CHAPTER XXIIITHE 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 theirsacraments 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 ishis 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 wereso 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 cameback 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.
PLEASURE BEFORE BUSINESSThe Tackawanna Steel Works
PLEASURE BEFORE BUSINESSThe Tackawanna Steel Works
PLEASURE BEFORE BUSINESSThe 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 beenwashed 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 betterportion 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.