It rained in a continual deluge all that day, all night and all next morning. At midday it stopped with a bump, the sun came out with another, and the birds began to sing again. At three I ventured forth with Lizzie. I had not gone a dozen yards when the back wheel slipped sideways round to the front and left me reposing in the half-baked mud. Back again for another hour's wait while the broiling sun did its work. Next time I got as far as the outskirts of the town before I decided to turn back. After another hour we started out to do or die, come what might. During the remainder of the day until dark we covered ten miles, going hard all the time. When I was not extricating myself from a spicy bit of quagmire, I was poking semi-hard mud out of the wheels and mudguards.
On one occasion I came to a sudden dip in the road, followed by an equally sudden rise. As usual there was an uninviting "slough of despond" in the hollow. After trying two or three different ruts in an effort to "get through," giving up each one in turn as hopeless, and pushing back again to where still another rut branched off from the one I was in, I eventually worked my way through. The struggle up the slope on the other side was a formidable one and was being slowly accomplished by a combination of bottom-gear driving, pushing, lifting, and "paddling." Just before the summit was reached I was thrown by a steep furrow into the ditch at the roadside, breathless, exhausted, and extremely bad-tempered.
As I was extracting myself, a young man in shirt-sleeves strolled leisurely over, hands in pockets, from a stationary car a little further on. When I had safely extricated my right leg from under the machine and hauled Lizzie on to her wheels again, the stranger spoke.
"Say, fella, does that front cylinder get hot? I've heard say that's the weak point about them four-cylinder motorsickles."
Here follows a flow of language from self entirely unprintable. The stranger opens his eyes, whistles softly, then adds, as if to turn the subject:
"Where you from?"
He remained with his hands in his pockets staring at my diminishing form. He was still there when I looked over my shoulder half a mile further on. He is probably there now!
As time went on, black clouds appeared in the sky; the sun went in; the wind rose, and a repetition of the events of the day before commenced just as I arrived in the small town of "Wheeling." The only thing to do was to eat ices until the climatic conditions adjusted themselves. This took the best part of two hours. Once again I sallied forth with Lizzie. This time in the short space of five yards I reposed gently but thoroughly in the Missouri mud, much to the amusement of the population, who had all turned out to witness my departure. Again I tried and again I fell. The whole machine seemed to act as though it were made of jelly. I gave it up on the third attempt.
"Try the railway," jeered the village comedian, pointing to a level-crossing in the distance. This amused the onlookers "considerable." For myself, I discerned a glimmer of wisdom in the suggestion.
"Look here, you guys," I retorted, "what about giving me a hand to push this as far as the depot" (I never made the fatal mistake of referring to it as a "station") "instead of looking on and grinning like a lot of schoolboys?"