TWO POUNDS REWARD

Southland Times, Issue 23538, 18 June 1938, Page 13

TWO POUNDS REWARD

SHORT STORY By

GREGORY CLARK

“DOGER Babson says,” said AV Jimmie Frise, “that in 20 years, half the population will be living in motor-car trailers.” “Think of that,” I said. “Right now,” went on Jim, “hundreds of thousands of people know no other home than their cabin trailer. They come north in I summer. They go south in winter. It is the life of Riley.”

“Cramped quarters, though,” I suggested. “What is the modem home,” demanded Jim, , “but a place to sleep? A cabin trailer is as good as a ten-roomed mansion. Millions are living in apartments not much bigger than a cabin trailer. As a matter of fact, the cabin trailer is the logical conclusion toward which we have been marching for years.”

"First we were nomads,” I said, “then we moved into caves. Then we built cities. Then we fortified them and put walls around them. Now we are becoming nomads again.”

“That’s it exactly,” 4 *said Jim. “Nomads. From dust we came—unto dust we return. Fifty years ago, the home //as the foundation of society. The bigger the home, the bigger you were in society. Fifteen, 20-roomed mansions all over the world. Now they use them for auction sale houses, or office buildings.”

“They had larger families then,” I pointed out.

“Somewhere about 30 years ago,” said Jim, “something serious happened to the human scheme. We began to stop having families. We began blinding apartment houses. Bungalows. Then the motor-car came along. And then the trailer. In another 20 years, real estate won’t be worth two shillings. To own a house will classify you with the old order of things. In fact, houses will be so cheap, you can own houses all

over the place, in various cities; just to store stuff in.” “How about gardens?” I asked. “We can have an annex trailing behind the trailer,” said Jim, “with a portable garden in it. The world will consist not of cities but of highways. Vast cities now flourishing will be torn down to make parking areas. If we want to do business with a man, we don’t telephone him. We just move over next door to him. Neighbours, like. And when the business is complete, move on. • “How will we keep track of one another?” I asked. “That will be one of the chief charms,” said Jim. “We won’t, be able to keep track of one another. That’s what has made us all so sick of the world the way it is. We are all so kept track of.” “But suppose I want my shoes repaired?” I begged. “What will you want shoes for?” asked Jim. “You don’t have to walk any place. But suppose you did want your shoes repaired. You just sit on the steps ‘of your cabin trailer until you see a cabin go by with ‘Shoemaker’ printed on it. You hail him. He stops. Backs in beside you. Repairs your shoes. And away he goes.” “How about milk? And bread?” I demanded. “We have the thing backwards now,” said Jim, “with us nailed down ■ ' .

to. a house for the convenience of the milkman. In the new order of things, the milkman will have his dairy in a central location, and we drive around i for the milk.” “Ah,” I cried, “so something will be fixed?” “Certainly,” said Jim. “But not the people. The people will be free. Heavenly free. But the services will be nailed down. We are now the slaves of the system. We will make the system our slave.” ( ■ “But,” I said, "suppose the milkman wants to be a nomad, too?” “Then he can’t be a milkman,” explained Jimmie.. “Oh, well, it will be just the same as it is now,” I protested, “somebody is always the goat.” “But a few goats,” said Jim, “are better than a hundred million goats.” “It looks to me,” I assured him, “as

if we were gradually slipping back into the past. We are becoming nomads again. In due time, as the thing progresses, we will be right back where we started—in the cave.” “It would take a brave man,” declared Jim, “to say that the world is better today than it was. My feeling is that we are all, the whole human race, just taking a tumble to the fact that we have been gypped. That civilization, as they call it, has been a hoax, an imposition, and we are getting rid of it. For five or six thousand years, we have been patiently submitting to this idea that we should all settle down and begin to die before we have ever lived. As soon as we can walk, we are snatched up and sent to school to learn all the rules of settling down and being a slave. All through our youth, we are drilled and trained in the art of

