The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1881-08-25
THE LAST OF NINE.

-fGnny Ds7scou, ,-tB Bosom Coun,0ptrt1tfb-.
THE LAST OF NINE.
"pidy You know that Tom Bailey had
passed IN his checksP'' -s5sz'ie
Fss5 heardft by telephone an hour
The speaker was John McWlliams,
and we Ware sitting on the piazza of his
homie ngBradford.
SDo you know the particulars, JohnP''
Z" Phrticularsp Well I don't know as
there sreh hAnyM Same old story, you
know, Didn't pack the nitro-glycerine
In the. wagon carefully, and when the
wagon went over 9 log the load exploded
and<and-thatw was all"
There was no need of further expla-
>fnafion, afori L could reason it all out
Clearly enough, and could afmostfaucy
saw the ghastiy remainsof the il-starred
Tom Bailey. who went out one morning
% superintend the shooting of wen
and never came back. Bailey was an
employed of the Roberts Torpedo Com
with whom was in conversation, WAS
his Division Superintendent on the same
ssrun," or district. -
Family, JohnP''
-" No-that Is, he HADN'T awife, but be
had . awidowed mother and q young sis
ssWhat win they doP"E 8
IS" Oh, the Cempany won't see them
starye, and, Besides, guess poor old
Tom didn't die beggar- Poor old
boyt" and the bearded man at my side
1sobbed like d heart broken child. ~ II
,s1tsf never told you about Tom and the
rest of the boys did IP'' continued the
soT9Tlng 1%s man an ,asTof iatfT E1ss9 ese
boa. YES; there we're nine of us, You
sknow-but You don't know, for I have
never told q living soul This sudden
death of Toms quite unmans me, for /
am now the only one left-the last of
nine snsurfra ari3 SgaA esbH3 jnsarR5z.
IL waited . long while for John to gain
control of his feelings, for / knew he
: had 9 story to tell Of more than usual
interest. 1t was q beautiful night, full
of soft moonlight and drowsy with the
hum Of humanity in the city beneath
our feet. A delicate, almost impercept-
ible mist hung about the city, and from
our hillside piazza we could seefar down
The valley where the Tunungwant stream
family glimmered in the moonlight, and
where the huge iron tanks of oil loomed
up gloomy and black against the mellow
brightness of the night. Over at Pros
pect Park, ON Mount Raub. the light
TO our ears came the strains of q Strauss
waltz. Away off on another hill the
sound of laboring engine and the thud
of the walking-beam told that the pom
derous drill at 3 well was being lowered
int, tho or<h "a - n,
night and day could sink the hole. Down
below, the city flashed up at us its count
less lights and shadows and family
foated up the hum of business and
pleasure. LII was strangely beautiful
night for a story of oil. John spoke at
Last, slowly, and with evident ;hesita-
ton. .SNAa'N9b j. Sss''1's
Yes," he said, ssthere were nine of
us, and I'm the last one alive. It's a
queer thing, and it makes me feel
strangely; perhaps more so now that
poor Tom is-is-n tS3N u
he couldn't bring himself to say the
word he couldn't say that his friend
was dead. With an effort he con-
tinued:
ngYou doubtless know that I wasin the
tarnny during the fste war / saw some
pretty tough fighting, too, and after
Shiloh was made Captain, and at the
same time Tom Bailey, who was In the
same company, was promoted to q Lieu
tenancy for bravery. he deserved it, too,
for there never was q better or Drawer
boy; trifie reckless, you may say, but
brave and generous to fault. At the
close of the war we went home together,
aud with us s1Yent what was left of the
company There wasn't much, to be
sure, for we had done some terrible
,fghtings and drmanyof the boy shad gone
down through the valley Of the shadow.
1fke theH rest Of the returned soldiers,
we went into the oil country, which was
just then turning the heads of an the
people, and after knocking around
awhile and losing what money we had
Fe conclsdsd 20 % irto the business lof
. shooting wells Tom and went into
the business for ourselves, and soon
hired four of the men who had been in
our company and q friend of mine, who
had been wealthy but was broke to
work for us.Ti Two afishermen came
along that we had known before, and
we engaged them. That made nine of
Us, and We used 70 i've In one room and
do our own cooking, for women were
scarce in the Oh country st that time.
Everything went on finely, and we made
uonsy hand doYerfist.s : Old Colonel Rob-
erts hadn't got the monopoly of the nj
tro-glycerine business then, and any
man could engage il it who cared 20 run
,vossOur crowd was extremely fortunate
at first, and we were beginning to feel
sthst nitrogHcerine wasn't such 2 terri
Die thing as sotne persons made out.
Well, we worked along about six months
without an accident, when one day one
Of our men was killed while taking
glycerine from wagon. This gave us
Considerable of . shock, but we laid the
blame on the mans carelessness, and
worked on as usual. Within q year
three more of our men were blown to
fragments at the same time through
pure recklessness. None of these men
drank liquor to excess; so you couldn't
attribute their death 20 int6xication.
The rest ofus were mighty careful after
that, and only staid IN the business be-
cause we con1d make money faster than
ut anything else. We didn't have any
more accidents while we were doing
business for ourselves, and we began to
take courage svsa1o1t ~ ns !;
.swhen the Roberts Company gained
rnonopolistic control OF the torpedo
business the remaining five of our crowd
went to work for them. Everything
went on syimmingiy for some time, but
st last three of the crowd had some
trouble, real or faneied, with the Com
pany, and the result was that the men
quit entirely and went to moonlighting
shooting wells at night in defiance of
the law giving the Roberts Company the