Эптон Синклер - Oil!

Bunny went through the record, and it gave him a strange thrill. There were pages and pages of sentimental rubbish about this happy shore and this new state of bliss, with angel’s wings and the music of harps, and tell my dear ones that I am with them, but I am wiser now, and my dear Bunny must know that I understand and forgive—all stuff that might have come out of the conscious or subconscious mind of a sentimental elderly lady or of a rascally medium. But then came something that made the young man catch his breath: “I want my dear Bunny to know that it is really his father who speaks to him, and he will remember the man who got all the land for us, and that he had two gold teeth in the front of his mouth, and Bunny said that somebody would rob his grave.” How in the name of all the arts of magic was a medium in Paris to know about a joke which Bunny had made to his father about Mr. Hardacre, the agent who had bought them options on ranches in Paradise, California?

By golly, it was something to think about! Could it really be that Dad was not gone forever, but had just disappeared somewhere, and could be got hold of again? Bunny would go for a walk to think about it; and through the streets of Angel City he would hear the voice of Eli Watkins booming over the radio. Eli’s Tabernacle was packed day and night, with the tens of thousands who crowded to see the prophet who had been floated over the sea by angels, and had brought back a feather to prove it; all California heard Eli’s voice, proclaiming the ancient promise: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Bunny was looking for a site for the labor college. It was a much pleasanter job than seeking oil lands; you could give some attention to the view, the woods and the hills, and other things you really cared about; also it wasn’t such a gamble, because you could really find out about the water supply, and have a chemical analysis of the soil. It meant taking long rides in the country; and since Rachel was to be one of the bosses, it was good sense for her to go along. They had time to talk—and a lot to talk about, since they were going to take charge of a bunch of young radicals, boys and girls of all ages—twenty-four hours a day.

They had looked at a couple of places, and there was another farther from the city, and Bunny remarked, “If we go to that, we’ll be late getting home.” Rachel answered, “If it’s too late, we can go to some hotel, and finish up in the morning.” Said Bunny, “That would start the gossips.” But Rachel was not afraid of gossips, so she declared.

They drove to the new site. It was near a village called Mount Hope, in a little valley, with the plowed land running up the slopes of half a dozen hills. It was early November, and the rains had fallen, and the new grain had sprouted, and there were lovely curving surfaces that might have been the muscles of great giants lying prone—giants with skins of the softest bright green velvet. There were orchards, and artesian water with a pumping plant, and a little ranch-house—the people had apparently gone to town, so the visitors could wander about and look at everything, and make a find—a regular airdrome of a barn, gorgeous with revolutionary red paint! “Oh, Bunny, here’s our meeting place, all ready made! We have only to put a floor in and we can have a dance the opening night!” Imagine Rachel thinking about dancing!

They climbed one of the slopes, and here was a park, with dark live oaks and pale grey sycamores, and a carpet of new grass under foot. The valley opened out to the west, and the sun had just gone down, in a sky of flaming gold; the quail were giving their last calls, and deep down in Bunny’s heart was an ache of loneliness—because quail meant Dad, and those beautiful hills of Paradise, and happiness he had dreamed in vain.

Now it was Rachel dreaming. “Oh, Bunny, this is too lovely! It’s exactly what we want! Mount Hope College—we couldn’t have made up a better name!”

Bunny laughed. “We don’t want to buy a name. We must take samples of the soil.”

“How many acres did you say?”

“Six hundred and forty, a little over a hundred in cultivation. That’s more than we’ll be able to take care of for quite a while.”

“And only sixty-eight thousand! That’s a bargain!” Rachel had learned to think on Bunny’s imperial scale, since she had been racing over the state in his fast car, inspecting millionaire playgrounds and real estate promoters’ paradises.

“The price is not bad,” said Bunny, “if we are sure about the soil and water.”

“You could see the state of the growing things, before it got dark.”

“Maybe so. We’ll come back in the morning, and have a talk with the ranchman. Perhaps he’s a tenant, and will tell us the truth.” Not for nothing had Bunny spent his boyhood buying lands with his shrewd old father!

Twilight veiled this valley of new dreams, and across the way the hills were purple shadows. Bunny said, “There’s just one thing worrying me about our plan now: I’m afraid there’s going to be a scandal.”

“How do you mean?”

“You and me being together all the time, and going off and being missing at night.”

“Oh, Bunny, what nonsense!”

“No, really, I’m worried. I told Peter Nagle we’d have to conform to bourgeois standards, and we’re beginning wrong. My Aunt Emma is a bourgeois standard, and she would never approve of this, and neither would your mother. We ought to go and get married.”

“Oh, Bunny!” She was staring at him, but it was too dark to reveal any possible twinkle in his eyes. “Are you joking?”

“Rachel,” he said, “will you take that much trouble to preserve the good name of our institution?”

He came a step nearer, and she stammered, “Bunny, you don’t—you don’t mean that!”

“I don’t see any other way—really.”

“Bunny—no!”

“Why not?”

“Because—you don’t want to marry a Jewess!”

“Good Lord!”

“Don’t misunderstand me, I’m proud of my race. But all your friends would think it was a mistake.”

“My friends, Rachel? Who the devil are my friends—except in the radical movement? And where would the radical movement be without the Jews?”

“But Bunny—your sister!”

“My sister is not my friend. Neither did she ask me to pick out her husband.”

Rachel stood, twisting her fingers together nervously. “Bunny, do you really—you aren’t just speaking on an impulse?”

“Well, I suppose it’s an impulse. I seem to have to blurt it out. But it’s an impulse I’ve had a good many times.”

“And you won’t be sorry?”

He laughed. “It depends on your answer.”

“Stop joking, please—you frighten me. I can’t afford to let you make a mistake. It’s so dreadfully serious!”

“But why take it that way?”

“I can’t help it; you don’t know how a woman feels. I don’t want you to do something out of a generous impulse, and then you’d feel bound, and you wouldn’t be happy. You oughtn’t to marry a girl out of the sweat-shops.”

“Good God, Rachel, my father was a mule-driver.”

“Yes, but you’re Anglo-Saxon; away back somewhere your ancestors were proud of themselves. You ought to marry a tall, fair woman that will stay beautiful all her life, and look right in a drawing-room. Jewish women bear two or three children, and then they get fat, and you wouldn’t like me.”