Had the task been wholly mine I should not have undertaken it, and, of course, in that instance I did not attempt it; the old barefoot quoit player stood to us a symbol of the implicit and stubborn conservatism of the rural districts. But there were others in the field, an army of them, indeed; Herbert Bigelow, the radical preacher of Cincinnati, who had been president of the constitutional convention; Henry T. Hunt, Cincinnati’s young mayor; and, most influential of all of them perhaps, James M. Cox, destined that autumn to be elected governor of Ohio. And, besides all these, there was the spirit of the times, penetrating at last with its inspiring ideas even the conservatism of the country people. I was confident that the old man could be counted upon to vote for the initiative and referendum at any rate, since one so free and democratic in costume and manner must be of the democratic spirit as well, though I had my doubts of him in that moment when he should put on his spectacles and examine the amendments abolishing capital punishment, and granting home rule to cities. But the sun came out again as we climbed the hills that overlook Mansfield, to command a lovely scene, broad fertile valleys all renewed by the rain and flooded with sunshine, and I remembered that Altgeld had once lived there, and beheld this same landscape, that he had taught school in that town and from there had gone away with a regiment to fight in the Civil War. The chauffeur got out and took the chains off the tires, while we sat silent under the influences of the beauty of those little Ohio hills. And then, as we started on, the clouds returned, the scene darkened, and it began to rain again, and, before we knew, the car skidded and we were in the ditch. The wife of the farmer whose garden fence we had broken in our accident revealed all the old rural dislike of the urbanite; she said she was glad of our fate, since motorists were forever racing by and killing her chickens, and with this difficulty I left Ashley to deal, since he had been president of a railroad and was experienced in adjusting claims, and, after he had parleyed a while, I saw him take out his pocketbook, and then the chauffeur got the car out of the ditch and we were on our way again.