Oil!

I

The road ran, smooth and flawless, precisely fourteen feet wide, the edges trimmed as if by shears, a ribbon of grey concrete, rolled out over the valley by a giant hand. The ground went in long waves, a slow ascent and then a sudden dip; you climbed, and went swiftly over—but you had no fear, for you knew the magic ribbon would be there, clear of obstructions, unmarred by bump or scar, waiting the passage of inflated rubber wheels revolving seven times a second. The cold wind of morning whistled by, a storm of motion, a humming and roaring with ever-shifting overtones; but you sat snug behind a tilted windshield, which slid the gale up over your head. Sometimes you liked to put your hand up, and feel the cold impact; sometimes you would peer around the side of the shield, and let the torrent hit your forehead, and toss your hair about. But for the most part you sat silent and dignified—because that was Dad’s way, and Dad’s way constituted the ethics of motoring.

Dad wore an overcoat, tan in color, soft and woolly in texture, opulent in cut, double-breasted, with big collar and big lapels and big flaps over the pockets—every place where a tailor could express munificence. The boy’s coat had been made by the same tailor, of the same soft, woolly material, with the same big collar and big lapels and big flaps. Dad wore driving gauntlets; and the same shop had had the same kind for boys. Dad wore horn-rimmed spectacles; the boy had never been taken to an oculist, but he had found in a drugstore a pair of amber-colored glasses, having horn rims the same as Dad’s. There was no hat on Dad’s head, because he believed that wind and sunshine kept your hair from falling out; so the boy also rode with tumbled locks. The only difference between them, apart from size, was that Dad had a big brown cigar, unlighted, in the corner of his mouth; a survival of the rough old days, when he had driven mule-teams and chewed tobacco.

Fifty miles, said the speedometer; that was Dad’s rule for open country, and he never varied it, except in wet weather. Grades made no difference; the fraction of an ounce more pressure with his right foot, and the car raced on—up, up, up—until it topped the ridge, and was sailing down into the next little valley, exactly in the centre of the magic grey ribbon of concrete. The car would start to gather speed on the down grade, and Dad would lift the pressure of his foot a trifle, and let the resistance of the engine check the speed. Fifty miles was enough, said Dad; he was a man of order.

Far ahead, over the tops of several waves of ground, another car was coming. A small black speck, it went down out of sight, and came up bigger; the next time it was bigger yet; the next time—it was on the slope above you, rushing at you, faster and faster, a mighty projectile hurled out of a six-foot cannon. Now came a moment to test the nerve of a motorist. The magic ribbon of concrete had no stretching powers. The ground at the sides had been prepared for emergencies, but you could not always be sure how well it had been prepared, and if you went off at fifty miles an hour you would get disagreeable waverings of the wheels; you might find the neatly trimmed concrete raised several inches above the earth at the side of it, forcing you to run along on the earth until you could find a place to swing in again; there might be soft sand, which would swerve you this way and that, or wet clay which would skid you, and put a sudden end to your journey.

So the laws of good driving forbade you to go off the magic ribbon except in extreme emergencies. You were ethically entitled to several inches of margin at the right-hand edge; and the man approaching you was entitled to an equal number of inches; which left a remainder of inches between the two projectiles as they shot by. It sounds risky as one tells it, but the heavens are run on the basis of similar calculations, and while collisions do happen, they leave time enough in between for universes to be formed, and successful careers conducted by men of affairs.

“Whoosh!” went the other projectile, hurtling past; a loud, swift “Whoosh!” with no tapering off at the end. You had a glimpse of another man with horn-rimmed spectacles like yourself, with a similar grip of two hands upon a steering-wheel, and a similar cataleptic fixation of the eyes. You never looked back; for at fifty miles an hour, your business is with the things that lie before you, and the past is past—or shall we say that the passed are passed? Presently would come another car, and again it would be necessary for you to leave the comfortable centre of the concrete ribbon, and content yourself with a precisely estimated one-half minus a certain number of inches. Each time, you were staking your life upon your ability to place your car upon the exact line—and upon the ability and willingness of the unknown other party to do the same. You watched his projectile in the instant of hurtling at you, and if you saw that he was not making the necessary concession, you knew that you were encountering that most dangerous of all two-legged mammalian creatures, the road-hog. Or maybe it was a drunken man, or just a woman—there was no time to find out; you had the thousandth part of a second in which to shift your steering-wheel the tenth part of an inch, and run your right wheels off onto the dirt.

That might happen only once or twice in the course of a day’s driving. When it did, Dad had one invariable formula; he would shift the cigar a bit in his mouth and mutter: “Damn fool!” It was the only cuss-word the onetime mule-driver permitted himself in the presence of the boy; and it had no profane significance—it was simply the scientific term for road-hogs, and drunken men, and women driving cars; as well as for loads of hay, and furniture-vans, and big motortrucks which blocked the road on curves; and for cars with trailers, driving too rapidly, and swinging from side to side; and for Mexicans in tumbledown buggies, who failed to keep out on the dirt where they belonged, but came wabbling onto the concrete—and right while a car was coming in the other direction, so that you had to jam on your foot-brake, and grab the hand-brake, and bring the car to a halt with a squealing and grinding, and worse yet a sliding of tires. If there is anything a motorist considers disgraceful it is to “skid his tires”; and Dad had the conviction that some day there would be a speed law turned inside out—it would be forbidden to drive less than forty miles an hour on state highways, and people who wanted to drive spavined horses to tumbledown buggies would either go cross-lots or stay at home.

