It might have been worse

by Beatrice Larned Massey

Our trip across Lake Erie was quiet and cooling. That is not always the case, even on such big steamers as the D. & C. line affords. I have seen that lake lashed into fury by waves that rocked the largest boat like a cockleshell. Breakfast on the steamer was all that could be desired. It was some time before we had the car on the dock, ready to start to our hotel in Detroit. The ride up the river had been interesting, past old Fort Wayne, the Great Lakes engineering plant and dry docks, and the grain elevators; even at that early hour (seven A. M.) the wharves were alive with the bustle of trade.

Here I pause. Detroit was my home city and that of my father and grandfather in territorial days. My earliest recollections of it were of broad streets, fine homes, and an atmosphere of dignified culture and home-loving people. But now! It has outgrown recognition. It has outgrown every semblance of its former charm. Like Cleveland, the old homes on the principal avenues are all given over to trade, and the streets down-town are overcrowded, noisy, and well-nigh impassable. The Statler is a new and fine hotel. We went to the Pontchartrain, formerly the old Russell House, which in its palmy days, in the Messrs. Chittenden régime, was the center of the social life of Detroit. It has passed through several hands, and is now doubtless torn down. We found it run down and undesirable in every way. Even then we felt more at home there and made the best of things. We spent two and a half days, as hot as I ever experienced. The nights were so hot that sleep was out of the question. A drive around the Island Park, Belle Isle, cooled us off a bit. Thousands were taking advantage of the municipal bathhouses or a swim in the river.

If the city has been spoiled down-town, it has been equally beautified in the outlying sections. The drive to Grosse Pointe along Lake St. Clair has ten miles of residences unsurpassed in America. The magnificent home of Senator Truman Newberry and dozens of others that could be mentioned, set in acres of highly cultivated grounds, commanding an unobstructed view of Lake St. Clair, are worthy of a special trip to Detroit to see.

We lunched at the Country Club, but weakened when it came to trying the celebrated golf links. It was too boiling hot! There were not more than a dozen people at the club. Usually the place was crowded. There are other fine clubs and links about Detroit, and the city seems to have gone golf mad—a very healthful form of insanity! The Detroit Athletic Club, in the business center, claims to be the finest private city club in America. If patronage is any indication of its excellence, this must be true. My brother, Mr. L., gave us a beautiful dinner there, and we certainly have not seen anything to surpass it. Our time was all too quickly spent, and the heat literally drove us out of town. Before leaving, we paid our respects to the mayor, Mr. C., an old-time friend. While we were pleasantly chatting with him and he was graciously offering us the keys of the city, my husband had a summons served on him and the car locked for leaving it more than an hour at the curb. He was taken to police headquarters and paid his fine and then returned for us. As we were praising the efficiency of the mayor, he gave us a knowing smile, and some days later showed us his summons!

IV
ON TO CHICAGO

I realize that I am giving a most unsatisfactory picture of the Eastern and Middle-West cities. Our time was limited, and space forbids my giving anything but a cursory glance, a snapshot view, of their size and beauty. And, then, most tourists visit these places and the reading public have an intimate knowledge of them.

