On a certain cold and drizzly day, a farmer's wagon drove up to the door, and the farmer, with his wife and daughter, entered Ben's place. He was entirely ignorant of its character, and about as verdant as they make them. While the wife and daughter made their way into the kitchen to dry their clothes by the fire, the farmer accosted Ben, saying:
"Well, now, I want to know!" ejaculated the farmer. "And you have some other kind of business, maybe?"
"Oh, yes," answered Ben. "I am also engaged in the oil business. I've got fifteen pumping wells."
"You don't say so!" returned the visitor.
Meantime the mother and daughter, in the kitchen, were propounding conundrums to Lizzie Topley. Noticing the numerous young ladies sitting about the room, the old lady inquired what sort of a place it was.
"This is a female college," said Lizzie, gravely.
"A female college. Well, I do declare!" exclaimed the farmer's wife. "What an excellent idee to be sure. Here we've lived in the oil country all these years and never had a college before. Who is the professor?"
"Hogan, his name is;" answered Lizzie--"Professor Hogan."
"And what are the terms?" continued the old lady.
"Well, now, we've got a farm that we're a trying to sell, and if we do sell it, I'll have my daughter come down here, and enter the college. If we don't sell the farm, we've got a brindle cow that'll fetch fifty dollars anyway, and that'll pay for one quarter!"
The farmer and his wife finally took their departure, thoroughly convinced that they had seen the only private college in the oil country. The old lady afterward learned what sort of a college it was, and she concluded that she would not send her sixteen-year-old daughter to be educated by "Professor Hogan."
Ben's absence from Kitty led him at times to fits of jealousy, and in one of these he drove one night to Pittsburg, a distance of forty miles. Reaching the city at six o'clock in the morning, he proceeded at once to his house, entered through a back window, and stole quietly into his mistress's room. There his suspicions found abundant confirmation! In the bed with Kitty was a girl, both wrapped in sleep. Ben drew his revolver, with the intention of committing a double murder; but the weapon missed fire, and in another moment Kitty had sprung from the bed.