Part 18 (1/2)
After a long, long, weary night and day, I arrived at an oil town, whose name I now forget. By great good fortune I secured a room, and by still greater luck I got acquainted the next morning at breakfast with three or four genial and gentlemanly men, all ”speculators” like myself, who had come to spy into the plumpness and oiliness of the land. We hired a sleigh and went forth on an excursion among the oil-wells. It was in some respects the most remarkable day I ever spent anywhere.
For here was oil, oil, oil everywhere, in fountains flowing at the rate of a dollar a second (it brought 70 cents a gallon), derricks or scaffoldings at every turn over wells, men making fortunes in an hour, and beggars riding on blooded horses. I myself saw a man in a blue carter's blouse, carrying a black snake-whip, and since breakfast, for selling a friend's farm, he had received 1250,000 as commission (_i.e._, 50,000 pounds). When we stopped to dine at a tavern, there stood behind us during all the meal many country-fellows, all trying to sell oil-lands; every one had a great bargain at from thirty or forty thousand dollars downwards. The lowest in the lot was a boy of seventeen or eighteen, a loutish-looking youth, who looked as if his vocation had been peddling apples and lozenges. He had only a small estate to dispose of for $15,000 (3,000 pounds), but he was very small fry indeed. My companions met with many friends; all had within a few days or hours made or lost incredible sums by gambling in oil-lands, borrowing recklessly, and failing as recklessly. Companies were formed here on the spot as easily as men get up a game of cards, and of this within a few days I witnessed many instances. Two men would meet. ”Got any land over?”
(_i.e._, not ”stocked”). ”Yes, first-rate; geologer's certificate; can you put it on the market?” ”That's my business. I've floated forty oil stocks already, terms half profits.” So it would be floated forthwith.
Gambling by _millions_ was in the air everywhere; low common men held sometimes _thirty companies_, all their own, in one pocket, to be presently sprung in New York or elsewhere. And in contrast to it was the utterly bleak wretchedness and poverty of every house, and the miserable shanties, and all around and afar the dismal, dark, pine forests covered with snow.
I heard that day of a man who got a living by spiritually intuiting oil.
”Something told him,” some Socratic demon or inner impulse, that there was ”ile” here or there, deep under the earth. To pilot to this ”ile” of beauty he was paid high fees. One of my new friends avowed his intention of at once employing this oil-seer as over-seer.
We came to some stupendous tanks and to a well which, as one of my friends said enviously and longingly, was running three thousand dollars a day in clear greenbacks. Its history was remarkable. For a very long time an engineer had been here, employed by a company in boring, but bore he never so wisely, he could get nothing. At last the company, tired of the expenditure and no returns, wrote to him ordering him to cease all further work on the next Sat.u.r.day. But the engineer had become ”possessed” with the idea that he _must_ succeed, and so, unheeding orders, he bored away all alone the next day. About sunset some one going by heard a loud screaming and hurrahing. Hastening up, he found the engineer almost delirious with joy, dancing like a lunatic round a fountain of oil, which was ”as thick as a flour-barrel, and rising to the height of a hundred feet.” It was speedily plugged and made available.
All of this occurred only a very few days before I saw it.
That night I stopped at a newly-erected tavern, and, as no bed was to be had, made up my mind to sleep in my blanket on the muddy floor, surrounded by a crowd of noisy speculators, waggoners, and the like. I tell this tale vilely, for I omitted to say that I did the same thing the first night when I entered the oil-country, got a bed on the second, and that this was the third. But even here I made the acquaintance of a nice Scotchman, who found out another very nice man who had a house near by, and who, albeit not accustomed to receive guests, said he would give us two one bed, which he did. However, the covering was not abundant, and I, for all my blanket, was a-cold. In the morning I found a full supply of blankets hanging over the foot-board, but we had retired without a light, and had not noticed them. Our breakfast being rather poor, our host, with an apology, brought in a great cold mince-pie three inches thick, which is just the thing which I love best of all earthly food.
