Show iwo M copyright by rana ferbee edna ferber by llerve CHAPTER XII 18 ar years oklahoma had longed F FOR for statehood as a bride awaits tile the dawn of tier her wedding day at last behold the bridegroom said a paternal government handing her over to the unto union n here Is a star for your forehead meet tile the fan family ily then at the very altar the final words spoken tile pact sealed the bride had turned to encounter a stranger an unexpected guest dazzling breathtaking breath taking embodying all her wildest girlish dreams bridegroom h 11 I 1 yelled oklahoma hurling herself into the strangers arms family to ruel roel go awall away dont bother me im busy the name of the gor gorgeous ageous stranger was oil OIL nothing else mattered oklahoma the dry the windswept wind swept the burning was a sea of hidden oil the red prairies pricked ran black and slimy with it the work of years was undone in a day the sunbonnets sun bonnets shrank back aghast compared to that which now took place the he early days following the run in SO were idyllic they swarmed on oklahoma from every state in the union the plains became black with little eager delving figures the sanguine roads were choked with every sort of vehicle once more tent and shanty towns sprang up where the day before had been only open prairie staring up at a blazing sky shy again the gambling tent the six sis shooter the roaring saloon the dance hall the harlot men fought stole killed died for a piece of ground beneath whose arid surface lay who mho knew what wealth of fluid richness every barren sunbaked sun baked farm was a potential fortune every ditch and draw and dried up creek bed might conceal liquid treasure the wildcat field panhandle cimarron crook nose cart wright wali lalioo oo 00 B hear ear creek these became mag magic le names these were the seven cities of cibola rich beyond coronados Coron Coro ados Dados wildest dream millions of barrels of oil burst through the sand and shale and clay and drenched the parched earth drill p mp blast nitroglycerine here slie she comes come A roar oklahoma went stark racing mad sabra cravat went oil mad with the rest of them just outside the town of osage for miles around they were drilling there was that piece of farm land slie she had bou bought ait years ago when yancey first showed signs of restlessness she had thought herself shrewd to have picked up this fertile little oasis in the midst of the bare unlovely plain she was proud of her bit of farm land with its plump yield of alfalfa corn potatoes and garden truck she knew now why it had been so prolific by a wit whim in of nature rich black oil lay under all that surrounding land rendering it barren through its hidden riches no INTO taint of corroding oil ran beneath that tract of cravat farm land and because of this it lay there now so green so lush with its beans its squash its ridiculous onions taunting tier her deriding her rike a mirage to iu the desert queerly enough she had no better luck with tier her share in an oil lease tor for which bich she had paid a s substantial s sum u m much more than she could afford to lose machinery crew days of drilling week eek of drilling sand shale salt the well had come up dry a duster that which happened to sabra happened to thousands the stuff was elusive tantalizing here might be a gusher vomiting millions fifty feet away not so much as a spot of grease could be forced to the surface fortune seemed to take delight in choosing strange victims for her pranks erv wissler the gank who delivered the milk to door each morning found himself owner of it a gusher whose outpourings yielded him seven thousand dollars a day he could not grasp it why eral sabra exclaimed when he be arrived at her kitchen door as ag usual smelling of the barnyard seven thousand dollars a dayl day what in the world are you going to do with alth it s loose hung flame fiame seemed to stiffen with the effort of his dew and momentous resolve well I 1 tell you mis IDS cravat I 1 made up my mind I 1 aint going to malze make no more sunday delivery myself im a going t to hire pete lynchs lyncha bo to take lake tile the milk route sundays every one in osage knew the story of fred bloats wife ulten the news was brought to her thit weeks of drilling on the sterile little sloat farm had brought up a gusher they had come running to tier her across the lie trampled fields with the news she had biad stood there on the back porch of the shabby farmhouse a bony drudge un unlovely ovely as the house itself millions they shouted at tier her mili millions lons and millions what are you going coin to do fred bloats wife had looked down at tier her hands shriveled and conried from alkali water aud aid rough work she wiped them now on a corner of tier lier ging gingham liam apron with a gesture of utter finality tier her meager shoulders straightened the querulous voice took on a note of defiance broin from lr oin now on fro fill going to have the asbin done out in those first few frenzied weeks there was no time tor for scientific methods that janle lame later now in the rusk rush of it they all but bur rowed in the red clay with theli their finger nails dalls meu men prowled thi the plains with divining rods with ab surd things calles called witch sticks hoping thus has to detect