At Sugarland we took on illicit gasoline and a passenger. He was bound for a barbecue, but volunteered to steer us through a particularly bad spot a mile further. We roused his gloom by a reference to the Blue Laws of Texas. “Ef this legislatin’ keeps on,” he said, “a man’ll have to git a permit to live with his wife. Texas aint what it used to be. This yere’s a dry, non-gambling county, but this yere town’s the best town in the state.” We followed his gesture wonderingly toward the lonely cluster of houses, a warehouse, a store, an ex-saloon with the sign badly painted out, and “refreshments” painted in, and the usual group of busy loafers at the store. “Yes ma’am. It’s a good town. Twice a year on Gawge Washin’ton’s birthday and the Fo’th we hold a barbecue an’ everyone in the county comes. I’m right sorry I cain’t take yo’ ladies along; I’m sure I could show yo’ a good time. Whiskey flows like water, we roast a dozen oxen, and sometimes as much as fifteen thousand dollars will change hands at one crap game. We whoop it up for a week, and then we settle down, and mind the law again.” Under the guidance of our kindly passenger, we learned a new technique in driving. In first gear, avoiding the deceptively smooth but slimy roadside, we made for the deepest ruts, racing the engine till it left a trail of thick white smoke behind, clinging to the steering wheel, while the heavy car rocked and creaked in the tyrannical grip of the ruts like a ship in the trough of the waves. Without our friend, we never should have got through. He walked ahead, selected the impassable places from those which merely looked so, and beamed, when rocked and bruised from the wheel I steered the good car to comparatively dry land. A little further, where the barbecue began, he bade us a regretful farewell, and requested us to look him up when next we came to Texas. “I sure would ’a liked to have went to Boston,” he added, “but I aint sure ef I had ’a went theah, whetheh I could ’a understood their brogue.” Since Houston we had learned the full meaning of Texas optimism. “Roads are splendid, ma’am. I think you’ll git through,” we mentally labeled as “probably passable.” But when we heard, in the same soft, gentle monotone, “Pretty poor roads, ma’am; I think yo’ll boag,” we knew we should “boag”--bog to the hubs in a plaster of Paris cast. At Richmond, where they told us that the roads which Houston had described as “splendid” were quite impassable, we sadly learned that to a Texan, any road twenty miles away is a “splendid road,” ten miles away is “pretty fair,” but at five, “you’ll sure boag.”