Fortunately there were stretches of road, generally when there was a slight gradient, where the surface was well-drained, hard, and flat, and going was good. But invariably at the foot of every slope, or at the dip between two hills, there was a stretch of excruciating "agony" that would reduce the most defiant motor-cyclist to submission.
Thus it was for eighty or ninety miles. The truth began to dawn on me that a fellow has to be a "tough guy" to motor in these parts. Sometimes I would stop and rest awhile to let an occasional car get by. It was funny to see how they all went! The big heavy touring car would roll along as if to devour all that came its way. It would meet a nasty patch and with broken dignity would heave and sigh from side to side as it slowly crawled on bottom gear over the ridges and furrows; and then it would rear proudly into the air as it surmounted some huge lump of solid mud and suddenly flop down with a dull thud on the bottom of the springs as it plunged into the hollow beyond. One could hear every joint groan under the strain and could sometimes see the bottom of the engine scrape ridges in the chunks of earth and watch the little bits knocked off an unfriendly obstruction as the back axle dragged its weary way along.
And then perchance would come some cheeky Ford, the essence of impudence as opposed to the dignity of its wealthier brethren. With a hop, skip, and a jump, it would scramble over the furrows, swinging gaily from side to side, wagging its tail in the air and rattling in every sinew as only a Ford knows how! But the "Flivvers" got through easier than any.
The worst patch I struck was near the small town of Hume. I have never seen in the space of 200 yards a more apt imitation of a volcanic lava-bed. The thick mud of two days before had been churned up into the most fantastic shapes that ever a main highway has taken. Every square inch of the ninety-foot-wide road bore signs of the passage of some vehicle or other. Some of the ruts were so deep that the machine rested on the engine and the frame and not on the wheels at all. Pushing it anywhere but in one of the best ruts was impossible. When the rut got too deep, I had to lift up the back of the machine bodily and wheel it foot by foot, while the rut took the front wheel whither it listed. Here and there were signs where car-drivers, in similar predicaments, but a day or two before, when the mud was not yet baked quite hard, had shovelled away large quantities of the road to allow the engine and chassis to clear. Half-way through was a large hole, deep and broad enough to allow a small car to be hidden therein from view. In this hole the mud was still soft and plastic. A good Samaritan of the road had procured a piece of old corrugated iron from somewhere and propped it against two poles to warn any others who might follow of its presence.
Lifting four-cwt. Lizzie across this whole stretch took three-quarters of an hour all told, and at the end I was faint with exhaustion. The sun was never hotter and I never perspired more, not even in the middle of the Mohave Desert in California, where the thermometer rises up to 140 degrees or more! I begged a glass of milk from a farmhouse a mile farther on, and thanked God that He made cows and that I was still alive to appreciate them!
And thus we toiled and thus we spun for many miles until late in the afternoon, when I came to parts where the sun had not yet had time to do its work. Every inch of the road was thick, black, slimy mud; mud that stinks with a smell peculiar to itself alone; mud that clings to the tyres and wedges in the forks and fouls the chains and blocks the wheels; mud indeed that sticketh closer than a brother. I stopped at a ramshackle little village of a few dozen shops and houses, all made of wood, and boasting the name of "Murdock," to partake of afternoon tea. Outside an old rickety "store" (this term includes any conceivable kind of retail shop in America), I saw a notice: "Henry T. Hodges, Justice of the Peace; Dry Goods Store; General Merchandise; Post Office; Real Estate; Refreshments."
An awkward stretch of road in Indiana.