STORMY WEATHER IN MISSOURI
Hannibal is a nice, clean, respectable place; were I an American
tourist I would call it a "cute little city."
I found an eating-house with a tempting smell around it, and ordered a
hearty breakfast. After polishing off this meal, I mounted Lizzie and
started off once more.
We were now in Missouri, the State of the small farmer. Not that the
farms are so very small, but they are not on so large a scale as
further on in the west, where the hundred-square-mile ranch is the
order of the day.
Again the scenery experiences a quick change; the country becomes hilly
and rough; one sees maize growing almost everywhere and very often
pigs (or hogs as they are termed in the States) turned out to pasture.
Nevertheless there is much uncleared and uncultivated land to be seen;
the towns and villages are clean, modern, and well laid out, and all
give an air of prosperity and plenty. Every farmer has his car, and
it is generally a Ford; youngsters of twelve and fourteen can be seen
driving them, and generally with as much skill as their parents, if not
more.
But for all its hills and vales and the luxuriance of its natural
beauty, Missouri has one great drawback. There is a very big fly in
the Missouri ointment--RAIN. And when it rains in Missouri,
it rains properly, not in tantalizing little showers as it does in
England. It is as though the whole sky had burst its water-mains. It
falls not in inches but feet; not for hours but for days. Then suddenly
the sun breaks out and scorches everything with renewed vigour. If
a car is out far from home when the rain comes, it generally has to
"stay put." The rain sinks into the road and so does the car. Every
car carries a set of chains for its wheels, but although they improve
matters slightly, they are often futile in ploughing through the
thick slime. Then come the teams of horses at five and ten and twenty
dollars a time to drag the unfortunate automobile to some garage where
it "lays up" until the rain has gone and the sun has dried the roads
sufficiently for further progress.
Sometimes enterprising individuals do not wait for rain to bring
in the shekels. I have often heard of perfectly authentic cases of
a farmer deliberately flooding likely patches of the road and then
waiting patiently with his horses to drag out some unfortunate victim.
This seems absurd, but care is always taken to select a spot where it
cannot be definitely proved that natural conditions are not entirely
responsible for the result!
In the early afternoon, after a hard ride from Hannibal, punctuated at
every village with a stop for the consumption of ice-cream, I reached
a small town called "Bucklin." No sooner was I there than a huge black
cloud appeared suddenly in the sky and a terrific windstorm rose which
blew everything that was not fixed to something in all directions. For
half an hour it raged. The air was thick with dust, leaves and bits of
paper. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind subsided, and rain
commenced in torrents. So fast did it fall and so heavy were the drops
that the surface of the road was beaten into a froth which hovered
all the time a few inches above the road itself. Even to walk across
it was a test of skill; so slimy was the mud that one's feet slid
aimlessly about in any direction but the one desired. For this reason
concrete pathways are invariably provided so that pedestrians can
move with comparative ease and can leave their homes and visit anyone
anywhere in the town without actually touching the mud at all. These
concrete pathways naturally have to cross the road in places, and when
the road surrounding them is washed away, as very often happens, the
result to a passing vehicle can be imagined.
Further progress being out of the question that day, I hied me to the
only hotel in the place and prepared to while away the days that were
to follow in writing letters, studying an obsolete almanac, and eating
bad food.
It rained in a continual deluge all that day, all night and all next
morning. At midday it stopped with a bump, the sun came out with
another, and the birds began to sing again. At three I ventured forth
with Lizzie. I had not gone a dozen yards when the back wheel slipped
sideways round to the front and left me reposing in the half-baked mud.
Back again for another hour's wait while the broiling sun did its work.
Next time I got as far as the outskirts of the town before I decided
to turn back. After another hour we started out to do or die, come
what might. During the remainder of the day until dark we covered ten
miles, going hard all the time. When I was not extricating myself from
a spicy bit of quagmire, I was poking semi-hard mud out of the wheels
and mudguards.
