Эптон Синклер - Oil!

Bunny slid off the window-sill, and walked over to Mrs. Groarty, who was wiping the perspiration from her forehead after a vicious tirade. “Please, ma’am,” he said, “would you be so good as to excuse me if I go into the kitchen and get a drink of water?”

He thought that would cover the case, but he failed to allow for the fact that Mrs. Groarty was preparing for a career of elegance, and losing no chance of observing the ways of the wealthy, even to the drinking of a glass of water. Her heart warmed to the son of J. Arnold Ross, and all the vinegar went out of her voice. “Certainly, dear,” she said, and rose and led the way to the kitchen.

Bunny looked about. “My, what a pretty room!” he exclaimed—which was true enough, because it was all enameled white paint.

“Yes, it is nice, I’m glad you think so,” said the mistress of it, as she took a glass from the shelf and set the faucet to running.

“A real big kitchen,” said Bunny; “that’s always a comfort.” He took the glass of water with thanks, and drank part of it. So polite and natural! thought Mrs. Groarty. Not a bit stuck up!

And Bunny went to the back door. “I suppose you’ve got a big screen porch here. Kind of hot indoors, don’t you think?” He unlocked the door, and opened it, and looked out. “The breeze feels good,” he said. “And you can see all the wells from here. Won’t it be fun when they get to drilling right on this block!”

What a friendly little fellow! Mrs. Groarty was thinking; and she said yes, and it would be soon, she hoped. Bunny said that perhaps she’d catch cold, with that lovely evening dress she had on; so he shut the door again; and his hostess was so charmed by the agreeable manners of the aristocracy that she failed to notice that he did not lock the door. He put the empty glass on the drain-board of the sink, and said no thanks, he didn’t wish any more, and followed Mrs. Groarty back to the crowded living-room.

“What I say is this—” it was the voice of Mr. Sahm, the plasterer. “If you really want to sign the lease as it was, sign it as we all understood it; let’s figure the land we own, and not the street we don’t own.”

“In other words,” said Mrs. Walter Black, sarcastically, “let’s change the lease.”

“In other words,” said Miss Snypp, even more sarcastically, “let’s not fall into the trap you big lots set for us.”

It was to be expected that a thirteen-year old boy would grow weary of such a wrangle; so no one paid the least attention when J. Arnold Ross, junior, made his way to the front door and went out. He reached the back door just as Paul Watkins was closing it softly behind him. “Thanks, kid,” whispered the latter, and stole away to the wood-shed, with Bunny close behind him. Paul’s first sentence was: “I got a piece of ham and two slices of bread, and one piece of pie.” He already had his mouth full.

“That’s all right, I guess,” said Bunny, judiciously. He waited, and for a while there was no sound, save that of a hungry creature chewing. The stranger was only a shadow with a voice; but outside, in the starlight, Bunny had noted that the shadow was a head taller than himself, and thin.

“Gee, it’s tough to be starvin’!” said the voice, at last. “Do you want any of this?”

“Oh no, I had my supper,” said Bunny. “And I’m not supposed to eat at night.”

The other went on chewing, and Bunny found it mysterious and romantic; it might have been a hungry wolf there in the darkness! They sat on boxes, and when the sounds of eating ceased, Bunny said: “What made you run away from home?”

The other answered with another question, a puzzling one: “What church do you belong to?”

“How do you mean?” countered Bunny.

“Don’t you know what it means to belong to a church?”

“Well, my grandmother takes me to a Baptist church sometimes, and my mother takes me to a ’Piscopal one when I’m visiting her. But I don’t know as I belong to any.”

“My Gosh!” said Paul. It was evident he was deeply impressed by this statement. “You mean your father don’t make you belong to no church?”

“I don’t think Dad believes in things like that very much.”

“My Gosh! And you ain’t scared?”

“Scared of what?”

“Why, hell fire and brimstone. Of losin’ your soul.”

“No, I never thought about it.”

“Say, kid, you dunno how queer that hits me. I just been makin’ up my mind to go to hell, and not give a damn. Do you cuss?”

“Not very often.”

“Well, I cussed God.”

“How do you do that?”

“Why, I said, ‘Damn God!’ I said it half a dozen times, see, and I thought sure the lightnin’ would come down and strike me. I said: I don’t believe, and I ain’t a-goin’ to believe, and I don’t give a damn.”

“Well, but if you don’t believe, why should you be scared?” Bunny’s mind was always logical like that.

“Well, I guess I didn’t know whether I believed or not. I don’t know now. It didn’t seem like I could set my poor frail mind up against the Rock of Ages. I didn’t know there was anybody had ever been that wicked before. Pap says I’m the wickedest boy was ever born.”

“Pap is your father?”

“Yes.”

“What does he believe?”

“The Old Time Religion. It’s called the Four Square Gospel. It’s the Apostolic Church, and they jump.”

“Jump!”

“The Holy Spirit comes down to you, see, and makes you jump. Sometimes it makes you roll, and sometimes you talk in tongues.”

“What is that?”

“Why, you make noises, fast, like you was talkin’ in some foreign language; and maybe it is—Pap says it’s the language of the arch-angels, but I don’t know. I can’t understand it, and I hate it.”

“And your father does that?”

“Any time, day or night, he’s liable to. It’s his way of foilin’ the tempter. If you say anything at meal times, like there ain’t enough to eat in the house, or you mention how the interest on the mortgage will be due, and he hadn’t ought to give all the money for the missions, then Pap will roll up his eyes, and begin to pray out loud and let go, as he calls it; and then the Holy Spirit seizes him and he begins to jump and shake all over, and he slides down out of his chair and rolls on the floor, and begins to talk in tongues, like it says in the Bible. And then Mom starts to cry, ’cause it scares her, she knows she’s got things to do for the kids, but she dassn’t resist the Spirit, and Pap shouts, Let go, let go—real loud, in the Voice of Sinai, as he says, and then Mom’s shoulders begin to jerk, and her mouth pops down, and she begins to roll in the chair, and shout for the Pentecostal Baptism. And that turns the kids loose, they all begin to jump and to babble; and gee, it scares you, somethin’ starts to grab you, and make you jerk whether you want to or not. I rushed out of the house, and I shook my fist up at the sky and I yelled: ‘Damn God! Damn God!’ And then I waited for the sky to fall in, and it didn’t, and I said, I don’t believe it, and I ain’t a-goin’ to make myself believe it, not if I get sent to hell for it.”

“Is that the reason you ran away?”

“That’s one of the reasons. You can’t get nowhere, livin’ like we do. We got a big ranch, but it’s mostly rocks, and we’d have a hard time anyhow; you plant things, and the rain fails, and nothin’ but weeds come up. Why, if there’s a God, and he loves his poor human creatures, why did he have to make so many weeds? That was when I first started to cussin’—I was hoin’ weeds all day, and I just couldn’t help it, I found myself sayin’, over and over: ‘Damn weeds! Damn weeds! Damn weeds!’ Pap says it wasn’t God that made ’em, it was the devil; but then, God made the devil, and God knew what the devil was goin’ to do, so ain’t God to blame?”