Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1878 — A Man Who Never Told a Lie. [ARTICLE]

A Man Who Never Told a Lie.

Yesterday afternoon an old oil-man, with crude petroleum dripping from his clothes and legs inclosed in high boots, entered tlie Derrick office and said : “ Want an item ? I’ve got the biggest item you ever heard tell of. I struck an ile well on my lease Monday, an’ she flowed a stream of ile 100 feet high straight up for half au hour. Then she kinder died clown. One of my drillers was standing ever tbe hole, when she suddenly spurted up again, and if it didn’t take that driller right up with it. Tlie stream was a powerful one you see, an’ he went up a hundred feet. You’ve seen those little balls as dance about on the top of those little spurtin’ fountains such as they have in the cities? Yes, waal that’s the way this ere thing acted, an’ there’s that air driller right up on top of that 100-fut oolumn of crude ile, an’ he’s dancin’ about like chaff in a fanniu’-mill. What do you think of that un ?” “How loug has he been up there?” “Aboutfour days and four nights.” “ He must be very hungry by this time. Doesn’t he come down to get something to eat ?” “ Why, we ’uns just put a plate of hash in this stream of ile, and it takes it up to him, you Bee. An’ it’s mighty handy, as lie finds his victuals already greased, an’ he doesn’t need butter.” His face was as innocent of deceit as a piece of tanned leather, and, when he asked to have his name put down as a deadhead subscriber for information he had given, we didn’t have the heart to hurt jiis feelings by refusing. —Oil City Derrick.