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From Off the Road Database
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C
<div class="poem">
<p>In 1908 there was no transcontinental automobile highway. The Lincoln Highway was not started until 1913 and wasn't finished for more than a decade. It filled a great want, linking the East with the West and making it possible for travelers to locate towns and cities by calculating exact distances. This was especially valuable in sparsely populated areas. Previously, only the hardiest motorists ventured any distance from home base, and a cross-country pleasure trip was out of the question. A few factories sent cars on long trips for advertising purposes, but the danger and trouble they encountered made the ventures questionable.
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<div class="poem">
<p>In Kansas City he received instructions from Briscoe to continue to Denver with the Brush, look over the possibilities of a Pike's Peak climb and report if it would be feasible. Fred soon found bad roads all through Kansas, and driving was strenuous work. Beyond Dodge City, he stopped to speed up his engine in the heavy mud and in starting, the chain jumped off the sprocket teeth. This had happened before, as the chains and corresponding teeth had become worn in the steady drag through the mud. He tried to flip the chain on while the engine was running, his usual custom, but in a moment of carelessness he caught his hand between the chain and the teeth of the sprocket, stalling the engine and trapping him as completely as though he were in a bear trap. He couldn't move to reach the gear-shift lever.
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F
<div class="poem">
<p>In alarm she thought, "How long does it last? I can't keep this up. I--Oh!"
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T
<div class="poem">
<p>In general, the greatest number of casualties were encountered on the good stretches of road. By way of illustrating this point it may be noted that on the return journey between the Laboratory and Marshall town, Iowa, a distance of 211 miles, all well graveled, 105 dead animals representing 15 species were counted; of these, 39 were red-headed woodpeckers (<i>Melanerpes erythrocephalus</i>). Several other forms that could not be identified in passing were met with.
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F
<div class="poem">
<p>In less than two miles the racing motor had used up so much water that she had to make four trips to the creek before she had filled the radiator. When she had climbed back on the running-board she glared down at spats and shoes turned into gray lumps. She was not tearful. She was angry.
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C
<div class="poem">
<p>In mid-afternoon, the snow came down so thick and fast that I was kept busy clearing it from the top of the umbrella, which was being bogged down by the snow's weight. The roads, such as they were, were beginning to disappear under the blanket of snow and we had to crawl along, fearful of damaging the car on some hidden rock. Then we saw a section house, about dusk.
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O
<div class="poem">
<p>In parts where the following narrative covers our tours made before much of the new road was finished, I shall not alter my descriptions and they will afford the reader an opportunity of comparing the present improved highways with conditions that existed only yesterday, as it were.
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X
<div class="poem">
<p>In passing with my mind<br />
on nothing in the world
</p>
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C
<div class="poem">
<p>In rural districts the populace usually was antagonistic to the automobile because it frightened horses and accidents resulted. Often, upon the approach of a horse, the motorist would stop his car and stand in front of it until the animal could be maneuvered past the evil-smelling contraption.
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O
<div class="poem">
<p>In spring more mortal singers than belong<br />
To any one place cover us with song.<br />
Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng;<br />
Some to go further north to Hudson's Bay,<br />
Some that have come too far north back away,<br />
Really a very few to build and stay.<br />
Now was seen how these liked belated snow.<br />
The fields had nowhere left for them to go;<br />
They'd soon exhausted all there was in flying;<br />
The trees they'd had enough of with once trying<br />
And setting off their heavy powder load.<br />
They could find nothing open but the road.<br />
So there they let their lives be narrowed in<br />
By thousands the bad weather made akin.<br />
The road became a channel running flocks<br />
Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks.<br />
I drove them under foot in bits of flight<br />
That kept the ground, almost disputing right<br />
Of way with me from apathy of wing,<br />
A talking twitter all they had to sing.<br />
A few I must have driven to despair<br />
Made quick asides, but having done in air<br />
A whir among white branches great and small<br />
As in some too much carven marble hall<br />
Where one false wing beat would have brought down all,<br />
Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover,<br />
To suffer the same driven nightmare over.<br />
One such storm in a lifetime couldn't teach them<br />
That back behind pursuit it couldn't reach them;<br />
None flew behind me to be left alone.
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<div class="poem">
<p>In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away, <br />
Cool-breathed waters dip and dally, linger towards another day—<br />
Far and far away—far away.
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W
<div class="poem">
<p>In the enchantment of the ebb of life,<br />
In the miracle of millions stretched in their rooms unconscious and breathing,<br />
In the sleep of the broadcast people,<br />
In the multitude of dreams rising from the houses,<br />
I pause, frozen in a spell.
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<div class="poem">
<p>In the old wars clutches of short swords and jabs into faces with spears.<br />
In the new wars long range guns and smashed walls, guns running a spit of metal and men falling in tens and twenties.<br />
In the wars to come new silent deaths, new silent hurlers not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.
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<div class="poem">
<p>In the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet.<br />
In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.<br />
In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.
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<div class="poem">
<p>In the old wars kings quarreling and thousands of men following.<br />
In the new wars kings quarreling and millions of men following.<br />
In the wars to come kings kicked under the dust and millions of men following great causes not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.
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K
<div class="poem">
<p>In the shadows of the trees above,<br />
Their kisses told us of their love,<br />
No bliss to either one was missing,<br />
They put it all into their kissing.
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P
<div class="poem">
<p>In these noncommittal, personal-impersonal expressions of appearance,<br />
the eye knows what to skip;<br />
the physiognomy of conduct must not reveal the skeleton;<br />
“a setting must not have the air of being one,”<br />
yet with X-ray-like inquisitive intensity upon it, the surfaces go back;<br />
the interfering fringes of expression are but a stain on what stands out,<br />
there is neither up nor down to it;<br />
we see the exterior and the fundamental structure—<br />
captains of armies, cooks, carpenters,<br />
cutlers, gamesters, surgeons and armorers,<br />
lapidaries, silkmen, glovers, fiddlers and ballad singers,<br />
sextons of churches, dyers of black cloth, hostlers and chimney-sweeps,<br />
queens, countesses, ladies, emperors, travelers and mariners,<br />
dukes, princes and gentlemen, <br />
in their respective places—<br />
camps, forges and battlefields,<br />
conventions, oratories and wardrobes,<br />
dens, deserts, railway stations, asylums and places where engines are made,<br />
shops, prisons, brickyards and altars of churches—<br />
in magnificent places clean and decent,<br />
castles, palaces, dining halls, theaters and imperial audience chambers.
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T
<div class="poem">
<p>In this count only freshly killed carcasses of vertebrate animals lying in or immediately at the side of the highway were taken into consideration, and only those forms of whose identity we were certain as we passed along were included. Since we seldom exceeded 25 miles per hour we had ample time to identify the more familiar things. Stops were made for a few of the less common and unusual finds.
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S
<div class="poem">
<p>In years of yore it made us sore,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> When teacher called our name,</span><br />
And said next Friday afternoon,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> You’re one that must declaim.</span><br />
Now we were always timid quite,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> To stand before the school,</span><br />
But declamations once a week,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> Was teacher’s golden rule.</span>
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B
<div class="poem">
<p>Incredulous of his own bad luck.<br />
And then becoming reconciled<br />
To everything, he gave it up<br />
And came down like a coasting child.
</p>
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