We left Detroit, having been told at the Michigan Automobile Association that we should find excellent roads. As one prominent broker remarked, “You can drive the length of the state on macadamized roads.” Where were they? Surely not the way we went, the way described in the Blue Book. And let me state right here that we have never had much faith in that publication, and now what little we had is nihil! A few miles out of the city we struck a detour which lasted nearly to Ann Arbor. We had left at six o’clock, and when we reached the university city all places to dine were closed. We did not dine. We had pot-luck supper at a Greek restaurant, and started for Jackson to spend the night. Ann Arbor is a beautiful place, and the university buildings and fraternity houses are second to none of all we saw in other states. The road did not improve, and we arrived at Jackson very late and put up at the Otsego Hotel. It was crowded, and we were given the “sample rooms,” in which the traveling-men displayed their goods on long tables. We had comfortable beds and private baths, but you felt as if you were sleeping in a department store, with the counters covered with white cloths. Otherwise, the Otsego is a good hotel, and we were perfectly comfortable. By the time we were through breakfast, we asked to have a lunch put up, and were kindly but firmly told that it was nine-thirty, and the chef had gone home and locked up everything. We pleaded for some hot coffee and anything cooked that was left from breakfast. But no, not a sandwich nor a roll could we buy! We met this condition time after time. If we arrived at a hotel after eight o’clock in the evening, we were met with the same retort—“Chef gone and everything closed.” A dozen times and more we were obliged to go out and forage for supper—“due to the eight-hour law,” we were always told. As it was nearly ten o’clock, we trusted to luck to find a lunching-place en route. Fortune certainly favored us in the most unexpected way—not in our roads, which still were poor, but in the shape of two little girls on the wayside. As we were passing through a hamlet called Smithfield—before reaching Albion—we were attracted by two dainty girls with baskets of goodies waiting for us. Their names were Evelyn and Willetta Avery, and they proved to be fairy godmothers. Their mother owned the neighboring farm, and these children were spending their vacation in supplying lunches to passers-by. Everything was done up in fresh napkins and was real home cooking. This is what we bought from them: a quart of fresh blueberries (which Toodles, in her joy, promptly upset in the tonneau, and we walked on blueberries for days!), fresh cake, pie, honey, hard-boiled eggs, tongue sandwiches, hot bread and rolls, a pat of sweet butter, and oh! such home-made pickles, raspberry jam (a pint glass), and a bottle of ice-cold spring water, an abundance for four hungry grown-ups, and all for $2.10. We gave them both liberal tips and they smiled and waved us out of sight. That was a banner luncheon, and the best but one on the trip.

We stopped in the interesting city of Albion. The college was founded and endowed by General Fisk, of Civil War fame, whose only daughter, Mrs. P., is one of New York’s most beautiful and prominent women. That afternoon about four we came to Battle Creek, and as the Doctor’s eyes were troubling him, from the heat and dust, we drove to the sanatorium, where he could receive treatment. It is an immense place and beautifully kept up. We were sitting in the car outside, watching the crowds of patients with their friends, when a number of wagons, like popcorn wagons, came into view, pushed about by the white-robed attendants. The wagon itself and the four uprights were covered with white cloth and festooned with fresh vines and flowers. In the center, hidden from view, was an ice-cream freezer, and young girls in white, carrying flowers, were dispensing ice-cream cones at five cents each. It was as pretty a sight as I ever saw. The carts were wheeled through the grounds and everyone, sick or well, indulged. It was our first introduction to ice-cream cones, but we acquired the habit; and thereafter our afternoon tea consisted of ice cream, generally bought at a soda-water fountain in some small town along our road. It may be fattening, but it is nourishing and refreshing. Even in the tiny hamlets on the plains of Montana we found good, rich ice cream. It is certainly an American institution and a very palatable one.

We had come ninety miles over bad roads, and it was 160 miles to Chicago, so we decided to stop at Paw Paw for the night. We drove through the town and inquired which was the best hotel—our usual question—and were told that they had two, but the Dyckman House was first-class—a typical small country hotel, with little promise of comfort. We were shown into big, comfortable rooms with one private bath; but were told that “supper was over.” The manager was a typical small-town person of importance, but had a kindly eye, and looked amenable to persuasion. The others had given up hope; not so with me! Then and there I invented a “sob-story” that would have melted Plymouth Rock. It became our stock in trade, and many a supperless night we would have had without it. After praising up the town and his hotel, and saying that we had heard of its hospitality, and so forth; that we were strangers, and had come all the way from New York; that we were tired and hungry, and I really was not very well; and that the price was no consideration, etc., he walked out to the kitchen and caught the cook with her hat on ready to depart, gave his orders, and in twenty minutes we were doing full justice to a perfectly good supper. After we had finished, I went out into the summer kitchen and found a good-natured Irish woman, as round as she was pleasing, fanning herself. I gave her a dollar, thanked her for staying, and made a friend for life.

Even in Michigan our New York license attracted much attention. When we came out of a hotel or store, a crowd of people had invariably gathered about the car and were feeling the tires. The size seemed to astonish them. The fact that we had come from New York filled them with awe, and when, in fun, we said we were going to San Francisco, they were speechless! “Aw, gaw on!” or “By heck!” was all that they could exclaim.