Intensive Flivving

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

HALF a mile from my White Mountain cottage runs the state highway. It is easily distinguished from other roads by being much wider, uglier, and dustier. In dry weather, every leaf and blade of grass within fifty feet of it is thinly coated with dust, and a faint cloud is permanently suspended above it. All day, along this road, roll countless automobiles, full of people touring the mountains, under the impression that, in so doing, they are seeing the mountains

This is a curious impression. The mountains, to be sure, are visible from time to time in fleeting glimpses from the state highway; but to the motorist they are of secondary importance. The most conspicuous features of his landscape are signs. Signs telling him that he is eight miles from Lancaster; that he is now entering Lancaster, and should consider himself welcomed by the Board of Trade; that he is now leaving Lancaster, to the distress of the Board of Trade, who nevertheless have recovered sufficiently to urge him to come again; that he is only six miles from Smith’s Garage, where air is as free in fact as in proverb; that he is two miles from the Tourists’ Teahouse (chicken dinners and home-cooking, automobile parties accommodated), or is approaching Jaunters’ Joy (home-cooking and chicken dinners, automobile parties a specialty); that he must imperatively buy such-and-such varieties of tires, gasoline, oil, or batteries, and abstain from all others; that his life is presently to be placed in jeopardy by a dangerous turn, or the lives of little children by the imminent approach of his automobile to a school. Sometimes, on a particularly large sign, a little local history is displayed to sugar the pill of a tire-advertisement, thus showing that even history can be put to practical uses.

These signs, of one sort or another, are everywhere. Apparently the enterprising gentlemen who erected them did so with a very fine sense for conservation of scenery. They did not believe in wasting it wholesale on the motorist; they believed in the beauty of the fleeting glimpse, the charm of the elusive. And so, whenever they came to a spot where the motorist had an uninterrupted sweep of landscape before him, these gentlemen discreetly shielded it from his direct gaze.

I have a friend who is so perverse as to differ with these apostles of moderation. He says that he intends to take his views straight, and claims that he has as much right to tear down those blooming signs as anybody has to put them up. So he tears them down, sometimes openly by day, sometimes secretly by night, but always savagely. Already he has assembled in his barn a notable collection. One can enjoy some of the most characteristic sensations of motoring by simply standing in the barn and running one’s eyes over the signs. One can watch the distance to Smith’s Garage being gradually cut down from fifteen miles to ten, from ten to five, from five to two; and one can learn almost as much about the varieties of motor-oil on the market as in an entire tour of the White Mountains.

The garages themselves form another conspicuous feature of the scene as the passing motorist sees it. He can enjoy their full beauty without leaving his seat, while the car stops to take on gasoline. In the foreground he beholds the chaste outlines of the gasoline pump, with its serpentine pipe; beyond are the faucet and pipe-line where free water and free air are administered; that man walking out to a waiting automobile, with a quart measure in his hand and an expression of eager service on his face, is a purveyor of oil. Consider the sturdy architecture of the garage building; the scene of activity within, where black-shirted mechanics, like so many surgeons, are gathered about a sick little runabout and deciding whether or not to operate; and the cigar-stand by the door, with its brightly colored cigarette-cases hinting of the romance of the East. Take in the whole picture; don’t miss a bit of it; you are now, my dear sir, seeing the White Mountains as the motorist sees them.

There are, of course, occasional automobile tourists who are not entirely satisfied with gazing at signboards, garages, and the dusty road. These people want to see the mountains and the forests and the brooks. Sometimes one hears coming from the tonneau their plaintive cries of ‘Oh, wait a minute; there’s a waterfall’; followed by replies of ‘Stop, George, Harry says there’s a waterfall’; and other cries of ‘Where is it? I don’t see it,’ and ‘Oh, don’t let’s stop before we find a place for luncheon!’ until at last that plaintive voice closes the discussion with a feeble ‘Never mind, it’s miles back now.’

There are occasional fanatics who want to stop to look at a view right in a hilly place, where the car, if it loses its momentum, will have to go into low gear, which anybody can see is beyond all reason. But the main interest of most of us, when we follow the state road, is, naturally, in how far we can get before luncheon, how soon we shall have a chance to pass the car in front, whether the road is getting bumpier or less bumpy, and whether we can get up the next hill on high. Sometimes we lift up our eyes unto the hills, but seldom for long; the road demands our attention.

We are watching for bumps ahead, that we may know when to be prepared for a jounce; and for curves ahead, that we may know when to be prepared for a lurch. In our minds is the thought that the machine is doing finely: we have covered seventy-three miles since lunch. Wrapped in dusters, we sit in the tonneau, gazing at the surface of the state highway as it unrolls before us; the automobile carries us steadily along, uphill and down, past signboards, garages, other automobiles, and yet more signboards; and on the face of every one of us is an expression that seems to say, ‘Only eleven miles more of this, and then I’ll have my chicken dinner.’

Suppose you come upon us later, as we are annihilating the chicken dinner. Are we conversing about the scenery? Not a bit of it: we are discussing more vital matters, such as carbon in the cylinders and the number of miles we can do per gallon. You interrupt us to ask whether we visited Chocorua in the course of our tour. There is a vague moment; then one of us pipes up: ‘Oh, yes, of course. I remember. Chocorua was where we got the ice-cream cones.’

For you who may possibly know Chocorua fairly well, it may be something of an effort to adjust yourself to a view of the place in which ice-cream cones are the dominant feature; but you must remember that the automobilist’s point of view is a very special one.

Is it, then, impossible to see the countryside from an automobile? Sometimes I think there is just one way of doing the thing properly. And that is to poke around.

By poking around, I mean setting out with no definite objective, or else with an objective so ridiculously easy of access that there will always be time to stop anywhere on the way; and then driving as slowly as you like; and whenever you see anything that excites your curiosity, getting out and investigating it. This is what one of my neighbors, who owns a small but active car, calls intensive flivving. Steer off the traveled highways, on to the narrow old brown dirt roads, which are listed in no bluebook and are n’t of the slightest use to the tourist, and are not embellished with billboards and garages; roads built in the old days for carriages, and even now showing hoof-marks in the middle. They may be a little stony here and there; you may have to go very slowly over the jounces in the hollow, where the loose-plank bridge rumbles under your wheels; and you will find that passing another flivver necessitates much jockeying, and running two wheels through the bushes, and cheerful shouting back and forth. But there is time for all these things. What you seek is not speed and distance, but entertainment.

You may like to gossip with the wayside farmers about the state of the crops, which you will invariably find to be terrible on account of the drought or terrible on account of the rain. You may have a passion for pressing your nose against the windowpanes of deserted farmhouses, and picturing to yourself the life that once went on within those cracked and crumbling walls. Or else you may simply crave a chance to see the open country. You can do it, even in an automobile, if you are content to poke around.

Here the road sweeps up to the skyline, and who knows what may not lie beyond? There it curves through a grove of hemlocks, their tips pointing sharp and dark into the blue sky. No dust here, no signs, no roar of traffic, no wayside soft-drink and balsam-pillow booths, no enormous cars intent on going 150 miles to-day and 200 to-morrow. Here the road comes to a gap between the trees, and you have a vista of orchard and lake, with the clear blue of mountains beyond. Don’t drive on just yet, there is no hurry. Turn off your engine, climb out of your car, and stroll out between the trees. The grass is innocent of cardboard boxes and eggshells. You can hear the thrushes singing, now that your engine has stopped. No motorist on the state road hears thrushes. You can smell hay and balsam, which you may prefer to tar and oil. You can see to your heart’s content the slow march of the cloudshadows over the hills. At last, when you are ready, climb into your car and follow the road again.