In 1944, a dear friend, Doris Roy, and I undertook an adventurous journey that we dreamed of during countless hikes together over our college holidays. We had been Camp Fire Girls together, loving the out-of-doors, camping and hiking the open road. Our dreams finally developed into a plan to ride bicycles from our home in Buffalo, New York, to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River met the Mississippi. We admired Mark Twain’s adventures, had read his Life on the Mississippi, and sought to follow his path to the Midwest.

We were 21 years old, just graduated from college: Doris Roy from Michigan State and Thelma Popp from Buffalo State College. We often referred to each other as "Mouse," as we were two blind mice wearing glasses. I had the nickname "Poppy," characteristic of my last name.

World War II affected our college life as most of the male student body joined one of the services. Women assumed some of their roles by taking jobs in armament industries. During the summer, I worked from early morning to evening in a public school caring for infants whose mothers were working in aircraft factories or other related industries.

But now, before starting our careers, we decided that the coming summer after graduation would be the ideal time to have our adventure. We had a limited period of time to accomplish this. I had signed a contract to begin teaching first grade in Middleport, New York, on the Erie Canal on September 4, 1944. And so - with the leanest of equipment - we made our preparations and were ready to leave on June 22, 1944.

This was the day, the first day of our adventure by bicycle. It was the reality of a dream one day toward completion. It was the beginning of an adventure, months of hoboing through the country to live as we pleased and go where we willed. And now, at 7:30 a.m., the Roy family arrived at the Popp residence at 134 Oakgrove Avenue, Buffalo, New York, to share breakfast together with their children, Doris and Thelma. Perhaps in the future we would be looking back at the wealth and the pleasure of that breakfast and the kind words of our parents still attempting to discourage us. Perhaps it was a ridiculous venture, but we were determined never to be put into the category with those who say, "I always wanted to, but never did." Out on the driveway were standing two beautiful new bicycles. Both were blue and their chrome fittings shone like silver in the sun. A previous checkup reported all parts oiled and geared for efficiency. These were our wartime Victory bicycles, lightweight and practical. Thelma’s bicycle had but one speed, and Doris’s had two. But an ordinary bicycle never looked like this! Every extremity was used as a carrier. The usual rack over the rear wheel was extended to hold the weight of a sleeping bag and duffle, and below, saddle bags bulged on either side of the wheels. Strapped to the handlebars was a wicker basket outfitted with oil cloth for protection against inclement weather. These were our bicycles - carnivals on wheels! We were all keyed up to this exciting moment.

"Where was this packed? Can I leave out those rubbers Mother said to take?"

"Which would you rather carry, the hatchet or the kettle?"

"Did I remember the pot scraper?"

"And now what bag did I put the canned heat in?"

"Do we need my compass? Wish we had a bike speedometer."

"Remind me not to tip the bike on that side, Mouse. I put the camera in there."

Mr. Popp started focusing the movie camera. I snapped closed the cover on my basket for the last time. Farewell kisses....

"Keep dry! Wear your hats!"

Mr. Popp clicked the lever of the camera and aimed at us through the lens. We pedaled down the drive, into the street, and out into the world. Down over the rough brick pavement, up the viaduct and over the freight yards we pumped and sweated. The outskirts of the city were an endless line of mills and factories belching smoke and soot. The odor of the chemicals stung our nostrils and dried our throats. We were glad to leave the city.

We must have been a humorous sight - bicycles bulging at all angles, tin cans jangling as we hit the bricks, and riders vainly attempting to keep their floppy hats from being carried off in the wind.

I had packed my bicycle the preceding night and only took a turn around the drive to determine how I could navigate with a heavy load. Now things seemed different. I couldn’t be tired already. We’d only gone two miles!

The low grades of the highway assumed great heights. I pressed hard on the pedal and could see the muscles in my knee tense and relax. My heart pounded as we reached the top. Then, easing off on the pedal, down the other side we flew with a rush of cool air hitting our hot faces.

Our route had been mapped toward Pittsburgh. Could we have chosen more mountainous country? Undaunted, we rolled out of the city south to the Appalachians. The highway was broad now. Factories, trolley cars and houses were left behind. Before us lay the world, the world of waving grasses, scorching sun, hills for a bed and two months of an unfettered vagabondish life. We were to be the transient neighbors of all who lived by the side of the road.

There was only one thing against us - the wind that blew from Lake Erie. Only a few miles along the lake to Fredonia and we would change directions. Things would ease up then.

Doris was saying, "Let’s stop for a sip from our canteens and rest a little. We don’t want to overdo it the first day."

The ice cold water we had poured into our canteens was now lukewarm. We lay with our backs to the ground. The wind that had restrained us on the highway felt cool as it rippled over us. After that little refreshment, we once again bent against the wind, following the sun through the sky. With the road as our guide and the sun as our timepiece, we chose the hour of eating and rest as we willed.

Now the sun was setting; this was to be our first night. We drew up beside a narrow dirt road that wound back into the hills. We were about six miles from Silver Creek, New York.

"What do you think, Mouse? Shall we try our luck for a camping spot down this road?" The friendly little dirt road turned out to be a deserted one. From rut to rut we bounced, continually climbing to lonelier territory. Our camper’s handbook had always described a good campsite as one being on smooth, level ground, beneath shady trees and by a babbling brook, but our visions of a Shangri La faded and we began searching for a fairly private and level piece of land. "Hello, neighbors!"

A very active, tail-thumping mongrel had jumped out into the road and dashed madly between us and a small gray house set back in the trees. Several people were on the front porch, and one small girl came down the stairs and along the driveway. She welcomed us with a broad smile. Her mother and father then came down and greeted us. "Hello, girls. Are you on a camping trip?"

Who would ask permission? Would they receive us? So much depended on our first night. Then Doris explained our mission.

"We’re on a camping trip. We just started from Buffalo this morning. It’s been quite a pull against the strong wind and we’re rather tired, so we decided to look for a suitable camping spot for the night and give our legs a rest."

"Jim," the woman turned to her husband, "why couldn’t the girls go down by the creek?" The father rubbed his chin. "That would be all right, but there are a lot of mosquitoes down there. Why not over on the bank beyond the west field? That’s about the most level spot around here."

Before we knew it we were being escorted through the west field, and then we were on the bank. Who said no Shangri La? This was it!

We were in a small clearing bounded by trees. On one side was a wooded cliff, and below it was a shallow stream and a picturesque waterfall.

Home! Out came the tin cans. Out came the cooking kits. The bedrolls were untied. The provisions for dinner were placed on a level rock. We scoured through the trees, cracking wood and dragging back dead limbs and twigs.

"This shouldn’t be hard at all," Doris said as she knelt on a cleared spot and began shaping the twigs in tepee fashion. I began cutting the potatoes into smaller pieces, washed the lettuce in an inch of water in the canteen cup and laid out the veal chops.

"There it is!" She began blowing gently on the yellow spiral of the flame. Then - the sizzling of the chops in butter, the bubbling of the water about the potatoes, the lettuce dividing - we sat back on the grass balancing our cooking kits and canteen covers. It was the first real cooked-out meal, and a well earned one.

With the dishes washed and the prunes put in to soak for breakfast, we were off with our soap and towels to the creek below. We bounded down the side of the bank and ran out for a quick swim and a splash in the waterfall. Joyous laughter and singing floated along with the soapy suds and the current. We washed clothes and draped them over the branches of trees.

Up again on the bank, we pounded through the brush, walking up and down small inclines searching for two pieces of level land for sleeping. At last we settled for a small clearing with the fewest roots and the least amount of stones and bumps. We sat on our bedrolls, creaming our faces, brushing our hair and violently slapping mosquitoes. Post cards to our parents were dashed off, and we wrote the following account in our logs:

The moon was out, and in its light I could see a horde of mosquitoes walking up and down the netting in dizzy design, testing the size of each hole. One found a sizable opening to venture through where I had ruffled the cover. Others followed and then began the bombardment that sent me diving head and all into the sleeping bag. I could hear their droning and imagined the battle that might ensue if I let as much as my nose protrude.

A warm wind started up, and the rain flap over my head lapped to and from as the supporting sticks swayed. A quick look out disclosed a hazy moon and a reddened sky. I had just settled down, convinced that I must reconcile myself with these pesky creatures, when I heard a low growl behind me. I feared to moved a muscle or reveal I was alive. Visions of a watchdog grabbing off a leg, then the sound of scampering off through the underbrush. It was gone. For one brief moment I had forgotten the mosquitoes.

Was night always encountered this way? Was I really going through this every night for a whole summer? For one passing moment I doubted the success of our trip.

The sun had swung far into the sky before we began to stir and stretch in our bedrolls. I gradually became conscious of the brilliant sunlight and was able to discern bushes and trees that had been the vague shapes and shadowy substances of the night before.

"Morning, Mouse," I called over to Doris. We inched ourselves up into sitting positions and observed the outside world, wet and sparkling with a heavy dew. "Up then, my comrade, and have a look at our soaking prunes!" Other than a few drowned ants mixed in they were ready for cooking.

Taking the dewy mat of grasses from our woodpile, we found our supply of wood dry and ready for use. It was no time at all before the firewood was crackling and snapping. The prunes were soon boiling, the scrambled eggs were simmering in the frying pan, and the bacon was curled and sputtering. Hunched on our knees to avoid the damp grasses, we sang the morning blessing and divided the stewed prunes. "How about sharing the salt mix?" Doris asked as she whittled at the bacon in the frying pan with her jackknife. Her plate was the pan, mine the cover. I tossed over to her the little glass tube that contained salt and pepper. The eggs were a little hard, but the tea helped out.

"More tea, Mouse?" I inquired. The cups that clamped onto the canteens each held a pint. I filled the cup up to the nails that held the handle. That was our measure for an equal portion.

With breakfast over, we slid down the muddy bank to the creek bottom and knelt in the water to scour the blackened pots. The #10 tin can with its wire baling handle was the blackest. We had used it for the dishwater, and it had sat in the coals to boil while we ate. We took turns breaking our nails over it.

Little sprinkles of white cleanser blew to the surface of the stream and followed the pattern of its swirl over the pebbles. Suddenly, a drop of water splashed into the pool, sending wavelets inundating to the beach. Others followed, prickling and bubbling the water. Quickly we grabbed up our kettles and made for the campsite. Our beds had to be rolled and the equipment stored away before everything was soaked. Down came the stakes. Down came the washing. Down came the rain.

"God bless the rubbers," Doris said, as I tied my oilskin kerchief over my head. "Better cover up that box of Mother Weed’s Noodle Soup. That and the canned heat might come in handy today."

The rain was falling softly now as we made one last checkup on the camping grounds. Upward and onward we cautiously rolled over the road, avoiding the unknown depths of the swimming ruts. Our wheels sped down the steep incline as the road brought us back to the main highway. Our raincoats flew out in back of us and our pigtails were whisked up into the air.

Rain or no rain it was a good beginning. We were well fed. We were happy. Along the shining road to Silver Creek we sped, the sound of the wheels’ song stinging the wet pavement.

The town was just creeping out of its slumber as we made for our objective on the village square - the Post Office. The tale of our first day had been written in our journals, and our first letter home.

We leaned our bicycles against the rail and scrambled up the steps. Before I had my hand on the latch the door swung open in my face. A ruddy-faced gentleman tipped his hat and held the door open. I murmured a greeting in return and stepped inside the doorway. After depositing our letters, we found the same gentleman flicking a match over the railing and glancing at the queerly loaded bicycles.

"Are you going somewhere or coming?" he questioned.

Unwilling to share the extent of our dream, we explained we were headed for Fredonia. After introducing ourselves, we found him to be a pastor in the town. Challenged by curiosity, he had to know the details of our plans, so we told him of our proposed route to Pittsburgh and Virginia, then directly west to the Mississippi River. We laid out our maps and studied the route.

"The hills?" he questioned. "How good are you at climbing hills? You’ll strike the mountains in Pennsylvania, and remember, there’s an up to every down." The first day of bicycling had proved the difficulty of pedalling up even a small grade with such a load, yet we would like to go south and touch Virginia. We mused and measured. Ohio seemed a dull state, but it was true - it was more level and the distance shorter. So, we decided to be sensible, follow his advice, and cross Ohio. In the afternoon we found ourselves in Chautauqua County, in one of the largest and most beautiful grape belts in America. The day was such a lovely one, the Maxfield Parrish type with lots of blue. A lazy wind puffed the clouds along above the sloped vineyards. The sky was blue and the was road level. Vineyards stretched their way over the slopes at our left, and at our right they marched in straight columns to the blue lake.

