LOCATING AN OIL WELL.
It was a comfortable, low-roofed, stone farmhouse, at which the stage
deposited our travellers, after a pleasant drive from the railway
station. To Arthur it seemed very much like a home, so filled was it
with memories of his dear father. As Colonel Dale had notified the
neighbor, who had it in charge, of their coming, everything was in
readiness for them. The house had been aired and swept, its plain but
serviceable furniture dusted and cleaned, lights were burning in all the
lower rooms, and supper was nearly ready.
Miss Hatty, who had never been there before, was charmed with the place,
and hoped that if they lost Dalecourt they could make their home here in
“Prince Dusty’s” castle.
They did not tell anybody why they came into that out-of-the-way part of
the world, and many were the discussions throughout the scattered
neighborhood as to the object of their visit. At length old Deacon
Thackby thought he had discovered the secret and he announced the fact,
with a wise look on his shrewd face, as he and several others stood on
the church steps after a Friday evening meeting.
“I figgered out yesterday,” he said, “why them Dales come here and
settled down like they was going to stay.”
“I thought maybe from the way I see him peering round that p’raps he was
perspecting fer ile,” piped a thin voice at the Deacon’s elbow.
“Ile!” snorted the Deacon, contemptuously. “You’ve got ile on the brain,
brother Moss. Ef thar was any ile raound here wouldn’t some of us that
was borned and brung up in the place have diskivered it long ago? Do you
suppose a stranger, who I reckin never seed a drap of crude in his life,
is a comin to tell us what we never knowed about our own kentry, nor
what our fathers never knowed, nor what nobody never will know?”
“Well——” said the thin voice.
“Well!” interrupted the Deacon. “There’s no use talking. It may be ile
that has brung ’em here; but it’s paint ile, an not petroleum. That
young woman is one of them artiss’s that you hear so much about
nowadays, an she’s here to do some paintin. The boy wanted to come
naturally ’cause it was his home, an the old Cunnel he come to look
after ’em. That’s all thar is about it.”
“What makes you think the young lady is an artist, Deacon?” asked
another of the group.
“I don’t think, I know,” replied Deacon Thackby, decidedly, “an how I
know is ’cause I seen her at it, and ’cause she’s cranky and pernicketly
like they all is. Why, last Wednesday she come down to my old red mill
an did a drawring of it, an called it a beautiful color subjec, an said
she was comin down agin yesterday afternoon to do it in iles. Well, you
know how drefful shabby-looking the old place was, all kinder cluttered
up, an the paint wore off in patches, an them vines hiding the best half
of it.
“It seemed too bad to have her wastin her time on sich as it was, an I
didn’t want folks to look at her picter, when it was done, an say how
shifless I was nohow. So I got the boys out by the break o’ day, an we
put in some good solid work on that mill agin the time she got thar. We
tore down all them pesky vines an burned them up, an cut away the bushes
so as to make a good airy clearin all raound. Then we turned to an giv
the hull outside a fustclass coat of whitewash, from ruff to suller, an
made it look fine.
“We hadn’t more’n finished when she come along with all her fixins,
ready to do it up in iles; but when I went out to show her what we’d
done she didn’t seem a mite grateful. She jest looked disappointed an
miserable an said ‘Oh, Deacon, how could ye?’
“Then she went off, like she felt real bad, an awhile arterwards I see
her settin on the big rock in my hill pasture, wastin all her paints on
one of them common pink an white apple-trees, such as you might see most
any day bout this time o’ year. Oh, yes, she’s a artiss, an cranky like
they all is.”
In the meantime Colonel Dale was quietly, but actively, making
preparations to sink a well, in search of the wealth of oil that he
hoped lay hidden beneath the Dustin farm. On the very first morning
after they reached there he and Miss Hatty and Arthur visited the place
in the back wood-lot where Mr. Dustin and his son had discovered the
tiny gas jet issuing from the rocks. Arthur readily found it again, and
again the application of a lighted match gave proof that it was genuine
gas and would burn.
