The morning looked gray but having gone easily enough the day before with chains on, we no longer worried about a little rain. Nevertheless, we left our beautiful rooms at the Black Hawk in Davenport, Iowa, the best accommodations at the most reasonable rates that we have yet had, with a regret that has since been doubly intensified.
For seventy-five miles beyond Davenport the road was excellent; not macadam, but a wide dustless surface of natural clay. The country was very much like that in southern New York and eastern New Jersey—a rolling picturesque landscape of green fields, beautiful trees and streams. As there were black clouds gradually coming up behind us, and we had as usual forgotten to bring any food except our tinned collection, it seemed wiser when we got to Iowa City to buy some sandwiches rather than stop at the Hotel Jefferson, and give the black clouds a chance to catch up. At an eating-place that had a sign on it: “Every Sort of Sandwiches Ready,” a gum-chewing youth leaning against the shelves behind the counter pushed a greasy bill of fare toward me. From a list of chicken, ham, tongue, and cheese sandwiches, I ordered three chicken—we could not do with less and I doubted if we’d care for more. They hadn’t any chicken! “Ham, then?” There wasn’t any ham! “Tongue?” The youth thought if we weren’t in a hurry he might be able to get some canned tongue at the grocer’s down the street; the only sandwiches he had ready were of cheese laid between huge hunks of bread and each garnished with a radish skewered on the top with a toothpick!
Celia meanwhile by chance discovered an apartment called “Woman’s Rest Room” where she got some delicious homemade coffee-cake and rolls. Those with our own potted meats or jams were, of course, all anyone could ask. That is always the difficulty—a stranger in town has no idea where to go for anything.
From a point about ten miles beyond Iowa City, the story of that dreadful day ought to be written in indigo of the darkest shade. It was such an experience as to dampen your enthusiasm as an adventuring motorist forever; but that leaves you at least a great appreciation of Pullman trains, or even old-fashioned stage coaches—any means of conveyance that can keep going, right end first.
Our delay in foraging had given the black clouds time to gain on us. But after observing them uneasily for a mile or two, we felt confident that we were keeping ahead of them, until about ten miles further, at which point we had a puncture—our very first—and the rain caught us. We debated whether we had better go back to Iowa City or whether we should try to run one hundred and thirty miles in the rain to Des Moines.
E. M. was not at all enthusiastic about going on. In fact he had not wanted to leave Davenport. As he is certainly not apt to care about weather we ought to have paid exceptional attention to his dubiousness. But he only said something about a strain on his engine, to which I paid no great attention—as I feel perfectly confident that no matter what happens, he is not going to let that engine get hurt very much if it is in his power to prevent it. The engine is to him what Chicago is to the Chicagoans, the very child of his heart; its every little piece of steel or aluminum as personally precious to him as a baby’s tooth or curl is to its doting parent. We can all be tired and hungry, wet or cold, or broiling and thirsty, it means nothing to him so long as that engine is comfortably purring under its bonnet. But the slightest complaint on its part, its faintest squeak or grumble, the smallest thing that he feels may disagree with it, and he is unspeakably miserable.
However, the rain seemed to be only a drizzle and the roads looked so hard and splendid, we concluded it would surely take many hours of downpour to get them in a bad condition—if in fact they were likely to be much affected at all. So although as a precaution E. M. put on chains, we went on in tranquil ignorance of the Nemesis that lurked in waiting.
As an illustration of what rain in Iowa can do, twenty-five minutes of drizzle turned the smooth, hard surface of the road into the consistency of gruel. Not only that, but as though it were made in layers, and the top layer slid off the under layers and the under layers slipped out between, or the reverse. Our wheels, even with chains on, had no more hold than revolving cakes of soap might have on slanting wet marble. The car not only zigzagged sideways, backwards, every way but forward, unless some unexpected obstacle or pitfall loomed or yawned in our path, in which case it was seized with an impetuous desire to plunge to destruction. We saw two unfortunate automobiles already landed in the ditch. One, luckily, was being hauled out by a team, but the second was on a lonely stretch of road, and embedded far above the hubs. Its occupants peered out at us sympathetically, as they saw we were utterly powerless to help. We were just balancing this way and that, and for a while it looked as though we were going to park ourselves beside them. We could only call out as we finally slithered by, that we would send back a team from a town ahead—if we ever got to one.
At the end of an hour of this swerving, crawling misery, we had a second puncture. There was a barn near by, and the farmer, a German, let us drive in and change the tire under cover. We asked if there was any town nearer and less out of our course than Cedar Rapids. Or would he himself, or perhaps one of his neighbors, take us in? No, he did not want any boarders in his house; he said it with a quite surly manner; his neighbors had no liking for strangers, either. Cedar Rapids was our nearest place.
In contrast to the kindness with which he had motioned us to come into his barn in the first place, it struck us that he was on closer acquaintance, surprisingly curt. But it was not until afterwards, in the light of later experience, that we realized his manner had become intentionally unfriendly.