II

A barrier of mountains lay across the road. Far off, they had been blue, with a canopy of fog on top; they lay in tumbled masses, one summit behind another, and more summits peeking over, fainter in color, and mysterious. You knew you had to go up there, and it was interesting to guess where a road might break in. As you came nearer, the great masses changed color—green, or grey, or tawny yellow. No trees grew upon them, but bushes of a hundred shades. They were spotted with rocks, black, white, brown, or red; also with the pale flames of the yucca, a plant which reared a thick stem ten feet or more in the air, and covered it with small flowers in a huge mass, exactly the shape of a candle-flame, but one that never flickered in the wind.

The road began to climb in earnest; it swung around the shoulder of a hill, and there was a sign in red letters: “Guadalupe Grade: Speed limit on curves 15 miles per hour.” Dad gave no evidence that he knew how to read, either that sign, or his speedometer. Dad understood that signs were for people who did not know how to drive; for the initiate few the rule was, whatever speed left you on your own half of the highway. In this case the road lay on the right side of the pass; you had the mountain on your right, and hugged it closely as you swung round the turns; the other fellow had the outside edge, and in the cheerful phrase of the time, it was “his funeral.”

Another concession Dad made—wherever the bend was to the right, so that the mass of the mountain obstructed the road, he sounded his horn. It was a big, commanding horn, hidden away somewhere under the capacious hood of the car; a horn for a man whose business took him on flying trips over a district big enough for an ancient empire; who had important engagements waiting at the end of his journey, and who went through, day or night, fair weather or foul. The voice of his horn was sharp and military; there was in it no undertone of human kindness. At fifty miles an hour there is no place for such emotions—what you want is for people to get out of the way, and do it quick, and you tell them so. “Whanhnh!” said the horn—a sound you must make through your nose, for the horn was one big nose. A sudden swing of the highway—“Whanhnh!”—and then an elbow jutting out and another swing—“Whanhnh!”—so you went winding up, up, and the rocky walls of Guadalupe Pass resounded to the strange new cry—“Whanhnh! Whanhnh!” The birds looked about in alarm, and the ground-squirrels dived into their sandy entrance-holes, and ranchmen driving rickety Fords down the grade, and tourists coming to Southern California with all their chickens and dogs and babies and mattresses and tin pans tied onto the running-boards—these swung out to the last perilous inch of the highway, and the low, swift roadster sped on: “Whanhnh! Whanhnh!”

Any boy will tell you that this is glorious. Whoopee! you bet! Sailing along up there close to the clouds, with an engine full of power, magically harnessed, subject to the faintest pressure from the ball of your foot. The power of ninety horses—think of that! Suppose you had had ninety horses out there in front of you, forty-five pairs in a long line, galloping around the side of a mountain, wouldn’t that make your pulses jump? And this magic ribbon of concrete laid out for you, winding here and there, feeling its way upward with hardly a variation of grade, taking off the shoulder of a mountain, cutting straight through the apex of another, diving into the black belly of a third; twisting, turning, tilting inward on the outside curves, tilting outward on the inside curves, so that you were always balanced, always safe—and with a white-painted line marking the centre, so that you always knew exactly where you had a right to be—what magic had done all this?

Dad had explained it—money had done it. Men of money had said the word, and surveyors and engineers had come, and diggers by the thousand, swarming Mexicans and Indians, bronze of skin, armed with picks and shovels; and great steam shovels with long hanging lobster-claws of steel; derricks with wide swinging arms, scrapers and grading machines, steel drills and blasting men with dynamite, rock-crushers, and concrete mixers that ate sacks of cement by the thousand, and drank water from a flour-stained hose, and had round steel bellies that turned all day with a grinding noise. All these had come, and for a year or two they had toiled, and yard by yard they had unrolled the magic ribbon.

Never since the world began had there been men of power equal to this. And Dad was one of them; he could do things like that, he was on his way to do something like that now. At seven o’clock this evening, in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel at Beach City, a man would be waiting, Ben Skutt, the oil-scout, whom Dad described as his “lease-hound”; he would have a big proposition all lined up, and the papers ready for signature. So it was that Dad had a right to have the road clear; that was the meaning of the sharp military voice of the horn, speaking through its nose: “Whanhnh! Whanhnh! Dad is coming! Get out of the way! Whanhnh! Whanhnh!”

The boy sat, eager-eyed, alert; he was seeing the world, in a fashion men had dreamed in the days of Haroun al Raschid—from a magic horse that galloped on top of the clouds, from a magic carpet that went sailing through the air. It was a giant’s panorama unrolling itself; new vistas opening at every turn, valleys curving below you, hilltops rising above you, processions of ranges, far as your eye could reach. Now that you were in the heart of the range, you saw that there were trees in the deep gorges, towering old pine trees, gnarled by storms and split by lightning; or clumps of live oaks that made pleasant spaces like English parks. But up on the tops there was only brush, now fresh with the brief spring green; mesquite and sage and other desert plants, that had learned to bloom quickly, while there was water, and then stand the long baking drought. They were spotted with orange-colored patches of dodder, a plant that grew in long threads like corn-silk, weaving a garment on top of the other plants; it killed them—but there were plenty more.