tile the precious stu stun it beneath the earths surface for years the meandering red clay roads that were e little more mor than trails had seen only occasion at al bu buggies agles farm wago wagons ns horsemen horsem oil an indian family creeping along in a miserable cart or rarely an automobile in making aking perilous ress through the thick dust in the lie dry season or the slippery dougli dough in the wet now those same roads roada were choked impassable the trail frail wooden one way bridges over creeks and draws bagg sagged ged and splintered m with ith the stream of traffic but no one took the time to repair them A torrent of vehicles of every description flowed without ceasing night and day frequently the torrent choked itself with its own volume and th then en the thousands were piled there locked cursing writhing battling on their way to the oil fields from the crook nose field to wahoo was a scant tour four miles it sometimes tools took halt half a day to cover it in a motor car trucks drays wagons rigs flivvers buckboards E every very day was like the day of the opening back in 89 millionaire promoters from the east engineers prospectors drillers drillars dr illers apol dressers shooters bumpers pum pers roustabouts roust indians men I 1 en in london tailored suits and shirts from charleta Ch Cliar arveta vets only the ruthless and desperate survived in tile the days of the cohered wagon scarcely twenty years earlier those roads had been trails over the hot dry plains marked by the bleaching skull of a steer or the carcass of a horse borse picked clean by the desert scavengers and turned white and desolate to the blazing sky A wagon wheel a rusted rim a split wagon baon va on tongue lay at the side of tile the trail traill mute evidence of a tray traveler eler laboriously crawling liis way across the prairie now the ditches lit clies by the side of these same ro roads ids were strewn with the bodies of wrecked and abandoned automobiles their skeletons stripped and rotting their lamps staring up at tile the sky like sightless eyes ees testimony to the passing of the modern ravisher of that tortured region up and down the dust choked roads fenders ripped olt oft like flies dies wings wheels interlocking trucks overturned loads sunk in the mud plank bridges splitting beneath the strain devil take the hindmost hindmo sL it was as like an army push but without an ardys morale or discipline rear bear creek boasted a killing a lay day and not a jail nor a courthouse for miles around men and women manacled mana cled to a common common chain were marched like slave convicts down the road to the nearest temple of justice a rough pine shack in a town that had bad sprung overnight on the prairie there were no railroads where there had been no towns rollers 11 loaded on two wagons were hauled by twenty mule team outfits stuck in the mud as they inevitably were only mules could have pulled the load out lon long g lines of them choked the aheady impassable road wagons were heaped with the pipes through which the oil must be led with lumber hardware rigs tools portable houses all the vast paraphernalia pher nalia nalla of sudden wealth and growth in a frontier community tough careless young boys drove the nitroglycerin nitro glycerin cars a deadly job on those rough and crowded roads it was this precious and dreadful stuff stud that shot the oil up out of tile earth hard lads lada in corduroys took their chat chances ices and pocketed their high pay driving the death dealing dealin wagons singing as they drone droe ared a red shirt tall tied to a pole flaunting its warning at the back of the load often an expected wagon would fall to appear the workers on the field never took the trouble to trace it or the time to wait for it they knew that somewhere along the road was a great gaping hole bole with never a sizable fragment of wood or steel or bone or flesh anyN anywhere here for yards around to tell the tale they already knew acres that had been carefully tended so that they might yield their scanty crop of cabbages onions potatoes bere ere abandoned to oil the garden truela rotting in the ground rawboned raw boned far farmers ners and their scrawny wives and spindling brats grown spectacularly rich overnight walked out of their houses without taking the trouble to move the furniture or lock the door it was not worth iN intille lille they left the sleazy curtains on the windows the pots on tile the stove the oil crew clanking in did not bother to wreck the house unless they found it feces sary in the midst of 0 an inferno of oil rigs drills smoke steam and seeping oil itself the lie passerby would often see it we ather beat en cn farmhouse its windows broken its trout front askew like a bedame beldame pone mad gray hair streaming about her crazed face as she stared I 1 out on the pandemonium of oil hell bell about tier lier the alie fa banners moved into osage or Oll oklahoma city or baboo they bought automobiles and silk shirts and gew gaws like children tile the men sat on the front porch in shirt sleeves unit and stocking feet acet and spat tobacco juice into the fresh young grass title mile on mile as tar far as tile the eye could see were the skeleton frames of oil rigs outlined tile hie sky like giant Al martian artlan figures stalking