Graduation time was at hand, and all the grave old seniors had the job of choosing their future careers. Dad asked Bunny if he had made up his mind, and Bunny answered that he had. “But I hate to tell you, Dad, because it’s going to make you unhappy.”
“What is it, son?” A look of concern was upon the old man’s round but heavily lined features.
“Well, I want to go away for a year, and take another name, and get myself a job as a worker in one of the big industries.”
“Oh, my God!” A pause, while Dad gazed into his son’s troubled eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Just that I want to understand the working people, and that’s the only way.”
“You can’t ask them what you want to know?”
“No, Dad they don’t know it themselves—except dimly. It is something you have to live.”
“Good Lord, son, let me help you! I’ve been there. It means dirt and vermin and disease—I thought I was saving you from it, and making things easier for you!”
“I know, Dad, but it’s a mistake; it doesn’t work out as you thought. When a young fellow has everything too easy for him, he gets soft, he has no will of his own. I know what you’ve done, and I’m grateful for it, but I have to try something different, for a time.”
“You can’t possibly find anything hard enough for you in the job of running an oil industry?”