Question

“I thought you knew, goosie, that we measured oil by barrels. That well2 is flowing slightly over five thousand barrels a day. Altogether our wells are now yielding well over fifty thousand barrels of oil a day.”

2
“I read in one of the papers about a man who paid three thousand dollars for one acre of oil land,” said Bob thoughtfully. “How did he know he was going to find oil here?”

3
“He didn’t know,” was the prompt answer. “There is no way of knowing positively. Many and many a small investor has lost the savings of a lifetime because he had a ‘hunch’ that he would bring in a good well. Right here in Oklahoma, statistics show that in one section, of five thousand two hundred and forty-six wells driven, one thousand three hundred and fifty-six were dry. Now it takes a lot of money to drive a well, between twenty and thirty thousand dollars in fact, so you may count up the loss.”

4
“But there is oil here—just look!” Bob waved comprehensively toward the beehive of industry that surrounded them.

5
“Right, my boy. And when they do strike oil, they strike it rich. Huge fortunes have been made in oil and will be made again….”

6
From the station they walked to one of the largest storage tanks, a huge reservoir of oil, capable of holding fifty-five thousand barrels when full, Mr. Gordon told them. It was half empty at the time, and three long flights of steps were bare that would be covered when the storage capacity was used.

7
“If there isn’t a laundry or a hotel in Flame City,” observed Betty suddenly, “there is everything to run the oil business with, that’s certain. Is it all right to say you have very complete equipment, Uncle Dick?”

8
“Your phrase is correct,” admitted her uncle, smiling. “Poor tools are the height of folly for any business or worker, Betty. As for Flame City, the place is literally swamped. People poured in from the day the first good well came in, and they’ve been arriving in droves ever since. You can’t persuade any of them to take up the business they had before—to run a boarding house, or open a restaurant or a store. No, every blessed one of ’em has set his heart on owning and operating an oil well. It was just so in the California gold drive—the forty-niners wanted a gold mine, and they walked right over those that lay at their feet.”

1An oil field is a land area with many oil wells.
2An oil well is a device that drills into the Earth to bring petroleum (crude oil) to the surface.
Excerpt from Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil; Or, The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune by Alice B. Emerson. In the public domain.

The Chance of a Lifetime
1
I know what sensible and cautious people in my life would have told me if I’d revealed my wish to go to Oklahoma when the thought first entered my mind. They’d have told me that I was being foolish. They would have said that I had a successful restaurant, that I shouldn’t take such a risk when I already had enough money coming in to look after my family and some to spare. I had all of these same thoughts myself, at first. The thing is, the lure of that Oklahoma black gold was just too strong to resist.

2
The night before I left, I sat at my sturdy kitchen table, counting out the thousands of dollars I would need to purchase one acre of oil land and drive a well. I’d worked for years to earn and save this money, had poured countless cups of coffee and fried who knew how many egg and bacon breakfast specials. Now I was getting ready to go to another state and take the ultimate roll of the dice. I could come back with more money than the wealthiest business owner in town, but on the other hand I might return with only the clothes on my back. There was no way of knowing. More than once I thought of forgetting the whole thing.

3
Despite the uncertainty, I got in my car and headed north. You’ll never know if you never try, I told myself. When I arrived at my destination, I found it full of other people just like me. As I settled in, I got to know the other risk takers in the area. I heard stories of sudden wealth and heartbreaking ones about wells that did not yield a single drop of oil.

4
As for me, I’ll soon know the happy—or tragic—ending of my own story. The well is almost complete. In my dreams, I see a bubbling river of oil—thousands of barrels worth—gushing out of the ground I purchased. I know there is a chance there’ll be nothing beneath the surface but dirt and rock. For now, though, I remain hopeful that my investment will give me my own little piece of the Oklahoma oil dream. Whatever the outcome, I know I made the right call.

In paragraph 1 of from Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil, what does the word yielding mean?

A.
producing

B.
manufacturing

C.
preventing

D.
shipping

Answer 1

A. producing

In the sentence “our wells are now yielding well over fifty thousand barrels of oil a day,” yielding means producing or giving (i.e., the wells are producing that amount of oil).