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 Frémont, 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raccoons, squirrels, and tree-toads; now it numbers four thousand men, women, and children, and the "old families" have withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of the forest beyond.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, naïvely,—