THE APPROACH TO ERIE
Beyond the Tackawanna Steel Works there was a lake beach with thousands
of people bathing and sausage and lemonade venders hawking their wares
(I couldn’t resist buying one “hot dog”); and after that a long line,
miles it seemed to me, of sumptuous country places facing the lake,
their roofs and gables showing through the trees; then the lake proper
with not much interruption of view for a while; and then a detour, and
then a flat, open country road, oiled until it was black, and then a
white macadam road. Now that we were out of the hill and mountain
country, I was missing those splendid rises and falls of earth which had
so diverted me for days; but one cannot have hill country everywhere,
and so as we sped along we endeavored to make the best of what was to be
seen. These small white and grey wooden towns, with their white wooden
churches and Sabbath ambling citizens, began to interest me. What a
life, I said to myself, and what beliefs these people entertain! One
could discern their creeds by the number of wooden and brick churches
and the sense of a Sabbath stillness and propriety investing everything.
At dusk, tiny church bells began to ring, church doors, revealing
lighted interiors, stood open, and the people began to come forth from
their homes and enter. I have no deadly opposition to religion. The weak
and troubled mind must have something on which to rest. It is only when
in the form of priestcraft and ministerial conniving it becomes puffed
up and arrogant and decides that all the world must think as it thinks,
and do as it does, and that if one does not one is a heretic and an
outcast, that I resent it.
The effrontery of these theorists anyhow, with their sacraments and
their catechisms! Think of that mad dog Torquemada bestriding Spain like
a Colossus, driving out eight hundred thousand innocent Jews, burning at
the stake two thousand innocent doubters, stirring up all the ignorant
animal prejudice of the masses, and leaving Spain the bleak and hungry
land it is today! Think of it!—a priest, a theorist, a damned speculator
in monastic abstrusities, being able to do anything like that! And then
the Inquisition as a whole, the burning of poor John Huss, the sale of
indulgences and the driving out of Luther. Beware of the enthusiastic
religionist and his priestly servitors and leaders! Let not the theorist
become too secure! Think of those who, in the name of a mystic unproven
God, would seize on all your liberties and privileges, and put them in
leash to a wild-eyed exorcist romancer of the type of Peter the Hermit,
for instance. Do not Asia and Africa show almost daily the insane
uprising of some crack-brained Messiah? Beware! Look with suspicion upon
all Billy Sundays and their ilk generally. Let not the uplifter and the
reformer become too bold. They inflame the ignorant passions of the mob,
who never think and never will. Already America is being too freely
tramped over by liquor reformers, magazine and book and picture censors,
dreamers and cranks and lunatics who think that mob judgment is better
than individual judgment, that the welfare of the ignorant mass should
guide and regulate the spiritual inspiration of the individual. Think of
one million, or one billion, factory hands, led by priests and
preachers, able to dictate to a Spencer whether or not he should compile
a synthetic philosophy—or to a Synge, whether he should write a “Play
Boy of the Western World,” or to a Voltaire, whether he should publish a
“Candide.”
Out on them for a swinish mass! Shut up the churches, knock down the
steeples! Harry them until they know the true place of religion,—a weak
man’s shield! Let us have no more balderdash concerning the duty of man
to respect any theory. He can if he chooses. That is his business. But
when he seeks to dictate to his neighbor what he shall think, then it is
a different matter.
As I rode through this region this evening, I could not help feeling and
seeing still operating here all the conditions which years ago I put
safely behind me. Here were the people who still believed that God gave
the Ten Commandments to Moses on Sinai and that Joshua made the sun to
stand still in Avalon. They would hound you out of their midst for lack
of faith in beliefs which otherwhere are silly children’s tales,—or
their leaders would.
About seven o’clock, or a little later, we reached the town of Fredonia,
still in New York State but near its extreme western boundary. We came
very near attending church here, Franklin and I, because a church door
on the square stood open and the congregation were singing. Instead,
after strolling about for a time, we compromised on a washup in a
charming oldfashioned white, square, colonnaded hotel facing the park.
