THE VICTORY
I
The first term of Bunny’s school ended in February, and he passed his
examinations with reasonable success; then there was a brief holiday,
and Dad produced a wonderful scheme. He could not help feeling a little
uncomfortable, with the Watkins family living right there on the tract,
and he taking millions of dollars out of the ground for which he had
paid them thirty-seven hundred. Dad had an impulse to do something, yet
he was afraid to do too much, for fear he might “spoil” them, giving
them the notion he owed them more. What he proposed was a family
excursion; he would take Bunny and Ruth and Meelie and Sadie in the big
limousine, and hire an extra car for old Mr. Watkins and his wife, and
drive to the cantonment where Paul was working, and pay him a visit and
see the new army in the making. They would stay a couple of days at some
hotel nearby, and see all the sights, including the revival meetings
which Eli was holding in a huge tent near the encampment.
The girls of course were wild with happiness. It was the first time they
had ever had a long automobile trip in the whole of their
unsophisticated lives. Bunny spoke to Ruth, who spoke to her mother, who
in turn spoke to her husband, and obtained his promise that he would do
his best to persuade the Holy Spirit not to send them any revelations or
inspire any rolling or talking in tongues until they had got to the
camp-meeting. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit had recently
declared, through Eli as prophet of the Third Revelation, that these
inspirational gymnastics had served their purpose and were to be
dropped. No reason was vouchsafed, but there were rumors that the
well-to-do people who were backing Eli in his evangelical campaigns were
opposed to the rolling, and did not regard the speech of the archangels
as having any meaning for mortal ears. One of these disciples was an
eminent judge, and another was a proprietor of chain grocery-stores;
their wives had taken Eli in hand and rubbed off the rough spots and
improved his grammar, explaining that because one said heathen, one did
not necessarily say healen; also they had taught him where to get his
clothes and how to hold a knife and fork, so that Eli was becoming a
social success.
It was almost like going to see the war: this tremendous city of canvas
and corrugated iron and redwood siding which had arisen as if by Arabian
Nights magic, swarming with eager young men in khaki, all of them as
busy as ants—yet never too busy to take note of the presence of three
good-looking girls in a row! You could go through this city at certain
hours, if you got the proper permit, and see a bit of the drilling; at
certain other hours Paul could get off, and while the old folks and the
girls went to hear Eli, Dad and Bunny and Paul sat on the hotel veranda
and talked about the state of the world.
The Russians had just concluded a peace with Germany, withdrawing
entirely from the war, and giving up a lot of territory to the enemy.
Dad discussed this event, and repeated his opinion of the treacherous
“Bolshevikis.” Then Paul said how it seemed to him; Bunny saw that even
here, with all the work he had to do, Paul had found time to read and to
think his own thoughts. “Bunny,” he said, “do you remember our oil
strike, and what we read about it in the papers? Suppose you had never
been to Paradise, and didn’t know the strikers, but had got all your
impressions from the Angel City newspapers! Well, that’s the way it
seems to me about Russia; this is the biggest strike in history, and the
strikers have won, and seized the oil wells. Some day maybe we’ll know
what they’re doing, but it won’t be from newspaper stories made up by
the allied diplomats and the exiled grand dukes.”
That made Dad rather warm, because he had been reading this news for
three or four months, and believing every word of it. He wanted to know
if Paul didn’t believe there had been any killing of the rich classes in
Russia. Paul said he didn’t doubt there had been some, because he had
read about the French revolution. What you had to remember was the way
the Russian people had been treated by their ruling classes, and the
kind of government they were used to; you had to judge their revolution
by their standards and not by ours. Paul smiled and added that it was a
mistake for an American employer who had tried to give his men a square
deal, to identify himself with those masters in Russia who had beaten
their men with knouts, and turned them over to the Cossacks if they
attempted any protest.