When we returned, that pattern would be interrupted by bobbing straw hats and a motley group of skirts upon a field of blue. Harvest time and yellow baskets brimming with grapes. We took advantage of that dream and stopped at a farmhouse for a cold glass of last year’s vintage.

All people, all signs interested us. We had time for everything, so when we read the sign "Antiques," we decided to investigate. It was a well-weathered sign, swinging there as its scrolled standard. Signs that are finely printed and hanging before the well-polished house do not interest me, but this one I found inviting.

The house played its part well, from the slate walk up to the crumbled brick wall. The jangle of the doorbell brought forth a very courteous connoisseur of antiques. The musty smell and thickness of dust were delightful. It meant old things with history behind them, perhaps some colorful stories, too.

Doris strayed off to another room and left me scrutinizing the cut glass, the fine China and an array of silver. Displayed on rows of dusty shelves and tables were the fruits of an endless search of the collector for the original and the unique. Here was a flowery Dresden figure with a dainty foot showing beneath her lace dress. And a red-lipped lover hovered over her under a bower of glazed roses.

I surveyed a low-hanging shelf lined with small pitchers. There was some copper lustre ware still boasting a metallic glow under the dust. Here was a Stevenson platter: a dark blue American scene painted in the bottom and bordered by the customary oak leaf and acorn.

Many of the antiques were collected throughout the historical era of New York State, the days of DeWitt Clinton and his canal, the Pan-American Exposition of 1902, President McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt.

Suddenly, beyond the rose-colored vases, beyond the paned windows, I saw the trees bend and the wind sweep through the streets. It had become darker and we had yet to find a camping spot for the night. I unearthed Doris from the grandfather clocks and ladder-back chairs, thanked the shopkeeper for her kindness, and we rushed out to get our bikes.

Swiftly biking along, we entered Westfield, a quaint small town with a broad shady street. The houses were spacious, comfortable and inviting. We stopped at a small grocery store to buy provisions. While busily deciding the cheapest and best brand of cereals and looking over the grapefruit and carrots, we overheard two customers who were leaning over the counter.

"The radio says it’s acomin’ right across Penn, taking down houses and trees, and people gittin’ hurt, too!"

"Where’s it ever goin’ to, Mrs. Johnson?"

"I don’t know. Probably we’ll get a little of it over here ourselves."

"Think I’ll go right home and close up the windows. Might just as well take precautions."

Indeed, the sky was getting darker and darker. We quickly paid for our purchases and set off. Turning north at the signal, we headed for the lake, but a short distance from the town we came to a stop at a farmhouse. It met our specifications exactly - a huge red barn with a prosperous hayloft and a pump next to the house.

A kind farm lady answered our knock. It was my turn to do the inquiring so I explained. "We’re on a camping trip, biking through the countryside. It looks like we’re in for a rainstorm tonight, and we wondered if we might sleep in your hayloft."

"It seems to me that a hayloft would be a mighty uncomfortable place to sleep in," she said. "I’m sorry I can’t offer you a bed in the house here, but my daughter is visiting with her baby. Just a minute. I’ll call John."

The barn door rolled back and John emerged carrying a basket of freshly laid eggs. "Certainly," was his answer. "As long as you don’t use matches the barn is yours for the night."

We rolled the barn door back farther to light the interior. What a spacious guest room! A wheelbarrow to lay out our breakfast, bars to hang our laundry, and a well-padded hayloft for us alone!

Doris swung up the ladder and I tossed the bedrolls up to her. Then we pounced around on the hay and stacked it into springy beds. The storm seemed far enough away. Surely there would be time enough to eat dinner, maybe even to take a swim. We rolled out our bikes again and went down the road and through a field until we came to a barren spot on the cliff. The stone went straight down to the jagged rocks below. The waves splashed up and broke into white foam.

Now the drops of rain were beginning to fall, but we gathered sticks for the fire and cut up the potatoes and carrots. Eventually the fire blazed and the water boiled feebly. We ate in our bathing suits with one eye on the southeastern sky and the other on the flame beneath the dishwater. At last we were all through and ready to go down into the water for a quick dip.

Taking our soap and towels, we cautiously climbed down the shale embankment, hooking our feet in the ridges where the shale had broken. We threw off our bathing suits and proceeded to the middle of the stream, ankle deep in warm water. Our songs vibrated through the ravine as we lathered and splashed.

Lake Erie looked formidable along the horizon. A stout wind pushed the black clouds across the sky until the blue was dissolved into low-hanging balls of darkness. Approaching us from across the lake came a veil of rain. It came as a curtain, leaving a churning wake behind it and breaking up the calm reflection before it. There was a sudden blast of thunder. The wind began to weep and wail, and a torrent of rain flung itself on us in a beating needle shower. The clouds were losing their reserves, the blackness was gone, but an eerie white light illuminated the sky, casting all earthly things in a dark shadow. The banks were hardly visible, except for a few trees curved with the wind, their branches sweeping to the ground. I struggled into my bathing suit and snatched after my case of soap as the wind blew it away. Turning to climb the foothold we had used in descent, I found a tumultuous waterfall of brown mud sweeping over the cliff. The current of the stream was forced to reverse itself as volumes of water tumbled in torrents through the narrow neck from the lake.

We were caught! We yelled back and forth to one another over the pounding storm. "What can we do? Are you all right?"

"Mouse, what’s happening to our bikes? Our bikes! Our bikes! I said, our bikes, our bikes! Will they be swept over the cliff?"

"What? It’s a cyclone! We’ve got to get up! Come on over here."

Doris motioned me over and we started digging our hands and feet into the mud wall gradually gaining height. Then, goaded with that spurt of energy that comes with fright, we scaled the embankment.

Our equipment was strewn all over. The corn flakes were sprinkled all about. A grapefruit had rolled several yards away. The carrots lay near the cooking kits and our water-filled rubbers. We righted the capsized bicycles and began to put things away helter skelter. Everything was soaked. Then Doris stood up and flourished her arm above her head.

"Here it is... the only thing that’s dry! Can you beat that?" She was holding aloft the precious package of Mother Weed’s Noodle Soup!

The corn field was a river of mud, a thick creamy mass rushing to spill over the cliff. With the path completely lost, we waded up to our knees in the mud in the general direction of the road. Mud worked under the fenders of the bikes and covered the tires; silt oozed between our toes. Never were the paved road and green lawn so welcome.

The cyclone had done its damage, leaving behind its victorious rainbow. We spent the rest of the afternoon scrubbing and polishing our bicycles under the pump.

And so, into a good dry hayloft to sleep. This was the second day. Somehow it seemed that our perseverance was being tested. One consolation: tonight there would be no mosquitoes!

It was the scratching and cackling of the chickens that woke us up. The room opposite us was alive with noises. The rooster crowed and from within came the whirring and flapping of wings of a hundred chickens. The barn was still dark and the rain was beating on the roof.

Daylight soon came and with it the feeble rays of sunlight. I watched the little flocks of dust revolve around the beam of sunshine that streamed through the broken pane. The slightest movement of the hay and puffs of dust danced up the beam, spun around, and came to rest again. We did not emerge from our bed rolls until late in the morning, and then lazily put on our slacks and sweat shirts.

After breakfast we went over to the farmhouse. They very hospitably let us dry our shoes and towels on the parlor heater. There, lying on the table, was our old favorite Larry. We used to read it by firelight at camp. Curled up in a big leather chair by the coal stove, with feet tucked under me and the familiar Larry in my lap, I wondered at the safety and security of two Mice along the road. After the excitement we had passed through the night before, here lay comfort and friends. Dried and packed we started on the road once again. Today we would put on miles and reach the state line. It was now 3:00 p.m. and we sped along the highway toward the Pennsylvania border. In the late afternoon we had biked eighteen miles to the northeast county of Pennsylvania.

Barns, we decided through two nights’ experiences, were the best places to roll out our sleeping bags. Consequently, at sundown we rolled up to a red brick farmhouse and asked permission. This time it was granted by a young man, Johnny Phillips. Our mattress for this night was to be alfalfa, freshly mown and sweet-smelling. I climbed into the tractor parked at the barn door, intending to write the day’s journey in my log, when Johnny came whistling down the path. He stopped to pull off a cluster of cherries and tossed some to us.

"That’s a good looking outfit you have to carry you along," he said, swinging atop one of the tractor’s hard rubber wheels. "Where did you get the idea of going on such a trip?"

Johnny was a Penn State graduate, an Alpha Zeta, and he was a typical college boy - well built, ruddy faced, and bursting with pride for his Alma Mater and his fraternity. We all sat on the tractor dangling our feet over the sides and chewing on hay. Johnny was explaining about college.

"You see, this farm is 850 acres, so I decided if I was ever going to run it, I would have to go to an agricultural school. So, that’s what I did. The state paid most of my tuition and that helped cut down on the expenses. You see, this is mainly a fruit farm - fruit, trees and vineyards. That means you have to know a lot about insecticides and farm equipment."

"Yes," Doris said, "I know what you mean. I went to a state college myself, and they have an excellent ag. department. That’s one thing we’re learning on this trip. People have been so wonderful to us. They open their barns to us and want us to stay in their homes. They give us milk, dry out our wet clothes and give us parental advice for our trip. The people of the United States are pretty fine. We’re finding that out."

We had drifted from one conversation to another when I glanced around and said, "Look how dark it’s getting. We’d better be hitting the hay."

"You don’t mean this early," Johnny said. "It’s Saturday night and I’m going into town. How about letting me show you around? Let’s go to a movie."

"Thanks a lot, Johnny, but Poppy is right. We’ve got to start early tomorrow and that means a good night’s sleep. How about doing up the town for us, too?"

Johnny swung into the car and rolled down the drive. We jumped from the tractor and began to fix our beds in the alfalfa. Suddenly, a little old man appeared. He had gray hair, a wrinkled face and watery blue eyes. "Well now, what have we got here?" he asked.

We explained our presence.

"What?" he asked. "Girls sleeping in a barn? Well I declare. Now aren’t you afraid to sleep in a barn? You’re not? Well glory be! I tell ye what you do. You foller me... come on now... foller me right down these stairs."

We followed the little man named George down the steps, past the rows of cows and into the milk room. He began to fill large cups with rich creamy milk.

"This is just what you need to put some red into your cheeks. Make you feel peppy." And we did feel good. We felt like robust examples of perfect health. We thanked our friend and said goodnight. Then we climbed into the loft.

"Well, Mouse, this is Pennsylvania. Tomorrow we’ll be in Erie."

Doris put the last pin into the last curl. "Yep, and tomorrow’s Sunday. Well, I’m for some shuteye. Night, Mouse. Happy dreams."

I turned over and thought about all the things that had happened. If all that happened in three days, what would the rest of the summer be like?

The next morning the rays of sunshine filtered through the dusty cracked windows. A small black and white kitten had curled up on Doris’s chest and went up and down in regular time to her breathing. Another stretched its warm body across my feet.

"Morning Mouse," came from the bedroll near me. "Today’s Sunday, and isn’t it a beautiful day?" She freed an arm, stretched out from the hole and unzipped herself. We gathered up our tooth brushes and towels and hiked downstairs, past the sleeping cows and into the milk room. Breakfast on this morning was quite domestic. One of the hired men let us poach our eggs on his gas range and, for the first time, our kettles needed no scouring on the bottom.

Doris and I were on our knees rolling our bags into the smallest size we could when a friendly "Hello" greeted us over the rail. It was George, the hired man, coming to say goodbye.

"I’ve been on the road myself," he said. And he told us how he used to bum, hop freight trains, and win bike races. He had us quite convinced that we belonged to the same order of hobos as he. "You sure are going to make some hobo a good wife," was his last remark. He flipped us each a quarter saying, "You’ll probably need it." We were thoroughly initiated. We looked the part; we were taken in by a member; we were given a handout. Yes... we were hobos, because we are, as George put it, "on the road ourselves."

We left Johnny’s farm at 7:20 and arrived in Erie at 10:00. Erie was quiet and peaceful that morning. The church bells were ringing and well dressed people were waiting on the street corners for buses to take them to Sunday services. We headed for a gasoline station where we could change into our non-wrinkle dresses and comb out our hair before attending church.