We went to the only restaurant, the hotel diningroom being closed, and
after that, while Speed took on a supply of gas and oil, we jested with
an old Scotchman who had struck up a friendship with Speed and was
telling him the history of his youth in Edinburgh, and how and why he
wanted America to keep out of the war. He, too, had a mechanical laugh,
like that odd creature in the square at Bath, a kind of wild jackalesque
grimace, which was kindly and cheerfully meant, however. Finally he grew
so gay, having someone to talk to, that he executed a Jack-knife-ish
automaton dance which amused me greatly. When Speed was ready we were
off again, passing hamlet after hamlet and town after town, and entering
Pennsylvania again a few miles west (that small bit which cuts northward
between Ohio and New York at Erie and interferes with the natural
continuation of New York).
The night was so fine and the wind so refreshing that I went off into
dreamland again, not into actual sleeping dreams, but into something
that was neither sleeping nor waking. These states that I achieved in
this way were so peculiar that I found myself dwelling on them
afterward. They were like the effects of a drug. In the trees that we
passed I could see strange forms, all the more weird for the moonlight,
which was very weak as yet,—grotesque hags and demons whose hair and
beards were leaves and whose bony structures were branches. They quite
moved me, as in childhood. And on the road we saw strolling lovers
occasionally, arm in arm, sometimes clasped in each other’s arms,
kissing, couples whom the flare of our headlights illumined with a cruel
realism.
A town called Brocton was passed, a fire arch over its principal street
corner bidding all and sundry to stop and consider the joys of Brocton.
A town called Pomfret, sweet as trees and snug little houses could make
it, had an hotel facing a principal corner, which caused us to pause and
debate whether we would go on, it was so homelike. But having set our
hearts, or our duty, on Erie, we felt it to be a weakness thus to pause
and debate.
On and on, through Westfield, Ripley, Northeast, Harbor Creek. It was
growing late. At one of these towns we saw a most charming small hotel,
snuggled in trees, with rocking chairs on a veranda in front and a light
in the office which suggested a kind of expectancy of the stranger. It
was after midnight now and I was so sleepy that the thought of a bed was
like that of heaven to a good Christian. The most colorful, the most
soothing sensations were playing over my body and in my brain. I was in
that halcyon state where these things were either real or not, just as
you chose—so intoxicating or soothing is fresh air. Sometimes I was
here, sometimes in Warsaw or Sullivan or Evansville, Indiana, thirty
years before, sometimes back in New York. Occasionally a jolt had
brought me to, but I was soon back again in this twilight land where all
was so lovely and where I wanted to remain.
“Why should we go on into Erie?” I sighed, once we were aroused. “It’ll
be hot and stuffy.”
Franklin got down and rang a bell, but no one answered. It was nearing
one o’clock. Finally he came back and said, “Well, I can’t seem to rout
anybody out over there. Do you want to try?”
Warm and sleepy, I climbed down.
On the porch outside were a number of comfortable chairs. In the small,
clean office was a light and more chairs. It looked like an ideal
abiding place.
I rang and rang and rang. The fact that I had been so drowsy made me
irritable, and the fact that I could hear the bell tinkling and
sputtering, but no voice replying and no step, irritated me all the
more. Then I kicked for a while and then I tried beating.
Not a sound in response.
“This is one swell hotel,” I groaned irritably, and Speed, lighting a
cigarette, added,
“Well, I’d like to have a picture of that hotel keeper. He must be a
sight, his nose up, his mouth open.”
Still no answer. Finally, in despair, I went out in the middle of the
road and surveyed the hotel. It was most attractive in the moonlight,
but absolutely dead to the world.
“The blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank,” I called,
resuscitating all my best and fiercest oaths. “To think that a blank,
blank, blank, blank, blank could sleep that way anyhow. Here we are,
trying to bring him a little business, and off he goes to bed, or she.
Blank, blank, blank, the blank, blank, blanked old place anyhow,” and
back I went and got into the car.
“Say,” called Speed, derisively, “ain’t he a bird? Whaddy y’know. He’s a
great hotel keeper.”
“Oh, well,” I said hopelessly, and Franklin added, “We’re sure to get a
good bed in Erie.”
So on we went, tearing along the road, eager to get anywhere, it was so
late.
