A BREAKDOWN
Only two hundred miles from home and a breakdown! We had left Albany
early in the morning and were running happily along over a road as smooth
as a billiard table. Everything went beautifully until we were about
twenty miles from Utica when our “chauffeur” said he heard a squeak.
Gloom began to shadow his features. Half a mile further, the squeak
became a knock and gloom deepened. He stopped the engine, got out and
looked under the hood, lifted the cranking handle once or twice and threw
his hands up in a gesture of abject despair. His lips framed all sorts of
words but all he said aloud was: “It’s a bearing!” He looked so utterly
dejected that in my sympathy for him (starting out on such a trip with
a mother and a cousin and neither of us of the slightest use to him) I
forgot that we were all equally concerned in whatever this misfortune
about a “bearing” might be.
“Couldn’t we _try_ to get to a garage?” timorously asked the one in the
back.
Our “chauffeur” shook his head. “Not without wrecking the engine. There
is nothing for it but to be towed to a machine shop.”
“And then?” I asked.
“That depends——” was his ambiguous answer, and we said nothing more.
Is there anything more exhilarating than an automobile running smoothly
along? Is there anything more dispiriting than the same automobile unable
to go? The bigger and heavier it is, the worse the situation seems to be.
You might get out and push a little one, but a big car standing stonily
silent portends something of the inexorability of Fate.
And there we sat. Presently an old man came jogging along in a buggy.
“Any trouble?” He grinned as the owner of a horse always does grin under
such circumstances. But after a few further exasperating remarks, he
offered kindly, “Say, son, I’ll drive you to a good garage down the road;
there are others a mile nearer, but Hoffman and Adams’ place at Fort
Plain is first class.”
There had been nothing in our informer’s conversation to give us great
confidence in his recommendation but the garage turned out even better
than he said. There was a first-rate machine shop with an expert mechanic
in charge of it, who peered into our engine dubiously:
“If it was only a Ford or a Cadillac,” said he, “I could fix you up right
away! But a bearing for that car of yours’ll like as not have to be made.
Can you get one in New York, do you think?”
An unusual and “special” car may be very smart-looking and be
particularly easy to trace if stolen, but in a breakdown a make of
popular type would be best—a Ford ideal. You could buy a whole new one at
the first garage you came to, or maybe get a missing part at the first
ten-cent store. We discovered the difficulty, or inconvenience rather, of
repairing ours, within twenty-four hours of leaving home.
The telephone service at Fort Plain was hopeless. For over four hours we
tried to get the agency in New York; even then it was doubtful whether
they would have the part. Meantime the engine had been taken down and
the cause of the burnt-out bearing discovered to be a broken oil pipe.
They mended that and our “chauffeur” was a little more cheerful when he
discovered that they had all necessary tools and things to make a new
bearing by hand, which they started to do. The lady who was traveling
with us and I walked round and round the town. We sent picture postals
by the dozen quite as though we had arrived where we had intended to be.
We discovered a restaurant where we could, if it should be necessary,
return for lunch, and a news stand where we fortified ourselves with
chocolate and magazines. After which reconnoitering we returned to the
garage prepared to stay where we were indefinitely. Mr. Hoffman made us
comfortable in the office, where I found excitement in the workings of a
very gorgeous and complicated cash register. It had all sorts of knobs
and buttons in every variety of color, and was altogether fascinating! I
wonder if anyone ever has opened a store for the mere joy of playing on
the cash register. I wanted to set up a shop at once!
[Illustration: STILL IN NEW YORK STATE]
Finally New York telephoned they had a bearing, so we decided to go on to
Utica by train. Someone told us—I can’t remember who it was—that beyond
Albany the nearest good hotel was the Onondaga at Syracuse; but as we
would surely have to stop at some poor hotels we thought we might as well
get used to a lack of luxury first as last, so we took the train for
Utica, to wait there until our car should be repaired.
Notwithstanding our altruistic intention to accept cheerfully whatever
accommodations offered, our delighted surprise may be imagined when we
entered the beautiful, wide, white marble lobby of the brand-new Hotel
Utica! Our rooms were big and charmingly furnished. One had light blue
damask hangings, and cane furniture; another mahogany and English chintz;
each of them had its own bathroom with best sort of plumbing.
The food is very good and reasonable as to price. One dinner for instance
was a dollar and thirty cents for each of us, including crêpes Suzette,
which were delicious! There was music during dinner, and afterward
dancing. As in most places outside of Broadway, they still call every
sort of dance that is not a waltz the “tango.”
Sitting in the lobby for a little while in the evening, we noticed that
the clerk at the desk, instead of showing the blank indifference typical
of hotels on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, greeted all arriving guests
with a hearty “How do you do?” They also gave us souvenirs. A little
gilt powder pencil, a leather change purse, and a gilt stamped leather
cardcase. We felt as though we had been to a children’s party.
Our “chauffeur,” who went back to Fort Plain at daybreak, returned with
the car in the late afternoon, so that we were able to go on again after
a delay of only a day and a half.