THE VACATION
I
All this summer and fall, Dad and Mr. Roscoe had been carrying a heavy
burden—they were helping to make over the thinking of the American
people. A presidential campaign was under way; and the oil men, having
made so bold as to select the candidate, now had to finish the job by
persuading the voters that he was a great and noble-minded statesman.
Also they had to pay a part of the expense, which would come to fifty
million dollars, so Bunny learned from the conversations at Paradise and
at the Monastery. This was several times as much as would get recorded,
since the money went through local and unofficial agencies. It came from
the big protected interests, the corporations, the banks—everyone that
had anything to get out of the government, or could be squeezed by
politicians; the process was known as “frying out the fat.” The oil men,
having grabbed the big prize, were naturally a shining mark for all
campaign committees, county, state and national. Dad and Mr. Roscoe
received visits from Jake Coffey, and from the bosses of the state
machine, and listened to hair-raising stories about the dangers of the
situation.
It was necessary to persuade the American people that the Democratic
administration for the past eight years had been wasteful and corrupt,
ignorant and fatuous—and that was easy enough. But also it was
necessary to persuade them that an administration by Senator Harding was
likely to be better—and that was not so easy. Naturally, the chairmen
of campaign committees wanted to make it appear as difficult as
possible, for the more money that passed through their hands, the larger
the amount that would stick. As the campaign drew to its close, Bunny
had the satisfaction of hearing his father swearing outrageously, and
wishing he had taken his son’s advice and left the destinies of his
country to the soap manufacturer who had put up the millions for General
Wood!
The Senator from Ohio was a large and stately and solemn-faced person,
and conducted what was called by the newspapers a “front-porch
campaign.” That is to say, he did not put himself out to travel on
trains and meet people, but received deputations of the Hay and Feed
Dealers of Duluth, or the Morticians of Ossawotomie. They would sit in
camp-chairs upon his lawn, and the statesman would appear and read an
imposing discourse, which had been written by a secretary of Vernon
Roscoe’s selection, and given out to all the press associations the day
before, so that it could be distributed over the wires and published
simultaneously on fifty million front pages. That is a colossal
propaganda machine, and the men who run it have to lose a lot of sleep.
But the majestic candidate lost no sleep, he was always fresh and serene
and impassive; he had been that way throughout his career, for the able
business men who groomed him and paid his way had never failed to tell
him what to do.
Bunny now dwelt upon an Olympian height, looking down as a god upon the
affairs of pitiful mortals. Dad and Mr. Roscoe let him hear
everything—being sure that common sense would win in the end, and he
would accept their point of view. They had a philosophy which protected
them like a suit of chain-mail against all hesitations and doubts. The
affairs of the country had to be run by the men who had the money and
brains and experience; and since the mass of the people had not sense
enough to grant the power freely, the mass of the people had to be
bamboozled. “Slogans” must be invented, and hammered into their heads,
by millions, yes, billions of repetitions. It was an art, and experts
knew how to do it, and you paid them—but by Jees, the price made you
sweat blood!
The tremendous campaign came to an end, and it was revealed that
16,140,585 Americans had been successfully bamboozled. Senator Harding
had seven million more votes than the Democratic candidate, the greatest
plurality ever polled in American history. So there were shouting mobs
on the streets, and in the expensive restaurants and clubs where the
rich celebrated, everybody got hilariously drunk. Yes, even Vernon
Roscoe got drunk, because Annabelle was too drunk to stop him; Vee Tracy
defied her doctor, and Dad forgot his resolutions, and even Bunny drank
enough to make him fear for his idealism. Man is a gregarious animal,
and it is hard not to do what everybody you know is doing!
II
Christmas had come, and the quail were calling from the hills at
Paradise. There were not so many on the tract, but there was plenty of
adjacent land over which an oil prince and his royal sire were welcome
to shoot. And once you were out of sight of the derricks, and out of
smell of the refinery, it was the same beautiful country, with the same
clear sky and golden sunsets, and you could get the poisons of bootleg
liquor out of your blood, and the embarrassing memories out of your
soul. Tramping these rocky hills, drawing this magical air into your
lungs, it was impossible to think that men would not some day learn to
be happy!
This visit corresponded with a great historic event, which put Paradise
upon the map of California. Eli Watkins, prophet of the Lord, had
completed the payments for the land upon which his tabernacle in Angel
City was to stand, and he celebrated this event by coming back to the
scenes of his boyhood, the little frame temple where the Third
Revelation had been handed down to mankind, and there holding a novel
and interesting performance of his own invention, known as a “Bible
Marathon.” You see, Eli had read in the papers about Marathon races, and
though he didn’t know what the word meant, it was romantic-sounding, and
he had a fondness for strange words. So the disciples of the First
Apostolic Church of Paradise announced that a “Bible Marathon” consisted
in reading the Lord’s Holy Word straight through without a single pause;
they would be told off in relays, and day and night there would be a
little group in the church, and one voice after another would take up
the sacred task, regardless of oil wells “on the pump” just outside the
door.
This was Big Magic. Not only did it thrill the believers, and bring
swarms of people to town, but it caught the fancy of the newspapers, and
they rushed reporters to write up the event. Many new miracles were
wrought, and many crutches hung up; and in the midst of the excitement
the Lord vouchsafed a fresh sign of His mercy—Eli, preaching to the
throngs outside, announced in the Lord’s name that if the reading were
completed, Divine Omnipotence would cause the rest of the money to be
offered, and the Angel City tabernacle would be erected within a year.
After that, of course, nothing could stop the “Marathon,” and the
epoch-making feat was accomplished in the time of four days, five hours,
seventeen minutes, and forty-two and three-quarter seconds—glory
hallelujah, praise the Lord!
Bunny saw the shouting thousands with their heads bared, their faces
uplifted and a searchlight playing upon them; for Eli had money now, and
used it for spectacular effects. His “silver band” was mounted upon a
platform with electric lights shining upon the instruments; and the
prophet would exhort, and then wave his hand, and the musicians would
blare forth an old gospel tune, and the crowd would burst into a mighty
chorus, and sway and stamp, their souls transported to glory, the tears
running down their cheeks.