That pacified Dad a little, but he said the way it seemed to him, these
Bolshevikis were jist so many German agents. He told about the train
that had carried Lenin—Dad called him Lee-nyne—through Germany. But
Paul asked whether he had watched the news that had come from the peace
negotiations; the Germans had apparently been as much afraid of the
Russians as we were. These Bolsheviks were fighting the ruling classes
of both sides, and the Germans might find the peace they had made more
dangerous to them than the fighting; the revolutionary propaganda might
spread in their armies, and even to the Western front.
There was no use expecting Dad to see anything so complicated as that.
He declared that if the Russians had really wanted to help the cause of
peace and justice, they should have stood by the allies until the Kaiser
was put out of business. Then Paul asked whether Mr. Ross had read the
secret treaties of the allies, and Dad was obliged to confess that he
had never even heard of them. Paul explained how the Soviets, after
demanding that the allies should make known their war aims, and having
no attention paid to the request, had revealed to the world all the
secret agreements which the allies had made with the Tsar, for dividing
up the territories they meant to take from the Germans and Austrians and
Turks. Paul declared that the text of these treaties, the most important
news of the day, had been suppressed by the American newspapers. If we
were going into this war blindfolded, to help Great Britain and France
and Italy and Japan in their imperialist aims, then our people were
being deceived, and some day they would have a bitter awakening.
Dad’s answer to that was simple: Paul might rest assured, those secret
treaties would turn out to be Bolshevik forgeries. Had not our
government already given out a lot of documents it had obtained in
Russia, proving the Bolshevik leaders to be German agents? Those were
the true documents, and Paul would find it out some day, and be ashamed
of having doubted our allies. How could he suppose that President Wilson
would let us be jockeyed?
Bunny sat, taking in every word of this discussion. It was puzzling, and
hard to be sure about, but it seemed to him that Dad was right, what
could a good American do, in war-time like this, but trust his
government? Bunny was a little shocked to hear a man wearing the uniform
of the army sit there and express doubts about his superiors, and he
considered it his duty to get Paul off by himself, and tell him some of
the things the four minute men had said in school, and try to inspire
him with a more intense patriotism. But Paul only laughed, and patted
Bunny on the back, saying that they got any quantity of propaganda here
in the training-camp.
II
One evening they all went to hear Eli; in a great tent such as would
hold a three ring circus, with thousands of cars parked in the fields
about, and sawdust strewn in the aisles, and hundreds of wooden benches,
crowded with soldier boys and ranchers and their wives and children.
There was a platform with the evangelist, wearing a white robe with a
golden star on his bosom, for all the world like some Persian magus; and
there was a “silver band,” with trumpets and bass-tubas gleaming so that
they put your eyes out. When those big blarers started a hymn of glory,
and the audience started to rock and shout, “Praise the Lord!” the top
of that tent would bulge up!
Eli preached against the Hun, telling how the Holy Spirit had revealed
to him that the enemy was to be routed before the year was by, and
promising eternal salvation to all who died in this cause of the
Lord—provided, of course, that they had not rejected their chance to be
saved by Eli. In the middle of the stage was a tank constructed, with
steps descending into it, and the converts sitting in rows on the
platform, garbed in white nighties; when that stage of the ceremonies
arrived, Eli descended into the water himself, and grabbed his victims
one by one by the backs of their necks, and in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Ghost he swung them forward, souse! into the
water. Thereby their sins were washed from the very last hair of their
bodies, and if from the holy water they contracted any of those diseases
which are the penalty of sins, even among military crusaders—well, all
they had to do was to come back again and have themselves “healen” by
the prophet of the Third Revelation.
Next day the family drove home, and how much they had to gossip about on
the way, and for weeks thereafter! Bunny was looking forward to living
this camp-life the coming summer—except that, because of the
preparation he was getting in school, and also because of Dad’s
influence, he was to be in an officer’s training-camp. He was full of
consecration, and working harder than ever at his duties.
