Doctor Wood. Modern Wizard of the Laboratory: The Story of an American Small Boy Who Became the Most Daring and Original Experimental Physicist of Our Day-but Never Grew Up

Except in simplest transactions, the language was a stumbling block. My vocabulary was painfully limited, and Rob could say nothing at all in Russian. When my words gave out, we resorted to pictures which Rob drew with his clever pencil. They spoke with a greater eloquence than words. After he had drawn what we wanted, I would present the sketch to the person with whom we were dealing, and pointing to it, say, “You can?” The man looked sometimes as if he thought we wanted to sell the sketch and were hoping he’d make a bid on it. But as a general thing we were understood, and got what we wanted.

There were no paved streets in the town and the dust kicked up by the galloping horses and the bouncing wash- basket chariots they drew was terrific. We preferred long drives out over the open fields and prairies. We sang and shouted. We were “American Indians” who knew no better, and nobody cared or stopped us.

A few more days in the creaking, creeping train brought us to Tomsk, where we were sitting at a long table alone in the taproom, drinking vodka, when the door opened suddenly, and looking around we saw a man framed against the darkness of the night. He stared at us for a moment. Then suddenly both he and Willard exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be goddamned!” It was an old friend of Willard’s, a journalist who’d been doing Siberia from the opposite direction. He’d left Vladivostok many weeks before, coming partly by train, as the road was under construction from both terminals, then by horses. He told us the three hundred miles at the eastern end was finished and in operation. We drank vodka until nearly dawn and staggered up to bed. He was gone when we got up next day.

On the whole Willard and I decided that Siberia was not awfully exciting. What we saw of it was mostly flat as a pancake, with miles of watermelon fields often extending to the horizon. How they ate all those melons, I can’t imagine. We used to dig a hole, scoop out the best meat in the center, and throw the carcasses out the window. The train guard caught and stopped us. Section hands were working along the road, and even at only twenty miles an hour, he told us, a big watermelon might knock a man out if it hit him on the head.

The soil seemed good — for raising melons — and land could be bought at fifty cents an acre, but we didn’t invest. The truth is we didn’t care much for Siberia. We probably hadn’t seen enough, but we’d at least seen all we wanted. On the trip back, we found a nice, first-class compartment marked “Ladies”, Since there were no ladies on the train, we moved into it. The amiable conductor made no objection, but when we reached Omsk an “incident” occurred, in which we (and our letter from Prince Hilkorff) were worsted by some gentlemen of the Russian High Command. As soon as our train had stopped, two soldiers began throwing luggage into our ladies’ compartment, regardless of our protests. We began throwing it out of the windows as fast as it came in through the door — and then locked the door. In a few minutes there was a sharp pounding. It was our old friend, the stationmaster who had saved us from being bitten to death by bugs, but now he was accompanied by a miniature army. It consisted of an escort of gendarmes, two petty officers, and two impressive generals in long gray coats with full insignia. The station- master said in German,

“This compartment is for ladies, and you gentlemen must ’raus”.

“But are these generals ladies?” we asked, and refused to vacate.

The captain of gendarmes now stepped forward and said something to us, very politely, in Russian. “What’s he say?” we asked the stationmaster. “He says he would regret profoundly the necessity of putting you under arrest”.

We produced our magic letter from Prince Hilkorff and the Ministry of Railways. The gendarme captain read it, bowed again, and said something, even more politely than before. The stationmaster again obligingly translated. “He says it’s very nice indeed that you have a letter from His Highness — but that you have to ’raus mit”.

After we were out and the generals, who were no ladies either, installed, the stationmaster flipped over the placard, so that it now read “Reserved”. The generals bowed to us, and the stationmaster whispered philosophically, “I am sorry for you — but you see, the Little White Father and Prince

Hilkorff live far away in St. Petersburg, while those two generals live here in Omsk, and I have to live here with them."

* * *

Wood says that he did not see his friend Frank Willard again until some six or seven years later, in America. He was sitting in his laboratory one day, when the telephone rang. His account continues: