“When and where did your interest in oil begin?” Mr. Rogers asked as he seated me—a full light on my face, I noticed.
“On the flats and hills of Rouseville,” I told him.
“Of course,” he cried, “of course! Tarbell’s Tank Shops. I knew your father. I could put my finger on the spot where those shops stood.”
We were off. We forgot our serious business and talked of our early days on the Creek. Mr. Rogers told me how the news of the oil excitement had drawn him from his boyhood home in New England, how he had found his way into Rouseville, gone into refining. He had married and put his first thousand dollars into a home on the hillside adjoining ours.
“It was a little white house,” he said, “with a high peaked roof.”
“Oh, I remember it!” I cried. “The prettiest house in the world, I thought it.” It was my first approach to the Gothic arch, my first recognition of beauty in a building.
We reconstructed the geography of our neighborhood, lingering over the charm of the narrow ravine which separated our hillsides, a path on each side.
“Up that path,” Mr. Rogers told me, “I used to carry our washing every Monday morning and go for it every Saturday night. Probably I’ve seen you hunting flowers on your side of the ravine. How beautiful it was! I was never happier.”
Could two strangers, each a little wary of the other, have had a more auspicious beginning for a serious talk? For what followed was serious with moments of strain.
“What are you basing your story on?” he asked finally.