The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-11-12
Wanted to Spend.

A dollar in cash had been ain unusual
sum for him to have at one time. and
the sudden possession of so much money
filed him with a desire to spend some
of It, He donned his best suit Of jeans
and took the next mornings aceommoda-
ton train for Parkersburg
After wandering about that city all day
looking for a suitable investment he
finally paid $500 for a finely bred bull!
There was just. about as much use on
his farm for u bull there would be in
the proverbial china shop. The sterile soil
of his farm did not produce enough
blades of grass to furnish the bull with
one good feed, and the farmer had no
other food fit for his purchase.
When asked by his neighbors why in the
world he had made such use of his money
he simply replied:
well. | had to spend the money some
how
At the bottom of a piece of farm land
on the side of a mountain lived snake
hunter. as the West Virginia mountain
farmer is nicknamed, in a little log nut.
The daily fare of this man and his fam
~ had never been anything other than
the far-famed cornbread and SOW belly. >
In summer he went barefooted, while
heavy rawhide boots covered his feet
when cold weather came.
Oil was struck on his farm in such
ised soon to make him the wealthiest man
for miles around. As soon as the first IN
stalment of cash was paid over to him
he was seized with the desire to spend
lie made arrangements to pay the town
visit.
Got His Shoes.
Using shanks mare, his sole means of
| conveyance, by the way, he took short
cut across the mountains until he reached
| the small railroad town that meant me-
| tropolis to him, and the very first thing
| he bought was pair OF patent leather
shoes
Perhaps the best example of all the en-
barrassment caused these folk by the sud
den acquisition of wealth was the case OF
a family of mountaineers back in Calhoun
county, This family consisted OF father,
mother and four grown sons Every menu
Der of the household was six feet and
| large and strong In proportion.
The mother was a vigorous old woman,
almost as powerful as any of the rest of
the family and upon her devolved not
only all the houshold burdens, but the
work of cholping all the wood as well
This latter duty IL not light task by
any means.
The father and his sons were good ex-
amples of the West Virginia sengdggers-
that Is. diggers of ginseng roots. Between
time they would hunt with rifles sixty
years old, with barrels six feet In length
and weighing from fifteen To twenty
pounds. with which all of them were dead
! shots; any one of the men could easily
knock out the ey, of a squirrel at the
top of the highest rec.
Rut very Little work of any kind dii
they condesetnd tc do. and year aftet
wear they spent their time thus, living in
their old log house of one room. without
seeing $40 In cash from one years eni
to the other.
Then wealth came.
Prospectcrs traced oil until II led to
the neighbort.ood of the old house, AMI
a well was driven on the place, upon
the usual terms. gusher resulted, ana
when the money tor the first month
output was placed In the hands OF the
father the very first thing he and the
boys thought of was that something must
be bought for Mother.
So. after long consultation. they final
" decided to buy her new axe.
Rut there are few cases OF hard luck
amid this good fortune One Of these fell
10 the lot of some railroad engineers the
other day.
Fiftv Of the Baltimore and Ohio rail-
road engineers on the fifth division, which
runs through the oil country from Graf
ton to Parkersburg. formed a pool, into
which each paid certain sum and then
sent out crew to prospect for oil
Several wells were sunk but no oil came
tn the surface, 1t is true that one OF the
wells developed into a "gasser"-that Is,
natural gas poured forth with roar that
could be heard a mile away, wasting daily
enough gas to illuminate a small village
and al the same time furnish heat suf-
ficient to do the cooking for all its in
habitants-- "A well which, II placed within
the limits of a town, would be worth a
fortune to its owner, but down in that
country Of little value.
Discouraged, thirty of the fifty engineers
dropped out Of the pool. They Thought II
would be too much like sending good
money after bad to continue. The other
twenty men resolved to give 1t one more
trial and the very next well, finished two
or three weeks ago, proved to be bon
ANA yielding three hundred barrels u
day.