We left Detroit, having been told at the Michigan Automobile Association that we should find excellent roads. As one prominent broker remarked, “You can drive the length of the state on macadamized roads.” Where were they? Surely not the way we went, the way described in the Blue Book. And let me state right here that we have never had much faith in that publication, and now what little we had is _nihil_! A few miles out of the city we struck a detour which lasted nearly to Ann Arbor. We had left at six o’clock, and when we reached the university city all places to dine were closed. We did not _dine_. We had pot-luck supper at a Greek restaurant, and started for Jackson to spend the night. Ann Arbor is a beautiful place, and the university buildings and fraternity houses are second to none of all we saw in other states. The road did not improve, and we arrived at Jackson very late and put up at the Otsego Hotel. It was crowded, and we were given the “sample rooms,” in which the traveling-men displayed their goods on long tables. We had comfortable beds and private baths, but you felt as if you were sleeping in a department store, with the counters covered with white cloths. Otherwise, the Otsego is a good hotel, and we were perfectly comfortable. By the time we were through breakfast, we asked to have a lunch put up, and were kindly but firmly told that it was nine-thirty, and the chef had gone home and locked up everything. We pleaded for some hot coffee and _anything_ cooked that was left from breakfast. But no, not a sandwich nor a roll could we buy! We met this condition time after time. If we arrived at a hotel after eight o’clock in the evening, we were met with the same retort--“Chef gone and everything closed.” A dozen times and more we were obliged to go out and forage for supper--“due to the eight-hour law,” we were always told. As it was nearly ten o’clock, we trusted to luck to find a lunching-place en route. Fortune certainly favored us in the most unexpected way--not in our roads, which still were poor, but in the shape of two little girls on the wayside. As we were passing through a hamlet called Smithfield--before reaching Albion--we were attracted by two dainty girls with baskets of goodies waiting for us. Their names were Evelyn and Willetta Avery, and they proved to be fairy godmothers. Their mother owned the neighboring farm, and these children were spending their vacation in supplying lunches to passers-by. Everything was done up in fresh napkins and was real home cooking. This is what we bought from them: a quart of fresh blueberries (which Toodles, in her joy, promptly upset in the tonneau, and we walked on blueberries for days!), fresh cake, pie, honey, hard-boiled eggs, tongue sandwiches, hot bread and rolls, a pat of sweet butter, and oh! such home-made pickles, raspberry jam (a pint glass), and a bottle of ice-cold spring water, an abundance for four hungry grown-ups, and all for $2.10. We