FRENCH LICK
After passing through Jasper and Dubois Counties, where we had seen more
good automobiles, good roads and brisk life than we had since the very
best sections of northern Indiana and Ohio, our luck in roads left off.
Around the courthouse square at Jasper we had seen machines of the best
make, and parties of well to do people driving; but on our road to
Kellerville and Norton and French Lick we passed nothing but rumbling
wagons and some few, not very good, cars.
And now the landscape changed rapidly. I had always heard that Brown
County, east of Monroe (the seat of our state university), was the
roughest and most picturesque in the state, containing a hill, the
highest in Indiana, of over five hundred feet! As a student I had walked
there with a geologizing party, but if my memory served me correctly, it
did not compare in picturesqueness with the region through which we were
now making our way. Heights and depths are variable matters anyway, and
the impression of something stupendous or amazingly precipitous which
one can get from a region of comparatively low altitude depends on the
arrangement of its miniature gorges and crevasses. Here in Orange County
I had an impression of great hills and deep ravines and steep inclines
which quite equalled anything we had seen. It suggested the vicinity of
Stroudsburg in Pennsylvania, and as we sped along there were sudden
drops down which we ground at breakneck speed, which quite took my
breath away. It was a true and beautiful mountain country, becabined,
lonely, for the most part bridgeless—and such roads! We bumped and
jounced and floundered along. Now and again we were at the very bottom
of a ravine, with lovely misty hills rising sheer above us. Again, we
were on some seeming mountain side, the valleys falling sharply away
from the road and showing some rocky rivulet at the bottom. More than
once we shot the machine through a tumbling, sparkling, moonlit stream.
At the bottom of one ravine I saw a light, and we being very uncertain
of our way, I climbed out at the gate and went up under some vines and
bushes to knock at the door. Inside, since it was open, I beheld a quite
metropolitan interior—craftsman furniture, a wall of well-built shelves
loaded with books, a table strewn with magazines and papers, and the
room lighted by a silk shaded lamp. When I knocked a short, stocky,
legal looking youth of most precise manners and attire and a large pair
of horn glasses on his nose, arose from a small secretary and came over.
“French Lick?” I inquired.
“About eighteen miles,” he replied. “You are on the right road.”
I felt quite reduced. I had expected to find a picturesque, ambling,
drawling mountaineer.
Between bounces and jounces and “holding back” against declivities to
which Bert seemed amazingly indifferent, I sat and dreamed over those
moonlit hills. What a possession for a state like Indiana, I thought—a
small, quaint, wonderful Alpine region within its very center. As time
went on and population increased, I thought, this would afford pleasure
and recreation to thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who knows,
who could not afford to go farther. Plainly it had already evinced its
charm to the world, for were we not on the very outskirts of two of the
most remarkable curative spring resorts in America, if not in the world?
Who had not heard of French Lick—West Baden? And yet when I went to
school at the state university, these places had not been heard of
locally, let alone nationally.
I recall a long, lanky student from this very county who was studying
law at “our college,” who told me of French Lick, and that “a lot of
people around there thought the waters were good for rheumatism.” I
expected, somehow, as we rode along, to see some evidence in the way of
improved mountain conditions—better houses, more of them, possibly—now
that we were in the vicinity of such a prosperous resort, but not a sign
was there. Ten o’clock came and then eleven. We were told that we were
within nine miles, seven miles, four miles, two miles—still no houses to
speak of, and only the poorest type of cabin. At one mile there was
still no sign. Then suddenly, at the bend of a road, came summer
cottages of the customary resort type, a street of them. Bright lamps
appeared. A great wall of cream colored brick, ablaze with lights, arose
at the bottom of the ravine into which we were descending. I was sure
this was the principal hotel. Then as we approached gardens and grounds
most extensive and formal in character appeared, and in their depths, to
the left, through a faint pearly haze, appeared a much larger and much
more imposing structure. This was THE hotel. The other was an annex for
servants!
All the gaudy luxury of a Lausanne or Biarritz resort was here in
evidence. A railroad spur adjoining a private hotel station contained
three or four private cars, idling here while their owners rested. A
darkened Pullman train was evidently awaiting some particular hour to
depart. At the foot of a long iron and glass awning, protecting a yellow
marble staircase of exceedingly florate design, a liveried flunky stood
waiting to open automobile doors. As we sped up he greeted us. Various
black porters pounced on our bags like vultures. We were escorted
through a marble lobby such as Arabian romances once dreamed of as rare,
and to an altar like desk, where a high priest of American profit
deigned to permit us to register. We were assigned rooms (separate
quarters for our chauffeur) at six dollars the day, and subsequently
ushered down two miles of hall on the fifth or sixth floor to our very
plain, very white, but tastefully furnished rooms, where we were
permitted to pay the various slaves who had attended us.