There were many wives of oil workers among the audience, and these would
plead and pray, and persuade their husbands to attend. There is not much
for a man to do out in a lonely place like Paradise; a third-rate movie
was the only form of amusement—and here were the bright lights and the
silver trumpets and the heavenly raptures, all free—and with a
gambler’s chance of heaven thrown in! No wonder many of the men “fell
for it”; and Paul and his little bunch of rebels insisted that the
employers had hired Eli to come there at this critical time, while the
struggle to save the union was impending. Bunny would have thought the
idea exaggerated—but then he remembered that five hundred dollars his
father had given to Eli! Also, he remembered a remark of Vernon Roscoe
at the Monastery—“They can have their pie in the sky, so long as they
let me have the oil.” Annabelle had given a frightened exclamation,
“Hush, Verne! What a horrid thing to say!” For Annabelle knew that the
heavenly powers are jealous, and liable to cruel whims.
The “wobblies” also were trying to stir the revival spirit in their
members, and use the power of song. But feeble indeed was the singing in
the “jungles,” compared with the mighty blast of Eli’s silver trumpets,
and the hosannas of his hosts. The operators were not subsidizing the
“wobblies,” you bet! They had sent their sheriff, and a score of
deputies, carrying shot-guns loaded with buckshot, and raided the
camping place of the rebels, and loaded eleven of them into a
motor-truck and locked them up in the county jail. There they were now,
and Bunny had to hear the tragic tale of Eddie Piatt, one of Paul’s
friends, who had gone down to San Elido to find out what the bail was,
and had been locked up on suspicion of being a member of the outlaw
organization. He wasn’t, but how could he prove it?
Ruth, who told Bunny about it, wanted to know if Dad wouldn’t put up the
money to bail him out. Did Bunny remember him, a dark-haired young
fellow, very quiet, determined-looking? Yes, Bunny remembered him. Well,
he was as trust-worthy as a Jewish garment worker, and the food they
gave you in that terrible place was full of worms, and the boys hadn’t
even a blanket to cover them. It was planned to railroad them all to San
Quentin, and Paul knew one of the “politicals” who had just come out of
there, and oh, the most horrible stories—the tears came into Ruth’s
eyes as she told how they put the men to work in the jute-mill, and the
brown stuff filled their lungs, and presently they were coughing, it was
the same as a death-sentence. When they could not stand the labor, they
were beaten and thrown into the “hole”—and think of fellows that you
knew and cared for having to go through such things!
Bunny knew the sheriff of San Elido County, and also the district
attorney, and knew that Dad had named these officials, and could give
them orders. But would Dad butt in on their efforts to protect the oil
companies? Would he go against the wishes of all the other directors,
executives and superintendents of Ross Consolidated? No, assuredly he
would not! All that Bunny could do was to give Ruth a couple of hundred
dollars, with which to get food for the prisoners. He went back to take
up his work at the university; and inside himself there was a “hole,”
and his conscience would drag him to it, protesting and resisting in
vain, and throw him in, and shut a steel door behind him with a
terrifying clang. Yes, even when Bunny was up in the snow-white room
with the ivy vines wreathing the window, even while he held in his arms
the eager body of his beloved—even then the prison door would clang,
and he would be in a tank of the county jail with the “class-war
prisoners”!
III
Under the arrangements which had kept peace in the oil industry during
the war, a government “oil board” would listen to grievances of the
workers, and decide what was fair. But now the war was fading in men’s
memories, and the operators were restive under this “outside” control.
Was it not the fundamental right of every American to run his own
business in his own way? Was it not obvious that war-time wages had been
high, and that “deflation” was desirable? Here and there some operator
would refuse to obey the orders of the “oil board”; there would be long
arguments, and resorts to the courts, and meantime the workers would be
protesting, and threatening, and everyone could see that a crisis was at
hand.
In the old days, J. Arnold Ross had been one of the little fellows, and
all that Bunny could do was to await events. But now he dwelt among the
Olympians, and saw the fates in the making. The Petroleum Operators’
Federation, by its executive committee, of which Vernon Roscoe was a
member, came to a decision to brush the Federal Oil Board aside, ignore
the unions, and announce a new schedule of wages for the industry. A
copy of this schedule was in Dad’s hands, and it averaged about 10
percent under the present scale.
It was going to mean a bitter struggle, and Bunny was so much concerned
that, without saying anything to his father, he made an appeal to Mr.
Roscoe. This being a business matter, the proprieties suggested a visit
to the office, so Bunny called up the secretary and asked for an
appointment in the regular way.
The great man sat at his flat mahogany desk, as clear of papers as the
prevailing superstition required. It appeared as if a captain of
industry had not a thing to do but grin at a college boy, and gossip
about the boy’s mistress and his own. But then Bunny remarked, “Mr.
Roscoe, I came to see you here because I want to talk to you about the
new wage-scale.” And in a flash the smile went off the magnate’s face,
and it seemed as if even the fat went off his jaws; if you have thought
of him as a mixture of geniality and buffoonery, this is the time for
you to set yourself straight, along with Bunny, and all other rebels
against the American system.
Bunny started to tell about the way the men felt, and the trouble that
was brewing; but Mr. Roscoe stopped him. “Listen here, Jim Junior, and
save a lot of breath. I know everything the men are saying, and
everything that Bolshevik bunch up there is teaching them. I get a
confidential report every week. I know about your friend, Tom Axton, and
your Paul Watkins, and your Eddie Piatt, and your Bud Stoner and your
Jick Duggan—I could tell you all you know, and a lot that would
surprise you.”
Bunny was taken aback, as the other had intended. “Jim Junior,” he
continued, “you’re a bright boy, and you’ll get over this nonsense, and
I want to help you over it—I might save you a lot of suffering, and
also your father, that’s the salt of the earth. I’ve been in this world
thirty or forty years longer than you, and I’ve learned a lot that you
don’t know, but some day you will. Your father and the rest of us that
are running the oil industry, we got here because we know how, and
that’s a real thing, by Jees, and not just a lot of words. But some
other fellers want to kick us out, and think all they got to do is to
make speeches to oil workers and set them to raising hell—but let me
tell you, kiddo, it’s going to take a lot more than that!”
“Yes, Mr. Roscoe, but that’s not the point—”
“Pardon me, but it is. Let’s cut out the hokum—just say to yourself
that I’ve been sitting in at the arguments of that Bolshevik bunch of
yours. Do they mean to take the industry away from me and your old man,
or don’t they?”
