The discovery of oil, the growing certainty that it was the beginning of a new industry, that money was flowing into the Oil Region quickly brought an invading host of men and women seeking fortunes. It was a new and rich field for tricksters, swindlers, exploiters of vice in every known form. They were soon setting up shops in every settlement and, to the credit of the manhood of the Oil Region, usually being driven out by self-directed vigilantes. At Rouseville a “joy boat” which made its way up the Creek that first winter and tied up near my father’s shop was cut loose in the middle of the night after its arrival. Its visitors found themselves floating down the Allegheny River the next morning and obliged to walk back. From that time open vice shunned the town. But when wealth poured out of the ground at Petroleum Center there was too great excitement to think of order, decency. Before it was realized, the town was alive with every known form of wantonness and wickedness. By the time I was allowed to visit our friends there, I saw from the corner of my eye as I walked sedately the length of the street saloons, dance halls, brothels; and I noted many curious things. The house where I visited stood on a slope overlooking one of the most notorious dance halls of the Oil Region—Gus Reil’s. Often I left my bed at night and watched that long low building from which rose loud laughter, ribald songs, shouts, curses. Later horror was added to Gus Reil’s fascination, for here a Rouseville boy was shot one night. If Petroleum Center was giving me an opportunity to feed my curiosity about things in the world of which I was not supposed to know, it happened also to be the indirect means of awaking my interest in the stars, one of the most beautiful interests of my youth. My father had seen the early passing of the wooden oil tank, the coming of the iron tank, and had used his capital to become an oil producer. One of his first investments had been in an oil farm on the hills above the wicked town which so excited my curiosity. His partner in this venture, M. E. Hess, lived on this farm with his family. In that family was a daughter about my age and bearing my name—Ida. We became friends and visited back and forth as chance offered. My chance came often when Mr. Hess, riding with a companion over the hills to Rouseville to consult with father, dropped his companion and took me back with him, usually at night. A fine pair of saddle horses he had—“High Fly” and “Shoo Fly.” My first experience in horseback riding was following him on “Shoo Fly” over the hills after dark. Mr. Hess was an altogether unusual man, educated, with a vein of poetry in him. As we rode he would stop every now and then to name the stars, trace the constellations, repeat the legends. My first consciousness of space, its beauty, its something more than beauty, came then.