going nowhere and settling down. Tht great idea in life it seems, is to be not seen and not heard. The absolute ideal of civilization is to go througl life as if you had never lived.” “By the way,” I cut in, “how woulc the kids go to school in this caravar civilization you are expecting?” “I doubt if there will be any lcids,’ said Jim. “But if there are there won’i be any schools. Anyway, what would there be to leam? We won’t need tc know anything, in the days to come except to count the change whenever we buy benzine. And anybody can teach a kid to count.” “It certainly doesn’t sound like much of a civilization,” I stated. “Who says it has to be?” demanded Jim. ‘But my dear fellow,” I exclaimed angrily, “where are we heading? What is our goal?” “We will head,” said Jim, “whereever we please; our goal will be any place in the world. We can stay still or we can move, just whichever we feel like, at the moment. We will be tree, compact, mobile; instead of nailed down, enslaved, burdened, chained. Everything we acquire these days is another nail, fastening us to the earth. In the days to come, when we live in cabin trailers, we won’t have room to acquire anything. Life will be reduced to the essentials.” “And those essentials?” Tasked. “Bed, frying pan and the pursuit of happiness,” pronounced Jimmie in the American manner. “Personally,” I said, “I have never owned a trailer. Not even one of the baggage-carrying kind.” “We ought to join the parade,” said Jim. “We ought to own a trailer. How

ridiculous for us to load our cars like baggage trucks whenever we go for a trip, when all we have to do to be perfectly comfortable and roomy, is to hitch a trailer on the back and load our baggage on if. Thousands do. But we, in our stuffy, old-fashioned way, load up our cars with baggage and. bird cages and clumsy boxes of provisions, until we have to sit on our edges for a hundred miles.” “If we were getting a trailer,” I said, “we might as well get the real thing. A cabin. It would dispose of this business of hotels, and cottages, arid camps. Think of being able to have a little house on wheels and go wherever we please, for as long as we please. For

instance, we might want to go to the Lake of Bays. In order to go there, we have to do one of three things: rent a cottage, reserve a room at a hotel, or go on speculation to find a camp site where somebody will let us camp.” “Property,” said Jim. “All of it.” “Whereas, with a cabin trailer,” I pointed out, “we just go home and throw into it a few things we need. Then dangle along. And when we see the place we like, pull off the side of the road, and there we are.” “A cabin trailer,” said Jim, “costs

a bit of money. But you can get a good ordinary trailer second-hand for very little. In fact, there are places you can rent them for two shillings a day. Now, I do not propose to be left among the minority, when this big change comes. I want to join the caravan at the start. I like to be in the forefront of these new things. I will gladly split with you the price of a good trailer, and we can do your first experiments right away.” “How about this week-end?” I asked. “Let’s put your punt and my tent and a few bags of duffle aboard an open trailer and just go. Anywhere. And see what it feels like. No plans. No nothing. Just mooch.” “I know a trailer I can get for £3,” said Jim. “Buy it,” said I. And Thursday Jim drove proudly into my side drive towing behind him the harbinger of the new age. It was a very simple and dignified vehicle. Two-wheeled, with springs; painted substantial; it was a trailer for trailing loads. Jim demonstrated the patent attachment for coupling the trailer to the back of any car. You dropped a bolt down, and then stuck a safety

bolt through the bottom—secure, . snug. • “Where will we keep it overnight?” I asked. ] “I hoped you would keep it here,” ! said Jim, looking around my drive and 3 garden. ‘Tin afraid I couldn’t keep it in the j . side drive,” I said, “and it wouldn’t go through the gate into the yard, and t anyway it would cut up the lawn.” i “I have no room in my place,” said Jim. “The kids all around would be t hauling it about” ’ * .... .. a

We pondered the problem. Finally Jim suggested we store it overnight at the garage a few blocks away, where we got our benzine and odds and ends. “I have to charge four shillings a night,” explained our old friend, the garage man, “or my place would be full of these tilings and nothing else.” Next day, we called and picked her up and proceeded to load up for the journey. We piled in bags and tent and blanket rolls and tent pegs; Jim added more bags and quilts, and boxes of supplies; and still there was lots of room. ' Too much room. Everything slid around in the trailer. So we added a few things we didn’t intend to take, such as back rests for the boat, cushions, grass rugs, and anything else we could find around the house to take up space. “Aha,” cried Jim. “The complete caravaneers. The citizens of the future, footloose and free.”