Late in March began that long-dreaded onslaught on the Western front;
one of those battles to which the world had grown accustomed, extending
over a hundred miles of front, and lasting all day and all night for
several weeks. Such a battle was not named from a town or a city, but
from a province; this was the battle of Picardy. The German rush broke
through the British line, and drove them back in rout for thirty or
forty miles, and captured a hundred thousand men, and it seemed that
Dad’s worst forebodings were to be realized.
But neither the Germans nor the allies knew that in an obscure village
amid the fruit orchards of California a mighty prophet was exercising
his magic on their behalf. It chanced that Eli Watkins read a news item
from the front, declaring that the only thing which could save the
British armies was rain; and forthwith he assembled his hosts of prayer,
and all night long they rocked upon their knees and wrung their hands
unto the Lord, invoking storms in Picardy; and the Lord heard them, and
the floodgates of heaven were opened, and the rain descended, and the
feet of the Huns were stuck fast, yea, and their chariot wheels also,
and their mighty men at arms were drowned in mud; but on the side where
the hosts of the Lord were battling there fell no rain, but the ground
was clean, and reinforcements came up, and the British line was saved,
and back amid the California orchards the hosannas of the faithful shook
the blossoms off the prune-trees.
III
Even amid such agonies and thrills, Bunny, being young, had his personal
life. On his way home after drill he ran into Nina Goodrich, one of his
class-mates, turning a corner in her car, clad in a bathing suit with a
cape over it. Upon such little things do one’s life-destinies depend!
She slowed up and called, “Come have a swim with me!” He hopped in, and
she whisked him down to the beach in two minutes, and in five more he
had hired a bathing suit and got into it, and the two of them were
running a race along the sand.
Nina Goodrich was one of those lavish Junos, of whom California brings
to ripeness many thousands every year. Her limbs were strong trunks, and
her hips were built for carrying a dozen babies, and her bosom for the
nourishing of them. She had fair hair and a complexion that had not come
out of a bottle, and her skin was bronzed by hours in the surf, in those
fragile one-piece bathing suits the girls were wearing, which revealed
considerably more than fifty percent of their natural charms. Never
could a man who took himself a wife in Southern California complain that
he did not know what he was getting!
The two swam down the shore, a long way, not troubled by the chill of
the water; they ran hand in hand on the beach, and as they went back to
the bath-house, Nina said, “Come have supper with me, Bunny; I’m tired
of home,” So Bunny slipped into his clothes, and she drove him back to
her home, and while she changed he sat in the car and got up his next
lesson in nineteenth century English poetry. The poet called attention
to a chain of natural phenomena:
The sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea!
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
They drove to a cafeteria, an invention where California fish and
California fruits and California salads are spread out before the eyes
in such profusion as to trouble a nineteen year old Juno already
struggling to “reduce.” There was nothing so safe as celery, said Nina,
it took both space and time; while she munched, they sat by the window,
and watched the sun set over the purple ocean, and the slow fog steal in
from the sea. Then they got into the car, and without saying a word she
drove out of town and down the coast highway; one of her hands was in
Bunny’s, and he, searching the caverns of his memory, remembered having
heard Eunice mention that Nina had had a desperate affair with Barney
Lee, who had enlisted a year ago, and was now in France.
They stopped at a lonely place, and there was a rug in the car, and
pretty soon they were sitting by the noisy surf, and Nina was snuggled
close to Bunny and whispering, “Do you care for me the least little
bit?” And when he answered that he did, she said, “Then why don’t you
pet me?” And when he began to oblige her, he found his lips held in one
of those long slow kisses which are sure-fire hits on the silver screen,
but which the censors cut to a footage varying according to
geography—00 in Japan up to 8,000 in Algeria and the Argentine.
It was evident that this nineteen year old Juno was his to do what he
pleased with, there and then; and Bunny’s head had begun to swim in the
familiar alarming way. He had never got the ache of Eunice out of his
soul, and here at last was deliverance! But he hesitated, because he had
sworn to himself that he would not get in for this again. Also from some
of the English poets he had begun to hear about a different kind of
love. He knew that he didn’t really love Nina Goodrich, she was all but
a stranger to him; so he hesitated, and his kisses diminished in ardor,
until she whispered, “What’s the matter, Bunny?”
