Wilkes-Barré proved a city of charm—a city so instinct with a certain constructive verve that merely to enter it was to feel revivified. After our long, dreary drive in the rain the sun was now shining through sultry clouds and it was pleasant to see the welter of thriving foundries and shops, smoky and black, which seemed to sing of prosperity; the long, smooth red brick pavement of the street by which we entered, so very kempt and sanitary; the gay public square, one of the most pleasing small parks I have ever seen, crowded with long distance trolley cars and motors—the former bearing the names of towns as much as a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles away. The stores were bright, the throngs interesting and cheerful. We actually, spontaneously and unanimously exclaimed for joy.
Most people seem to have concluded that America is a most uninteresting land to travel in—not nearly so interesting as Europe, or Asia or Africa—and from the point of view of patina, ancient memories, and the presence of great and desolate monuments, they are right. But there is another phase of life which is equally interesting to me and that is the youth of a great country. America, for all its hundreds and some odd years of life, is a mere child as yet, or an uncouth stripling at best—gaunt, illogical, elate. It has so much to do before it can call itself a well organized or historic land, and yet humanly and even architecturally contrasted with Europe, I am not so sure that it has far to go. Contrasted with our mechanical equipment Europe is a child. Show me a country abroad in which you can ride by trolley the distance that New York is from Chicago, or a state as large as Ohio or Indiana—let alone both together—gridironed by comfortable lines, in such a way that you can travel anywhere at almost any time of the night or day. Where but in America can you at random step into a comfortable telephone booth and telephone to any city, even one so far as three thousand miles away; or board a train in almost any direction at any time, which will take you a thousand miles or more without change; or travel, as we did, two hundred miles through a fruitful, prosperous land with wonderful farms and farming machinery and a general air of sound prosperity—even lush richness? For this country in so far as we had traversed it seemed wonderfully prosperous to me, full of airy, comfortable homes, of spirited, genial and even witty people—a really happy people. I take that to be worth something—and a sight to see.
In Europe the country life did not always strike me as prosperous, or the people as intelligent, or really free in their souls. In England, for instance, the peasantry were heavy, sad, dull.
But Wilkes-Barré gave evidences of a real charm. All the streets about this central heart were thriving marts of trade. The buildings were new, substantial and with a number of skyscrapers—these inevitable evidences of America’s local mercantile ambitions, quite like the cathedrals religionists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries loved to build. As the Florentines, Venetians and European high mightinesses of the middle ages generally went in for castles, palaces, and “hotels de Ville,” so Americans of money today “go in” for high buildings. We love them. We seem to think they are typical of our strength and power. As the Florentines, Venetians, Pisans and Genoese looked on their leaning towers and campaniles, so we on these. When America is old, and its present vigor and life hunger has gone and an alien or degenerate race tramp where once we lived and builded so vigorously, perhaps some visitors from a foreign country will walk here among these ruins and sigh: “Ah, yes. The Americans were a great people. Their cities were so wonderful. These mouldy crumbling skyscrapers, and fallen libraries and post offices and city halls and state capitals!”
In Wilkes-Barré it was easy to find a very pretentious restaurant of the “grill” and “rathskeller” type, so familiar and so dear, apparently, to the American heart—a partly underground affair, with the usual heavy Flemish paneling, a colored frieze of knights and goose girls and an immense yellow bill of fare. And here from our waiter, who turned out to be one of those dreadful creatures one sees tearing along country roads in khaki, army boots and goggles—a motor cyclist—we learned there were not good roads west of Wilkes-Barré. He had motorcycled to all places within a hundred or so miles east of here—Philadelphia, Dover, the Water Gap; but he knew of no good roads west. They were all dirt or rubble and full of ruts.
Later advice from a man who owned a drug and stationery store, where we laid in a stock of picture postcards, was to the same effect. There were no large towns and no good roads west. He owned a Ford. We should take the road to Binghamton, via Scranton (our original “Scenic Route”), and from there on by various routes to Buffalo. We would save time going the long way round. It seemed the only thing to do. Our motor-cycling waiter had said as much.
A COAL BREAKER NEAR SCRANTON
By now it was nearly five o’clock. I was so enamored of this town with its brisk world of shoppers and motorists and its sprinkling of black faced miners that I would have been perfectly willing to make a night of it here—but the evening was turning out to be so fine that I could think of nothing better than motoring on and on. That feel of a cool breeze blowing against one, of seeing towns and hills and open fields and humble farm yards go scudding by! Of hearing the tr-r-r-r-r-r of this sound machine! The sun was coming out or at least great patches of blue were appearing in the heavy clouds and we had nineteen miles of splendid road, we understood, straight along the banks of the Susquehanna into Scranton and thence beyond, if we wished. As much as I had come to fancy Wilkes-Barré (I promised myself that I would certainly return some day), I was perfectly willing to go.
Right here began the most delightful portion of this trip—indeed one of the most delightful rides I have ever had anywhere. Hitherto the Susquehanna had never been anything much more than a name to me. I now learned that it takes its rise from Otsego Lake in Otsego County, New York, flows west to Binghamton and Owego and thence southeast via Scranton, Wilkes-Barré and Harrisburg to the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace. Going west over the Pennsylvania I had occasionally seen a small portion of it gemmed with rocky islands and tumbling along, thinly bright it seemed to me, over a wide area of stones and boulders. Here at Wilkes-Barré, bordered for a part of the way by a public park, alongside of which our road lay, it was quite sizable, smooth and greenish grey. Perhaps it was due to the recent heavy rains that it was so presentable.