"I will go and see the oil," remarked Miselle, at the end of a reverie
of ten minutes.
Caleb laid the "Morning Journal" upon the table, and prepared himself
calmly to accept whatever new dispensation Providence and Miselle had
allotted him.
"Whaling?" inquired he.
"No, not whaling. I am going to the Oil Springs."
"By all means. They lie in the remotest portion of Pennsylvania; they
are inaccessible by railway; such conveyances and such wretched inns as
are to be found are crowded with lawless men, rushing to the wells to
seek their fortunes, or rushing away, savage at having utterly lost
them. At this season the roads are likely to be impassable from mud, the
weather to be stormy. When do you propose going?"
"Next Monday," replied Miselle, serenely.
"And with whom? You know that I cannot accompany you."
"I did not dream of incurring such a responsibility. I go alone."
Caleb resumed the "Morning Journal." Miselle wrote a letter, signed her
name, and tossed it across the table, saying,--
"There, I have written to Friend Williams, who has, as his sister tells
me, set up a shanty and a wife on Oil Creek. I will go to them and so
avoid your wretched inns, and at the same time secure a guide competent
to conduct my explorations. As for the conveyances, the roads, and the
lawless travellers, if men are not afraid to encounter them, surely a
woman need not be."
"Be cautious, Miselle. This grain of practicability in the shape of
Friend Williams is spoiling the unity of your plan. At first it was a
charmingly consistent absurdity."
"But now?"
"Now it is merely foolishly hazardous, and I suppose you will undertake
it. It is your _kismet_; it is Fate; and what am I, to resist Destiny?
Go, child,--my blessing and my bank-book are your own."
"And '_Je suis Tedesco!_'" pompously quoted Miselle; so no more was said
upon the subject, until the young woman, having received an answer to
her letter, claimed the treasures promised by Caleb, and shortly after
fared forth upon her adventurous way.
The journey from Boston to New York has for most persons lost the
excitement of novelty; but excitement of another sort is to be obtained
by choosing a route where mile after mile of the roadway is lined with
wrecks of recent accidents, and the papers sold in the cars brim over
with horrible details of death and maiming in consequence. Nor can it be
considered either wholesome or comfortable to be removed in the middle
of a November night from a warm car to a ferry-boat, and thence to
another train of cars without fire and almost without seats,--the
suggestive apology being, that so many carriages had been "smashed"
lately that the enterprising managers of the road had been obliged to
buy an old excursion-train from another company. Meantime, what became
of the unfortunate women who had no kind companion to purvey for them
blankets and pillows from the mephitic sleeping-car, and cups of hot tea
from unknown sources, Miselle cannot conjecture.
New York at midday, from the standpoint of Fifth Avenue or Central Park,
is a very splendid and attractive place, we shall all agree; but New
York involved in a wilderness of railway station at six o'clock of a
rainy autumn morning is quite the reverse. Cabmen, draymen, porters, all
assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed,
ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly
smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that
large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen
fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away
for a future occasion.
Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive
escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a
Bostonian.
Her first experience was significant; and in the course of a three-mile
drive down Broadway, she had time, while standing in the middle of an
omnibus, where were seated nine young gentlemen, for much complacent
comparison of the manners of the two cities. Indeed, after twelve hours
of attentive study, Miselle discovered but two points of superiority in
the New Babylon over the Modern Athens, and these were chocolate-creams
and policemen: the first were delicious, the last civil.
Six o'clock arrived, and the "Lightning Express," over the Erie Railway,
bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But,
unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly
selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor
raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the
reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who
knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light.
Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,--the
terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so
wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control,
asserting itself master,--the dim light and motionless figures about
her,--all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray
mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep
valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out
as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there. Then, as morning broke,
the wild scenery, growing more distinct, told the traveller that she was
far from home.
Gray and craggy hills, wild ravines, stormy mountain-streams, dizzy
heights where the traveller looking down remembered Tarpeia, gloomy
caverns, suggesting Simms's theory of an interior world,--none of these
were homelike; and Miselle began to fancy herself an explorer, a
Franklin, a Fremont, a Speke, until the train stopped at Hornellsville
for breakfast, and she was reminded, while watching the operations of
her fellow-passengers, of Du Chaillu peeping from behind tree-trunks at
the domestic pursuits of the gorilla.
About noon the cars stopped at Corry, Pennsylvania, the entrance of the
oil region and terminus of the Oil Creek Railway; and Miselle, stepping
from the train into a dense cloud of driving rain and oily men, felt one
sudden pang of doubt as to her future course, and almost concluded it
should be to await upon the platform the Eastern-bound express due there
in a few hours. This dastardly impulse, however, was speedily put to
flight by the superior terror of the ridicule sure to greet such a
return, and, assuming a determined mien, Miselle took possession of
Corry.
Three years ago the census of this place would have given so many foxes,
so many woodchucks, so many badgers, raccoons, squirrels, and
tree-toads; now it numbers four thousand men, women, and children, and
the "old families" have withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of the
forest beyond.
For the accommodation of these newcomers a thousand buildings of various
sorts have been erected,--much as a child takes his toy-village from the
box and sets it here or there, as the whim of the moment dictates. Here
is also a large oil-refinery belonging to Mr. Downer of Boston, where a
good many of the four thousand find employment; and here, too, are
several inns, the best one called "The Boston House."
Hither Miselle betook herself, confidently expecting to find either Mr.
Williams or a message from him awaiting her; but, behold, no friend, no
letter!
What was to be done next? Mr. Dick, asked a similar question by Miss
Betsy Trotwood, replied, "Feed him."
Miselle adopted the suggestion. The hour was one P. M., and the general
repast was concluded; but a special table was soon prepared, whereat she
and a gentleman of imposing appearance, called Viator Ignotus, were soon
seated, before a dinner, of which the intention was excellent, but the
execution as fatal as most executions.
Viator ate in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild
plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to
believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and
not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and
considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of
the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from
end to end of the table long after she had finished.
The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a
woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study
of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of
this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove,
and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as
developed in her companions.
She soon learned that the girl was in reality a matron of seventeen, and
the actual proprietor of the baby, whom, nevertheless, she appeared to
regard as a mysterious phenomenon attached to the elder woman, whom she
addressed as "Mam." In this view the grandmother seemed to coincide, and
remarked, naively,--
"Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies
theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from
hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would
do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk
enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell
you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean
discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money
enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was
so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust
thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither
sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the
shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a
time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell _you_."
"It's hard travelling down Oil Creek, then?" asked Miselle, with a
personal interest in the question.
"Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you
going?"
"To Tarr Farm."
"Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?"
"I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but
if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station."
"No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr
Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning."
"Indeed? What is the best route, then?"
"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you
start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't
recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you
wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a
boat."
"What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly.
"Oh, a flatboat. They come up loaded with ile, and going back they like
fust rate to catch a passenger. But don't you give 'em too much. They'd
cheat you out of your eye-teeth, but I'll bet you they found I was too
many for 'em. Don't you give more than a dollar, nohow; and I made 'em
take the two of us for a dollar 'n' 'alf."
