The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865

Excerpt

ADVENTURES OF A LONE WOMAN.

"I will go and see the oil," remarked Miselle, at the end of a reverie of ten minutes.

Caleb laid the "Morning Journal" upon the table, and prepared himself calmly to accept whatever new dispensation Providence and Miselle had allotted him.

"Whaling?" inquired he.

"No, not whaling. I am going to the Oil Springs."

"By all means. They lie in the remotest portion of Pennsylvania; they are inaccessible by railway; such conveyances and such wretched inns as are to be found are crowded with lawless men, rushing to the wells to seek their fortunes, or rushing away, savage at having utterly lost them. At this season the roads are likely to be impassable from mud, the weather to be stormy. When do you propose going?"

"Next Monday," replied Miselle, serenely.

"And with whom? You know that I cannot accompany you."

"I did not dream of incurring such a responsibility. I go alone."

Caleb resumed the "Morning Journal." Miselle wrote a letter, signed her name, and tossed it across the table, saying,—

"There, I have written to Friend Williams, who has, as his sister tells me, set up a shanty and a wife on Oil Creek. I will go to them and so avoid your wretched inns, and at the same time secure a guide competent to conduct my explorations. As for the conveyances, the roads, and the lawless travellers, if men are not afraid to encounter them, surely a woman need not be."

"Be cautious, Miselle. This grain of practicability in the shape of Friend Williams is spoiling the unity of your plan. At first it was a charmingly consistent absurdity."

"But now?"

"Now it is merely foolishly hazardous, and I suppose you will undertake it. It is your kismet; it is Fate; and what am I, to resist Destiny? Go, child,—my blessing and my bank-book are your own."

"And 'Je suis Tedesco!'" pompously quoted Miselle; so no more was said upon the subject, until the young woman, having received an answer to her letter, claimed the treasures promised by Caleb, and shortly after fared forth upon her adventurous way.

The journey from Boston to New York has for most persons lost the excitement of novelty; but excitement of another sort is to be obtained by choosing a route where mile after mile of the roadway is lined with wrecks of recent accidents, and the papers sold in the cars brim over with horrible details of death and maiming in consequence. Nor can it be considered either wholesome or comfortable to be removed in the middle of a November night from a warm car to a ferry-boat, and thence to another train of cars without fire and almost without seats,—the suggestive apology being, that so many carriages had been "smashed" lately that the enterprising managers of the road had been obliged to buy an old excursion-train from another company. Meantime, what became of the unfortunate women who had no kind companion to purvey for them blankets and pillows from the mephitic sleeping-car, and cups of hot tea from unknown sources, Miselle cannot conjecture.

New York at midday, from the standpoint of Fifth Avenue or Central Park, is a very splendid and attractive place, we shall all agree; but New York involved in a wilderness of railway station at six o'clock of a rainy autumn morning is quite the reverse. Cabmen, draymen, porters, all assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed, ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away for a future occasion.

Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a Bostonian.

Her first experience was significant; and in the course of a three-mile drive down Broadway, she had time, while standing in the middle of an omnibus, where were seated nine young gentlemen, for much complacent comparison of the manners of the two cities. Indeed, after twelve hours of attentive study, Miselle discovered but two points of superiority in the New Babylon over the Modern Athens, and these were chocolate-creams and policemen: the first were delicious, the last civil.

Six o'clock arrived, and the "Lightning Express," over the Erie Railway, bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But, unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light.

Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,—the terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control, asserting itself master,—the dim light and motionless figures about her,—all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there....