The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-01-09
CHAPTER XVII.
The Exposure.

l.
All that fall and winter the QuAn
had been calling from the hills Of
Paradise unheeded Bunny didnf
want to go there. But now It
CHANGED that Dad had some matters
to see to, and his chauffeur had got
sent to jail for turning bootlegger
in his off hours. Dad was having
spells of bad health, when no did
not feel equal to driving; and this
being a Friday, his son offered to
take him.
The Ross Junior tract had moth
ing left of Bunny but the name
There was a strange woman as
housekeeper In the ranch house,
and the Rascum cabin had been
moved, and the bougainvilles vine
replaced by derrick. Every one
of the fellows who had met with
Paul was gone, and there were no
more intellectual discussions. Par
adise was now place where men
worked hard at getting out oil, and
kept their mouths closed. There
were hundreds of men Bunny had
never seen before, and these had
brought new atmosphere. They
patronized the bootleggers and the
poolrooms, and places for secret
gambling and drinking. Orange
pickers" was the contemptuous
name the real oil workers applied
to this new element, and their lack
Of familiarity with their jobs was
cause of endless trouble; they
would slip from greasy derricks, or
get crushed by the heavy pipe, and
the company had had to build an
addition to the hospital. But Of
course that was cheaper than pay
ing union wages to skilled meni
A deplorablbe thing happened 10
Bunny; his reading Of a book was
interrupted by a visit from the wife
Of Jick Duggan, one Of the men IN
the county jail. The woman insist
ed on seeing him, and then insisted
on weeping all over the place, and
telling him narrowing tales about
her husband and the other fellows.
She begged him to go and see for
himself, and he was weak enough
to yield-you can see how imprH-
dent it was, on the part of a young
oil prince who was trying to grow
his hard shell, so that he could BE-
a help to his old father, and enjoy
life with q darling of the world.
Bunny knew that he was doing
wrong, and showed his guilt by not
telling his father where he was
going that rainy Saturday after
noon.
They let him into the jail with
out objection; the men who kept
the place being used to it, and I'M
able to foresee the impression it
would make upon a young idealist.
The ancient dungeon had been con-
trived by an architect with a special
genius for driving his fellow beings
mad. The tanks" instead of hav-
ing doors with keys, like other jail
cells, were designed as revolving
turrets, and whenever you wanted
to put a prisoner In or take one
out, you revolved the turret until
an opening IN one set of bars cor
responded with an opening in an
other set. This revolving was done
by means of a hand-winch, and in
volved a frightful grinding and
shrieking Of rusty iron. There were
three such tanks, one on top of the
other, and the revolving OF any one
inflicted the uproar on everybody.
In the course of the jail's forty
years Of history, scores of men had
gone mad from having to listen to
these sounds at all hours of the day
and night. p
Have you ever had the experience
of seeing some person you know
and love shut behind bars like a
wild beast? It was something that
hit Bunny in the pit of his stom-
ach, and made him weak and faint.
Here were seven fellows, all but
two Of them young as himself,
crowding together like 80 many
friendly and affectionate deer, nuz-
cling thru the bars and expecting
Jumps of sugar or bits of bread.
Their pitiful clamor OF welcome, the
grateful light on their faces-just
for visit, few minutes of q rich
vnupC mans tinai