The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-27
BY WILL T. STEPHAN

In our faces became a gale. It sang and swirled about our ears.
 In moment we slipped from among the switch lights and the arc lights in the city faded behind us. We were out in the night rushing on and on. The dawn was an hour behind us and our faces were set to the west. We raced with the darkness and fled from the dawn.
 Above us was the star sprinkled I sky calm and solemn and peaceful. It was the only familiar thing we could see. it was the oniy usual thing that was about us. All else was strange and unreal A new noise beat upon our ears. The railroad track, so close that if the machine was stopped we could touch 1t with our feet was not railroad track 70 us. It was a narrow open space with two straight dark line of shadows rushing under us at inconceivable speed. A reflecting lamp threw long circle of light upon the track but about Us was d dense darkness.
 In our ears was a roaring. whirring sound. The air of an August night might have been close and calm in the city, but it was as a wind storm as we rushed through the darkness. It grew suddenly cold and chilly to us as the rushing air beat against our bodies and shot through summer clothing. We left a midsummer night at the station; we ran into a night of winter before the lights of the city had faded in our rear.
 The weeds and bushes along our rear were merged into dim and dark walls We were racing through an avenue shut in by two indstinguishable walls. The pavement. of the avenue so close
 to us as we sat in the low car. was white and pale in the mild glare of the | reflector. And all the time two shad- dowy lines rushed beneath us and to the rear.
 But for the roar and whirr of the wheels we might have been flying
 through the air. But the sharp vibrant I chorus, of the gasoline engine. the me- tallic whirr of steel wheel against steel rail kept us reminded that we were still chained to the earth. We were | a great shuttle on some monster ma
 chine flying forward with Irresistible force, a shuttle flying ever forward and l on.
 | Mazeppa, lashed to the wild horse and l helpless, had his moment of fear as the | animal spurned the earth and dashed away over hill and vale through the darkness. Even he impotent and at | the mercy of every whim of the flying | horse had his term of exulation, of in- | toxication with the rush of air In his
 ears and the sense of flight and speed l l ton came to us on the motor car It
 was an intoxicating experience. One | forgot the object of the wild ride, he
 forgot the need of sleep that had lain
 heavily upon his eyes before the lever
 was pulled at the union depot His | spirits rose at the new and thrilling | experience. I began to understand the l speed madness of the automobilist. thing that looks inexplicable to the | average man. I had a new and unex- pected appreciation of the intoxication
 of a rush through the cool and invigo- | rating air.
 | thought of the misgivings I felt
 when I first looked at the frail car. l feared then the idea of dashing
 through space on that thing at a rate
 of thirty miles an hour. On the road
 with the inspiring night air in our
 nostrils with the anticipating sense of
 annihilating space l regretted that the lever could not be moved up to forty
 miles the hour.
 The Flying Shuttle.
 The huge shuttle slid furiously on ia the darkness. A white streak
 dashed across our path and we had a
 sudden glimpse of an old brick build ing. It seemed that we had but just
 left the lights of the city, but I knew
 we were dashing across the dirt road | to Selma. six miles from town. To us
 on the machine there were no curves l The dark lines which were the rails | were spread out straight before us The practical railroad man could tell
 by the swaying of the auto-car that we | were rounding curves, but to the lay
 man 1t was straightaway track We | were dashing over.
 One never got rid of the idea that he
 was riding in a buggy of some sort.
 And thinking of this, he wondered at | the absence of hills and valleys. He
 caught himself looking for the pull up | a hill and the dash down a hill, for
 these were things that belonged to an
 open ride on a buggy seat. the sort of | ride that we were taking. | We had time to make up and we were
 making it up. A square arch jumped
 into view and in moment we knew
 we were flying over Catoma Creek A ! glimpse of the water below was all we
 had. It as but a few minutes, 1t | seemed, before we rushed under anoth- | CT dark arch and knew that we had
 crossed Pintlala. The white houses of ! lowndesboro hove into sight, but al-
 most before we realized 1t we had
 dashed through the town with undi- | unfinished speed and 1t lay behind us In
 the barnyards the chandeliers were
 heralding the coming of the dawn, but
 we might not hear them above the roar | of the auto.
 l | lever and we eased up a bit. We
 had made up some of the lost time and | We could afford to travel a little slow. Between thirty and thirty-five miles an
 hour is no rapid time for a train to l make, but when one sits upon a rock
 ing whirring car, few inches above a
 railroad track, he has a sense of flight | and speed that he does not get on a Pullman with the train running seven | ty miles an hour We slowed down to
 less than twenty-five miles an hour but the sensation of flying through air, the
 intoxication of the morning air was as strong ever.
 Along the track the bushes which had been dark and dim now turned pale
 and white. The fragrant pines outlined 1 their graceful forms The rosy dawn
 was coming up behind us. We saw the contour of the hills and the rails lay outspredd before us for a hundred l yards
 We dashed through a collection of whitewashed buildings Phelps stirred | In his seat and picked the lantern from between his feet to look at his watch. He shouted, Whitehall, twenty five miles from Montgomery and half way to Selma. We made it in less than an | hour"
 They were the first words that had | been spoken on the car since we moved l out of sight of the Bell Street bridge The morning light grew apace. For
 the first time we were able to look about us and take in the fragrant | beauty of Alabama awakening in the
 dawn of a new day. For the first time l We realized that the early morning