“Yes. Tom told him,” she answered reluctantly.
“Hanna was furious, I suppose.”
“Not furious. He was—well, coldly indignant. He said that we could have our money back any time we wanted to draw out of the oil investment. He said nothing more before me. But I know he said something about you to papa and the boys. Well, you saw for yourself that there was a difference. Do you really think that oil speculation is dangerous?”
“I can’t judge. I certainly never heard of any oil wells around Pascagoula.”
“But it’s being kept quiet—not to let the public in, they say,” she pleaded anxiously.
“Oil borings can’t be kept secret. There has to be heaps of heavy machinery, a derrick built, gangs of men. It’s conspicuous a mile away. All I say is, that I do hope that before going any deeper your father will get a report from some good business firm in Mobile.”
Louise sighed.
“It was just like that!” she said, pointing again at the squatter’s cabin. “There were just three rooms, and only one fireplace. We cooked outdoors mostly, but it was often freezing cold in the winter. There was wood all around us, but we never had enough to burn. The boys always forgot to cut it. Papa and Tom worked sometimes on the river or in the turpentine camps, and they planted an acre or two of corn, but all they took any interest in was hunting and trapping and fishing. They used to go away down into the delta sometimes for weeks.
“We always had plenty of rabbits and sweet potatoes and squirrels, but that was all. I don’t think I ever tasted milk. There never was any money. I had hardly clothes enough for decency. But there was money for whisky. Not that the boys were ever cruel or even unkind. You can see how they are now. But we used to hear them come home down the river at night, drunk and shouting and firing their pistols——”
She stopped with a shudder, and then broke out again.