Then the Colonel said he would leave the location of the well to his
little partner, and asked him to point out the place where he wished the
derrick to stand.
The boy walked hesitatingly around the gas jet for a minute, and then,
returning to where the others stood, said:
“Don’t you think, grandpapa, that Cousin Hatty ’d better be the one to
say where it shall stand? You see I know so much about oil, and you have
got so wise lately, that I am afraid we are not quite such ‘chumps’ as
we ought to be; but Cousin Hatty is a real genuine, and doesn’t know
anything at all. About oil, I mean!” he added quickly, blushing
furiously. “Of course she knows everything else, and that’s what makes
her the very best kind of a ‘chump.’”
“Something like—
“‘The pork-pie man’s beautiful daughter
Who rarely knew what she had orter;
And in quenching a fire,
Once sought to rise higher,
Using ile, instead of cold water,’”
laughed Miss Hatty. “However, I will consent to act as the ‘chump’ of
this party for the sake of the common good, and I decide that the well
shall be sunk on this very spot.” Here the young lady thrust a bit of
stick into the ground where she was standing. It was about a hundred
feet from the little gas jet, on the side nearest the house, and Miss
Hatty afterwards acknowledged that she selected it because it was
visible from her window, and she wanted to be able to see the derrick
when it was built.
The spot where that bit of stick stood in the ground instantly acquired
a new interest. It almost seemed as though they could see the tall
derrick that was to rise there, and hear the steady thud of the drill as
it cut its way down through earth and rock to the oil-bed. The very air
seemed to be filled with the odor of petroleum; but perhaps it was only
a whiff of the gas driven towards them by a puff of wind. At any rate,
they felt that a beginning had been made now that the site of the well
was decided upon, and were more than ever anxious to have the work go
speedily forward.
Soon afterwards Colonel Dale visited the old oil region, some twenty
miles away, in which Mr. John Dustin lived, to purchase the necessary
supplies for his well, and to engage experienced men to come and drill
it. It was while he was thus absent that Deacon Thackby persuaded the
neighborhood that the Dales were only there because Miss Hatty was an
“artiss.”
The neighborhood was indeed astonished when it discovered one day that
several loads of lumber had been hauled from the railway station to the
Dustin farm, and that a “rig-builder” was at work with his men erecting
a derrick in the back wood-lot.
“What in the name of common-sense!” ejaculated Deacon Thackby, when he
first heard of what was going on.
“Didn’t I tell ye I thought they was perspecting round fer ile?” piped
brother Moss’ thin voice.
“But thar ain’t no ile within twenty mile of here,” cried Deacon
Thackby. “The man must be a born natural to come wild-catting down here,
and I’m jest a going to tell him so.”
And the Deacon did tell Colonel Dale how foolishly he was, wasting his
money, and how perfectly useless it was to drill for oil in that part of
the country, where, if there was any, it would have been discovered long
ago.
“Has anybody tried sinking a well in this vicinity?” asked Colonel Dale.
“Yes, thar was Sile Pettis put one down ’bout a year ago; but it didn’t
mount to nothing. Thar warn’t no ile into it.”
“How deep did he sink it?” inquired the Colonel, with interest.
“Well, not more than four hundred foot or so,” admitted the Deacon,
reluctantly.
“And the ‘third sand,’ which is the only one in this region that pays—or
at least so I am told,” remarked the Colonel, “is hardly ever struck at
a less depth than one thousand feet. Is Mr. Sile Pettis’ unproductive
well the only thing that makes you think there is no oil about here,
Deacon?”
“Thar ain’t no surface indications, like thar should be if the ile was
right down under us.”
“That is something we must provide for at once,” laughed Arthur’s
grandfather. “I realize that we must have them, Deacon, and just as soon
as I get this well down a thousand feet I will try and show you some of
the finest surface indications in the country.”