4
a.m.
On board it was Alex , the lovely Wilkinson , one thousand storm-proof army overcoats and yours in the faith . I ai n't liable to forget that trip for a long while to come , because I got soaked to the skin -- with water -- and just missed gettin ' pneumonia by one cough . The rain kept gettin ' worse and worse and it had n't a thing on the roads . We went through Trenton , N. J. , along around 4 a.m. in a storm that would of made the Flood look like fallin ' dew . The mud is up over the hubs of the truck , but it keeps plowin ' along at a steady gait with Alex and the mechanic takin ' turns at the wheel . I crawled in under some of them one thousand overcoats at Philly and went to sleep , the last I heard bein ' the lovely and half-drowned Wilkinson callin ' out the time every fifteen minutes and moanin ' , `` We 'll never make it ! '' Mornin ' brung no let up in the rain , but the old Gaflooey truck keeps thunderin ' on .