Then, after riding around past several churches, we picked out the one with the most interesting sermon title and entered. The log account of it reads:

After church, we rode out to the peninsula jutting into Lake Erie, cooked our lunch, and wrote letters on the seawall. All of the people who had shown us hospitality were written notes of appreciation. As the heat of the day subsided, we once again headed west.

The only equipment our bicycles lacked were odometers to record our mileage. Wartime measures had taken them off the market, so we trusted to luck that we might find one on a dusty shelf or even a secondhand one along the way. Inquiries at the auto stores were fruitless.

Now, bent along the highway en route to Ashtabula, we came upon a one-story gray shop with a sign "Bicycle Repairs" hanging in the window. Rusty frames and bike parts leaned against the window from within. The shop was closed for Sunday. We stood peering in, wondering at the prospects of finding an odometer, when a short, fat man appeared around the corner of the shop. It was DeMarco, the man we wanted to see.

"Bike odometers? You’ll never get one of those. Are you girls going very far?" We explained our journey and he immediately became enthralled. "Say now, that calls for something more than leg muscle. I’d like you to come in a meet my wife." The little kitchen was permeated with the smell of garlic and meatballs. "You’re going to stay for dinner," he was deciding for us. "My wife makes the best spaghetti, and we’ll have plenty of beer. Beer is good on a hot day like this." Although the invitation was tempting, we declined in the hope of making more mileage before the day was over. We filled our canteens with fresh water and departed. Afterward, we regretted that we had not accepted. After all, we had no time limit. Why were we rushing?

By evening we arrived in the city of Ashtabula, Ohio. Another state line crossed and our first destination was the telephone booth. We had promised that we would call home on Sunday.

Buffalo rang our number. Someone on the other end lifted the receiver. "Hello Mom," I said excitedly. "Here are your two bikers in Ashtabula, Ohio. Of course we’re all right, Mom, except for very burned noses." I reeled off the list of things we had planned to say. "No, we haven’t any blisters. Yes, I do wear my rubbers. People are very kind to us and there is no need to worry."

I turned to Doris. "They still want to send us train tickets."

"Oh, tell them we are just ‘bums on the plush,’" Doris replied. "If we need any trail stake they can help us out."

The operator called time. The nickels jangled into the box. The voices that carried us home were gone.

Months before we embarked, our friends bonded in a mutual attempt to discourage our trip. "Foolishness!" they called it.

"How are you going to live in one dress all summer? And where on earth will you do your laundry?"

"What’ll you do when there’s no creek to take a bath in?"

"Don’t think you can always make a wet wood fire in the pouring rain."

"I know. You’ll get to Gowanda and wire home for some blister ointment and a feather pillow, and then beg somebody to take your seat and let you stand up on the bus." "Good Lord! A whole summer without mail. I’d die if I didn’t know when Bud’s unit got shipped out."

"Imagine not hearing the top jive on Hit Parade for a whole summer!"

They pelted us with a myriad of queries. We had answers to all of them... well, at least most of them. And for those unanswered, we would trust to the luck we hoped we possessed.

One dress nothing. We were equipped for rain, sun, snow, and swimming. Riding along the road in shorts, letting the wind blow through the toes of my huraches was the coolest form of travel. But those brisk mornings, which were very few, found us bundled in dungarees and thick sweat shirts. And every time we dug for the camera... out fell the rubbers.

What if it was storming? Hadn’t we always found shelter on our hikes before? If we could light a fire on one match, why worry about a little rain?

Maybe we were over confident. Maybe our egos were dangerously expanding. We didn’t wonder; we didn’t worry. We trusted an inner feeling of safety and strength in our independence.

And so it was that on June 26 we were to answer one of those questions. This was the day we were to pick up our mail, general delivery, at the post office at Painesville, Ohio. The post office was a beauty. It was white and modern, and to us it seemed the ultimate of American democracy.

We climbed the steps, passed through the glass doors, and inquired at the window, "Any mail for Popp and Roy, General Delivery?" Hopefully, we watched him reach for the mail in the pigeon holes under "P" and "R".

Thumbing through them, he laid aside some letters. "Roy and Popp?" he inquired again. "Three letters and a post card for you."

We grabbed them up and swung out the door. Like children saving the frosting until last, we went through the business of ordering chocolate sodas in the drug store before we broke the seals. We read them, re-read them, and read them to each other. What a time our parents were having! The war news was almost forgotten, and in its place were maps of the United States sprawled on the tables with the route of the "Two Wandering Mice" recorded. After the mailman arrived, the telephone between the Roy and Popp families was buzzing. Wonderful parents to even bother with such foolish adventurers!

When we entered Painesville, we had passed over a high bridge spanning the Grand River. The swim we had waited for was beckoning far below. Skirting around the edge of the cliff, we watched for a break in the iron rail that might lead to a pathway below, but the drop was sheer and only a few dwarfed bushes clung to the sides. "Let’s go back to the bridge," I said. "There should be a way of getting around the bridge by the abutment."

So we circled back to the huge bridge that spanned the river. Here the land around the abutment that held up the western span of the bridge sloped more gently to the shoreline.

Doris had already dismounted and was trampling through the underbrush in search of a path. "Here it is!" she yelled from under some bramble bushes. "It’ll be tough taking our bicycles down this incline, but I don’t think we should leave them up here."

"Lead and I follow," I exclaimed, pushing my bicycle into the thicket. It was a struggle going down the steep incline through rock heaps and broken glass. The bicycles gathered momentum and strained at our grasp. And then we came out of the tall weeds to the shadow of the concrete foundation. It was cool and moist. The rumblings of the trucks and autos above echoed off the concrete walls. Doris was taking off the straps of her saddle bags and clothes were flying left and right.

"Look where you’re throwing them, Mouse, right into the sand." "Exactly," said Doris, "I’m going to give them a good scrubbing. Have you forgotten that we’ll be in Cleveland tomorrow? I’d hate to have to see a movie in my bathing suit."

I was content to sit and dig my toes into the cool wet sand. The river was warm and lazy. I was feeling lazy, too. I had to admit it was a perfect laundry. Doris was sitting on a big rock in the middle of the river. I got up and splashed my way out to sit beside her on the warm rock and laundered my clothes, too.

"Ablutions of a hobo. And to think housewives have to keep changing the water all the time!"

The evening was cool as we passed through the town. Families rocked in the dark green coolness of the porches. Hoses sent up a shower of spiraling drops that fell, pelting the green grass. Little puddles on the walk mirrored faces looking down: children laughing upside down.

Next to the curb stood a huge chocolate soda four feet high. It welcomed the passerby into the white-tiled creamery. Doris glanced at me.

"Are you awfully thirsty?" I asked.

"I guess I don’t need another invitation."

More coolness inside. We stood before a refrigerated counter containing bottles of milk and cream. A man was polishing a row of glasses.

"A quart of milk, please," said Doris.

"And two large glasses," I added.

A little mystified, the man handed us the quart of milk and two soda glasses. We sat down in a little booth next to the front window. The man, still polishing the glasses, turned to watch us. Doris shook the bottle and poured the ice cold creamy milk into the tall glasses.

"Fill ‘er up." I held out my glass. "Then I can take the bottle back and get the three cents."

We drained it down to the last drop.

The little man swung the towel over his shoulder and clapping his hands to his hips, shook his head. "Well, I never... twelve years I’ve been seeing people drink milk here, but I’ve never see it go like that."

We went out on the sidewalk. I looked at the sky. "We’d better think about bunking." When I said that innocent word, "bunking," we realized only its connotation, a place to sleep, even maybe a comfortable place to sleep. We had been very lucky and had no cause to worry.

Suddenly it was dark and we could find no barns. The stars were all out. It was warm. There was a little school house in a large field. Why not just camp outside? So we unrolled our sleeping bags in the field under the stars in back of the school.

Beware of fields! Beware of fields on a warm summer night! Our bedrolls were very warm. They came from Iceland, so they should be. The night was warm, too. There was no breeze. We laid on top of the rolls under the light cover we had made for them. And then it began.

A hum... a drone... a little black spot hovering between me and the sky. There were millions of them - mosquitoes! They swarmed over us, and mosquito netting did no good. Our arms itched, our legs itched, our feet itched, our faces itched... and still they kept at us. There was only one thing to do - retreat to the hot bed roll. Up came the zipper, down went the head. It was stifling! Sweat began to trickle down my face; my hands were clammy. I peeked out of the hole and saw them still there, still waiting to continue the feast. The moon swung in a great arc. It must have been at least three a.m. The humming of the pests continued.

"Never again shall I spend a night like this!" I thought. "Soon it will be morning. Morning must come sooner or later."

I felt cramped, my back ached, my whole body itched, my face was swollen, and it was hot. Somehow under those conditions I fell asleep, and in the morning I was breathing cool air. It was quiet. The monstrous demons of the night before had disappeared.

Soon we were biking along the road, singing at the top of our voices. We felt good now. The wilting arms of the willows spread a cool archway over the highway. We pedaled through its sun-flecked shadows.

All the songs we had learned as Camp Fire Girls seemed to find their proper place on the open road. Pedaling side by side we kept up an endless stream of songs fitting the blue of the morning, fitting the white of the highway, fitting the wind in our faces, fitting the gypsy song in our hearts.

Willowby was our breakfast stop. At 8:00 a.m. the townspeople were preparing for the business day ahead. Brooms swept the papers fluttering to the curb. Water splashed from the window washers’ buckets and ran in little streams down to the curb. A white-aproned clerk piled pyramids of golden oranges against the window. Beneath was the freshly-painted sign, "Oranges - 5 cents." We went inside and bought the two biggest oranges we could find.

The village square was a convenient breakfast spot. We lined up the meal on a park bench. The bran flakes were dry, the oranges pithy. I chopped off another lump from the petrified sugar in the bag. It had weathered the storm, too. Then we filled our canteens at the gas station to wash cups and spoons.

Now we were on our way to Cleveland. Today we would hit our first really big city. We would be "bums on the plush"... sleeping in beds, eating in restaurants, seeing a movie. These things, we discovered, would be well earned. That sun we had greeted in the morning was now high in the sky and baked down on us.

Before entering Cleveland from the east, there is a long stretch of road without trees and with heavy traffic. We pedaled along for a long time, rationing out our precious water. The ultimate effort that day was crossing the viaducts that are near the large baseball park.

But now we were in the city. The streets seemed jammed. The houses were close together. And it was so hot! As we biked along the streets, people turned to look at us and car horns honked, but now we were veteran hobos. We were hardened to the stares of the public.

We saw a man standing on a street corner. He had on a blue uniform with a bright silver shield. People everywhere know him as a "cop," but this should be corrected, for he has another name; he is an "angel." Above his head, although he does not know it’s there, and although some people do not see it, is a halo. We have placed it there because we think he earns it.

From day to day, from town to town, he patiently and cheerfully imparted his information to us.

"Route 42? Well, you see that red stop light down there girls? Just turn to the right there and keep on going. Good luck!"

"Post Office? Why sure, I was going that way myself. Come on along."

"A place to swim? Well you look as if you could really use a swim! Now I’ll tell you, just go down this street...."

Yes, those cops deserve those yellow bands up there above those blue-visored caps. So when we saw this angel standing on a street corner, we naturally sidled over to the curb and greeted him.

"Well, look what we’ve got here!" He exclaimed. "You look like health poster girls! YWCA? Sure, that’ll be easy to find." His hearty voice boomed out directions, and his hands gestured the turns and number of blocks. We thanked his grace and took our leave to the city "Y".

The comfort of white sheets and springs kept us in bed to such an hour on June 28 that all hobo rules were infracted. From the window I looked down upon the maelstrom of the city. Crowds circled the buildings and taxis, trucks and cars moved and halted to the rhythmic scheme of lights. The trolley swayed to a stop and workers stuffed themselves behind the door. Theater lights blinked above the enormous exaggerated pictures of the actors. Mothers, half running to escape the change in prices, towed their children inside.

A gigantic watch hung over the jeweler’s shop. Its hands beat out the movement of the throng. It jerked to the minute, disregarding the seconds between time and rush, rush and time. I moved away from the window feeling tightened and strained, yet amused at their aimless way.

In our freshly-laundered clothes and tight curls, we wove in and out of the parked cars to the southern end of the city. The sight of the markets reminded us of the breakfast we had passed up. Mounds of fruit were heaped up on carts along the curb. We questioned the prices and asked for two oranges. The huckster surveyed our outfits, grinned a toothless grin, and handing four oranges to us he said, "I’ve been on the road myself!"

The rough brick pavement, the veil of smoke, the line of heavy trucks and stop lights proved an obstacle course for us until we reached the open country again. And still the heat did not let up. We wanted to make up for the morning we lost, but the wheels turned slowly. Doris was walking her bicycle up the hill. I stopped to drain my canteen. Drops of perspiration stood out on my arms. My nose tightened from the burn.

It was useless to pedal further. We stopped at a gasoline station and stretched out on the lawn in the cool shade. The heat of the afternoon was intolerable. Little did we know then that the temperature was 102°F, and we had gone thirty-five miles! A barn one mile outside of Medina, Ohio, was our quarters for the night. The quart of fresh milk the farmer’s wife brought us was all we could drink after the strenuous day.

* * *



June 29, 1944

On June 29 our log reads:

After continuing about six miles, we dismounted to push our bicycles up a steep hill. A heavy truck slowed at the base of the hill, shifted into second gear and met us at the top. Hearing the truck slow down, we turned to see what the driver wanted. A smiling face topped with a shock of blond hair was thrust through the window. "G’morning girls. Is it tough pushin’?"

"Yes sir," we agreed. "We didn’t think we’d find many hills on this road."

"You’re going to find a bunch of them from here to Delaware. They’re building a new road about fifteen miles from here that should be more level. They’ll be workin’ on it today, though, so you may have to take a bumpy detour."

Doris and I groaned at the thought of another day like the one we just passed through. "How would you like a lift?" he asked. "I’ve just delivered a load of hogs and am on my way back home to Delaware."

We were to find our next mail in Delaware. There was temptation, although we thought it would be sort of cheating. We stepped around to the rear of the truck. The slatted sides of the truck enclosed a floor of mud stamped down by a score of pigs. We wondered whether we would be a reasonable facsimile to haul back!

"Sure," we decided. "We’ll go along with you to Delaware. That’s just the place we’re headed for, too."

The driver pulled the truck off onto a siding and climbed into the trailer. He unloosened some straps on the side and said, "Hand up your bike and I’ll strap it to the side."

He leaned over precariously while two of us hoisted the bicycles up to him. How genial he was to offer us a ride and then obligingly haul our bicycles with us. With our bikes secured, we crawled into the cab beside Bob, holding the kettles and knives that would have tipped out in the trailer.

Never before had we appreciated the effortless travel of a car. On the way up every incline my leg tensed and I felt like helping the truck to make the grade. We took turns shouting above the roar of the motor and proceeded to learn about the "Big White" we were traveling in, the four shifts in the truck’s gears, and about the $1,700 worth of rubber in one outfit.

"Once in a while I take my boy on one of these trips," Bob said.

"How old is your boy?" we asked, as soon as we learned about Bob’s little girl and boy, and his wife. We found out that a good trucking job paid well and was secure. "It’s hard to get used to," he said. "You have strange hours and have to catch up on your sleep when you can get it."

Another large truck was approaching from the opposite direction. Bob honked his horn. The other driver honked his in answer. They both waved. We were learning a new code of the road.

We were now on the very summit of the range of hills when suddenly a large city appeared in the valley before us. What was a city of that size doing here? Then we saw the coils of smoke and the numerous factories - war production!

"How about a place to eat at girls?" Bob asked. "This is my usual stopping off place. Come on in. I’ll introduce you around."

We were now to enter a trucker’s stopping off place. We learned that wherever there are many trucks in one spot, you will be sure to find good food.

We sat down at the counter and gazed at the friendly smile of Tiny. Tiny was big - big in every direction. She was the wisecracking waitress who made everyone forget their monotonous night of driving. She was the one who listened to the fellows’ troubles. "Where’s Joe?" she asked. "Haven’t seen him around lately. Had an accident? Not hurt, too? And he with a wife and kid." She filled a cup of coffee and managed to turn around in the crowded space behind the counter. "Nice boy, Joe. Oh, he’ll be back soon. Can’t keep one of these hard boiled truck drivers down!"

Everyone laughed at that, for these truck drivers were not "Hard boiled." They had heavy jobs and hard hours, but they also had families and children, and they had their troubles and their happiness. They were an important part of the makeup of these United States.

Our shelter for the night was again a warm, comfortable barn. No matter how spacious a barn might be, it is always cozy. Perhaps that is because with so few windows it is dimly lit. Then the musty fragrance of the hay and alfalfa makes it a homey place.

A barn is warm. If it is quiet, you are completely at rest in an atmosphere of reflection and comfort. If the chickens are fluttering about and cackling and the cows are shifting in their yokes, you feel the warm comfort of your animal neighbors.

I sat outside the barn door. The cool breeze of evening wafted across my warm face. Beyond the hedge row and the wheat fields, clouds floated in the sea of crimson sunset.

Doris sat with her back to a leaning ash tree, with pen poised beneath her tilted chin and writing case open in her lap. She, too, gazed at the beauty beyond. Wonderful friend, Mouse. Wonder who else would partner an adventure like this. A shuffle of footsteps came through the tall grass. It was Mrs. Gruber coming from the farm house.

"Good evening girls," she said, touching the knot that tightly held the grayed hair from her forehead. "Won’t you come in and join us before the mosquitoes eat you up?" Her tiny eyes peered at us through the heavy bifocals. A furrow for every worry creased her brow. We heartily obliged and followed her up the flagstone path to the screen door.

"Down Shep, down," a voice from within warned, and a big white sheep dog brushed past us as the door opened.

Mrs. Gruber ushered us through the kitchen into her living room. It was one of those rooms boasting the final payment on the modern chair that fought with the Boston rocker. Grandfather hung in a six-inch gilt frame over the bouquet of faded paper roses. A China doll dressed in red feathers, the latest prize in a bingo game, balanced on the edge of the window sill. It was all neat and clean, but one colossal failure at interior decoration.

"How would you like some ice cream?" a smiling face questioned from around the kitchen door.

"Come in and meet the girls, Clare," motioned Mrs. Gruber. "This is my daughter Clare. She’s living with us while her husband is in the army. My daughter-in-law is living here, too, while John fights in the Pacific."

She rose and went over to the mantel where a row of pictures stood. Bringing them over to us she said, "These are my sons." Four uniformed boys smiled in their paper frames. "The boy you saw driving the tractor this evening is the only one I have left. He’s just nine years old. I don’t know what we’ll do for help on the farm. We lost six acres of corn after the last hail storm."

Her nervous fingers fidgeted with the spoon as we dug into the heaped bowls of ice cream. The mention of the war and her sons deepened the lines of her face. She toyed with the mound of cream.

"It’s been so long now. My only happiness of the day seems to be the sight of the mailman filling the box. There’s Clare’s husband," she said pointing to a picture on a low table. "All of them in it - spare nobody," she murmured.

In vain we attempted to divert the discussion to a more cheerful topic, but rigidly she stuck to her own thoughts.

"I suppose you have sweethearts in the army, too?"

"Yes, we have friends over there," we nodded our heads.

She seized upon our answers. "Where were they? Maybe they knew her boys! No, they were in different armies. There are a lot of men in the army."

After hopefully reassuring her the war would be over soon, we retreated over the damp grass to the barn. It had grown dark, and we felt our way around the hayrack to the corner where our bicycles stood. I unscrewed the flashlight clamped to the handlebar and swung the beam around in search of the pump. We found a water tap next to the cow’s stall.

"This is a perfect bathroom," Doris said, swinging her towel up on the cow’s yoke. "Nothing like having milk bar and powder room combined!"

I ran some water into my cup for my toothbrush. Moonlight flooded through the barn door, so I turned off the flashlight. As I was leaning over the pig pen vigorously brushing my teeth, I heard Doris splashing in her cup of water, then a crunch, then a groan.

"What’s happened, Mouse?" I cried.

"Oh, those confounded glasses. I forgot where I laid them on the floor and stepped on them."

We were both Blind Mice without our glasses, so I could sympathize with her loss. After gathering up the pieces, we groped our way back to our bed rolls.

June 30th was the ideal day. Each day had its pleasure, its adventure and happiness, but the memory of this day has been filed away with those of rarity. We pick it out when we want to relive a beautiful day - a sunny one, with a cool breeze, a blue sky, and the fragrant aroma of open country.

If we want to think about exercise, we remember a long, broad, white highway stretching miles ahead of us, level and smooth. We can feel our legs pumping rhythmically so that soon it becomes a mechanical force. We are in motion - a continuous motion that feels comfortable. The road slips beneath our wheels. The pebbles and gravel along the side of the road become a blur. We are going someplace and we are happy in our effort.

That day we saw the United States. We saw green fields - miles and miles of green fields leading off to the horizon. And across the fields came a stampede of hogs. The hogs were fat, sleek, clean. They jostled along, racing to keep up with each other. Then suddenly they would stop alongside a fence or in the shade of a tree. "What ho there... get along," we shouted to them across the field. And they would start pounding the earth again. Big calico hogs rooted along the fence and scrambled through the rows of corn to keep abreast of the bicycles. Little ones squealed and raced to keep up.

More green fields. More sleek and prosperous hogs for miles and miles of rich, fertile land. We saw the fields of yellow corn, tall and waving in the sun and breeze. There were no houses, no barns. This was the great hog and corn belt of Ohio.

Farther along, two white horses with manes flowing galloped along the fence beside us. It was times like these that Doris and I rode along silently, seeing and feeling all the things that were happening about us.

Trees were sparse, but when we did find one along the road, we took advantage of its shade and the tall grasses below. That was meant to be a short relaxation, but it turned out to be a long nap there by the side of the road. How much a part of the earth we were then! How independent of people and all their accessories. No one else would stop beneath this tree and see it as we did. Oh yes, they would drive by at fifty miles an hour and say, "We have seen it." But in their rush they would have missed the stoney silence of a scene filled with nothing but earth and sky. They would have missed the unmistakable fragrance of a breeze wafting over acres of growing things and the color of wheat under the shadow of a passing cloud.

This was the time we realized that our method of travel was the best. Under our slow pedaling, nothing escaped us, from the change of the pavement at the county lines to the gradual change of the speech dialect from North to South.

If we wanted to talk to someone in a field, we just pedaled over and dismounted. If we were tired, we just curled up under the nearest tree and slept. Bicycle hobos were we!

When we read history, we look back on our ideal day and think how much better it is to seek out the history, to be wide awake and feel the romance of a nearby situation.

I was the first to notice the houses. "Look, houses without shades and not painted either. That seems strange."

I saw an immaculate farm yard, a fence, a gate and a clean driveway. The windows of the house sparkled. Ornaments here would be superfluous. The very cleanliness was beauty.

There were more houses, and then we saw an owner. He emerged from the house - tall, lean, bearded, wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Two healthy, robust children were following him. Their hair was trimmed as though patterned around an overturned bowl. Long bangs framed their foreheads and blue eyes sparkled from beneath. What was all the cleanliness, orderliness and simplicity? We found the answer. This was an Amish settlement.

Many such colonies as this one began in Ohio before the Civil War. Some groups came from Pennsylvania, others from Virginia. In 1767 Christian Blanch founded a settlement near the headwaters of the Ohio, and many Amish drifted from there and established new colonies in the nearby states.

Then, in 1852, a congregation from Pennsylvania was organized in Ohio by Ephraim Hunsberger. Many of these Amish colonies moved on to Indiana and Illinois, but here was a group that remained with their faith, beliefs and customs intact around Plain City, Ohio.

We decided to call on our Amish neighbors. Perhaps we could have our lunch on one of their lawns. We approached the side entrance of one of the farms. It was the kitchen, and it seemed overflowing with people. We were warmly greeted and the mistress of the house explained the great activity.

"We are having a community dinner after church and all of the women have gathered here to clean chicken and help prepare the meal. Yes, certainly you may have your lunch here. There is a nice shady tree beyond the hedge."

These were indeed the friendly people.

When we dream of easy domesticity, we see again that afternoon siesta beneath the shady tree just beyond the hedge. Put cheese and lettuce together for sandwiches, pour the creamy milk from the canteen, open a can of fruit, unwrap a candy bar and behold! We have a delicious lunch. And there in the soft grass we darn socks - the only two pair we have - sew the only button on the only pair of overalls and we are finished.

Voila! This is the life! Stretch out full length and relax, listen to the birds sing, watch the clouds float by. No troubles, no worries, no cares. Just be happy and be glad to be alive.

