Эптон Синклер - Oil!

It was easy for Dad to say not to get excited; so little did he know about his boy’s mind! This was Bunny’s dream, that he had had for years. You see, Dad was all the time talking about how he was going to get a real oil-tract some day—one that belonged to himself alone. He would figure up and show that when you paid a man a sixth royalty, you were really giving half your net profits—for you had to pay all the costs, not merely of the drilling, but of the upkeep and operation of the well, and the marketing of the oil. The other fellow got half your money—and didn’t do a thing but own the land! Well, some day Dad would get a tract of his own discovery, and have it to himself, so that he could develop it right, and build an oil-town that he could run right, without any interference or any graft.

How was he to find that tract? That was Bunny’s dream! He had lived the adventure in a score of different forms; he would be digging a hole in the ground, and the oil would come spouting up, and he would cover it over to hide it, and Dad would buy the land for miles around, and take Bunny into partnership with him; or else Bunny would be exploring a cave in the mountains, and he would fall into a pool of oil and get out with great difficulty. There were many different ways he had pictured—but never once had he thought of having an earthquake come and split open the ground, just before he and Dad were starting out after quail!

Bunny was so much excited that he hardly noticed the taste of that especially delicious meal of quail and fried potatoes and boiled turnips. Just as soon as Dad got his cigar smoked, they set forth again, keeping their eyes on the ground, except when they lifted them to study the landmarks, and to figure whether they had taken this opening through the hills or that. They had walked half a mile or so, when a couple of quail rose, and Dad dropped them both, and walked over to pick them up, and then he called, “Here you are, son!” Bunny thought he meant the birds; but Dad called again. “Come over here!” And when the boy was near he said, “Here’s your oil!”

There it was, sure enough; a black streak of it, six or eight inches wide, wiggling here and there, following a crack in the ground; it was soft and oozy, and now and then it bubbled, as if it were still leaking up. Dad knelt down and stuck his finger into it, and held it up to the light to see the color; he broke off a dead branch from a bush and poked it into the crevice to see how deep it was, and how much more came up. When Dad got up again he said, “That’s real oil, no doubt of it. I guess it won’t do any harm to buy this ranch.”

So they went back. Bunny was dancing, both outside and inside, and Dad was figuring and planning, and neither of them bothered about the quail. “Did Mrs. Groarty ever tell you how much land there is in this ranch?” asked Dad.

“She said it was a section.”

“We’ll have to find out where it runs. And by the way, son, don’t make any mistake, now, not a word to any one about oil, not even after I buy the place. It won’t do any harm to get a lot of land in these here hills. You don’t have to pay much for rocks.”

“But listen, Dad; you’ll pay Mr. Watkins a fair price!”

“I’ll pay him a land price, but I ain’t a-goin’ to pay him no oil price. In the first place, he’d maybe get suspicious, and refuse to sell. He’s got nothin’ to do with any oil that’s here—it ain’t been any use to him, and wouldn’t be in a million years. And besides, what use could a poor feeble-minded old fellow like that make of oil-money?”

“But we don’t want to take advantage of him, Dad!”

“I’ll see that he don’t suffer; I’ll jist fix the money so he can’t give it away to no missionaries, and I’ll always take care of him, and of the children, and see they get along. But there’s surely not a-goin’ to be no oil-royalties! And if any of them ask you about me, son, you jist say I’m in business—I trade in land, and all kinds o’ stuff. Tell them I got a general store, and I buy machinery, and lend money. That’s all quite true.”

They walked on, and Bunny began to unfold the elements of a moral problem that was to occupy him, off and on, for many years. Just what rights did the Watkinses have to the oil that lay underneath this ranch? The boy didn’t say any more to his father, because he knew that his father’s mind was made up, and of course he would obey his father’s orders. But he debated the matter all the way until they got back to the ranch, where they saw the old man patching his goat-pen. They joined him, and after chatting about the quail for a bit, Dad remarked: “Mr. Watkins, I wonder if you’d come into the house and have a chat with me, you and your wife.” And when Mr. Watkins said he would, Dad turned to Bunny, saying: “Excuse me, son—see if you can get some birds by yourself.” And Bunny knew exactly what that meant—Dad thought that his son would be happier if he didn’t actually witness the surgical operation whereby the pitiful Watkinses were to be separated from their six hundred and forty acres of rocks!

Bunny wandered up the arroyo, and high on the slope he saw the goats feeding. He went up to watch them; and so he got acquainted with Ruth.

She sat upon a big boulder, gazing out over the rim of the hills. She was bare-headed and bare-legged, and you saw that she was outgrowing the patched and faded calico dress which was her only covering. She was a thin child, and gave the impression she was pale, in spite of her brownness; it was an anaemic brown, without much red in it. She had the blue eyes of the family, and a round, domed forehead, with hair pulled straight back and tied with a bit of old ribbon. She sat tending the flocks and herds, as boys and girls had done two thousand years ago in Palestine, which she read about in the only book to be found in the Watkins household. One week out of three she did this, ten or twelve hours a day, taking turns with her sisters. Very seldom did anyone come near, and now she was ill at ease as the strange boy came climbing up; she did not look at him, and her toes were twisted together.

But Bunny had the formula for entrance to her heart. “You are Ruth, aren’t you?” he asked, and when she nodded, he said, “I know Paul.”

So in a flash they were friends. “Oh, where?” She clasped her hands together and gazed at him.

Bunny told him how he had been at Mrs. Groarty’s—saying nothing about oil, of course—and how Paul had come, and just what had happened. She drank in every word, not interrupting; Ruth never did say much, her feelings ran deep, and made no foam upon the surface. But Bunny knew that her whole soul was hanging on his story; she fairly worshiped her brother. “And you never seen him again?” she whispered.

“I never really saw him at all,” said Bunny; “I wouldn’t know him now, if I was to meet him. You don’t know where he is?”

“I’ve had three letters. Always it’s a new place, and he says he ain’t stayin’ there. Some day, he says, he’ll come to see me—jest me. He’s scairt o’ Pap.”

“What would Pap do?”

“Pap would whale him. He’s terrible set agin him. He says he’s a limb of Satan. Paul says he don’t believe what’s in the Book? Do you believe it?”

Bunny hesitated, remembering Dad and his “True Word.” He decided he could trust Ruth that far, so he told her he didn’t think he believed quite everything. And Ruth, gazing into his eyes with intense concern, inquired: “What is it makes yearthquakes?”

So Bunny told what Mr. Eaton had taught him about the earth’s crust and its shrinking, and the faults in the strata, that were the first to yield to the strain. He judged by the wondering look on her face that this was the first hint of natural science that had ever come to her mind. “So you don’t have to be scairt!” she said.