Эптон Синклер - Oil!

Dad turned to Ruth, “What is it now? Company B, Forty-seventh California Regiment, American Expeditionary Forces to Russia. I want the War Department to cable an inquiry and have the reply cabled; you wire the congressman twenty-five dollars to cover the cost, and if there’s anything left over he can keep the change. I’ll mail you my check today. You might explain, if you want to, a member of the family is ill, and it’s a matter of life and death to get some word at once. And I’ll be obliged, Jake, and if you need any gasoline for your car, jist drop round after we git this new refinery a-goin.’ How’d you like that last dividend check from the company? Ha, ha, ha! Well, so long.”

For two days Ruth waited on tenter-hooks, holding her breath every time the phone rang; and at last there was the voice of Jake Coffey—Bunny answered, and he turned from the receiver right quick, saying, “Telegram from Congressman Leathers, the War Department reports that Paul is at Irkutsk and well.” Ruth gave a cry—she was standing by the dining table, and she grabbed at it and missed, and went swaying, and Bunny had to drop the receiver and catch her. And there she was, by golly, white and cold and senseless, they had to lay her out on the floor and sprinkle water on her face. And when she came to, all she could do was to cry and cry like a baby. Presently Bunny remembered the telephone receiver hanging, and went and apologized to Mr. Coffey and thanked him, and it was all Bunny could do to keep his own voice straight; the truth was, he and Dad had been more worried about Paul than they were willing to admit.

After Ruth was able to sit up and smile, Dad said, “Irkutsk, where is that?” And the girl said at once, “It’s on Lake Baikal, in the middle of Siberia.” Said Dad, “Hello, where did you git your geography?” It turned out there was an old atlas among Paul’s books, and Ruth had the Siberia part clean by heart—the names of every station on the Trans-Siberian Railway—Omsk, Tomsk, Tobolsk—Dad thought it was funny, and made her say them off—by golly, if there had been a time-table attached, she’d have known when the night-freight was due at Vladivostok! She knew the physical geography of the country, the races which inhabited it, the flora and fauna and principal commercial interests, furs, lumber, wheat, dairy products.

The only trouble was, her information was twenty years out of date! So now, what was she going to do but take the stage to Roseville that afternoon, and in the library she would find a big new atlas, and maybe some books on the subject. Bunny said he’d drive her; so he did, and they found an atlas with a picture of Irkutsk, a public square with some buildings, churches or mosques or whatever they were called, with round domes going up to a point on top; there was snow on the ground, and sledges with big high harness up over the horses’ necks. It was dreadful cold there, Ruth said, Paul wasn’t used to such weather; but Bunny laughed and told her not to worry about that, Paul would have plenty to wear, this was the best taken care of army in history, and so long as they had the railroad open, nobody would suffer.

But that was not enough for Ruth, what she wanted was for Paul to come home. Surely, now that the war was over, he ought to be on the way! But Bunny said she’d have to make up her mind to wait, because an armistice wasn’t the same as a peace, there was a lot of negotiating to be done, and the army would sit tight meantime. But when peace was declared, then surely Paul would come back, because we certainly weren’t going on running the Trans-Siberian Railway after the war was over. Bunny said that with a laugh, meaning it to be funny, and Ruth smiled, because it sounded funny to her; so innocent they were of the intricacies of world diplomacy, these two babes in the California woods!

Bunny spent a week hunting quail with Dad, or wandering over the hills by himself, thinking things over. At last he sat down to have it out. “Dad, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed in me, but this is the truth—I want to go to college.”

“College! Gosh, son, what’s that for?” There was a look of amazement on Dad’s face; but he was an old hypocrite, he had known perfectly well that Bunny was thinking about college, and he had thought about it a lot himself.

“I just don’t feel I’ve got enough education, Dad.”

“What is it you want to know?”

“Well, that’s something you can’t say; you don’t know just what you’ll get till you’ve got it. But I have a feeling, I want to know more about things.”

Dad looked forlorn—pitifully, but quite innocently and unintentionally. “It means you jist ain’t interested in oil.”

“Well, no, Dad, that’s not quite fair. I can study for a while and then come back to the business.”

But Dad knew better than that. “No, son, if you go to college, you’ll get so high up above us oil fellers, you won’t know we’re here. If you mean to be an oil man, the thing to study is oil.”

“Well, Dad, the truth is, I’m really too young to know what I want to be. If I wanted to do something else, surely we’ve got money enough—”

“It’s not the money, son, it’s the job. You know how I feel—I like to have you with me—”

“I don’t mean to go away,” Bunny hastened to put in. “There’s plenty of colleges around here, and I can live at home. And we can come up for week-ends and holidays, the same as always. I’m not going to lose my interest in Paradise, Dad, but I really won’t be happy to buckle down to business until I’ve had a chance to learn more.”

Dad had to give way to that. There was that curious war in his own mind, a mingling of respect for knowledge, of awe in the presence of cultured people, along with fear of “notions” that Bunny might get, strange flights of “idealism” that would make him unfit to be the heir and custodian of twenty million dollars worth of Ross Consolidated!

Southern Pacific University had been launched by a California land baron as a Methodist Sunday school; its professors were all required to be Methodists, and it features scores of religious courses. It had grown enormous upon the money of an oil king who had bribed half a dozen successive governments in Mexico and the United States, and being therefore in doubt as to the safety of his soul gave large sums to professional soul-savers. Apparently uncertain which group had the right “dope,” he gave equally to both Catholics and Protestants, and they used the money to denounce and undermine each other.

If Dad had known that his son was to be educated by the donations of Pete O’Reilly, he would have been at once amused and reassured. Not knowing about it, he paid a visit to the place, to see at least the outside of Bunny’s future environment. The university had started far out in the suburbs of Angel City, but now the community had grown around it—which meant another large endowment, contributed by all the rent-payers of the city. Its buildings were elaborate, which impressed Dad; the fact that they were crowded with five thousand young men and women impressed him still more, for when Dad saw a great number of people doing the same thing, he concluded it was something normal and safe.

Still more reassuring was his meeting with President Alonzo T. Cowper, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D. For Dr. Cowper was in the business of interviewing dads; he had been selected by his millionaire trustees because of his skill in interviewing trustees. Dr. Cowper knew how a scholar could be at the same time dignified and deferential. Our Dad, being thoroughly money-conscious, read the doctor’s mind as completely as if he had been inside it: if this founder of Ross Consolidated is pleased with the education his son receives, he may some day donate a building for teaching oil chemistry, or at least endow a chair of research in oil geology. And that seemed to Dad exactly the proper attitude for a clergyman-educator to take; everybody in the world was in the business of getting money, and this was a very high-toned way.