A friend wandered into our ideal day. We found him that afternoon in the lovely town of London. But did we find him or did he find us? Doris and I were standing on a street corner with our bikes when he came along. He was an elderly gentleman especially interested in our bikes, and we were especially interested in him.

"Now where would you be going with those bikes?" he questioned. We dropped all false pretenses and came right out and said, "to the Mississippi!" His eyes twinkled. "I know that river. I used to work right near her on the Ohio. I could tell you a lot about it. Come on in and have a bite to eat with me, won’t you please?"

We did. We had met John L. Park, a guard at the prison farm nearby. We discussed our past experiences and he helped mold our future ones.

"There are still many boats on the Ohio and Mississippi," he assured us. "Why don’t you girls buy a Johnny boat and go down the river a’ways? You can pick up a John boat anywhere around there."

More romance! More adventure! We mentally decided to find out what a John boat was, buy one and proceed down the river.

"The very best of luck to you girls," our friend said in parting, "and drop me a card to let me know how you are getting on."

Our conception of a perfect day includes an event that is different and exciting. This day was not without it. We remember how the twilight gathered and how we pedaled along the road just outside London, Ohio, searching for a night’s lodging. But alas! It was Saturday night. The farmers had all gone to town, and there was no one of whom we could ask shelter. It was getting darker and darker. We knew we must find a place somewhere.

Then one of our ambitions was realized - to be just as sacrilegious as we could and sleep in a cemetery. There wasn’t much of a choice in the matter this evening, and Doris was willing.

Kirkwood Cemetery, just outside of London, was a hilly little "bone orchard" surrounded by an iron grilling. The gate was open. We picked a bunch of posies, to look more appreciative, and we rolled past the caretaker’s house. Toward the back of the cemetery the monuments grew larger, the trees more enveloping, and ourselves more obscure.

"Let’s take a look around," said Doris, hopping from her bicycle. I followed her over the slope, surveying the habitats of the Smiths, the Wolfes, and their ancestors.

"Look at that skyscraper over there, Mouse," I said, pointing to a tall monument. "That’s not cozy enough to sleep under though."

"Let’s pick out a nice respectable family and spend the night with them," Doris suggested. "How would the Kanes do? No, they have a daughter still living. She might walk in and request her plot at any time. Here’s a family of six with the aunts and uncles thrown in. No, that’s too crowded. How does this suit you over here, Mouse?" On a knoll a giant evergreen spread its branches over the large granite monument of the Harrison family plot. Soft green grass sloped toward the drive. I surveyed the location to give my thorough approval. It faced the setting sun, a fancy white bench leaned against the tree, and isn’t that a pump I see through the tombstones? All the conveniences. So near to heaven and rent free!

"Well, let’s move in," said Doris. We hauled our bicycles up the slope, leaned them against the tombstone and untied the bedrolls. There were two headstones at the foot of a grave marked "Father" and "Mother."

"Choose the one you want, Mouse. A soft spot for a change, eh? No sticks or stones, just bones!" Doris was sitting on a neighbor’s tombstone putting up her hair. We never neglected our good neighbor policy. I shut my eyes just for the effect - just like home. I opened them. A breeze caught the G.A.R. flags on some of the graves. Doris’s sleeping bag looked like a mummy case. What if the caretaker came around to check the cemetery? He’d run a mile. We might even start a ghost legend of London - Angels on bicycles!

I rolled over and looked up at the engraving: "Benjamin Harrison... Died 1885." I paid my respects to him and shut my eyes.

I opened one eye slowly. A forest of gray obelisks surrounded me, and the early rays of sunlight elongated their spindly shadows. A caravan of ants kept up their steady trek over my sleeping bag, their massive shadows marching along beside them. I opened the other eye slowly. Doris was still asleep in her sack. I slipped out and dressed quickly. The pump was not far away, so I gathered up my toilet articles and set about the morning scrub-up. Brushing teeth over a tombstone would have been an uncanny sight for any early morning cemetery visitor, and to have someone find me standing there with one foot under the pump would have been quite embarrassing. Fortunately, I had no such experience, and when I returned to our family plot, Doris was already up.

"How was your night?" I inquired.

A growling yawn and a long stretch was her first response. Then she replied, "I feel like a mummy. Those ants trooped in and out all night."

"Well let’s pack up and move out of here before they hand us a shovel."

This morning we had business to attend to. We immediately contacted the postmaster in the town of London and soon all the workers of the post office were aware that an important package containing a pair of glasses was to arrive in the mail that day. In fact, every hour we appeared at the package window and were informed, "Not on this train, girls. Try the next one at 9:30."

This period of waiting was not an unproductive one. We had breakfast on a sunny patch of grass in the town park. We rode up and down the London streets waving greetings to the townsfolk who now accepted us as a customary part of the community. We shopped in the "Five and Tens" and bakery shops; we feasted on our cheese sandwiches on the steps of the county building.

At twelve noon the post office closed, but the remaining workers were still pulling for us. As soon as the glasses arrived, one of the workers would leave them at a nearby gas station for us. Where in any large city would we find such kindness and service?

Yes, they at last came on the one o’clock train. We left our neighborly village and once more, with the world in sharp focus for both of us, journeyed on our way.

The contour of the land gradually changed from the level lake plain to rolling farm land. Mr. and Mrs, John Bush’s farm was set on a curve of the highway going to Zenia, Ohio. It was a different kind of a farm than we had seen before. Black and white geese filed along the fence, chattering and flapping their wings at the intruding chickens. Five little pigs rooted in the mud. Inside the barn, pink-nosed rabbits sat in their cages.

And then a collie pup bounded through the gate and greeted us with a thrashing tail. Mrs. Bush followed. Mrs. Bush seemed a little old fashioned. She pondered our situation and seemed dubious about the fact that two girls would travel so far and sleep in barns.

"Well," she said, "I don’t see how you could be comfortable in a barn. Don’t your parents worry about you?"

"Yes, they do worry about us," I answered. "However, we write them once a day and telephone them once a week so they will know we are all right. And now that we have come this far safely, they are more assured that we can take care of ourselves." Mrs. Bush smiled. "Won’t you let me fix up a mattress on the front porch? It would be a lot more comfortable. We have plenty of blankets to give you."

We explained to her how much we enjoyed sleeping in barns.

"I just can’t understand it, but you go right on in and use whatever you need." She held open a garden gate and we walked down a stone path past a raspberry arbor to the barn. "Meet our visitors for the night, John," she said, drawing us around to the stalls.

Mr. Bush was milking the cows. Six little kittens sat in a row with tails curled around their toes, crying and blinking. "This is our cafeteria," said Mr. Bush. "They’re waiting for the next pan of milk."

He filled a pan with warm foamy milk. Immediately the kittens all jumped into the pan, stood in the milk and lapped for all they were worth - white whiskers, white feet and rounded stomachs.

Mrs. Bush guided us through the shed to the hayloft still anxiously questioning us. "Where do you wash up? How do you keep your clothes clean? In streams? But you don’t have hot water."

She disappeared and a few minutes later called us to the back porch where we found tubs of hot water, a wash board, soap flakes and a wringer. How good it seemed to our feminine minds to immerse our arms up to the elbows in that hot sudsy water! Doris washed, I rinsed and hung the clothes out, and Mrs. Bush hung some of the clothing up to dry by the hot stove in the kitchen.

By eight o’clock the geese had all waddled back to their roosts, the squealing pigs lay in a heaving mass beside their mother, lamps burned in the farm house, and two Mice were sound asleep in the hayloft.

The next morning Mrs. Bush invited us into the kitchen to breakfast with her. "Be careful, girls, of the automobiles on the road," she warned. "Goodness! I feel as though you were my own daughters. You must write and tell us of your adventures." They waved goodbye to us as we rolled down the road. This day we did not look like hobos. We were adorned in our one and only non-wrinkle dresses and very clean white ankle socks, for this was Sunday - church day. Up and down hills we went to Waynesville, where the tolling of bells drew us to a little brick church on the hill.

We sped up the hill, leaned our bicycles against a tree, patted a loose curl into place and sedately walked into the church. We slipped into a rear pew. "Page Number 105," boomed from the altar. Someone passed us a hymn book, a Methodist Hymnal. We had not found out what church we were in until then.

After church Doris and I held a pow-wow. "Let’s eat out today. Let’s have a real good Sunday dinner," said Doris.

"Can we afford it? I have only two dollars left before I cash another traveller’s check."

We looked in our basket and drew out several shriveled dried up carrots. Further on down, under a tin can rested some moldy potatoes. There was still the Mother Weed’s Noodle Soup. We looked at each other. Our clean dresses getting smoked up by a fire? The Number 10 tin to scrub when the soup was all eaten? No meat? What for dessert? Fifteen minutes later we were reclining in comfortable chairs looking down on plates garnished with roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, salad and rolls. Beyond the screened windows was a blue artificial lake dotted with row boats. From a juke box a top orchestra swung out our favorite tune. Tomorrow would be time enough to cash that check.

We were in no hurry. The peppermint ice cream was good enough to rate a second dish, the little lake was pretty enough for a stroll along its edge, and the grass on a nearby hill was just soft and cool enough for a two-hour siesta.

Never did we worry about the night’s shelter. Pity the poor people who must stay in hotels and tourist homes! What if none showed up when they were ready to stop for the night? What if the hotels and tourist homes were all filled up? The prices might be high, and what about the inconvenience of unpacking and packing a suitcase? Pity the elite of the road who whiz by in shiny automobiles with their eyes on the mileage gauge, and who only know the features of the trip by the size of the hotel rooms and the restaurants of each town.

Here on this grassy hill we laid, not knowing where we would spread out our bedrolls in the next four hours. All we knew was that we were on Route 40, between Waynesville and Lebanon, Ohio, and about thirty-five miles from Cincinnati. What we did not know was that we were near the town of Mason, and that just outside of that town was a beautiful home and barn, and that the owners were Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins. But once we ended our siesta and biked on into Mason, we could not help but notice the Tompkins home. It was on a hill, and following the Victorian style of architecture, it was large and gabled. We paused just to look at it, and then we noticed there was a barn nearby. Would we possibly be accepted here?

Accepted? That is not the word. Mrs. Tompkins does not accept, she energetically welcomes people into her home and into her heart. She is a thin, spry, and extremely active little person, whose eyes twinkle and whose smile constantly reassures you of her kindness and understanding.

"My," she exclaimed, "that’s just the kind of trip I would like to take, just what you girls are doing. Good healthy exercise," she declared as she made us comfortable in her deep living room chairs.

"I’d like you to meet my brother, Mr. Bowyer. He writes poetry."

We stood up and shook hands with Mr. Bowyer.

"Have you ever been in Mason before? Mrs. Tompkins inquired.

"No, this is our first trip south," I answered.

"Well, we have a nice little town, but the place of most interest is the W.L.W. radio station."

Before we knew it we were all in the car on our way to the W.L.W. radio station. They told us this was the most powerful broadcasting station in the country. We circled the maze of towers and met some of the Tompkins-Bowyer relatives. We had been lying on a hill of grass four hours ago, but now we were part of a family, riding around town in the car, discussing rain conditions for the crops and new neighbors. We drove up the drive to our new home, and brought our miscellany of wash clothes and towels into the house to wash up for the night. They tried to persuade us to sleep in the house tonight, but we decided to roll out our bedrolls on a mattress of corn stalks in the spacious barn, with Brownie the dog at our side.

Cincinnati was only 23 miles away, so we made it by eleven o’clock the next morning. It was a city of hills and brick pavement. Sweating up the winding red streets behind the swaying trolley and bumping down past the Baldwin Piano Company, with tin cans jangling, we flew. Our hair was in pins and our overalls were getting too warm, so we looked for a place to clean up. We looked for one of our havens.

Throughout the United States there is a network of oases. They are the havens of the destitute and weary. We are speaking of that great blessing, the gasoline station. No matter where it may be, how many gas pumps it may have, it is as typically American as ice cream, hot dogs or the World Series. But it has broadened its main function of filling up gas tanks and pumping air. Now there was, in its inner sanctum, a supply of soda, cracker sandwiches done up in cellophane for five cents, candy bars, sun glasses, and tablets to keep the drivers awake nights. Most important of all, somewhere in the vicinity of this oasis will hang a sign, "Rest Rooms." These little stations are very welcoming, but first we must establish a beachhead.