"How far is it from Schaeffer's to Tarr Farm? Perhaps I could walk,"
suggested Miselle, modestly distrusting her own power in dealing with a
rapacious flatboatman.
"Well, it's five mild, more or less. Think you could foot it that fur?"
"Oh, yes, very easily. Is the road pretty good?"
"My gracious goodness! Clementiny, she wants to know if the road down
the Crik is 'pretty good'!"
"Reckon you ha'n't travelled round much in these parts. Where d'y'
b'long?" asked the ingenuous Clementina, after a prolonged stare at the
benighted stranger.
Having satisfied herself for the time being with human nature, Miselle
returned to the window, and found the landscape mistier than ever.
She was still considering her probable success in finding an oil-boat
and an oil-man to take her down the Creek, and steadily turning her back
upon the vision of the Eastern-bound Lightning Express, when a lady
followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and
presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to
a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace.
Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on
his desert island. An answering glance, a suppressed smile on either
side, and an understanding was established, an alliance completed, a tie
more subtile than Freemasonry confessed.
In ten minutes Miselle and her new friend had conquered the lawless
stove, had seated themselves before it, and were confiding to each other
the mischances that had left them stranded upon the shore of
Corry,--Miselle for the night, Melusina until two o'clock in the
morning.
Tea-time surprised this interchange of ideas, and so sunny had Miselle's
mood become that she was able to eat and drink, even though confronted
by the baby and its youthful mother, whose knife impartially deposited
in her own mouth and the infant's portions of beefsteak, potatoes,
short-cake, toast, pie, and cake, varied with spoonfuls of hot tea, at
which the wretched little victim blinked and choked, but still
swallowed.
After tea, the infant, excited by refreshment nearly to the point of
convulsions, was restored to its grandmother, while the mother played
upon a mournful instrument called a melodeon, and sang various popular
songs in a powerful, but uncultivated voice.
When she was done, Miselle persuaded Melusina to take her seat at the
instrument, and straightway the house was filled with such melody of
sweet German love-songs, operatic morcaux, and stirring battle-hymns,
that the open doorway thronged with uncouth forms, gathering as did the
monsters to Arion's harp. But when at last the clear voice rang out the
melody of the "Star-Spangled Banner," the crowd took up the chorus, and
rendered it with a heartfelt enthusiasm more significant than any music;
for it was almost election-day, and the old query of "How will
Pennsylvania go?" had all day been urged among every knot of men who
gathered to talk of the country's prospects. Then came the good old
"John Brown Song," and the "Marseillaise," which should be snatched from
its Rebel appropriators, on the same principle by which Doctor Byles
adapted sacred words to popular melodies.
The music over, the little crowd dispersed, and the baby, with its brace
of mothers, gone to bed, the new friends sat cozily down and enjoyed an
hour or two of feminine gossip, exchanged kisses, cards, and
photographs, and so bade good-bye.
It seems a trifling matter enough in the telling, but to the lonely
Miselle this chance encounter with a comrade was enough to change the
whole aspect of affairs; and she sat down to breakfast the next morning,
strong in the faith of a brilliant victory over bad roads, oily boats,
and rapacious boatmen.
A plank walk from the hotel to the station elevates the foot-passenger
in Corry above the mud of the streets, through whose depths flounders a
crowd of wagons laden with crude oil for the refinery, with refined oil
for the freight-trains, with carboys of chemicals, with merchandise, and
with building materials for yet more houses.
Everything here is new. Not one of the thousand buildings is yet five
years old; and of the four thousand people, not the most easily
acclimated could yet tell how the climate agrees with him. Indeed, it is
so absolutely new that it has not yet reached the raw barrenness of a
new place.
Nature does not cede her royalty except under strong compulsion, and
still does battle in the streets of Corry with the four thousand, who
have not yet found time to get out the stumps of the hastily felled
trees, to "improve" a wild water-course that dashes down from the bluff
and crosses the main street between a tailor's shop and a restaurant, or
even to trample to death the wildwood ferns and forest flowers which
linger on its margin. When the Coriolanians have attended to these
little matters, their city will look even newer than at present. Then
shall their grandchildren bring other trees and set them along the
streets, and dig wells and fountains, where Kuhleborn may rise to bemoan
the desolation of his ancient domain.
Probably from sympathy with the bulk of their freight, the
passenger-cars upon the Oil Creek Railway are so streaked with oil upon
the outside, and so imbued with oil within, as to suggest having been
used on excursions to the bottoms of the various wells; but uninviting
as is their appearance, they are always crowded, and Miselle shared her
seat with a portly gentleman, whom at the second glance she recognized
as Viator Ignotus, and he, presently alluding to the fact of their
having dined together the previous day, a conversation grew up, through
which Miselle, much to her amusement, was initiated into the cabinet
secrets of the two or three railway companies who divide the travel of
the West, and who would appear to cherish very much the same jealousies
and avenge their grievances in much the same manner as Mrs. Jones and
Mrs. Brown with their neighborhood quarrels. Then Viator, producing from
his pocket sundry maps and charts, foretold the career of railways yet
unborn, and discoursed learnedly upon their usefulness, or, as he
phrased it, their "paying prospects." Finally, the subject of railways
exhausted, or rather run out, Viator paid his companion the compliment
of inquiring of her the condition of public feeling in her native State
as regarded the election; and the affairs of the nation were not yet
completely arranged when the train arrived at Titusville, and Viator
departed.
The city of Titusville is probably the most forlorn and dreary looking
place in these United States. To describe the irregular rows of shanties
bordering on impassable sloughs of mud, the scenery, the pigs, and the
people, were a thankless task, as the most eloquent words would fall
short of the reality. In one of the principal streets the blackened
stumps still stand so thickly that the laden wagons meander among them
as sinuously as the path which foxes and squirrels wore there only three
years ago,--while in curious contrast with this avenue and the
surrounding buildings stands a handsome brick church, with a gilded
cross upon its spire, the one thing calm and steadfast in the dismal
scene.
When the train again moved on, the seat vacated by Viator was taken by a
young woman bound for Oil City, where her husband awaited her; but the
homesickness epidemic among the female population of the Creek had
already seized upon her so strongly as to unfit her for conversation;
and Miselle devoted herself to the dismal landscape, privately agreeing
with her companion that it was "the God-forsakenest-looking place she
ever see."
On either side the road lay swamps, their gaunt trees festooned, or
rather garroted, with vines, and draped with gray moss; while all about
and among them lay their comrades already prostrate and decaying. On the
higher lands fields had been fenced in, and cleared by burning the
trees, whose charred skeletons still stood, holding black and fleshless
arms to heaven in mute appeal against man's reckless abuse of Nature's
dearest children.
Later Miselle took occasion to express her horror at the wholesale
destruction of her beloved forests to a land-owner of the region. He
laughed, and stared at the sentimental folly, and then said,
conclusively,--
"Oh, but the land, you know,--we want to get at the land; and the
quickest way of disposing of the trees is the best."
"But even if they must be felled, it is wicked to destroy them entirely,
when so many people freeze to death every winter for want of fuel."
"Well, I suppose they do," said the land-owner, suppressing a yawn. "But
we can't send them this wood, you know, or even get it down Oil Creek,
where there is a market."
"At least, the poor people about here need never be cold. I suppose fuel
is very cheap through all this country, isn't it?"
"Down the Creek we pay ten dollars a cord for all the wood, and a dollar
a bushel for all the coal we burn, and both grow within a mile of the
wells; but the trouble is the labor. Every man about here is in oil,
somehow or another; and even the farmers back of the Creek prefer
bringing their horses down and teaming oil to working the land or
felling wood. This is emphatically the oil region."
Arrived at Schaeffer's or Shaffer's Farm, the present terminus of the
Oil Creek Railway, Miselle was relieved from much anxiety by seeing upon
the platform Friend Williams, to whom she had, in a fit of temporary
insanity, written that she should leave home on Tuesday instead of
Monday.
"And how shall we go down the Creek?" asked she, when the first
greetings had been exchanged.
"In the packet-boat, to be sure. The hack-carriage will take us right
down to the wharf."
Miselle opened her eyes. Here was metropolitan luxury! Here was ultra
civilization in the heart of the wilderness! Oil-boats and
lumber-wagons, avaunt! Those women at Corry had evidently been
practising upon her ignorance, and amusing themselves with her terrors!
A sudden rush of citizens toward the edge of the platform interrupted
these meditations.
"What is it?" asked Miselle, wildly, as her companion seized her arm,
and hurried her along with the crowd.
"The carriage. There is a rush for places. There! we're too late, I'm
afraid."
They halted, as he spoke, beside a long, heavy wagon, such as is used
in the Eastern States for drawing wood, springless, with boards laid
across for seats, and with no means of access save the clumsy wheels.
Upon an elevated perch in front sat the driver, grinning over his
shoulder at the scrambling crowd of passengers, most of whom were now
loaded upon the wagon, while a circle of disappointed aspirants danced
wildly around it, looking for a yet possible nook or cranny.
"Can't you make room for this lady? I will walk," vociferated Mr.
Williams.
"Can't be did, Capting. Reckin, though, both on ye kin hitch on next
load," drawled the driver, turning his horses into the slough of mud
extending in every direction.
"I will walk with you. How far is it?" asked Miselle, after a brief
contemplation of the prospect.
"Not so very far; but the mud is about two feet deep all the way, and
you might soil your feet," suggested Mr. Williams, with a quizzical
smile.
The objection was unanswerable; and Miselle, folding herself in the
mantle of resignation, waited until the next troubling of the pool,
when, rushing with the rest, she was safely hoisted into the cart, and
the drive commenced.
"You had better cling to my arm here; it's a mud-hole; don't be
frightened," exclaimed Mr. Williams, as the horses suddenly disappeared
from view, and the wagon poised itself an instant on the edge of a
chasm, and then plunged madly after them.
"Heavens! what _has_ happened? Have they run away? Didn't the driver see
where they were going? There! we're going o--ver!" shrieked Miselle.
"No, no; we're all right now, don't you see? The poor nags aren't likely
to run much here; and though the driver saw it well enough, he couldn't
help going through. That's a fair specimen of the road all down the
Creek. Now here's a gully. Cling to me, and don't be frightened."
It is very easy to say, "Don't be frightened"; but when a wagon with
four wheels travels for a considerable distance upon only two, while
those on the upper side are spinning round in the air, and the whole
affair inclines at a right angle toward a bottomless gulf of mud, it is
rather difficult for a nervous person to heed the injunction.
Miselle did not shriek this time; but she fancies the "sable score of
fingers four remain on the" arm "impressed," to which she clung during
the ordeal.
Another plunge, a lurch, a twist, a sharp descent, and the breathless
horses halted on the bank of a stream whose shallow waters were crowded
with flatboats, generally laden with oil.
"Here is the packet-boat," remarked Mr. Williams, with mischievous
smile, as he lifted his charge from the "hack-carriage," and led her
toward one of these boats, a trifle dirtier than the rest, with planks
laid across for seats, and several inches of water in the bottom. In
shape and size it much resembled the mud-scows navigating the waters of
Back Bay, Boston, and was propelled by a gigantic paddle at either end.
Miselle's lingering vision of a neat little steamboat with a comfortable
cabin died away; and she placed herself without remark upon the board
selected for her, accepting from her attentive companion the luxury of a
bit of plank for her feet,--an invidious distinction, regarded with much
disapproval by her fellow-passengers.
The sad and homesick lady was again Miselle's nearest neighbor, and now
found her tongue in expressions of dismay and apprehension so vehement
and sincere that her auditor hardly knew whether to weep with her or
smile at her.
Fifty luckless souls, more or less decently clothed in bodies, having
been crowded upon the raft, the shore-line was cast off, and she drifted
magnificently out into the stream, and stuck fast about a rod from the
landing.
The most terrific oaths, the most strenuous exertion of the paddles,
failing to move her, "a team" was loudly called for by the irate
passengers, and presently appeared in the shape of two horses with a
small blue boy perched upon one of them. These were hitched to the
forward part of the boat, and the swearing and pushing recommenced, with
an accompaniment of slashing blows upon the backs of the unfortunate
horses, who strained and plunged, but all to no effect, until another
boat appeared round the bend, slowly towed up against the stream by two
more horses with a placid driver, whose less placid wife sat upon a
throne of oil-barrels in the centre of the craft, alternately smoking a
clay pipe and shouting profane instructions to her husband touching the
management of the boat. To this dual boatman the skipper of the packet
loudly appealed for aid, desiring him to "crowd along and give us a
swell."
"What in nater was ye sich a cussed fool as ter git stuck fer?" replied
the two heads; and in spite of the disapproval conveyed by the question,
the stranger boat was driven as rapidly as possible close beside the
packet, the result being a long wave or "swell," enabling that luckless
craft to float off into the deeper water.
"Now, gen'lemen, locate, if you please; please to locate, gen'lemen! You
capting with the specs on, ef yer don't sit down, I'll hev to ax yer
to," vociferated the skipper; and the passengers were nearly seated when
the boat grounded again, and was this time got off only by the aid of a
double team, a swell, and the shoulders of the captain and several of
the passengers, who walked in and out of the boat as recklessly as
Newfoundland dogs. After this style, the passage of five miles was
handsomely accomplished in six hours, and it was the gloaming of a
November day when Miselle, cold, wet, and weary, first set foot, or
rather both her feet, deep in the mud of Tarr Farm, and clambered
through briers and scrub oak up the bluff, where stood her friend's
house, and where the panacea of "a good cup of tea and a night's rest"
soon closed the eventful day.
