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From Off the Road Database
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<p>"You're a long ways from <i>home</i>, ain't yo'?"
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<p><poem>
CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO
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<p>At the outset we did not plan to make the journey by automobile. Our destination was uncertain. We planned to drift, to sketch and write when the spirit moved. But drifting by railroad in the West implies time-tables, crowded trains, boudoir-capped matrons, crying babies and the smell of bananas, long waits and anxiety over reservations. Traveling by auto seemed luxurious in comparison and would save railroad fares, annoyance and time. We pictured ourselves bowling smoothly along in the open air, in contrast with the stifling train; we previsioned no delays, no breakdowns, no dangers; we saw New Mexico and Arizona a motorist's Heaven, paved with asphalt and running streams of gasoline. An optimist is always like that, and two are twenty times so. I was half-owner of a Cadillac Eight, with a rakish hood and a matronly tonneau; its front was intimidating, its rear reassuring. The owner of the other half was safely in France. At the time, which half belonged to which had not been discussed. It is now a burning question. I figure that the springs, the dust-pan, the paint, mud-guards and tires constituted her share, with a few bushings and nuts thrown in for good measure, but having acquired a mercenary disposition in France, she differs from me.
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<p>TOBY'S real name is Katharine. Her grandmother was a poet, her father is a scientist, and she is an artist. She is called Toby for Uncle Jonas' dog, who had the habit, on being kicked out of the door, of running down the steps with a cheerful bark and a wagging tail, as if he had left entirely of his own accord. There is no fact, however circumstantially incriminating, which this young doctrinaire cannot turn into the most potent justification for what she has done or wishes to do, and when she gets to the tail wagging stage, regardless of how recently the bang of the front door has echoed in our ears, she wags with the charm of the artist, the logical precision of the scientist, and the ardor of the poet. Even when she ran the car into the creek at Nambe——
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<p>He looked at the wheel hungrily. "Huh! I bet I could bring her up to seventy-five."
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<p>New Orleans, those who knew it twenty or forty years ago will tell you, has become modern and ugly, has lost its atmosphere. Drive through the newer and more pretentious outskirts, and you will believe all you are told. You will see the usual Southwestern broad boulevard, pointed with staccato palmettos, but otherwise arid of verdure, bordered with large, hideous mansions which completely overpower an occasional gem of low-verandahed loveliness, relic of happier days. For such grandeur the driver of our jitney,—undoubtedly the one used by Gen. Jackson during his defence of the city,—had an infallible instinct. I don't think he missed one atrocity during the whole morning's drive. Yet we passed one quite charming "colored" dwelling,—a low rambling cottage covered with vines, proudly made of glittering, silvery tin!
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<p>But what could you expect from a soul of granite who could resist such a mellowing, opportune, side-splitting bon mot?—could swallow it unsaid?
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<p>Airplanes were soaring above us in every direction. We were passing Ellington Field. But the immediate cause of our halt was two soldiers, who begged a lift to Houston. We were glad to oblige them, but after a hopeless glance at the tonneau piled high with baggage, they decided to ride on the running board. If the doughboy on the left had only been the doughboy on the right running board, this chapter would have been two days shorter. It was Friday, and we had thirteen miles to go, and Friday and thirteen make a bad combination.
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<p>A great idea struggled for expression. I could see him searching for the right, the inevitable word. I could see it born, as triumph and amusement played over his features. Then caution—should he spring it all at once or save it for a climax? Nonchalantly, as if such epigrams were likely to occur to him any time, he got it off.
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<p>His voice became indulgently reassuring. We felt we had done well to wait over a day, and trust to Southern chivalry.
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<p>"I surely <i>am</i>."
