Across America by Motor-cycle. C. K. Shepherd
charm of a much-overworked morsel of chewing-gum. With all these splendid accomplishments I could no doubt dispense with the less attractive habits of Modern America.
Let me say at the outset that I proved a dismal failure. I would sooner master the Chinese than the American lingo. The infinite variations of nasal accomplishment outnumber by far the tribal dialects of India and leave the poor student to wonder and despair. Why! the number of orthodox ways of translating the plain English word "Yes" is probably beyond the scope of mathematical deduction! The shades and blends between "Yep" and "Ye-oh" alone are sufficient to put a spectrograph of the sun to shame.
For four months I travelled through the wilds of New York, Ohio, and Illinois, and even into the civilized states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, in a vain search for the man who pronounced "Yes" with a final "s." In the end I found him, lurking in a little restaurant in Los Angeles. I gazed in wonderment intense and rapturous when I heard it. I have his pedigree. He said he came from Boston. Boston, according to all well-informed Bostonians, represents the acme of perfection in all things relating to education, etiquette, and propriety. As such it is unassailable by any other city in America.
There was a time early on when I thought I was succeeding well. I found that I did better by dispensing with speech altogether. If I dressed in a "Palm Beach" suit, walked on people's feet, elbowed my way through passers-by, and continually repeated to myself "The earth is mine and all that therein is," there was never any doubt but that I was a "Native Son."
It is superfluous for me to say, however, that after many trials and more rebuffs, I ultimately abandoned the idea of becoming Americanized. "After all," thought I, "what sane Englishman wants to be an American?" The project had been but a brain-wave to combat the "H.C. of L." To the uninitiated, that is the recognized "Hearst" abbreviation for the "High Cost of Living," a topic which so frequently appears in American newspapers that editors were forced to face the question of either referring to it in symbols or of cutting out the "Want-Ads." Finally, therefore, I consoled myself that it was better for hotel bills, cinemas, ice-cream sodas, petrol, and other necessities to rise 200 per cent. on my approach than for me to lose my own soul. Incidentally, virtue does not always have its own reward. On my return to England I heard many accusations against me. "What an awful American accent you have!" was the greeting of many one-time friends.
… Some have recovered. Others are still in hospital!
It took me some time to get accustomed to the traffic of New York—rather should I say, to its habits and practices. New York itself consists of a network of streets and avenues ingeniously arranged on an island which is about five or six times longer than it is broad. The avenues run the length of the island and the streets run at right angles across them. In addition, "Broadway" wobbles across from one end of the island to the other, cutting the avenues at a weird angle of anything between nothing and twenty degrees.
At all the important street crossings was stationed a "traffic cop" whose duty was apparently to hold up at the most inconvenient intervals all the traffic going one way until all the traffic going the other way had passed. Then he blew his whistle and Hey, presto! the traffic in the other street began to move. It was fatal to move before the whistle was blown. I didn't know that!
I had been sailing down Sixth Avenue, just trying the machine for the first time, as a matter of fact. Everything went smoothly. I felt at peace with all the world. Here was I on my iron steed of ten little horses, about to begin a long holiday wherein I should forget the Kaiser and his deeds and the four or more years of my existence that had gone in helping to bring about his everlasting undoing. But all of a sudden:
"Why the jooce don't yer stop, yer Goldarn young son of a gun?" bellowed an irate "cop" who gesticulated but a few feet from my front wheel.
"Well, why the blankety blank should I blankety well stop, anyway?" I returned, not to be outdone, as I pulled up in the exact centre of 34th Street, Sixth Avenue, and Broadway.
I could see a crowd beginning to collect. I don't like crowds at any time. I have a keen antipathy for publicity. My friend the "cop" drew nigh. "See here, young fellar: whar yer from?" he inquired, evidently anxious to investigate further the mental condition of this unique defier of the Law. … To cut a long story short, I was finally constrained by good judgment to avoid further constabulary hostilities and, in accordance with the somewhat over-ardent desire of the "cop," retired like a whipped schoolboy to the corner where there was already a long queue of waiting automobiles and taxis. In a few seconds the whistle was blown and the procession sailed across 34th Street, headed by a much-humbled motor-cyclist.
I should explain at this juncture that a motor-cyclist is an altogether despised individual in America. Motor-cycles are not popular over there. With few exceptions they are owned by delivery men, newspaper boys, "traffic-cops" and sundry other undesirables. Personally I do not wonder at it. The roads and streets in the cities are bad enough to ruin the constitution of any but the most confirmed young "blood" who does not mind risking a few broken bones. I have seen places in Broadway where the tram-lines wander six or seven inches above the surface of the road and where the pot-holes would accommodate comfortably quite a family of dead dogs within their depths.
So much for the cities. The roads that traverse the country are with few exceptions nothing better than our fifth-rate country roads on which no self-respecting Englishman would ride.
Here and there, in the far East and the far West, are found stretches of concrete or macadam. Somehow, the Americans think they are great road-builders. A couple of inches of concrete laid over a garden-path or a sheep-track, with the cracks filled in with tar, represents the zenith of road construction in this country of ninety odd million inhabitants. I should like to see some of those concrete roads when they have had a few years' solid wear with heavy lorries and occasional traction engines.
Ninety-five per cent. or more, however, of America's highways are dirt roads, or what they are pleased to call "Natural Gravel." In many cases they comprise merely a much worn trail, and as often as not a pair of ruts worn in the prairie. Very often, instead of being a single pair of ruts, there are five or six or perhaps ten, where individual cars have manifested their own personality. When this multiplicity of ruts crosses and re-crosses in a desperate attempt to achieve the survival of the fittest, the resultant effect on the poor motor-cyclist is somewhat disconcerting. But of this more anon. Suffice it to say that on the whole journey of 4,500 miles from one coast to the other, I only saw four other motor-cyclists on the road anywhere. So the reader will perhaps understand why the poor human who travels in this fashion is to be pitied, and why his associates in the towns and cities are despised by the rest of the community.
When I had acclimatized myself to the traffic of New York and could worm my way successfully in and out of the "hold-ups" or dart between trams, taxis, cars, and other impedimenta without danger either to the community or to myself, I felt that it was time for me to commence my peregrinations in earnest.
I decided first, however, to visit Coney Island, which is within easy reach of New York (it is only a few miles away), and, with a plentiful supply of trains, trams, and 'buses, is fed with a never-ending stream of pleasure-seeking humanity. It has one avenue of perhaps a couple of miles' length running parallel with the beach, and every nook and corner on both sides accommodates a "fun palace" of some kind. There are dancing-halls by the dozen; mountain railways, switchbacks, and roundabouts by the score; soda fountains by the hundred. Fronting the beach are hotels, boarding-houses, and restaurants of all types save the best. Coney Island is decidedly not a place for the élite. Hither flock young couples, married or single, representatives of the American democracy, for a week-end of frivolity. The beach is at all times sprinkled, as by a human pepper-box, with specimens of the "genus anthropomorpha" of all sizes, of all ages, of all shapes, and in all stages of dress and undress. I opined that indeed 'twas no place for me, and with one push of the starting pedal the motor was a living thing. "Enough is as good as a feast," and an hour at the Playground of New York was an hour well spent; but I left it for ever behind me without the slightest desire or intention of ever returning to its whirl of plebeian gaiety.
Arrived once more at New York City, I prepared to make my adieux. I had two handbags only, one a beautiful new dressing-case, resplendent