[Cover Illustration]
OIL!
A NOVEL
BY
UPTON SINCLAIR
_Author of_
“THE JUNGLE,” “THE BRASS CHECK,” ETC.
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
STATION A, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
COPYRIGHT 1926, 1927
BY
UPTON SINCLAIR
——
Copyright in Great Britain
——
_All rights reserved._
Shuffle the cards, and deal a new round of poker hands: they differ in
every way from the previous round, and yet it is the same pack of cards,
and the same game, with the same spirit, the players grim-faced and
silent, surrounded by a haze of tobacco-smoke.
So with this novel, a picture of civilization in Southern California, as
the writer has observed it during eleven years’ residence. The picture
is the truth, and the great mass of detail actually exists. But the
cards have been shuffled; names, places, dates, details of character,
episodes—everything has been dealt over again. The only personalities
to be recognized in this book are three presidents of the United States
who have held office during the past fifteen years. Manifestly, one
could not “shuffle” these, without destroying all sense of reality. But
the reader who spends his time seeking to identify oil magnates and
moving picture stars will be wasting time, and perhaps doing injustice
to some individual, who may happen to have shot off his toe to collect
accident insurance, but may not happen to be keeping a mistress or to
have bribed a cabinet official.
OIL!
A Novel by Upton Sinclair
CHAPTER I
THE RIDE
I
The road ran, smooth and flawless, precisely fourteen feet wide, the
edges trimmed as if by shears, a ribbon of grey concrete, rolled out
over the valley by a giant hand. The ground went in long waves, a slow
ascent and then a sudden dip; you climbed, and went swiftly over—but
you had no fear, for you knew the magic ribbon would be there, clear of
obstructions, unmarred by bump or scar, waiting the passage of inflated
rubber wheels revolving seven times a second. The cold wind of morning
whistled by, a storm of motion, a humming and roaring with ever-shifting
overtones; but you sat snug behind a tilted wind-shield, which slid the
gale up over your head. Sometimes you liked to put your hand up, and
feel the cold impact; sometimes you would peer around the side of the
shield, and let the torrent hit your forehead, and toss your hair about.
But for the most part you sat silent and dignified—because that was
Dad’s way, and Dad’s way constituted the ethics of motoring.
Dad wore an overcoat, tan in color, soft and woolly in texture, opulent
in cut, double-breasted, with big collar and big lapels and big flaps
over the pockets—every place where a tailor could express munificence.
The boy’s coat had been made by the same tailor, of the same soft,
woolly material, with the same big collar and big lapels and big flaps.
Dad wore driving gauntlets; and the same shop had had the same kind for
boys. Dad wore horn-rimmed spectacles; the boy had never been taken to
an oculist, but he had found in a drug-store a pair of amber-colored
glasses, having horn rims the same as Dad’s. There was no hat on Dad’s
head, because he believed that wind and sunshine kept your hair from
falling out; so the boy also rode with tumbled locks. The only
difference between them, apart from size, was that Dad had a big brown
cigar, unlighted, in the corner of his mouth; a survival of the rough
old days, when he had driven mule-teams and chewed tobacco.
Fifty miles, said the speedometer; that was Dad’s rule for open country,
and he never varied it, except in wet weather. Grades made no
difference; the fraction of an ounce more pressure with his right foot,
and the car raced on—up, up, up—until it topped the ridge, and was
sailing down into the next little valley, exactly in the centre of the
magic grey ribbon of concrete. The car would start to gather speed on
the down grade, and Dad would lift the pressure of his foot a trifle,
and let the resistance of the engine check the speed. Fifty miles was
enough, said Dad; he was a man of order.
Far ahead, over the tops of several waves of ground, another car was
coming. A small black speck, it went down out of sight, and came up
bigger; the next time it was bigger yet; the next time—it was on the
slope above you, rushing at you, faster and faster, a mighty projectile
hurled out of a six-foot cannon. Now came a moment to test the nerve of
a motorist. The magic ribbon of concrete had no stretching powers. The
ground at the sides had been prepared for emergencies, but you could not
always be sure how well it had been prepared, and if you went off at
fifty miles an hour you would get disagreeable waverings of the wheels;
you might find the neatly trimmed concrete raised several inches above
the earth at the side of it, forcing you to run along on the earth until
you could find a place to swing in again; there might be soft sand,
which would swerve you this way and that, or wet clay which would skid
you, and put a sudden end to your journey.
So the laws of good driving forbade you to go off the magic ribbon
except in extreme emergencies. You were ethically entitled to several
inches of margin at the right-hand edge; and the man approaching you was
entitled to an equal number of inches; which left a remainder of inches
between the two projectiles as they shot by. It sounds risky as one
tells it, but the heavens are run on the basis of similar calculations,
and while collisions do happen, they leave time enough in between for
universes to be formed, and successful careers conducted by men of
affairs.
“Whoosh!” went the other projectile, hurtling past; a loud, swift
“Whoosh!” with no tapering off at the end. You had a glimpse of another
man with horn-rimmed spectacles like yourself, with a similar grip of
two hands upon a steering-wheel, and a similar cataleptic fixation of
the eyes. You never looked back; for at fifty miles an hour, your
business is with the things that lie before you, and the past is
past—or shall we say that the passed are passed? Presently would come
another car, and again it would be necessary for you to leave the
comfortable centre of the concrete ribbon, and content yourself with a
precisely estimated one-half minus a certain number of inches. Each
time, you were staking your life upon your ability to place your car
upon the exact line—and upon the ability and willingness of the unknown
other party to do the same. You watched his projectile in the instant of
hurtling at you, and if you saw that he was not making the necessary
concession, you knew that you were encountering that most dangerous of
all two-legged mammalian creatures, the road-hog. Or maybe it was a
drunken man, or just a woman—there was no time to find out; you had the
thousandth part of a second in which to shift your steering-wheel the
tenth part of an inch, and run your right wheels off onto the dirt.