Other hills were all rock, of an endless variety of color. You saw surfaces mottled and spotted like the skins of beasts—tawny leopards, and creatures red and grey or black and white, whose names you did not know. There were hills made of boulders, scattered as if giants had been throwing them in battle; there were blocks piled up, as if the children of giants had grown tired of play. Rocks towered like cathedral arches over the road; through such an arch you swung out into view of a gorge, yawning below, with a stout white barrier to protect you as you made the turn. Out of the clouds overhead a great bird came sailing; his wings collapsed as if he had been shot, and he dived into the abyss. “Was that an eagle?” asked the boy. “Buzzard,” answered Dad, who had no romance in him.

Higher and higher they climbed, the engine purring softly, one unvarying note. Underneath the windshield were dials and gauges in complicated array: a speedometer with a little red line showing exactly how fast you were going; a clock, and an oil gauge, a gas gauge, an ammeter, and a thermometer that mounted slowly on a long grade like this. All these things were in Dad’s consciousness—a still more complicated machine. For, after all, what was ninety horsepower compared with a million dollar power? An engine might break down, but Dad’s mind had the efficiency of an eclipse of the sun. They were due at the top of the grade by ten o’clock; and the boy’s attitude was that of the old farmer with a new gold watch, who stood on his front-porch in the early morning, remarking, “If that sun don’t get over the hill in three minutes, she’s late.”

III

But something went wrong and spoiled the schedule. You had got up into the fog, and cold white veils were sweeping your face. You could see all right, but the fog had wet the road, and there was clay on it, a combination that left the most skilful driver helpless. Dad’s quick eye noted it, and he slowed down; a fortunate thing, for the car began to slide, and almost touched the white wooden barrier that guarded the outer edge.

They started again, creeping along, in low gear, so that they could stop quickly; five miles the speedometer showed, then three miles; then another slide, and Dad said “Damn.” They wouldn’t stand that very long, the boy knew; “Chains,” he thought, and they drew up close against the side of the hill, on an inside curve where cars coming from either direction could see them. The boy opened the door at his side and popped out; the father descended gravely, and took off his overcoat and laid it in the seat; he took off his coat and laid that in the same way—for clothing was part of a man’s dignity, a symbol of his rise in life, and never to be soiled or crumpled. He unfastened his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves—each motion precisely followed by the boy. At the rear of the car was a flat compartment with a sloping cover, which Dad opened with a key; one of a great number of keys, each precisely known to him, each symbolical of efficiency and order. Having got out the chains, and fastened them upon the rear tires, Dad wiped his hands on the fog-laden plants by the roadside; the boy did the same, liking the coldness of the shining globes of water. There was a clean rag in the compartment, kept there for drying your hands, and changed every so often. The two donned their coats again, and resumed their places, and the car set out, a little faster now, but still cautiously, and away off the schedule.

“Guadalupe Grade: Height of Land: Caution: Fifteen miles per hour on curves.” So ran the sign; they were creeping down now, in low gear, holding back the car, which resented it, and shook impatiently. Dad had his spectacles in his lap, because the fog had blurred them; it had filled his hair with moisture, and was trickling down his forehead into his eyes. It was fun to breathe it and feel the cold; it was fun to reach over and sound the horn—Dad would let you do it now, all you wanted. A car came creeping towards them out of the mist, likewise tooting lustily; it was a Ford, puffing from the climb, with steam coming out of the radiator.

Then suddenly the fog grew thinner; a few wisps more, and it was gone; they were free, and the car leaped forward into a view—oh, wonderful! Hill below hill dropping away, and a landscape spread out, as far as forever; you wanted wings, so as to dive down there, to sail out over the hilltops and the flat plains. What was the use of speed limits, and curves, and restraining gears and brakes?—“Dry my spectacles,” said Dad, prosaically. Scenery was all right, but he had to keep to the right of the white-painted line on the road. “Whanhnh! Whanhnh!” said the horn, on all the outside curves.

They slid down, and little by little the scenery disappeared; they were common mortals, back on earth. The curves broadened out, they left the last shoulder of the last hill, and before them was a long, straight descent; the wind began to whistle, and the figures to creep past the red line on the speedometer. They were making up for lost time. Whee! How the trees and telegraph poles went whizzing! Sixty miles now; some people might have been scared, but no sensible person would be scared while Dad was at the wheel.

But suddenly the car began to slow up; you could feel yourself sliding forward in your seat, and the little red line showed fifty, forty, thirty. The road lay straight ahead, there was no other car in sight, yet Dad’s foot was on the brake. The boy looked up inquiringly. “Sit still,” said the man. “Don’t look round. A speed-trap!”