He was rattled, but a sudden inspiration came to him. “Nina,” he said,
“it doesn’t seem quite fair.”
“Why not?”
“To Barney.”
He felt her wince as she lay in his arms. “But Barney is gone, dear.”
“I know; but he’ll come back.”
“Yes, but that’s so far off; and I guess he’s got a girl in France by
now.”
“Maybe so, but you can’t be sure; and it don’t seem quite right that a
fellow should go risk his life for his country, and somebody else steal
his girl away while he’s gone.”
So Bunny began to talk about the front, and what was happening there,
and how soon the Americans would get in, and how he expected to go right
after graduation, and about Paul and what he thought about Russia, and
what Dad thought about Paul; and the young Juno continued to be in his
arms, but with a more and more sisterly affection, until at last the fog
began to chill even their young blood, and they got up to go, and the
nineteen year old Juno put her arms about her escort and gave him an
especially violent kiss, declaring, “Bunny, you’re a queer fellow, but I
like you an awful lot!”
IV
The Germans made another gigantic thrust at the British, and this time
it was the Battle of Flanders. They captured a great stretch of the
British lines, and if it had not been for a six day stand of laborers
and chauffeurs and what not behind the lines, every man hiding in a hole
and fighting for himself with any weapon he could pick up, the Germans
would have taken the whole railway system in Flanders. A month or so
later came another offensive, this time to the South, against the
French, the battle of the Aisne and the Oise; it looked as if Paris was
doomed, and people in America held their breath while they read the
bulletins in the newspapers.
In the midst of that battle, covering nearly two hundred miles of front,
an epoch-making thing happened; the hard-pressed French commander put in
the first of the newly-arrived American troops. These boys had had only
a few months training, and the French didn’t think they would hold; but
instead of giving way like the rest of the armies, they hit the German
line and went forward a couple of miles over a three mile front. So more
of them were rushed in, and a few days later came the battle of Belleau
Wood, and all over America went a thrill of exultation. It was not
national pride, but more than that, men felt—it was a victory of free
institutions. When you ran over the lists of dead and wounded in these
battles you found Horowitz and Schnierow and Samerjian and Samaniego,
Constantinopulos and Toplitsky and Quong Ling; but they all fought
alike, and it was a victory for that golden flood of eloquence that was
being poured out from the White House.
In the midst of these excitements came Bunny’s commencement time, and he
had to make the great decision. He and his father had the most serious
talk of their lives; Bunny had never seen the old man so deeply moved.
What he said was, “Son, can’t you possibly see your way to stay and help
me with this job?” What Bunny answered was, “Dad, if I didn’t get into
the army, I’d never feel right the rest of my life.”
Dad pointed out what it was going to mean to him personally. He was no
longer able to carry this load alone. There had to be more and more
wells, and every one was an added care. They simply had to have a big
refinery, and that meant also, a chain of service stations, you could
not count on government contracts forever. This Paradise tract was
Bunny’s, but if he wanted to give it up, why then Dad would have to
negotiate with some of the big people who had been sounding him out on
the question of mergers. If Bunny went into the army there would be no
use counting on him, because Dad was sure this war wasn’t half over.
“Those that go now aren’t many of them coming back,” was the way he put
it; there was a catch in his voice, and with a little bit more they
would have had to pull out their pocket-handkerchiefs, which would have
been equally embarrassing to both. All that Bunny could do was to
repeat, “I’ve just got to go, Dad; I’ve just got to go.”
So Dad gave up, and a couple of weeks later Bunny got his notice to
report to his training-camp. Aunt Emma spilled tears over him, while
Grandma drew her withered old lips tight over her badly-fitting false
teeth, and said it was a crime, and it ended her interest in life.
