We hit eighteen again on the cement stretch that precedes the curve onto Fifth Avenue, Gary. But Fifth Avenue, Gary, or whatever they call the western continuation of it, must of been selected as the scene of some of our intense training in digging trenches. Anyway, there’s three miles of gorges before you strike town, some of them as much as a yard apart. The first jolt woke the Missus. It would of done the same to Rip Van Winkle.
“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“This is the Swiss Alps,” I said.
“I must of dropped off,” said she, and I thought at first she was trying to pull something, but then I remembered who it was.
“How long have we been on the road?” she asked me.
“Ever since we started,” said I, “up to just now.”
But Mrs. Cross heard us and looked at her wristwatch, the gift of the groom.
“Why, Harry,” she said, “we left Chicago at just nine and it’s after eleven now, and you said we could get to Michigan City in three hours.”
“We could if you’d let me step on her,” said Harry.
“Maybe we’re not on the right road,” said Nan.
“Whose fault is it if we ain’t?” said Cross, and his tone was not that of a passionate lover. I whispered to the Missus. “This may not be such a rotten trip after all,” I said.
There was no more social intercourse till we reached the pavement in Gary proper, if you could call it that.
“Yes, we’re all right,” said Nan, when we’d crossed the main street. “That was Broadway, and we’re on Fifth Avenue. Straight ahead now.”
“I don’t see how they think of all those names for streets,” said I.
“There’s a Broadway in New York, and a Fifth Avenue too,” said Mrs. Cross. “Maybe these were named after those.”
You can’t find fault with the stretch of road leading east out of Gary.
“Now’s your chance, Cross,” I said. “No danger to your springs here.” And I kept after him till we just touched twenty.
“Oh, look!” said the Missus. “We’re coming to a soldiers’ camp.”
“They’re guarding the Aetna Explosives,” said Cross.
A sentry loomed up on the horizon.
“Now listen, Cross,” I said. “If this guy tells you to halt, call him something and then run him down. No use arguing with him.”
“Harry, you be careful!” said Nan. “We’d better stop if he says so.”
“Oh, shut up!” said Cross, and my hopes revived.
The sentry saw he was badly outnumbered and let us pass unchallenged. Otherwise we might never have seen the town of Miller, which was evidently named after Joe.
Just this side of East Gary there was a sign that said:
Danger. Bridge Unsafe for Loads over 3,000 Pounds.
“Let’s see,” said Cross, when he’d stopped the car. “The machine’s supposed to weigh just twenty-eight-fifty. I weigh one hundred and forty-three pounds, and Nan weighs one hundred and thirteen. How much do you weigh?”
“About three hundred for both of us,” I said, “and the division of poundage is none of your business.”
“I and the car together makes twenty-nine-ninety-three,” said Cross. “You three people’ll have to get out, and I’ll pick you up when I get across.”
“But listen!” said I. “The suitcases and your tools and the extra tire totals a whole lot more than seven pounds. If I was you, I’d start the car at the regular pace and then jump out. We can catch up with it the other side of the bridge.”
“How would it steer?” he asked me.
“You can stand on the running-board and guide it,” said I.
“No,” he said, “I’ll stick at the wheel and chance it.”
Well, sir, three of us got out and walked ahead, and arranged it so we were standing right in the middle of the bridge when Cross drove over. And he was too scared to notice!
While he halted again to let us get in, a furniture van that must of weighed two and a half tons passed from the opposite direction and sailed over the bridge without even stopping to unload a soft pillow.
The giddy whirl of East Gary was too much for Mrs. Cross, and she sent us a matter of three miles up the wrong road. By the time we got back to the metropolis and headed in the right direction, the pair on the front seat were speaking to each other in words of one syllable and very few of those. But Dearie had to talk to somebody.
“The next town’s Porter,” she said, turning round. “There’s another route that goes right through it. But we miss it.”
“Speak for yourself. I don’t,” said I.
“Porter,” said the Missus. “That’s a funny name for a town.”
“Nothing funny about it, when you know how it got it’s name,” I said. “You see, practically all the railroads from the East run through it, and it’s forty miles from Chicago, and most people don’t sleep very good on a train, and they wake up along about here, and they can’t find their shoes, so they all stick their heads out at once and say the name of the town.”
“Porter?” asked the Missus.
“No,” said I. “George.”
Six miles west of Michigan City, Mrs. Cross looked at her watch and announced it was one o’clock.
“What do you care?” said Cross.
“I’m hungry,” she said, and her voice was full of tears.
“Well,” said Cross, “we’ll be in, in half an hour.”
Which words were scarcely uttered when there was a pop and hiss, and our right tire was down.
“It can’t be!” said Cross, looking at it. “They’re all guaranteed for six thousand miles.”
“Not against nails,” said I.
“It must be a puncture,” said Cross.
“Don’t jump at conclusions,” I said,
“I’ve forgotten if it’s Resta or De Palma or who holds that record for quick changes, or what the record is but in exactly thirty-five minutes we had the bum tire hanging on the back and the spare one in its place and were more moving Michigan Cityward. And I had the dirtiest shirt I ever saw, next to Harry’s.
“You can stop at a garage