“Well, they may think that ultimately—”
“Yes, exactly. And so far as I’m concerned, the time to stop the
ultimately is now. And I tell you that if any sons-of-bitches imagine
they’re going to live off my wages while they’re getting ready to rob
me, they’re mistaken; and if they find themselves in the jute-mill at
San Quentin, they’re not going to get my money to bail them out!”
That was a centre shot, and Vernon Roscoe was looking Bunny straight in
the eye. “Jim, Junior, I know all the fine idealistic phrases them
fellers use on you. It’s all lovely and sweet and for the good of
humanity—but they know that’s all bait for suckers, and if you could
hear them laughing at you behind your back, you’d realize how you’re
being used. What I tell you is, you better get on your own side of the
fence before the shooting begins.”
“Is there going to be shooting, Mr. Roscoe?”
“That’s up to your Bolshevik friends. We’ve got what we want, and
they’re going to take it away from us.”
“We needed the oil workers during the war, Mr. Roscoe, and we made them
promises—”
“Pardon me, kiddo—we didn’t make any promises at all! A god-damn
long-faced snivelling college professor made them for us, and we’re done
with that bunk for good! We’ve got a business man for president, and
we’re going to run this country on business lines. And let me tell you
for one, I’m god-damn sick of having to buy labor leaders, and I can
think of cheaper ways to manage it.”
Bunny was startled. “Is that really true, Mr. Roscoe? Have you been able
to buy the oil workers’ officials?”
Verne hitched himself a few inches across the desk, and stuck a large
finger at Bunny’s face. “Kiddo,” he said, “get this straight: I can buy
any officials, just the same as I can buy any politicians, or anybody
else that a bunch of boobs can elect to office. And I know what you’re
thinking—here’s an old cow-puncher, without any fine ideals, and he’s
got a barrel o’ money and thinks he can do anything he pleases with it.
But that ain’t the point, my boy—it’s because I had the brains to make
the money, and I got the brains to use it. Money ain’t power till it’s
used, and the reason I can buy power is because men know I can use
it—or else, by Jees, they wouldn’t sell it to me. You get that?”
“Yes, but what are you going to do with the power, Mr. Roscoe?”
“I’m going to find oil and bring it to the top of the ground and refine
it and sell it to whoever’s got the price. So long as the world needs
oil, that’s my job; and when they can get along without oil, I’ll do
something else. And if anybody wants a share in that job, let him do
like I done, get out and sweat, and work, and play the game.”
“But Mr. Roscoe, that’s hardly practical advice for all the workers.
Everybody can’t be an operator.”
“No, kiddo, you bet your boots they can’t—only them that’s got the
brains. The rest have to work; and if they work for me, they’ll get fair
wages, and the money will be there every Saturday night for them, no
matter how much worrying and planning I got to do. But when some feller
comes along with the gift of the gab, and sticks himself in between me
and my men, and says I can’t deal with them except by paying him a
rake-off, why then I say, ‘The jute-mill for him!’”
IV
The thing that Bunny carried away from this interview was Vernon
Roscoe’s final appeal. “Can’t you see, boy, that your father’s a sick
man? You’re not going to have him with you many years more, and some day
when it’s too late you’re going to wake up and realize what you done to
him. That old man ain’t had a thought in the world but to make things
easier for you; you can say he shouldn’t if you want to, but all the
same, that’s what he lived for. And now—now you’re spittin’ on his
life! Yes, just that, and you might as well face it. Everything he’s
done has been no good, it’s all crooked and dirty, and the only people
with any ideals or any rights on their side are a bunch of
ne’er-do-wells that hate him because he’s made good and they never will.
And if you think the old man don’t feel that, if you don’t know it’s
eating his heart out—well, you take it from me, and get your eyes open
before it’s too late. If you got to despise your father’s money, for
Christ’s sake wait till he’s dead, and the money’s your own.”
So when Bunny went out from the office, he was not thinking about the
troubles of the oil workers. Was it true that Dad’s health was so bad?
And wasn’t there some way he could be got to stop working so hard? Was
it necessary for him to be on hand and see every new well that Ross
Consolidated brought in, whether it was at Lobos River or Paradise or
Beach City? And what was going to happen to Dad when this labor struggle
actually came to a head?
Early in the spring the union leaders held a conference, and served
notice on the oil board that the defiance of government authority by the
operators was beyond endurance; either the board must assert its
authority, or else the workers would take matters into their own hands.
The board did nothing; and when the union officials addressed letters to
the operators’ committee, the letters were ignored. A strike was
inevitable; and the longer it was postponed, the worse for the men.
Then a peculiar thing happened. Vee Tracy came to Bunny; she had just
completed another picture—no propaganda this time, no, she had laid
down the law to Schmolsky, she would never again have anything to do
with Russia, or with strikes, or anything that might wound the
sensibilities of her oil prince. This time the billboards announced
Viola Tracy in “An Eight Reel Comedy of College Capers, entitled
‘Come-hither Eyes.’” Vee was glorious as the flirt of the campus,
breaking hearts of football stars by the eleven at a time, and
incidentally foiling the plot of a band of bookmakers, who had bet a
million dollars on the outcome of the big game, and sought to paralyze
the team by kidnapping its mascot and darling. Bunny having no sympathy
with either bookmakers or kidnappers, it had been all right for him to
watch this picture in the making, and supply local color out of his
experience with college capers.
The “world premiere” of “Come-hither Eyes” was to take place in New
York, and the star had to attend. “Bunny,” she said, “why not come with
me, and have a little fun?”
Now Bunny had never been east, and the idea was tempting. He had two
weeks’ Easter vacation, and if he missed a bit of college, it could be
made up. He said he would think it over; and later in the day—this was
at the Monastery—Annabelle opened up on him, “Why don’t you go with
Vee, and take Dad along? The change would be the very thing for him.”
He studied her ingenuous countenance, and a grin came over his own.
“What’s this, Annabelle—you and Verne trying to get us out of the way
of the strike?”
She answered, “If your friends really care for you, they’ll wish you to
be happy.” And when he said something about it’s being cowardly to run
away, she made a striking reply. “We’re going to have roast spring lamb
for dinner, but you didn’t consider it necessary to visit the
slaughter-house.”
“Annabelle,” he replied, “you are a social philosopher.” And she told
him that people went to universities to learn long names for plain
common sense!
Evidently the plot was deeply laid; for when Bunny got back home, there
was Dad, inquiring, “Did Verne say anything about what he wants me to
do?”
“No, Dad, what’s that?”