Bertie made arrangements for a farewell party, and Dad reported that he
had opened negotiations with Vernon Roscoe, the biggest independent oil
operator on the coast, president of Flora-Mex and Mid-Central Pete, who
had several times broached the project of a vast enterprise to be known
as “Ross Consolidated.”
V
They drove up to Paradise, to give Bunny a farewell look at things, and
there they found that Paul was expected home for a furlough, preliminary
to a journey across the Pacific Ocean. This war, Dad said, was like a
fire in a “tank-farm,” you could never tell which way things would
explode, or what would go next. Here was Paul, with the bunch of
carpenters he directed, ordered onto a transport to be shipped—of all
places in the world—to Vladivostok in Siberia!
It appeared that when the Bolsheviks took charge of Russia they found
themselves with a great army of war prisoners, among them a hundred
thousand Czecho-Slovaks. This was a new name—you looked it up in the
encyclopedias and couldn’t find it, and had to have it explained to you
that they were Bohemians, but this was a German word, and just as we had
changed hamburger into liberty steak and sauerkraut into liberty
cabbage, so the Bohemians became Czecho-Slovaks, which nobody knew how
to spell when they heard it, or to pronounce when they saw it. The
people of this race were revolting against Germany, and the Bolsheviks
had agreed that their Czecho-Slovak prisoners would be shipped to
Vladivostok, where the allies might take charge of them, and bring them
to the fighting front if they saw fit. But on the way across Siberia the
Czecho-Slovaks got to fighting with the Bolsheviks and the released
German war prisoners, and had seized a great section of the railroad.
So now into this weird mix-up the allies were intervening. The
newspapers explained the matter: the Bolshevik movement was an uprising
of fanatics, imposed upon the Russian people by the guns of hired
mercenaries, Chinese and Mongolians and Cossacks and escaped criminals
and general riff-raff; it couldn’t last very long, a few weeks or months
at the most, and what was needed was to supply a nucleus about which the
decent Russians might rally. The allies were now undertaking to do that;
American and Japanese troops were to help the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia,
and American and British troops were to organize the Russian refugees at
Archangel in the far north. So here was Paul, going to build barracks
and Y. M. C. A. huts along the famous Trans-Siberian railway, and see
for himself those exciting events about which he had been debating with
Dad. Bunny was going to a training-camp, and maybe when he got through
they would send him to the same front—that was a case where he would
let Dad use his influence! Bunny meant to work hard and rise in the
service, and maybe he would have Paul and his carpenters under his
command!
They had a hard time keeping their spirits up, because of Ruth, who was
utterly inconsolable. She would go about the place with tears running
down her cheeks, and now and then would have to jump up and rush from
the room. When the time came for Paul to say his last farewell, Ruth
almost went out of her mind; she locked her arms about his neck, and he
had to pull her fingers away. It was sad for a fellow, to be driven away
with his sister lying in a faint in a chair. Old Mr. Watkins had to come
up and take her home, and send up Sadie to do the housework for Dad. By
golly, it made you realize about war!
VI
Bunny went back to Beach City, to face a trial of the same sort. Grandma
did not cry out or faint, she just went up to her studio-room and locked
the door and did not appear, even for meals. When Bunny was ready to go,
he went and knocked on the door, and Grandma let him into her laboratory
of paints and oils and high art. Her face was drawn but grim, and only
her withered red eyelids gave her away. “Little boy,” she said—he was
still that to her, he would never grow up—“little boy, you are a victim
of the old men’s crimes. That means nothing to you now, but remember it,
and some day, long after I’m gone, you’ll understand.”
She kissed him without a sound, and he stole out, with tears running
down his cheeks, and feeling somehow as if he himself were committing a
crime. He felt still more that way when, a week later, he received a
telegram saying that Grandmother Ross had been found dead in bed. He got
a three day leave to come home and attend the funeral, and had to say
his good-byes to the rest of the family all over again.
The training-camp was located in the South, a place of blazing sunshine
and vigorous perspiration. It was crowded with boys from every part of
the state, mostly high school and college fellows, with a sprinkling of
others who had got into the officer class by having military experience.
