“A dirty chambermaid.”
“Oh, they’re Polacks! Housekeeper can’t break them in! They are something like cats; they don’t take to water! No, ma’am, there is a big difference between this house and the ones in New York City, I know that; but all the same,” and the first look of pride crept into his face, “this hotel’s the best in the city. The others’d tumble to pieces if you stepped in ’em.”
A great deal of Iowa is uncultivated, picturesque, with grazing lands, many trees,—chiefly beautiful cottonwood,—and streams, and much prettier than Illinois, although Illinois was to me more interesting because of the immense flat farms of grain, and the houses in groups, like being placed at the hub of a wheel, the farms spreading out like the spokes. The houses were like those in New England, white with green shutters and well built. All of this great Western country is rich on its face value, and it is little surprise to be told of the wealth reputed to these landowners.
Every town through the Middle West seems to have a little grill of brick-paved streets; a splendid post-office building of stone or brick or marble; a court-house, but of an older period generally; and one or two moving picture houses; two or three important-looking dry-goods stores, and some sort of hotel, and in it a lot of drummers in tilted-back chairs exhibiting the soles of their shoes to the street.
CHAPTER XVI
HALFWAY HOUSE
Where, Oh, where is the West that Easterners dream of—the West of Bret Harte’s stories, the West depicted in the moving pictures? Are the scenes no longer to be found except in the pages of a book, or on a cinematograph screen? We have gone half the distance across the continent and all this while we might be anywhere at home. Omaha is a big up-to-date and perfectly Eastern city, and the Fontanelle is a brand-new hotel where we are going to stay over a day in order to luxuriate in our rooms.
One act of cruelty, however, I hereby protest against; they sent to our rooms a tempting bill of fare—a special and delicious-sounding luncheon at only sixty cents! When we hurried down to order it, we were told it was served solely to the traveling men in their café, Celia and I not admitted. E. M. said it was as good as it sounded—much interest was that to us! Also that he sat at a table with a traveler for the Ansco Photographic Company. E. M. had some very poor films we had taken, and after luncheon his new friend made him some prints. The results were little short of marvellous. If it was the paper,—why does anyone ever use any other? If it was the man, Oh, why doesn’t he open a hospital for the benefit of weak and decrepit amateur films.
On the subject of food, the cumulative effect of a traveling diet is queer. After many days of it you feel as though you had been interlined with a sort of paste. Everything you eat is made of flour, flour, and again flour. A friend of ours took a trip around the world going by slow stages. After a month or two her letters were nothing except dissertations on the state of the cleanliness of hotels and the quality of the food. Alas! We are getting the same attitude of mind. Ordinarily the advantage of motoring is that if you don’t like the appearance of the hotel you come to, you can go on. Out here where one stopping-place is fifty or a hundred miles away from the other, that is not possible, unless you are willing to drive nights and days without a pause, or sleep along the roadside and be independent of hotels altogether. We are not traveling that way—yet.
Omaha, as everyone knows, is divided from Council Bluffs by the coffee-colored Missouri. How can as much mud as that be carried down current all the time and leave any land above, or any river below?