That might happen only once or twice in the course of a day’s driving.
When it did, Dad had one invariable formula; he would shift the cigar a
bit in his mouth and mutter: “Damn fool!” It was the only cuss-word the
one-time mule-driver permitted himself in the presence of the boy; and
it had no profane significance—it was simply the scientific term for
road-hogs, and drunken men, and women driving cars; as well as for loads
of hay, and furniture-vans, and big motor-trucks which blocked the road
on curves; and for cars with trailers, driving too rapidly, and swinging
from side to side; and for Mexicans in tumble-down buggies, who failed
to keep out on the dirt where they belonged, but came wabbling onto the
concrete—and right while a car was coming in the other direction, so
that you had to jam on your foot-brake, and grab the hand-brake, and
bring the car to a halt with a squealing and grinding, and worse yet a
sliding of tires. If there is anything a motorist considers disgraceful
it is to “skid his tires”; and Dad had the conviction that some day
there would be a speed law turned inside out—it would be forbidden to
drive less than forty miles an hour on state highways, and people who
wanted to drive spavined horses to tumble-down buggies would either go
cross-lots or stay at home.
II
A barrier of mountains lay across the road. Far off, they had been blue,
with a canopy of fog on top; they lay in tumbled masses, one summit
behind another, and more summits peeking over, fainter in color, and
mysterious. You knew you had to go up there, and it was interesting to
guess where a road might break in. As you came nearer, the great masses
changed color—green, or grey, or tawny yellow. No trees grew upon them,
but bushes of a hundred shades. They were spotted with rocks, black,
white, brown, or red; also with the pale flames of the yucca, a plant
which reared a thick stem ten feet or more in the air, and covered it
with small flowers in a huge mass, exactly the shape of a candle-flame,
but one that never flickered in the wind.
The road began to climb in earnest; it swung around the shoulder of a
hill, and there was a sign in red letters: “Guadalupe Grade: Speed limit
on curves 15 miles per hour.” Dad gave no evidence that he knew how to
read, either that sign, or his speedometer. Dad understood that signs
were for people who did not know how to drive; for the initiate few the
rule was, whatever speed left you on your own half of the highway. In
this case the road lay on the right side of the pass; you had the
mountain on your right, and hugged it closely as you swung round the
turns; the other fellow had the outside edge, and in the cheerful phrase
of the time, it was “his funeral.”
Another concession Dad made—wherever the bend was to the right, so that
the mass of the mountain obstructed the road, he sounded his horn. It
was a big, commanding horn, hidden away somewhere under the capacious
hood of the car; a horn for a man whose business took him on flying
trips over a district big enough for an ancient empire; who had
important engagements waiting at the end of his journey, and who went
through, day or night, fair weather or foul. The voice of his horn was
sharp and military; there was in it no undertone of human kindness. At
fifty miles an hour there is no place for such emotions—what you want
is for people to get out of the way, and do it quick, and you tell them
so. “Whanhnh!” said the horn—a sound you must make through your nose,
for the horn was one big nose. A sudden swing of the
highway—“Whanhnh!”—and then an elbow jutting out and another
swing—“Whanhnh!”—so you went winding up, up, and the rocky walls of
Guadalupe Pass resounded to the strange new cry—“Whanhnh! Whanhnh!” The
birds looked about in alarm, and the ground-squirrels dived into their
sandy entrance-holes, and ranchmen driving rickety Fords down the grade,
and tourists coming to Southern California with all their chickens and
dogs and babies and mattresses and tin pans tied onto the
running-boards—these swung out to the last perilous inch of the
highway, and the low, swift roadster sped on: “Whanhnh! Whanhnh!”
Any boy will tell you that this is glorious. Whoopee! you bet! Sailing
along up there close to the clouds, with an engine full of power,
magically harnessed, subject to the faintest pressure from the ball of
your foot. The power of ninety horses—think of that! Suppose you had
had ninety horses out there in front of you, forty-five pairs in a long
line, galloping around the side of a mountain, wouldn’t that make your
pulses jump? And this magic ribbon of concrete laid out for you, winding
here and there, feeling its way upward with hardly a variation of grade,
taking off the shoulder of a mountain, cutting straight through the apex
of another, diving into the black belly of a third; twisting, turning,
tilting inward on the outside curves, tilting outward on the inside
curves, so that you were always balanced, always safe—and with a
white-painted line marking the centre, so that you always knew exactly
where you had a right to be—what magic had done all this?
Dad had explained it—money had done it. Men of money had said the word,
and surveyors and engineers had come, and diggers by the thousand,
swarming Mexicans and Indians, bronze of skin, armed with picks and
shovels; and great steam shovels with long hanging lobster-claws of
steel; derricks with wide swinging arms, scrapers and grading machines,
steel drills and blasting men with dynamite, rock-crushers, and concrete
mixers that ate sacks of cement by the thousand, and drank water from a
flour-stained hose, and had round steel bellies that turned all day with
a grinding noise. All these had come, and for a year or two they had
toiled, and yard by yard they had unrolled the magic ribbon.
Never since the world began had there been men of power equal to this.
And Dad was one of them; he could do things like that, he was on his way
to do something like that now. At seven o’clock this evening, in the
lobby of the Imperial Hotel at Beach City, a man would be waiting, Ben
Skutt, the oil-scout, whom Dad described as his “lease-hound”; he would
have a big “proposition” all lined up, and the papers ready for
signature. So it was that Dad had a right to have the road clear; that
was the meaning of the sharp military voice of the horn, speaking
through its nose: “Whanhnh! Whanhnh! Dad is coming! Get out of the way!