"Hello, what’s this?" some man in greasy overalls would say, and we all would get started in a conversation. Meanwhile, he would be checking the air in our tires and giving us weather forecasts. Then we would park around the back and bring forth from various bags and baskets an array of towels, tooth brushes, soap, a clean blouse, dirty socks to be washed, makeup and comb. Hoping that no others would be in need of our cubical, we took sponge baths and washed our clothes. Socks were hung on the bike handle bars to dry. We were completely at home! Never will we forget our friendly gas stations!

Next we prepared ourselves for another ritual. We leaned our bikes against a tree in a shady spot across from the gas station and sat down on the curbstone. Our most precious possession was in our hand: the A.A.A. travel book. I flicked the pages, stopping at the chapter "Ohio," and then found the subtitle "Cincinnati." We began reading its history and the descriptions of places of interest.

Cincinnati, we learned, is situated on a series of plateaus rising above the Ohio River. Longfellow called it "the Queen City of the West." It is also famous as a center of music and art. But what the manual didn’t tell us was that the hills in Cincinnati are tough on bicycles. We walked up long steep ones pushing our paraphernalia before us. At last we came down on Broadway and rode along Fifth Street to Fountain Square.

This was especially attractive. A green park stretched along the center, and here people wandered and lounged. The buildings seemed high, the stores large and prosperous. We were greeted as usual.

"Hi there girls, where are you going?"

"Hey! Put a motor on it!"

"Good luck girls!"

But now something had happened. There was a slur someplace in the words. Suddenly we met the beginning of a new language.

"Hey you-all!"

Doris and I smiled. Now we were really getting someplace. She stopped for a red light and I rode up beside her and yelled: "Hey, you-all. Put a motor on it!" "Where you-all going," she said, "camping?" Yes, it sounded good.

Now we headed for our destination, the Ohio River, the river that was a milestone in our journey - it flowed into the Mississippi. The river that divided the North from the South and that we had never seen. And now it lay deep and muddy beneath us, flowing languidly, carrying in its stride the cargo of a hundred cities.

We were standing on a suspension bridge connecting the worlds of the North and the South, Ohio and Kentucky. Beyond, the smoke of the two cities rose and blackened the skies. Tugs convoyed their precious cargo to rest at the wharves. Directly below, a miscellany of small crafts returned the slap of the water and strained at their ropes.

Gone were the flat-bottomed excursion boats with their gaily painted sides and crowded decks. Gone were the stern-wheelers that left their snowy fountain behind. But could that be - up on the levy - yes, it was - a houseboat! We had read of such things, but thought they were obsolete. And there, even though it rested on dry land, lay a houseboat.

Over the bridge we sped, winding under viaducts and finally joggling down an ill-paved road to the water’s edge. It was to become a habit, this irresistible quest of boats, warehouses and streets along the water’s edge. We crawled down the bank past broken bottles and rubbish heaps to gain our grandstand view from the levee. So this was Kentucky!

We sat on the bank peeling our lunch oranges. Yelps and wails and yipping broke forth from the shack behind us. A screen door slammed, and we gazed around to find a grimy boy walking toward us.

"Hi girls," he grinned, mopping his sweating face with a greasy hand. "Today sure is a hot one."

"What’ve you got in there?" we questioned, motioning toward the shack. "Sounds like a zoo." Three dogs peered through the screen door and scratched at the screen. A breeze sent an unpleasant odor our way.

"Oh that," he waved a hand. "Them are some old dogs I take care of for the S.P.C.A." We supposed the dogs would have been much better off at large. He eyed our trappings. "Where from?" he syncopated.

"New York," we answered.

"Aw, that’s a heck of a place to come from. Nothin’ but crowds, ‘n night clubs, ‘n women, ‘n factories, ‘n dirt." He had some queer idea of New York state. To him the place was just one big New York City with no fields or farms. We hoped we might straighten him out.

Then he said, "Where you-all goin’?"

In two seconds we established a destination. "We’re going to Louisville."

"Louisville? Gee...." He accepted one of our raw carrots and offered more information. "I’ve been to grammar school."

"Aren’t you going to high school?"

"I’ll get by." He had another carrot. "See, there’s my car up on top of the hill." We looked up at the ‘32 Chevy.

"Pretty nice," we said.

"Well, I gotta go now." He paused halfway up. He looked dubiously at our bikes.

"Well, I hope you-all get to Louisville."

He jumped into the car, honked the horn for a goodbye, started the motor and sped off. Doris looked at me and I looked at her. "So we’re going to Louisville? Well, let’s go!"

There’s a hill leading out of Covington to the south. It leads for miles and miles up and up. We started out on it with spirits high. After 50 feet we dismounted and started pushing. Children all along the way were lighting fire crackers. Cars were climbing next to us in a steady stream.

A mile and we began to get very tired. The sun was beating down, the fire crackers were popping off every second, and cars and trucks were still edging along in second gear, one behind the other. The top might be around the next curve, but it never was. Our canteens were drained, the sweat trickled down our foreheads, and still the never-ending procession continued. What a relief when we actually found the top of the hill! There we found the source of the fire works. A shack was standing at one side of the road decorated with flags, and to this spot the younger population of Covington had to tramp to collect their stock for the coming Fourth of July. Also on the top of the hill was a gasoline station. We made a beeline to it. "Hello, I wonder if we could fill our canteens with water here?"

Several men were lounging in front of the station. They all rose as if in joint ownership of the business. One took the canteens, another turned the water tap, another supervised the process. The last man devoted himself to asking us questions. We answered them all and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by an audience. "So, you’re going to Louisville, girls?"

"Nice place, Louisville, but you’ll find mostly hills from here on. It will be hard pushing."

"Hold on. That boy over there is going to Louisville."

"Yep. Why don’t you girls ride with him? He’s a nice fellow, real reliable. He stops in here almost every day."

We looked over and saw a huge truck. The colored driver was just swinging the large doors on the back shut.

"Wait a minute, Lee. I think I’ve got some customers for you."

Lee turned around with a huge friendly grin.

"What do you say girls? You’ll be in Louisville by five o’clock, just in time for dinner."

More temptation! What would we be missing? How many people would we pass by? What kind of experiences would we be forsaking?

Now, on the other hand, the sooner we get to Louisville, the further we will be able to go in the long run. Perhaps the land will be so hilly we will gain very little mileage. Maybe there will be a scarcity of barns and gasoline stations. And it would be nice to send home postcards from Louisville.

"O.K.," we decided. "It certainly would be nice if he would give us a lift." Our precious bikes were hauled up into the truck. We inspected them to see if they were intact and would not fall out.

"Yes, Miss, they’ll be all right," our driver assured us.

We were ready to go. The men wished us a good trip, and stood around watching the huge truck swing out into the main highway. More suddenly than we had imagined we passed the Mason-Dixon Line and emerged into the South. We were made aware of it instantly. The exploited fancies of the South were advertised in every restaurant: "Southern Fried Chicken" and "Mint Juleps."

Up the red cliffs we rolled, and riding along its rim we gazed down upon the winding Ohio. Riverboats passed on that highway, rippling the stillness as they glided noiselessly along. And down the other side we rolled where acres of young tobacco plants clung to the slopes. Dry creek beds... tobacco drying shacks, then up another hill to look down upon the Ohio again. This was northern Kentucky - the hills, the fields, and the river.

The motor chugged to a stop and we jumped out, finding ourselves in front of a small restaurant. This must be another truck drivers’ "stopping-off place." We remembered how much we enjoyed the last one with Bob, so we opened the screen door and proceeded in.

"Let’s wait for Lee," I said. We looked behind, but he was not in sight. "Here are your cokes." A waitress shoved two bottles out on the counter. "The nigger in the other room paid for these."

Nigger? Other room? Suddenly, with a feeling of aversion, we realized that new social laws had separated us from our jovial singing companion. Here was something more we had to learn, something different from our strict teachings of equality. We drank our cokes and went back to the truck. A road sign was near, and we found that we were still on U.S. Highway 42. Lee slid behind the driver’s wheel and we were off.

Clouds gathered and it started to rain as we entered the suburbs of Louisville. The rain beat down. It rattled against the uncushioned body of the truck. The wipers lashed across the windshield. Through the blur I could see umbrellas whisked by slouched figures hurrying to shelter.

The truck rolled to a stop in front of a red brick tenement. Dark forms lurked in the doorway. We knew where we were.

"This is my home," Lee said. "If you girls knew your destination, I could take you there."

"Thank you very much," we said, "but if you will just give us the names of the streets, we’ll be able to find our way around."

It was still pouring when we hauled out the bicycles. My oilskin scarf and water repellent jacket were rolled away in the sleeping bags, far from reach in an emergency.

Lee was crawling up among the orange crates. "Easy there," he said, gradually lowering Doris’s bicycle to her outstretched hands. He balanced on the edge of the crates. They creaked and split with the weight. More oranges rolled out.

"How do we get to the Y.W.C.A. from here?" I asked, standing on tip toe to reach the wheels of my bike.

Lee leaned over precariously, breathing heavily. The fully packed bicycles were a heavy load. "Just turn to your right at the next stop light down here and you’ll hit third street. I think it’s on the corner of Broadway and Second Street. There she goes!" The wheels bounced down to the pavement. "Here, can you use some of these?" He threw us a handful of liberated oranges. Into the basket they went. I yanked the oil cloth covering over the top.

Through the teeming rain we shouted goodbyes. I pressed the pedal on the bicycle. The figures in the doorway leaned forward and waved.

Instead of waiting for the next stop light to change, we huddled under the sheltering eave of the corner saloon. I pulled out my rubbers and Doris dug for her kerchief. The people of Louisville must have waited for this. We didn’t see any unhappy faces. Little black feet splashed up and down the gutters. White teeth flashed beneath the gay umbrellas. The dingy curtains of tenements swung outward as curly black heads leaned out to catch the cool rain. Soon the rain ceased and our tires stung the wet pavement again.

"Look," pointed Doris. "Isn’t that the Y.W.C.A. up ahead?"

I looked in the direction she pointed. A WAVE recruiting sign swung near the curb, below the familiar triangle of the "Y." We parked at the side near the office door, smoothed a blown brow and entered.

"I’m sorry, we’re all filled for the night," we were hearing the unpleasant news from our informant. "But there is a woman a few houses down this street that takes in roomers. Just a minute, I’ll call her."

We waited for the news. It was good. We would start over immediately. "738½... 738½..." I repeated to myself, searching the houses for the number. Iron picket fences enclosed the meager front lawns of the once-imposing homes. And where the slippered foot had once stepped from the carriage, now hung a sign - "Tourists." "738½... 738½..." A soldier and his wife ate dinner in the bay window. Washing hung on the side porch.

"738½..." A grilled gate squeaked open on its rusty hinges. The row of ancient boxwood hedges stood rigidly against the foreign invader. No care, but strength. "738," I hugged the fence to let a group of soldiers pass.

"738, was that it?" The number hung over a back side door. We pulled our bicycles up the concrete steps and presented ourselves at the door.

Evidently they were waiting, for our ring brought immediate results. "Come right in, come right in," said a little old man bowing his way backwards. "Here they are, Lillian! It’s all right," he called up a spindly staircase, "they’re wearing dresses!"

Doris looked at me. We grinned at the unexpected comment.

He turned to us nodding his head in praise. "It’s a pleasure, it’s indeed a pleasure to meet two girls who bicycle in dresses. We just don’t allow girls in slacks to enter this house."

Secretly we sighed with relief that we had kept our skirts on in the rain. A patter on the stairway. Mrs. Yates, the gentleman’s wife, completed the duo greeting committee. She extended a skinny hand and put her stamp of approval on our attire. "You know, there are just so many girls who come here that we have to turn away. They dress so indecently. Why..." she touched her hand to the diamond drop earring. "In my day, a girl never thought of riding horseback in pants! It’s so much more lady-like to sit side saddle."

We still stood in the doorway. I shifted my weight to the other foot.

Mrs. Yates glanced down at our feet. "Now you girls wear sensible shoes. They keep your feet dry. Some shoes these women wear wouldn’t hold as much as a sieve. Well, of course we went to dances, too. Remember that fancy ball we went to after graduation?" she inquired of Mr. Yates. "I carried my dancing slippers in a bag and wore my sturdy shoes."

I wondered if we were going to get a course in ancient etiquette or a room. It was amusing, so we listened and wagged our heads in agreement.

