INDIANA AND ILLINOIS
The first bit of fun was not far ahead. In places the road was passable
if one ignored the six-inch layer of loose sand and soil that covered
it. The country was flat and uninteresting. Diversion was occasionally
encountered in the form of side-slips and here and there an unexpected
spill. The quicker I went the easier I got through, as the soil did
not cling to the wheels so much and hinder steering. At thirty it was
almost impossible to maintain balance. At thirty-five it was tolerable,
and at forty it was comparatively simple.
Now and then I would pass a kind of harrow the width of over half the
road and drawn along by a team of horses. The function of this was to
break up the big lumps of solid mud formed by the recent rains. After
this would follow a similar team of horses dragging a "grader"--a kind
of snow-plough arrangement which scraped the surface flat and shovelled
the surplus sand and mud-lumps into the side. In these districts the
farmers are held by law individually responsible for the condition of
the roads their farms adjoin, and the process of grading is expected
to be carried out within three or four days after the rain. When the
farmers are busy with their crops this doesn't get done, and when they
aren't, it sometimes does, according, I think, to whether the farmer
is a sheriff or a justice of the peace and has to set an example to
others. Fortunately all farmers are motorists as well; they have to be
able to get about, so when they wish to travel, they grade the roads
for their own use if for no more altruistic object.
Once I was passing one of these road-ploughs drawn by a team of three
horses abreast, which took up most of the road and showed not the
slightest intention of drawing in to the side. In endeavouring to pass
it, I struck at too small an angle the huge ridge of solid mud-lumps
that it had formed. I was going fast, of course. The handlebar was
wrenched out of my hands and I was thrown with great force over it and
on to the bank at the side. Lizzie herself lay roaring on her side in
the dirt. The horses took fright and galloped off. The only damage done
showed itself in some nasty cuts and scratches, some small areas of
skin missing from different places, and a few bent levers and controls.
From past experience I had learnt that in all such cases the clips and
brackets and sharp corners of Lizzie's profile ALWAYS seemed
to be in the path of my flight over her handlebars.
A handkerchief bound tightly round the cuts, a few adjustments made,
and on we go with smiling faces, only to overtake the wretched thing
again!
After twenty or thirty miles of this, we came to mud in earnest--mud
measured not by the inch in depth, but by the yard. Never was it soft
and squishy and respectable, but always baked rock-hard into ugly
contorted shapes that simply defied progress on two wheels alone.
The diabolical effect had been heightened by the passing of numerous
cars through the roads when the surface was still plastic, and great
ruts and cracks and ridges were thrown up at every point between
the road-boundaries, each one representing an eternal struggle to
"get through." When the fierce sun came out and poured down for days
unceasing upon such ugliness as this, the hideous surface was as if
petrified by its glare, and the efforts of a "grader" would be futile
to alter in the slightest degree its abominable condition.
Riding was out of the question. It was haulage work that had to be
done, and many times when I got into a huge solidified "crevasse,"
I had to leave the machine standing in it on the tubes of its
cradle-frame and proceed ahead to chip the edges down until the wheels
would reach to the bottom again.
Anyone who has stood on the "Glacier des Bossons," looked upwards
towards the summit of Mont Blanc, and seen the contorted, fantastic
shapes that the ice assumes as it swells over the ridges in its path,
can perhaps imagine the same effect on a smaller scale applied to the
dirt roads of Indiana.
Fortunately there were stretches of road, generally when there was a
slight gradient, where the surface was well-drained, hard, and flat,
and going was good. But invariably at the foot of every slope, or at
the dip between two hills, there was a stretch of excruciating "agony"
that would reduce the most defiant motor-cyclist to submission.
Thus it was for eighty or ninety miles. The truth began to dawn on
me that a fellow has to be a "tough guy" to motor in these parts.
Sometimes I would stop and rest awhile to let an occasional car get by.
It was funny to see how they all went! The big heavy touring car would
roll along as if to devour all that came its way. It would meet a nasty
patch and with broken dignity would heave and sigh from side to side
as it slowly crawled on bottom gear over the ridges and furrows; and
then it would rear proudly into the air as it surmounted some huge lump
of solid mud and suddenly flop down with a dull thud on the bottom of
the springs as it plunged into the hollow beyond. One could hear every
joint groan under the strain and could sometimes see the bottom of the
engine scrape ridges in the chunks of earth and watch the little bits
knocked off an unfriendly obstruction as the back axle dragged its
weary way along.
