market over heavy roads is quick to appreciate the very material
advantage and economy of having highways over which one horse can
pull as much as two under the old sandy, rough, and muddy
conditions.
A good road may be the making of a town, and it increases the
value of all abutting property. Already the question is commonly
asked when a farm is offered for sale or rent, "Is it on a State
road?" Lots will not sell in cities unless all improvements are
in; soon farmers will not be able to sell unless the highways are
improved.
One good thing about the automobile, it does not cut up the
surface of a macadam or gravel road as do steel tires and
horseshoes.
At the outskirts of the little village of West Brookfield we came
to a stand-still; the spark disappeared,--or rather from a large,
round, fat spark it dropped to an insignificant little blue
sparklet that would not explode a squib.
The way the spark acted with either or both batteries on indicated
pretty strongly that the trouble was in the coil; but it is so
seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no
spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do
but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was then
dark.
As good luck would have it, we were almost in front of a large,
comfortable, old-fashioned house where they took summer boarders;
as the season was drawing to a close, there was plenty of room and
they were glad to take us in. The machine was pushed into a shed,
everybody assisting with the readiness ever characteristic of
sympathetic on-lookers.
The big, clean, white rooms were most inviting; the homely New
England supper of cold meats and hot rolls seemed under the
circumstances a feast for a king, and as we sat in front of the
house in the evening, and looked across the highway to a little
lake just beyond and heard the croaking of the frogs, the chirping
of crickets, and the many indistinguishable sounds of night, we
were not sorry the machine had played us false exactly when and
where it did.
The automobile plays into the hands of Morpheus, the drowsy god
follows in its wake, sure of his victims. No sleep is dreamless.
It is pretty difficult to exhaust the three billions of cells of
the central nervous system so that all require rest, but ten hours
on an automobile in the open air, speeding along like the wind
most of the time, will come nearer putting all those cells to
Here's a piece of wisdom on driving or cute car quote to study:
Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. ~Lewis Mumford
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