II
Bunny went at once to call on Paul and Ruth at the address which Dan Irving gave him. It was a mean and dingy lodging-house, in a part of the city given up to Mexicans and Chinese. An old woman sent him up to the second floor, and told him which door to knock on, but he got no response. He came back later, and found that Ruth had just got in. They were crowded into one little room, with a gas plate and a sink in an unventilated alcove, and another alcove with a curtain before it, and a cot on which Paul slept. Ruth was ashamed to have Bunny see them in such a place, but explained that it wouldn’t be long, just till Paul got a job; he was out looking for one now. She herself had got work in a department-store, and as soon as they could get ahead, she was going to study trained nursing. She looked pale and worn, but smiled bravely; she didn’t really mind anything, so long as Paul was out of jail.
Bunny wanted to know all the news, and plied Ruth with questions. Just what had Paul done to get arrested? The first time, Ruth said, the sheriff had raided the Rascum cabin, with a lot of rough, hateful men, who had torn everything to pieces and carried off all of Paul’s books and papers—they had them still. They had done the same thing to all the other fellows that used to come to the cabin—they were going to prove them “reds,” but what evidence they had or claimed to have was a secret the sheriff or the district attorney or whoever it was was keeping to himself. They had had a lot of spies on the bunch—one fellow was known to be a spy, and two others had disappeared, and would no doubt turn up as witnesses—but who could tell what they would testify? All the other boys were still locked up in those horrible tanks, so dark and dirty, and nothing to do all day or night. The trial was set for next February, and apparently they were to stay there meantime. Paul was free, thanks to Bunny’s ten thousand dollars; Ruth could never express her thanks—
Never mind about that, Bunny said—what about the second arrest? And Ruth told how Judge Delano had issued an injunction forbidding anyone to interfere with Excelsior Pete in the course of its business, the production and marketing of oil. That meant that you mustn’t advocate or encourage the strike; and of course Paul had done that, so the judge had sent him to jail—that was all. Judges were getting so they did that all the time, and what were union men going to do? It had been a fearful ordeal for Paul, he was not very well, and of course he was terribly bitter. He would never go back to Paradise again, it wasn’t the same place at all. Ruth smiled a wan smile, “They’ve cut down all those lovely trees that we planted, Bunny. They needed the room for tanks.”
Bunny hauled out his check-book, and sought to salve his conscience by making a present to his friends. But Ruth said no, she was sure Paul wouldn’t let him do that. They were going to get along all right. Paul was a good carpenter, and sooner or later he would find some boss that didn’t mind his having been in jail. Bunny argued, but Ruth was obdurate; even though she were to take the check, Paul would send it back.
Bunny did not wait till Paul came home; he made some excuse, and went away. He just did not have the nerve to sit there, in his fashionable clothes which Vee had selected for him in New York, and with his new sport-car waiting downstairs, and see Paul come in, half sick, discouraged from seeking work in vain, and with all the black memories of injustice and betrayal in his soul. Bunny could make excuses, of course. Paul did not know that he had been spending the summer at play with the world’s darling, Paul would believe that he had gone away on his father’s account. But nothing could change the fact that it was on money wrung from the Paradise workers that Bunny was living in luxury; nothing could change the fact that it had been to increase the amount of this money, to intensify the exploitation of the workers, that Paul had spent three months in jail, and the other fellows were to spend nearly a year in jail. So long as that was the truth, there was nothing Bunny could do but just run away from Paul!