Two Thousand Miles on an Automobile Part 6

For some miles the road out of Erie was soft, dusty, narrow, and poor--by no means fit for the proposed Erie-Buffalo race. About fifteen miles out there is a sharp turn to the left and down a steep incline with a ravine and stream below on the right,--a dangerous turn at twenty miles an hour, to say nothing of forty or fifty.

There is nothing to indicate that the road drops so suddenly after making the turn, and we were bowling along at top speed; a wagon coming around the corner threw us well to the outside, so that the margin of safety was reduced to a minimum, even if the turn were an easy one.

As we swung around the corner well over to the edge of the ravine, we saw the grade we had to make. Nothing but a succession of small rain gullies in the road saved us from going down the bank. By so steering as to drop the skidding wheels on the outside into each gully, the sliding of the machine received a series of violent checks and we missed the brink of the ravine by a few inches.

A layman in the Professor's place would have jumped; but he, good man, looked upon his escape as one of the incidents of automobile travel.

"When I accepted your invitation, my dear fellow, I expected something beyond the ordinary. I have not been disappointed."

It was a wonder the driving-wheels were not dished by the violent side strains, but they were not even sprung. These wheels were of wire tangential spokes; they do not look so well as the smart, heavy, substantial wooden wheels one sees on nearly all imported machines and on some American.

The sense of proportion between parts is sadly outraged by spindle-wire wheels supporting the ma.s.sive frame-work and body of an automobile; however strong they may be in reality, architecturally they are quite unfit, and no doubt the wooden wheel will come more and more into general use.

A wooden wheel with the best of hickory spokes possesses an elasticity entirely foreign to the rigid wire wheel, but good hickory wheels are rare; paint hides a mult.i.tude of sins when spread over wood; and inferior wooden wheels are not at all to be relied upon.

Soon we begin to catch glimpses of Lake Erie through the trees and between the hills, just a blue expanse of water s.h.i.+ning in the morning sun, a sapphire set in the dull brown gold of woods and fields. Farther on we come out upon the bluffs overlooking the lake and see the smoke and grime of Buffalo far across. What a blot on a view so beautiful!

"Civilization," said the Professor, "is the subjection of nature.

In the civilization of Athens nature was subdued to the ends of beauty; in the civilization of America nature is subdued to the ends of usefulness; in every civilization nature is of secondary importance, it is but a means to an end. Nature and the savage, like little children, go hand in hand, the one the complement of the other; but the savage grows and grows, while nature remains ever a child, to sink subservient at last to its early playmate.

Just now we in this country are treating nature with great harshness, making of her a drudge and a slave; her pretty hands are soiled, her clean face covered with soot, her clothing tattered and torn. Some day, we as a nation will tire of playing the taskmaster and will treat the playmate of man's infancy and youth with more consideration; we will adorn and not disfigure her, love and not ignore her, place her on a throne beside us, make her queen to our kings.h.i.+p."

"Professor, the automobile hardly falls in with your notions."

"On the contrary, the automobile is the one absolutely fit conveyance for America. It is a noisy, dirty, mechanical contrivance, capable of great speed; it is the only vehicle in which one could approach that distant smudge on the landscape with any sense of the eternal fitness of things. A coach and four would be as far behind the times on this highway as a birch-bark canoe on yonder lake. In America an automobile is beautiful because it is in perfect harmony with the spirit of the age and country; it is twin brother to the trolley; train, trolley, and automobile may travel side by side as members of one family, late offsprings of man's ingenuity."

"But you would not call them things of beauty?"

"Yes and no; beauty is so largely relative that one cannot p.r.o.nounce hideous anything that is a logical and legitimate development. Considered in the light of things the world p.r.o.nounces beautiful, there are no more hideous monstrosities on the face of the earth than train, trolley, and automobile; but each generation has its own standard of beauty, though it seldom confesses it. We say and actually persuade ourselves that we admire the Parthenon; in reality we admire the mammoth factory and the thirty-story office building. Strive as we may to deceive ourselves by loud protestations, our standards are not the standards of old. We like best the things we have; we may call things ugly, but we think them beautiful, for they are part of us,--and the automobile fits into our surroundings like a pocket in a coat. We may turn up our noses at it or away from it, as the case may be, but none the less it is the perambulator of the twentieth century."

It was exactly one o'clock when we pulled up near the City Hall.