And -putting a few of the delicate items such'as fishing rods in the car, we manoeuvred out of Jim’s drive, backwards, and set forth upon our journey. It is a little difficult to back up these trailers. It is also a little tricky rounding corners and taking curves. This one we got had a habit of weaving from side to side whenever we turned a curve. But as Jim pointed out, what could we expect for £3? Inside of ten miles, however, just nicely outside the city, we were exclaiming that we wouldn’t even know we had a trailer attached, so smooth

and free did we run. For the first hour or so, we both had the five-minute habit of turning and looking back to see if our trailer was coming with us. The sense of pride in a trailer must come from the same source as the feeling a small boy has when he gets his first pants with pockets. It is a sort of all-here feeling; a complete, self-contained feeling. Our nomad ancestors felt that way when on the wide deserts, with all their worldly goods aboard a camel or two. But presently the novelty wore off, and we cruised along, talking about where we would go, and not caring. “When evening comes on,” said Jim, “we will start looking for a spot to stop.” Mile after mile, we sailed along. And certainly, you would never imagine we had a trader on at all. In fact, we no longer felt the trailer waggling on the curves. It was as if it had got into its stride. Another car snored past us, pulling a trailer so like ours, both Jim and I cried out: “You’d think it was ours, boat, bags and all.” « “Funny how people all do the same things,” said Jim. “Even to roping on a boat with the same knots.” We put another 30 miles behind. We pulled into a petrol station for benzine and both got out and watched the lady fill her up. Please,’ reader, observe this. We both got out. Both stood watching the petrol station lady fill our tank in the rear of the car with benzine. We paid. Got back in. Drove about four miles up the road when suddenly I felt a curious prickling sensation in the back of my neck. I slanted my gaze around to Jim, at the wheel, and saw on Jim’s face a curious look of horror. He took his foot off the accelerator. He swivelled his gaze around to me. “Did you,” he swallowed, “notice whether the trailer was on, back at that petrol station?” “Jim,” I gasped, “the same dreadful thought just struck me this instant It was NOT on.” We stopped the car on the road shoulder. Both very reluctantly got out and raised our eyes to the rear of the car. The trailer was gone. “It was gone,” said Jim, “back there at the petrol station when we stopped for benzine. And we didn’t notice it

was gone.” “Jim,” I cried, “that must have been our trailer that passed us, the one we said was exactly like ours.” “Quick,” said Jim, “after them.” And at full speed, we raced north on the highway, watching at every village and every petrol station for our trailer, in case they had left it to be located. But though we drove at breakneck pace until dark, we neither overtook the finder of our trailer nor did we see it at any stopping place. “Either somebody is trying to find us,” said Jim darkly, “or else they are not trying to find us.” “What,” I asked, “is the status of a trailer left ditched on the roadside? Is it finders keepers?” So Jim and I located a hotel and had to borrow pyjamas, razor and so forth from the proprietor. And we walked

about until midnight, in the village, watching traffic. And we saw many trailers, both cabin and baggage. We slept badly and woke early and continued our journey northward, watching at every camping place and along the shores of every lake, but saw no trace of our trailer, until we had to turn around and head back home sans trailer, sans tent, sans bags and blankets and everything. “In the new era,” I said to Jim, “they will have to invent some better form of attachment for trailers or life will be very precarious indeed.” Jim reached into his pocket. “I wasn’t going - to mention it,” he said, “but I forgot to put this in.” It was the small safety bolt for securing the trailer to the car. “I’ll put up the reward,” assured Jim. < And the reward is £2.