“There’s a conference in New York that somebody’s got to attend, and he
wanted to know if I could get away. I was wondering if it would break
you up at the university if you were to take a bit of vacation.”
Bunny debated with himself. What could be accomplished by staying? In
the first strike, he had managed to keep the workers in their homes, but
he couldn’t do even that much now, for Verne would be in charge, and
would not budge an inch. Annabelle’s simile of the spring lamb appeared
to fit exactly the position of the oil workers’ union. The job of
slaughtering might take weeks, or even months, but it would be done—and
all that Bunny could do would be to torment his poor father.
And then Bertie was called into the conspiracy. Bertie wanted him to go.
She was to visit the fashionable Woodbridge Riley’s, and after that to
be on Thelma Norman’s yacht, and she didn’t want her brother getting
mixed up in an oil strike and perhaps making another stink in the
newspapers! Wouldn’t he think about Dad for once, and get the old man to
take a rest? Bunny was tired of arguing, and said, all right.
V
The proposed trip brought up a curious problem. How did one travel with
one’s mistress, in this “land of the pilgrim’s pride?” Bunny remembered
vaguely having heard of people being put out of hotels, because of the
lack of marriage certificates. Would he and Vee have to meet
clandestinely? He asked her about it, assuming that her experience would
cover the question; and it did. On the trains one took a compartment,
and no questions were asked. As for hotels, you went to the most
fashionable, and let them know who you were, and they made no objection
to putting you in adjoining suites, with a connecting door. Look at
Verne and Annabelle, said Vee; when it suited their convenience they
stayed quite openly at the most high-toned of Angel City’s hotels, and
there was never a peep from either the management or the newspapers. It
had happened more than once that Mrs. Roscoe had been stopping at the
same hotel, and the papers would report her doings on the society page,
and Annabelle’s on the dramatic page, so there was never any clash.
In truth the land of the pilgrim’s pride no longer existed; in its place
was the land of the millionaire’s glory. When a moving picture star went
east, with or without a paramour, she always left by daylight, and her
publicity man saw to it that the newspapers published the time and
place. There would be shouting thousands, and policemen to hold them
back, and cameras clicking, and armfuls of flowers to let everybody on
the train know who was who. There would be crowds at every station,
calling for a glimpse of their darling; and if she had an oil prince
travelling in the same compartment, that was not a scandal, it was a
romance.
And when they got to New York, there was another crowd, conjured into
being by the efficient publicity machine of Schmolsky-Superba. At the
hotel there were people waiting, and more armfuls of flowers, and a
dozen reporters demanding interviews. And with all that free advertising
for the hotel, was any officious clerk or house detective going to
concern himself with the question of whether or not the connecting door
between two suites was kept locked? And with a personage of such
magnificent authority as J. Arnold Ross travelling along, and beaming
his approval on the situation? Dad’s face was as good as a dozen
marriage certificates at any hotel in the land!
For the old man this journey was just peaches and cream all the way; a
vicarious jag, with no “hang-over” the next morning. He insisted upon
paying all the bills; and he had his secretary along, so everything just
happened by magic—train accommodations, hotel suites, taxicabs,
flowers, candy, theatre tickets—you had only to hint a wish, and the
thing was there. What more could there be to add to mortal bliss? Only
that Vee would have liked to eat a square meal now and then; and to have
spent the morning in bed, instead of having to keep an appointment to
“reduce” at a gymnasium!
They saw the world premiere of “Come-hither Eyes.” Possibly you have
never been to college in America, and do not understand our lively ways
of speech; so let it be explained that sometimes the eyes of “co-eds”
have been observed to possess, whether from natural endowment or by
practice acquired, a certain quality suggestive to the male creature of
an impulse to proximity. A delicious title, you see; and a delicious
picture, transporting tired and bored millions into that very same world
of glorious money-spending to which Vee and Bunny had been lifted up.
The mechanic who had been screwing up nut number 847 in an automobile
factory all day, the housewife who had been washing baby-diapers and
buying shoddy goods in a five and ten-cent store—these were placed in
the same position as Dad, enjoying a vicarious jag with no hang-over the
next morning!
The scenes at the New York premiere were the same as in Angel City; the
crowds as great, and the cheering as enthusiastic. And Vee and Bunny,
sitting up in bed in their silken garments, while black-clad robots
silently and mechanically served breakfast on silver trays—Vee and
Bunny read the accounts of their triumph, and who had attended and what
they had worn. And then, turning over the paper, Bunny read a dispatch
from Angel City—ten thousand oil workers had walked out on strike, and
the industry was tied up tight. The operators announced that they were
no longer willing to recognize the oil board, and issued a new
wage-scale that was to be taken or left. Trouble was feared, added the
newspapers, because it was known that radical agitators had for some
time been active among the men.
VI
Bunny was on a holiday, and must enjoy himself; if he failed to do so,
the enjoyment of his two companions would be marred. He must smile and
escort them to a theatre, and afterwards send Dad home in a taxi, and go
with Vee to a supper-party with some of the screen people, and gossip
about their productions and their profits, and see them drink too much,
and know that there would be an hour’s talk about prohibition and
bootleggers, starting as soon as he and Vee refused to drink. Were they
“on the wagon”? Or were they afraid of this liquor? This was something
special—the original Koski stuff, or whatever it might be in New York.
Then in the morning the pair would go to the “gym,” and practice stunts
together, making themselves a quite competent pair of gymnasts—Vee said
that if ever Dad went broke, and she got “kleig eyes” and had to quit
the movies, they could earn several hundred a week on the “big time
circuit.” They would have lunch, and then maybe there would be a
matinee, or somebody calling, or reporters or special writers; or Vee
would go shopping, and absolutely insist upon having her darling Bunny
along, because he had such exquisite taste, and why did she dress but to
please him? Bunny met other rich young men in his position, and learned
that such remarks were preliminary to the man’s ordering the bill sent
to him. But there was nothing of the “gold-digger” about Vee—when she
gave the invitation, she paid.
What she wanted was her Bunny-rabbit. She adored him, and wanted to be
with him every moment, and to show him off to all the world, including
the newspapers. They had been together long enough for Bunny to know her
thoroughly, and to realize the drawbacks as well as the advantages of
the alliance. That she was sensual did not trouble him, for he was
young, and his ardors matched hers. The arts that he had learned from
Eunice Hoyt were combined with those Vee had learned from many lovers,
and they were dizzy with delight; the impulse that drew them together
was impossible to resist.