Oho! An adventure to make a boy’s heart jump! He wanted to look and see, but understood that he must sit rigid, staring out in front, utterly innocent. They had never driven any faster than thirty miles per hour in their lives, and if any traffic-officer thought he had seen them coming faster down the grade, that was purely an optical delusion, the natural error of a man whose occupation destroyed his faith in human nature. Yes, it must be a dreadful thing to be a speed-cop, and have the whole human race for your enemy! To stoop to disreputable actions—hiding yourself in bushes, holding a stopwatch in hand, and with a confederate at a certain measured distance down the road, also holding a stopwatch, and with a telephone line connecting the two of them, so they could keep tab on motorists who passed! They had even invented a device of mirrors, which could be set up by the roadside, so that one man could get the flash of a car as it passed, and keep the time. This was a trouble the motorist had to keep incessant watch for; at the slightest sign of anything suspicious, he must slow up quickly—and yet not too quickly—no, just a natural slowing, such as any man would employ if he should discover that he had accidentally, for the briefest moment, exceeded ever so slightly the limits of complete safety in driving.

“That fellow will be following us,” said Dad. He had a little mirror mounted in front of his eyes, so that he could keep tab on such enemies of the human race; but the boy could not see into the mirror, so he had to sit on pins and needles, missing the fun.

“Do you see anything?”

“No, not yet; but he’ll come; he knows we were speeding. He puts himself on that straight grade, because everybody goes fast at such a place.” There you saw the debased nature of the speed-cop! He chose a spot where it was perfectly safe to go fast, and where he knew that everyone would be impatient, having been held in so long by the curves up in the mountains, and by the wet roads! That was how much they cared for fair play, those speed-cops!

They crept along at thirty miles an hour; the lawful limit in those benighted times, back in 1912. It took all the thrill out of motoring, and it knocked the schedule to pot. The boy had a vision of Ben Skutt, the “lease-hound,” sitting in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel at Beach City; there would be others waiting, also—there were always dozens waiting, grave matters of business with big money at stake. You would hear Dad at the long distance telephone, and he would consult his watch, and figure the number of miles to be made, and make his appointment accordingly; and then he had to be there—nothing must stop him. If there were a breakdown of the car, he would take out their suitcases, and lock the car, hail a passing motorist and get a ride to the next town, and there rent the best car he could find—or buy it outright if need be—and drive on, leaving the old car to be towed in and repaired. Nothing could stop Dad!

But now he was creeping along at thirty miles! “What’s the matter?” asked the boy, and received the answer: “Judge Larkey!” Oh, sure enough! They were in San Geronimo County, where the terrible Judge Larkey was sending speeders to jail! Never would the boy forget that day, when Dad had been compelled to put all his engagements aside, and travel back to San Geronimo, to appear in court and be scolded by this elderly autocrat. Most of the time you did not undergo such indignities; you simply displayed your card to the speed-cop, showing that you were a member of the Automobile Club, and he would nod politely, and hand you a little slip with the amount of your bail noted on it, proportioned to the speed you had been caught at; you mailed a check for the amount, and heard and thought no more about it.

But here in San Geronimo County they had got nasty, and Dad had told Judge Larkey what he thought of the custom of setting speed-traps—officers hiding in the bushes and spying on citizens; it was undignified, and taught motorists to regard officers of the law as enemies. The Judge had tried to be smart, and asked Dad if he had ever thought of the possibility that burglars also might come to regard officers of the law as enemies. The newspapers had put that on the front page all over the state: “Oil Operator Objects to Speed Law: J. Arnold Ross Says He Will Change It.” Dad’s friends kidded him about that, but he stuck it out—sooner or later he was going to make them change that law, and sure enough he did, and you owe to him the fact that there are no more speed-traps, but officers have to ride the roads in uniform, and if you watch your little mirror, you can go as fast as you please.

IV

They came to a little house by the roadside, with a shed that you drove under, and a round-bellied object, half glass and half red paint, that meant gasoline for sale. “Free Air,” read a sign, and Dad drew up, and told the man to take off his chains. The man brought a jack and lifted the car; and the boy, who was always on the ground the instant the car stopped, opened the rear compartment and got out the little bag for the chains to go in. Also he got out the grease-gun, and unwrapped that. “Grease is cheaper than steel,” Dad would say. He had many such maxims, a whole modern Book of Proverbs which the boy learned by heart. It was not that Dad was anxious to save the money; nor was it that he had grease to sell and not steel; it was the general principle of doing things right, of paying respect to a beautiful piece of machinery.

Dad had got out, to stretch his legs. He was a big figure of a man, filling every inch of the opulent overcoat. His cheeks were rosy, and always fresh from the razor; but at second glance you noted little pockets of flesh about his eyes, and a network of wrinkles. His hair was grey; he had had many cares, and was getting old. His features were big and his whole face round, but he had a solid jaw, which he could set in ugly determination. For the most part, however, his expression was placid, rather bovine, and his thoughts came slowly and stayed a long time. On occasions such as the present he would show a genial side—he liked to talk with the plain sort of folks he met along the road, folks of his own sort, who did not notice his extremely crude English; folks who weren’t trying to get any money out of him—at least not enough to matter.

He was pleased to tell this man at the filling station about the weather up there in the pass; yes, the fog was thick—delayed them quite a bit—bad place for skidding. Lots of cars got into trouble up there, said the man—that soil was dobe, slick as glass; have to trench the road better. Quite a job that, Dad thought—taking off the side of the mountain. The man said the fog was going now—lots of “high fog” in the month of May, but generally it cleared up by noon. The man wanted to know if Dad needed any gas, and Dad said no, they had got a supply before they tackled the grade. The truth was, Dad was particular, he didn’t like to use any gas but his own make; but he wouldn’t say that to the man, because it might hurt the man’s feelings.