The next morning was meant for an artist, and it is to be hoped that
there was one at Tarr Farm to see the curtain of fog slowly lifting from
the bright waters of the Creek, and creeping up the bluff beyond it,
until it melted into the clear blue sky, and let the sunshine come
glancing down the valley, where groups of derricks, long lines of tanks,
engine-houses, counting-rooms replaced the forest growth of a few years
previous, and crowds of workmen, interspersed with overseers and
proprietors on foot or horseback, superseded the wild creatures hardly
yet driven from their lifelong haunt.
Through the whole extent of Oil Creek, one picturesque feature never
fails: this is the alternation of bluff and flat on the opposite sides
of the Creek, so that the voyager never finds himself between two of
either,--but, as the bluff at his right hand sinks into a plain, he
finds the plain at the left rising sharply into a bluff.
It is in these flats that the oil is found; and each of them is thickly
studded with derricks and engine-buildings, each representing a distinct
well, with a name of its own,--as the Hyena, the Little Giant, the
Phoenix, the Sca'at Cat, the Little Mac, the Wild Rabbit, the Grant,
Burnside, and Sheridan, with several hundred more. The flats themselves
are generally known as Farms, with the names of the original proprietors
still prefixed,--as the Widow McClintock Farm, Story Farm, Tarr Farm,
and the rest.
Few of these god-parents of the soil are at present to be found upon it:
many of them in the beginning of the oil speculation having sold out at
moderate prices to shrewd adventurers, who made themselves rich men
before the dispossessed Rip Van Winkles awoke to a consciousness of what
was going on about them. Some, more fortunate or more far-sighted, still
hold possession of the land, but enjoy their enormous incomes in the
cities and places of fashionable resort, where their manners and habits
introduce a refreshing element of novelty.
Few proprietors can be persuaded to sell the golden goose outright; and
the most usual course is for the individual or company intending to
sink a well to buy what is called a working interest in the soil, the
owner retaining a land interest or royalty, through which he claims half
the proceeds of the well, while the lessee may, after months of expense
and labor, abandon the enterprise with only his labor for his pains.
These failures are also a great source of annoyance to the proprietors:
for many of these abandoned wells require only capital to render them
available; but the finances of the first speculator being exhausted, no
new one will risk his money in them, while the old lease would interfere
with his right to the proceeds.
Even the land for building purposes is only leased, with the proviso
that the tenant must move, not only himself, but his house, whenever the
landlord sees fit to explore his cellar or flower-garden for oil.
A land interest obtained, the precise spot for breaking ground is
selected somewhat by experience, but more by chance,--all "oil
territory" being expected to yield oil, if properly sought. An
engine-house and derrick are next put up, the latter of timber in the
modern wells, but in the older ones simply of slender saplings,
sometimes still rooted in the earth. A steam-engine is next set up, and
the boring commences.
By means of a spile-driver, an iron pipe, sharp at the lower edge and
about six inches in diameter, is driven down until it rests upon the
solid rock, usually at a depth of about fifty feet. The earth is then
removed from the inside of this pipe by means of a sand-pump, and the
"tools" attached to a cable are placed within it.
These tools, consisting of a centre-bit and a rammer, are each thirty or
thirty-five feet in length, and weigh about eight hundred pounds. At
short intervals these are replaced by the sand-pump, which removes the
drillings.
The first three strata of rock are usually slate, sandstone, and
soapstone. Beneath these, at a depth of two hundred feet, lies the
second sandstone, and from this all the first yield of oil was taken;
but, though good in quality, this supply was speedily exhausted, and the
modern wells are carried directly through this second sandstone, through
the slate and soapstone beneath, to the third sandstone, in whose
crevices lies the largest yield yet discovered. The proprietors of old
wells are now reaming them out and sinking their shafts to the required
depth, which is about four hundred and fifty feet.
The oil announces itself in various ways: sometimes by the escape of
gas; sometimes by the appearance of oil upon the cable attached to the
tools; sometimes by the dropping of the tools, showing that a crevice
has been reached; and in occasional happy instances by a rush of oil
spouting to the top of the derrick, and tossing out the heavy tools like
feathers.
Such a well as this, known as a flowing well, is the best "find"
possible, as the fortunate borer has nothing more to do than to put down
a tubing of cast-iron artesian pipe, lead the oil from its mouth into a
tank, and then, sitting under his own vine and fig-tree, leave his
fortune to accumulate by daily additions of thousands of dollars. A
flowing well, struck while Miselle was upon the Creek, yielded fifteen
hundred barrels per day, the oil selling at the well for ten dollars and
a half the barrel.
But should the oil decline to flow, or, having flowed, cease to do so, a
force-pump is introduced, and, driven by the same engine that bored the
well, brings up the oil at a rate varying from three to three hundred
barrels per day. The Phillips Well, on Tarr Farm, originally a flowing
well, producing two thousand barrels per day, now pumps about three
hundred and thirty, and is considered a first-class well.
Before reaching oil, the borer not unfrequently comes upon veins of
water, either salt or fresh; and this water is excluded from the shaft
by a leathern case applied about the pipe and filled with flax-seed. The
seed, swollen by the moisture, completely fills the space remaining
between the tube and the walls of the shaft, so that no water reaches
the oil. But whenever the tubing with its seed-bags is withdrawn, the
water rushing down "drowns" not only its own well, but all such as have
subterraneous communication with it. In this manner one of the most
important wells upon the Creek avenged itself some time ago upon a too
successful rival by drawing its tubing and letting down the water upon
both wells. The rival retaliated by drawing its own tubing, with a like
result, and the proprietors of each lost months of time and hundreds of
thousands of dollars before the quarrel could be adjusted.
From the mouth of the shaft, elevated some fifteen feet above the
surface of the ground, the oil either flows or is pumped into an immense
vat or tank, and from this is led to another and another, until a large
well will have a series of tanks connected like the joints of a
rattlesnake's tail. Into the last one is put a faucet, and the oil drawn
into barrels is either carried to the local refinery, or in its crude
condition is boated to the railway, or to Oil City, and thence down the
Alleghany.
One of the principal perils attending oil-seeking is that of fire.
Petroleum, in its crude state, is so highly impregnated with gas and
with naphtha, or benzine as to be very inflammable,--a fact proved,
indeed, many years ago, when, as history informs us,
"General Clarke kindled the vapor,
Stayed about an hour, and left it a-burning,"
unconsciously turning his back upon a fortune such as probably had never
entered the worthy knight's imagination.
The petroleum once ignited, it is very hard to extinguish the flames;
and Mr. Williams told of being one of a company of men who labored
twenty-four hours in vain to subdue a burning well. They tried water,
which only aggravated the trouble; they tried covering the well with
earth, but the gas permeated the whole mass and blazed up more defiantly
than ever; they covered the mound of earth with a carpet, (paid for at
the value of cloth of gold,) and the carpet with wet sand, but a bad
smell of burned wool was the only result. Finally, some incipient
Bonaparte hit upon the expedient of dividing the Allies, who together
defied mankind, and, bringing a huge oil-tank, inverted it over the
sand, the carpet, the earth, and the well, by this time one blazing
mass. Fire thus cut off from Air succumbed, and the battle was over.