The sons of grape-growers and orange and walnut and peach and prune
growers, of cowmen and lumbermen, and business and professional men in
the cities—Bunny wanted to know what they were like, and what they
thought about life and love and the war. He drilled until his back
ached, and he studied, much the same as at school; but he lived in a
tent, and ate ravenously, and grew in all directions.
Now and then he would explore the country with a companion, but keeping
himself out of the sex adventures that occupied most of the army’s free
time. Here was a place where no bones were made about plain talk; your
superiors took it for granted that when you went out of the camp you
went to look for a woman, and they told you what to do when you came
back, and had a treatment-station where you lined up with the other
fellows and made jokes about where you had been and what it had cost
you. Bunny knew enough to realize that the women in the neighborhood of
this camp who were open to adventures must be pretty well debauched
after a year, so he had little interest in their glances or the trim
silk-stockinged ankles they displayed.
He had made application for the artillery, but they assigned him to
study “military transportation,” because of his knowledge of oil. He
took this quite innocently, never realizing that Dad with his
wide-spreading influence might have put in a word. Dad was quietly
determined that Bunny was not going across the sea, no, not if this
man’s war lasted another ten years. Bunny was going to be among those
who had charge of the army’s supplies of gasoline and oil, seeing that
the various products were up to standard and were efficiently and
promptly shipped. Who could say—perhaps he might be among those who
would have the job of working out contracts, and might be able now and
then to put in a good word for Ross Consolidated!
VII
The new deal was going through, and Dad wrote long letters telling of
the progress—letters which Bunny was to return when he had studied
them, and not leave lying about in a tent. Also there were rumors in the
papers, and then more detailed accounts, designed to prepare the public
for the launching of a huge enterprise. Late in the summer Bunny got a
furlough, and came home to get the latest news.
“Home” no longer meant Beach City; for Dad had only been waiting till
Bunny had got through with school, and now he had moved to another
house. It was a palace in the fashionable part of Angel City, which he
had leased through a real estate agent for fifteen thousand a year. It
was all pink stucco outside, with hedge plants trimmed to the shape of
bells and balls like pawn-broker’s signs. It had a wide veranda with
swings hanging by brass chains, and ferns planted in a row of huge sea
shells, and big plate glass windows that did not come open. Inside was
furniture of a style called “mission oak,” so heavy that you could
hardly move it, but that was all right, because Dad didn’t want to move
it, he would sit in any chair, wherever it happened to be, and the only
place he expected comfort was in his den, where he had a huge old
leather chair of his own, and a store of cigars and a map of the
Paradise tract covering one whole wall. One thing more Dad had seen to,
that Grandma’s biggest paintings were hung in the dining-room, including
the scandalous one of the Germans with their steins! The rest of the old
lady’s stuff, her easel and paints and a great stack of her lesser
works, were boxed and stowed in the basement. Aunt Emma was now the
mistress of the household, with Bertie as head critic when she was home.
On the desk in Dad’s den was piled a stack of papers a foot high,
relating to the new enterprise. He went over them one by one and
explained the details. Ross Consolidated was going to be a seventy
million dollar corporation, and Dad was to have ten millions in bonds
and preferred stock, and another ten millions of common stock. Mr.
Roscoe was to get the same for his Prospect Hill properties and those at
Lobos River, and the various bankers were to get five millions for their
financing of the project. The balance was to be a special class stock,
twenty-five millions to be offered to the public, to finance the new
development—one of the biggest refineries in the state, and storage
tanks, and new pipe-lines, and a whole chain of service stations
throughout Southern California. This stock was to be “non-voting,” a
wonderful new scheme which Dad explained to Bunny; the public was to put
up its money and get a share of the profits, but have nothing to say as
to how the company was run. “We’ll have no bunch of boobs butting in on
our affairs,” said Dad; “and nobody can raid us on the market and take
away control.”
