The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-05-06
(kansas City Star.)

NN'iStsS ~iss 'N'asy
Vivid descriptions OF an oil town in
it's boom are found in Mary Austin's
latest novel. "The Ford" published by
the Houghton Mifflin company. This
was the scene:
1T came up from tho pumps in
black pasty gobs and stank. That was
kenneths first impression of the oil
fields the November evening that Pet
ers drove them down to Summerfield
them in the wool wagon. They lay,
the half hundred wells. In the hollow
of an old earthquake drop that took a
curving line about the town and left
it high on the uptilted side. In the
early dusk they made out the dcrricks.
each by his little, danger red eye, like
half formed, prehistoric creatures feel
ing their way up from the depths to
light, leaning altogether with the slight
undulatons of the land, and seeming
to communicate in low. guttering bulbs
and endless creakings, as though they
plotted to tear loose at any moment
and stamp out the little hordes OF men
who ran perpetually about, or col
lected in knots among the sheds with
their heads together.
There were crowds of men. The
night the Brents had driven up, be-
lated to tho hotel, they saw them
standing wcaredly about the bar like
storks. puffcd with want of sleep, and
yet always with a tense. waiting air.
Rows of men slumped in chairs in the
dim lit halls, trying to sleep, and out
side in the street men walked up and
down as though no such thing as sleep
were thought OF. Long after the
Burkes had taken them In, for beds
at the hotel were not to be had for any
money. Kenneth could hear, louder
than the wind on the TORI, the troubled
murmur OF the town.
1T was not real trouble he made
out in day or two, but the milling
OF men about the oil interest, like the
mindless blethcr OF the flock; 1t rose
at times to the note of happy excite
ment. Men clustered like bees about
the hives before the postofficc and the
bank; they collected In the streets and
were cast back and forth between the
trolley and the pavement by the pass
erhy. without any cessation of their
absorbing talk.
ITO the Brent children. threading
their way to school among them, there
was. in spite OF the widest individual
differences. curious likeness about all
OF all the hounds in the pack, Of what
ever breeds, at the parting of the
quarry. Wherever there was news OF
strike OF new company formed
or an old one extended. they leaped and
snatched at morseis Of 1t. only to tear
away excitcdly at the least report OF
one in some other direction. They
slavered with the desire of stock, they
gave tongue at the mere hint of divi-
dends. And over all, through the
streets, In the houses even. there was
the pervading, acrid flavor OF oil. 1t
came In at the church windows and
gave to the Sunday quietness the cf-
feet Of Il lull in the market merely"
There was Addie Scudder who was
certain that Providence must be going
to lead her father to strike" because
he had had such hard luck all his life.
Cause Why" she would demand.
Cause my pops done used up all his
rights -homesteadin' and a-timber-
claimin' and a-pre-emptin.' He's
served his time at them things and
served 1t honest, and l reckon they's
payday comm round. amt they %
she would demand irresistibly. "Cause
it don't take more'n half an eye "a
zee that my pop Amt no ways fitted
for nothin' but them kind OF things and