California, Southern -- Fiction; Motion picture industry -- Fiction; Petroleum industry and trade -- Fiction; Political fiction
one line from their folks in half a year and they are crazy with worry.
Why do we have to be there when the war is over, if you know I wish you
would tell me. But Paul said not to tell his sister, because it is not
so bad for himself, they move him a lot and he is always busy it is easy
when you have a lot of carpenter work but for some fellers I seen them
carry a stack of railway ties a hundred yards and then move them back to
the old place just to keep us working. Please send me some cigarettes
that will be a way to say that you have got this letter and if you send
two packages I will know that you want me to write some more. Yours
respectfully, Jeff Korbitty.”
V
Bunny took this letter to Dad, and it worried him very much, of course,
but what could Dad do about it? He had three wells to bring in that
week, and one of them broke loose and smeared up a couple of hundred
acres of rocks. Also he and Mr. Roscoe had to deal with the amazing
gyrations of the oil market. It seemed as if all the nations in the
world had suddenly set themselves to buying up gasoline; perhaps they
were making up for the shortage of the war, or perhaps they were getting
ready for another war—anyhow, the price was up sky-high, and Southern
California was being drained. It was truly amazing, the gas-stations
were refusing to sell to any but their regular customers, and then only
five gallons at a time; other stations were clean empty, and cars were
stalled for days. Dad and Mr. Roscoe were making a tremendous killing;
they were getting real money too, Dad said with a laugh, none of these
foreign bonds for them!
Bunny shipped a dozen cartons of cigarettes to Jeff Korbitty; and day
and night he worried over the problem of Paul. Somehow the putting down
of Bolshevism took on quite a different aspect when it meant keeping
Paul in Siberia! Also, Bolshevik propaganda seemed a different thing
when it came from the pen of an ex-cowpuncher from Salinas valley! Bunny
simply had to do something, and finally in desperation he sat himself
down and composed a letter to his Congressman, Mr. Leathers, telling
what he had heard about conditions in Siberia, and requesting that
functionary to ascertain the War Department’s reasons for censorship of
soldiers’ mail in peace time, also to urge an investigation by Congress
of the reasons for keeping American troops in Siberia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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