“Come right in, gentlemen,” he called, as Franklin and I appeared in the doorway. “What can I do for you? Looking for maps or a route or something?”
“Tell me,” I inquired, anxious to make my point at once, “are there any good roads due west of here which would take us straight into Ohio, without going north to Buffalo?”
He scratched his head.
“No, I don’t think there are,” he replied; “most of the good roads are north of here, around Rochester, where the main line of traffic is. Now there is a good road—or a part of one”—and then he commenced a long rambling account of some road that was about to be built—but as yet—etc., etc. I saw my idea of a somewhat different trip going glimmering.
“But here,” he went on, picking up one of those maps which various hotels and towns combine to get up to attract automobile trade, “what’s the matter with the Onondaga trail from here on? That takes you up through Corning, Bath, Avoca, Dansville, Geneseo, and Avon, and up there you strike the main road through Batavia right into Buffalo. That’s a fine road, good hard macadam nearly all the way, and when you get to Avon you strike one of the best hotels anywhere. When you get up there you just roll your car right into the grounds—walk into the restaurant and ask ’em to give you some of their chicken and waffles. You’ll just be about ready for it when you get there and you’ll thank me for telling you.”
I fancied I could see the cloven hoof of the Avon hotel keeper mystically present in that speech. However, far to the left on another branch of the same trail I saw my beloved Warsaw, New York.
“What’s the matter with the road up through here?” I asked, putting my finger on it.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said, “there it is mostly dirt and there are no good dirt roads as you know, if you’ve autoed much. A man called up here this morning and wanted to know if there were any good dirt roads out of here to Utica and I said to him, 'My dear sir, there aren’t any good dirt roads anywhere. There ain’t any such thing.'”
I seemed to see the Avon hotel keeper smiling and beckoning once more—a chicken in one hand, a plate of waffles in the other—but he didn’t appeal to me at all. These hotel routes and these Americans who are so quick to capitalize everything—motor routes, scenery, water falls, everything! “Curses, curses, curses,” I said to myself softly, “why must everything be turned into business?” Besides, many portions of the roads over which we had come in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were dirt and they were excellent. I smiled serenely, determined to make the best of whatever happened and however much I might want to go to Warsaw, New York.
But our friend seemed determined to send us via Avon and Batavia. He went on telling us how anxious he had been to convince the man who had telephoned that there were no good dirt roads, but I was happy to note that apparently he had not been successful. The man probably knew something about state and dirt roads, as we had found them, and refused to take his direction. I was pleased to think that whatever Franklin might be concluding, because of his advice, we still had some distance yet to travel before we would have to decide not to go to Warsaw—all of seventyfive or a hundred miles anyhow. For, extending that distance our proposed route was directly toward Warsaw, and that cheered me a bit.