[Illustration:
PLEASURE BEFORE BUSINESS
The Tackawanna Steel Works
]
But if we had known what was in store for us we would have returned to
that small hotel, I think, and broken in its door, for a few miles
farther on, an arrow, pointing northward, read, “Erie Main Road Closed.”
Then we recalled that there had been a great storm a few days or weeks
before and that houses had been washed out by a freshet and a number of
people had been killed. The road grew very bad. It was a dirt road, a
kind of marshy, oily, mucky looking thing, cut into deep ruts. After a
short distance under darksome trees, it turned into a wide, marshy
looking area, with a number of railroad tracks crossing it from east to
west and numerous freight trains and switch engines jangling to and fro
in the dark. A considerable distance off to the north, over a seeming
waste of marshy land, was an immense fire sign which read, “Edison
General Electric Company, Erie.” Overhead, in a fine midnight
translucence, hung the stars, innumerable and clear, and I was content
to lie back for a while, jolting as we were, and look at them.
“Well, there’s Erie, anyhow,” I commented. “We can’t lose that fire
sign.”
“Yes, but look what’s ahead of us,” sighed Speed.
As it developed, that fire sign had nothing to do with Erie proper but
was stuck off on some windy beach or marsh, no doubt, miles from the
city. To the west of it, a considerable distance, was a faint glow in
the sky, a light that looked like anything save the reflection of a
city, but so it was. And this road grew worse and worse. The car lurched
so at times that I thought we might be thrown out. Speed was constantly
stopping it and examining the nature of certain ruts and pools farther
on. He would stop and climb down and walk say four or five hundred feet
and then come back, and bump on a little further. Finally, having gone a
considerable distance on this course, we seemed to be mired. We would
dash into a muddy slough and there the wheels would just spin without
making any progress. The way out of this was to trample earth behind the
wheels and then back up. I began to think we were good for a night in
the open. Franklin and I walked back blocks and blocks to see whether by
chance we hadn’t gotten on the wrong road. Having decided that we were
doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances, we returned
and sat in the car. After much time wasted we struck a better portion of
the road, coming to where it turned at right angles over the maze of
unguarded tracks which we had been paralleling all this while. It was a
treacherous place, with neither gates nor watchmen, but just a great
welter of dark tracks with freight cars standing here and there, signal
lights glimmering in the distance, and engines and trains switching up
and down.
“Shall we risk it?” asked Speed cautiously.
“Sure, we’ll have to,” replied Franklin. “It’s dangerous but it’s the
only way.”
We raced over it at breakneck speed and into more unfriendly marshy
country beyond. We reached a street, a far-out one, but nevertheless a
street, without a house on it and only a few gas lamps flickering in the
warm night air. In a region of small wooden cottages, so small as to be
pathetic, we suddenly encountered one of those mounted police for which
Pennsylvania is famous, sitting by the curbing of a street corner, his
gun in his hand and a saddle horse standing near.
“Which way into Erie?” we called.
“Straight on.”
“Is this where the storm was?” we asked.
“Where the washout was,” he replied.
We could see where houses had been torn down or broken into or flung
askew by some turbulent element much superior to these little shells in
which people dwelt.
Through brightly lighted but apparently deserted streets we sped on, and
finally found a public square with which Speed was familiar. He had been
here before. We hurried up to an hotel, which was largely darkened for
the night. Out of the door, just as we arrived, were coming two girls in
frills and flounces, so conspicuously arrayed that they looked as though
they must have been attending an affair of some kind. An hotel attendant
was showing them to a taxi. Franklin went in to arrange for three
adjoining rooms if possible, and as I followed I heard one attendant say
to another,—they had both been showing the girls out—"Can you beat it?
Say, they make theirs easy."
I wondered. The hotel was quite dark inside.
In a few minutes we had adjusted our accommodations and were in our
rooms, I in one with a tall window looking out into a spacious court.
The bed was large and soft. I fairly fell out of my clothes and sank
into it, just having sense enough to turn out the light. In a minute I
fancy I was sound asleep, for the next thing I was conscious of was
three maids gossiping outside my door.
“Blank, blank, blank,” I began. “Am I not going to be allowed to get any
sleep tonight?”
To my astonishment, I discovered the window behind the curtains was
blazing with light.
I looked at my watch. It was nine o’clock. And we had turned in at three
thirty.