Mousified was hardly the word for it. Mrs. Yates was in a cultural lag. She was a tiny, frail lady with wispy gray hair and thin glasses bridging a fine nose. The quick jerk of her head sent the drops at the ears flashing in the light. She swung around. "Come along. I’ll show you to your room."

We stumbled after her up the dimly lit stairway. At each landing was a little orange bulb - we judged it at about ten watts - then down a dark hallway and into a room with five beds in it.

"On weekends we open the house only to soldiers. They love this room. Most of them come back regularly every week. These will be your beds." She pointed them out to us, then went over to the door preparing to leave. We sighed in relief, but no... "One more thing girls," she said, turning to us again. We jumped back into position. "Be sure to turn the lights off when you’re not using them. I won’t give you a key, so you can call us when you come in. You should be in by eleven, anyway. Make yourselves comfortable. Good night."

The door closed. Doris plopped on the bed rolling with laughter. "Make yourselves comfortable! Mouse, hand me the flashlight so I can find my shoelace. Ho... this is great! I’ve dreamed of things like this."

"Do you think I should put my hair up tonight? It might take too much water." "Oh, do put it in a knob. This bobbed hair is so extreme!"

"Heavens. You say you don’t wear pajamas to bed? Well... you can’t stay in this room tonight."

I laughed so hard the tears rolled down my cheeks. It was a humorous situation. Even the telephone had a padlock on it.

"I’m going to get in there and take a bath before they shut off the water," said Doris. "G’night."

"Ummm," I yawned the next morning, stretching luxuriously beneath the white sheets. "A real mattress without ants, moths or kittens!"

"It’s eleven o’clock, Mouse. Come on out and look at the morning."

I rolled over and saw Doris standing with a towel wrapped around her, leaning out of the open window. Her unbraided hair blew back from her face. A morning breeze billowed the curtains.

Bang... ssss!! Bang... ssss! Came the sounds from the street below.

"Uh, the Fourth of July," I groaned, clamping the pillow over my head.

The next minute I was sorry I had said it. A bounce and a thud on my bed and Mouse was hammering at my pillow. "Say... this is a holiday. What’d you mean by groaning?" "Gee, that’s right," I said, jumping into a sitting position. "How’ll we celebrate? What do we usually do on the Fourth, shoot fireworks, go on a picnic, eat ice cream, visit friends...?"

Doris, sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed, bolted upright at a surprising thought. "Friends!" she exclaimed. "Hey, I’ve got a friend in Louisville, Bernie Fong! Bernie is a college mate of mine. He’s doing graduate work here at the university. Let’s get dressed quickly and see if we can find him."

Springing from the bed, she rushed for the telephone, then stopped short. "Oh-oh, we have to ask permission."

We found Mrs. Yates puttering about in her pink kimono. Sidling up to her, Doris very politely asked permission.

"You don’t want to make any out-of-town calls do you?" she asked, eyeing us critically. "No ma’am," we said sheepishly.

"Well then, follow me."

We followed her into what must have been a butler’s pantry. In a corner sat the meek telephone with a padlock wrapped around the dial. Out came a ring of keys. It was unlocked, and with our overseer standing by, we dialed the number.

"Hello Bernie... Bernie? Well how are you?" Doris shouted excitedly. "How’d you ever guess it was me? Yes, we’re going to wait here for a couple of days so our mail can catch up with us.... Sure, we’d love to see you sometime. When is your last class?... Well, we’re going out for dinner so maybe we can walk up that way. So long. See you tonight, Bernie."

Doris put down the receiver. "Says he has a prelim tomorrow. A bunch of them at the house are going to cram all afternoon, but he couldn’t stand it all night, too. Good old Bernie."

"What do you say we get something to eat and take in a movie. I’m game for spending the afternoon sitting down on something that doesn’t bounce." And so the afternoon was spent in the cool darkness of the theater, followed by a dinner at the Blue Boar.

"I’m going to get another dip of ice cream for my cherry pie," I said, rising from the table.

Behind the glass on the frozen counters lay a colorful array of sliced fresh fruits, curled shrimp and wafers, tall glasses of fruit juice, and crisp salads, a welcome change from our tin can of boiled potatoes and vegetables. I guess it was the trimmings and the fact that we could have whatever we wished passed over the rail to us that made us enjoy it so.

"That second dip was the last layer for me," Doris said, looking rather stuffed around the belt line. "Shall we stroll some of it off now? Bernie’s lodging isn’t far from here."

The evening was warm. The old people sat along Louisville’s side streets, swaying in their rockers, smoking old pipes. The odor of frying fish permeated the breeze for a moment and then passed. Baptist Church... pillared house... yes, here was the house. We mounted the stone steps and rang the bell. There came a thump of running feet. Through the screen door I could vaguely see a short figure pelting down the flight of stairs. The door was flung open and there stood Bernie, short little Bernie, clad in slacks, a little green cap and sandals. Bernie Fong was Hawaiian. His short brown body was straight and muscular. Dark almond eyes sparkled a greeting. "How good it is to see you," he exclaimed, clasping Doris’s hand. "I got your card yesterday and never thought you would be in Louisville so soon."

"Well, how is med school, Bernie?" Doris asked.

She settled down on the top step of the porch, and then familiar places and names were reminisced until Bernie looking down said, "Say, you won’t have any leg left if you don’t stop scratching. Looks like you walked into some poison ivy. I think I have just the thing for that." Up he popped and was off up the three flights of stairs. Returning, he handed Doris a bottle of pink fluid.

"Thank you Dr. Fong. I hope it is the cure."

We remembered Mrs. Yates’s warning about getting in early, so we started to walk home slowly. Reaching home before the legal retiring time, we idled away our last five minutes on the concrete steps of the walk, but not without interruptions from Mrs. Yates.

"It’s almost eleven girls," she said, stepping near enough to get a look at our companion.

"Well, I’m not in the mood for climbing trellises tonight. Shall we regard the witch’s wishes?"

Bernie darted off through the gate and we climbed the dim stairway to bed.

Early on July 5th we hopped on our bicycles and rode down Broad Street to the Post Office. We sped along with surprising velocity and ease, because our packs had been removed from the rear wheels. Now the straps flapped loosely at the sides, and the wooden extension rattled on the fender.

Not far up we found the Post Office, imposing in its length and in the fact that it might hold mail for the wandering Mice. We pulled open the bronze doors and stepped into the cooled interior.

Heels clicked along the marble hall that spread the length of the building. Lines of people stacked with packages stood before rows of caged windows. Slouched figures leaned on the desks scribbling off notes or filling out forms.

Parcel Post, Money Orders, Defense Stamps... General Delivery, and no line standing before it. I eagerly stepped up and asked for mail.

"Uh, two letters for you, Mouse," I said dejectedly. "Maybe this afternoon."

Anyway, Doris shared her letters with me, that is, all but the last parts. And then I sat tapping my feet, thinking up the next thing we should do.

We pedaled down Fourth Street, getting a different view of it from our bicycles. It seemed better out in the street, less crowded than the narrow sidewalks with their milling crowds. Down we went, past the orange juice bars, the dress shops and the park until the color of the buildings changed to a sooty black, traffic lights were less numerous, and we became conscious of going downhill.

And there it was before us, the river again. We bumped over the last cobblestone street and under a black bridge to the levee. The sun scorched down upon the fishing shacks, the saloons and the warehouses. Little swirls of soot in the brown water splashed up against the wharf. Tin cans and oil floated along with the current. It was good to be back to the river.

The day was hot. Men loaded trucks from the wharf. They wiped their foreheads with large handkerchiefs and swore. We leaned our bicycles against a post and walked up on a plank connecting the wharf with the levee. A heavy man sat on the wharf. He tipped his old chair back, chewed the stub of a cigar and surveyed the sweating workmen. Then his watery blue eyes went to us, looked us over, and turned back again to the workmen.

"Hello," we ventured.

He removed his cigar.

"Pretty hot," we continued.

He nodded his head.

We threw forth a question. "Do you work here?"

He became alert and squared his chair on all four legs. "Yep. I’m watchman." He pointed to the building behind him. "That there is where they stored in all the fruit. Boats come up alongside and load up off of her. She’s just buoyed up out there."

We looked in amazement. The building out there in the water seemed very stable as though it had a firm foundation.

"When the river goes down, it rests on the mud," he added. We needed no further invitation to learn more about the river. Sitting down on a coil of ropes we lent an eager ear. He was proud of his knowledge of the levees and just as eager to tell about it.

"See those boats up there?" he said, flourishing his cigar up the river. "Those boats have just put in from Pittsburgh. Prob’ly carrying coal to the southern factories. They’ll come back up loaded with oil or alcohol for our factories up here.

Then a miracle happened. One of us asked a question to keep the conversation alive. "Do they have passenger boats on the Mississippi?"

"No, girls, no passenger boats. Why, we haven’t had a passenger boat since the beginning of the war. But we’ve got a lot of other boats - barges. You could get on one of those boats."

"Barges? Women on boats? As Passengers?"

"Sure," the watchman said. "You could work on a boat. Go down in the office of the Mississippi Valley Barge Line Company. Straight down this street. You’ll find it." Down by the next wharf a line of trucks was parked ready for loading. Over the shed hung a sign, "Miss. Valley Barge Line Co." Timidly we entered the door and walked up a flight of wooden stairs. We found ourselves in a large room separated by a counter. Several men in work clothes, lounging on a bench, looked up as we entered. A clerk came to the counter and asked, "What would you like?" Everybody was listening.

I leaned over the counter and as quietly as possible said, "We would like to know if there are any positions open on your boats."

We could hear the men shuffling behind us. The clerk smiled. "This company can not make direct employment," she said. "You’ll have to go to the National Maritime Union on Market Street for that. All hiring for the Mississippi Barge Line Co. is made through the union."

We clambered down the loading dock again. Big crates thumped into the back of trucks. Motors raced and part of the caravan took off with its cargo. We began climbing the stepped sidewalks that led to Market Street. I guided my bicycle along the curb. "Funny little shops along here," I thought. The windows of one little shop wedged between two tall buildings were wide open. Scrubbing brushes and whisk brooms hung on strings from the porch frame and spun around in the breeze. A white-haired man with a handlebar mustache sat behind the window lacing a broom. Through the steamy, musty window of the next shop, I could see the hunched forms of men with their legs spiraling the revolving stools, grabbing a bite for lunch. Hearing someone behind us, we turned to see a tall, lanky man with a gaunt face, wearing an old yellow straw hat slouched on his head. "Looking for the N.M.U. office?" He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered up to us. He must have been one of the men in the barge line office.

"Yes," we answered.

"Goin’ that way myself. I’ll show you where." He strode along beside us. "Lookin’ for work?" he queried.

"Yes."

"They need lots of help. Just came off the boat myself. Going to take a vacation." He waved the pink pay check in the air.

"What kind of work do women do on the boats?" I asked.

"Well, they are maids or cooks. The maids make beds and keep the boat clean. Say, by the way, my name is Carl. Here’s Market Street." We turned down a broad street and passed scores of pawn shops, sidewalk markets and saloons. "And here’s the office. I’ll wait outside for you."

We were standing before a small shop. Its large, dusty plate glass windows held several red, white and blue stickers. They were imprinted, "National Maritime Union of America" with big letters forming a circular pattern. Inside the printing was a ship’s steering wheel that bore the words, "Lakes... Deep Sea... Inland Waters." We walked in. A buxom girl sitting on a counter in the back of the room was watching another buxom girl pounding a typewriter. A small man with a well-tanned face and curly brown hair, perhaps in his forties, was also at the counter.

Several calendars were on the walls. A small table held an overflowing supply of the latest union news and circulars. In a corner, near the front window, several young boys were playing checkers.

"What do you have out there?" The man who was behind the counter was now looking at our bicycles leaning against the window. He talked in a smooth voice with a different type of southern drawl. When he smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkled. We liked him immediately, and the feeling was mutual.

"We’ve just ridden from Buffalo, New York, on those bicycles!"

Doris began the explanation. "We’ve always wanted to see the Mississippi. We thought we would go to Cairo, Illinois."

"But we heard that women can work on barges," I continued. "Do any go to the Mississippi from here?"

His eyes twinkled and his grin broadened. "That is the best river to work on. I worked on steamboats myself ‘til I was voted to this job. In fact, my home’s in New Orleans, right next to the river. So, you want a job on a Mississippi boat?" He paged through some papers in front of him. Meanwhile, we talked to the two girls. "Martha here was a cook on a boat, and a good cook, too."