But intellectually they were far from being mated. Vee would listen to
anything he wanted to talk about, but how little she really cared about
serious things would be comically revealed by her sudden shifting of the
conversation. She had her own life, one of speed and excitement and
show. She might jeer at the movie world and its works, but nevertheless,
she was of that world, and applause and attention were the breath she
lived by. She was always on the stage, playing a part—the world’s
professional darling; always bright, always fresh, young, beautiful,
sprightly. Such a thing as thoughtfulness was suspect, a cloak for
dangerous enemies stealing into your mind. “What’s the matter,
Bunny-rabbit? I believe you’re thinking about that horrid strike!”
Sitting down and reading a book was a thing quite unknown to this
world’s darling. A newspaper, yes, of course, or a magazine—one had
them lying about, and a man would pick them up and glance over
something, but always ready to stop to look at a new dress or listen to
a bit of gossip. But to become absorbed in reading and not want to be
interrupted—well, it didn’t seem quite polite, did it? As for spending
a whole afternoon or evening reading a book—Vee had simply never heard
of such a thing. She did not put it into words, but Bunny could
understand that a book was cheap; anybody could get one and sit off in a
corner, but few could have a box at the theatre, presented by the
management, and sit there, almost as important as the play.
One of the young fellows who had taught at Dan Irving’s labor college
was in New York, and Bunny met him, and they talked about what was going
on in the labor movement all over the world. Bunny would have liked to
meet him again, and to go to meetings—there were so many exciting
things in this great city, headquarters of the radical movement as of
everything else. But Vee found out about this, and set out to save
him—just as if he had wanted to smoke opium or drink absinthe! She
would make engagements for him, and claim his time, and question him,
with an anxious, “Where is my wandering boy tonight?” sort of an air.
Bunny knew, of course, that she was doing it for his soul’s salvation,
and doubtless at Dad’s direct request; but all the same it was a bore.
He had one other acquaintance, to whom Vee made no objection—his
mother. She had married again some time ago, and her husband was rich,
and she had a lovely home, so she had written. Bunny went to see her,
and had to make an extreme effort not to reveal his consternation at her
appearance. A dreadful example of what happened when a woman yielded to
her craving for a square meal! Mamma had filled out till she was round
as a ball of butter, and so soft that it was hard to keep together on a
hot day like this. “Fair, fat, and forty” runs the saying; the surgeons
add, “and a bad gall bladder,” but Bunny didn’t know that, and neither
did Mamma. She was dressed like a queen in his honor, and had a poodle
dog—selected, as Vee would have said, to match her figure. Her husband
was a dealer in jewelry, and apparently he used his wife instead of a
safe. She insisted on giving Bunny a diamond ring, and when he told her
about the strike, she gave him another to be sold for the strikers’
relief fund. Oil men were cruel, said Mamma—she knew!
VII
Dad was attending to the business which had brought him east. He didn’t
say much about it, and that was unusual, so Bunny knew it was something
off color. Presently he wormed it out of his father, it had to do with
those naval reserve leases they were planning to get. President Harding
had been inaugurated, and had made Barney Brockway his attorney-general,
according to schedule, and appointed Vernon Roscoe’s man as secretary of
the interior. This was Senator Crisby, an old party hack who had served
Roscoe and O’Reilly when they were occupied in turning out one Mexican
administration and putting in another; they had held over the Mexicans’
heads the threat of American intervention, and this Crisby, as senator
from Texas, had clamored for war and almost got it. He couldn’t let
women alone, Dad said, and so he was always busted, and ready for any
new job that came along.
Now he was to give the oil men a whole string of valuable leases for
practically nothing; but he had to have more money, there were a lot of
fellows that had to have a lot more money. That was the trouble in
dealing with politicians; you bought them before election, and then you
had to buy them again after election, they wouldn’t “stay put,” like
business men. What Dad had come on here for was to consult a lawyer that
Verne considered the greatest in the country, and fix up a little
corporation for the purpose of buying government officials legally. Of
course Dad didn’t put it in those crude words, but that was what it
amounted to, Bunny insisted, and how could it be done? Dad answered that
a real good lawyer could do anything. This was going to be a Canadian
corporation, so that it wouldn’t have to obey United States laws; and
the men that took stock in it were to get their leases in the end. But
the trouble was, nobody could be sure just what the leases would be
worth, and Pete O’Reilly and Fred Orpan were trying to make Dad and
Verne put up too big a share of the money. Verne was mad and said they
could go to hell, and he wanted Dad to settle down and wait a while in
New York, and bluff them out. Could Bunny make up his mind to skip the
rest of his college term, and maybe do some studying with a tutor, and
pass his examinations in the fall?
Bunny said he didn’t care about college, but this worried him—what was
Dad getting in for with this Canadian corporation? Dad insisted it was
perfectly all right, he had the best lawyer in the country. But Bunny
said, “Are you sure Verne isn’t putting something over on you?” Dad was
shocked at that, how could Bunny have such an idea, why Verne was the
best friend Dad had ever had in business, he was straight as they made
them. “Yes, Dad, but they don’t make them so very straight in the
oil-game. And why doesn’t Verne do his own bribing? Why didn’t he come
to New York?”
“But son, Verne has got to handle the strike—you know he couldn’t get
away now. He’s taken that off my shoulders, and you ought to be glad.”
Dad added a naive remark, the oil men wouldn’t let him deal with labor,
he was “too soft.” The phrase sounded familiar.
It turned out that Vee and Dad had been putting their heads together.
Vee wanted a vacation, also; they would go up to Canada to complete
Dad’s business, and then they would find a camp, and instead of tiresome
“gym” work, she and Bunny would tramp the forests and swim in a
beautiful lake. So Dad sent a telegram to President Alonzo T. Cowper,
D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., explaining that urgent business compelled his son to
remain in the east, and could it be arranged that Bunny might return and
take his examinations in the fall? Dr. Cowper wired that the authorities
would be very pleased indeed to grant this favor.
And then, the very morning after it was all settled, a telegram came for
Bunny, and he opened it and read the signature. Ruth Watkins. With
swiftly flying eyes he took in the sense of it—Paul and Eddie Piatt and
Bud Stoner and Jick Duggan and four others of their group had been
arrested, charged with “suspicion of criminal syndicalism,” and were
lodged in the San Elido county jail with ten thousand dollars bail
demanded for Paul and seventy-five hundred for each of the others. “They
have done nothing and everybody knows it,” declared the telegram,
“merely scheme to lock them up during strike. Jail is horrible place
Paul’s health will not stand it implore you for sake our old friendship
obtain needed bail for all surely no need assure you no money will be
lost on our boys.”