Whanhnh! Whanhnh!”
The boy sat, eager-eyed, alert; he was seeing the world, in a fashion
men had dreamed in the days of Haroun al Raschid—from a magic horse
that galloped on top of the clouds, from a magic carpet that went
sailing through the air. It was a giant’s panorama unrolling itself; new
vistas opening at every turn, valleys curving below you, hilltops rising
above you, processions of ranges, far as your eye could reach. Now that
you were in the heart of the range, you saw that there were trees in the
deep gorges, towering old pine trees, gnarled by storms and split by
lightning; or clumps of live oaks that made pleasant spaces like English
parks. But up on the tops there was only brush, now fresh with the brief
spring green; mesquite and sage and other desert plants, that had
learned to bloom quickly, while there was water, and then stand the long
baking drought. They were spotted with orange-colored patches of dodder,
a plant that grew in long threads like corn-silk, weaving a garment on
top of the other plants; it killed them—but there were plenty more.
Other hills were all rock, of an endless variety of color. You saw
surfaces mottled and spotted like the skins of beasts—tawny leopards,
and creatures red and grey or black and white, whose names you did not
know. There were hills made of boulders, scattered as if giants had been
throwing them in battle; there were blocks piled up, as if the children
of giants had grown tired of play. Rocks towered like cathedral arches
over the road; through such an arch you swung out into view of a gorge,
yawning below, with a stout white barrier to protect you as you made the
turn. Out of the clouds overhead a great bird came sailing; his wings
collapsed as if he had been shot, and he dived into the abyss. “Was that
an eagle?” asked the boy. “Buzzard,” answered Dad, who had no romance in
him.
Higher and higher they climbed, the engine purring softly, one unvarying
note. Underneath the wind-shield were dials and gauges in complicated
array: a speedometer with a little red line showing exactly how fast you
were going; a clock, and an oil gauge, a gas gauge, an ammeter, and a
thermometer that mounted slowly on a long grade like this. All these
things were in Dad’s consciousness—a still more complicated machine.
For, after all, what was ninety horsepower compared with a million
dollar power? An engine might break down, but Dad’s mind had the
efficiency of an eclipse of the sun. They were due at the top of the
grade by ten o’clock; and the boy’s attitude was that of the old farmer
with a new gold watch, who stood on his front-porch in the early
morning, remarking, “If that sun don’t get over the hill in three
minutes, she’s late.”
III
But something went wrong and spoiled the schedule. You had got up into
the fog, and cold white veils were sweeping your face. You could see all
right, but the fog had wet the road, and there was clay on it, a
combination that left the most skilful driver helpless. Dad’s quick eye
noted it, and he slowed down; a fortunate thing, for the car began to
slide, and almost touched the white wooden barrier that guarded the
outer edge.
They started again, creeping along, in low gear, so that they could stop
quickly; five miles the speedometer showed, then three miles; then
another slide, and Dad said “Damn”. They wouldn’t stand that very long,
the boy knew; “Chains”, he thought, and they drew up close against the
side of the hill, on an inside curve where cars coming from either
direction could see them. The boy opened the door at his side and popped
out; the father descended gravely, and took off his overcoat and laid it
in the seat; he took off his coat and laid that in the same way—for
clothing was part of a man’s dignity, a symbol of his rise in life, and
never to be soiled or crumpled. He unfastened his cuffs and rolled up
the sleeves—each motion precisely followed by the boy. At the rear of
the car was a flat compartment with a sloping cover, which Dad opened
with a key; one of a great number of keys, each precisely known to him,
each symbolical of efficiency and order. Having got out the chains, and
fastened them upon the rear tires, Dad wiped his hands on the fog-laden
plants by the roadside; the boy did the same, liking the coldness of the
shining globes of water. There was a clean rag in the compartment, kept
there for drying your hands, and changed every so often. The two donned
their coats again, and resumed their places, and the car set out, a
little faster now, but still cautiously, and away off the schedule.
“Guadalupe Grade: Height of Land: Caution: Fifteen miles per hour on
curves.” So ran the sign; they were creeping down now, in low gear,
holding back the car, which resented it, and shook impatiently. Dad had
his spectacles in his lap, because the fog had blurred them; it had
filled his hair with moisture, and was trickling down his forehead into
his eyes. It was fun to breathe it and feel the cold; it was fun to
reach over and sound the horn—Dad would let you do it now, all you
wanted. A car came creeping towards them out of the mist, likewise
tooting lustily; it was a Ford, puffing from the climb, with steam
coming out of the radiator.
Then suddenly the fog grew thinner; a few wisps more, and it was gone;
they were free, and the car leaped forward into a view—oh, wonderful!
Hill below hill dropping away, and a landscape spread out, as far as
forever; you wanted wings, so as to dive down there, to sail out over
the hilltops and the flat plains. What was the use of speed limits, and
curves, and restraining gears and brakes?—“Dry my spectacles,” said
Dad, prosaically. Scenery was all right, but he had to keep to the right
of the white-painted line on the road. “Whanhnh! Whanhnh!” said the
horn, on all the outside curves.
They slid down, and little by little the scenery disappeared; they were
common mortals, back on earth. The curves broadened out, they left the
last shoulder of the last hill, and before them was a long, straight
descent; the wind began to whistle, and the figures to creep past the
red line on the speedometer. They were making up for lost time. Whee!
How the trees and telegraph poles went whizzing! Sixty miles now; some
people might have been scared, but no sensible person would be scared
while Dad was at the wheel.
