Read Online Oil (filmed as There Will Be Blood) by Upton Sinclair - Free Book Online Page A

they wish to make any concession necessary to harmony. They are willing to waive the point which I raised at the beginning of this discussion, and to sign the lease as it stands." "But what does that mean?" demanded Mrs. Groarty. "Are they to get a royalty on a ninety-five foot lot?" "Our offer is to sign the document as it stands, and the question of interpretation may be decided later." "Oho!" said Mr. Groarty. "A fine concession that—and when we've just heard Mr. Prentice tell us that the law reads your way!" "We agreed to sign it," said Mr. Hank, doing his best to make his voice sound pleasant. "Oh, listen to who's talking!" cried Miss Snypp. "The gentleman that was saying, less than a half an hour ago, that we should go back to our original arrangement—cthe only sensible one, share and share alike, all lots equal, same as we vote.' Have I quoted you correct, Mr. Hank?" "I agreed to sign this lease," declared the ex-goldminer, stubbornly. "And for my part," said the trained nurse, "I said it once and I'll say it again, never on this earth!"
    VII
    Old Mrs. Ross, Bunny's grandmother, was accustomed to protest strenuously against a boy being taken about on these business trips. It was enough to destroy all the sweetness of his nature, she declared; it would make him a hardened cynic in his childhood, all this sordidness and hatefulness of money-grabbing. But Bunny's father answered that that was life, and there was no good fooling yourself; Bunny would have to live in the world some day, and the quicker he learned about it the better. So there the boy sat, on his perch in the window-sill, watching, and recalling his grandmother's words. Yes, they were a mean bunch, sure enough; Dad was right when he said you had to watch out every minute, because somebody would be trying to take something away from you. These people had simply gone crazy, with the sudden hope of getting a lot of money in a hurry. Bunny, who had always had all the money he could use, looked down with magnificent scorn upon their petty bickering. You couldn't trust such people around the corner, he decided; there was nothing they wouldn't do to you. That fat old woman in the yellow satin dress, with her fat red arms and her fat legs cased in silk—it wouldn't take much more to have her clawing somebody's face. And that hatchet-faced man with the voice like a buzz-saw—he would be capable of sticking a knife into you on a dark night! Dad wanted his son to understand every detail of these business arrangements: the terms of the lease, the provisions of the law, the size of the different lots, the amounts of money involved. He would talk about it afterwards, and it would be a kind of examination, to see how much the boy had really understood. So Bunny listened attentively, and put this and that together, remembering the points of the lease as he had heard his father going over them with Ben Skutt and Mr. Prentice while they were driving out to the field in the latter's car. But the boy could not keep his mind from going off to the different personalities involved, and their points of view, and the hints one got of their lives. That old fellow with the stooped shoulders and the gnarled hands—he was some kind of poor workingman, and you could see he was unhappy over this arguing; he wanted somebody he could trust, and he looked this way and that, but there was no such person in the crowd. That young woman with the nose-glasses, she was a hard one—what did she do when she wasn't quarreling? That elderly couple that looked rich—they were very much on their dignity, but they had come to get their share, all the same, and they weren't having any generous emotions towards the "little lots"! The old gentleman drew his chair over beside Dad and began a whispered conversation. Bunny saw Dad shake his head, and the old gentleman drew away. Dad spoke to Skutt, and the latter rose and said: "Mr. Ross wishes me to make clear that he isn't interested in any