A little farther on in the explanations, Bunny began to see the meaning
of that perpetual and unbreakable hold which Dad and Mr. Roscoe were
giving to themselves. In the prospectuses and advertisements of Ross
Consolidated, the public would be told all about the vast oil resources
in the Ross Junior tract at Paradise; but here it was being fixed up
that Ross Consolidated was not to operate this tract, but to lease it to
a special concern, the Ross Junior Operating Company, and nobody but Dad
and Mr. Roscoe and the bankers were to have any stock in that! There was
a whole series of such intricate devices, holding companies and leasing
companies and separate issues of stock, and some of these things were to
go into effect at once, and some later on, after the public had put up
its money!
When Bunny, the “little idealist,” began to make objections to this, he
saw that he was hurting his father’s feelings. Dad said that was the
regular way of big money deals, and my God, were they running a
soup-kitchen? The public would get its share and more—that stock would
go to two hundred in the first year, jist you watch and see! But it was
Dad and his son who had done the hard work on the Paradise tract, and at
Prospect Hill and Lobos River too; and the government wanted them to go
on and do more such work, to drill a hundred new wells and help win the
war, and how could they do it if they distributed the money around for
people to throw away on jazz-parties? Jist look at those “war-babies,”
and all the mad spending in New York! Dad was taking care of his money
and using it wisely, in industry, where it belonged; he was perfectly
sincere, and hard set as concrete, in his conviction that he was the one
to whom the profits should come. He and Mr. Roscoe were two individuals
who had fought the big companies and kept themselves afloat through all
the storms; they were making an unbreakable combination this time, and
they were going to get the jack out of it, just you bet!
VIII
Meantime, the Germans had begun another offensive against the French,
the most colossal yet; it was the second Battle of the Marne, and they
called it their “Friedensturm,” because they meant to capture Paris and
win their peace. But now there were large sectors held by the American
troops, of whom there were a million in France, and three hundred
thousand coming every month, with all their supplies, in spite of the
submarines. These troops were fresh, while all the others were
exhausted; and so where they stood, the line did not give way, and the
great German offensive was blocked and brought to a standstill.
Then, a week or two later, began an event that electrified the whole
world; the allies began to advance! Attacking now here, now there, they
gained ground, they routed the enemy out of intrenchments which had been
years in building, and were counted impregnable. All that mighty
Hindenburg line began to crumble; and behind it, the Siegfried line, and
the Hunding line, and all the other mythological constructions. To
people in America it was the breaking of the first sunrays through black
storm clouds. The “Yanks” were wiping out the famous St. Mihiel salient,
they were capturing the enemy by tens of thousands, and even more
important, the machine guns and artillery which the Germans could not
replace. All through the early fall this went on; until the young
officers-to-be in Bunny’s training-camp began to fret because this man’s
war was going to be over before they got to the scene.
But all this time, not one word from Paul! Bunny received agonized
letters from Ruth, “Oh, what do you think can have happened to him? I
write him every week to the address he gave, and I _know_ he would
answer if he was alive.” Bunny explained that it took six weeks for mail
to go to Vladivostok and return; how much longer it took on the railroad
no one could guess; and besides, there was a censorship, and many things
might happen to letters in war-time. If Paul had been killed or wounded,
the army would surely notify his parents; so no news was good news.
There had been practically no fighting, as Ruth could see from the
newspaper clippings which Bunny faithfully sent to her. The reports were
scanty, but that was just because nothing much had happened; if there
were any real fighting, or losses to the troops, the papers would get
it, you might be sure.
