Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) (29 page)

X

They went up to Paradise to see the developments; and one of the first developments they saw was Ruth, who had their lunch ready in the Rascum cabin. Bunny was shocked by her appearance; she looked ten years older than when he had seen her last, her face was pale, and her smile was forced. She had given up all pretense of feminine charm, her hair was drawn back tight and tied in a knot on top of her head, and her skirts came to her ankles, which was half a leg longer than the fashion. Ruth was just setting out to be an old maid, said Meelie, and all on account of grieving her heart out about Paul. "Oh, I know he's dead!" Ruth declared. "Just think, it's been five months since he went away, and don't you know Paul would have written me a lot of letters in that time?" It did seem strange; and Dad thought a bit and said, "Yes, we've waited long enough, and now we'll just find out." "Oh, Mr. Ross, how do you mean?" cried Ruth, clasping her hands together. "Well, we ain't lost that army altogether in Siberia, and I guess there is some way to connect up with it." Ruth had gone paler than ever. "Oh, I don't know as I'd dare find out! If I should hear he was dead—if I was really to know it—" "Look here, child," said Dad, "the troubles you imagine is always a lot worse than the real ones. I want to know about my boss-carpenter, and I'm just a-goin' to!" So Dad went to the telephone, and called the hay and feed store of Mr. Jake Coffey in San Elido. "Hello, Jake. Yes, we're all fine here, how's your old man? Say, I understand you had the nominating—I fergit the feller's name, but the congressman from this district. Well, I never asked him a favor, but I guess I got a right to one, seeing all I put up to elect him. Well, now, you send him a telegram and tell him to toddle over to the War Department and put in an inquiry about the whereabouts and health of Paul Watkins. You got a pencil there?" 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, just 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!

XI

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 just 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!

CHAPTER X THE UNIVERSITY 1

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. Both Dad and Bunny took the university with the seriousness it expected. Neither of them doubted that money which had been gained by subsidizing political parties, and bribing legislators and executive officials and judges and juries—that such money could be turned at once into the highest type of culture, wholesale, by executive order. Bunny plunged into the excitements of courses and credits, he raced from English 5 A to Spanish 2, and from there to Sociology 7 and Modern History 14, and accumulated a stack of text-books, and listened to lectures, and wrote notes, and stowed in his mind a mass of dates and other details. It took him a long time to realize that the "English" was cruelly dull, and that the young man who taught it was bored to tears by what he was doing; that the "Spanish" had a French accent, and that the professor was secretly patronizing bootleggers to console himself for having to live in what he considered a land of barbarians; that the "Sociology" was an elaborate structure of classifications, wholly artificial, devised by learned gentlemen in search of something to be learned about; and that the Modern History was taught from text-books which had undergone the scrutiny of thousands of sharp eyes, in order to spare the sensibilities of Mr. Pete O'Reilly, and avoid giving to any student the slightest hint concerning the forces which control the modern world.

II

With equal seriousness Bunny took the social life of this enormous institution. It was the far-off wonderful goal to which all high school students had looked; a few lucky ones had got there, and he was among them. His sister's chum had a brother who was a senior, and belonged to the best possible fraternity; so the word was spoken, and Bunny was snapped up. They were a fast, free-spending crowd, aggressive, self-confident, slangy, voluble over the prospects of this year's track team. Bunny was a runner, so they had a reason for welcoming him that was more presentable than his old man's oil. Like all Western universities, Southern Pacific was co-educational; so Bunny was exposed to the impact of a mass of femininity, the distilled and concentrated essence of allurement. Such swarms of graceful figures, trim ankles, dimpled white and brown arms, costumes the color of Brazilian butterflies; a kaleidoscope of smiles and flashing eyes, a perpetual zephyr of soft scents, blown from lilac-bushes and jasmine vines and miles upon miles of California orange and lemon-orchards. Something was bound to happen to a young idealist in such an environment—especially when he had just spent the summer in a training-camp for men only! Not all these bundles of feminine charm were accustomed to follow the market reports upon Ross Consolidated; yet somehow they managed to learn about the discoverer and heir-apparent of the Paradise oil field. Many sets of quick wits were concentrated upon him, he was invited to scores of dances and hundreds of fudge parties and thousands of motor-rides. Then a strange rumor spread; here was an unimaginable phenomenon, a young millionaire who would not "pet"! One by one the champion spell-weavers of Southern Pacific wove in vain; before long there were odds posted, and quite a trade in bets as to who would be the first girl that Bunny Ross would kiss! Researches were conducted in the Beach City High School, and word came that the young oil prince carried in his bosom a broken heart; which, of course, made him a romantic figure, and added enormously to his prestige. These things go by contraries, and the girl who landed Bunny did so because she did not try. The family of Henrietta Ashleigh had had money for generations, and so could afford to look down upon it, and all those who sought it. This was the way to impress Bunny, who was aware that his money was painfully new. Never would he attain to the aggressive self-assurance of his sister; he was looking for something better than himself, and for a while he found it in the Ashleighs, with their perfect manners and well trained servants and mansion full of the debris of culture. Henrietta was tall and slender, gentle, soft of voice, and reserved to the point of primness. Her mother had just died, and for a year she wore black, which of course was very conspicuous. She was high church Episcopal, and on Sunday mornings wore long kid gloves and carried a little prayer-book and hymnal joined together, bound in black leather with a gold border. She took Bunny to church and he learned that one does not have to take ancient Hebrew mythology with vulgar literalness, but may have its symbolic meaning explained by a white-haired old gentleman with a trace of English accent. What Henrietta meant to Bunny was a refuge from the anguish and tumult of illegitimate desire. He fled to her as to a saint, a madonna alive and visible upon a college campus. She was so far above the glaring crudeness of the smart set; she did not use paint nor powder—nothing so common as perspiration would presume to appear on her delicately chiseled nose. You might dream of kissing her, but it would remain a dream; she would call you "Mr. Ross" during the first six months of your acquaintance, and after that she would call you "Arnold," finding it dignified, perhaps because of Matthew. So long as you knew and truly appreciated her, you would make the highest grades in class, and, as the little black and gold prayer-book phrased it, "honour and obey the civil authority, and submit yourself to all your governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters."