And tonight as we sped out of Owego and I rested in the deep cushions of the car it seemed as if some such perfect symphony was being interpreted. Somewhere out of the great mystery of the unknowable was coming this rare and lovely something. What is God, I asked, that he should build such scenes as this? His forces of chemistry! His powers of physics! We complain and complain, but scenes like these compensate for many things. They weave and sing. But what are they? Here now are treetoads cheep-cheeping. What do they know of life—or do their small bodies contain a world of wonder, all dark to my five dull senses? And these sweet shadows—rich and fragrant—now mellowing, now poignant! I looked over my right shoulder quite by accident and there was a new moon hanging low in the west, a mere feather, its faintness reflected in the bosom of a still stream. We were careening along a cliff overhanging this river and as we did so along came a brightly lighted train following the stream bed and rushing somewhere, probably to New York. I thought of all the people on it and what they were doing, what dreaming, where going; what trysts, what plots, what hopes nurturing. I looked into a cottage door and there a group of people were singing and strumming—their voices followed us down the wind in music and laughter.
Somewhere along this road at some wayside garage we had to stop for oil and gas, as Speed referred to gasoline—always one quart of oil, I noticed, and about seven gallons of gasoline, the price being anywhere from $1.25 to $1.75, according to where we chanced to be. I was drowsing and dreaming, thinking how wonderful it all was and how pleasant our route would surely be, when a man came up on a motorcycle, a strained and wiry looking individual, who said he had just come through western New York and northern Ohio—one of those fierce souls who cover a thousand miles a day on a motorcycle. They terrify me.
Franklin, with an honest interest in the wellbeing of his car, was for gathering information as to roads. There was no mystery about our immediate course, for we were in a region of populous towns—Waverley, Elmira, Corning, Hornell—which on our map were marked as easy of access. The roads were supposed to be ideal. The great proposition before us, however, was whether once having reached Elmira we would go due north to Canandaigua and Rochester, thereby striking, as someone told us, a wonderful state road to Buffalo—’the road—or whether we would do as I had been wishing and suggesting, cut due west, following the northern Pennsylvania border, and thereby save perhaps as much as a hundred and fifty miles in useless riding north and south.
Franklin was for the region that offered the best roads. I was for adventure, regardless of machines or roads. We had half compromised on the thought that it might be well to visit Warsaw, New York, which lay about half way between the two opposing routes with which we were opposing each other, and this solely because the name of one of my home towns in Indiana was Warsaw and this Warsaw, as my pamphlet showed, was about the same size. It was a sort of moonshiny, nonsensical argument all around; and this man who had just come through Warsaw from Buffalo had no particular good word to say for the roads. It was a hilly country, he said. “You climb one hill to get into Warsaw and five others to get out, and they’re terrors.” I could see a look of uncertainty pass over Franklin’s face. Farewell to Warsaw, I thought.
But another bystander was not so sure. All the roads from here on leading toward Buffalo were very good. Many machines came through Warsaw. My spirits rose. We decided to postpone further discussion until we reached Elmira and could consult with an automobile club, perhaps. We knew we would not get farther than Elmira tonight; for we had chaffered away another hour, and it was already dusk.
We never experienced a more delightful evening on the whole trip. It was all so moving—the warm air, the new silvery moon, the trees on the hills forming dark shadows, the hills themselves gradually growing dim and fading into black, the twinkling lights here and there, fire-flies, the river, this highroad always high, high above the stream. There were gnats but no mosquitoes—at least none when we were in motion—and our friend Speed, guiding the car with a splendid technique, was still able between twists and turns and high speeds and low speeds to toss back tale after tale of a daring and yet childlike character, which kept me laughing all the while. Speed was so naïve. He had such innocently gross and yet comfortable human things to relate of horses, cows, dogs, farm girls, farm boys, the studfarm business, with which he was once connected, and so on.
“Put on a slip and come down,” he called to her.
“So she slipped on the stairs and came down.”
(Do you remember that one? They were all like that.)
Once out of Owego, we were soon in Waverley, a town say of ten or fifteen thousand population, which we mistook at first for Elmira. Its streets were so wide and clean, its houses so large and comfortable, we saw on entering. I called Franklin’s attention to the typical American atmosphere of this town too—the America of a slightly older day. There was a time not long ago when Americans felt that the beginning and end of all things was the home. Not anything great in construction or tragically magnificent, but just a comfortable home in which to grow and vegetate. Everything had to be sacrificed to it. It came to have a sacrosanct character: all the art, the joy, the hope which a youthful and ingenuous people were feeling and believing, expressed, or attempted to express themselves, in the home. It was a place of great trees, numerous flowerbeds, a spacious lawn, French windows, a square cupola, verandas, birdhouses. All the romance of a youthful spirit crept into these things and still lingers. You can feel as you look at them how virtuous the owners felt themselves to be, and how perfect their children, what marvels of men and women these latter were to become—pure and above reproach.