by Ann Towell
As we entered the main street, we bumped into Mercy. She was heading back to work at her aunt and uncle’s hotel. We told her about the wagon and our idea. She was excited for us too.
I mentioned that Lem’s fiddle, my penny whistle and book had been left on the wagon when we ran off to Oil Springs. Mercy listened and said she might know exactly where that fiddle and my things could be.
“There’s a man called John who asked my aunt to put them in a safe place. I thought they were his things, but I bet they are yours.”
This was good news to me. “Do you think you can try and get them back for us? Lem’s a good fiddler, and I’ll get him to play for you.”
“My aunt watches me like a hawk. I’ll try, but I’m not promising anything.”
This was enough for me. We thought we’d follow her to the hotel and distract her aunt who was named Mrs. Mabee, while Mercy headed for the back room to get our things. Mrs. Mabee was at the front desk talking to some men when we entered.
“Well there you are, finally,” she scolded Mercy. “What took you so long? Rooms 210 and 211 need to be cleaned right away.”
Mercy looked at us apologetically. “Maybe later?” she whispered.
Mrs. Mabee noticed Moses standing next to me. “Can I help you?” she asked with a sneer.
“No ma’am,” Moses replied politely. “I’m waiting here with Titus.”
“Well we don’t serve your kind here.” Mrs. Mabee’s voice was firm.
I got into arguing with her right there and then and nodded at Mercy to go get the things while we diverted her aunt. Mrs. Mabee was loud and cruel the way she talked about Moses, and I kept arguing to give Mercy time.
The men watched. Some were uncomfortable, but the one named Max joined in with Mrs. Mabee.
“You want I should throw him out?” he asked, moving closer to Moses.
I jumped between the two. “Don’t you dare touch my friend.”
Max pushed me aside like I was a flea, then pulled Moses toward the door. I ran behind them and kicked Max real hard in the leg a couple of times. He turned and pushed me so hard I fell on my backside to the floor. By the time I got up Moses was outside and Max was coming for me. Next thing I knew, I was out on the street next to Moses.
“Well, we created a diversion,” I remarked while brushing off the dirt. Mrs. Mabee didn’t keep the cleanest hotel.
Moses didn’t say anything, he was that angry. He stalked off until I called to him. “Come on, don’t let them ruin our day. We’ll get even with them somehow.”
At the rear of the hotel, Mercy was waiting with our things. “Is this your stuff?” she asked.
“Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mercy. Lem will be glad to have his fiddle back.”
So Moses and I went to Uncle Amos’s place and watched the men at work building the new house. It was going to be very large. Lem finally showed up, and we told him about the wagon. He put the traces and harnesses on the horses and let the whiffle tree drag behind. The three of us set off to retrieve the wagon.
Moses and I got to ride while Lem led the horses, talking to them gently as we passed down the main street. The mud wasn’t so bad today because much of the ground was frozen. I was quite excited about getting the wagon back – until we got near enough to see four men standing around it. And there, sure enough, was John Longville sitting on it like he owned the darned thing.
“Heard these boys were snooping around my wagon. Thought I’d come back to protect my property.” John spat on the ground.
“You know well enough, John, that there wagon belongs to me,” Lem replied.
“Prove it.” John spat again. This time the gob landed very near Moses’s feet.
“Watch where you’re spitting, mister,” Moses said.
John let one fly that caught onto Moses’s shirtsleeve. Lem was on that wagon quicker than a wink. He pushed John into the back of the wagon and the two of them set to wrestling. I got a handful of frozen grass and tried to wipe the stuff off of Moses’s sleeve.
The men seemed to enjoy watching the wrestling match and I have to admit most were betting on Lem winning. He was much bigger than John. It was done soon enough, and Lem dragged a groggy John off the wagon and set him on the ground.
“You asked me to prove it,” Lem said and showed John where he had written his name underneath the step board. A couple of the men ducked down to read it too.
“There’s his name plain enough, John,” said one man pointing at it.
“Well ’pears to me you owe me delivery money. I delivered this here wagon to town for free.”
Two of the men walked off disgusted with John’s lying. Only two stayed to see what would happen.
“That seems fair enough,” one of them said hesitatingly. He didn’t want to feel the power of Lem’s fists.
“How much?” Lem asked through clenched teeth.
“Twenty dollars.”
“Twenty?” Lem roared. “Are you mad?”
John took a step back. “I’ll settle for ten. That seems fair doesn’t it?” The two bystanders nodded in agreement. They probably figured they could all go down to one of the groggeries and get something to drink with that money.
Lem figured he might as well give the ten dollars because he paid it to John right then and there. John and the two men walked off but not before John yelled out to Moses, “You damn darkies should stay in your place. You got no business here.”
CHAPTER
9
“L em, we got four fiddle back today too,” I said as we drove away from the clearing in the woods.
“That’s good,” Lem said. “I suppose John had that too.”
“Yup he did, but Mercy got it back for us.”
“Well, tell her thanks,” Lem said.
Moses seethed on the drive back, and I was angry too, not knowing what to say to him. I wasn’t used to people treating each other badly. Oh, Aunt Sadie would complain about me all the time, but I knew in some small way she still cared for me. John was different. He was cruel for the sake of being cruel.
