Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
This is a property of type Text.
B
<div class="poem">
<p>But now he snapped his eyes three times;<br />
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s<br />
’Bout out!” and took the long way home<br />
By road, a matter of several miles.
</p>
</div> +
A
<div class="poem">
<p>But now myself calls me...<br />
The skies demand me, though it is but ten in the <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> morning:</span><br />
The earth has an appointment with me, not to be <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> broken...</span><br />
I must accustom myself to the gaunt face of the Sub-<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> time...</span><br />
I must see what I really am, and what I am for,<br />
And what this city is for, and the Earth and the stars <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> in their hurry...</span>
</p>
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I
<div class="poem">
<p>But now our friend’s in greatest glee,<br />
The palmy days are o’er you see.<br />
The law has stopped the use of traps<br />
To curb abuse of motor chaps.
</p>
</div> +
R
<div class="poem">
<p>But rabbits often figure out in real the other way,<br />
We weren’t slow in finding out, buying Hinman hay.<br />
For every dollar rabbits brought two was spent for grain,<br />
We sold a million, more or less, but not a cent of gain.
</p>
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F
<div class="poem">
<p>But suppose the engine overheated, ran out of water? Anxiety twanged at her nerves. And the deep distinctive ruts were changing to a complex pattern, like the rails in a city switchyard. She picked out the track of the one motor car that had been through here recently. It was marked with the swastika tread of the rear tires. That track was her friend; she knew and loved the driver of a car she had never seen in her life.
</p>
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T
<div class="poem">
<p>But that star-glistered salver of infinity,<br />
The circle, blind crucible of endless space,<br />
Is sliced by motion,—subjugated never.<br />
Adam and Adam's answer in the forest<br />
Left Hesperus mirrored in the lucid pool.<br />
Now the eagle dominates our days, is jurist<br />
Of the ambiguous cloud. We know the strident rule<br />
Of wings imperious... Space, instantaneous,<br />
Flickers a moment, consumes us in its smile:<br />
A flash over the horizon—shifting gears—<br />
And we have laughter, or more sudden tears.<br />
Dream cancels dream in this new realm of fact<br />
From which we wake into the dream of act;<br />
Seeing himself an atom in a shroud—<br />
Man hears himself an engine in a cloud!
</p>
</div> +
F
<div class="poem">
<p>But the Gomez-Dep roadster had seventy horsepower, and sang songs. Since she had left Minneapolis nothing had passed her. Back yonder a truck had tried to crowd her, and she had dropped into a ditch, climbed a bank, returned to the road, and after that the truck was not. Now she was regarding a view more splendid than mountains above a garden by the sea--a stretch of good road. To her passenger, her father, Claire chanted:
</p>
</div> +
C
<div class="poem">
<p>But the storm was over, the sun was shining, and we were happy although a little sore from the effects of our hard bed. We ate breakfast, took pictures, bid the friendly Japanese goodbye after settling our bill, and waded back with our belongings to the car. It was shrouded in snow and canvas, just as we had left it. We uncovered it and started off.
</p>
</div> +
T
<div class="poem">
<p>By dint of much persuasion, Marjorie was induced to leave the garage and go into the house. Here she found new sources of interest; Mrs. Hadley had collected catalogues of sporting goods and books of advice upon motoring and crossing the country, and had piled them all upon the table in the living-room. The girls literally dived for them as soon as they realized what they were.<br />
“Of course we’ll need tents,” said Marjorie, turning immediately to the fascinating displays that were shown by the various dealers represented in the catalogues.<br />
“And look at these cunning little folding stoves!” cried Lily, pointing to an illustration that captured her eye.<br />
“Don’t forget dishes!” put in Alice. “They ought to be tin or aluminum—”<br />
“You better carry a revolver apiece,” cautioned John.<br />
“I don’t know about that,” remarked his mother. “The books and articles that I have read on the subject say that it is not necessary to carry that sort of protection. There is usually an unfailing courtesy to be found along the road, particularly in the west.”<br />
“But we have to go through the east to get to the west,” sighed Lily; “and it will be just our luck to encounter all sorts of obstacles—ghosts, or bootleggers, or bandits—just because we want so desperately to get there safely.”<br />
“But that only makes it so much more fun!” returned Marjorie.<br />
“Yes, I know you love danger, Marj. But one day you’ll love it too much. Sometimes it seems as if you almost court difficulties.”<br />
“Still, we always gain by them in the end!” she replied, triumphantly.<br />
“I’m more concerned about the little troubles—something going wrong with the car, for instance,” said Alice. “And I’m so afraid we’ll some of us be weak, and accept help, and—”<br />
“And be sent home like bad children!” supplied Marjorie.<br />
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” observed John, “if you would come home one by one until only Alice was left to return the car to her aunt! I’m afraid that I would just have to laugh!”<br />
“Well, if you did, you never need come around us again!” snapped Marjorie. “Girl Scouts wouldn’t want to see you—”<br />
“Then I promise to shed tears!” interrupted the young man, hastily.<br />
“However, nothing like that is going to happen,” said Marjorie, conclusively. “We’re going across the continent with flying colors, as all Girl Scouts could, if they had the chance. It’s the opportunity of a life-time!”
