Farther on, where the bluff is less precipitous, it has been graded after a fashion; and the houses built at the upper side of the new street seem to be sliding rapidly across it to join their opposite neighbors, which, in their turn, are sinking modestly into the mud.
A plank sidewalk renders it possible to walk through the principal streets of this city; but temptation to do so is of the slightest.
Monotonous lines of frail houses, shops whose scanty assortment of goods must be sold at enormous prices to pay the expense of transportation from New York or Philadelphia, crowds of oil-speculators, oil-dealers, oil-teamsters, a clumsy bridge across the Creek, a prevailing atmosphere of petroleum,—such is Oil City.
At the water-side the view is somewhat more interesting. No wharves have yet been built; and the swarming flatboats "tie up" all along the bank, just as they used to do three years ago, when, with a freight of lumber instead of oil, they stopped for the night at the solitary little Dutch tavern then monopolizing the site of the present city.
A rakish little stern-wheel steamer lay in the stream, bound for Pittsburg, and sorely was Miselle tempted to take passage down the Alleghany in her; but lingering memories of home and the long-suffering Caleb at last prevailed, and, with a sigh, she turned her back upon the beautiful river, and retraced her steps through yards crowded with barrels of oil waiting for shipment,—oil in rows, oil in stacks, oil in columns, and oil in pyramids wellnigh as tall and as costly as that of Cheops himself.
Returned to the Petroleum House, Miselle bade a reluctant good-bye to the kindly Scots, who here took stage for Franklin, and watched them float away, as it appeared, upon the sea of mud in a wagon-body whose wheels and horses were too nearly submerged to make any noticeable feature in the arrangement.
Soon after, Jamie appeared at the door of the parlor nominally to announce himself ready to return; but, after a fierce struggle with his natural modesty of disposition, he advanced into the room, and silently laid two of the biggest apples that ever grew in the laps of Mrs. Williams and Miselle. Putting aside all acknowledgments with "Ho! what's an apple or two?" the woodsman next proceeded on a tour of inspection round the room, serenely unconscious of the magnificent scorn withering him from the eyes of the jewelled lady, who now reclined upon a broken-backed sofa, taking a leisurely survey of the strangers.
Jamie paused some time at the piano.
"And what might such a thing as that cost noo?" asked he, at length, giving the case a little back-handed blow.
"About eight hundred dollars," ventured Miselle, to whom the inquiry was addressed.