Travelogue
They met for the first time at luncheon in the diner of the westbound limited that had left Chicago the night before. The girls, it turned out, were Hazel Dignan and her friend Mildred Orr. The man was Dan Chapman.
He it was who broke the ice by asking if they minded riding backwards. It was Hazel who answered. She was a seasoned traveler and knew how to talk to strangers. Mildred had been hardly anywhere and had little to say, even when she knew people.
“Not at all,” was Hazel’s reply to his polite query. “I’m so used to trains that I believe I could ride on top of them and not be uncomfortable.”
“Imagine,” put in Mildred, “riding on top of a train!”
“Many’s the time I’ve done it!” said their new acquaintance. “Freight-trains, though; not passenger-trains. And it was when I was a kid.”
“I don’t see how you dared,” said Mildred.
“I guess I was a kind of a reckless, wild kid,” he said. “It’s a wonder I didn’t get killed, the chances I took. Some kids takes lots of chances; that is, boys.”
“Girls do, too,” said Hazel quickly. “Girls take just as many chances as boys.”
“Oh, no, Hazel!” remonstrated her friend, and received an approving look from the male.
“Where are you headed for?” he asked.
“Frisco first and then Los Angeles,” Hazel replied.
“Listen—let me give you a tip. Don’t say ‘Frisco’ in front of them native sons. They don’t like that nickname.”
“I should worry what they like and don’t like!” said Hazel, rather snootily, Mildred thought.
“This your first trip out there?” Chapman inquired.
“No,” Hazel answered to Mildred’s surprise, for the purpose of the journey, she had been led to believe, was to give Hazel a glimpse of one of the few parts of America that she had never visited.
“How long since you was out there last?” asked Chapman.
“Let’s see,” said Hazel. “It’s been—” She was embarrassed by Mildred’s wondering look. “I don’t know exactly. I’ve forgotten.”
“This is about my fiftieth trip,” said Chapman. “If you haven’t been—”
“I like Florida better,” interrupted Hazel. “I generally go there in the winter.”
“ ‘Generally!’ ” thought Mildred, who had reliable information that the previous winter had been her friend’s first in the South.
“I used to go to Palm Beach every year,” said Chapman, “but that was before it got common. It seems to be that the people that goes to Florida now, well, they’re just riffraff.”
“The people that go to Tampa aren’t riffraff,” said Hazel. “I met some lovely people there last winter, especially one couple, the Babcocks. From Racine. They were perfectly lovely to me. We played Mah Jongg nearly every evening. They wanted me to come up and visit them in Racine this last summer, but something happened. Oh, yes; Sis’s nurse got married. She was a Swedish girl. Just perfect! And Sis had absolute confidence in her.
“I always say that when a Swede is good, they’re good! Now she’s got a young girl about nineteen that’s wild about movie actors and so absentminded that Sis is scared to death she’ll give Junior coffee and drink his milk herself. Just crazy! Jennie, her name is. So I didn’t get up to Racine.”
“Ever been out to Yellowstone?”
“Oh, isn’t it wonderful!” responded Hazel. “Isn’t Old Faithful just fascinating! You see,” she explained to Mildred, “It’s one of the geysers and they call it ‘Old Faithful’ because it spouts every hour and ten minutes or something, just as regular as clockwork. Wonderful! And the different falls and canyons! Wonderful! And what a wonderful view from Inspiration Point!”
“Ever been to the Thousand Islands?” asked Chapman.
“Wonderful! And I was going up there again last summer with a girlfriend of mine, Bess Eldridge. She was engaged to a man named Harley Bateman. A wonderful fellow when he wasn’t drinking, but when he’d had a few drinks, he was just terrible. So Bess and I were in Chicago and we went to a show; Eddie Cantor. It was the first time I ever saw him when he wasn’t blacked up. Well, we were walking out of the theater that night and who should we run into but Harley Bateman, terribly boiled, and a girl from Elkhart, Joan Killian. So Bess broke off her engagement and last fall she married a man named Wannop who’s interested in flour-mills or something up in Minneapolis. So I didn’t get to the Thousand Islands after all. That is, a second time.
“But I always think that if a person hasn’t taken that trip, they haven’t seen anything. And Bess would have certainly enjoyed it. She used to bite her fingernails till she didn’t have any left. But she married this man from Minneapolis.”
After luncheon the three moved to the observation-car and made a brave effort to be interested in what passes for scenery in Nebraska.
For no possible reason, it reminded Chapman of Northern Michigan.
“Have you ever been up in Northern Michigan?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Hazel. “I visited a week once in Petoskey. Some friends of mine named Gilbert. They had their own launch. Ina Gilbert—that’s Mrs. Gilbert—her hair used to be the loveliest thing in the world and she had typhoid or something and lost nearly all of it. So we played Mah Jongg every afternoon and evening.”
“I