He handed the man a silver dollar for his services, and the man started to get change, but Dad said never mind the change; the man was quite overwhelmed by that, and put up his finger in a kind of salute, and it was evident he realized he was dealing with a “big man.” Dad was used to such scenes, of course, but it never failed to bring a little glow to his heart; he went about with a supply of silver dollars and half dollars jingling in his pocket, so that all with whom he had dealings might share that spiritual warmth. “Poor devils,” he would say, “they don’t get much.” He knew, because he had been one of them, and he never lost an opportunity to explain it to the boy. To him it was real, and to the boy it was romantic.

Behind the filling station was a little cabinet, decorously marked, “Gents.” Dad called this the “emptying station,” and that was a joke over which they chuckled. But it was a strictly family joke, Dad explained; it must not be passed on, for other people would be shocked by it. Other people were queer; but just why they were queer was something not yet explained.

They took their seats in the car, and were about to start, when who should come riding up behind them—the speed-cop! Yes, Dad was right, the man had been following them, and he seemed to scowl when he saw them. They had no business with him, so they drove on; doubtless he would take the filling station as a place to hide, and watch for speeders, said Dad. And so it proved. They had gone for a mile or two, at their tiresome pace of thirty, when a horn sounded behind them, and a car went swiftly by. They let it go, and half a minute later Dad, looking into his little mirror, remarked: “Here comes the cop!” The boy turned round, and saw the motorcycle pass them with a roaring of the engine. The boy leaped up and down in the seat. “It’s a race! It’s a race! Oh, Dad, let’s follow them!”

Dad was not too old to have some sporting spirit left; besides, it was a convenience to have the enemy out in front, where you could watch him, and he couldn’t watch you. Dad’s car leaped forward, and the figures again crept past the red line of the speedometer—thirty-five—forty—forty-five—fifty—fifty-five. The boy was half lifted out of his seat, his eyes shining and his hands clenched.

The concrete ribbon had come to an end; there was now a dirt road, wide and level, winding in slow curves through a country of gentle hills, planted in wheat. The road was rolled hard, but there were little bumps, and the car leaped from one to another; it was armed with springs and shock-absorbers and snubbers, every invented device for easy riding. Out in front were clouds of dust, which the wind seized and swept over the hills; you would have thought that an army was marching there. Now and then you got a glimpse of the speeding car, and the motorcycle close behind it. “He’s trying to get away! Oh, Dad, step on her!” This was an adventure you didn’t meet on every trip!

“Damn fool!” was Dad’s comment; a man who would risk his life to avoid paying a small fine. You couldn’t get away from a traffic-officer, at least not on roads like this. And sure enough, the dust clouds died, and on a straight bit of the highway, there they were—the car drawn up at the right, and the officer standing alongside, with his little notebook and pencil, writing things. Dad slowed down to the innocent thirty miles and went by. The boy would have liked to stop, and listen to the argument inevitable on such occasions; but he knew that the schedule took precedence, and here was the chance to make a getaway. Passing the first turn, they hit it up; the boy looked round every half minute for the next half hour, but they saw no more of the speed-cop. They were again their own law.

V

Some time ago these two had witnessed a serious traffic accident, and afterwards had appeared to testify concerning it. The clerk of the court had called “J. Arnold Ross,” and then, just as solemnly, “J. Arnold Ross, junior,” and the boy had climbed into the witness-chair, and testified that he knew the nature of an oath, and knew the traffic regulations, and just what he had seen.

That had made him, as you might say, “court-conscious.” Whenever, in driving, anything happened that was the least bit irregular, the boy’s imagination would elaborate it into a court scene. “No, your honor, the man had no business on the left side of the road; we were too close to him, he had no time to pass the car in front of him.” Or it was: “Your honor, the man was walking on the right side of the road at night, and there was a car coming towards us, that had blinding lights. You know, your honor, a man should walk on the left side of the road at night, so that he can see the cars coming towards him.” In the midst of these imaginings of accidents, the boy would give a little jump; and Dad would ask, “What’s the matter, son?” The boy would be embarrassed, because he didn’t like to say that he had been letting his dreams run away with him. But Dad knew, and would smile to himself; funny kid, always imagining things, his mind jumping from one thing to another, always excited!

Dad’s mind was not like that; it got on one subject and stayed there, and ideas came through it in slow, grave procession; his emotions were like a furnace that took a long time to heat up. Sometimes on these drives he would say nothing for a whole hour; the stream of his consciousness would be like a river that has sunk down through rocks and sand, clean out of sight; he would be just a pervading sense of well-being, wrapped in an opulent warm overcoat, an accessory, you might say, of a softly purring engine running in a bath of boiling oil, and traversing a road at fifty miles an hour. If you had taken this consciousness apart, you would have found, not thoughts, but conditions of physical organs, and of the weather, and of the car, and of bank-accounts, and of the boy at his side. Putting it into words makes it definite and separate—so you must try to take it all at once, blended together: “I, the driver of this car, that used to be Jim Ross, the teamster, and J. A. Ross and Co., general merchandise at Queen Centre, California, am now J. Arnold Ross, oil operator, and my breakfast is about digested, and I am a little too warm in my big new overcoat because the sun is coming out, and I have a new well flowing four thousand barrels at Lobos River, and sixteen on the pump at Antelope, and I’m on my way to sign a lease at Beach City, and we’ll make up our schedule in the next couple of hours, and ‘Bunny’ is sitting beside me, and he is well and strong, and is going to own everything I am making, and follow in my footsteps, except that he will never make the ugly blunders or have the painful memories that I have, but will be wise and perfect and do everything I say.”