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<p>We bogged. We came, quite suddenly to a tell-tale stretch of black, spotting the red-brown road, and knew we were in for it. At each foot, we wondered if we should bog in the next. Eliza must have felt the same way, crossing the ice, especially when a cake slipped from under her. As directed, I kept to the ruts. Sometimes they expanded to a three-foot hole, into which the car descended with a heart-rending thump. Once in a rut, it was impossible to get out. The mud, of the consistency of modeling clay, would have made the fortune of a dealer in art supplies. At last, a wrong choice of ruts pulled us into this stiff mass to our hubs, almost wrenching the differential from the car, and we found ourselves stopping. As soon as we stopped, we were done for. We sank deeper and deeper.
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<p>Set down close to the wharves is this jumble of old streets, so close that the funnels of docked tramps mingle with the shop chimneys. From the wharves drift smells of the sea and sea-commerce, to join the smells of the old town. It is a subtle blend of peanuts, coffee, cooked food, garlic, poultry,—a raw, pungent, bracing odor, inclining one to thoughts of eating. And just around the corner is Antoine's.
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<p>Nearby was a farmhouse, with two men and a Ford standing in the driveway. Hardly had we "boaged," our wheels churning a pool deep enough to bathe in, when we saw them loading shovels and tools into the car, and driving to our aid. They came with boreboding haste. They greeted us cheerfully—too cheerfully, we thought; joked about the hole, and admitted they spent most of their time shovelling people out. They knew their job—we had to admit that. They wrestled with the jack, setting it on a shovel to keep it from sinking in the swamp; profanely cheerful, fussed over the chains, which we later guiltily discovered were too short for our over-sized tires, backed their car to ours, tied a rope to it, and pulled. We sank deeper. They shoveled, jacked, chopped sage-brush, and commandeered every passing man and car. The leader of the wreckers was a Mr. Poole, a typical Westerner of the old school,—long, flowing gray whiskers, sombrero, and keen watchful face. He had also a delightful sense of humor,—was in fact so cheerful that we became more and more gloomy as we noted the array of Fords and men clustered about. It looked to us like a professional mud-hole.
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<p>Our Optimist directed us to a nearby sports'-goods shop, recommending us to the care of a certain "Reggi," who, he guaranteed, would not try to sell us the entire store. Confidently we sought the place,—a paradise where elk-skin boots, fleecy mufflers, sleeping bags, leather coats, pink hunting habits and folding stoves lure the very pocketbooks out of one's hands. We asked for Mr. Reggi, who did not look as Italian as his name. He proved a sympathetic guide, steering us to the camping department. He restrained himself from selling the most expensive outfits he had. At the price of a fascinating morning and fifty-odd dollars, we parted from him, owners of a silk tent, mosquito and snake proof, which folded into an infinitesimal canvas bag, a tin lantern, which folded flat, a tin biscuit baker which collapsed into nothing, a nest of cooking and eating utensils, which folded and fitted into one two-gallon pail, a can opener, a hunting knife, doomed to be our most cherished treasure, a flashlight, six giant safety-pins, and a folding stove. The charm of an article which collapses and becomes something else than it seems I cannot analyze nor resist. Others feel it too; I know a man who once stopped a South American revolution by stepping into the Plaza and opening and shutting his opera hat.
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<p>"Considering everything, I'll be easy on you. Twenty dollars."
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<p>To all motorists who become "boaged," I beg to recommend the mud-hole of my friends, Mr. Poole and Mr. Sinclair, of Lissie, Texas.
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<p>Socialists and horse-thieves we did not encounter; it must have been the Baptists, then, who were responsible for the law putting citizens who purchase gasoline on Sunday in the criminal class. Unluckily the easy-going garage man who obligingly gave us all other possible information neglected to tell us of this restriction on Saturday night. Accordingly, when we started on Sunday morning, we had only five gallons and a hundred odd miles to go. We had no desire to meet Houston's judiciary again.
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<p>"Turn off to the right here," said my guide. I turned, and in a flash, the motor-cycles wheeled back to us.
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<p>Outside, Toby looked at me in scorn.
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