But suddenly the car began to slow up; you could feel yourself sliding
forward in your seat, and the little red line showed fifty, forty,
thirty. The road lay straight ahead, there was no other car in sight,
yet Dad’s foot was on the brake. The boy looked up inquiringly. “Sit
still,” said the man. “Don’t look round. A speed-trap!”
Oho! An adventure to make a boy’s heart jump! He wanted to look and see,
but understood that he must sit rigid, staring out in front, utterly
innocent. They had never driven any faster than thirty miles per hour in
their lives, and if any traffic-officer thought he had seen them coming
faster down the grade, that was purely an optical delusion, the natural
error of a man whose occupation destroyed his faith in human nature.
Yes, it must be a dreadful thing to be a “speed-cop”, and have the whole
human race for your enemy! To stoop to disreputable actions—hiding
yourself in bushes, holding a stop-watch in hand, and with a confederate
at a certain measured distance down the road, also holding a stop-watch,
and with a telephone line connecting the two of them, so they could keep
tab on motorists who passed! They had even invented a device of mirrors,
which could be set up by the roadside, so that one man could get the
flash of a car as it passed, and keep the time. This was a trouble the
motorist had to keep incessant watch for; at the slightest sign of
anything suspicious, he must slow up quickly—and yet not too
quickly—no, just a natural slowing, such as any man would employ if he
should discover that he had accidentally, for the briefest moment,
exceeded ever so slightly the limits of complete safety in driving.
“That fellow will be following us,” said Dad. He had a little mirror
mounted in front of his eyes, so that he could keep tab on such enemies
of the human race; but the boy could not see into the mirror, so he had
to sit on pins and needles, missing the fun.
“Do you see anything?”
“No, not yet; but he’ll come; he knows we were speeding. He puts himself
on that straight grade, because everybody goes fast at such a place.”
There you saw the debased nature of the “speed-cop”! He chose a spot
where it was perfectly safe to go fast, and where he knew that everyone
would be impatient, having been held in so long by the curves up in the
mountains, and by the wet roads! That was how much they cared for fair
play, those “speed-cops”!
They crept along at thirty miles an hour; the lawful limit in those
benighted times, back in 1912. It took all the thrill out of motoring,
and it knocked the schedule to pot. The boy had a vision of Ben Skutt,
the “lease-hound”, sitting in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel at Beach
City; there would be others waiting, also—there were always dozens
waiting, grave matters of business with “big money” at stake. You would
hear Dad at the long distance telephone, and he would consult his watch,
and figure the number of miles to be made, and make his appointment
accordingly; and then he had to be there—nothing must stop him. If
there were a breakdown of the car, he would take out their suit-cases,
and lock the car, hail a passing motorist and get a ride to the next
town, and there rent the best car he could find—or buy it outright if
need be—and drive on, leaving the old car to be towed in and repaired.
Nothing could stop Dad!
But now he was creeping along at thirty miles! “What’s the matter?”
asked the boy, and received the answer: “Judge Larkey!” Oh, sure enough!
They were in San Geronimo County, where the terrible Judge Larkey was
sending speeders to jail! Never would the boy forget that day, when Dad
had been compelled to put all his engagements aside, and travel back to
San Geronimo, to appear in court and be scolded by this elderly
autocrat. Most of the time you did not undergo such indignities; you
simply displayed your card to the “speed-cop”, showing that you were a
member of the Automobile Club, and he would nod politely, and hand you a
little slip with the amount of your “bail” noted on it, proportioned to
the speed you had been caught at; you mailed a check for the amount, and
heard and thought no more about it.
But here in San Geronimo County they had got nasty, and Dad had told
Judge Larkey what he thought of the custom of setting
“speed-traps”—officers hiding in the bushes and spying on citizens; it
was undignified, and taught motorists to regard officers of the law as
enemies. The Judge had tried to be smart, and asked Dad if he had ever
thought of the possibility that burglars also might come to regard
officers of the law as enemies. The newspapers had put that on the front
page all over the state: “Oil Operator Objects to Speed Law: J. Arnold
Ross Says He Will Change It.” Dad’s friends kidded him about that, but
he stuck it out—sooner or later he was going to make them change that
law, and sure enough he did, and you owe to him the fact that there are
no more “speed-traps,” but officers have to ride the roads in uniform,
and if you watch your little mirror, you can go as fast as you please.
IV
They came to a little house by the roadside, with a shed that you drove
under, and a round-bellied object, half glass and half red paint, that
meant gasoline for sale. “Free Air,” read a sign, and Dad drew up, and
told the man to take off his chains. The man brought a jack and lifted
the car; and the boy, who was always on the ground the instant the car
stopped, opened the rear compartment and got out the little bag for the
chains to go in. Also he got out the “grease-gun”, and unwrapped that.
“Grease is cheaper than steel,” Dad would say. He had many such maxims,
a whole modern Book of Proverbs which the boy learned by heart. It was
not that Dad was anxious to save the money; nor was it that he had
grease to sell and not steel; it was the general principle of doing
things right, of paying respect to a beautiful piece of machinery.
Dad had got out, to stretch his legs. He was a big figure of a man,
filling every inch of the opulent overcoat. His cheeks were rosy, and
always fresh from the razor; but at second glance you noted little
pockets of flesh about his eyes, and a network of wrinkles. His hair was
grey; he had had many cares, and was getting old. His features were big
and his whole face round, but he had a solid jaw, which he could set in
ugly determination. For the most part, however, his expression was
placid, rather bovine, and his thoughts came slowly and stayed a long
time. On occasions such as the present he would show a genial side—he
liked to talk with the plain sort of folks he met along the road, folks
of his own sort, who did not notice his extremely crude English; folks
who weren’t trying to get any money out of him—at least not enough to
matter.
