Connecticut western news., 1910-02-24
A SLEEPY HEADED MAN
 By M. QUAD Copyright, 1910, by Associated Lit
 erary Press.


 ognized oil fields, was the center of another basin and so reported to the Sunshine Crude Oil Producing com pany, capital $1,OOOOO0 That com pany had gobbled up all the best wells in large district and was rapidly controlling production.
 Moses Perkins was young man of twenty-siX. He was a farmers son and farmer himself, and he was not yet married. He had left his farm for a few months to help drill oil wells for the Sunshine company. Moses was hard working and honest He would put in long days work, but he wasn't smart. From the day he began work at $2.50Aa day until the day he was discharged, a period of twenty days, the foreman over him applied to him such terms as sleery- head. idiot, blunderbuss, born foul, and so forth.
 One day Perkins was sent for can of nitroglycerin. On his return he was seen coming along tossing 1t in the air and catching it when 1t came down. This was too much. Perkins was dis charged.
 It was geologist who differed from all the other geologists that found a new dip" on the Widow Carson's farm. Her farm was tue center of the basin. It was a stony, sterile old farm of 160 acres, and the widow her self was almost as dllapidated as the farm. She was forty years old and gaunt and homely, and she had three gaunt and homely children. The geol- ogist staked his reputation that there was oil beneath her land, and the Sun shine company took him in on q pro viso The first thing was to get the legal privilege of sinking well, and this was to carry with it a lease in case oil was discovered. There must be more or less beating about the bush to prevent the widow from taking the alarm. The preliminaries were in- trusted to lawyer disguised as a ped dler
 When Moses Perkins had got it into his head that there was a Widow Car son somewhere on earth who was of interest to the Sunshine company he figured that it could mean only one thing Then he began to inquire around, and after a week he lighted on a man who could tell him. Then he put a shirt, collar and pair of socks into an old satchel and set out for the forty mile walk. In the even ing of the second day he arrived at the widows. He found her and her chill dren as above described. 1t was next Slo FfnY dreamed of the wife he was to marry, and he was taken aback He might have given up his project and retreat ed in good order had not peddler ar rived the same evening. He was the disguised lawyer of the Sunshine com pany. He seized on Moses Perkins for dunderhead and went abead' and talked. The widow didn't catch on, but Moses did. A company wanted her farm for a quarry, and she was ready enough to sign any sort of paper the next day.
 Moses had been asked to stay over ] night The peddler must go farther. This left the coast clear for a few hours. Moses had never made love to a woman, but he began while yet the } peddler's coattails were futtering through the gate. He told of his own farm, his prospects, his good health how he looked in vain for years for ) the woman of his dreams, but had found her at last. He needn't have done half as much talking. The wid- ow was ready to lease her farm, and } she was also ready to marry again. Before midnight she was the promised bride of Moses Perkins. At 10 o'clock the next forenoon she was his wife and her children were calling him pop. At II o'clock the peddler arrived with certain documents and q witness. He found the bride sitting on the bride groom's knee. He intimated that the papers were all ready to sign and that he had certain sum of money to pass over, but fool Moses had some thing to say. He was the husband and the man of the house now. As soon as the wedding trip was over he was going to take off his coat and vest and make those 1G0 acres hump and hustle. The big powders lying around would take a roll, and the stony ground would blossom as the rose. Mrs. Carson would have been , willing to sell the old place for most anything, but Mrs. Perkins didn't care to even sign a lease.
 For six weeks longer Moses was talk . en for a chap with sawdust in his head. The lawyers and spectators and rings tried in every way to get the best of him, but what they cursed as D his stupidity helped him to hold his own. Then he woke up one morning with his head all right. He had found oil cxuding from a spring, and he an ! nounced the fact to the world at large also that the farm was for lease or sale The Sunshine people were not the only ones to rush. Three leases were made 2 and three companies pledged them selves to pay royalties, and inside of a year Moses Perkins was a millionaire and the Perkins family were eating ? square meals. The Carson basin turned out to be the greatest find in the state.