The farmer who has worn out horses, harness, wagons, and temper in getting light loads to market over heavy roads is quick to appreciate the very material advantage and economy of having highways over which one horse can pull as much as two under the old sandy, rough, and muddy conditions.
A good road may be the making of a town, and it increases the value of all abutting property.

Already the question is commonly asked when a farm is offered for sale or rent, "Is it on a State road ?" Lots will not sell in cities unless all improvements are in; soon farmers will not be able to sell unless the highways are improved.
One good thing about the automobile, it does not cut up the surface of a macadam or gravel road as do steel tires and horseshoes.
At the outskirts of the little village of West Brookfield we came to a stand-still; the spark disappeared,--or rather from a large, round, fat spark it dropped to an insignificant little blue sparklet that would not explode a squib.
The way the spark acted with either or both batteries on indicated pretty strongly that the trouble was in the coil; but it is so seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was then dark.
As good luck would have it, we were almost in front of a large, comfortable, old-fashioned house where they took summer boarders; as the season was drawing to a close, there was plenty of room and they were glad to take us in.

The machine was pushed into a shed, everybody assisting with the readiness ever characteristic of sympathetic on-lookers.
The big, clean, white rooms were most inviting; the homely New England supper of cold meats and hot rolls seemed under the circumstances a feast for a king, and as we sat in front of the house in the evening, and looked across the highway to a little lake just beyond and heard the croaking of the frogs, the chirping of crickets, and the many indistinguishable sounds of night, we were not sorry the machine had played us false exactly when and where it did.
The automobile plays into the hands of Morpheus, the drowsy god follows in its wake, sure of his victims.

No sleep is dreamless.
It is pretty difficult to exhaust the three billions of cells of the central nervous system so that all require rest, but ten hours on an automobile in the open air, speeding along like the wind most of the time, will come nearer putting all those cells to sleep than any exercise heretofore discovered.

The fatigue is normal, pervasive, and persuasive, and it is pretty hard to recall any dream on waking.
It was Sunday morning, September 1, and raining, a soft, drizzly downpour, that had evidently begun early in the night and kept up -- or rather down--steadily.