He was pleased to tell this man at the “filling station” about the
weather up there in the pass; yes, the fog was thick—delayed them quite
a bit—bad place for skidding. Lots of cars got into trouble up there,
said the man—that soil was dobe, slick as glass; have to trench the
road better. Quite a job that, Dad thought—taking off the side of the
mountain. The man said the fog was going now—lots of “high fog” in the
month of May, but generally it cleared up by noon. The man wanted to
know if Dad needed any gas, and Dad said no, they had got a supply
before they tackled the grade. The truth was, Dad was particular, he
didn’t like to use any gas but his own make; but he wouldn’t say that to
the man, because it might hurt the man’s feelings.
He handed the man a silver dollar for his services, and the man started
to get change, but Dad said never mind the change; the man was quite
overwhelmed by that, and put up his finger in a kind of salute, and it
was evident he realized he was dealing with a “big man.” Dad was used to
such scenes, of course, but it never failed to bring a little glow to
his heart; he went about with a supply of silver dollars and half
dollars jingling in his pocket, so that all with whom he had dealings
might share that spiritual warmth. “Poor devils,” he would say, “they
don’t get much.” He knew, because he had been one of them, and he never
lost an opportunity to explain it to the boy. To him it was real, and to
the boy it was romantic.
Behind the “filling station” was a little cabinet, decorously marked,
“Gents.” Dad called this the “emptying station”, and that was a joke
over which they chuckled. But it was a strictly family joke, Dad
explained; it must not be passed on, for other people would be shocked
by it. Other people were “queer”; but just why they were queer was
something not yet explained.
They took their seats in the car, and were about to start, when who
should come riding up behind them—the “speed-cop”! Yes, Dad was right,
the man had been following them, and he seemed to scowl when he saw
them. They had no business with him, so they drove on; doubtless he
would take the filling station as a place to hide, and watch for
speeders, said Dad. And so it proved. They had gone for a mile or two,
at their tiresome pace of thirty, when a horn sounded behind them, and a
car went swiftly by. They let it go, and half a minute later Dad,
looking into his little mirror, remarked: “Here comes the cop!” The boy
turned round, and saw the motor-cycle pass them with a roaring of the
engine. The boy leaped up and down in the seat. “It’s a race! It’s a
race! Oh, Dad, let’s follow them!”
Dad was not too old to have some sporting spirit left; besides, it was a
convenience to have the enemy out in front, where you could watch him,
and he couldn’t watch you. Dad’s car leaped forward, and the figures
again crept past the red line of the
speedometer—thirty-five—forty—forty-five—fifty—fifty-five. The boy
was half lifted out of his seat, his eyes shining and his hands
clenched.
The concrete ribbon had come to an end; there was now a dirt road, wide
and level, winding in slow curves through a country of gentle hills,
planted in wheat. The road was rolled hard, but there were little bumps,
and the car leaped from one to another; it was armed with springs and
shock-absorbers and “snubbers”, every invented device for easy riding.
Out in front were clouds of dust, which the wind seized and swept over
the hills; you would have thought that an army was marching there. Now
and then you got a glimpse of the speeding car, and the motor-cycle
close behind it. “He’s trying to get away! Oh, Dad, step on her!” This
was an adventure you didn’t meet on every trip!
“Damn fool!” was Dad’s comment; a man who would risk his life to avoid
paying a small fine. You couldn’t get away from a traffic-officer, at
least not on roads like this. And sure enough, the dust clouds died, and
on a straight bit of the highway, there they were—the car drawn up at
the right, and the officer standing alongside, with his little notebook
and pencil, writing things. Dad slowed down to the innocent thirty miles
and went by. The boy would have liked to stop, and listen to the
argument inevitable on such occasions; but he knew that the schedule
took precedence, and here was the chance to make a “get-away.” Passing
the first turn, they hit it up; the boy looked round every half minute
for the next half hour, but they saw no more of the “speed-cop.” They
were again their own law.
V
Some time ago these two had witnessed a serious traffic accident, and
afterwards had appeared to testify concerning it. The clerk of the court
had called “J. Arnold Ross,” and then, just as solemnly, “J. Arnold
Ross, junior,” and the boy had climbed into the witness-chair, and
testified that he knew the nature of an oath, and knew the traffic
regulations, and just what he had seen.
That had made him, as you might say, “court-conscious.” Whenever, in
driving, anything happened that was the least bit irregular, the boy’s
imagination would elaborate it into a court scene. “No, your honor, the
man had no business on the left side of the road; we were too close to
him, he had no time to pass the car in front of him.” Or it was: “Your
honor, the man was walking on the right side of the road at night, and
there was a car coming towards us, that had blinding lights. You know,
your honor, a man should walk on the left side of the road at night, so
that he can see the cars coming towards him.” In the midst of these
imaginings of accidents, the boy would give a little jump; and Dad would
ask, “What’s the matter, son?” The boy would be embarrassed, because he
didn’t like to say that he had been letting his dreams run away with
him. But Dad knew, and would smile to himself; funny kid, always
imagining things, his mind jumping from one thing to another, always
excited!