"There was no one hurt that time," pursued Friend Williams, in a tone of
airy reminiscence; "but mostly at our fires there'll be two or three
people burned up, and more women than men, I've noticed. Either it's
their clothes, or they get scared and don't look out for themselves. Now
there was the Widow McClintock owned that farm above here. She was worth
her hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she _would_ put kerosene on
her fire to make it burn. So one day it caught, and she caught, and in
half an hour there was no such thing as Widow McClintock on Oil Creek.
Still all the women keep right on pouring kerosene into their stoves,
and every little while one of them goes after the Widow.
"Then there was a woman who sent to the refinery for a pail of alkali to
clean her floor. The man thought he'd get benzine instead; and just as
he got into the house, the fire from his pipe dropped into it, and the
whole shanty was in a blaze before the poor woman knew what had
happened. The stupid fool that was to blame got off, but the woman
burned up.
"Then there was a woman whose house was afire, and she would rush back,
after she had been dragged out, to look for her pet teacups, and _she_
was burned up. And so they go."
Sometimes also the tanks of crude oil take fire, and these
conflagrations are said to present a splendid spectacle,--the resinous
parts of the oil burning with a fierce deep-red flame and sending up
volumes of smoke, through which are emitted lightning-like flashes
exploding the ignited gas.
Like some other things, including people, this unappeasable substance
conceals its terrors beneath a placid exterior, and lies in its great
tanks, or in shallow pits dug for it in the earth, looking neither
volcanic nor even combustible, but more like thin green paint than
anything else, except when it has become adulterated with water, when it
assumes a bilious, yellow appearance, exceedingly uninviting to the
spectator. In this case it is allowed to remain undisturbed in the tank
until the oil and water have separated, when the latter is drawn off at
the bottom.
Wandering one day among groves of derricks and villages of tanks,
Miselle and her guide came upon a building containing a pair of
truculent monsters in a high state of activity. These were introduced to
her as a steam force-pump and its attendant engine; and she was told
that they were at that moment sucking up whole tanks of oil from the
neighboring wells, and pumping it up the precipitous bluff, through the
lonely forest, over marsh and moor, hill and dale, to the great Humboldt
Refinery, more than three miles distant, in the town of Plummer, as it
is called,--although, in point of fact, Plummer, Tarr Farm, and several
other settlements belong to the township of Cornplanter.
There was something about this brace of monsters very fascinating to
Miselle. They seemed like subjected genii closed in these dull black
cases and this narrow shed, and yet embracing miles of territory in
their invisible arms. Even the genius of Aladdin's lamp was not so
powerful, for he was obliged to betake himself to the scene of the
wonders he was to enact,--and if imprisoned as closely as these, could
not have transferred enough oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer to fill his
own lamp.
Afterward, in rambling through the woods, Miselle often came upon the
mound raised above the buried pipe, and always regarded it with the same
admiring awe with which the fisherman of Bagdad probably looked at the
copper vessel wherein Solomon had so cunningly "canned" the rebellious
Afrit.
Leaving the shed of the monsters, Miselle followed her guide out of the
throng of derricks and tanks, and a short distance up the hill, to the
picturesque site of Messrs. Barrows and Hazleton's Refinery, the only
one now in operation on Tarr Farm.
Entering a low brick building called the still-house, she found herself
in a passage between two brick walls, pierced on either hand for five or
six oven-doors, while overhead the black roof was divided into panels by
a system of iron pipes through which the crude oil was conducted to the
caldrons above the iron doors.
The presiding genius of the place was a very fat, dirty, but intelligent
Irishman, known as Tommy, who came forward with the politeness of his
nation to greet the visitors, and explain to them the mysteries under
his charge.
"And give a guess, Ma'am, if ye plase, at what we've got a-burning
undher our big pot here," suggested he, with a hand upon one of the
oven-doors.
"Soft coal," ventured Miselle, remembering her experience at the
glassworks.
"Not a bit of it. It's the binzole intirely. We makes the ile cook
itself, an' not a hape of fu'l does it git, but what it brings along
itself."
"Seething the kid in its mother's milk," remarked Miselle to herself.
"It's this pipe fetches the binzole from the tank outside, and the mouth
of it's widin the door; and this is the stop-cock as lets it on."
So saying, Tommy threw open the oven-door, and pointed to the black end
of a pipe just within. At the same time he turned a handle on the
outside, and let on a stream of benzine or naphtha, which blazed
fiercely up with a lurid flame strongly suggestive of the pictured
reward of evil-doers in another life.
Next, Tommy proceeded to explain, after his own fashion, how the oil in
the caldrons above, urged by these fires, departed in steam and agony
through long pipes called worms, the only outlet from the otherwise
air-tight stills, which worms, wriggling out at the end of the building,
plunged into a bath of cold water provided for them in a huge square
tank fed by a bright mountain-stream winding down from the bluff above
in a fashion so picturesque as to be quite out of keeping with its
ultimate destination.
Emerging from their cold bath, the worms, crawling along the ground
behind the still-house, arrived at the back of another building, called
the test-room; and here each one, making a sharp turn to enable him to
enter, was pierced at the angle thus formed, and a vertical pipe some
ten feet in length inserted.
The object of these pipes was to carry off the gas still mingled with
the oil; and, looking attentively, Miselle could distinguish a
flickering column ascending from each pipe and forming itself so humanly
against the evening sky as to vindicate the superstition of the Saxons,
who first named this ether _geist_.
"What a splendid illumination, if only those ten pipes were lighted some
dark night!" suggested Miselle.
"Phe-ew! An' yer lumernation wouldn't stop there long, I can tell yer,
Ma'am," retorted Tommy. "The whole works ud be in a swither 'fore iver
we'd time to ax what was comin'."
"They would? And why?"
"The binzole, Ma'am, the binzole. It's the Divil's own stuff to manage,
an' there's no thrustin' it wid so much as the light uv a pipe nigh
hand. The air is full of it; and if you was so much as to sthrike a
match here where we stand, it ud be all day wid us 'fore we'd time to
think uv it. You should know that yersilf, Sir," continued he, turning
to Mr. Williams.
"Yes," returned that gentleman, with a grimace. "I learned the nature of
benzine pretty thoroughly when I first came on the Creek. I had been at
work over one of the wells, and got my clothes pretty oily, but thought
I would not ask my wife to meddle with them. So I sent for a pail of
benzine, and, shutting myself up in my shop, set to work to wash my
clothes. I succeeded very well for a first attempt; and when I had done,
and hung them up to dry, I felt quite proud. Then, as it was pretty
cold, I thought I would put a little fire in the stove, and get them
dried to carry away before my men came in to work the next morning. So I
put some kindling in the stove, and scraped a match on my boot; but I
hadn't time to touch it to the shavings before the whole air was aflame,
not catching from one point to another, but flashing through the whole
place in an instant, and snapping all around my head like a bunch of
fire-crackers. I rushed for the door; but before I could get out I was
pretty well singed, and there was no such thing as saving a single
article. All went together,--shop, stock, tools, clothes, and everything
else. That's benzine."
