I was heading due west for Smartsville, just across the line in Yuba County. In four miles, I came to Rough and Ready, once a famous camp. Save for the inevitable hotel, now used in part as a store, there was nothing to suggest the cause of its pristine glory or the origin of its emphatic designation; today it is simply a picturesque, rural hamlet. In Penn Valley, a mile or two farther on, I passed a smashed and abandoned automobile, the second wreck I had encountered. I thanked my star I traveled afoot; heavy going, it is true, in places, but safe and sure.
Notwithstanding the ubiquity of the autocar, it is still a fact that between the man in the car and the man on foot is set an impassable gulf. You are walking through a mountainous country, where every bend of the road reveals some new charm; absorbed in silent enjoyment of the scene, you have forgotten the very existence of the machine, when a raucous "honk" jolts you out of your daydream and causes you to jump for your life. In a swirl of dust the monster engulfs you, leaving you the dust and the stench of gasoline as souvenirs, but followed by your anathemas! This doubtless is where the man in the car thinks he has scored. Perhaps he has. When the dust on the road has settled and you have rubbed it out of your eyes, once more you forget his existence.
But the very speed with which he travels is the reason why the man in the car misses nearly all the charm of the country through which he is passing. On this tramp I took forty-odd photographs, all more or less of historical interest. Riding in an automobile, many of the subjects I would not have noticed or, if I had, I would not have been able to bring my camera into play. On several occasions I retraced my steps a good quarter of a mile, feeling I had lost a landscape, or street scene I might never again have the opportunity to behold.
What is of far greater consequence, the man on the road comes into touch not only with Nature, but the Children of Nature! In these days, automobiles are as thick as summer flies; you cannot escape them even in the Sierra foot-hills. No attention is paid them by the country people, unless they are in trouble or have caused trouble, which is mostly the case. But the man who "hikes" for pleasure is a source of perennial interest not unmixed with admiration, especially when walking with the thermometer indicating three figures in the shade. To him the small boy opens his heart; the "hobo" passes the time of day with a merry jest thrown in; the good housewife brings a glass of cold water or milk, adding womanlike, a little motherly advice; the passing teamster, or even stage-driver—that autocrat of the "ribbons"—shouts a cheery "How many miles today, Captain?" or, "Where did you start from this morning, Colonel?"—these titles perhaps due to the battered old coat of khaki.
All the humors of the road are yours. In fact, you yourself contribute to them, by your unexpected appearance on the scene and the novelty of your "make-up," if I may be pardoned the expression. At the hotel bar, you drink a glass of beer with the local celebrity and thus come into immediate touch with, the oldest inhabitant. After dinner, seated on a bench on the sidewalk, you smoke a pipe and discuss the affairs of the nation or of the town—usually the latter—with the man who in the morning offered to give you a lift and never will understand why you declined. Invariably you receive courteous replies and in kindly interest are met more than half way.
The early romances, the prototypes of the modern novel, from "Don Quixote" to "Tom Jones" and "Joseph Andrews," were little more than narratives of adventures on the road. "Joseph Andrews" in particular—perhaps Fielding's masterpiece—is simply the story of a journey from London to a place in the country some hundred and fifty miles distant. In these books all the adventures are associated with inns and the various characters, thrown together by chance, there assembled. Dickens unquestionably derived inspiration from Smollett and Fielding; nor is there any doubt but that Harte made a close study of Dickens.
From which preamble we come to the statement; if you would study human nature on the road, you must simply go where men congregate and exchange ideas. The plots of nearly all Bret Harte's mining stories are thus closely associated with the bar-rooms and taverns of the mining towns of his day. What would remain of any of Phillpott's charming stories of rural England, if you eliminated the bar-room of the village inn? In hospitality and generous living, the inns of the mining towns still keep up the old traditions. The card room and bar-room are places where men meet; to altogether avoid them from any pharisaical assumption of moral superiority is to lose the chance of coming in contact with the leading citizen, philanthropist, or eccentric character.
In the old romances it must be admitted there is much brawling and heavy drinking, as well as unseemliness of conduct. Yet in spite of the fact that hotel bars and saloons abound in all the old mining towns, the writer throughout his travels and notwithstanding the intense heat, not only saw no person under the influence of liquor, but also never heard a voice raised in angry dispute. Moderation, decency and a kindly consideration for the rights of others seem habitual with these people.
It is fifteen miles from Grass Valley to Smartsville, and I arrived at the Smartsville Hotel in time for the midday meal. Smartsville has "seen better days," but still maintains a cheerful outlook on life. The population has dwindled from several thousand to about three hundred. It is, however, the central point for quite an extensive agricultural and pastoral country surrounding it.
The swinging sign over the hotel bears the legend, "Smartsville Hotel, John Peardon, Propr." The present proprietor is named "Peardon," but everyone addressed him as "Jim." Having established a friendly footing, I said: "Mr. Peardon, I notice the sign over the door reads John Peardon. How is it that they all call you 'Jim?'" "Oh," he replied, "John Peardon was my father, I was born in this hotel;"—another of the numerous instances that came under my observation of the way these people "stay where they are put."