And then perchance would come some cheeky Ford, the essence of
impudence as opposed to the dignity of its wealthier brethren. With a
hop, skip, and a jump, it would scramble over the furrows, swinging
gaily from side to side, wagging its tail in the air and rattling in
every sinew as only a Ford knows how! But the "Flivvers" got through
easier than any.
The worst patch I struck was near the small town of Hume. I have never
seen in the space of 200 yards a more apt imitation of a volcanic
lava-bed. The thick mud of two days before had been churned up into the
most fantastic shapes that ever a main highway has taken. Every square
inch of the ninety-foot-wide road bore signs of the passage of some
vehicle or other. Some of the ruts were so deep that the machine rested
on the engine and the frame and not on the wheels at all. Pushing it
anywhere but in one of the best ruts was impossible. When the rut got
too deep, I had to lift up the back of the machine bodily and wheel it
foot by foot, while the rut took the front wheel whither it listed.
Here and there were signs where car-drivers, in similar predicaments,
but a day or two before, when the mud was not yet baked quite hard,
had shovelled away large quantities of the road to allow the engine
and chassis to clear. Half-way through was a large hole, deep and
broad enough to allow a small car to be hidden therein from view. In
this hole the mud was still soft and plastic. A good Samaritan of the
road had procured a piece of old corrugated iron from somewhere and
propped it against two poles to warn any others who might follow of its
presence.
Lifting four-cwt. Lizzie across this whole stretch took three-quarters
of an hour all told, and at the end I was faint with exhaustion. The
sun was never hotter and I never perspired more, not even in the middle
of the Mohave Desert in California, where the thermometer rises up to
140 degrees or more! I begged a glass of milk from a farmhouse a mile
farther on, and thanked God that He made cows and that I was still
alive to appreciate them!
And thus we toiled and thus we spun for many miles until late in the
afternoon, when I came to parts where the sun had not yet had time to
do its work. Every inch of the road was thick, black, slimy mud; mud
that stinks with a smell peculiar to itself alone; mud that clings to
the tyres and wedges in the forks and fouls the chains and blocks the
wheels; mud indeed that sticketh closer than a brother. I stopped at
a ramshackle little village of a few dozen shops and houses, all made
of wood, and boasting the name of "Murdock," to partake of afternoon
tea. Outside an old rickety "store" (this term includes any conceivable
kind of retail shop in America), I saw a notice: "HENRY T. HODGES,
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE; DRY GOODS STORE; GENERAL MERCHANDISE; POST
OFFICE; REAL ESTATE; REFRESHMENTS."
[Illustration: AN AWKWARD STRETCH OF ROAD IN INDIANA.]
[Illustration: THE MIDNIGHT COUCH.]
Henry T. Hodges beamed on me benignly from behind a pile of preserved
fruit tins as I entered his gloomy establishment.
"See here, dad, I want a good meal," I said; "money's no object. Get
me?"
"Sure; an' have ye come far, brother?"
"I should reckon about a thousand miles to-day. Dandy roads you've got
in these parts, dad."
"Aye, but you'd 'a seen 'em when we 'ad the rains, brother; they wuz so
mighty slick the hottymobiles sunk right down in 'em and 'ad to be dug
out wi' a shovel and dragged along wi' a team of four 'osses."
"Why, I shouldn't have thought there were four horses in Murdock," I
replied.
"Aye, an' I know there is, brother, 'cause they're my 'osses."
"Um! Guess you make a pretty good living out of them, don't you, dad?"
"You've said it, brother. Ten dollars a time is my charge, and if a
chap don't pay I jest leave 'im there till 'e does!"
"Well, what about this meal, dad? I'm mighty hungry--and, say, who's
the road commissioner about here?"
He essayed no answer, but disappeared hurriedly to boil the tea. I had
no doubt now who the road commissioner was!
After leaving the "Store" of Henry T. Hodges, J.P., I did another
twenty miles or so until dark, and sought out a comfortable secluded
spot near the road, but far enough from it to avoid the smell of
it, and settled down for the night. Mosquitoes were the only source
of worry now. Otherwise this roadside sleeping was getting quite a
commonplace event.
Up at dawn in the morning! On the road once again; labouring, pushing,
hauling, heaving, lifting, cleaning off the mud, speeding a mile or two
and then more labouring and more pushing.
At breakfast-time I reached Decatur, a flourishing town of 20,000 or so
inhabitants, and had breakfast at a "get-fed-quick" eat-house where you
sit on a stool in front of the counter and the man at the range behind
fries you a mutton steak, bakes the "waffles," or poaches the eggs as
per your desire.
Then on again towards Springfield, the capital of Illinois State. The
mud changes to sand and the sand to dust. More spills, more cuts, more
bruises. The country as flat and uninteresting as they make it. More
right-angle bends, more losing of the way and more frizzling in the
sun. Two villages are passed in forty miles. One has a population of
417 and the other 59.
At 11 a.m. we draw into Springfield, hot, tired, dusty, and sore.
Springfield is a mass of roads, trams, telegraph poles, and people. I
leave Lizzie leaning against the kerb and go for an ice-cream soda;
when I return, Lizzie is no longer visible. Instead there is a large
crowd. They are all examining something. Those on the outside elbow
their way to the middle. Those in the middle try to keep them out. The
passers-by wonder what it's all about and stop to see. They in turn try
to make their way to the middle. Many are disappointed and pass on. The
traffic cop, seeing the crowd, strolls over to see what's wrong.
When he had moved the crowd away, I got astride Lizzie's saddle and
rode away, amid murmurs of astonishment.
"Come quite a ways, I reckon."
"That's the kind of bird to go travelling on."
"Looks as though he's seen some mud somewhere."
"Look, Bill, he's got 'igh boots on like they have in the movies!"
"Ah, that's what 'e is, 'e's a dolgarn movie actor," etc., etc.
All the trails in America seem to go through Springfield, Ill.
Consequently the telegraph poles and tram poles were a mass of
hieroglyphics. It took a few minutes to get into Springfield. But it
took the best part of two hours to get out of it satisfactorily. Once I
thought I was well away, but found that for ten miles I had followed a
trail that had white stripes on a red background instead of red stripes
on a white background, or something of the kind.
Jacksonville was the next town, some forty miles away. There are six
smaller towns on the way. I don't remember passing six, but my map
vouches for this number. Their respective populations, taken from the
said map, are as follows:--Riddle Hill, 25; Berlin, 251; New Berlin,
690; Alexander, 200; Orleans, 38; and Arnold, 15. So America is not
full up yet. But fancy showing a village of fifteen inhabitants on
the map! If it were in Arizona instead of Illinois they would have
called it Arnold "City." Here are some more names, taken at random from
the map, to show the endless variety that the American cartographer
has drawn upon:--"Daisy," "Whitehall," "Quiver," "Cuba," "Golden,"
"Siloam," "Time," "Pearl," "Summum," "Birmingham" (population 76),
"Illinois City" (population 80), "Bible Grove" (population 10),
"Enterprise" (population 7).
After Jacksonville the road seemed to change its mind. It refused to
be a road any longer. It turned instead into a sea-beach and dodged
in and out, here and there, to evade the approaching traveller.
Everywhere was to be seen white sand. It lay feet deep on the trail,
making progress almost impossible. It covered all the vegetation at
the roadside, and it filled the air as well. Here for the first time I
encountered the type of road that can disappear with the vagaries of
the wind. It was easy to imagine that in æons of time this self-same
road would help to form some great geological strata deposited in the
Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere. The country became hilly and thickly
wooded, and sometimes the trail would narrow down to just a few feet in
width and then just as quickly open out to fifty or sixty. The trees
grew thicker, the sand grew thinner, the trail dodged around boulders
and trees, shot up little sandy slopes, and then, all of a sudden,
without any warning whatever, stopped at the bank of a great wide
silent river.
It was the Illinois River, a tributary of the great Mississippi, which
itself was only fifty miles away. About a couple of hundred yards wide,
it was navigated by a ferry-boat of unknown antiquity pulled across the
river by a cable wound round a drum. Every man, woman, and child, and
every vehicle that crosses America by the Pike's Peak Highway, swells
the funds of the man who owns that ferry-boat.
"Which is the road now?" I asked him when we eventually reached the
other side. I could see no signs of any continuation of the trail. He
had better eyes than I, however.
"Go straight ahead; you can't miss it."
There was certainly visible a little pathway that scrambled up the
bank and then wound in and out among the trees, and as I could see
nothing else, I followed it. Sure enough it led to "Valley City"
(population 52), and thence onwards, through "New Salem" and "Barry"
towards "Hannibal" on the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi! Long had I conjured up visions of this mighty river of
over 4,000 miles total length that cuts through the United States from
north to south, and drains nearly 1-1/2 million square miles of land!