That he apologised for it indicated a very high degree of culture indeed in rural America, and, in fact, I found that he was a well-read and modest man.
It was, I think, at a place called Plummer that I made the acquaintance of two brothers named B---, who seemed to vibrate on the summit of fortune as two golden b.a.l.l.s might on the top of the oil-fountain to which I referred. One spoke casually of having at that instant a charter for a bank in one pocket, and one for a railroad in the other. They bought and sold any and all kinds of oil-land in any quant.i.ty, without giving it a thought. While I was in their office, one man exhibited a very handsome revolver. ”How much did it cost?” asked B. ”Fifty dollars” (10 pounds).
”I wish,” replied B., ”that when you go to Philadelphia you'd get me a dozen of them for presents.” A man came to the window and called for him. ”What do you want?” ”Here are the two horses I spoke about yesterday.” Hardly heeding him, and talking to others, B. went to the window, cast a casual glance at the steeds, and said, ”What was it you said that you wanted for them?” ”Three thousand dollars.” ”All right!
go and put 'em in the stable, and come here and get the money.”
From Plummer I had to go ten miles to Oil City. If I had only known it, one of my very new friends, who was very kind indeed to a stranger, would have driven me over in his sleigh. But I did not know it, and so paid a very rough countryman ten dollars (2 pounds) to take me over on a _jumper_. This is the roughest form of a sledge, consisting of two saplings with the ends turned up, fastened by cross-pieces. The snow on the road was two feet deep, and the thermometer at zero. But the driver had two good horses, and made good time. I found it very difficult indeed to hold on to the vehicle and also to keep my carpet-bag.
Meanwhile my driver entertained me with an account of a great misfortune which had just befallen him. It was as follows:--
”Before this here oil-fever came along I had a little farm that cost me $150, and off that, an' workin' at carpentrin', I got a _mighty_ slim livin'. I used to keep all my main savin's to pay taxes, and often had to save up the cents to get a prospective drink of whisky. Well, last week I sold my farm for forty thousand dollars, and dern my skin ef the feller that bought it didn't go and sell it yesterday for a hundred and fifty thousand! Just like my derned bad luck!”
”See here, my friend,” I said; ”I have travelled pretty far in my time, but I never saw a country in which a man with forty thousand dollars was not considered rich.”
”He may be rich anywhere else with it,” replied the _nouveau riche_ contemptuously, ”but it wouldn't do more than buy him a gla.s.s of whisky here in Plummer.”
Having learned what I could of oil-boring, I went to Cincinnati, and then to Nashville by rail. It may give the reader some idea of what kind of a country and life I was coming into when I tell him that the train which preceded mine had been stopped by the guerillas, who took from it fifty Federal soldiers and shot them dead, stripping the other pa.s.sengers; and that the one which came after had a hundred and fifty bullets fired into it, but had not been stopped. We pa.s.sed by Mammoth Cave, but at full speed, for it was held by the brigands. All of which things were duly chronicled in the Northern newspapers, and read by all at home.
I got to Nashville. It had very recently been taken by the Federal forces under General Thomas, who had put it under charge of General Whipple, who was, in fact, the ruling or administrative man of the Southwest just then. I went to the hotel. Everything was dismal and dirty--nothing but soldiers and officers, with all the marks of the field and of warfare visible on them--citizens invisible--everything proclaiming a city camp in time of war--sixty thousand men in a city of twenty thousand, more or less. I got a room. It was so cold that night that the ice froze two inches thick in my pitcher in my room.
I expected to find the brothers Colton in Nashville. I went to the proper military authority, and was informed that their regiment was down at the front in Alabama, as was also the officer who had the authority to give them leave of absence. I was also informed that my only chance was to go to Alabama, or, in fact, into the field itself, as a civilian! This was a dreary prospect. However, I made up my mind to it, and was walking along the street in a very sombre state of mind, for I was going to a country like that described in ”Sir Grey Stele”--
”Whiche is called the Land of Doubte.”