Dad’s mind was not like that; it got on one subject and stayed there,
and ideas came through it in slow, grave procession; his emotions were
like a furnace that took a long time to heat up. Sometimes on these
drives he would say nothing for a whole hour; the stream of his
consciousness would be like a river that has sunk down through rocks and
sand, clean out of sight; he would be just a pervading sense of
well-being, wrapped in an opulent warm overcoat, an accessory, you might
say, of a softly purring engine running in a bath of boiling oil, and
traversing a road at fifty miles an hour. If you had taken this
consciousness apart, you would have found, not thoughts, but conditions
of physical organs, and of the weather, and of the car, and of
bank-accounts, and of the boy at his side. Putting it into words makes
it definite and separate—so you must try to take it all at once,
blended together: “I, the driver of this car, that used to be Jim Ross,
the teamster, and J. A. Ross and Co., general merchandise at Queen
Centre, California, am now J. Arnold Ross, oil operator, and my
breakfast is about digested, and I am a little too warm in my big new
overcoat because the sun is coming out, and I have a new well flowing
four thousand barrels at Lobos River, and sixteen on the pump at
Antelope, and I’m on my way to sign a lease at Beach City, and we’ll
make up our schedule in the next couple of hours, and ‘Bunny’ is sitting
beside me, and he is well and strong, and is going to own everything I
am making, and follow in my footsteps, except that he will never make
the ugly blunders or have the painful memories that I have, but will be
wise and perfect and do everything I say.”
Meantime the mind of “Bunny” was not behaving in the least like this,
but on the contrary was leaping from theme to theme, as a grass-hopper
in a field leaps from one stalk of grass to another. There was a
jackrabbit, racing away like mad; he had long ears, like a mule, and why
were they so transparent and pink? There was a butcher-bird, sitting on
the fence; he stretched his wings all the time, like he was
yawning—what did he mean by that? And there was a road-runner, a long
lean bird as fast as a race-horse, beautiful and glossy, black and brown
and white, with a crest and a streaming tail. Where do you suppose he
got water in these dry hills? There on the road was a mangled corpse—a
ground squirrel had tried to cross, and a car had mashed it flat; other
cars would roll over it, till it was ground to powder and blown away by
the wind. There was no use saying anything to Dad about that—he would
remark that squirrels carried plague, or at least they had fleas which
did; every now and then there would be cases of this disease and the
newspapers would have to hush it up, because it was bad for real estate.
But the boy was thinking about the poor little mite of life that had
been so suddenly snuffed out. How cruel life was; and how strange that
things should grow, and have the power to make themselves, out of
nothing apparently—and Dad couldn’t explain it, and said that nobody
else could, you were just here. And then came a ranch wagon in front of
them, a one-sided old thing loaded with household goods; to Dad it was
just an obstacle, but “Bunny” saw two lads of his own age, riding in
back of the load and staring at him with dull, listless eyes. They were
pale, and looked as if they hadn’t enough to eat; and that was another
thing to wonder about, why people should be poor and nobody to help
them. It was a world you had to help yourself in, was Dad’s explanation.
“Bunny,” the every-day name of this boy, had been started by his mother
when he was little—because he was soft and brown and warm, and she had
dressed him in a soft, fuzzy sweater, brown in color with white
trimmings. Now he was thirteen, and resented the name, but the boys cut
it to “Bun,” which was to stay with him, and which was satisfactory. He
was a pretty boy, still brown, with wavy brown hair, tumbled by the
wind, and bright brown eyes, and a good color, because he lived
outdoors. He did not go to school, but had a tutor at home, because he
was to take his father’s place in the world, and he went on these rides
in order that he might learn his father’s business.
Wonderful, endlessly wonderful, were these scenes; new faces, new kinds
of life revealed. There came towns and villages—extraordinary towns and
villages, full of people and houses and cars and horses and signs. There
were signs along the road; guide-posts at every crossing, giving you a
geography lesson—a list of the places to which the roads led, and the
distances; you could figure your schedule, and that was a lesson in
arithmetic! There were traffic signs, warning you of danger—curves,
grades, slippery places, intersections, railroad crossings. There were
big banners across the highway, or signs with letters made of electric
lights: “Loma Vista: Welcome to Our City.” Then, a little farther on:
“Loma Vista, City Limits: Good-bye: Come Again.”
Also there were no end of advertising signs, especially contrived to
lend variety to travel. “Picture ahead; kodak as you go,” was a frequent
legend, and you looked for the picture, but never could be sure what it
was. A tire manufacturer had set up big wooden figures of a boy waving a
flag; Dad said this boy looked like Bunny, and Bunny said he looked like
a picture of Jack London he had seen in a magazine. Another tire
manufacturer had a great open book, made of wood, and set up at a turn
of the road leading into each town; it was supposed to be a history
book, and told you something about that place—facts at once novel and
instructive: you learned that Citrus was the location of the first
orange grove in California, and that Santa Rosita possessed the finest
radium springs west of the Rocky mountains, and that on the outskirts of
Crescent City Father Junipero Serra had converted two thousand Indians
to Christianity in the year 1769.
There were people still engaged in converting, you learned; they had
gone out on the highway with pots of vari-colored paint, and had
decorated rocks and railway culverts with inscriptions: “Prepare to meet
thy God.” Then would come a traffic sign: “Railroad crossing. Stop.
Look. Listen.” The railroad company wanted you to meet your God through
some other agency, Dad explained, because there would be damage suits
for taking religious faith too seriously. “Jesus waits,” a boulder would
proclaim; and then would come, “Chicken Dinner, $1.” There were always
funny signs about things to eat—apparently all the world loved a meal,
and became jolly at the thought. “Hot Dog Kennels,” was an eating-place,
and “Ptomaine Tommy,” and “The Clam-Baker,” and the “Lobster-Pot.” There
were endless puns on the word inn—“Dew Drop Inn” and “Happen Inn,”
“Welcome Inn” and “Hurry Inn.” When you went into these places you would
find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls: “In God we Trust, All
Others Cash.” “Don’t complain about our coffee; some day you may be old
and weak yourself.” “We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does
not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.”