"That's binzole," echoed Tommy. "An' now, Ma'am, come in, if yer plase,
to the tistin'-room."
Miselle complied, and, stepping into the little room, saw first two
parallel troughs running its entire length, and terminating at one end
in a pipe leading through the side of the building. Into each of these
troughs half the pipes were at this moment discharging a colorless,
odorless fluid, the apotheosis, as it were, of petroleum.
Tommy, perching himself upon a high stool beside the troughs, regarded
his visitors with calm superiority, and was evidently disposed, in this
his stronghold, to treat with them _ex cathedra_.
"There, thin, Ma'am," began he, "that's what I call iligant ile
intirely. Look at it jist!"
And taking from its shelf a long tubular glass, he ladled up some of the
oil, and held it to the light for inspection.
When this had been duly admired, the professor informed his audience
that the first product of the still is the gas, which is led off as
previously described. Next comes naphtha, benzine, or, as Tommy and his
comrades call it, "binzole." This dangerous substance is led from the
troughs of the testing-house to a subterraneous tank, the trap-cover of
which was subsequently lifted, that the visitors might peep, as into the
den of some malignant wild creature. From this it is again drawn, and,
mixed with the heavy oil or residuum of the still, is principally used
for fuel, as before described.
"And how soon do you cut off for oil?" inquired Mr. Williams,
carelessly.
The fat man gave him a look of solemn indignation, and proceeded without
heeding the interruption.
"Whin I joodge, Ma'am, that the binzole is nigh run out, I tist it with
a hyder-rometer, this a-way."
And Tommy, descending from the stool, took from the shelf first a tin
pot strongly resembling a shaving-mug, and then a little glass
instrument, with a tube divided into sections by numbered lines, and a
bulb half filled with quick-silver at the base.
Filling the shaving-mug with oil, the lecturer dropped into it his
hydrometer, which, after gracefully dancing up and down for a moment,
remained stationary.
"It's at 55 deg. you'll find it. Look for yersilf, Ma'am," he resumed,
with the serene confidence of the prestidigitateur who informs the
audience that the missing handkerchief will be found in "that
gentleman's pocket."
Miselle examined the figures at high-oil mark, and found that they were
actually 55 deg.
"The binzole, you see, Ma'am, is so thin that the hyder-rometer drops
right down over head an' ears in it; but as it gits to be ile, it comes
heavier an' stouter, an' kind uv buoys it up, until at lin'th an' at
last the 60 deg. line comes crapin' up in sight. Thin I thry it by the
fire tist. I puts some in a pan over a sperit-lamp, and keep a-thryin'
an' a-thryin' it wid a thermometer; an' whin it's 'most a-bilin', I
puts a lighted match to the ile, an' if it blazes, there's still too much
binzole, an' I lets it run a bit longer. But if all's right, I cuts off
the binzole, and the nixt run is ile sech as you see it. The longer it
runs, the heavier it grows; and whin it gits so that the hyder-rometer
stands at 42 deg., I cuts off agin. Thin the next run is heavy ile, thick
and yaller, and that doesn't come in here at all, but is drawn from the
still, and mixed wid crude ile, and stilled over agin; and whin no more
good's to be got uv it, it's mighty good along wid the binzole to keep
the pot a-bilin' in beyant."
"You don't use the fire test in this building, I presume, do you?"
"Indade, no, Ma'am. There's niver a light nor yit a lanthern allowed
here."
"But you run all night. How do you get light in this room?" inquired Mr.
Williams.
"From widout. Did niver ye mind the windys uv this house?"
And the professor, dismounting from his stool, led the way to the
outside of the building, where he pointed to two picturesque little
windows near the roof, each furnished with a deep hood and a shelf, as
if Tommy had been expected to devote his leisure hours to the
cultivation of mignonette.
"See now!"
And the burly lecturer pointed impressively to a laborer at this moment
approaching with a large lighted lantern in each hand. These, placed
upon the mignonette shelves, and snugly protected from wind and rain by
the deep hoods, threw a clear light into the test-room, and brought out
in grotesque distinctness the arabesque pattern wrought with dust and
oil upon Tommy's broad visage.
"And that's how we gits light, Sir," remarked the professor, in
conclusion, as, with a dignified salutation of farewell, he disappeared
in the still-house.
Admonished by the lanterns and the fading glory of the west, Miselle and
her host now bent their steps homeward, deferring, like Scheherezade,
"still finer and more wonderful stories until the next morning."
At their next visit to the Refinery, the visitors were committed to a
little wiry old man, called Jimmy, who first showed them a grewsome
monster, own cousin to him who threw oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer. This
one was called an air-pump, and, with his attendant steam-engine,
inhabited a house by himself. His work will presently be explained.
The next building was the treating-house, where stand huge tanks
containing the oil as drawn from the testing-room. From these it is
conducted by pipes to the iron vats, called treating-tanks, and there
mixed with vitriol, alkali, and other chemicals, in certain exact
proportions. The monster in the next building is now set in operation,
and forces a stream of compressed air through a pipe from top to bottom
of the tank, whence, following its natural law, it loses no time in
ascending to the surface with a noisy ebullition, just like, as Jimmy
remarked, "a big pot over a sthrong fire."
This mixing operation was formerly performed by hand in a much less
effectual manner, the steam air-pump being a recent improvement.
The work of the chemicals accomplished, the oil is cleansed of them by
the introduction of water, and after an interval of quiet the mass
separates so thoroughly that the water and chemicals can be drawn off at
the bottom of the vat with very little disturbance to the oil.
From the treating-house the perfected oil is drawn to the tanks of the
barrelling-shed, and filled into casks ready for exportation. A large
cooper's shop upon the premises supplies a portion of the barrels, but
is principally used in repairing the old ones.
The oil is next teamed to the Creek, and either pumped into decked
boats, to be transported in bulk, or, still in barrels, is loaded upon
the ordinary flatboats. During a large portion of the year, however,
neither of these can make the passage of the shallow Creek without the
aid of a "pond-fresh." This occurs when the millers near the head of the
Creek open their dams, and by the sudden influx of water give a gigantic
"swell" to the boats patiently awaiting it at every "farm," from
Schaeffer's to Oil City.
Sometimes, however, the boatmen, like the necromancer's student who set
the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to
stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without
the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a
pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose
with such furious, rapidity that the loaded boats became unmanageable,
crowding and dashing together, staving in the sides of the great
oil-in-bulk boats, and grinding the floating barrels to splinters. Not
even the thousands of gallons of oil thus shed upon the stormy waters
were sufficient to assuage either their wrath or that of the boatmen,
who, as their respective craft piled one upon another, sprang to "repel
boarders" with oaths, fists, boat-hooks, or whatever other weapons
Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several
days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero,
in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures,
commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil
Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the
Refinery, with which comfortable apartment the visitors finished their
tour.