I had imagined its vast breadth and followed in my fancy the great,
silent, moving river as it flowed from west to east and north to south
through ever-changing scenery and ever-widening banks. And here I was
within a few miles of it! The thought was almost absurd.
Just when the sun was about to set the road made one more swerve to the
left. The trees and the surrounding country fell away as if by magic,
and there was nothing beyond, save a massive bridge of steel. Beneath
and from horizon to horizon flowed the majestic river.
The other end of the bridge was probably some 3,000 feet away in the
town of Hannibal and the State of Missouri. Hannibal bristles with
statues, tablets, posters, placards, and picture-postcards. They all
have the same theme for a subject--"Mark Twain." The Hanniballians, if
such they are called, are just as bad. I believe it is not possible
for a stranger to be in Hannibal for five minutes without being told
that Mark Twain was born there. If the "clerk" at the refreshment
bar doesn't tell you, the man at the post office does. If the young
"fellar" who pumps a couple of gallons of "gas" into your tank forgets
to tell you, the old girl at the fruit-shop doesn't. They must have a
secret code in Hannibal whereby they arrange these things. And I will
guarantee there aren't two out of every dozen picture-postcards on sale
in Hannibal that don't show Mark Twain's birthplace or his cave or his
statue or his ass or his ox or something that he either did or did not
"immortalize."
Seeking a quiet little spot by the river where I could spend the night
and fulfil one of my long-cherished hopes--to bathe in the River
Mississippi, I turned down a little road that ran along the bank and
reconnoitred the country. To my dismay a railway ran between the road
and the river, almost at the very water's edge. Nothing daunted, and
hoping that it would sooner or later swerve away and leave me in peace
with my river, I continued for miles, long after it was dark, but with
no success. The road itself was on a ledge high above the railway,
and the railway was on a ledge built some six or eight feet above the
river. Eventually I left Lizzie at the roadside, camouflaged her with
leaves and branches, and scrambled down with my bags over the ledge on
to the bank below. I found a comfortable little spot about ten feet
from the rails and laid my bed. And oh, what a glorious bathe I had in
the river!
It was the eve of July 4th, the American "Day of Independence." Sounds
of revellers from far away were wafted over the calm, silent waters.
Now and then would be heard the faint swish of a canoe as it glided
past in the darkness of the night, and soft music crept up the river
from time to time, now clear, now faint, as if from its dark and mystic
depths.
I tucked myself under the blanket feeling like a good Christian that
night, with never a worry in the world--a world that was good and kind
and comfortable always.
Nevertheless I should have liked to know when a train would be coming
past to disturb my slumbers.
Just as I was dozing over, I heard footsteps along the rails. They came
closer and closer, but I could see nothing. The night was pitch-dark.
As the footsteps came opposite to me, I made out the form of a man
against the starlit sky. He did not see me.
"Say, bo, can you tell me how many trains pass here to-night?" I asked.
He jumped as if struck in the back.
"Only a couple, brother," he replied to where the air had spoken,
"one of them in about half an hour and the other about one in the
morning;--but they won't worry you," he added.
Sure enough in half an hour's time I heard the distant rumble of a
train. I began to wonder if I had not rolled any closer to the rails
than when I lay down. The earth shook and a red glare appeared in the
distance, and with a mighty roar the huge train came thundering through
an opening in the trees. Although I knew I was at a safe distance, the
feeling of impending annihilation swooped suddenly down upon me. "Don't
be an ass," said I, "what's the use of getting the wind up?" And the
next second it seemed that the rushing torrent of steel and fire was
but an inch from my head. Clatter bang-thump, clatter-bang-thump, for
twenty long seconds, and the intruder was gone. In another minute not a
sound broke the silence of the midsummer night.
Thinking what an excellent test of self-control it would be to pitch
my bed between the rails, but disinclined to do so on account of the
possibility of a cow-catcher being in front of the trains, I rolled
over into heavy slumber.
In half an hour I was awake again and the same process was repeated. I
deemed then that I should be left in peace for the night. But my friend
had not reckoned on the freight trains. Only the passenger trains were
of account to him!
Regularly every half-hour they thundered past. At dawn I had counted
thirteen in all. I resolved not to sleep on a railway embankment again,
even though it be in company with the Mississippi.