Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Up at Paradise things were booming. All the men were back at work -- even the blacklisted ones, at a dollar a day more and with another raise promised; a good driller was worth just about his weight in gold. Here too came the "four minute men," and were listened to gladly; the oil workers were patriotic, and would have enlisted to a man, but they were needed on this job -- there was nothing more important than oil, and the way for them to serve their country was to keep the stuff flowing, and watch out for fires, and for obstructions dropped into the wells, and other acts of vandalism by enemy agents.

Paul was back as Dad's boss builder. But then came the first draft, and Paul had one of the lucky numbers. Dad offered to get him exempted, for obviously there had to be shacks to house the men who were to drill and operate the new wells. Dad had power to arrange matters -- you can understand that, when you learn that the chairman of the exemption board was Mr. Carey, the rancher who had accepted money from Dad to get the road built for the drilling. But Paul said no, there were married men with families who knew as much about building houses as he did, so Paul would do his share in the field.