And doubtful indeed, and very dismal and cold and old, did everything seem on that winter afternoon as I, utterly alone, went my way. What I wanted most of all things on earth was a companion. With my brother I would have gone down to the front and to face all chances as if it were to a picnic.
When ill-fortune intends to make a spring, she draws back. But good fortune, G.o.d bless her! does just the same. Therefore _si fortuna tonat_, _caveto mergi_--if fortune frowns, do not for that despond. Just as I was pa.s.sing a very respectable-looking mansion, I saw a sign over its office-door bearing the words: ”Captain Joseph R. Paxton, Mustering- in and Disbursing Officer.”
Joseph R. Paxton was a very intimate friend of mine in Philadelphia. He was still a young man, and one of the most remarkable whom I have ever known. He was a great scholar. He was more familiar with all the _rariora_, _curiosa_, and singular marvels of literature than any body I ever knew except Octave Delepierre, with whose works he first made me acquainted. He had translated Ik Marvel's ”Reveries of a Bachelor” into French, and had been accepted by a Paris publisher. He had been a lawyer, an agent for a railroad, and had long edited in Philadelphia a curious journal ent.i.tled _Bizarre_, and written a work on gems. His whole soul, however, was in the French literature of the eighteenth century, and he always had a library which would make a collector's mouth water. Had he lived in London or Paris, he would have made a great reputation. And he was kind-hearted, genial, and generous to a fault. He had always some unfortunate friend living on him, some Bohemian of literature under a cloud.
I entered the office and found him, and great was his amazement! ”_Que diable_, _mon ami_, _faistu ici dans cette galere_?” was his greeting. I explained the circ.u.mstances in detail. He at once exclaimed, ”Come and live here with me. General Whipple is my brother-in-law, and he will be here in a few days and live with us. He'll make it all right.” ”Here, Jim!” he cried to a great six-foot man of colour--”run round to the hotel and bring this gentleman's luggage!”
There I remained for a very eventful month. Paxton had entered with the conquerors, and had just seized on the house. I may indeed say that _we_ seized on it, as regards any right--I being accepted as hail-fellow-well- met, and as a bird of the same feather. In it was a piano and a very good old-fas.h.i.+oned library. It was like Paxton to loot a library. He had had his pick of the best houses, and took this one, ”n.i.g.g.e.rs included,” for the servants, by some odd freak, preferred freedom with Paxton to slavery with their late owner. This gentleman was a Methodist clergyman, and Paxton found among his papers proofs that he had been concerned in a plot to burn Cincinnati by means of a gang of secret incendiaries.
Whenever the blacks realised the fact that a Northern man was a _gentleman_--they all have marvellous instincts for this, and a respect for one beyond belief--they took to him with a love like that of bees for a barrel of syrup. I have experienced this so often, and in many cases so touchingly, that I cannot refrain from recording it. Among others who thus took to me was the giant Jim, who was unto Paxton and me as the captive of our bow and spear, albeit an emanc.i.p.ated contraband. When the Southerners defied General Butler to touch their slaves, because they were their ”property” by law, the General replied by ”confiscating” the property by what Germans call _Faustrecht_ (or fist-right) as ”contraband of war.”
This Jim, the general waiter and butler, was a character, shrewd, clever, and full of dry humour. When I was alone in the drawing-room of an evening, he would pile up a great wood-fire, and, as I sat in an arm-chair, would sit or recline on the floor by the blaze and tell me stories of his slave life, such as this:--
”My ole missus she always say to me, 'Jim, don' you ever have anything to do with dem Yankees. Dey're all pore miserable wile wretches. Dey lib in poverty an' nastiness and don' know nothin'.' I says to her, 'It's mighty quare, missus. I can't understan' it. Whar do all dem books come from? Master gits em from de Norf. Who makes all our boots an' clothes and sends us tea an' everythin'? Dey can't all be so pore an' ignoran'