across the landscape horrible new towns bret harte wood en front towns sprang up over aft lit on the heels of an oil strike towns inhabited by people who never meant to stay in them stark alq hideous houses thrown up by dwellers who never intended to remain in them rude frontier crossroad stores stuffed with the necessities of frontier life and the luxuries ur ies of sudden wealth all jumbled together in a sort of mercantile miscegenation the thump and clank of the pump and drill curses shouts the clatter of thick dishes the clink of glasses the shrill laughter of women ly fly infested shanties oil smearing itself over the prairies like a plague killing the grass blighting the trees spreading over the surface of the creeks and rivers signs tacked to tree stumps or posts for ambulance call slin sim neeley undertaker call call doctor boegh 35 oklahoma the red peoples country lay heaving under the hot 1 t 1 4 Y 4 what a rotten deal youve had sabra dear sun still a scarred and dreadful thing with the oil drooling down its face a viscid stream tracy wyatt who used to drive the bus and dray title line between wahoo and osage standing up to the reins like a good natured red faced charioteer as the wagon humped over the rough roads was one of the richest men in oklahoma in tile the whole of the united states tor for that matter wyatt TI the ie wyatt oil off company in another ali five e years the wyatt oil companies you were to see their signs all over the world the big coys BOYS from the east were to come to him hat in hand to ask his ad aduce lee about this to seek his favor for that the sum of his dally income was fantastic the mind simply did not grasp it tracy himself was by now a portly and not undignified looking man of a little more than fifty ills his good natured rubicund face wore the grave slightly astonished look of if a commonplace man who suddenly I 1 y finds himself a personage sirs mrs wyatt plainer more horse faced than ever in her expensive new york clothes tried to patron ize sabra cravat but the whipple blood was no match for the T marcy the new money affected mrs wyatt queerly she became nervous full of spleen and the eastern doctors spoke to her of high blood pressure sabra frankly envied these lucky ones A letter from the adder tongued felice venable to her daughter was characteristic of that awesome old matriarch sabra still dreaded to open her mothers letters they always contained a sting all talis talk of oil and millions and every one in oklahoma rolling in it ill be bound that you sou and that husband of yours so much as aa enough to fill a lamp trust yancey cravat to get hold of the wrong piece of land well at least you cant be disappointed it has been like that from tb the da day you married him it im though you can cant it say your mother warn you I 1 hope donna will show more sense donna home after two years at miss on the hudson seemed indeed to be a granddaughter after felice venables own heart site she was in coloring contour manner and outlook so unlike e the other oklahoma girls czarina mckee garello slaughter jewel rig gs maurine aia orine burket as I 1 to make tortured wind deviled lay day of tier hertl on the oklahoma prairie almost nineteen years ago seem even during tier lier homecomings in ID the summer vacations she had about her an all air or of cool disdain together with a kind hind of disillusioned calculation very disconcerting discon cerling to tier her former intimates mates not to speak of tier her own family the other girls living in osage and oklahoma city and guthrie and were true products of the new raw southwest country th aliey y liked to dress in crude high colors glaring pinks cerise ce yellow red vivid orange magenta they made up naively with white powder and hig big daubs of carmine on either cheek the daughters of more parents drove their own cars iu in a clay when this was considered rather daring for a woman donna came home tall thin to the point of scrawniness I 1 in their opinion sallow draI drawling drabing ing mysterious she talked with an eastern meent ignored the letter r said ebether and ceyther and ri hally ally and altogether made I 1 herself poisonously unpopular with the girls birla and undeniably stirring to tile the boys bois she paid very little heed to tile the clumsy attentions of 0 the oklahoma home town lads adopting toward them a serpent of the nile attitude very baffling to these frank aad open faced prairie products aad her school days Ys finished v vs 4 she a finished product of thore days slie site now looked about her coolly calculatingly tier her mother she regarded with a kind of affectionate amusement what a rotten deal youve ha hal sabra dear she would drawl Ri Itil hally lally I 1 dont see how stood it all these years sabra would come to her own do defense goaded by something strangely hostile in herself toward this remote disdainful offspring stood what oll oh you know this be being ing a pioneer woman and a professional marcy and head held heid bibb in spite of it a bum of a husband donna cravat if you ever again dare to speak like that of your father I 1 shall punish you lit bis as you are arc sabra darling how can you punish a groins grown woman you son might slap me and I 1 slap you back of course but id be terribly embarrassed for you As for |