“What! let you go on alone, as tired as you are? Nothing doing! Mr. T. G. M., the car is going to be shipped, and we are going on that 6:15 train.” I admit that my language was not very elegant; neither was the place nor my feelings.
“If that is the situation, then the car goes into that shed,” he said.
“It can’t be done,” said the agent. “We have tried to get Cadillacs and other large cars in there before. If you get your car in there, I’ll eat it!”
“What about time?” we inquired of the agent. He informed us that we must set our watches back an hour at Montello; so we had over an hour, and the train was marked up “late.” For the next hour my husband worked over that car, backing a few inches, going forward a bit, turning and twisting on the narrow platform; but the car was still diagonally across the doorway. Two men pitched in and helped. An inspiration!—he poured black oil on the floor under the rear wheels and then tried to slide the wheels over. That would have worked if the floor had not been so rough. Another inspiration!—he jacked up the wheels and gave the car another shove. Over it went, with both rear wheels inside the door! Then he backed the car into the shed as neat as a whistle. It all sounds like a perfectly simple job. Try it some time in your leisure hours. The freight agent took off his hat in admiration. “Didn’t believe it could be done,” he said, looking at me with a grin.
It cost $3.85 per hundred pounds and $5.73 war-tax to ship the car to Reno (or to San Francisco—no difference in the rate to either place). It weighed, including four spares and other equipment, 4960 pounds, and the bill was $196.69.
On inquiring about reservations, the agent said: “I doubt if you can get even an upper berth; the Limited is always full. Now that the strike is off, it is sure to be crowded.”
Would he wire?
“No use; the train has left Ogden hours ago.”
I would have gladly sat up all night in the train to be out of the desert.
In another hour we were in a drawing-room, scrubbed and brushed, looking less like two tramps and more like respectable people. Unless you have been through a like experience, you cannot share our feelings, as we sat down to a perfectly good, clean, wholesome meal in the diner, and slept in clean linen that night. I am glad that we had the experience and can appreciate that phase of Western life. I am equally glad that we shipped the car, which reached us at the California border a week later, in good order and still white with sand.