Meantime the mind of “Bunny” was not behaving in the least like this, but on the contrary was leaping from theme to theme, as a grasshopper in a field leaps from one stalk of grass to another. There was a jackrabbit, racing away like mad; he had long ears, like a mule, and why were they so transparent and pink? There was a butcherbird, sitting on the fence; he stretched his wings all the time, like he was yawning—what did he mean by that? And there was a roadrunner, a long lean bird as fast as a racehorse, beautiful and glossy, black and brown and white, with a crest and a streaming tail. Where do you suppose he got water in these dry hills? There on the road was a mangled corpse—a ground squirrel had tried to cross, and a car had mashed it flat; other cars would roll over it, till it was ground to powder and blown away by the wind. There was no use saying anything to Dad about that—he would remark that squirrels carried plague, or at least they had fleas which did; every now and then there would be cases of this disease and the newspapers would have to hush it up, because it was bad for real estate.

But the boy was thinking about the poor little mite of life that had been so suddenly snuffed out. How cruel life was; and how strange that things should grow, and have the power to make themselves, out of nothing apparently—and Dad couldn’t explain it, and said that nobody else could, you were just here. And then came a ranch wagon in front of them, a one-sided old thing loaded with household goods; to Dad it was just an obstacle, but “Bunny” saw two lads of his own age, riding in back of the load and staring at him with dull, listless eyes. They were pale, and looked as if they hadn’t enough to eat; and that was another thing to wonder about, why people should be poor and nobody to help them. It was a world you had to help yourself in, was Dad’s explanation.

“Bunny,” the everyday name of this boy, had been started by his mother when he was little—because he was soft and brown and warm, and she had dressed him in a soft, fuzzy sweater, brown in color with white trimmings. Now he was thirteen, and resented the name, but the boys cut it to “Bun,” which was to stay with him, and which was satisfactory. He was a pretty boy, still brown, with wavy brown hair, tumbled by the wind, and bright brown eyes, and a good color, because he lived outdoors. He did not go to school, but had a tutor at home, because he was to take his father’s place in the world, and he went on these rides in order that he might learn his father’s business.

Wonderful, endlessly wonderful, were these scenes; new faces, new kinds of life revealed. There came towns and villages—extraordinary towns and villages, full of people and houses and cars and horses and signs. There were signs along the road; guideposts at every crossing, giving you a geography lesson—a list of the places to which the roads led, and the distances; you could figure your schedule, and that was a lesson in arithmetic! There were traffic signs, warning you of danger—curves, grades, slippery places, intersections, railroad crossings. There were big banners across the highway, or signs with letters made of electric lights: “Loma Vista: Welcome to Our City.” Then, a little farther on: “Loma Vista, City Limits: Goodbye: Come Again.”

Also there were no end of advertising signs, especially contrived to lend variety to travel. “Picture ahead; kodak as you go,” was a frequent legend, and you looked for the picture, but never could be sure what it was. A tire manufacturer had set up big wooden figures of a boy waving a flag; Dad said this boy looked like Bunny, and Bunny said he looked like a picture of Jack London he had seen in a magazine. Another tire manufacturer had a great open book, made of wood, and set up at a turn of the road leading into each town; it was supposed to be a history book, and told you something about that place—facts at once novel and instructive: you learned that Citrus was the location of the first orange grove in California, and that Santa Rosita possessed the finest radium springs west of the Rocky mountains, and that on the outskirts of Crescent City Father Junipero Serra had converted two thousand Indians to Christianity in the year 1769.

There were people still engaged in converting, you learned; they had gone out on the highway with pots of varicolored paint, and had decorated rocks and railway culverts with inscriptions: “Prepare to meet thy God.” Then would come a traffic sign: “Railroad crossing. Stop. Look. Listen.” The railroad company wanted you to meet your God through some other agency, Dad explained, because there would be damage suits for taking religious faith too seriously. “Jesus waits,” a boulder would proclaim; and then would come, “Chicken Dinner, $1.” There were always funny signs about things to eat—apparently all the world loved a meal, and became jolly at the thought. “Hot Dog Kennels,” was an eating-place, and “Ptomaine Tommy,” and “The Clam-Baker,” and the “Lobster-Pot.” There were endless puns on the word inn—“Dew Drop Inn” and “Happen Inn,” “Welcome Inn” and “Hurry Inn.” When you went into these places you would find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls: “In God we Trust, All Others Cash.” “Don’t complain about our coffee; some day you may be old and weak yourself.” “We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.”

