It might have been worse

by Beatrice Larned Massey

We found Harrisburg a busy, thriving city, with well-paved streets, attractive homes, and many fine buildings. The leading hotel, the Penn Harris, was turning away guests; so we were made very comfortable at the Senate. Here the café was miserable, but we went to the restaurant of the Penn Harris and had an excellent dinner at moderate prices. We have found that at the largest, best hotels the food was better cooked and much cheaper than at the smaller ones. Usually we had excellent club breakfasts from forty cents up, and club lunches, with an ample selection of good things to eat, for fifty or sixty cents. You may pay more for your room and bath, but you get more for your money, with better service. We made it a rule to go to the newest, largest hotels, and indulge in every comfort that was afforded. Why? Not to be extravagant, nor to say that we had stopped at such or such hotels. After you have driven day after day, and come in stiff and tired, there is no bed too soft and no bathroom too luxurious to overrest your mind and body. Economize in other ways if you must, but not on good food and comfortable lodgings.

Our third day was still a drizzle; we would no sooner have the top down than we would have to put it up again, and often the side curtains as well. Our objective point was the charmingly quaint town of Bedford, and the Bedford Arms. This part of Pennsylvania was more beautiful than what we had been through, and every mile of the day’s run was a pleasure.

I have not spoken of our lunches, a most important item by one o’clock. We had brought a small English hamper, fitted with the usual porcelain dishes, cutlery, tin boxes, etc., for four people, and unless we were positive that a good place to eat was midway on the road, we prepared a lunch, or had the hotel put one up for us. This latter plan proved both expensive and unsatisfactory. Usually Toodles was sent foraging to the delicatessen shops for fresh rolls, cold meats and sandwiches, eggs, fruit, tomatoes, and bakery dainties, and the hotel filled our thermos-bottles with hot coffee. We carried salt and pepper, mustard, sweet and sour pickles, or a relish, orange marmalade, or a fruit jam, in the hamper, and beyond that we took no staple supplies on the whole trip. We met so many people who carried with them a whole grocery-store, even to sacks of flour, that you would imagine there was not a place to get food from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Often later on we would meet these same people and find that they had thrown or given away most of their larder. Of course, the camping parties, which are legion, are houses on wheels! Aside from the tents, poles, bedding, and cooking utensils, we have seen stoves, sewing-machines, crates of tinned foods, trunks full of every conceivable incumbrance they could buy, strapped to the back and sides and even on the top of the car, and usually the personal luggage jammed in between the mud-guards and hood of the engine. A traveling circus is an orderly, compact miniature in comparison. And the people!—sitting on top of a mountain of baggage, or under it, the picture of woe and discomfort. That may be fun, but I fear I have not developed a capacity for such pleasure. Have you ever seen a party of this description unpack and strike camp after a hot, broiling, dusty day of hard travel? You will do as we did—drive right ahead until you come to a clean hotel and a bath.

We have been told so often that one has to develop an “open-air” spirit to really enjoy a long motor trip! Quite true! I can’t imagine what the fun can be of touring in a closed limousine, and yet we have met that particularly exclusive party more than once. On the whole, an absence of flies, ants, mosquitoes, and sand and dust in one’s bed and food does not detract from the pleasure of the trip. It may be all right to endure such annoyances for a few days in the woods, to fish or hunt—but weeks and more weeks of it! We admit our “lack,” whatever it may be termed, and enjoy clean linen, hot tubs, and tables that have legs not belonging to ants and spiders.

In Wisconsin we met a most unique and charming couple, both past fifty, who had lived all over the world, even in South America, a Mr. X and wife, from Washington, D. C. They were going on the same route as we were, and back to Washington, via southern California, the Yosemite, New Mexico, New Orleans, and then north. So their trip would be twice as long as ours. They loved the open, with that two-ton-equipment enthusiasm excelling all others we had met. From an over-stocked medicine chest, so carefully stowed away that they bought what they wanted en route rather than unload everything to try to find it, to a complete wardrobe for every occasion, which was never unpacked, they had every conceivable utensil that a well-furnished apartment could boast of. They even bought a small puppy, as a protection at night when camping; the poor little beast caught cold and crawled under the pile and died. They solved the lunch problem in a unique way. If they passed a good corn-field, they “procured” a few ears and stopped at the next farmhouse and calmly asked the loan of the kitchen for a short time, and cooked their corn and bought bread and milk, etc. Mrs. X remarked: “It is all so simple! We have all these things in case we should need them, but they are so well packed in the car it is really too bad to disturb them; so I live in one gown, and we buy what we need, and it is most satisfactory.” Later we learned that they had camped out just three nights in several weeks.