“George,” I said to the robustious soul who carried my bag, “how many
rooms has this hotel?”
“Eight hundred, suh, Ah believe.”
“And how many miles is it from here to the diningroom?”
“We don’t serve no meals aftah nine o’clock, suh, but Ah expects if you
wanted a lil' sumfin sent up to yo room, de chef would see you done got
it.”
“No, George, I’m afraid of these chefs. I think I’ll go out instead.
Isn’t there a restaurant around here somewhere?”
“Nothin' as you-all’d like to patronize, suh, no suh. Dey is one
restaurant. It keeps open most all night. It’s right outside de grounds
here. I think you might get a lil' sumfin dayah. Dey has a kinda pie
countah.”
“That’s it, George,” I replied. “That’s me. A plain, humble pie counter.
And now good night to you, George.”
“Good night, suh.”
And he went out grinning.
[Illustration:
FRENCH LICK
The Hotel and Fresh Water Spring
]
I may seem to be exaggerating, but I say it in all seriousness. These
enormous American watering place hotels, with their armies of servants,
heavy, serious-faced guests, solemn state diningrooms, miles of halls
and the like, more or less frighten me. They are so enormous. Their
guests are so stiff, starchy, captain-of-industry-like. And they are so
often (not always) accompanied by such pursy, fussy, heavily bejeweled
or besilked and velveted females, whose very presence seems to exude a
kind of opposition to or contempt for simple things, which puts me on
tenter hooks. I don’t seem quite to belong. I may have the necessary
money to pay for all and sundry services such as great hostelries
provide—for a period anyhow—but even so, I still feel small. I look
about me furtively and suspect every man I see of being at least a
millionaire. I feel as though I were entirely surrounded by judges,
merchant princes, eminent doctors, lawyers, priests, senators and
presidents, and that if I dare say a word, some one might cry—"That man!
Who is he, anyhow? Put him out." And so, as I say, I “kinda-sorta” slip
along and never make any more noise or fuss or show than I have to. If a
head waiter doesn’t put me in exactly the place I would like to be, or
the room clerk doesn’t give me just the room I would like, I always say,
“Ah, well, I’m just a writer, and perhaps I’d better not say anything.
They might put me out. Bishops and doctors and lawyers ought to have all
the center tables or window seats, and so——” It’s really uncomfortable
to be so humble—just nothing at all.
But notwithstanding this rather tragic state, my room was a good one,
and the windows, once opened to the moonlight, commanded a fine view of
the grounds, with the walks, spring pavilions and artificial grottoes
and flower beds all picked out clearly by the pale, ethereal light. The
restaurant over the way was all that George said it was and more—very
bad. The whole town seemed to be comprised of this one great hotel and
an enormous annex for servants and chauffeurs, and then a few
tatter-demalion resorts and the town cottages. The springs in the
grounds were four or five in number, all handsomely hooded with Moorish
pavilions. In each case these latter were floored with colored marbles,
and you went down steps into them, carrying your own glass and drinking
all of the peculiar tasting fluid you could endure. Resident physicians
prescribe treatments or methods, for a price. The very wealthy visitors
or patients often bring their own physicians, who resent, no doubt, all
local medical advice. The victims, or lovers of leisure, idle about
these far-flung grounds, enjoying the walks, the smooth grass, the
views, the golf links and the tennis courts. The hours for meals are the
principal hours—and dinner from seven to nine is an event—a dress
affair. The grand parade to the diningroom seems to begin at six
fortyfive or six fifty. At that time you can sit in the long hall
leading to that very essential chamber and see the personages go by.
For this occasion, at breakfast the next morning and luncheon, which
here is a kind of an affair of state, Franklin and I did well enough. We
were given tables with a pleasant view, walked over the grounds, drank
at all the springs, bought picture postcards, and after idling and
getting thoroughly refreshed, decided to be on our way. West Baden, as
it proved, was directly on our route out of town, not more than three
quarters of a mile off; and to this we repaired, also, merely to see.
If anything, it was more assuming in its appearance than French Lick.
The principal hotel, an enormous one of cream brick and white stone,
with a low, flat, red oval dome, Byzantine or Moroccan in spirit, was
almost of the size and the general appearance of the Trocadero in Paris.
As in the case of the hotel at French Lick, the grounds were very
extensive and gardened to within an inch of their life. Pagodas and
smart kiosks indicated the springs. A great wide circular driveway
admitted to the entrance of the principal hotel. Banked and parked with
stone, there was a stream here which ran through the principal grounds,
and there were other hotels by no means humble in their appearance.
