NOTES ON A JOURNEY
51
pose, were two enormous shield trophies for pistol shooting that rested on
the big round table.
Not having the foresight to get close to the proper door, we were
among the last to pass in to the President's room and had several rows of
backs between us and him. I felt no particular tension in the room. The
questioners spoke fairly loudly but the President's voice in some responses
was too low to be heard clearly as far back as I was standing. It was
deliberative, conversational and even, without any faltering or even much
hesitation. The voice was that of a man well·informed as to his business.
What appeared to be a stock dismissal of cock·and·bull stories was "That's
another one of Them." It was the day on which he quoted Herbert Mat·
thews'
Times
dispatch to the effect that the Axis desired his defeat in the
election. "Mr. President, have you any comment to make ... Mr. Presi–
dent, have you any reason to believe ..." No soap. He was just quoting it.
I find that everyone, or almost everyone, agrees that tourist cabins are
in
general a great advance on hotels. In the darkness and smoke of the
towns that evening the hotels we had seen resembled dilapidated fire houses,
some of them absolutely lightless, tremendously inviting to curiosity but
not probable for a night's rest. Tourist homes wer.e few and frowsy. On the
hillside above the filling station and diner where we stopped to eat the
Cozy Rest Cabins looked clean and independent, each with its bald elec·
tric light above the door. A hoy in nifty white dungarees ushered us into
Cabin 14 and lighted the oil stove, which in ten minutes had not only
taken the .chill off but was in a fair way to bake us alive.
In this, as in the shower,"the bed reading lamp, the elementary and
sufficient comforts of the place, our first cal;lin closely resembled
~11
the
later ones. As an institution they were new to me because
it
had been eight
years since I had driven any long distance overland. And they seemed to
me a manifestation of the I!Ood sense and excellence of what is, in a way, a
civilization by itself: the
U.
S. highway. On which the rules are simple,
pleasurable, serious and almost universally observed; on which privacy
is respected and economy a matter of course; on which pilgrimage, one of
the profound symbols of human life, appears under the guises of migra–
tion and tourism, affording that sort of poetry to the people.
The other aspect of it is plainer: you will pass through many towns
in which the only new buildings, and the ones best kept up, are the Kabin
Kamp and the Standard Oil station.
In the morning we saw coal tips on the opposite hill. It was a clear
day and as the hills diminished we came down to the Ohio and crossed it
where it flowed between meadows and willows, winding broad and blue
across the beautiful land. The richness of the autumn was greater here
than
in
any region we had seen, the sumac deep red at the roadside and
purple on more distant mounds of land, the maples heavily red golden
in the sunlight, shelling off the leaves in thick, glittering gusts across the