VI

They were passing through a broad valley, miles upon miles of wheat fields, shining green in the sun; in the distance were trees, with glimpses of a house here and there. “Are you looking for a Home?” inquired a friendly sign. “Santa Ynez is a place for folks. Good water, cheap land, seven churches. See Sprouks and Knuckleson, Realtors.” And presently the road broadened out, with a line of trees in the middle, and there began to be houses on each side. “Drive slow and see our city; drive fast and see our jail,” proclaimed a big board—“By Order of the Municipal Council of Santa Ynez.” Dad slowed down to twenty-five miles; for it was a favorite trick of town marshals and justices of the peace to set speed-traps for motorists coming from the country, with engines keyed up to country rates of speed; they would haul you up and soak you a big fine—and you had a vision of these new-style highwaymen spending your dollars in riotous living. That was something else Dad was going to stop, he said—such fines ought to go to the state, and be used for road-repairs.

“Business zone, 15 miles per hour.” The main street of Santa Ynez was a double avenue, with two lines of cars parked obliquely in the centre of it, and another line obliquely against each curb. You crept along through a lane, watching for a car that was backing out, and you dived into the vacant place, just missing the fender of the car at your right. Dad got out, and took off his overcoat, and folded it carefully, outside in, the sleeves inside; that was something he was particular about, having kept a general store, which included “Gents’ Clothing.” He and Bunny laid their coats neatly in the rear compartment, locked safe, and then strolled down the sidewalk, watching the ranchers of Santa Ynez valley, and the goods which the stores displayed for them. This was the United States, and the things on sale were the things you would have seen in store-windows on any other Main Street, the things known as “nationally advertised products.” The ranchman drove to town in a nationally advertised auto, pressing the accelerator with a nationally advertised shoe; in front of the drugstore he found a display of nationally advertised magazines, containing all the nationally advertised advertisements of the nationally advertised articles he would take back to the ranch.

There were a few details which set this apart as a Western town: the width of the street, the newness of the stores, the shininess of their white paint, and the network of electric lights hung over the centre of the street; also a man with a broad-brimmed hat, and a stunted old Indian mumbling his lips as he walked, and a solitary cowboy wearing chaps. “Elite Café,” said a white-painted sign, reading vertically; the word “Waffles” was painted on the window, and there was a menu tacked by the door, so that you could see what was offered, and the prices charged. There were tables along one side of the wall, and a counter along the other, with a row of broad backs in shirtsleeves and suspenders perched on top of little stools; this was the way if you wanted quick action, so Dad and the boy took two stools they found vacant.

Dad was in his element in a place like this. He liked to josh the waitress; he knew all kinds of comic things to say, funny names for things to eat. He would order his eggs “sunny side up,” or “with their eyes open, please.” He would say, “Wrap the baby in the blanket,” and laugh over the waitress’ effort to realize that this meant a fried egg sandwich. He would chat with the rancher at his other side—learning about the condition of the wheat, and the prospects of prices for the orange and walnut crops; he was interested in everything like this, as a man who had oil to sell, to men who would buy more or less, according to what they got for their products. Dad owned land, too; he was always ready to pick up a likely piece, for there was oil all over Southern California, he said, and some day there would be an empire here.

But now they were behind their schedule, and no time for play. Dad would take fried rabbit; and Bunny thought he wouldn’t—not because of the cannibalistic suggestion, but because of one he had seen mashed on the road that morning. He chose roast pork—not having seen any dead pigs. So there came on a platter two slices of meat, and mashed potatoes scooped out in a round ball, with a hole in the top filled with gluey brown gravy; also a spoonful of chopped up beets, and a leaf of lettuce with apple sauce in it. The waitress had given him an extra helping, because she liked this jolly brown kid, with his rosy cheeks and hair tumbled by the wind, and sensitive lips, like a girl’s, and eager brown eyes that roamed over the place and took in everything, the signs on the wall, the bottles of catsup and slices of pie, the fat jolly waitress, and the tired thin one who was waiting on him. He cheered her up by telling her about the speed-cop they had met, and the chase they had seen. In turn she tipped them off to a speed-trap just outside the town; the man next to Bunny had been caught in it and fined ten dollars, so they had plenty to talk about while Bunny finished his dinner, and his slice of raisin pie and glass of milk. Dad gave the waitress a half dollar for a tip, which was an unheard-of thing at a counter, and seemed almost immoral; but she took it.

They drove carefully until they were past the speed-trap; then they hit it up, along a broad boulevard known as the Mission Way, with bronze bells hanging from poles along it. They had all kinds of picturesque names for highways in this country; the Devil’s Garden Way and the Rim of the World Drive, Mountain Spring Grade and Snow Creek Run, Thousand Palm Canyon and Fig Tree John’s Road, Coyote Pass and the Jackrabbit Trail. There was a Telegraph Road, and that was thrilling to the boy because he had read about a battle in the civil war for the possession of a “Telegraph Road”; when they drove along this one, he would see infantry hiding in the bushes and cavalry charging across the fields; he would give a start of excitement, and Dad would ask, “What is it?” “Nothing, Dad; I was just thinking.” Funny kid! Always imagining things!

Also, there were Spanish names, reverently cherished by the pious realtors of the country. Bunny knew what these meant, because he was studying Spanish, so that some day he would be equipped to deal with Mexican labor. “El Camino Real”—that meant the Royal Highway; and “Verdugo Cañon”—that meant “executioner.” “What happened there, Dad?” But Dad didn’t know the story; he shared the opinion of the manufacturer of a nationally advertised automobile—that history is mostly bunk.