In the month of July of this year of 1918, the American and Japanese
troops had made a landing in Vladivostok, practically unopposed; they
had spread along the Trans-Siberian railway, and were policing it, and
in fact running it, all the way to Lake Baikal where they had met the
Czecho-Slovaks. With the help of these intelligent men, the allies now
controlled the country clean across to the Volga; the Bolsheviks had to
keep back in the interior. Now and then the newspapers would report that
admiral this or general that was setting up a stable Russian government,
of course with the help of allied money and supplies. At the west end of
the line it would be a Cossack ataman and at the east end a Chinese
mandarin or Mongolian tuchun or other strange beast; thus new stretches
of the earth’s surface were being delivered from the wickedness of
Bolshevism. Somewhere amid these picturesque and exciting events Paul
Watkins of Paradise, California, was building army barracks and “Y”
huts; and some day he would come back with a wonderful story to tell! So
Bunny wrote, bidding Ruth keep cheerful, and have faith in the
benevolence of her old Uncle Sam.
IX
The nights were growing cold in Bunny’s cantonment, and from Europe the
thrilling news continued to pour in, and spread across the front pages
of the newspapers, six or eight editions every day. The allied advance
was turning into a march, that long talked of march to Berlin! A march
also to Vienna and to Sofia and to Constantinople—for everywhere the
central powers were weakening, collapsing, surrendering. President
Wilson issued his “fourteen points,” on the basis of which the Germans
were invited to quit. There were rumors of negotiations—the German
leaders were suggesting a truce! There were two or three days of
suspense, and then the answer, there would be no truce, only a
surrender; the march to Berlin was on!
And then one day an amazing report; the enemy had capitulated, the
surrender had been signed! As a matter of fact, it was a false alarm,
due to the American custom of keeping one jump ahead of events. Each
paper wants to beat the others, so they get everything ready in
advance—speeches that have not yet been delivered, ceremonies that have
not yet taken place. Some nervous reporter let his finger slip on the
trigger, and the message came that set all America wild. Such a
spectacle had never been witnessed since the world began; every
noisemaking instrument conceivable was turned loose, and men, women and
children turned out on the streets, and danced and sang and yelled until
they were exhausted; pistols were shot off, and autos went flying by
with tin-cans bouncing behind; newsboys and stock-brokers wept on one
another’s shoulders, and elderly unapproachable bank-presidents danced
the can-can with typists and telephone girls. A day or two later, when
the real news came, they turned out to do it all over again, but never
could recapture their first fine careless rapture.
After that, of course, the fun had gone out of military training; all
the young officers-to-be wanted to get back home, to go to college or to
take up their jobs, and all who had any influence quickly got furloughs
that were understood to be elastic. Such a favor came to Bunny, out of
the blue void where Dad wielded his mysterious power, and he went home
to watch the movements of “Ross Consolidated,” which had been launched
at an opening price of $108 per share for the “class B stock,” and
completely sold out in two days, and was now quoted in the market at
147¾. They had made the stock of “no par value”—another new device
which Vernon Roscoe’s fancy lawyers had recommended; there were certain
taxes both state and federal which could be dodged by this method, and
moreover there would never be need to issue “stock dividends” to conceal
the amount of the profit. Mr. Roscoe was certainly a wizard when it came
to finance, jist about the smartest feller Dad had met in the oil-game.
It was a tremendous load taken off Dad’s shoulders, for now the enormous
Roscoe machine would market the oil and collect the money. Dad’s job was
new developments—the part of the game he really liked. He was a member
of the board of directors of the new concern, and also a vice-president,
at a salary of a hundred thousand a year, with charge of exploring and
drilling; he would travel here and there and lay out the tracts and
select the drilling sites, and see that every well was brought in
properly, before turning it over to another executive, the
superintendent of operation. It was Dad’s idea that Bunny should take a
position under his father, to start with say six thousand a year, until
everybody was satisfied that he knew the business; the two of them would
have the time of their lives, driving all over Southern California and
smelling out oil, jist like at Paradise! Bunny said that sounded good,
but he’d want a little time to think it over and get used to the idea
that he wasn’t going to Siberia or to France. Dad said all right, of
course, he mustn’t jump into things in a hurry; but Bunny could see that
he was a little pained because his son and namesake did not do that very
thing!
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 jist 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 jist 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, 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 timetable 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 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!