THE LIFE POLAR EXPEDITION

En route with “Life’s” Bicycle Polar Expedition.—May 24.

We chose this route northward, through Mt. Vernon, Tuckahoe and Scarsdale, because we figured out that it might be pleasant to stop off at my house in Scarsdale for maybe a bite to eat, or, in case there was not time for that, at any rate to let the boys see our bicycles. But I guess now that we would have done better to take the Hudson River road.

We reached Scarsdale late yesterday afternoon, intending to put in at my side-yard, get a drink of cool water and perhaps a pocketful of Rosa’s cookies, show my two boys how the gyro-balancer works, and then push on to White Plains for the night. The cool-water-and-cookies part of the plan worked out to the dot, but in demonstrating the gyro-balancer to the boys we ran into a snag which has held us up for an entire day.

It was really due to the kind-heartedness of Lieut.-Commander Connelly that the whole thing happened. He insisted on removing his gyro-balancer from the frame of his “bike” in order to show Nathaniel, my older boy, just how it worked, and, as he did so, he laid the loose nuts on a piece of paper on the ground. Robert, my younger boy (who is only six and so mustn’t be blamed too much), claims that he didn’t go near the paper or the nuts. And he probably doesn’t realize that he did. But one of the nuts was found over a nail on a boat that he was working on a few feet away, and the other had disappeared completely.

A search was immediately instituted which covered every square inch of the lawn and extended into the street—those things roll so. But when darkness came we were no nearer to finding it than we had been at the beginning, and it was necessary to telephone back into New York for an extra nut, which they said they would send out the first thing in the morning. It is now 4:17 in the afternoon and the man hasn’t come yet. We are very discouraged.

It was while we were searching for the nut that a neighbor came up and asked us if we had heard anything about the Byrd expedition’s having flown over the Pole. I got him aside out of earshot of the other men and asked him if he was sure. He said no, but that he had seen a cartoon in some paper which seemed to have reference to a successful flight by Byrd. I, however, laughed his fears away and went back to the search. Even if Byrd does beat us to it, his victory will have been by flying-machine, while ours will be by bicycle—two entirely different things.

The trip from Mt. Vernon to Scarsdale was one of great beauty and was accomplished without a mishap. The route led along the Bronx River Parkway, through woods and across streams, which made up in a way for the rough time we had in the traffic in New York City.

While passing through Tuckahoe, Lieut.-Commander Connelly saw a scarlet tanager perched on a bush overhanging the stream. Thinking that it might be interesting to have it for our collection of flora and fauna which we are making for the Museum, we dismounted and crept up very quietly beside it, thinking to bag it before it could collect its wits. But it heard us coming and flew away.

There is a particularly odd family of ferns which grows along the bank of the Bronx River, and, ferns not being as agile as birds, we were able to pick great quantities of it. I wish that some of my readers could tell me what the name of it is. It is green, like other ferns, but it seems to have a sort of flower which looks like a carnation. The blossom was still in bud and so we were unable to tell exactly what it does look like, but I should say that a carnation would just about fit it. Any naturalist who happens to have run across this fern, and who knows what it is, would relieve our minds considerably if he, or she, would write to the Life Polar Expedition, General Delivery, White Plains, N. Y., and tell us. Just a regular fern, with a carnation blossom.

We are now going out into the side-yard again with a flashlight to take another look for the missing nut, as evidently the man from town isn’t going to bring out that extra one today, and we must get started early tomorrow morning.

Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining, and, as a result of our being held up here in Scarsdale like this, we have been able to have some of Rosa’s excellent baked-beans. I find it almost impossible to get real New England baked-beans in this region, unless you tell someone just how they should be done. In the first place, it must be a California pea-bean that is used, and these should be put to soak the night before and then baked in a slow fire all the next day. If we had got away when we expected, the beans would not have been ready. So perhaps we were a little harsh with Bobbie.