It Pays to Smile

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

"No, thanks awf'ly, old dear!" she said. "But I'm off to San Remo. That's home now. I've lived there twenty years and it's part of me. We'll go into this war any day, and somebody has to be there to see that it's on the side of the Allies!"

It was extremely noble of her, or, as Peaches put it, thoroughly sporting. And so she left us, and we all upheld her in so doing, I'm sure. It was a fine sacrifice and we all admire the spectacle of a sacrifice, especially when some close friend is making it, if you understand me.

Well, so much for the war. At least so far as it concerned us for a long time. The next phase which directly affects my story is my own first impression of the golden state, which began of course when our train left Chicago on the Santa Fe. I don't know why, but the West seems to reach East that far. Perchance I am mistaken and the Western influence really begins at Buffalo, but at that point I was not in a state of mind to make the usual traveler's observations, being wholly obsessed with the problem of trying to obtain a little privacy in a sleeping car. After the first night I entirely abandoned the hope, and therefore was more sensitive to other impressions. A great many people had, it seems, decided to go to California that week, and the war had necessitated Mr. Pegg's immediate return to the coast, as he called it, though I would have said we had landed upon the only real coast—well, at any rate, he had to go on at once, and Peaches insisted that we all go with him, but we were unable to obtain staterooms, and Mr. Pegg's attempt to buy up an entire car was a complete failure. Indeed he was able to get only three lower berths, with the result that Richard, the chauffeur, was parked above me. The term is his own. I should have said, to follow out his chosen symbolism, that he was parked, but with the engine running, and not too well throttled down, either. In other words, he snored; and I think I have mentioned that he had an extremely competent nose. Of course that trip in the steerage had inured me somewhat to hardship, but I had not anticipated that America would be so quickly affected by the war—or so slow in noticing that it was affected.

At any rate, my real observations did not begin until we left Chicago behind us, and then, not unnaturally, the first thing I observed was Peaches' extraordinary behavior.

She was not flirting. The fact speaks for itself and gains in importance when I make mention of the circumstance that there were no less than two very attractive strange men in our car, and that one of them was a well-known motion-picture actor. But Peaches paid them absolutely no attention despite that before we were two hours out Richard was growling at them like an angry watchdog—usually a sufficient reason for Peaches to exercise her love of tormenting him. Instead she sat by the window and stared out into the swift-moving blackness.

Mr. Pegg at once disappeared into a den where I have a deep-rooted suspicion some sort of card game was in progress, and he hardly reappeared again, except for food, during the remainder of the trip.

At any rate the lack of necessity for actively chaperoning my charge left me free to make notes upon that part of America which was foreign to me. Indeed, I was glad of the opportunity, for though I had been several times from Boston to Plymouth, and had once visited an aunt in Philadelphia, I felt there was yet much of my native land for me to see. And there was. Very much.

How very, very much I had really no conception in advance, nor can any language adequately describe it. To do so would be like reading the unabridged dictionary aloud. Indeed, the term "unabridged" is the only one which conveys any sense of the country one crosses. And it was so amazing to find it really existed. One had been told about Kansas plains and the northern Arizona deserts, but the statements made by travelers were somehow not convincing. Nobody's statements about travel ever are. But now I saw those, as I may call them, illimitable spaces and stupendous mountains. There were actually Indians! Upon my word of honor, though not nearly so realistic as the ones who used to sell worm medicine in Bigelo's drug store window on Bank Street. Still they were undoubtedly genuine, and even accepted a little money from me at Albuquerque. It was most thrilling.

I felt singularly small and incompetent and ignorant, whirling along through this infinite territory. It made me ashamed, curiously enough, to realize that I had ever thought that the original thirteen colonies were America; that I had actually once entertained the supposition that that portion of the country situated west of Buffalo was something to be vaguely apologetic for! It made Europe seem small and insignificant, with its toy railways and funny little huddled towns and neatly apportioned fields—even its terrible present situation; or rather made America seem enormously safe, sane and resourceful.

I had always been proud of being a New Englander, and now I began to be impressed with the stupendous fact of being an American. In one thing only was I disappointed.