Here they were offered the compliments of the season and locality in a
collation of chestnuts; and here also they were invited to inspect a
stereoscope, which, with its accompanying views, is considered on Tarr
Farm as admirable a wonder as was, doubtless, Columbus's watch by the
aborigines of the New World. Dearer to Miselle than chestnuts or
stereoscope, however, were the information and the anecdotes placed at
her service by the gentlemen of the establishment, albeit involuntarily;
and with her friends she shortly after departed from Barrows and
Hazleton's Refinery, filled with content and gratitude.
The noticeable point in the society of Tarr Farm, or rather in the human
scenery, for society there is none, is the absurd mingling of
inharmonious material. As in the toy called Prince Rupert's Drop, a
multitude of unassimilated particles are bound together by a master
necessity. Remove the necessity, and in the flash of an eye the
particles scatter never to reunite.
In her two days' tour of Tarr Farm, Miselle talked with gentlemen of
birth and education, gentlemen whose manners contrasted oddly enough
with their coarse clothes and knee-high boots; also with intermittent
gentlemen, who felt Tarr Farm to be no fit theatre for the exercise of
their acquired politeness; also with men like Tommy and Jimmy, whose
claims lay not so much in aristocratic connection and gentle breeding as
in a thorough appreciation of the matter in hand; also with a less
pleasing variety of mankind, men who, originally ignorant and debased,
have through lucky speculations acquired immense wealth without the
habits of body and mind fitly accompanying it.
Various ludicrous anecdotes are told of this last class, but none
droller than that of the millionnaire, who, after the growth of his
fortune, sent his daughter, already arrived at woman's estate, to
school, that she might learn reading, writing, and other
accomplishments. After a reasonable time the father visited the school,
and inquired concerning his daughter's progress. This he was informed
was but small, owing to a "want of capacity."
"Capacity! capacity!" echoed the father, thrusting his hands into his
well-lined pockets; "well, by ginger, if the gal's got no capacity, I've
got the money to buy her one, cost what it may!"
Another young fellow, originally employed in a very humble position by
one of the oil companies, suddenly acquired a fortune, and removed to
another part of the country. Returning for a visit to the scene of his
former labors, he stood inspecting the operations of a cooper at work
upon an oil-barrel. The two men had formerly been comrades, but this
fact the rich man now found it convenient to forget, and the poor one
was too proud to remember.
"Pray, Cooper," inquired the former at last, tapping the barrel
superciliously with his cane, "are you able to make this thing
oil-tight?"
"I believe so," retorted Cooper, dryly. "Was you ever troubled by their
leaking, when you rolled them through the mud from the well to the
Creek?"
Through all this fungus growth it is rather difficult to come at the
indigenous product of the soil; and Miselle found none of whose purity
she could be sure, except the youth who drove her from Tarr Farm to
Schaeffer's on her return. Arriving in sight of the railway, this _puer
ingenuus_, pointing to the track, inquired,--
"An' be thot what the keers rides on?"
"Yes," said Mr. Williams, "that's the track."
"An' yon's the wagons whar ye'll set?" pursued he, pointing to some
platform-cars, waiting to be loaded with oil-barrels.
"Hardly. Those are where the oil sits."
"Be? Then yon's for the fowks, I reckon?" indicating a line of box
freight-cars a little farther on.
"No, not exactly. Those are the passenger-cars, away up the track, with
windows and steps."
"An' who rides in the loft up atop?" inquired the youth, after a
prolonged stare.
This question, referring to the raised portion of the roof, universal in
Western cars, being answered, Mr. Williams inquired in his turn,--
"Did you never see the railway before?"
"Never seed 'em till this minute. Fact, I never went furder from home
than Tarr Farm 'fore to-day. 'Spect there's a many won'erful sights
'twixt here an' Eri', ben't there?"
Imagine a full-grown lad, in these United States, whose ideas are
bounded by the city of Erie!
Not indigenous to the soil, but a firmly rooted, exotic growth, was the
sonsy Scotch family whom Miselle was taken to see, the Sunday after her
arrival.
Two years ago their picturesque log-cabin stood almost in a wilderness,
with the farm-house of James Tarr its only neighbor. Now the derricks
are crowding up the hill toward it, until only a narrow belt of woodland
protects it from invasion. In front, a small flower-garden still showed
some autumn blooms at the time of Miselle's visit, and was the only
attempt at floriculture seen by her on Oil Creek.
With traditional Scotch hospitality, the mistress of the house, seconded
by Maggie and Belle, the elder daughters, insisted that the proposed
call should include dinner; and Miselle, nothing loath, was glad that
her friends allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to stay.
"It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the
wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set
before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough,
and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more.
"It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame,
in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and
proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her."
So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making
"salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that,
if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour
as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel'
again."
From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the
family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of
one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children
waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an
intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle
encountered on her travels.
Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr.
and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile
farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named
John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young
ladies, the party set forth.
The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through
woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the
less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden
hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a
veritable relic of Prince Charlie.
The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty
occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out
the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a
disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run
still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the
quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into
the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi,
bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its
termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot
into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality,
bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however,
upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines.
The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the
mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly
resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the miners poured a
tumultuous crowd of men, women, and children, who surrounded the little
party in a menacing manner, while their leader, a stalwart fellow,
called Brennan, seized John by the arm, and, shaking a sledge-hammer
fist in his face, inquired what he meant by coming to "spy round an
honest man's house, and make game of his betters?"
It was in vain that John attempted to disabuse the mind of his assailant
of this view of his visit to the old mine; and indeed his argument could
not even have been heard, as Brennan was now violently reiterating,--
"Tak' yer coorse, thin! Why don't ye tak' yer coorse?"
The advice was sensible, and the party left to themselves would
undoubtedly have followed it; in fact, the females of the party had
already taken their "coorse" along the homeward path as fast as their
feet would carry them, excepting Miselle, who contented herself with
stepping behind a great pine-tree, and watching thence this new
development of human nature.
From angry words the miners were not long in proceeding to blows, and a
short joust ensued, in which Williams and John gallantly held the lists
against six or eight assailants, who would have been more dangerous, had
they not been all day celebrating the wedding of one of their number.
Suddenly, however, the leader of the colliers darted by John, who was
opposing him, and pounced upon poor Belle Miller, who with her
companions had paused at a little distance to give vent to their
feelings in a chorus of dismal shrieks. Whether these irritated Mr.
Brennan's weakened nerves, or whether he had merely the savage instinct
of reaching the strong through the weak, cannot be certainly known; but
the fact of her forcible capture was rendered sufficiently obvious by
the cries that rent the air, and the heart of the young man John, who,
neglecting his own safety in an attempt at rescue, received a stunning
blow from his opponent, and fell bleeding to the earth.