The one called Martha said, "It’s too bad you girls weren’t here sooner. Just a couple of days ago a boat was here short two maids. Leo, can you fix them up both together?"

"Well, it may take a little longer." Leo looked at our anxious faces. "It shouldn’t take more than a week, though. You’d better have everything packed and ready to come down here as soon as I call you up. These boats come in needing help just when you least expect them. Now, girls, you’ll need a lot of things first, and you’d better get them all together. You’ll need a Coast Guard pass. You can get that down by the river at the Coast Guard station."

We nodded. We remembered seeing it.

"Then," he continued, "You’ll need pictures for your pass. Here is the name and address of the photographer we all use. Then you’ll need a statement of availability. You get that at the United States Employment Service. Better get there early. It’s always crowded."

We were jotting down the important data on a piece of scrap paper.

"Now how about signing your names, address and telephone number here on this list. You have sixty days before you have to join the union."

We did not remember our telephone number. It was not in the telephone book under Yates. We said we would get it and bring it back.

"Now, if you get all that done," Leo said, "you’ll be all ready to leave, and we’ll let you know just as soon as a boat comes in."

They all smiled at us. We thanked them and walked to the door very bewildered. Our boat! The Mississippi! Mark Twain! Steamboats! Maids!

We stood outside on the street. Where to begin? What to do first?

"Oh-oh." Doris was looking down the street. "He’s still there." The tall lean figure was leaning against the building.

"Carl! How come he waited all this time? What do you suppose is the matter with him?" "Maybe he’s lonely."

"Well...."

He approached us. "Get it all straightened out?" he asked.

We told him what happened.

"Aren’t you hungry? Here’s a restaurant. Let’s stop for a sandwich." We had not realized until then how hungry we really were. We entered a small dive lunchroom, sat down in a booth, and ordered hamburgers all around. A juke box was playing.

Carl started asking plans. "Now would you like to go to a movie with me this afternoon?"

No, that was impossible. We had too much to do.

"Well then, how about meeting me here tomorrow noon for lunch?"

"All right," we agreed. We finished our hamburgers and shoved off for the big afternoon.

First, home to get "simonized," also to learn our telephone number. Then back to the N.M.U. office to put the telephone number on record. Then the Coast Guard station. Up the circular stairs of the boat we went and entered an office. Finger prints, questions, bring those pictures. We climbed back down the nautical steps.

Off to the photographer... combing of hair... the flash of the bulb. "That will be one dollar and a half. Call for your pictures tomorrow ladies."

The street was hot. Women pushed along in wrinkled cotton dresses. Men mopped their wet foreheads. The streets were crowded but the motion was slow.

Doris leaned against a store window. "What next?"

I brought out the wrinkled paper. "Statement of Availability. Well, we can get that tomorrow morning."

"And now we start waiting for our boat. I wonder how long it will be."

"Leo said maybe a week."

"You know," Doris began as we started walking down the street, "this is going to be expensive living. Room at night, three meals a day. We can’t very well start a camp fire in Yates’ back yard!"

"There’s Carl for an extra hamburger or so, but I don’t know about him. Uh-uh."

I looked in my billfold to determine cash on hand - two dollar bills. "Another traveler’s check coming up, too," I said.

There was a drug store across the street. We wandered in for a coke. Since these cokes could be sipped over a period of twenty minutes, we settled down for a financial discussion.

"The question is, how can we raise a little money or earn our room and board?" "Which brings us down to how can we earn money?"

I looked at Doris sitting across from me. Her forehead was sunburned from riding toward the intense sun. Her dress was fresh and clean after a scrubbing in the bathtub of the Yates residence. She was looking at me dubiously.

"We’re college graduates," I murmured, and then I wished I hadn’t. "What could we do?" Doris’s face expanded into a big grin. "Of course! Think. What have you been doing every day for these past four years? You know, waiting on tables in the dorms."

"That’s it. We’ll sling hash!"

"They must need help. Every other city does."

"And we’ll get daily tips besides our meals!"

"If our boat comes in, then we go."

A telephone book swung on a chain near the phone booth. It just reached to our table. Several pages were listed in the yellow section under "Restaurants." I read down the list and Doris made the comments.

"Al’s Lunch."

"No, I don’t think so."

"The Brown Hotel, coffee shop."

"Could be. Good tips there."

"The Chimney Latch."

"Sounds cute."

"The French Village."

"If they sell wine we could surely take in a pocket full of change."

We copied down several of the addresses, paid for our cokes, and started out to beat the pavement.

A shiny revolving door led the patron into the Brown Hotel coffee shop. The graceful hostess approached us. "Two?" she questioned.

"We would like to apply for positions as waitresses," I answered.

She withdrew the extended menus and smiled. "Right now we are all filled up, but I think there will be some places in a few days. Won’t you come back then?"

We thanked her and left the coolness of the electric fans and the clinking of the coffee cups behind.

In the entrance of the Chimney Latch there was a pretty stone wishing well. A bucket stood on the imitation green grass surrounding it. This, we thought, would be a nice place to work.

Our request was relayed to the head waitress. "Yes, I have a place open, but it is only for one. There might be another vacancy later on."

"Go ahead, Poppy, you take it."

We had not thought of working separately. That would not be so much fun. We couldn’t help each other out then if one got stuck with her tables.

"No," I said. "That wouldn’t be quite satisfactory, but thank you very much." The lady nodded. We left the wishing well.

"Now for the French Village, Mouse! There you go again!"

It was the poison ivy. "Well, it itches like all get-out."

"O.K., we’re going to get something for it right now!"

"Doris spied a Walgreen’s Drug Store. I followed her in.

"Poison Ivy?" said the clerk. "Just a moment." He turned around to the shelves behind the counter and began searching. We looked the place over. There was a candy counter and stands piled high with soap and stationary. It was a large store, air conditioned.

Way on the other side was a soda fountain, a long mirrored one, with alternating chrome napkin cases and bowls of oranges. We watched the sodas and sundaes being made. Trays filled with large glasses of fizzy cokes were carried to the booths on the arms of waitresses. Now a big banana split came up, topped with whipped cream and cherries... chocolate sodas, frosty and creamy milk shakes, lemonade with ice floating on top and a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint.

A young girl behind the fountain was pouring thick butterscotch over a mound of cream. Doris uttered some inarticulate words that sounded like, "Work here?"

"Meals," I said, looking at the butterscotch still dropping over the cream.

We turned and found the clerk holding forth a sure-cure for poison ivy, poison oak and various other external irritations.

"Do you need waitress help?" we began. "We have had experience and would like to apply."

The man dropped the box of poison ivy cure and rushed us behind the counter. We were employed.

That night we had to shift our belongings to another private home, as Mrs. Yates, our watchful counselor, was leaving for California.

It was three o’clock the next afternoon. Up over the store, in a dingy restroom, we put the finishing touches on our new apparel. Only four more minutes and we would have to be pounding the floor below.

I talked with a mouthful of hairpins. "Here, will you do mine, too? I can’t seem to get the hair net fastened."

Doris tossed a small scalloped apron to the ironing board. I had just freshened up a bow on mine.

Heavy lagging steps pounded on the stairway. "Hello girls," said a woman in a low gruff voice. She fell into the battered green chair. Legs stretched out and head leaned back, she succumbed to the depth and relaxation that the chair provided. "Uh, Mouse, do you think they’ll give us tables right away?"

The woman raised her head and looked us over. A cigarette was thrust into the corner of her mouth and then, striking a match, she asked, "New girls?"

"Yes, we’re just starting in this afternoon," Doris said brightly.

"You’re in for some hard work," she said. She squinted as the first puff of smoke curled over her head. "My feet don’t feel like they belong to me. They just keep right on walkin’."

I smiled at her. "We’ve done this sort of work before. I think we realize what is ahead of us. Come on, Mouse. We’d better be on time for the first showing." I grabbed my apron and followed Doris down the steep stairs.

"Stop at the landing and I’ll tie your bow." Doris spun me around for inspection. The red-brown uniform hung in straight lines from my shoulders. The crisp white apron added something. The hair net, tightly holding my hair back, detracted. "I must say we both look a bit mousified," she commented, smoothing the Kleenex in my pocket. We were told to have a white handkerchief fanning from our pocket. "Can you tell I don’t have stockings on?" I asked, turning around. Maybe we would be reprimanded, but we certainly were not going to invest in a pair of stockings. "Come on, let’s go."

Three o’clock is a dead hour. It is an ideal time for waitresses to change shifts. When Doris and I entered the lunch room only a few people were sipping sodas at the fountain. Waitresses leaned against the sandwich grill with trays under their arms, ready for a customer, but snatching a brief conversation.

We did not know to whom we should report, but shortly a white-uniformed lady answered our puzzled expressions. She was thin and wiry. Her short black hair and snapping dark eyes accented the vivacity with which she conducted her orders. "I am the head waitress, girls. My name is Blackie. I’d like you to start off back here for the afternoon."

She led us to the rear of the store near some booths that were roped off. Each of us was given two booths to watch.

"Near the supper rush hour we’ll be using those tables, too." She motioned toward those that were confined to the ropes. "But now I would like you mostly to observe the other girls and catch on to the routine."

We were given trays and a towel, the dinner menu, instructions on putting in orders. Then we, too, leaned against the booths and watched. The doors swung in and out as customers came and departed. The heat of the afternoon swished in and out with them. Cracked ice tinkled in the glasses; cokes fizzed over the tops. I watched the level of an ice cold lemonade go down unaware of the figure passing me.

"Oh... Mouse." I looked up and saw Doris motioning to my booth. Gulping, I straightened up, put on my Sunday grin and proceeded with the encounter. "Tips," I kept thinking, "tips." The more tips, the less expense of room and board. "One grilled cheese on white toast, coffee and fresh strawberry sundae," I jotted down the order.

To the grill for the sandwich, pour my own coffee, order sundaes at the fountain. Now where do I get the sugar and cream? No sugar, pour your own cream from the pitcher.

Doris stood on the other foot. No one was at her table yet.

"One grilled cheese on nine!" a voice shouted from behind the counter.

I picked up the plate, established a pickle at the side and delivered the lunch. Soon the doors were in perpetual motion. Workers, late afternoon shoppers filed in. Now they were standing in line. Blackie was filling all the booths and ushering the people out as soon as they were finished.

Good service, more tips. It was an art, this waiting on tables. It was a game, too. I would try a different approach on each customer, scrap the unprofitable and try a new technique. Waiting on tables can be a sincere effort to deliver a meal in a gracious manner consuming the smallest amount of time.

I watched the faces of those who entered. Arms overladen with bundles, a woman dropped into the brown cushions in another booth. She rested a moment before ordering. Here was someone who needed an reassuring smile and a low, pleasant voice to aid her.

And then came the snappy business man in his pin-striped suit. He was always fun, giving you a friendly jibe when you forgot the biscuits, or delving into your personal history about the date last night that left you starry-eyed. They usually left a big tip under the cup if you knew the right answers.

But here came a boisterous group. The high school pals just out of the late afternoon movie. The girl with the ten silver bracelets and swinging the sun glasses must be the leader. She can’t decide whether they should sit on the stools at the fountain or next to the nickelodeon in the booth.

The booth won. A motley crew of colored skirts swung around the table. Toeless shoes tucked under the bench. Nickels jangled into the box and, as the music began, this mass of color and merriment swayed to the rhythm. This was always followed by ten minutes of deciding, coaxing, and changing of orders. My check book would finally read something like this: Cherry coke, lemon coke, plain coke small, limeade, plain coke large, and an ice cream cone. It is amazing the length of a conversation that can be held over these and the number of straws that can be chewed and cast aside. Now they are almost ready to leave. No, someone in another booth punched their favorite arrangement on the juke box. Oh well, another ten minutes and the supper rush....

Twelve thirty a.m. We polished the last row of glasses on the fountain. Blackie and two other girls were replenishing the sugar bowls and napkin holders.

"Wish those two fellows would hurry up and leave," I whispered. "Then I could finish cleaning off my tables."

The overhead lights blinked. The men, catching the signal, paid their checks and left. "Well, I guess I’m through," I said, dusting off the last crumb with my towel. "I’m not used to these odd working hours."

Once up in the dressing room again I freed my hair of the net and u