Well sir, for the use of the wagon Lem wanted a cut of the money we earned taking people around town, but I complained we were the ones who found it in the first place. In the end we agreed that I would give Lem the first five dollars I earned – half of the “delivery money” John had demanded. Uncle Amos didn’t know nothing about it though. I asked Lem to keep it a secret so I could surprise Uncle Amos once the business was up and running. But Uncle Amos found out soon enough without a word being breathed by Lem.
The most exciting days were when the people came from big cities like Toronto and Boston, just to look around. They expected prime service from hotels and locals, and they were willing to pay for it. What they didn’t reckon on was that most of the men here were able to pay well for services too. The discovery of oil was making men richer than they ever thought they would be.
Outside of the Oxford, Moses and I saw a group of people standing around, wanting to see the oilrigs. The omnibus that runs up and down the main road could only take them so far. This was our chance. We drove our wagon up to them and made them pay ten cents each to get on. We did a few runs that day, before I drove Moses to his house on Crooked Line and then returned home.
The next Saturday we saw a group of people standing in front of the Michigan Exchange Hotel. They definitely looked out of place. The women wore nice clothes, and everyone was clean. No oil had touched the hems of their dresses yet. Moses pulled up next to them and doffed his hat.
We had decided that I should be the spokesman, since I looked young for my age and people were impressed with my way of talking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are at your service. If you wish for a pleasant, eventful tour of our illustrious town of Oil Springs, you have only to say the word, and we will see to it that you discover every nook and cranny of the oil industry. You too, will experience the excitement and the fever that has claimed these men’s souls.”
I stopped for b
reath and a rich-looking gentleman stepped forward. “How much do you charge for this adventure, young men?” he asked, smiling. I could tell he was amused by my little talk.
“Only twenty-five cents each,” I astonished myself at this boldness, when we usually only charged a tencent piece.
The gentleman didn’t bat an eye. “You can see we have seven of us who wish this pleasure. Here is one dollar and seventy-five cents.” He pulled out some money and handed it to me. Moses grinned.
There were three ladies in the bunch, and I got out of the wagon to help them into it. That’s when I realized one of the women was my teacher, Mrs. Ryan. Her bonnet had hidden her face from me.
“So here’s where you spend your days when you’re not at school!” she chided me.
“Yes ma’am,” I hung my head down, trying to look sorry, though I wasn’t. We had laid an extra plank to serve as a seat so more people could go at the same time. Mercy had made us some cushions so it would be more comfortable. The women sat down gingerly, afraid of soiling their gowns.
Mrs. Ryan wanted to sit at the front but ended up in the back with the rest of them. She was bright-eyed and taking everything in.
“Do your parents know you aren’t at school most days?” she asked cheerfully from the back.
“Don’t have any parents,” I mumbled.
“With whom do you live then?” she asked.
I ignored her and began to answer the questions that were being fired at me by the gentlemen. We stopped at the creek to show them the sheen of oil that always smeared its surface. Moses told them about the fire and how it had been put out. They were fascinated by the fact that fire was a common enough occurrence around here. One woman shuddered and vowed she could never live in such a “backwater place.”
We took them to Shaw’s gusher where men were working. There was oil on the ground near the well, and the men wore boots to keep their feet dry. The stench was very strong, and the women took out handkerchiefs soaked in cologne to cover their noses.
We told them how Mr. Shaw spent months hoping to strike oil. No one had drilled that deep for oil before, but he kept working at it until one day, as Uncle Amos would tell it “The ground shuddered, a loud crack was heard, and the mouth of the earth opened up and spewed out black, odorous muck.”
A lot of people thought Shaw was crazy at the time, but now he’s a rich man. I told them that people now spoke of him with reverence. Tom said Mr. Shaw’s gusher started the oil rush here. In just a few years the population was two thousand and growing.
Mrs. Ryan was taking every thing in. Her eyes darted everywhere. She turned to her friend, “Isn’t this grand? I have a mind to drill for oil myself.”
“You wouldn’t!” her friend gasped. She put the handkerchief even tighter against her nose. “It’s bad enough having to teach here, but to work in the wells …”
Not once did any of them get out of the wagon. They were afraid of ruining their shoes. We took them up to McCabe’s well where one man was operating the springboard and whistling at the same time. When he noticed us, he stopped what he was doing. Mrs. Ryan asked him if she could have a try at it. He doffed his hat and told her she was surely welcome to try, but wouldn’t she be afraid of ruining her dress.
“Oh, not this old thing.” She jumped off of the wagon before anyone could help her. A bit of oil spattered her skirt, but she didn’t seem to care. She marched over to the well and asked him how she should work the springboard. He gave her a quick lesson and soon she was working it too. I felt proud of her.
She was so enthusiastic about the drilling that her bonnet fell from her head and rested against her back. The pale sun shone off of her red hair. After a few minutes she thanked the man for his help and got back on the wagon. The bottom of her skirt was oil-soaked and one of the women moved to the other side of the wagon so her own dress wouldn’t be ruined.
We drove down Crooked Line, past the shanties where the black families lived. Moses explained who lived there and why.