Total time from Erie five hours and fifty minutes, actual running time five hours, distance by road about ninety-four miles.

CHAPTER SIX BUFFALO THE MIDWAY

Housing the machine in a convenient and well-appointed stable for automobiles, we were reminded of the fact that we had arrived in Buffalo at no ordinary time, by a charge of three dollars per night for storage, with everything else extra. But was it not the Exposition we had come to see? and are not Expositions proverbially expensive--to promoters and stockholders as well as visitors?

Then, too, the hotels of Buffalo had expected so much and were so woefully disappointed. Vast arrays of figures had been compiled showing that within a radius of four hundred miles of Buffalo lived all the people in the United States who were worth knowing.

The statistics were not without their foundation in fact, but therein lay the weakness of the entire scheme so far as hotels were concerned; people lived so near they could leave home in the morning with a boiled egg and a sandwich, see the Exposition and get back at night. Travellers pa.s.sing through would stop over during the day and evening, then go their way on a midnight train,--it was cheaper to ride in a Pullman than stay in Buffalo.

We might have taken rooms at Rochester, running back and forth each day in the machine,--though Rochester was by no means beyond the zone of exorbitant charges. Notions of value become very much congested within a radius of two or three hundred miles of any great Exposition.

The Exposition was well worth seeing in parts by day and as a whole by night. The electrical display at night was a triumph of engineering skill and architectural arrangement. It was the falls of Niagara turned into stars, the mist of the mighty cascade crystallized into jewels, a brilliant crown to man's triumph over the forces of nature.

It was a wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten sight to sit by the waters at night, as the shadows were folding the buildings in their soft embrace, and see the first faint twinklings of the thousands upon thousands of lights as the great current of electricity was turned slowly on; and then to see the lights grow in strength until the entire grounds were bathed in suffused radiance,--that was as wonderful a sight as the world of electricity has yet witnessed, and it was well worth crossing an ocean to see; it was the one conspicuous success, the one memorable feature of the Exposition, and compared with it all exhibits and scenes by day were tame and insipid.

From time immemorial it has been the special province of the preacher to take the children to the circus and the side show; for the children must go, and who so fit to take them as the preacher?

After all, is not the sawdust ring with its strange people, its giants, fairies, hobgoblins, and clowns, a fairy land, not really real, and therefore no more wicked than fairy land? Do they not fly by night? are they not children of s.p.a.ce? the enormous tents spring up like mushrooms, to last a day; for a few short hours there is a medley of strange sounds,--a blare of trumpets, the roar of strange beasts, the ring of strange voices, the crackling of whips; there are prancing steeds and figures in costumes curious,--then, flapping of canvas, creaking of poles, and all is silent. Of course it is not real, and every one may go. The circus has no annals, knows no gossip, presents no problems; it is without morals and therefore not immoral. It is the one joyous amus.e.m.e.nt that is not above, but quite outside the pale of criticism and discussion. Therefore, why should not the preacher go and take the children?

But the Midway. Ah! the Midway, that is quite a different matter; but still the preacher goes,--leaving the children at home.

Learning is ever curious. The Professor, after walking patiently through several of the buildings and admiring impartially sections of trees from Cuba and plates of apples from Wyoming, modestly expressed a desire for some relaxation.

"The Midway is something more than a feature, it is an element. It is the laugh that follows the tears; the joke that relieves the tension; the Greeks invariably produced a comedy with their tragedies; human nature demands relaxation; to appreciate the serious, the humorous is absolutely essential. If the Midway were not on the grounds the people would find it outside. Capacity for serious contemplation differs with different peoples and in different ages,--under Cromwell it was at a maximum, under Charles II. it was at a minimum; the Puritans suppressed the laughter of a nation; it broke out in ridicule that discriminated not between sacred and profane. The tension of our age is such that diversions must recur quickly. The next great Exposition may require two Midways, or three or four for the convenience of the people. You can't get a Midway any too near the anthropological and ethnological sections; a cinematograph might be operated as an adjunct to the Fine Arts building; a hula-hula dancer would relieve the monotony of a succession of big pumpkins and prize squashes."

At that moment the Professor became interested in the strange procession entering the streets of Cairo, and we followed. Before he got out it cost him fifty cents to learn his name, a quarter for his fortune, ten cents for his horoscope, and sundry amounts for gems, jewels, and souvenirs of the Orient.

