“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 glass 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 passengers; and that the one which came after had a hundred and fifty bullets fired into it, but had not been stopped. We passed 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, God bless her! does just the same. Therefore si fortuna tonat, caveto mergi—if fortune frowns, do not for that despond. Just as I was passing 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.”