“How appalling,” Mrs. Ryan murmured. The other people averted their eyes.
After some silence Mrs. Ryan piped up, “Do you boys know where the land purchasing office is?”
“I can’t rightly say, Ma’am. Do you want me to ask my Uncle Amos?”
“That would be lovely.” She smiled at me. At that moment, I swear I liked red hair, though I never had before. Aunt Sadie said red hair was “unseemly,” though I suppose it’s because a lot of Irish and Scots have it, and Aunt Sadie is English to the bone.
We drew up beside the hotel. I didn’t need to help anybody this time because one of the gentlemen got out before me. Mrs. Ryan jumped down before he could help her, but the other two ladies needed assistance.
Before we drove off, Mrs. Ryan said, “You can bring the information when you come to school on Monday. See you then, Titus.”
I smiled, but said “fat chance” under my breath. Moses pointed out another group ahead of us at the Oxford. We gave them a tour too. We were pretty busy that day and convinced ourselves it was all right to charge two bits because only the rich could afford to take these tours anyway.
The day would have ended just fine if we hadn’t run into John and Max as we brought the last group to Yates General Store. I didn’t notice them until it was too late.
CHAPTER
10
I hunched my shoulders so the collar of my coat covered my neck. John had come back from the night shift and was pretty miserable. It’s cold working the wells all day. He headed right for Moses and me. Mercy was walking between John and Max. She had a worried look on her face. John spoke first.
“Lookee here. The little half pint. Where’s your big brother, boy?”
“Around. And my name’s not boy.”
“You sure have a strange way of showing respect to your elders … boy.” He said it with a sneer.
“In order to get respect, you’ve got to deserve it.” I used one of Aunt Sadie’s sayings, thinking I was pretty smart in doing it.
In two seconds I found myself pulled off of the wagon and pushed against the clapboard siding of the general store. His breath smelled like the hot fires of Hades. I have to use that word Hades because I’m not allowed to use the other word. John must have been drinking moonshine. A Belgian couple living just outside of town sold it to the men who worked the oilrigs.
I turned my face away, the smell was so bad. The veins in his eyes were all bloodshot. My body started to tremble under his huge hand. I was afraid he was going to hit me in the face.
I wasn’t wrong because one of his arms drew back to throw a punch at me. I put my hands up to protect my head. Someone called out for him to leave me alone.
“Longville, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
John grumbled, looked embarrassed, and dropped me to the ground.
“Where’s the fiddle and book?” he asked.
Mercy shook her head no at me. “What?” I asked.
“If you don’t tell me where the fiddle and book are, I’m taking this lady to the constable and pressing charges of thievery.”
This looked pretty serious to me. I wasn’t sure who the constable was, and I didn’t want to have any trouble with the law.
“What makes you think she stole a fiddle and …” Moses asked.
“You shut up. We got no business with the likes of you,” John’s speech was slurred from the drink, and he was angry.
Max called Moses a coon and told him to get back to Crooked Line where he belonged. I would have spoke up, but Mercy seemed to need my help more. Moses felt the same way as me and stood his ground.
There seemed to be a bruise forming on Mercy’s left cheek and Moses went to touch it. “Did they do this to you?”
John flung Moses arm away. “Don’t you dare touch a white girl!”
“Or what?” I piped up. Max and John were big, and we could see they had already hurt Mercy, but something made me talk back anyway.
“Or w
e’ll hurt your friends.”
Now Max was holding onto Moses and John had Mercy. They moved back into the alley so people wouldn’t see them.
“How can I trust you won’t hurt them until I get back with the fiddle and book?”
“You can’t,” Max said.
“Then I won’t go,” I was being stubborn, but these were my friends. “Get on the wagon,” I told them. “I’ll take you home to get the stuff.”
“We ain’t going anywheres with you. Bring the stuff here.”
They assured me they would wait right there, so I rushed home to get the things. Seems Lem was more partial to that fiddle than I thought. He decided to come along with me to teach John a lesson. If Uncle Amos had been there, I’m sure he would have come with us too.
When John and Max saw Lem, they backed up, but they dragged Mercy and Moses with them. The sight of Lem when he’s angry is enough to scare anyone.
“Let them go,” Lem told them.
They shoved Mercy and Moses into us, then hightailed it out of there. By the look on John’s face as he ran past, I ventured to guess we would be seeing him soon.
We escorted Mercy to the hotel and then took Moses home in the wagon. Lem told Mercy he didn’t like the idea of her working in the hotel with the likes of John and Max around. But there was nothing any of us could do because Mercy needed her job. I was especially worried about Moses. Who knew what John was capable of?
CHAPTER
11
Moses and I were out one Sunday, fooling around. We had made these slingshots and were shooting cans at the back of Yates’s store. Moses was a pretty darn good shot, and he was showing me how to aim. We used stones or clots of ice or mud as ammunition. It was fun, though I kept losing to Moses. But with practice, I was improving.
We came up to the front of the store to get ourselves a treat, seeing as we’d made a little money that week with our runs. Max was coming up the walk, so we ducked quickly into the store, hoping he hadn’t seen us.