VIII
At first Bunny had a cruel suspicion—that his father had known of this
arrest, or at any rate that it was pending, before his latest effort to
keep Bunny away from California. But he realized, it was enough to
believe that Vernon Roscoe, intending to break up the “nest of
Bolshevism” in the Rascum cabin, had made plans to get both Dad and
Bunny away and keep them away. Anyhow, the scheme would not work, for
Bunny was not going to permit his friend to be treated in that crude
fashion!
Dad happened to be out, and Bunny showed the telegram to Vee, and talked
it out with her. She wanted to know what he meant to do, and he answered
that Dad would have to put up the bail for Paul, at least.
“But Bunny, you know he can’t do that—he wouldn’t cross Verne in regard
to the strike.”
“He’s simply; got to do it, Vee! I’d be a dog to let a man like Paul be
locked up in that filthy hole.”
“But suppose Dad won’t, Bunny?”
“Then I’ve got to go back, that’s all there is to it.”
“What could you do when you got there?”
“I’ll hunt around till I find somebody that’s got a sense of decency and
also a little cash.”
“The combination isn’t so easy to find, dear—I know, because I’ve tried
it. And it’s going to make Dad dreadfullly unhappy, to say nothing of
spoiling our vacation. I have just learned of the loveliest place—a
camp that Schmolsky bought up in Ontario, and he’s never been there,
he’s too busy. And, oh, Bunny, I thought we were going to have such a
marvelous time.”
She put her arms about him, but he hardly knew she was there, so cruelly
was his spirit wrung by the vision of Paul in jail. And he, Bunny,
running away from the trouble, loafing about and pretending it was a
“vacation”! He that thought he understood the social problem, and had an
ideal, at least a glimpse of what was kind and fair! He broke loose from
Vee’s arms and began to pace the floor, storming half at himself for a
renegade and half at the dirty crooks that ran the government of San
Elido county, and stole the funds that were supposed to keep the jail
clean and feed the prisoners. Bunny was twisting his hands together in
his misery, and Vee watched him, startled; it was a new aspect of her
Bunny-rabbit, that she had thought so sweet and soft and warm!
“Listen, dear!” she broke in, suddenly. “Stop a minute and talk to me
quietly. You know, I don’t know much about these things.”
“What is it?”
“How can you be sure that Paul hasn’t broken any law?”
“Because I know him. I know all his ideas. I’ve talked the thing out
with him from A to Z—all about this strike, and how it’s to be handled,
the importance of getting the men to stand as a unit, how everything
else must be subordinated to that. That’s what he’s been doing, and
that’s why Verne has thrown him into jail.”
“You’re quite sure Verne has done it?”
“Of course—he and the rest of the operators’ committee. What are those
officials in San Elido, but office-boys for the oil men? Before Verne
came in there, Dad ran that county; I’ve seen him pay the money with my
own eyes, and more times than one.”
“And you don’t think they may have evidence that Paul has been conniving
at violence?”
“I don’t know what evidence they’ve got. Verne as good as told me he had
spies on that bunch, and I don’t know what those spies may have
planted—and neither does Verne know, for that matter. That’s one of the
damnable things about it. Another is—you see that charge, ‘suspicion of
criminal syndicalism’! What they call ‘criminal syndicalism’ means that
you advocate overthrowing the government, or changing the social system
by force; but you notice they don’t arrest you for that—they arrest you
for ‘suspicion’ of it! In other words, you advocate some idea that some
ignorant cop or some crook in office chooses to think may be dangerous,
and then they throw you into jail, and there you stay—the courts are
crowded, and they can keep you a year without a trial or any chance at
all.”
“Oh, surely they can’t do that, Bunny!”
“They’re doing it right along. I know fellows it’s been done to. They
put the bail high on purpose, so that workingmen can’t get it. And they
think they’re going to do it to Paul Watkins, the best boy-friend I ever
had, the straightest fellow I ever knew—yes, by God, and he went to
Siberia and served in that war, and came out sick—that boy was as tough
as a hickory nut before that, a country fellow, simple and straight, and
with no vices. And this is the reward he gets for his services to his
country—by Jesus, I’d like to see them get me to fight for a country
like that!”
Bunny had to dash a tear out of his eyes, and he began to pace the floor
again, and stumbled against a chair. Vee put her arms about him and
whispered, “Listen, dear, I know some people that have got money, and I
may be able to help you. Leave it to me for a few hours, and don’t say
anything to Dad about it—what’s the use of worrying him to no purpose?
If I can arrange it, he’ll be able to tell Verne that he knew nothing
about it, and that’ll be so much better all round.”
She went off, and a couple of hours later came back. Bunny was to wire
Ruth that neither he nor his father could do anything, but a friend had
taken an interest in the case, and the money had been deposited with the
American Bonding Company, and their office in Angel City would obtain
Paul’s release. Bunny said, “How did you do it?” and she answered, “The
less you know about it the better. I know somebody that owns some real
estate in Angel City, and has a salary coming to them, and employers
that are anxious to keep them happy and contented.” Bunny said it must
have cost a good deal, and he ought to pay it back, and Vee said, “Yes,
it cost a pile, and you’re going to pay in love and affection, and you
can start right now.” She flew to his arms, and he covered her with
kisses, and it was like an orchestra that went surging up in their
hearts. It is an extremely unsettling thing to have a whole orchestra
inside you!
IX
Well, Paul got out, and Bunny was supposed to be satisfied. To be sure,
seven other fellows were in, and Bunny knew them all; but it would have
cost fifty-two thousand five hundred dollars to release them, and that
would certainly be carrying idealism to unreasonable extremes. So Bunny
let Vee carry him and Dad off to that “camp” on a lake with a long
Indian name, and there they swam, and canoed, and fished, and tramped
the forests, and took pictures of moose in the water; they had Indian
guides, and everything romantic—and at the same time hot and cold water
in their bed-rooms, and steam-heat if they wanted it; all the comforts
of Broadway and Forty-second Street.
