In shame we hid our faces before the glory of the vision before us. There we were, sons of housepainters, carpenters, shoemakers, and the like. Our fathers had worked with their hands. They had soiled their clothes and their faces with common labor. Poor, benighted men! What did they know of what Mark Twain called, “the glorious, rip-roaring century, greatest of all the centuries?” A man could make a wagon that would stand up, or shoe a horse, or build a house slowly and well, but what was that? Shucks! There would be this terrific rumble in the bowels of the earth, and then the little cunning machines would come. Men would walk about smoking twenty-five-cent cigars; they would put their thumbs in the armholes of their vests and laugh at the past. Men would fly through the air, dive under the sea, have breakfast in Cleveland, Ohio, and lunch in London. A fellow couldn’t tell what would happen now. Why, no one would work at all maybe--well, that is to say, not really work. Some of our fathers had read a book called “Looking Backward” and had talked about it in the homes and in the stores. Then we lads had talked. Well, a fellow would maybe roll downtown from his country home in the late morning and turn a few cranks or pull a few levers. Then he would go and play, make love to some beautiful female or take an afternoon’s ride over to Egypt to see the Pyramids, or visit the Holy Land. A fellow had to get up an appetite for dinner, dang it all! Anyway, that was that, and there we were. The well-shooter dropped a heavy weight down the hole and cut out for the woods. When he was halfway across the meadow the rumbling explosion occurred, down in the earth. And into the bright morning air shot a great fountain of mud and muddy water. The derrick over the hole was covered with it, the grass in the meadow was covered and much of it fell down like rain on us in the wood. The front of Penny Jacobs’ boiled shirt was covered with it. The mud fell on us lads, too, but that didn’t matter so much. None of us had put on Sunday clothes. Our elders, who represented among us the capitalistic class, went over and stood about the well for a time, and then went sadly off up the road to unhitch their horses and drive back to town. When we lads emerged from the woods no one was left but the well-shooter, and he was suspect, and grumpy as well, not having breakfasted. Those of us whose fathers had no money invested were inclined to take the whole matter as rather a delicious joke, but were overruled. We stood about for a time, staring at the well-shooter, who was engaged in gathering his paraphernalia together, and then we also moved off toward town.