The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-08-28
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those rough and crowded roads. 1t
was this precious and dreadful stuff
that shot the oil up out of the earth.
Hard lads in corduroys took their
chances and pocketed their high pay,
driving the death-dealing wagons, sing
ing as they drove, red shirt tail tied
to pole Haunting its warning at the
back of the load. Often an expected
wagon would fail to appear. The
workers on the field never took the
trouble to trace it or the time to wait
for it. They knew that somewhere
along the road was great gaping
hole, with never stable fragment of
wood or steel or bone or flesh any
where for yards around to tell the
tale they already knew.
Acres that had been carefully tended
so that they might yield their scanty
crop of cabbages, onions, potatoes were
abandoned to oil, the garden truck rot
ting in the ground. Rawboned farm
ers and their scrawny wives and
pindling brats, grown spectacularly
rich overnight, walked out of their
houses without taking the trouble to
move the furniture or lock the door.
1t was not worth while. They left
the sleazy curtains on the windows,
the pots on the stove. The oil crew,
clanking in, did not bother to wreck
the house unless they found it neces-
sary. In the midst of an inferno of
oil rigs, drills, smoke, steam, and seep-
ing oil itself the passer-by would often
see a weather-beaten farmhouse, it's
windows broken, its front askew, like
a beldame gone mad, gray hair stream
ing about her crazed face as she stared
out at the pandemonium of Oil hell
about her.
The farmers moved into Usage, or
Oklahoma City, or Wahoo. They
bought automobiles and silk shirts and
gew-gaws, like children. The men sat
on the front porch in shirt sleeves
and stocking feet and spat tobacco
juice into the fresh young grass.
Mile on mile, as far as the eye could
see, were the skeleton frames of oil
rigs outlined against the sky like giant
Marian figures stalking across the
landscape. Horrible new towns-Bret
Harte wooden-front towns-sprang up
overnight on the heels of an oil strike;
towns inhabited by people who never
meant to stay in them; stark and hid
eous houses thrown up by jewellers
who never intended to remain in them;
r,do fronfihr crocSroad ctornS ctuffod
with the necessities of frontier life
and the luxuries Of sudden wealth all
jumbled together in sort Of mer-
camille miscegenation. The thump and
clank OF the pump and drill; curses,
shouts; the clatter of thick dishes, the
clnk of glasses, the shrill laughter of
women; fly-infested shanties. Oil,
smearing itself over the prairies like
a plague, killing the grass, blighting
the trees, spreading over the surface
of the creeks and rivers. Signs tackled
to tree stumps or posts; For Am
bulance Call 4S7. Sim Neeley, Under
taker. Call $40. Call Doctor Keogh
735.
Oklahoma-the Red Peoples coun-
try-lay heaving under the hot sum-
mer sun, SCARED and dreadful thing
with the oil drooling down its face
viscid stream.
Tracy Wyatt. who used to drive the
bus and dray line between Wahoo and
Usage, standing up to the relns like
good-natured red-faced charioteer as
the wagon bumped over the rough
roads, was one of the richest men in
Oklahoma-in the whole of the United
States, for that matter. Wyatt. The
Wyatt Oil company. In another five
years the Wyatt Oil companies. You
were to see their signs all over the
world. The big Boys" from the
East were to come to him, hat in hand,
to ask his advice about this; to seek
his favor for that. The sum Of his
daily income was fantastic. The mind
simply did not grasp it. Tracy him
self was, by now, portly and not I'M
dignified looking man of little more
than fifty. His good-natured, rubi-
cund face wore the grave slightly as
tonished look of commonplace man
who suddenly finds himself Der
sonage.
(TO BE CoNTINUED.)