Jim shoved a box of cigars at Oscar and surveyed him with his wistful smile. There were dark circles round Jim"s eyes that in his childhood had told of nerve strain. Jim at that moment wondered what Iron Skull would have made of the present situation. He was silent so long that Oscar spoke a little impatiently:
"If you ain"t going to talk, Mr. Manning, Jane is waiting for me and I got to see Mr. Sardox yet."
Jim pulled himself together, and, a little diffidently, handed Ames the Secretary"s letter with the copy of his own.
"Tell me what you think of these," said Jim.
Oscar read the two letters carefully, then said: "I"d think more of "em if I had any idea what either of you was driving at."
"It means just this," said Jim, "that unless the engineers and the farmers work together, the Reclamation Service will get what the water power trust is trying to give it, and that is, oblivion."
"Aha," said Oscar, "that"s why you"ve been so decent to me today?"
"Yes," replied Jim simply.
Oscar"s look of suspicion returned. Jim went on slowly and carefully.
"It will be bad business if the Service fails. It will r.e.t.a.r.d the government control of water power greatly, and there is enough possible water power in this country, Oscar, to turn every wheel in it and to heat and light every home in the land. If the Service fails it will show just one thing; that the farmers and engineers on the Projects are too selfish to get together for the country"s good, that the farmer is a stupid cat"s paw for the money interests and the engineer a spineless fool who won"t fight."
"Look here, Manning," cried Oscar, "don"t you think I"m justified in thinking about nothing but my own ranch, considering what it"s cost me?"
"Don"t you think," Jim returned, "that I"m justified in thinking about nothing but my dam and in letting the water power trust eat it and you up, considering how hard I work on the building itself?"
Oscar stared and chewed his cigar and Jim smoked in silence for a moment.
"Ames," he said finally, "I wonder if you will get this idea as quickly as you did the sand-cement one. America isn"t like England or Germany or France. Over there the citizens of each country are practically of one race. Fundamentally, they think about the same way and want the same things. If one man or many neglect public duties it makes no permanent difference. Someone else will take up the duty some time, and in just about the same way that the negligent man would have done. But in America we have become a hodge-podge of every race. We have no national ideals. You can"t tell me now of a single national ideal you and I are working for or even thinking about. You can"t tell me what an American is, or I you. Get me?"
Oscar nodded, his tanned face keen with interest.
"Now the time has come when if you or I want any particular one of the old New England ideals to live in this country we have got to fight for it, start an educational campaign for it. If we don"t, the Russian Jews or the Italians or the Syrians will change things to suit their own ideals. Now they may be all right. Their ideals may be as good as mine.
They have every right to be here and to rule if they can. But I don"t like the kind of government they stood for in their native countries.
"I"m a pig-headed Anglo-Saxon, full of an egotism that dies hard. I believe that the Reclamation Service idea is an outgrowth of the fine democracy that our fathers brought to New England. I believe that the folks that are going to inherit America can"t afford to lose the idea of the Service and I"m going to fight for it now till they get me. Am I clear?"
"Sure," said Oscar. "Ain"t I of Puritan stock myself?"
"That"s why I"m talking to you," said Jim. "Now I take the central idea of the United States Reclamation Service to be this. It is a return to the old principle of the people governing themselves directly, of their a.s.suming individual responsibility for the details and cost of governing. It is the fine outgrowth of the industrial lessons we have learned in the past years, combined with the town meeting idea, brought up to date.
"One central organization can do work better and cheaper, if it will, than a dozen competing interests. If the central organization is privately owned it demands a heavy profit. But if it is owned by the government it takes no profit. On a Project, free individuals voluntarily combine to do business and to directly administer the products of that business to themselves. The Service is merely the tool of the people on the Projects.
"Oscar, it"s up to you and me. In antagonizing you farmers, I"ve opened the way for the enemies of the Service to reach you. And you, in being reached, are endangering the Service. Is it true that you are going to help Saradokis and Fleckenstein get your honest debts repudiated?"
