The Coolidge examiner., 1931-12-18
CHAPTER XIll-Continued

usage, Okld., was now just dS
much like New York as Usage
could manage to make it. They
built twenty-story office buildings
in d city that had hundreds OF
miles of prairie to spread in.
Tracey Wyatt built the first sky
scraper-the Wyatt building. 1t
was pointed out and advertised
all over the fiat prairie state. Then
Pat Leary, dancing an Irish jig of
jealousy, built the Leary building,
twenty-three stories high. But the
sweet fruits Of triumph soon turned
to ashes in lis mouth. The Wyatt
buildings foundations were not
built to stand the added strain of
five full stories. SO he had built
a fve-story tower, slim and taper
ing, a taunting finger pointing to
the sky. Again Tracey Wyatt
owned the tallest building in Okla
hOma.
On the roof of the Levy Mercan-
tile company's building Sol had had
built a penthouse after his own
plans. 1t was the only one Of its
part of Usage which did not make
an annual pilgrimage TO New York
was slightly bewildered by Sol
Levy's roof life. They fed one an
other with scraps of gossip got
from servants, clerks, stenOgraph-
ers who claimed to have seen the
place at one time or another. 1t
was. these said, filled with the
rarest of carpets, rugs, books,
hangings. Super radio, super phon-
ograph, super player piano. Music
hungry. There he lived, alone, in
luxury, of the town, yet no part
of It.
Money was now the only stand
ard. If Pat Leary had siXty-two
million dollars on Tuesday he was
Oklahoma's leading citizen. If
Tracey Wyatt had seventy-eight
million dollars on Wednesday then
Tracy Wyatt was Oklahoma's lead
ing citizen.
Sabra probably was the only
woman of her own generation and
social position in Usage who still
wore on the third finger of her left
hand the plain broad gold band of
a long-past day. Syncnronous with
the permanent wave and the reduc-
ing diet the Oil-rich Usage matrons
of Sabra's age cast sentiment aside
for fashion, quietly placed the
clumsy band in a bureau drawer
and appeared with a slim platinum
circlet bearing, perhaps, the en-
graved anachronism, M. OK. L.
1884" Certainly it was much more
at ease among its square-cut emer
aid and oblOng-diamond neighbors.
These ladies explained Gf at alD
that the gold band had grown too
tight for the finger, or too loose.
Sabra looked down at the broad
old-fashioned wedding ring on her
own gemless finger. She had not
once taken it off in over forty
years. 1t was as much a part of
her as the finger itself.
All the Oklahoma millionaire
houses had libraries. Yards and
yards of fine leather libraries, with
gold tOoling. Ike Hawkes. library
had five sets of Dickens alone,
handsomely bound in red, green,
blue, brown, and black, and Ike all
unaware of any of them.
Moving picture palaces, with
white-glOved ushers, had all the big
Broadway super-tilms. Gas filling
stations on every corner. Hot dog,
chilli con carne, and hamburger
stands on the most remote country
roads. The Arverne Grand Opera
company at the Mckee theater for
a whole week every year, and the
best of everything-Traviata, Car
men, Boheme, Louise, The Barber
of Seville. The display of jewels
during that week made the dia-
mOnd horseshoe at the Metropoli-
tan look like the Black Hole of
Calcutta.
Still, oil was oil, and Indians
were Indians. There was no way
in which either of these native
forces could quite be nodded to fit
the New York pattern.
The Osages still whirled up and
down the Oklahoma roads, and
those roads, for hundreds of miles,
were still unpaved red prairie dust
They crashed into bitches and
draws and culverts as of old,
walked back to town and, entering
the automobile saleSrOOm in which
they had bought the original car,
pointed with one dusky finger at
new and glittering model.
Mother" they said, succinctly.
And drove out with it.
1t was common news that Char
ley Vest had smashed eight cars
in a year, but then Charley had a
mysterious source through which
he procured fire water.
SaDra Cravat had introduced a
bill for the further protection of
the Osages, and rather took away
the breath of the house assembled
by advocating abolition of the In
dian reservation system. Her
speech, radical though it was, and
sensational, was greeted with favor
by some Of the more liberal of the
congressman. They even conceded
that this idea of hers, to the effect
that the Indian would never de
velOp or express himself until he
was as free as the negro. might
some day become a reality. These
were the reformers-the long-hairs
fanatics.
Oklahoma was very proud of Sa-
bra Cravat, editor, cOngreSsWOman,
pioneer. Usage said she embodied