In leaving Cleveland I urged Franklin to visit the region where originally stood the house in which I had stopped, and to my surprise I found the place entirely done over—cleared of all the old tracks, houses and docks which, from the formal point of view, once marred the waterfront. In their stead were several stately municipal buildings facing the wide bosom of the lake and surrounded by great spaces of smooth grass. It was very imposing. So the spot I had chosen as most interesting to me had become the civic centre of the city! This flattered me not a little.
But Elyria and Vermilion—what about them?
Nothing. Just Ohio towns.
At Elyria we found a stream which had been diverted and made to run a turbine engine in order that the town might have light; but it was discovered afterward that there wasn’t enough water power after all to supply the town, and so extra light had to be bought and paid for. The works were very picturesque—a deep, craggy cave, at the bottom of which was the turbine engine room, cut out of the solid rock apparently, the water pouring down through it. I thought what a delightful place it was for the town boys to play!
But this inland country was really too dreary. All the uncomfortable experiences of my early youth began to come back as I viewed these small cottages set in endless spaces of flat land, with nothing but scrubby trees, wire fences and occasionally desolately small and bare white churches to vary the landscape. “What a life!” I kept saying to myself. “What a life!” And I still say it, “What a life!” It would require endless friends to make such a landscape endurable.
Before reaching the lake again, we traversed about twenty miles of a region that seemed to me must be devoted to the chicken raising business, we saw so many of them. In one place we encountered a huge natural amphitheatre or depression which could easily have been turned into a large lake—the same hollowed out by a stream known as the Vermilion River. In another we came to a fine threshing scene with all the implements for the work in full motion—a scene so attractive that we stopped and loafed a while, inquiring as to the rewards of farming in this region. In still another place we passed a small river pleasure ground, a boating and bathing place which was probably patronized by the villagers hereabout. It suggested all sorts of sweet, simple summer romances.
Then Vermilion came into view with a Chautauqua meeting announced as “coming soon,” and a cove with a lighthouse and pretty launches and sailboats at anchor. Speed announced that if we were going to idle here, as usual, he would stop at the first garage and get oil and effect certain repairs, and there we left him, happy at his task, his body under the machine, while we walked on into the heart of the village. It being noontime, the hope of finding a restaurant lured us, as well as that possibility of seeing something different and interesting which the sight of every new town held out, at least to me. Here we had lunch then, and quite a good one too, with a piece of cherry pie thrown in for good measure, if you please, and then because the restaurant was conducted by a Japanese by the name of B. Kagi, and because the girl who waited on us looked like an Americanized product of the Flowery Kingdom, I asked her if she was Japanese.
I never got a blacker look in my life. For a moment her dark eyes seemed to shoot sparks. Her whole demeanor, which hitherto had been pleasant and helpful, changed to one of deadly opposition. “Certainly not,” she replied with a sting in her voice, and I saw clearly that I had made a most painful faux pas. I felt called upon to explain or apologize to Franklin, who heard and saw it all. He was most helpful.
“I suppose,” he commented, “in these small middle West towns it is declassé to be Japanese. They don’t discriminate much between Japanese and Chinese. To suggest anything like that probably hurts her feelings dreadfully. If people here discover it, it lowers her in their eyes, or that is what she thinks.”
“But she looks Japanese to you, doesn’t she?” I queried, humbly.