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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XV.--APRIL, 1865.--NO. XC.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.




ADVENTURES OF A LONE WOMAN.


"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