Читать книгу Oil! - Upton Sinclair - Страница 13

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The house numbered 5746 Los Robles Boulevard belonged to Joe Groarty, night watchman for the Altmann Lumber Company of Beach City. Mrs. Groarty had “taken in” washing to help support her seven children; now that they were grown up and scattered, she kept rabbits and chickens. Joe usually left for his job at six p. m.; but on the third day after the “strike” he had got up the nerve to give up his job, and now he was on his front-porch, a mild, grey-haired old fellow, wearing a black suit, with celluloid collar and black tie, his costume for Sundays and holidays, weddings and funerals. Mrs. Groarty had had no clothing suitable for this present occasion, so she had been driven down-town in her husband’s Ford, and had spent some of her oil expectations for an evening-gown of yellow satin. Now she felt embarrassed because there was not enough of it, either at the top where her arms and bosom came out, or below, where her fat calves were encased in embroidered silk stockings, so thin as to seem almost nothing. It was what “they” were wearing, the saleswomen had assured her; and Mrs. Groarty was grimly set upon being one of “them.”

The house was in the conventional “bungalow style,” and had been built by a wealthier family, in the days of the real estate boom. It had been offered at a sacrifice, and Mrs. Groarty had fastened upon it because of the wonderful living-room. They had put their savings into a cash payment, and were paying the balance thirty dollars a month. They had got a deed to the property, and were up to date on their payments, so they were safe.

When you passed the threshold of the house, the first thing you saw was shine; the most marvelous gloss ever seen on wood-work—and to heighten the effect the painter had made it wavy, in imitation of the grain of oak; there must have been ten thousand lines, each one a separate wiggle of a brush. The fire-place was of many-colored stones, highly polished and gleaming like jewels. In the back of the room, most striking feature of all, was a wooden staircase, with a balustrade, also shiny and wavy; this staircase went up, and made a turn, and there was a platform with a palm-tree in a pot. You would take it for granted that it was a staircase like all other staircases, intended to take you to the second story. You might go into the Groarty home a hundred times, and see it both day and night, before it would occur to you there was anything wrong; but suddenly—standing outside on some idle day—it would flash over you that the Groarty home had a flat roof over its entire extent, and at no part was there any second story. Then you would go inside, inspired by a new, malignant curiosity, and would study the staircase and landing, and realize that they didn’t lead anywhere, their beauty was its own excuse for being.

Mrs. Groarty stood by the centre-table of her living-room, awaiting the arrival of the expected company. There was a bowl of roses in a vase on this table, and immediately in front of it, conspicuous under the electric lamp, was a handsome volume bound in blue cloth and stamped with gold letters: “The Ladies’ Guide: A Practical Handbook of Gentility.” It was the only book in the Groarty home, and it had been there only two days; an intelligent clerk in the department-store, after selling the satin robe, had mentioned to the future “oil-queen” the existence of this bargain in the literature department. Mrs. Groarty had been studying the volume at spare moments, and now had it set out as an exhibit of culture.

The first to arrive was the widow Murchey, who had only to come from the end of the block, where she lived in a little bungalow with her two children; she was frail, and timid of manner, and wore black wristbands. She went into raptures over Mrs. Groarty’s costume, and congratulated her on her good fortune in being on the south slope of the hill, where one could wear fine dresses. Over on the north side, where the prevailing winds had blown the oil, you ruined your shoes every time you went out. Some people still did not dare to light their kitchen fires, for fear of an explosion.

Then came the Walter Blacks, Mr. and Mrs. and their grown son, owners of the southwest corner lot; they were in real estate in the city. Mr. Black wore a checked suit, an expansive manner, and a benevolent protective gold animal as watch-fob on his ample front. Mrs. Black, also ample, had clothes at home as good as Mrs. Groarty’s, but her manner said that she hadn’t put them on to come out to any cabbage-patch. They were followed by Mr. Dumpery, the carpenter, who had a little cottage in back of the Groarty’s, fronting on Eldorado Road, the other side of the block; Mr. Dumpery was a quiet little man, with shoulders bowed and hands knotted by a life-time of toil. He was not very good at figures, and was distressed by these sudden uncertainties which had invaded his life.

Next came the Raithels, who had a candy-store in town, a very genteel young couple, anxious to please everybody, and much distressed because it had so far proven impossible; they were the owners of one of the “little lots.” Then Mr. Hank, a lean and hatchet-faced man with an exasperating voice; he owned the next “little lot,” and because he had been a gold miner, considered himself an authority on oil leases. After him came his enemy, Mr. Dibble, the lawyer, who represented the absent owner of the northwest corner, and had made trouble by insisting on many technicalities difficult for non-lawyers to understand; he had tried hard to separate the north half of the block, and was regarded as a traitor by those of the south half. Then came Mr. Golighty, one of the “medium lots.” His occupation was not known, but he impressed everyone by his clothing and cultured manner; he was a reconciler, with a suave, rotund voice, and talked a great deal, the only trouble being that when he got through you were a little uncertain as to what he had said.

The Bromleys arrived, an elderly couple of means, driving a big car. They brought with them the Lohlkers, two little Jewish tailors, whom ordinarily they would have talked with only in the tailor-shop; but with these allies they controlled four of the “medium lots,” which was sufficient for a drilling site, and cutting right across the block, had enabled them to threaten the rest with a separate lease. Behind them came the Sivons, walking from their house on the northeast corner; they were pretentious people, who looked down on the rest of the neighborhood—and without any cause, for they drove a second-hand car, three years out of date. They were the people who had got this lease, and everyone was sure they were getting a big “rake-off” on the side; but there was no way to prove it, and nothing you could do about it, for the reason that all the others who had brought leasing propositions had been secretly promised a similar “rake-off.”

With them came Mr. Sahm, a plasterer, who lived in a temporary “garage-house” on the “little lot” adjoining the Sivons. His dwelling amounted to nothing, nevertheless he had been the one who had clamored most strenuously that the houses should be moved at the lessor’s expense; he had even tried to put in a provision for compensation for the rows of beans and tomatoes he had planted on his lot. The others had sought to hoot him down, when to their dismay the silent Mr. Dumpery, the carpenter, arose, declaring that it seemed to him a quite sensible request; he had seven rows of corn, himself, and beans in full blossom, and he thought the contract should at least contain a provision that the first well should be drilled on some lot which was not planted, so as to give the gardeners time to reap the benefit of their labor.