VI
They were passing through a broad valley, miles upon miles of wheat
fields, shining green in the sun; in the distance were trees, with
glimpses of a house here and there. “Are you looking for a Home?”
inquired a friendly sign. “Santa Ynez is a place for folks. Good water,
cheap land, seven churches. See Sprouks and Knuckleson, Realtors.” And
presently the road broadened out, with a line of trees in the middle,
and there began to be houses on each side. “Drive slow and see our city;
drive fast and see our jail,” proclaimed a big board—“By Order of the
Municipal Council of Santa Ynez.” Dad slowed down to twenty-five miles;
for it was a favorite trick of town marshals and justices of the peace
to set speed-traps for motorists coming from the country, with engines
keyed up to country rates of speed; they would haul you up and soak you
a big fine—and you had a vision of these new-style highwaymen spending
your dollars in riotous living. That was something else Dad was going to
stop, he said—such fines ought to go to the state, and be used for
road-repairs.
“Business zone, 15 miles per hour.” The main street of Santa Ynez was a
double avenue, with two lines of cars parked obliquely in the centre of
it, and another line obliquely against each curb. You crept along
through a lane, watching for a car that was backing out, and you dived
into the vacant place, just missing the fender of the car at your right.
Dad got out, and took off his overcoat, and folded it carefully, outside
in, the sleeves inside; that was something he was particular about,
having kept a general store, which included “Gents’ Clothing.” He and
Bunny laid their coats neatly in the rear compartment, locked safe, and
then strolled down the sidewalk, watching the ranchers of Santa Ynez
valley, and the goods which the stores displayed for them. This was the
United States, and the things on sale were the things you would have
seen in store-windows on any other Main Street, the things known as
“nationally advertised products.” The ranchman drove to town in a
nationally advertised auto, pressing the accelerator with a nationally
advertised shoe; in front of the drug-store he found a display of
nationally advertised magazines, containing all the nationally
advertised advertisements of the nationally advertised articles he would
take back to the ranch.
There were a few details which set this apart as a Western town: the
width of the street, the newness of the stores, the shininess of their
white paint, and the network of electric lights hung over the centre of
the street; also a man with a broad-brimmed hat, and a stunted old
Indian mumbling his lips as he walked, and a solitary cowboy wearing
“chaps.” “Elite Café,” said a white-painted sign, reading vertically;
the word “Waffles” was painted on the window, and there was a menu
tacked by the door, so that you could see what was offered, and the
prices charged. There were tables along one side of the wall, and a
counter along the other, with a row of broad backs in shirtsleeves and
suspenders perched on top of little stools; this was the way if you
wanted quick action, so Dad and the boy took two stools they found
vacant.
Dad was in his element in a place like this. He liked to “josh” the
waitress; he knew all kinds of comic things to say, funny names for
things to eat. He would order his eggs “sunny side up,” or “with their
eyes open, please.” He would say, “Wrap the baby in the blanket,” and
laugh over the waitress’ effort to realize that this meant a fried egg
sandwich. He would chat with the rancher at his other side—learning
about the condition of the wheat, and the prospects of prices for the
orange and walnut crops; he was interested in everything like this, as a
man who had oil to sell, to men who would buy more or less, according to
what they got for their products. Dad owned land, too; he was always
ready to “pick up” a likely piece, for there was oil all over Southern
California, he said, and some day there would be an empire here.
But now they were behind their schedule, and no time for play. Dad would
take fried rabbit; and Bunny thought he wouldn’t—not because of the
cannibalistic suggestion, but because of one he had seen mashed on the
road that morning. He chose roast pork—not having seen any dead pigs.
So there came on a platter two slices of meat, and mashed potatoes
scooped out in a round ball, with a hole in the top filled with gluey
brown gravy; also a spoonful of chopped up beets, and a leaf of lettuce
with apple sauce in it. The waitress had given him an extra helping,
because she liked this jolly brown kid, with his rosy cheeks and hair
tumbled by the wind, and sensitive lips, like a girl’s, and eager brown
eyes that roamed over the place and took in everything, the signs on the
wall, the bottles of catsup and slices of pie, the fat jolly waitress,
and the tired thin one who was waiting on him. He cheered her up by
telling her about the speed-cop they had met, and the chase they had
seen. In turn she tipped them off to a speed-trap just outside the town;
the man next to Bunny had been caught in it and fined ten dollars, so
they had plenty to talk about while Bunny finished his dinner, and his
slice of raisin pie and glass of milk. Dad gave the waitress a half
dollar for a tip, which was an unheard-of thing at a counter, and seemed
almost immoral; but she took it.
They drove carefully until they were past the speed-trap; then they “hit
it up,” along a broad boulevard known as the Mission Way, with bronze
bells hanging from poles along it. They had all kinds of picturesque
names for highways in this country; the Devil’s Garden Way and the Rim
of the World Drive, Mountain Spring Grade and Snow Creek Run, Thousand
Palm Cañon and Fig Tree John’s Road, Coyote Pass and the Jackrabbit
Trail. There was a Telegraph Road, and that was thrilling to the boy
because he had read about a battle in the civil war for the possession
of a “Telegraph Road”; when they drove along this one, he would see
infantry hiding in the bushes and cavalry charging across the fields; he
would give a start of excitement, and Dad would ask, “What is it?”
“Nothing, Dad; I was just thinking.” Funny kid! Always imagining things!
Also, there were Spanish names, reverently cherished by the pious
“realtors” of the country. Bunny knew what these meant, because he was
studying Spanish, so that some day he would be equipped to deal with
Mexican labor. “El Camino Real”—that meant the Royal Highway; and
“Verdugo Cañon”—that meant “executioner.” “What happened there, Dad?”
