Shortly before midnight I reached the small town of "Moundsville," on the Ohio River and on the borders of West Virginia and Ohio. Every shop in the place was closed except that of a corpulent Italian dealer in bananas, oranges and ice-cream sodas. I entered his door with thanksgiving. The worthy proprietor scrutinized me open-mouthed. Finally he gave it up. I could see he had been wondering to himself, "What is this thing, and whence came it?" I sat on the counter in his presence and consumed three ice-cream sodas, four bananas and two oranges. After witnessing their consumption, he let drop his bottom jaw and ventured, "Whare yer from?"
"Doanchew worry your old think-box about where I'm from, brother, but just tell me where I'm goin'. I wonna get to Cincinnati. Now for the love of Mike don't tell me I'm not on the right road."
His jaw dropped through a further angle of ten degrees. Finally he volunteered the information that I was miles and miles from the road to Cincinnati, and that he hadn't the "goldarnest notion" how I should ever get back on it again. In disgust I filled my pockets with bananas and oranges and presented one more ice-cream soda to the minister for the interior and quitted his establishment.
My next duty was to find somewhere to lay my weary head. I decided to choose a spot where water was convenient, so that I could wash in the morning. The river was quite inaccessible from the road and the only places where there chanced to be a stream were infested with frogs and mosquitoes. After a half-hour of weary searching and climbing of long winding hills in the thick damp fog, I eventually gave it up in disgust. I found an open space at the roadside sheltered by a few trees, and here laid down my rainproof coat with the thick blanket doubled on top of it, and with my suit-case as a pillow, soon convinced myself that I was comfortably settled down for sleep. In a few minutes I was well in the land of dreams. I dreamed that I was journeying to the North Pole on a twelve-cylinder Ford which went so fast that it melted the ice as it passed and ultimately crashed into the Pole at such a terrific velocity that the equilibrium of the earth was entirely upset, as also my own. At this point a lusty mosquito inflicted a tremendous bite on the very tip of my nose, and I woke up with a start. Then I dreamed that I had undertaken a banana-eating tournament with an army of Italians, and was just finishing off the ninety-ninth when another bite in the middle of my left eyelid brought me again to normal consciousness, and thus the night passed.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE DIXIE HIGHWAY
In the morning everything was wet with dew. The mist was disappearing quickly, and I arose refreshed in body and mind. Specialists would have prognosticated acute rheumatism. Doctors would have foretold death within forty-eight hours. But I was never so free from rheumatism as I am now; moreover, I live to tell the tale, with the probability of continued existence for several years to come. Lizzie looked disconsolate and rusty in every nut and bolt, but with a few kicks she rattled into life once more. The driver of a passing Ford informed me that I was twenty miles from the right road, which meant returning into Moundsville and crossing over the broad, muddy Ohio River, spanned by a lofty suspension bridge made almost entirely of wood. The Ohio River, once seen, is never to be forgotten. It is verily a flowing mass of dirty, yellow-brown mud. The natives of Ohio refer to it as the "Golden" River, I believe, but when I first made its acquaintance, I was in no mood to appreciate such poetic nomenclature. Instead I was bent on reaching Wheeling and breakfast.
Wheeling was reached in a couple of hours' riding along the banks of the river. It need hardly be said that I did justice to a substantial breakfast, which put an entirely new aspect on affairs in general. I struck the main "pike" through to Cincinnati, and continued hopefully on three cylinders with the best of intentions of reaching it that evening, although it meant a ride of over 300 miles.