Here, if ever, they had a chance to get enough of each other; there were
no distractions, no social duties, no visitors dropping in, no dressing
to be done; they were together all day and all night. What Bunny found
was that they were perfectly happy so long as they were doing physical
things: canoe trips to other places, new fishing stunts, hunting with
the camera, shooting rapids, learning to make camp, to start a fire like
the Indians—anything it might be. But they must be playing all the
time, otherwise a great gulf opened between them. If Bunny wanted to
read, what was Vee to do?
Once a day a little steamer came the length of the lake and put off
supplies and a packet of mail. There were papers from Angel City, and
also, once a week, the strike bulletin of the oil workers, which Bunny
had very unwisely subscribed for. What was the use of running three
thousand miles away from trouble, and then having it sent to you in a
mail sack? Reading of the scenes that he knew so well—the meetings, the
relief work, the raising of funds, the struggles with the guards, the
arrests, the sufferings of the men in jail, the beating up of strike
pickets, the insolence of the sheriff and other officials, the
dishonesty of the newspapers—it was exactly the same as if Bunny were
in Paradise. Paul was one of the executive committee, Paul had become
Tom Axton’s right-hand man, and his speeches were quoted, and his
experiences in the San Elido county jail—when Bunny had finished that
little paper, he was so shaken he was not the same all day. Vee found
out about it, of course, and began trying to persuade him to stop
reading it. Had he not done his share by giving the strikers back their
leader? And had he not promised to repay her, his darling Vee-Vee, with
love and affection for a whole summer?
Bunny wrestled it out with his own soul, in such free moments as he
could get. He told himself that it was to help his father—a more
respectable excuse than entertaining a mistress! But did his father have
a right to expect so much? Did any one person have a right to replace
all the rest of humanity? If it was the duty of the young to sacrifice
themselves for the old, how could there ever be any progress in the
world? As time passed, and the struggle in the oil fields grew more
tense, the agony of the workers more evident, Bunny came to the clear
decision that his flight had been cowardly.
He tried to explain his point of view to Vee, but only to run into a
stone wall. It was not a subject for reasoning, it was a matter of
instinct with her. She believed in her money; she had starved for it,
sold herself, body and mind, for it, and she meant to hang onto it.
Bunny’s so-called “radical movement” meant to her that others wanted to
take it away. He discovered a strange, hard streak in her; she would
spend money lavishly, for silks and furs and jewels, for motor-cars and
parties—but that was all professional, it was part of her advertising
bill. But, on the other hand, where no display was involved, where the
public did not enter—there she hated to spend money; he overheard her
wrangling with a washer-woman over the amount to be charged for the
ironing of her lingerie, and those filmy night-dresses in which she
seduced his soul.
No, he could never make a “radical” out of this darling of the world; he
would have to make up his mind to that. She would listen to him, because
she loved him, even the sound of his voice talking nonsense; she would
make a feeble pretense at agreeing, but all the time it was as if he had
the measles and she waiting for him to get cured; as if he were drunk
and she trying to get him “on the wagon.” She had apologized to Rachel,
and had got Paul out of jail, but merely to please him, and in reality
she hated both these people. Still more did she hate Ruth, with a cold,
implacable hatred—an intriguing minx, pretending to be a simple country
maiden in order to win an oil prince! No women were simple, if you
believed Vee, and damn few of them were maidens.
Nor would Ruth ever stop being a nuisance. In the midst of one of their
happiest times, she sent Bunny another telegram—her brother was in jail
again, this time it was contempt of court. Bunny considered it necessary
to paddle down to the nearest telegraph office and wire Mr. Dolliver,
the lawyer, to investigate and report. The answer came that nothing
could be done—Paul and others of the strike leaders had disregarded an
injunction forbidding them to do this and that, and there was no bail
and no appeal, neither habeas corpusses nor counter-injunctions, and
Paul would have to serve his three months’ sentence.
Bunny was bitter and rebellious against judges who issued injunctions,
and Vee was afraid to speak, because it seemed obvious to her that
somebody had to control strikers. Of course after that there was a
shadow over their holiday—Bunny brooding upon his friend shut up in the
county jail. He sent Ruth five hundred dollars, to take care of all the
prisoners; and in course of time got a letter, saying that the prisoners
had refused the money, and Ruth had turned it over to the strike relief.
It was a terrible thing to see children without enough to eat; terrible
also that men who had power should use it to starve children! Thus the
“simple” Ruth—not meaning any hint at Dad!
X
Bunny had to study for his fall examinations, and that looked like a
problem, for what was Vee going to do? But fate provided a solution—Dad
telegraphed to Harvard University, which sent up a young instructor to
do tutoring, and he was the solution. He was tall, and had the loveliest
fair blue eyes, and a softly curling golden moustache, and soft golden
fuzz all over him like a baby; he wore gold nose-glasses, and had a
quiet voice and oh, so much culture—one of those master minds which can
tutor you in anything if you give them a week’s start!
Coming as he did from an old Philadelphia family, and having been
trained in the haughtiest centre of intellectual snobbery, you might
have thought he would look down upon an ex-mule-driver and his son, to
say nothing of an actress who had been raised in a patent medicine
vender’s wagon, and had never read a whole book in her life. But as a
matter of fact, young Mr. Appleton Laurence just simply collapsed in the
presence of the situation he found at this Ontario camp; it was the most
romantic and thrilling thing that a young instructor had encountered
since Harvard began. As for the patent medicine vender’s daughter, he
could not take his eyes off her, and when she came near, the tutoring
business was scattered as by a hurricane.
Vee of course had put her sparkling black eyes to work at once; all
those stunts which Tommy Paley had taught her she now tried out on a new
victim, and Bunny, as audience, was in position to study them
objectively. Vee would wait till Mr. Laurence had set Bunny his
morning’s work, and then she and the tutor would go for a walk in the
woods, and Bunny would sit with one-half his mind on his books, while
the other half wondered what was happening, and what he had reason to
expect from one who had had so many lovers.
She did not leave him long in doubt. “Bunny-rabbit,” she said, “you
aren’t going to be worried about my Appie, are you?”—for the hurricane
that struck the tutoring business had swept all dignity away, and Mr.
Appleton Laurence was “Appie,” except when he was “Applesauce.”
“I won’t worry unless you tell me to,” Bunny answered.
“That’s a dear! You must understand, I’m an actress, that’s the way I
earn my living, and I simply have to know all about love, and how can I
learn if I don’t practice?”