But I have digressed, and left you at the Bedford Arms, one of the most artistic, attractive inns that we found. The little touches showed a woman’s hand. Flowers everywhere, dainty cretonnes, willow furniture, and pretty, fine china; in appearance, courtesy, and efficiency, the maids in the dining-room might have come from a private dwelling. Will someone tell me why there are not more such charming places to stop at on our much-traveled main highways. Why must hotel men buy all the heavy, hideous furniture, the everlasting red or green carpets and impossible wall-paper, to make night hideous for their guests—to say nothing of the pictures on their walls? It is a wonder one can sleep.

There is much of interest to see in Bedford—really old, artistic houses, not spoiled by modern gewgaws, set in lovely gardens of old-fashioned flowers, neatly trimmed hedges, and red brick walks. There were few early Victorian eyesores to mar the general beauty of the town. As we were walking down the main street about sunset, we heard a great chattering and chirping, as if a thousand birds were holding a jubilee. Looking up, we found, on a projecting balcony running along the front of all the buildings for two blocks, hundreds of martins discussing the League of Nations and Peace Treaty quite as vigorously as were their senatorial friends in Washington. They were fluttering about and making a very pretty picture. It sounded like the bird market in Paris on a Sunday morning, which, in passing, is an interesting sight that few tourists ever see.

It was with regret that we left the next morning for Pittsburgh. The day was clear and cool and the best part of the Lincoln Highway was before us; in fact, the first real thrill so far, and one of the high spots of the trip. This was a stretch of seven and a half miles of tarvia road on the top ridge of the Alleghany Mountains, as smooth as marble, as straight as the bee flies, looking like a strip of satin ribbon as far as the eye could see. On both sides were deep ravines, well wooded, and valleys green with abundant crops, and still higher mountains rising in a haze of blue and purple coloring, making a picture that would never be forgotten. The top was down and we stopped the car again and again, to drink it in, and, as one of us remarked, “We may see more grand and rugged scenery later on, but we shall not see anything more beautiful than this”—and it proved true.

We had come 442 miles, from New York to Pittsburgh, over fine roads and through beautiful country. Approaching Pittsburgh, we came in on a boulevard overlooking the river and “valley of smoke.” Great stacks were belching out soot and smoke, obliterating the city and even the sky and sun. They may have a smoke ordinance, but no one has ever heard of it. We arrived at the William Penn Hotel, in the heart of the business center of the city, a first-class, fine hotel in every regard. We found the prices reasonable for the excellent service afforded, which was equal to that of any New York hotel. The dining-room, on the top of the house, was filled with well-dressed people, and we were glad that we had unpacked our dinner clothes, and appeared less like the usual tourist, in suits and blouses. It was frightfully hot during our two days’ stay. You go out to drive feeling clean and immaculate, and come in with smuts and soot on your face and clothes, looking like a foundry hand. The office buildings are magnificent, and out a bit in the parks and boulevards the homes are attractive, and many are very handsome, especially in Sewickley. But aside from the dirty atmosphere one is impressed mostly by the evidences of the outlay of immense wealth. An enthusiastic brother living there took us through a number of the business blocks, and told us of the millions each cost and the almost unbelievable amount of business carried on. I can only describe Pittsburgh as the proudest city we visited. Not so much of the actual wealth represented, but of what the billions had accomplished in great industries. We went out in the evening and stood on one of the bridges to look over the river lined with monster furnaces. The air was filled with sparks, jets of flame bursting through the smoke. All you could think of was Dante’s Inferno visualized. And what of the men who spend their lives in that lurid atmosphere, never knowing if the sun shone, nor what clean, pure air was like in their working hours? I shall never look at a steel structure again without giving more credit to the men who spend their waking hours in those hells of heat and smoke than to the men whose millions have made it possible.

The second day, nothing daunted by the heat, we went out to the St. Clair Country Club for lunch and golf, about a twenty-mile run through the suburbs. This is a comparatively small and new club, but our host told us that they were soon to have a fine club-house and improve the links. The location is attractive, and the luncheon was delicious. We had brought our golf bags, tennis racquets, and bathing suits with us, much to the amusement of our friends. After sitting in the car day in and day out, I know of no better way to stretch your legs and arms and to exercise your stiff muscles than to put in a few hours at either game. My husband described this course thus: “You have to hold on to a tree with one hand and drive with the other, the bally course is so steep.” There are many more pretentious country clubs and golf links about Pittsburgh, but this small one had charm and a homelike atmosphere. Our last evening we were taken to the “New China,” the last word in Chinese restaurants—beautiful, clean, and artistic! You have your choice of American or Chinese dishes. As we were looking for sensations, we ordered some marvelous dishes with impossible names. One portion was sufficient for three hungry people. The other two portions were untouched. I do not know what we ate, but it was delicious. Truth compels me to state that we were all ill for three days, and decided to patronize home cooking in the future.