Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
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A
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<p>Tie ropes around the tires to prevent slipping. It may help some, but the measure is not entirely effective, for down in the bog you find yourself soon again and once more the block and tackle are brought into play. Slow work—not discouraging in the least, but a bit disagreeable, considering that it is the first day out and you are anxious to make a clever initial run.
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<p>All morning the sky, which during the three weeks preceding had been clear and bright, was heavy with clouds. Before the opposite bank of the Sacramento was touched, the clouds opened. And what an opening it was. Adobe roads when dry and hard hold out opportunities for good going, but when the sponge-like soil is soaked with moisture, when your wheels cut in, spin around, slip and slide from the course and suddenly your machine is off the road and into the swamp ditch—buried to the axles in the soft "doby"—then the fun begins.
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<p>The motor never flinched, its power never lagged, it pulled us through those rocks and up the stiff grades. Emigrants westward bound in the early days would never trust horses or mules to convey their wagons safely to the bottom of one particularly stiff and rugged grade which Mr. Winton caused the motor to ascend. Those early day pathfinders would tie a rope to the rear axle of the wagon, take a turn around a tree and lower it gently.
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<p>We at last got through the New Hampshire Rocks and began calculating what would be our fate in the snow immediately to be encountered. The Cascade Creek, swollen by the melting mountain snows to river proportions, caused a halt about one-half mile west from the commencement of what was expected to be bothersome snow.
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<p>"Not on your life," retorted the plucky automobilist; into the carriage I jumped, he pulled the lever and off we went. The course led up a hill, but there was enough bottom to the sand to give the wheels a purchase and from the hill summit we forged down into the valley where the country was comparatively level. Nothing in sight but sage brush and sand, sand and sage brush.
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<p>When out of the machine and walking around bunches of sage brush care was exercised in keeping out of striking range of these venomous reptiles. Mr. Winton has some tail end rattles as trophies, but I was not so anxious to get close enough to kill the snakes and cut off their tails.
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<p>Having been with Mr. Winton on this trip, I saw and experienced things the like of which automobile drivers in every civilized portion of the North American continent know not of, nor can an active imagination be brought to picture the terrible abuse the machine had to take, or the hardships its riders endured in forcing and fighting the way from San Francisco to that point in Nevada where the project was abandoned—where Mr. Winton had forced upon him the positive conviction that to put an automobile across the sand hills of the Nevada desert was an utter impossibility under existing conditions.
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<p>Ordinarily there would be great danger in speed under such conditions—and there may have been risk to life and limb at the time, but I knew Mr. Winton, I knew him for his skill and that there was no call for nervousness with him at the wheel, so I sat back and enjoyed the scenery.
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<p>It was a condition never encountered by an automobilist in the history of the industry. We were in soft, shifting quicksand where power counted as nothing. We were face to face with a condition the like of which cannot be imagined—one must be in it, fight with it, be conquered by it, before a full and complete realization of what it actually is will dawn upon the mind.
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<p>Reached Wadsworth splashed and covered with mud, wet through and hungry. Spent night at Wadsworth. Residents warned Mr. Winton about sand, more especially the sand hill just east of the town. Next morning we took on stock of rations and drinking water. That "sand hill," or rather the remembrance of it and the balance of our trip to Desert Station that day, are like the remembrance of another beastly nightmare.
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<p>Next morning, May 22, at 6:45 o'clock, the ascent was recommenced. Up and up we went, winding around and turning in many directions--but always up. From Gold Run we passed along through Dutch Flat, Towle, Blue Canon, Emigrant Gap, Cisco, and on to Cascade. Roads became particularly rugged after leaving Gold Run, and when we reached Emigrant Gap the few inhabitants who make that their home told us fully what rock roads and snow deposits would have to be encountered between their station and across the summit down to Donner Lake.
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<p>Two miles of it were covered. Progress was slow, the sand became deeper and deeper as we progressed. At last the carriage stopped, the driving wheels sped on and cut deep into the bottomless sand. We used block and tackle, got the machine from its hole, and tried again. Same result. Tied more ropes around wheels with the hope that the corrugation would give them sufficient purchase in the sand. Result: wheels cut deeper in less time than before.
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<p>Got upon the road 7:40 A.M. Reached Rio Vista and two miles further on to "Old River" at 8:40. Go east on the levee road, which is of adobe formation with steep descending banks on both sides. On the left side is the river; the opposite bank runs down to a thicket, beyond which are orchards. Slide off the treacherous road on either side and nothing short of a derrick and wrecking crew could serve to a practical and satisfactory end.
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B
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<p>Albert! <br />
Hey, Albert!<br />
Don't you play in dat road. <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;">You see dem trucks </span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;">A-goin' by. </span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;">One run ovah you </span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 2em;">An' you die. </span><br />
Albert, don't you play in dat road.
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<p>The opening window, closing door, <br />
Open, close, but not <br />
To finish or restore; <br />
These wishes get <br />
No further than <br />
The edges of the town, <br />
And leaning asking from the car <br />
Cannot tell us where we are; <br />
While the divided face<br />
Has no grace, <br />
No discretion,<br />
No occupation <br />
But registering <br />
Acreage, mileage, <br />
The easy knowledge <br />
Of the virtuous thing.
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<p>Between attention and attention<br />
The first and last decision <br />
Is mortal distraction <br />
Of earth and air,<br />
Further and nearer, <br />
The vague wants <br />
Of days and nights, <br />
And personal error; <br />
And the fatigued face. <br />
Taking the strain <br />
Of the horizontal force <br />
And the vertical thrust, <br />
Makes random answer<br />
To the crucial test; <br />
The uncertain flesh <br />
Scraping back chair <br />
For the wrong train, <br />
Falling in slush, <br />
Before a friend’s friends <br />
Or shaking hands <br />
With a snub-nosed winner.
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<p>" Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow.<br />
That's always the way with the blueberries, though :<br />
There may not have been the ghost of a sign<br />
Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine,<br />
But get the pine out of the way, you may burn<br />
The pasture all over until not a fern<br />
Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,<br />
And presto, they're up all around you as thick<br />
And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick."
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<p>" I don't know what part of the pasture you mean."
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