Satisfied with the result of his experiment, Brennan, leaving his
captive in custody of his own party, attempted another raid upon the
defenceless flock; but this time Friend Williams, summoned by the voice
of his wife, darted to her rescue, and, with a happy blow, laid the
giant upon his back, where he lay for some moments admiring the evening
sky.
Brave as were the two knights, however, and manifest as was the right,
Victory would probably have "perched upon the banners of the strongest
battalions," had not an unexpected diversion put a sudden end to the
combat.
This came from the side of the assailants, in the pleasing shape of a
pretty young woman, who, rushing forward, flung her arms about the neck
of one of the leaders of the mob, crying,--
"Patrick Maloney, didn't you stand before the altar with me this day,
and vow to God to be a true and faithful husband? And is this all the
respect you show me on my wedding-day?"
The appeal was not without its force, and Patrick, pausing to consider
of it, was surrounded by the more pacific of his own party, among whom
now appeared "Big Tommy" from the Refinery, who loudly vouched for the
character of the visitors, claiming them indeed as warm and dear friends
of his own.
During the stormy council of war ensuing among the attacking party, the
womankind of the attacked ventured to approach near enough to implore
their champions to withdraw, while yet there was time. This pacific
counsel they finally consented to follow, and were led away breathing
vengeance and discontent, when John suddenly paused, exclaiming,--
"Where's Belle? They've got her. Come on, Williams! we aren't going to
leave the girl among 'em, surely!"
At this Maggie and Mrs. Williams uplifted their voices in deprecation of
further hostilities, protesting that they should die at once, if their
protectors were to desert them, and using many other feminine and
magnanimous arguments in favor of a speedy retreat.
But while yet the question of her rescue was undecided, Belle appeared,
flushed, tearful, and voluble in reproach against the friends who had
deserted her. She attributed her final escape to a free use of her
tongue, and repeated certain pointed remarks which she had addressed to
her custodian, who finally shook her, boxed her ears, and bade her
begone.
On hearing this recital, John was for returning at once and avenging the
insult; but the rest of the party, remembering the golden maxim of
Hudibras,
"He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day,"
prevailed on him to wait for retaliation until a more favorable
opportunity.
It may be satisfactory to the reader to hear, that, after Miselle had
left Oil Creek, she was informed that Mr. Williams, John, and a body of
men, equal in number to the colliers, paid them a visit, with authority
from the owner of the mine to pull down their house and eject them from
the premises. They also contemplated, it is supposed, a more direct and
personal vengeance; but, on making known their intentions, the pretty
bride again appeared, and, assaulting poor Williams with a whole battery
of tearful eyes, trembling lips, and eloquent appeals, vindicated once
more the superiority of woman's wiles to man's determination. An abject
apology from the colliers, and a decided intimation from the
"Regulators" of the consequences sure to follow any future incivility to
visitors, closed the affair, and the parties separated without further
hostilities.
The evening was so far advanced when the little party of fugitives were
once more _en route_, that a proposed visit to a working mine at some
little distance was given up, and at the door of the farm-house the
party dispersed to their respective homes.
The next day had been appointed for a visit to Oil City, the farthest
and most important station upon the Creek; and one object in visiting
the house was to engage Jamie, with his "team," for the expedition. It
fortunately happened that the old Scotchman and his wife were going to
Oil City on the same day, and it was arranged that the two parties
should unite.
At an early hour in the morning, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, with
Miselle, once more climbed the mountain to the little log-house, and
found Jamie just harnessing a pair of fine black horses to a wagon,
similar to the "hack-carriage" of Schaeffer's Farm. In the bottom was a
quantity of clean hay, and across the sides were fastened two planks,
covered with bedquilts. Upon one of these were seated Mr. and Mrs.
Williams, while Miselle was invited to the post of honor beside Mrs.
Miller, and the old Scotchman shared the driver's seat with his son.
"Dinna ye be feared now, dearie. Our Jamie's a car'fu' driver, wi' all
his wild ways," said the old woman kindly, as the wagon, with a
premonitory lurch and twist, turned into the forest road.
Road! Let the reader call to mind the most precipitous wooded mountain
of his acquaintance, and fancy a road formed over it by the simple
process of cutting off the trees, leaving the stumps and rocks
undisturbed, and then fancy himself dragged over it in a springless
wagon behind two fast horses.
"Eh, then! It maks an auld body's banes ache sair, siccan a road, as
yon!" said the Scotchwoman, with a significant grimace, as the wagon
paused a moment at the foot of a perpendicular ascent.
"I reckon ye wad nae ken whatten the Auld Country roads were med for,
gin ye suld see them. They're nae like this, ony way."
The dear old creature had entered the United States through the St.
Lawrence and the Lakes, and supposed Tarr Farm to be America. Miselle
was so weak as to try to describe the aspect of things about her native
city, and was evidently suspected of patriotic romancing for her pains.
But such magnificent views! Such glimpses of far mountain-peaks, seen
through vistas of rounded hills! Such flashing streams, tumbling heels
over head across the forest road in their haste to mingle with the blue
waters of the Alleghany! Such wide stretches of country, as the road
crept along the mountain-brow, or curved sinuously down to the far
valley!
Pictures were there, as yet uncopied, that should hold Church
breathless, with the pencil of the Andes and Niagara quivering in his
fingers,--pictures that Turner might well cross the seas to look upon;
but Miselle remembers them through a distracting mist of bodily terror
and discomfort,--as some painter showed a dance of demons encircling a
maiden's couch, while above it hung her first love-dream.
"Yon in the valley, where the wood looks so yaller, is a sulphur spring;
an' here in the road's the place where I'm going to tip you all over,"
suddenly remarked Jamie, twisting himself round on the box to enjoy the
consternation of his female passengers, while the wagon paused on the
verge of a long gully, some six feet in depth, occupying the whole
middle of the road.
"Wull ye get out?" continued he, addressing Miselle for the first time.
"Had we better?" asked she, tremulously.
"If you're easy scared. But I'm no going to upset, I'll promise you."
"Then I'll stay in," said Miselle, in the desperate courage of extreme
cowardice; and the wagon went on, two wheels deep in the gully,
crumbling down the clayey mud, two wheels high on the mountain-side,
crashing through brush and over stones. And yet there was no upset.
"Didn't I tell ye?" inquired Jamie, again twisting himself to look in
Miselle's white face, with a broad smile of delight at her evident
terror.
"Be done, you bold bairn! Isn't he a sturdy, stirring lad, Ma'am?" said
the proud mother, as Jamie, addressing himself again to his work,
shouted to the black nags, and put them along the bit of level road in
the valley at a pace precluding all further conversation.
Another precipitous ascent, where the road had been mended by felling a
large tree across it, over whose trunk the horses were obliged to pull
the heavy wagon, and then an equally precipitous descent, gave a view of
the Alleghany River and Oil Creek, with Oil City at their confluence,
and a background of bluffs and mountains cutting sharp against the clear
blue sky.
This view Miselle contemplated with one eye; but the other remained
rigidly fixed upon the road before her.