Westward Hoboes
9781465684745
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
TOBY’S real name is Katharine. Her grandmother was a poet, her father is a scientist, and she is an artist. She is called Toby for Uncle Jonas’ dog, who had the habit, on being kicked out of the door, of running down the steps with a cheerful bark and a wagging tail, as if he had left entirely of his own accord. There is no fact, however circumstantially incriminating, which this young doctrinaire cannot turn into the most potent justification for what she has done or wishes to do, and when she gets to the tail wagging stage, regardless of how recently the bang of the front door has echoed in our ears, she wags with the charm of the artist, the logical precision of the scientist, and the ardor of the poet. Even when she ran the car into the creek at Nambe——At the outset we did not plan to make the journey by automobile. Our destination was uncertain. We planned to drift, to sketch and write when the spirit moved. But drifting by railroad in the West implies time tables, crowded trains, boudoir capped matrons, crying babies and the smell of bananas, long waits and anxiety over reservations. Traveling by auto seemed luxurious in comparison and would save railroad fares, annoyance and time. We pictured ourselves bowling smoothly along in the open air, in contrast with the stifling train; we previsioned no delays, no breakdowns, no dangers; we saw New Mexico and Arizona a motorist’s Heaven, paved with asphalt and running streams of gasoline. An optimist is always like that, and two are twenty times so. I was half owner of a Cadillac Eight, with a rakish hood and a matronly tonneau; its front was intimidating, its rear reassuring. The owner of the other half was safely in France. At the time, which half belonged to which had not been discussed. It is now a burning question. I figure that the springs, the dust pan, the paint, mud guards and tires constituted her share, with a few bushings and nuts thrown in for good measure, but having acquired a mercenary disposition in France, she differs from me. What I knew of the bowels of a car had been gained, not from systematic research, but bitter experience with mutinous parts, in ten years’ progress through two, four, six and finally eight cylinder motors of widely varying temperaments. I had taken no course in mechanics, and had, and still have, a way of confusing the differential with the transmission. But I love to tinker! In the old two cylinder days, when the carburetor flooded I would weigh it down with a few pebbles and a hairpin, and when the feed became too scanty, I would take the hairpin out and leave the pebbles in. I had a smattering knowledge of all the deviltry defective batteries, leaky radiators, frozen steering wheels, cranky generators, wrongly hung springs, stripped gears and slipping clutches can perpetrate, but those parts which commonly behaved themselves I left severely alone. Toby could not drive, but a few lessons made her an apt pupil. She paid her money to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a license, and one sparkling evening in early February we started for Springfield. We were to cover thirteen thousand miles before we saw Boston again,—eleven thousand by motor and the rest by steamship and horseback.