Through his best hexameter spectacles he surveyed the dark-eyed daughter of the Nile who was telling his fortune with a strong Irish accent; all went smoothly until the prophetess happened to see the Professor's sunburnt nose, fiery red from the four days'

run in wind and rain, and said warningly,--

"You are too fond of good eating and drinking; you drink too much, and unless you are more temperate you will die in twenty years."

That was too much for the Professor, whose occasional gla.s.s of beer--a habit left over from his student days--would not discolor the nose of a humming-bird.

There were no end of illusions, mysteries, and deceptions. The greatest mystery of all was the eager desire of the people to be deceived, and their bitter and outspoken disappointment when they were not. As the Professor remarked,--

"There never has been but one real American, and that was Phineas T. Barnum. He was the genuine product of his country and his times,--native ore without foreign dross. He knew the American people as no man before or since has known them; he knew what the American people wanted, and gave it to them in large unadulterated doses,--humbug."

Tuesday morning was spent in giving the machine a thorough inspection, some lost motion in the eccentric was taken up, every nut and screw tightened, and the cylinder and intake mechanism washed out with gasoline.

It is a good plan to clean out the cylinder with gasoline once each week or ten days; it is not necessary, but the piston moves with much greater freedom and the compression is better.

However good the cylinder oil used, after six or eight days' hard and continuous running there is more or less residuum; in the very nature of things there must be from the consumption of about a pint of oil to every hundred miles.

Many use kerosene to clean cylinders, but gasoline has its advantages; kerosene is excellent for all other bearings, especially where there may be rust, as on the chain; but kerosene is in itself a low grade oil, and the object in cleaning the cylinder is to cut out all the oil and leave it bright and dry ready for a supply of fresh oil.

After putting in the gasoline, the cylinder and every bearing which the gasoline has touched should be thoroughly lubricated before starting.

Lubrication is of vital importance, and the oil used makes all the difference in the world.

Many makers of machines have adopted the bad practice of putting up oil in cans under their own brands, and charging, of course, two prices per gallon. The price is of comparatively little consequence, though an item; for it does not matter so much whether one pays fifty cents or a dollar a gallon, so long as the best oil is obtained; the pernicious feature of the practice lies in wrapping the oil in mystery, like a patent medicine,--"Smith's Cylinder Oil" and "Jones's Patent Pain-Killer" being in one and the same category. Then they warn--patent medicine methods again --purchasers of machines that their particular brand of oil must be used to insure best results.

The one sure result is that the average user who knows nothing about lubricating oils is kept in a state of frantic anxiety lest his can of oil runs low at a time and place where he cannot get more of the patent brand.

Every manufacturer should embody in the directions for caring for the machine information concerning all the standard oils that can be found in most cities, and recommend the use of as many different brands as possible.

Machine oil can be found in almost any country village, or at any mill, factory, or power-house along the road; it is the cylinder oil that requires fore-thought and attention.

Beware of steam-cylinder oil and all heavy and gummy oils. Rub a little of any oil that is offered between the fingers until it disappears,--the better the oil the longer you can rub it. If it leaves a gummy or sticky feeling, do not use; but if it rubs away thin and oily, it is probably good. Of course the oiliest of oils are animal fats, good lard, and genuine sperm; but they work down very thin and run away, and genuine sperm oil is almost an unknown quant.i.ty. Lard can be obtained at every farmhouse, and may be used, if necessary, on bearings.

In an emergency, olive oil and probably cotton-seed oil may be used in the cylinder. Olive oil is a fine lubricant, and is used largely in the Italian and Spanish navies.

Many special brands are probably good oils and safe to use, but there is no need of staking one's trip upon any particular brand.

All good steam-cylinder oils contain animal oil to make them adhere to the side of the cylinder; a pure mineral oil would be washed away by the steam and water.

To ill.u.s.trate the action of oils and water, take a clean bottle, put in a little pure mineral oil, add some water, and shake hard; the oil will rise to the top of the water in little globules without adhering at all to the sides of the bottle; in short, the bottle is not lubricated. Instead of a pure mineral oil put in any steam-cylinder oil which is a compound of mineral and animal; and as the bottle is shaken the oil adheres to the gla.s.s, covering the entire inner surface with a film that the water will not rinse off.