On one occasion I came to a sudden dip in the road, followed by an
equally sudden rise. As usual there was an uninviting "slough of
despond" in the hollow. After trying two or three different ruts in
an effort to "get through," giving up each one in turn as hopeless,
and pushing back again to where still another rut branched off from
the one I was in, I eventually worked my way through. The struggle up
the slope on the other side was a formidable one and was being slowly
accomplished by a combination of bottom-gear driving, pushing, lifting,
and "paddling." Just before the summit was reached I was thrown by a
steep furrow into the ditch at the roadside, breathless, exhausted, and
extremely bad-tempered.
As I was extracting myself, a young man in shirt-sleeves strolled
leisurely over, hands in pockets, from a stationary car a little
further on. When I had safely extricated my right leg from under the
machine and hauled Lizzie on to her wheels again, the stranger spoke.
"Say, fella, does that front cylinder get hot? I've heard say that's
the weak point about them four-cylinder motorsickles."
Here follows a flow of language from self entirely unprintable. The
stranger opens his eyes, whistles softly, then adds, as if to turn the
subject:
"Where you from?"
He remained with his hands in his pockets staring at my diminishing
form. He was still there when I looked over my shoulder half a mile
further on. He is probably there now!
As time went on, black clouds appeared in the sky; the sun went in; the
wind rose, and a repetition of the events of the day before commenced
just as I arrived in the small town of "Wheeling." The only thing to
do was to eat ices until the climatic conditions adjusted themselves.
This took the best part of two hours. Once again I sallied forth with
Lizzie. This time in the short space of five yards I reposed gently
but thoroughly in the Missouri mud, much to the amusement of the
population, who had all turned out to witness my departure. Again I
tried and again I fell. The whole machine seemed to act as though it
were made of jelly. I gave it up on the third attempt.
"Try the railway," jeered the village comedian, pointing to
a level-crossing in the distance. This amused the onlookers
"considerable." For myself, I discerned a glimmer of wisdom in the
suggestion.
"Look here, you guys," I retorted, "what about giving me a hand to push
this as far as the depot" (I never made the fatal mistake of referring
to it as a "station") "instead of looking on and grinning like a lot of
schoolboys?"
It had its effect. Three or four volunteered at once. We all pushed; we
slithered to right and left; we slipped over each other and ourselves.
But we got there.
Riding on the sleepers was hardly humorous, but it was better than the
road. They were not filled in and were very irregular. Consequently
progress was slow and a trifle disjointed. The "depot" was not far
away. The "line-boss" looked at me curiously, as though I were a
strange offshoot from some wayward train.
"Many trains coming along this way?" I queried, wishing to know what I
should have to meet, as there was only a single track, double tracks
being seldom, if ever, laid in the States, and if one was unprepared
it might prove embarrassing to meet a train coming in the opposite
direction just in the middle of a tunnel or a bridge. American railway
bridges are remarkable for their narrowness. Very often the sleepers
themselves project into space, and never is there any track beyond
them.
"You said it, brother," he replied, "dozens of 'em." "And what's more,
there's a couple of long tunnels just a mile away--look, you can see
the beginning--and beyond them there's a bridge pretty nigh half a mile
long--and trains is mighty funny things to play hide and seek with, y'
know!"
I was of that opinion myself. As I looked, I saw a train emerge from
the tunnel ahead. I reflected that I should have been just about there
by now if I hadn't stopped. I went back to Wheeling.
The next day I covered twenty miles in four hours and found myself back
in Wheeling again, but this time by another road. Nothing daunted, I
said nothing, clenched my teeth, and polished off another twenty until
dark.
The day after I did better. The nett progress at the end of the
day's work was twenty-five miles instead of twenty. I arrived at the
conclusion that Missouri had one great advantage that I had hitherto
overlooked. It was an excellent place to get out of!
On the next day I covered five miles in six hours, and although only
forty miles or so from Kansas City, which marks the commencement of the
historic Santa Fé Trail leading to the Pacific Coast, I made a solemn
vow that I would "ship" everything there by train at the next town.
The next town happened to be "Excelsior Springs," twenty miles further
on. The road improved considerably, and the comforting thought of
civilization at so short a distance urged me on and I broke that solemn
vow. I rode into Kansas City late that afternoon, a mass of bruises
from head to foot, just as the speedometer showed 1,919 miles from New
York. I ferreted out the Henderson agent and left Lizzie in his tender
keeping.