Oil! by Upton Sinclair

The new deal was going through, and Dad wrote long letters telling of the progress -- letters which Bunny was to return when he had studied them, and not leave lying about in a tent. Also there were rumors in the papers, and then more detailed accounts, designed to prepare the public for the launching of a huge enterprise. Late in the summer Bunny got a furlough, and came home to get the latest news.

"Home" no longer meant Beach City; for Dad had only been waiting till Bunny had got through with school, and now he had moved to another house. It was a palace in the fashionable part of Angel City, which he had leased through a real estate agent for fifteen thousand a year. It was all pink stucco outside, with hedge plants trimmed to the shape of bells and balls like pawnbroker's signs. It had a wide veranda with swings hanging by brass chains, and ferns planted in a row of huge sea shells, and big plate glass windows that did not come open. Inside was furniture of a style called "mission oak," so heavy that you could hardly move it, but that was all right, because Dad didn't want to move it, he would sit in any chair, wherever it happened to be, and the only place he expected comfort was in his den, where he had a huge old leather chair of his own, and a store of cigars and a map of the Paradise tract covering one whole wall. One thing more Dad had seen to, that Grandma's biggest paintings were hung in the dining-room, including the scandalous one of the Germans with their steins! The rest of the old lady's stuff, her easel and paints and a great stack of her lesser works, were boxed and stowed in the basement. Aunt Emma was now the mistress of the household, with Bertie as head critic when she was home.