The two men sat and stared at each other, Oscar with his years of unutterable labor behind him, his traditions that dealt with a constant hand-to-hand struggle with nature for his own existence; Jim with his long years of dreaming behind him and his awakening vision of social responsibility before him. Engineer and desert farmer, they were of widely differing characteristics, yet they had one fundamental quality in common. They both were producers. They were not little men. There was nothing parasitic in their outlook. They had always dealt with fundamental, primitive forces.
Suddenly Oscar leaned forward. "Are you trying to string me into saying the increased cost of the dam is all right?"
Jim tapped on the table. "Not five per cent of the increased cost but comes from the improvements you farmers have asked for. And not one cent of the cost of the entire Project but will be paid for by the water power produced and sold. You know that, Ames. Now pay attention."
Jim shook his finger in Oscar"s face and said slowly and incisively:
"You farmers will never repudiate your honorable debts while I can fight. You are going to fight with me, Ames, to help me save the Service. You are going to put your shoulder to mine and fight as you did when the old dam was going out under your feet! Do you get that?"
Oscar opened his mouth but no words came. Then both men jumped to their feet as Mrs. Ames" gentle voice said from the kitchen door:
"Oscar will fight, or I"ll leave him."
CHAPTER XXI
JIM GETS A BLOW
"The eagle has lived long in my side. He is cruel with talons built for seizing. Is this why so many nations choose him as their emblem?"
MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.
Jane never had looked meeker or smaller or more desert worn than she did as she stood eying the two men; that is, meek except as to her eyes.
These burned like sapphires in the sun. In them was concentrated the deathless energy that Penelope had found was Jane"s chief characteristic.
"I"ve been sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mrs. Flynn and listening to you two talk. It was very interesting."
"Jane, you keep quiet," said Oscar.
"Come in and sit down, Mrs. Ames," said Jim, pulling forward a chair.
"Don"t be too polite to me, Mr. Manning," said Jane. "I ain"t used to it and it makes me nervous. I made up my mind while I heard you talk I"d get a few things off my chest. It may help both of you. I"ve often said, when Oscar was always telling me to keep quiet, that when I had something to say I"d say it."
Oscar looked very much mortified. "Jane," he said, "what"s got into you?"
"Well, it isn"t your politeness, that"s sure. Funny now, that Mrs.
Penelope and I both have nice manners while her husband and mine are both pigs as far as their ways to us go. There isn"t a more popular man in the country than Oscar, but he keeps his popular ways all outside his own home."
Oscar and Jim looked at each other and waited. They both realized that the eruption was inevitable.
"Women are awful fools. Until I had running water put in against Oscar"s wishes I lugged as many as thirty buckets of water a day for thirty years. I"ve carried water and I"ve chopped wood and I"ve had babies and I"ve come at your bidding, Oscar, but now, I"m going to complain. And it"s not about my life either.
"I used to feel sorry for myself until I got to know Mrs. Pen. She has _real_ trouble, but instead of getting peevish as I have over just Oscar"s selfishness, she"s let it make her see the world instead of herself. She has a sort of calm outlook on life. She has told me a dozen times that she looks at life as a great game and trouble as one of the hazards. That"s golf talk. She says the only real sport to be got out of the game is to play it according to rule. And she says marriage seems to be one of the rules. Think of having the courage to talk that way about marriage! She"s better than a book."
Mrs. Ames chuckled reminiscently. Then stared out at the desert and her lips moved in silence as if she found it hard to frame her next sentence.
"We"ve talked a lot about the Project, she and I. At first I was like Oscar, all for being afraid our ranch wasn"t going to get as much and a little more than anyone else"s. Then after she kept talking about it, all of a sudden I saw that I wasn"t Jane Ames at all, drudging out my life in the sand. I"m a human being, struggling along with other human beings to make a living and _be happy_. And then I got the feeling that I wanted to help to make this whole Project the finest place on earth not only for myself but for everyone else.
"And then, just as I get started on something that"s giving me my first chance since I was married to mix with people and do some real big work in the world, I find out that Oscar is getting all mixed up in deals that"ll ruin Mr. Manning and the whole Project as far as our owning it goes."
"Jane!" shouted Oscar.
"Yes, Jane!" replied Mrs. Ames. "If you think I"m going to stand that kind of disgrace, if you think I"m going to keep quiet while my babies"