But Dad didn’t know the story; he shared the opinion of the manufacturer
of a nationally advertised automobile—that history is mostly “bunk.”
VI
The road was asphalt now; it shimmered in the heat, and whenever it fell
away before you, a mirage made it look like water. It was lined with
orange-groves; dark green shiny trees, golden with a part of last year’s
crop, and snowy white with the new year’s blossoms. Now and then a puff
of breeze blew out, and you got a ravishing sweet odor. There were
groves of walnuts, broad trees with ample foliage, casting dark shadows
on the carefully cultivated, powdery brown soil. There were hedges of
roses, extending for long distances, eight or ten feet high, and covered
with blossoms. There were wind-breaks of towering thin eucalyptus trees,
with long wavy leaves and bark that scales off and leaves them naked;
all the world is familiar with them in the moving pictures, where they
do duty for sturdy oaks and ancient elms and spreading chestnuts and
Arabian date-palms and cedars of Lebanon and whatever else the scenario
calls for.
You had to cut your speed down here, and had to watch incessantly; there
were intersections, and lanes coming in, and warning signs of many
sorts; there was traffic both ways, and delicate decisions to be made as
to whether you could get past the car ahead of you, before one coming in
the other direction would bear down on you and shut you in a pair of
scissors. It was exciting to watch Dad’s handling of these emergencies,
to read his intentions and watch him carry them out.
There were towns every five or ten miles now, and you were continually
being slowed up by traffic, and continually being warned to conform to a
rate of movement which would have irritated an able-bodied snail. The
highway passed through the main street of each town; the merchants
arranged that, Dad said, hoping you would get out and buy something at
their places; if the highway were shifted to the outskirts of the town,
to avoid traffic congestion, all the merchants would forthwith move to
the highway! Sometimes they would put up signs, indicating a turn in the
highway, attempting to lure the motorist onto a business street; after
you had got to the end of that street, they would steer you back to the
highway! Dad noted such tricks with the amused tolerance of a man who
had worked them on others, but did not let anyone work them on him.
Each town consisted of some tens, or hundreds, or thousands of perfectly
rectangular blocks, divided into perfectly rectangular lots, each
containing a strictly modern bungalow, with a lawn and a housewife
holding a hose. On the outskirts would be one or more “subdivisions,” as
they were called; “acreage” was being laid out into lots, and decorated
with a row of red and yellow flags fluttering merrily in the breeze;
also a row of red and yellow signs which asked questions and answered
them with swift efficiency: “Gas? Yes.” “Water? Best ever.” “Lights?
Right.” “Restrictions? You bet.” “Schools? Under construction.”
“Scenery? Beats the Alps.”—and so on. There would be an office or a
tent by the roadside, and in front of it an alert young man with a
writing pad and a fountain-pen, prepared to write you a contract of sale
after two minutes conversation. These subdividers had bought the land
for a thousand dollars an acre, and soon as they had set up the
fluttering little flags and the tent it became worth $1675 per lot. This
also Dad explained with amused tolerance. It was a great country!
They were coming to the outskirts of Angel City. Here were trolley
tracks and railroads, and subdivisions with no “restrictions”—that is,
you might build any kind of house you pleased, and rent it to people of
any race or color; which meant an ugly slum, spreading like a great
sore, with shanties of tin and tar-paper and unpainted boards. There
were great numbers of children playing here—for some strange reason
there seemed to be more of them where they were least apt to thrive.
By dint of constant pushing and passing every other car, Dad had got on
his schedule again. They skirted the city, avoiding the traffic crowds
in its centre, and presently came a sign: “Beach City Boulevard.” It was
a wide asphalt road, with thousands of speeding cars, and more
subdivisions and suburban home-sites, with endless ingenious
advertisements designed to catch the fancy of the motorist, and cause
him to put on brakes. The real estate men had apparently been reading
the Arabian Nights and Grimm’s fairy-tales; they were housed in little
freak offices that shot up to a point, or tilted like a drunken sailor;
their colors orange and pink, or blue and green, or with separately
painted shingles, spotted with various colors. There were “good eats”
signs and “barbecue” signs—the latter being a word which apparently had
not been in the spelling-books when the sign-painters went to school.
There were stands where you got orange-juice and cider, with
orange-colored wicker chairs out in front for you to sit in. There were
fruit and vegetable stands kept by Japs, and other stands with signs
inviting you to “patronize Americans.” There was simply no end of things
to look at, each separate thing bringing its separate thrill to the mind
of a thirteen-year old boy. The infinite strangeness and fascinatingness
of this variegated world! Why do people do this, Dad? And why do they do
that?
They came to Beach City, with its wide avenue along the ocean-front.
Six-thirty, said the clock on the car’s running-board—exactly on the
schedule. They stopped before the big hotel, and Bunny got out of the
car, and opened the back compartment, and the bell-hop came hopping—you
bet, for he knew Dad, and the dollars and half dollars that were
jingling in Dad’s pockets. The bell-hop grabbed the suit-cases and the
overcoats, and carried them in, and the boy followed, feeling
responsible and important, because Dad couldn’t come yet, Dad had to put
the car in a parking place. So Bunny strode in and looked about the
lobby for Ben Skutt, the oil-scout, who was Dad’s “lease-hound.” There
he was, seated in a big leather chair, puffing at a cigar and watching
the door; he got up when he saw Bunny, and stretched his long, lean
body, and twisted his lean, ugly face into a grin of welcome. The boy,
very erect, remembering that he was J. Arnold Ross, junior, and
representing his father in an important transaction, shook hands with
the man, remarking: “Good evening, Mr. Skutt. Are the papers ready?”