Satisfied at having at least seen these twin resorts, I was content to
make short work of the rest of the journey. At Paoli (what a rural
sounding midwestern name), the county seat of this poor and rather
backwoods county, we found a courthouse so small and countrified that we
could not resist the desire to pause and observe it—it was so
nondescript—a cross between a Greek temple and a country school. The
Greek temple was surmounted by a small, somewhat German looking belfry.
About it, on all sides, ran the old time hitching rail for wagons, an
unpretentious note which indicated the nonarrival of the automobile. To
it were fastened a collection of nondescript wagons, buggies, and
buckboards, intermingled with three or four small automobiles. I got out
and walked through it only to see the county treasurer, or someone in
his office, sawing away on a fiddle. The music was not exactly
entrancing, but jolly. Outside stood a rather gaunt and malarial looking
farmer in the poorest of crinkly jeans, threadbare and worn at the
elbows. “Tell me,” I said. “I see on the map here a place called Lost
River. Is there a river here and does it disappear underground?”
“That’s just what it does, mister,” he replied most courteously, “but
thar ain’t nothin' to see. The water just sorta peters out as it goes
along. You can’t see nothin' but just dry stones. I don’t know exactly
where it does come up again. Out here Orangeville way, I think. There
are a lot of underground caves around here.”
We went on, but on discovering a splendid stretch of road and speeding
on it, we forgot all about Lost River.
Throughout this and the next county north, the roads seemed to attain a
maximum of perfection, possibly due to the amazing quarries at Bedford,
beyond. We traveled so fast that we ran down a hen and left it
fluttering in the road, a sight which gave me the creeps and started a
new train of speculation. I predicted then, to myself privately, that
having run down one thing we would run down another before the trip was
over, for, as I said before, this is the sort of thing that is always
happening to me—what Nietzsche would call my typical experience. If I
should stop at one pretentious hotel like the Kittatinny, on a trip like
this, I would be sure to stop at another, like French Lick, before I was
through, or if I lost a valuable ring on Monday, I would be sure to lose
a valuable pin on Thursday or thereabouts. Life goes on in pairs for me.
My one fear in connection with this chicken incident was that the loss
might prove something much more valuable than a chicken, and the thought
of death by accident, to others than myself, always terrifies me.
Through the region that suggested the beauty and sweep of western New
York, we now sped into Bedford City, a city that seemed to have devoted
hundreds of thousands of dollars to churches. I never saw so many large
and even quite remarkable churches in so small a town. It only had
twelve thousand population, yet the churches looked as though they might
minister to thirty thousand.
Just at the edge of this town, north, we came to quarries, the extent
and impressiveness of which seemed to me a matter of the greatest
import. Carrara, in Italy, is really nothing compared with this. There
some of the pure white stone is mined—cut from tunnels in the sides of
the hills. Here the quarries are all open to the sky and reaching for
miles, apparently, on every hand. Our road lay along a high ridge which
divided two immense fields of stone, and sitting in our car we could see
derricks and hear electrically driven stone drills on every hand for
miles. There were sheer walls of stone, thirty, forty, and as it seemed
to me, even fifty feet high, cut true to plummet, and which revealed
veins of unquarried stone suggesting almost untold wealth. At the bottom
of these walls were pools of dull green water, the color of a smoky
emerald, and looking like a precious stone. In the distance, on every
hand, were hills of discarded stone, or at least stone for which there
was no present use. I fancy they were veined or broken or slightly
defective blocks which are of no great value now, but which a more
frugal generation may discover how to use. In every direction were car
tracks, spurs, with flat cars loaded or waiting to be loaded with these
handsome blocks. As we went north from here, following a line of
railroad that led to Bloomington, Indiana, the ways seemed to be lined
with freight trains hauling this stone. We must have passed a dozen such
in our rapid run to Bloomington.
In approaching this town my mind was busy with another group of
reminiscences. As I thought back over them now, it seemed to me that I
must have been a most unsatisfactory youth to contemplate at this time,
one who lacked nearly all of the firm, self-directive qualities which
most youths of my age at that time were supposed to have. I was eighteen
then, and all romance and moonshine. I had come down from Chicago after
these several years at Warsaw and two in Chicago, in which I had been
trying to connect commercially with life, and as I may say now, I feel
myself to have been a rather poor specimen. I had no money other than
about three hundred dollars loaned to me, or rather forced upon me, by
an ex-teacher of mine (one who had conducted the recitation room in the
high school at Warsaw) who, finding me working for a large wholesale
hardware company in Chicago, insisted that I should leave and come here
to be educated.
