The irrepressible “Sam” Blakely originated the term “shuffle,” which he often practiced in his dealings in the oil-exchanges, and the phrase, “Boys, don’t take off your shirts!” This expression spread far and wide and was actually repeated by Osman Pasha—if the cablegrams told the truth—at the battle of Plevna, when his troops wavered an instant in the face of a dreadful rain of bullets. “Sam” also inaugurated[inaugurated] the custom of drinking Rhine-wine. Once he constituted himself a committee of one to celebrate the Fourth of July at Parker. He printed a great lot of posters, which announced a celebration on a gorgeous scale—horse-races, climbing the greased pole, boat-races, orations, fireworks and other attractions. These were posted about the city and on barns and fences within a radius of ten miles. A friend asked him how his celebration was likely to come off. “Oh,” he said, “we’re going to get all the hayseeds in here and then we’ll give them the great kibosh.” On the glorious day “Sam” mounted a box in front of the Columbia hose-house and delivered an oration before four-thousand people, who pronounced it the funniest thing they ever heard and accepted the situation good-naturedly. Some impromptu games were got up and the day passed off pleasantly.
POND-FRESHET AT OIL CITY, MARCH, 1863.
XV.
FROM THE WELL TO THE LAMP.
Transporting Crude-Oil by Wagons and Boats—Unfathomable Mud and Swearing Teamsters—Pond Freshets—Establishment of Pipe-Lines—National-Transit Company and Some of its Officers—Speculation in Certificates—Exchanges at Prominent Points—The Product That Illumines the World at Various Stages of Progress.
“Lamps were gleaming everywhere, gleaming from huge banks of flowers.”—Wilson Barrett.
“Nature must give way to Art.”—Jonathan Swift.
“The flighty purpose never is o’ertook, unless the deed go with it.”—Shakespeare.
“My kingdom for a horse to haul my oil.”—Richard III. Revised.