VII

The road was asphalt now; it shimmered in the heat, and whenever it fell away before you, a mirage made it look like water. It was lined with orange-groves; dark green shiny trees, golden with a part of last year’s crop, and snowy white with the new year’s blossoms. Now and then a puff of breeze blew out, and you got a ravishing sweet odor. There were groves of walnuts, broad trees with ample foliage, casting dark shadows on the carefully cultivated, powdery brown soil. There were hedges of roses, extending for long distances, eight or ten feet high, and covered with blossoms. There were windbreaks of towering thin eucalyptus trees, with long wavy leaves and bark that scales off and leaves them naked; all the world is familiar with them in the moving pictures, where they do duty for sturdy oaks and ancient elms and spreading chestnuts and Arabian date-palms and cedars of Lebanon and whatever else the scenario calls for.

You had to cut your speed down here, and had to watch incessantly; there were intersections, and lanes coming in, and warning signs of many sorts; there was traffic both ways, and delicate decisions to be made as to whether you could get past the car ahead of you, before one coming in the other direction would bear down on you and shut you in a pair of scissors. It was exciting to watch Dad’s handling of these emergencies, to read his intentions and watch him carry them out.

There were towns every five or ten miles now, and you were continually being slowed up by traffic, and continually being warned to conform to a rate of movement which would have irritated an able-bodied snail. The highway passed through the main street of each town; the merchants arranged that, Dad said, hoping you would get out and buy something at their places; if the highway were shifted to the outskirts of the town, to avoid traffic congestion, all the merchants would forthwith move to the highway! Sometimes they would put up signs, indicating a turn in the highway, attempting to lure the motorist onto a business street; after you had got to the end of that street, they would steer you back to the highway! Dad noted such tricks with the amused tolerance of a man who had worked them on others, but did not let anyone work them on him.

Each town consisted of some tens, or hundreds, or thousands of perfectly rectangular blocks, divided into perfectly rectangular lots, each containing a strictly modern bungalow, with a lawn and a housewife holding a hose. On the outskirts would be one or more “subdivisions,” as they were called; “acreage” was being laid out into lots, and decorated with a row of red and yellow flags fluttering merrily in the breeze; also a row of red and yellow signs which asked questions and answered them with swift efficiency: “Gas? Yes.” “Water? Best ever.” “Lights? Right.” “Restrictions? You bet.” “Schools? Under construction.” “Scenery? Beats the Alps.”—and so on. There would be an office or a tent by the roadside, and in front of it an alert young man with a writing pad and a fountain-pen, prepared to write you a contract of sale after two minutes conversation. These subdividers had bought the land for a thousand dollars an acre, and soon as they had set up the fluttering little flags and the tent it became worth $1,675 per lot. This also Dad explained with amused tolerance. It was a great country!

They were coming to the outskirts of Angel City. Here were trolley tracks and railroads, and subdivisions with no restrictions—that is, you might build any kind of house you pleased, and rent it to people of any race or color; which meant an ugly slum, spreading like a great sore, with shanties of tin and tar-paper and unpainted boards. There were great numbers of children playing here—for some strange reason there seemed to be more of them where they were least apt to thrive.

By dint of constant pushing and passing every other car, Dad had got on his schedule again. They skirted the city, avoiding the traffic crowds in its centre, and presently came a sign: “Beach City Boulevard.” It was a wide asphalt road, with thousands of speeding cars, and more subdivisions and suburban home-sites, with endless ingenious advertisements designed to catch the fancy of the motorist, and cause him to put on brakes. The real estate men had apparently been reading the Arabian Nights and Grimm’s fairytales; they were housed in little freak offices that shot up to a point, or tilted like a drunken sailor; their colors orange and pink, or blue and green, or with separately painted shingles, spotted with various colors. There were “good eats” signs and “barbecue” signs—the latter being a word which apparently had not been in the spelling-books when the sign-painters went to school. There were stands where you got orange-juice and cider, with orange-colored wicker chairs out in front for you to sit in. There were fruit and vegetable stands kept by Japs, and other stands with signs inviting you to “patronize Americans.” There was simply no end of things to look at, each separate thing bringing its separate thrill to the mind of a thirteen-year old boy. The infinite strangeness and fascinatingness of this variegated world! Why do people do this, Dad? And why do they do that?

They came to Beach City, with its wide avenue along the oceanfront. Six-thirty, said the clock on the car’s running-board—exactly on the schedule. They stopped before the big hotel, and Bunny got out of the car, and opened the back compartment, and the bellhop came hopping—you bet, for he knew Dad, and the dollars and half dollars that were jingling in Dad’s pockets. The bellhop grabbed the suitcases and the overcoats, and carried them in, and the boy followed, feeling responsible and important, because Dad couldn’t come yet, Dad had to put the car in a parking place. So Bunny strode in and looked about the lobby for Ben Skutt, the oil-scout, who was Dad’s “lease-hound.” There he was, seated in a big leather chair, puffing at a cigar and watching the door; he got up when he saw Bunny, and stretched his long, lean body, and twisted his lean, ugly face into a grin of welcome. The boy, very erect, remembering that he was J. Arnold Ross, junior, and representing his father in an important transaction, shook hands with the man, remarking: “Good evening, Mr. Skutt. Are the papers ready?”