“You may never learn anything directly there, Theodore,” she counseled,
“but something will come to you indirectly. You will see what education
means, what its aim is, and that will be worth a great deal. Just go one
year, at least, and then you can decide for yourself what you want to do
after that.”
She was an old maid, with a set of false upper teeth, and a heavenly,
irradiating smile. She had led a very hard life herself, and did not
wish me to. She was possessed of a wondrously delicate perception of
romance, and was of so good a heart that I can scarcely ever think of
her without a tendency to rhapsodize. She was not beautiful, and yet she
was not unattractive either. Four years later, having eventually
married, she died in child-birth. At this time, for some reason not
clear to myself, she yearned over me in a tender, delicate, motherly
way. I have never forgotten the look in her eyes when she found me in
the wholesale hardware house (they called me down to the office and I
came in my overalls), nor how she said, smiling a delicate, whimsical,
emotional smile:
“Theodore, work of this kind isn’t meant for you, really. It will injure
your spirit. I want you to let me help you go to school again.”
I cannot go into the romance of this—it is too long a story. I forget,
really, whether I protested much or not. My lungs and stomach were
troubling me greatly and I was coughing and agonizing with dyspepsia
nearly all the while. After some conferences and arrangements made with
my mother, I came—and for an entire college year dreamed and wondered.
I know now for a fact that I never learned, all the time I was there,
quite what it was all about. I heard much talk of -ologies and -tries
and -isms without quite grasping the fundamental fact that they were
really dealing with plain, ordinary, everyday life—the forces about us.
Somehow I had the vague uncertain notion that they did not concern
ordinary life at all. I remember one brisk youth telling me that in
addition to law, which he was studying, he was taking up politics,
taxation, economics, and the like, as aids. I wondered of what possible
use those things could be to him, and how much superior his mind must be
to mine, since he could grasp them and I, no doubt, could not.
Again, the professors there were such a wondrous company to me, quite
marvelous. They were such an outré company, your heavy-domed, owl-like
wiseacres, who see in books and the storing up of human knowledge in
books the sum and substance of life’s significance. As I look back on
them now I marvel at my awe of them then, and at that time I was not
very much awestricken either—rather nonplussed.
Suffice it to say that the one thing that I really wanted to see in
connection with this college was a ground floor parlor I had occupied in
an old, rusty, vine-covered house, which stood in the center of a
pleasing village lawn and had for a neighbor a small, one-story frame,
where dwelt a hoyden of a girl who made it her business to bait me the
first semester I was there. This room I had occupied with a law student
by the name of William or Bill Wadhams, center rush and almost guiding
spirit of the whole college football team, and afterwards county
treasurer of and state senator from an adjacent Indiana county. He was a
romping, stamping, vigorous, black-haired, white-faced pagan, who cursed
and drank a little and played cards and flirted with the girls. He could
be so mild and so engaging that when I first saw him I liked him
immensely, and what was much more curious he seemed to take a fancy to
me. We made an agreement as to expenditures and occupying the same room.
It did not seem in the least odd to me, at that time, that he should
occupy the same bed with me. I had always been sleeping with one or the
other of my brothers. It was more odd that, although he at once
surrounded himself with the crême-de-la-crême of the college football
world, who made of our humble chamber a conference and card room, I got
along well enough with them all to endure it, and even made friends out
of some of them. They were charming—so robust and boisterous and
contentious and yet genial.
Through his personality or my own—I can never quite make out which—I was
drawn into a veritable maelstrom of college life. I had no least idea
what I wanted to study, but because I had been deficient in certain
things in high school, I took up those,—first-year Latin, geometry,
English literature, history and Old English. How I ever got along I do
not know. I think I failed in most things because I never mastered
grammar or mathematics. However, I staggered on, worrying considerably
and feeling that my life, and indeed my character, was a failure.
Between whiles, I found time and the mood for associating with and
enjoying all sorts of odd personalities—youth of the most diverse
temperaments and ambitions, who seemed to find in me something which
they liked,—a Michigan law student, an Indiana minister’s son, a boy who
was soon to be heir to a large fortune and so on and so on. I was
actually popular with some, after a fashion, and if I had known how to
make use of my abilities in this line—had I really craved friendship and
connections—I might have built up some enduring relationships which
would have stood me in good stead, commercially and socially, later. As
it was, my year ended, I left college, dropping all but half a dozen
youths from my list of even occasional correspondents, and finally
losing track of all of them, finding in different scenes and interests
all that I seemed to require in the way of mental and social diversion.