Despite her poor health, she took on many
challenging journeys. She wrote articles about her travels and later compiled
them into books. She also logged everything in her diaries. These records give
many examples of the dangers and difficulties that she met and the risks that
she took while on the road.
There is one particular episode that looks like a nightmare scenario to me. It has some familiar elements.
The walking tour nightmare
While Stella Benson was exploring the US in
1918, a new female friend in New England proposed a walking tour.
The final leg involved walking 18 miles through the night to catch a train at 05:30.
They left very little margin for error, which was a big mistake. They got lost and went several miles out of their way; it took a while to find someone to put them back on the right road. At 4:00 am they still had six miles or so to go. The backwoods people were infuriatingly unhelpful: no one would give them a lift.
They had only 15 minutes left when they met a
man in a milk cart. They offered him money to turn round and take them to the
station; after pondering for a while, he refused. Then they met a man in an
empty car and waved and shouted. He slowed down a little then laughed, told
them to get off the road and drove on.
When they were one mile from the station, they heard the puffing of the train and saw smoke; they gave up, assuming that they were too late. They walked slowly towards the station, feeling awful because after all their efforts they had missed their train.
When they were within 100 yards of the station, they noticed that the train had backed in again. They made one last, desperate, torturing effort, running as never before, and reached the platform only to see the back of the train disappear round the bend.
“Defeated and robbed of pride we threw ourselves on our backs in mid-platform.”
Familiar features
This reminds me of Sheri S. Tepper’s Marianne and the recently described nightmare scenario, in which after making huge
efforts she just manages to touch the back of her bus but not get on it.
Then there were the unhelpful, mocking locals. It is true that the two women presented an odd appearance, bundled up as they were against the cold, and were objects of suspicion because they were strangers, but it could be that the unsympathetic people were also affected by Stella Benson’s inner state.
This incident is yet another example of an ordeal that is all for nothing.
Stella admitted that for someone with severe lung problems, to agree to walk through the freezing night and then run very hard was an altogether stupid thing do. She wrote:
“I thought I should never breathe again...I froze and dripped simultaneously. I was sure that death must follow this effort, but still it seemed worth it if we could catch that train.“
Lessons not learned
Stella still trusted her friend, which was
rather unwise as it led to some more difficult situations.
A bit later, this friend was supposed to welcome Stella to California and help her settle in. She didn’t come, so Stella had to fend for herself:
“I arrived in San Francisco alone on Christmas Eve with five dollars in my possession, knowing no-one. I went to a rather expensive hotel in Oakland. No hotel, bad or good, was, practically speaking, within my means, so I might as well choose a good one.”
She sat alone on the beach with a snack on Christmas Day 1918!
Later, when her friend arrived, Stella found herself led into company of entirely the wrong sort:
“I don’t know what I am doing with these people. I am terrified of them.”
She became depressed and ill. She thought of moving on, but this was not possible because she had lent all her money to this same ‘friend’.
A kindly man pointed out that her friend was a monopoliser and a sucker who drained people dry and would do the same to Stella if she let her. Stella had got into the power of an energy vampire!
The situation resolved itself when Stella eventually found a job and got a room somewhere else.
Her travelling days were far from ended, and she endured many more ordeals along the way.
Joy Grant’s biography and Stella Benson’s travel book The Little World are the main sources of information and quotations for this article.
