CLOTHE YOUR WHOLE FAMILY ON CREDIT
$1 A WEEK.
or
DUTCHESS TROUSERS. TEN CENTS A BUTTON.
A DOLLAR A RIP.
A great portion of the State of Indiana seems to be devoted to Dutchess trousers, and I often wonder whether the company had to pay many indemnities to customers.
One sorry feature of country advertising was the number of notices scrawled in black with charcoal or painted in tar. In Europe picnickers write their names or the names of their sweethearts on the rocks and the walls and palings, but in America they write their trade, the thing they sell, and the price a pound, what O. Henry would call their especial sort of "graft."
Then "rrrrrrr! rhrhrh—whaup—ssh!" the automobile appears on the horizon, passes you, and is gone. I have no prejudice against automobilists; they were very hospitable to me, and carried me many miles. If I had accepted all the lifts offered me I should have been in Chicago in a week, instead of taking two months on the journey. But the farmers curse them. On one Sunday late in June I counted everything that passed me. The farmer commonly tells you that hundreds of automobiles whirl past his door every day. This day there were just one hundred and ten, of which thirty-two were auto-cycles and the rest cars. As a set-off against this there were only five buggies and three ordinary cyclists. That was one of the last days of June, when I was seventy miles from Chicago. I had two offers to take me into the city that day!
Besides counting the vehicles that passed me I took stock of the automobilists themselves. No one passed till 7 A.M., and then came a loving couple, looking like a runaway match. He was clasping her waist, and their trunks were roped on to the car behind. Then six young men, all in their wind-blown shirts, came tearing along on auto-cycles. Scarcely had the noise of these subsided when a smart picnic party rolled past in a smooth-running car, flying purple flags on which was printed the name of their home city—Michigan. This is a common custom in America, to carry a flag with the name of your city. It boosts your own town, and is thought to bring trade there.
Six townsmen came past me in a grand car. Their hats were all off; they were all clean shaven and bald. Coats had been left at home, and the six were in radiantly clean coloured shirts. They smiled at me; I was one of the sights of the road.
Many picnic parties passed me, and men and women called out to me facetiously. Six shop-girls on a joy ride came past, and one of them kissed her hand to me—that is one of the things the girl in the car can safely do when she is passing a pedestrian.
Family parties went by, and also placid husbands and wives having a spin before lunch, and bashful happy pairs sitting behind the back of the discreet chauffeurs. There came an auto-cycle with a frantic man in front and a girl astride on his carrier behind. She was wiping the sand out of her eyes as she passed, her skirt was blown by the wind, and she showed a pair of dainty legs; the funny way in which she was obliged to sit made her look like a stalk bending over among reeds.