</p>
</div>
<div class="poem">
<p>By hamlets where the low-roofed houses stand, <br />
Over the downs where feed the scattered sheep,<br />
‘Tis pleasant thus idle through the land,<br />
Through woodlands where the western shades lie deep.
</p>
</div> +
O
<div class="poem">
<p>California was a pioneer in improved roads and it is not strange that mistakes were made in some of the earlier work, chiefly in building roadways too narrow and too light to stand the constantly increasing heavy traffic. The Automobile Club of Southern California, in conjunction with the State Automobile Association, recently made an exhaustive investigation and report of existing highway conditions which should do much to prevent repetition of mistakes in roads still to be built. The State Highway Commission, while admitting that some of the earlier highways might better have been built heavier and wider, points out that this would have cut the mileage at least half; and also that at the time these roads were contracted for, the extent that heavy trucking would assume was not fully realized. Work on new roads was generally suspended during the war and is still delayed by high costs and the difficulty of selling bonds.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>California! The very name had a strange fascination for me ere I set foot on the soil of the Golden State. Its romantic story and the enthusiasm of those who had made the (to me) wonderful journey to the favored country by the great ocean of the West had interested and delighted me as a child, though I thought of it then as some dim, far-away El Dorado that lay on the borders of fairyland. My first visit was not under circumstances tending to dissolve the spell, for it was on my wedding trip that I first saw the land of palms and flowers, orange groves, snowy mountains, sunny beaches, and blue seas, and I found little to dispel the rosy dreams I had preconceived. This was long enough ago to bring a great proportion of the growth and progress of the state within the scope of my own experience. We saw Los Angeles, then an aspiring town of forty thousand, giving promise of the truly metropolitan city it has since become; Pasadena was a straggling village; and around the two towns were wide areas of open country now teeming with ambitious suburbs. We visited never-to-be-forgotten Del Monte and saw the old San Francisco ere fire and quake had swept away its most distinctive and romantic features—the Nob Hill palaces and old-time Chinatown.
</p>
</div> +
C
<div class="poem">
<p>Can we believe—by an effort<br />
comfort our hearts:<br />
it is not waste all this,<br />
not placed here in disgust,<br />
street after street,<br />
each patterned alike,<br />
no grace to lighten<br />
a single house of the hundred<br />
crowded into one garden-space.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Can we think a few old cells<br />
were left—we are left—<br />
grains of honey,<br />
old dust of stray pollen<br />
dull on our torn wings,<br />
we are left to recall the old streets ?
</p>
</div> +
F
<div class="poem">
<p>Capped arbiter of beauty in this street<br />
That narrows darkly into motor dawn,—<br />
You, here beside me, delicate ambassador<br />
Of intricate slain numbers that arise<br />
In whispers, naked of steel;<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 11em;"> religious gunman!</span><br />
Who faithfully, yourself, will fall too soon,<br />
And in other ways than as the wind settles<br />
On the sixteen thrifty bridges of the city:<br />
Let us unbind our throats of fear and pity.<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 17em;"> We even,</span><br />
Who drove speediest destruction<br />
In corymbulous formations of mechanics,—<br />
Who hurried the hill breezes, spouting malice<br />
Plangent over meadows, and looked down<br />
On rifts of torn and empty houses<br />
Like old women with teeth unjubilant<br />
That waited faintly, briefly and in vain:
</p>
</div> +
Q
<div class="poem">
<p>Chance! Oh, there is no chance! The scene is set.<br />
Up with the curtain! Man, the marionette,<br />
Resumes his part. The gods will work the wires.<br />
They've got it all down fine, you bet, you bet!
</p>
</div> +
C
<div class="poem">
<p>Civilization!<br />
Everybody kind and gentle, and men giving up<br />
their seats in the car for the women...<br />
What an ideal!<br />
How bracing!
</p>
</div> +
F
<div class="poem">
<p>Claire was dainty of habit. She detested untwisted hair, ripped gloves, muddy shoes. Hesitant as a cat by a puddle, she stepped down on the bridge. Even on these planks, the mud was three inches thick. It squidged about her low, spatted shoes. "Eeh!" she squeaked.
</p>
</div> +
A
<div class="poem">
<p>Covering the North American continent from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic Ocean in an automobile has been attempted by Alexander Winton, president of The Winton Motor Carriage Company, of Cleveland. That the expedition failed is no fault of the machine Mr. Winton used, nor was it due to absence of grit or determination on the part of the operator. Neither was the failure due to roads. The utter absence of roads was the direct and only cause.
</p>
</div> +
T
<div class="poem">
<p>Cowslip and shad-blow, flaked like tethered foam<br />
Around bared teeth of stallions, bloomed that spring<br />
When first I read thy lines, rife as the loam<br />
Of prairies, yet like breakers cliffward leaping!<br />
O, early following thee, I searched the hill<br />
Blue-writ and odor-firm with violets, 'til<br />
With June the mountain laurel broke through green<br />
And filled the forest with what clustrous sheen!<br />
Potomac lilies, — then the Pontiac rose,<br />
And Klondike edelweiss of occult snows!<br />
White banks of moonlight came descending valleys—<br />
How speechful on oak-vizored palisades,<br />
As vibrantly I following down Sequoia alleys<br />
Heard thunder's eloquence through green arcades<br />
Set trumpets breathing in each clump and grass tuft—'til<br />
Gold autumn, captured, crowned the trembling hill!
</p>
</div> +
