is he?”

“Well, he’s a cross between an Irishman and a skunk.”

“Bejasus, then he must be related to the both of us!”

Somewhere in the country in Indiana they once built a railroad where there never had been one and it created great excitement. One old farmer who had lived on his farm a great many years and had never even seen a train or a track and had raised a large family, mostly girls, was so interested that he put his whole family in the wagon and drove up close to the track so they could get a good view of the cars the first time they came through. But before the train came he got uneasy. He was afraid the old grey mare would get scared and run away. So he got out, unhitched the old horse and tied it to a tree, gave it some hay and got back into the wagon. Pretty soon he saw the train coming very fast, and as the old wagon was quite close to the track he thought the train might jump the track and kill them all, so he leaped out, got between the shafts and started to pull the wagon a little farther down the hill. Just then the train neared the station and he got so excited that he lost all control of himself and away he went down the hill, lickety split. He ran upon a stump, upset the wagon and threw the old woman and all the children out, and hurt them worse than ever the old mare would have. The old woman was furious. She didn’t have any bridle on him and while he was running she missed seeing the train.

“Gol darn you,” she hollered, “if I didn’t have a sprained ankle now, I’d fix you—runnin' away like the crazy old fool that you are!”

“That’s all right, Maria,” he called back meekly. “I was a leetle excited, I’ll admit; but next week when the train goes through again you and the children kin come down and I’ll stay to home. I just can’t stand these newfangled things, I reckon.”

And once upon a time (and this is the last one for the present) there was a real wildcat fight somewhere—a most wonderful wildcat fight. An old farmer was sitting on a fence hoeing corn—that’s the way they hoe corn in some places—and all at once he saw two Thomas wildcats approaching each other from different directions and swiftly. He was about to jump down and run when suddenly the cats came together. It was all so swift that he scarcely had time to move. They came along on their hind feet and when they got together each one began to claw and climb up the other. In fifteen minutes they were out of sight in the air, each one climbing rapidly up the other; but he could hear them squalling for two hours after they were out of sight, and froth and hair fell for two days!