“Well, that’s all right, dear—”
“Some of the men they give you in Hollywood are such dubs, it makes you
sick, you would as soon be in the arms of a clothing dummy. So I have to
tell them how to act, and I have to know how a real gentleman
behaves—you know what I mean, the highbrows and snobs. Oh, Bunny, it’s
the cutest thing you ever saw, he falls down on his knees, and the tears
come into his eyes, and you know, he can recite all the poets by heart;
I never saw anything like it; you’d think he was an old Shakespearean
actor. And it’s really a great opportunity for me, to cultivate my taste
and get refined.”
“Well, yes, dear, but isn’t it a little hard on him?”
“Oh, rubbish, it won’t hurt him, he’ll go off and put it into
sonnets—he’s doing it already, and maybe he’ll get to be famous, and
it’d be great publicity! Don’t you bother about him, Bunny, and don’t
bother about me; there’s nobody in the world for me but my
Bunny-rabbit—all the rest is just a joke.” And she put her arms about
him. “I know what it is to be jealous, dear, and I wouldn’t cause you
that unhappiness for anything in the world. If you really mind, you can
send old Applesauce packing, and I won’t be cross.”
Bunny laughed. “I can’t do that, I’ve got to be tutored.”
Vee told Dad about it, too—lest he should be having any vicarious
pangs. When Dad heard about the falling on the knees and the tears, he
chuckled. Bunny would get the contents of the tutor’s mind, and Vee
would get the contents of his heart, and they would send him home like a
squeezed orange. It appealed to Dad as good business. Back in Paradise,
you remember, he was hiring a chemical wizard, paying him six thousand a
year, and making millions out of him!
XI
There came another development, to protect Vee from the possibility of
boredom. Schmolsky sent her up the “continuity” of the new picture upon
which she was to start work in the fall. And then suddenly it was
revealed that the world’s darling knew how to read! For a whole hour she
sat buried in it, and then she leaped up, ready to start rehearsing—and
all the hurricanes that ever swept the province of Ontario were as
nothing to the one that came now. Clear the way for “The Princess of
Patchouli”!
It was a popular musical comedy which was to be made into a moving
picture. “Patchouli” was one of the little Balkan kingdoms, though it
looked and acted very much like Vienna of the Strauss waltzes. A young
American engineer came in to build a railroad, and found himself
mistaken for a conspirator, and presently he was rescuing the lovely
princess from a revolutionary band—no Bolsheviks, these were
aristocratic array conspirators, so Bunny wouldn’t have his feelings
hurt, would he? Of course the hero carried her off, married her for love
only, and then got the kingdom thrown in—the bankers who were financing
the railroad bought it for him.
So here was Vee, being a princess all over the place. It was amazing to
watch her work—Bunny suddenly came to realize that her success hadn’t
been all money and sex, after all. She pounced onto the role like a
tiger-cat, and when she got going the rest of the world ceased to
exist—except to the extent that she needed it for a foil. “Now, Dad,
you’re the king; you walk in here—no, no, for God’s sake, kings don’t
walk so fast! And I have to fall at your feet, and plead for his life,
‘Oh, mercy sire, and so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so!’”
It is one of the peculiarities of motion picture acting that it doesn’t
matter what you say, so long as you are saying something; so Vee would
weep, “And so-and-so,” and she would croon “And so-and-so” in passionate
love-accents to either Bunny or Apple, and she would shriek “And
so-and-so” in deadly terror to an executioner with uplifted axe. And if
in the course of the scene the other person didn’t do it right, then
scolding and commands would serve equally well for a love-song, “Hold
it, now, you idiot, I adore you, darling”—or maybe it might be, “Take
your hands off me, foul beast—don’t let go, you goose, grab! That’s
better, you don’t have to be polite when you’re a murderer.”
If Bunny had wanted to rehearse tempestouous emotions, and shriek and
scream and tear his hair, he would have sought refuge in the woods,
where only the chipmunks could have heard him. But Vee was utterly
indifferent to the existence of other humans. That is something one
learns on “the lot”; for there will be camera-men and scene-shifters,
and property-boys, and carpenters working on the next set, and some
visitors that have managed to break in despite the strictest
regulations—and you just go on with your work. The first time the
executioner lifted his axe and Vee started screaming, the Indian guides
came running in alarm; but she hardly stopped even for a laugh, she went
on with the scene, while they stood staring with mouths wide open. She
and her two lovers would come in from swimming, and suddenly she would
call for a rehearsal of some royal pageantry—she could be a princess
just as well in a scanty bathing suit, with a carpet of pine-needles
under her bare feet.
Mr. Appleton Laurence had never met any princesses, but he had read a
great deal of history and poetry, and so he was an authority, and must
criticise her way of walking, her gestures, her attitudes, her reaction
to the love-advances of a handsome young American engineer. “Just
imagine you’re in love with me yourself, Appie,” she would say—and so
his emotions became sublimated into art, and he could pour out his soul
to her, right before Bunny and Dad and Dad’s secretary and the Indians!
“You’re much better at it than Bunny,” she would declare. “I believe
he’s got used to me, it’s as bad as if we were married.”
So the time passed pleasantly. Until at last Vee had got to feel
perfectly at home in her Appie’s conception of royalty; she no longer
had to ask questions, nor to stop and think, but knew instantly what to
do—and forever after, in all her entrances to and exits from Hollywood
society, she would be a little of a Harvard instructor’s Princess of
Patchouli. She was impatient now, wanting to see the sets, and to hear
Tommy Paley call, “Camera!” Bunny also was loaded up with answers to all
possible exam questions, and ready to get back and unload them onto his
professors. Dad had run down to Toronto, and signed the last of the
papers for his Canadian corporation; he had telegrams from Verne almost
every day—the strikers, having held out for nearly four months, had
learned their lesson, and the Federal Oil Board had written them a
letter, advising them to go back to work as individuals, and promising
there would be no discrimination against union men.
Then one day the steamer brought a telegram signed Annabelle, addressed
to Bunny, and reading, “Spring lamb for dinner come on home.” He
explained what that meant, the strike was over; and so the occupants of
the camp packed up, and Mr. Appleton Laurence went back to his fair
Harvard, with woe in his heart and a packet of immortal sonnets in his
suit-case, while Vee Tracy and Dad and Bunny and the secretary made
themselves luxurious in compartments on a Canadian-Pacific train bound
West.