"Yes, we do not understand anything, we do not wish to understand, and in all probability we will never understand. We gladly admit all that you say, that San Antonio is a wonderful city, but we want to go on! Besides, don't forget, Mr. Adams, that your baby is waiting for you!"

As soon as the baby was mentioned the Adamses began to make haste, and in half an hour we were driving over the same broad and long street where yesterday under a drenching rain we sought a restaurant without a name.

Before leaving San Antonio we drove around Breckenridge Park. Mr. Adams insisted on it.

"You must not think, gentlemen," he announced, "that San Antonio is a bad town. It is a good, well-planned city—and you must see Breckenridge."

The large fine park was empty. Only a few of its trees were naked. All the others, just as in summer-time, rustled with thick green foliage. The park was crossed in all directions by irrigation canals lined with rock. The water flowed with a quiet rustle from one canal into another located a little lower. We looked at a camel and some sea-lions, admired the boys who played football on an almost blindingly green lawn, looked at the tables and benches arranged for picnickers, and, having received considerable information from at least ten petrol stations, we moved on east to the border of Louisiana.

Each day we drove out of one city in order to reach another city by evening, having passed in the course of the day any number of large and small main streets, the Adamses in front, we two in the back seat, and between us some hitchhiker with a suitcase on his knees! But never before had we been in such a hurry. It seemed that the faultless motor of our car was fed not only by the petrol, but also by the impatience that beat within us—as soon as possible to get to New York, as soon as possible to board a ship, as soon as possible to leave for Europe! The second month of our automobile journey was coming to an end. That is a short time for such a large and interesting country. But we were already filled to the brim with America.

The Negro South was approaching. The last mile separating us from Louisiana we drove through forests. The sun looked out. It was warm and joyous, as in the spring-time in the Ukraine. More frequently we met towns, habitations, petrol stations, and horses running freely over fields, their manes flying.

Finally, we passed the little post with the inscription "State of Louisiana," and raced alongside reddish fields of harvested cotton.

The monumental churches of the East and the West were succeeded by wooden, white-washed little churches on poles instead of foundations, Spanish and Indian names were succeeded by French names, and at the petrol station where Mrs. Adams "got" information they replied to her not "Yes, ma'am!" but "Yes, mom!"

Passing through the town of Lafayette we saw a large placard stretched across the street with a picture of an unpleasant self-satisfied face, bearing this inscription in heavy letters:

Elect me sheriff. I am a friend of the people!

This plea of the police Marat from the state of Louisiana reminded us of the manner of the recently assassinated senator, Huey Long, who likewise regarded himself "a friend of the people," of all the people, with the exception of Negroes, Mexicans, intellectuals, and workers, and demanded universal, participation in wealth, in all the wealth, with the exception of the five millions apiece which, according to the idea of the "friend of the people," had to be left to every millionaire.

Here in the South we saw what we had never before seen in America —pedestrians wandering along the highway. There was not a single white man among them.

An old bent Negro woman in thick yellow stockings, ragged dirty slippers, in apron and an old-fashioned hat with a bow, passed by.

We suggested to Mr. Adams that we would like to give the old lady a lift.

"No, no, no!" he exclaimed. "What are you saying? You don't understand the nature of the Southern states. To give a lift to an old Negress! She will never, never believe that white people want to give her a lift. She will think that you are making fun of her."

On the highway, in the midst of the automobiles, suddenly appeared a grey horse pulling a two-wheeled cabriolet with a coachman's box (we saw such specimens in the Ford museum). In the cabriolet sat a planter's wife and her daughter. The ancient equipage turned into a country lane, an ordinary cart road, if you please, with a strip of yellowish grass in the middle. From all the automobiles that passed on the highway people looked out and gazed at the cabriolet which drove off, swaying importantly on its springs, high and thin as spider legs. In just such curiosity farmers had looked thirty years ago at the smoky and sputtering automobile with its clumsy body in which passengers sat up, dressed in wolf coats with the fur on the outside and wearing huge automobile goggles. We drove up to a large river. In the twilight it gleamed like metal.

"Mississippi!" exclaimed Mr. Adams.

"This is not the Mississippi," said Mrs. Adams calmly.

"This is the Mississippi!"

"This is not the Mississippi!"

"Becky, it depresses me to hear you say that this is not the Mississippi."

"Nevertheless, it is not the Mississippi."

Mr. Adams groaned. We drove across the bridge and found ourselves in Morgan City. Before going off to look for a night's lodging, we stopped at a restaurant called the "Blue Goose" to have our dinner.

"Sir," asked Mr. Adams of the proprietor, winking an eye, " what is the name of that river? I know what it is, but my wife would like to know."

"This is the Atchafalaya," replied the proprietor.

"How, how?"

"Atchafalaya."

"Thank you very, very," muttered Mr. Adams, backing out, "very, very."

That was the first occasion throughout the journey that Mr. Adams was guilty of a factual error.

Throughout the dinner Mr. Adams fidgeted in his chair and seemed distressed. Finally he produced a map and a guide book, looked into them for some time, and finally, without looking at his wife, he said timidly:

"I can inform you, gentlemen, of a very interesting detail. This accursed Atchafalaya is the deepest river in the world."

In order to fill up somehow a dull evening in dull Morgan City, we did what we usually did on such an occasion—we went to a motion-picture theatre. Usually, looking at the screen, Mr. Adams was not so much angry as he was ironical about the plot and the actors of the Holly- I wood production. But on this occasion he suddenly started a regular 1 demonstration. Ten minutes after the beginning we noticed that Mr. Adams was not his usual self. He jumped up and down in his seat, groaned and muttered quite aloud :

"To hell, hell, hell with it!"

Suddenly he cried out: "To hell with it!" so that everybody in the hall could hear him, jumped out of his seat, and, muttering curses and sputtering, ran out into the street. Mrs. Adams ran after him. We remained to see the picture to the end, sensing that an important family battle was at that very moment being waged in the street.

When the show was over we did not find either of the couple at the entrance to the theatre. With great difficulty we found them in various parts of the city. Happily, the ends of the city were not at any great distance from one another.

Mr. Adams, without a hat (his hat was still cruising from city to city), the collar of his coat raised, was taking broad steps across the dark highway in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico, continuing to mutter: "To hell with it!"