A strange thing was life! If Bunny had stayed home that day, he’d have taken Rosie Taintor to the football game, and at the moment when poor Joe Gundha had plunged to his doom, Bunny would have been yelling his head off over a few yards gained by his team. And now, in the evening, he’d have been at a dance; yes, Bertie actually was at a dance, at the home of one of her fashionable friends, or at some fancy hotel where they were giving a party. Bunny could see, in his mind’s eye, her gleaming shoulders and bosom, her dress of soft shimmering stuff, her bright cheeks and vivid face; she would be sipping champagne, or gliding about the room in the arms of Ashleigh Mathews, the young fellow she was in love with just now. Aunt Emma would be all dressed up, playing at a card-party; and grandmother was painting a picture of a young lord, or duke, or somebody, in short pants and silk stockings, kissing the hand of his lady love!
Yes, life was strange—and cruel. You lived in the little narrow circle of your own consciousness, and, as people said, what you didn’t know didn’t hurt you. Your Thanksgiving dinner was spoiled, because one poor laborer had slid down into a well which you happened to own; but dozens and perhaps hundreds of men had been hurt in other wells all over the country, and that didn’t trouble you a bit. For that matter, think of all the men who were dying over there in Europe! All the way from Flanders to Switzerland the armies were hiding in trenches, bombarding each other day and night, and thousands were being mangled just as horribly as by a grab in the bottom of a well; but you hadn’t intended to let that spoil your Thanksgiving dinner, not a bit! Those men didn’t mean as much to you as the quail you were going to kill the next day!
Well, the coroner came, and they buried the body of Joe Gundha, on a hilltop a little way back out of sight, and with a wooden cross to mark the spot. It was a job for Mr. Shrubbs, the preacher at Eli’s church; and Eli came along, and old Mr. Watkins and his wife, and other old ladies and gentlemen of the church who liked to go to funerals. It was curious—Dad seemed glad to have them come and tell him what to do; they knew, and he didn’t! Obviously, it didn’t really do the poor devil any good to preach and pray over his mangled corpse; but at least it was something, and there were people who came and did it, and all you had to do was jist to stand bareheaded in the sun for a while, and hand the preacher a ten-dollar bill afterwards. Yes, that was the procedure—in death, as in life; you wanted something done, and there was a person whose business it was to do that thing, and you paid him. To Bunny it seemed a natural phenomenon—and all the same, whether it was Mr. Shrubbs, who prayed over your dead roughneck, or the man at the filling station who supplied the gas and oil and water and air for your car, or the public officials who supplied the road over which you drove the car.
Dad had sent a telegram to Mrs. Gundha, telling her the sad news, and adding that he was sending a check for a hundred dollars to cover her immediate expenses. Now Dad wrote a letter, explaining what they had done, and how they were sending her dead husband’s things in a box by express. Dad carried insurance to cover his liability for accidents, and Mrs. Gundha would be paid by the insurance company; she must present her claim to the industrial accident commission. They would probably allow her five thousand dollars, and Dad hoped she would invest the money in government bonds, and not let anybody swindle her, with oil stocks or other get rich quick schemes.
So that was that; and Dad said they might jist as well go quail-shooting, and forget what they couldn’t help. And Bunny said all right; but in truth he didn’t enjoy the sport, because in his mind somehow the quail had got themselves mixed up with Joe Gundha and the soldiers in France, and he couldn’t get any fun out of mangled bodies.
VII
Christmas was coming; and Bunny had his program all laid out. He was going to take Dad to the Christmas Day football game, and next morning they would leave for Paradise, and stay there until it was time to go back for the New Year’s Day football game. The well was going fine; they were down over two thousand feet, in soft shale, and having no trouble. Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Bunny came home from school, and Aunt Emma said, “Your father just phoned; he’s got some news about Excelsior Peter.” That was a joke they had in the family—“Excelsior Peter”; Aunt Emma had guessed that “Pete” was a nickname, and she would be real ladylike and use the full name! So, of course, they teased the life out of her.
“What is it?” cried Bunny.
“They’ve struck oil.”
“At Paradise?” Bunny rushed to the phone, in great excitement. Yes, Dad said, Dave Murgins had jist phoned down; “Excelsior-Carter No. 1,” as the well was called, had been in oil-sands for several days, and had managed to keep it secret. Now they were cementing off, something you couldn’t hide.
Bunny jumped into the
