The San Francisco call., 1909-07-25

out that word expense win yo14 y
makes me nervousf'
Inside the hall the masculine port1cR
Of the crowd stamped on the dooR and
scuirted streams OF dark brown upon
imaginary hres IN obscure corners
Brunner was testing his conneck4onss
our coil, red with furnace glow, paint
ed the wondering faces OF the spec
tators- In one aisle sat spruce look
ing young fellow. painfully, bashfully
conscious OF the pretty mountain girl
at his side; at his left sat toothlesS
woman. old at 80.
The show was on. stood and
watched an old man OF 73. who was
obviously completely absorbed In the
moving pictures, which. so his daugh-
ter told me, were the first he had ever
seen. We were showing a hand col
ored French Illusion film. The old
mans jaw dropped lower and lower.
He scanned first the screen, then the
picture machine. scratched hts head In
bewilderment. exclaiming. "Cricketyt
by cr1cketyr He had come down the
mountains on mule back, and the next
morning fncautiously ehanced to cross
in front of our machine. "Honk! honkP'
blazoned our horn never knew a
mule could go so fast or an old man
ride so welli
Sunshine, Gods glorious mountain
air songs Of wild birds. quaH whort-
ling ahead of the machine; flowers
everywherei 1t was good to live as
we rolled along. Only. unfortunately,
we were again almost broke.
At Jackson the local moving picture
man stood treat at the soda fountain
We appreciated the courtesy.
Great stamp mills among the foot
hills roared as we passed the mines.
At the foot of a long hill lay Sutter
Creek. II was a glorious coast, We
were headed for Plymouth and farther
north.
Although we had played but two Of
the "a towns on our schedule, we were
still fairly hopeful.
Out of Sutter Creek is another hill.
We climbed for 100 feet, then stopped
Brunner crawled under the car. His
face was serious as he crawled out
"Jerusalemi we've run a good eight
miles without grease; our oil plug
dropped out somewhere back there; our
bushings are ground to pieces; nothing
doing on low speed Wen have to
take IT on high all the way into San
Francisco and we're going to start at
oncer'
At the top of the hill we had coastsd
down the man whose team hauled Us
up called: It's down hill all tho way
to Stockton. boys"
1t looked down htui We took IL By
LOu 0OA ~ --1Sls Jul II =
better than walking. We got tired
counting the hills Darkness found US
at Diebolts, where we paid out S2.25
for meals and beds. Our balance then
was $115, but at o'clock the world
is very fair. Perhaps It was so that
day because we had really brealkfastsd
Getting Home Alive
We hoped to make San Francisco By
Nj oh Qnnfhar n1QaA
where it was uphill going DOWN. Again
Drummer crawled under the car. There
was nothing to 1t. Our transmission
was played out We couldn't budget
Drummer and I tramped two miles to
a farm house I told our story to Mr..
Proudly. the dairyman. could tell it
backward now. The only thing that
saved me from work that day was the
fact that I didn't know anything about
a gas engine. Brunner dbl And he
worked At noon we ate with the
farm hands. eating much more than
they did. Little Gage was still alive
when we returned to the machine ak
o'clock that afternoon. I drove the
team. Brunner steering. There was no
shade. no water. 1t was after o'clock
when we reached Clements. The pro-
prietor OF the hotel there is good kind
man, and that night we ate and slept
In the morning we loaded our car on
the station platform, and the men
about seemed to think it fun. The sta
tion agent was a brick, and Brunner
caught $40 on the end of wire For
financial reasons we had seriously con-
sidered going via freight ourselves. as
did the rest of our stuff, all exceDt
our grips. The boys left an @ q
with the hotel man They had their
film service to settle for; fOrtunatalR
the picture machine hadn't cost them
anything. They speculated regarding
the length of time they had spenr
in repair work under the machine.
Still it might have been worse.
On the Stockton boat coming down
to San Francisco there were few other
chaps out OF a job.
IF a fellow had an automobiIe and
could take a moving picture show up
north he could clean up a lotr' one OF
them remarked
You bet he cOuldr' we agreed.
surveying our hands and clothes.
clean up a lot2" We did. but Il
took soap and water All things con-
sidered. we had lot Of fun and came
home feeling better than when we
started. Perhaps wen try 1t again
some time.