Chapter 10

He was a right tallish young fellow, maybe twenty-four years or thereabouts, slim, and with a wide mouth. He had a good deal of brown hair, which he combed back from his forehead, without no part in it. He was dressed up like city folks do for dinner, and his necktie wasn't tied careless, but right careful. He looked a good deal like a picture in a tailor shop. His hands didn't even seem to bother him like mine do me sometimes--I often wisht a man could have forty pockets to put all his hands into.

When he seen Bonnie Bell he lit up. Katherine hurried him over and put her hand on Bonnie Bell's arm.

"Honey," says she to Bonnie Bell, "I've brought over my brother Tom; and I want you to like him and I want him to like you."

"That's going to be the easiest thing you know," says he smiling.

He had right good teeth. Bonnie Bell she give him her hand, her arm straight out in front of her, and I didn't think she shook hands very hard; but he did. He kept on looking at her like he was fascernated. It was plain to see that the kid had him on the ropes in the first round.

We went on to the big dining-room right soon. This was the first time the Kimberlys had ever et at our house, except cookies and tea and things in the parlor or in the ranch room. When Mrs. Kimberly come into our big dining-room she taken one look up and down. Maybe she'd been thinking it was like the ranch room all the way through. That showed how little she knew about Bonnie Bell.

They was arranged in pairs as long as the women lasted--this Tom and Bonnie Bell, of course, together; and Mrs. Kimberly and Old Man Wright; and then Katherine and me and Old Man Kimberly. William helped Old Lady Kimberly and Bonnie Bell set down, like they had rheumatism, and I done what I could for Katherine, her and me being pretty good pals. Old Man Kimberly found his cocktail without no help. Right soon he set down to have a pleasant time, him.

We had a good dining-room--large, with white trimmings--and some carpets that cost as much as two thousand dollars each, and chairs that matched the table, and plenty of pictures.

I been around now a lot among our best people and I notice that unless you've got some pictures of sheep in your house you're no good. Any artist just natural has to paint sheep; yet that's the meanest anermal there is, and I don't see why a cowman especial should have sheep in his house. But we done so because it was correct--though I've never et sheep meat. Also, a couple of gondolas, by some Italian, near the sheep.

Besides them, if you've got a good house you've got to have one picture about twilight on a lake, with a broken tree on it and some weeds, and a crane standing there like it didn't have no friends. We had one of them crane pictures too.

When Old Lady Kimberly seen we had sheep and gondolas and weeds and cranes in our house, same as anybody else, she seemed to feel more comfortable. I told Katherine some of those things I'd found out about art and she come near choking in her soup, and said I was awful funny, though I was serious.

"Everything you've got," says she, "is perfectly lovely."

"She done it," says I, which was true. The old man and me, if we was left alone, would never of had even a picture of sheep in the whole house.

Like enough you've been at dinners in cities where they don't have everything on the table in big dishes, like at a ranch, but a little at a time; so you've got to guess frequent whether you're going to get enough to eat out of things that's coming on later. We was pretty well trained, Old Man Wright and me, since we come to our new house, for Bonnie Bell and William and all the rest run a regular city system on us.

Bonnie Bell was easy as Mrs. Kimberly would of been at her house. She didn't have to say a word to William; he shore was some butler--I reckon he buttled as good as anyone in the Row. I reckon he was born a orphan, he looked so sad.

We had some soup made out of turtle, which is better'n you'd think, to look at a turtle. Afterward was fish I couldn't name. Then there was ducks and potatoes, cooked together so you couldn't tell 'em apart, and considerable other birds with things put on; and alfalfa, with kerosene on it, maybe. After a while comes soft cheese, with strawberries, and yet softer cheese, with little onions cut in it, if you liked that better--I can't remember all them things now or how they come, but we was a couple of hours there and got considerable to eat before we quit. Also, Old Man Kimberly got plenty to drink. He says to the boss:

"You'll excuse me, Colonel," says he, "but I can't help saying a word in favor of your choice in wines."

And then--"Wilfred!" says his wife, as though it wasn't polite to say you liked things.

Since Katherine was talking to me all the time, and since Tom couldn't see nothing but Bonnie Bell, I reckon the whole party was pretty well suited.

After dinner, while we was setting in the ranch room--which they all liked so well--and could have sherry or coffee, or both, or maybe Scotch, Mrs. Kimberly kept on saying to the old man:

"Wilfred, I'm surprised!"

"So'm I, my dear," says he--"surprised that we've never been here all the time before. You may mark us down as steadies now," says he.

We had in the middle of the house, offen the ranch room, a long room, with a piano in it, and a smooth floor, and rugs that could be easy pushed away. Nothing'd do for them folks but they must go to dancing now. Sometimes Katherine played the piano and sometimes Bonnie Bell; she shore could slug a piano plenty when she wanted. She didn't get to play much, because Tom he wanted to dance with her all the time--turkeys' trots, I think they called it, or fox hops, or something of the kind.

Seems like she could do that, too, for she had lessons downtown. When Katherine got Old Man Wright to dance with her there wasn't no one left to play; so we set a music box going, and Katherine made me play on a Jew's-harp too.

Tom Kimberly certainly was up in all the late steps of dancing; that was one thing he could do. While him and Bonnie Bell was dancing I could see all the old folks looking at them quietlike. It was plain that he was mighty hard hit with Bonnie Bell. Old Man Wright he'd look at him once in a while--right close too. As for Bonnie Bell, she was pleasant, like she always was; but it didn't seem to me she laughed as much as usual. We was all of us showing off our goods.

When they come to go away, Katherine she hugged Bonnie Bell tighter than ever, and Old Man Kimberly held her hand for quite a while.

"You'll take pity on a old man, won't you," says he, "and come to see us often? You really must."

"Yes, my dear," says Mrs. Kimberly; "come and liven us up sometimes. It's been very delightful to see you young people enjoy yourselves so much--and you old people too," says she, and laughed at her husband, who maybe was some illuminated.

It was plain enough to me when they went away that our place had turned out better'n they thought it would. Bonnie Bell, too, if she'd been on inspection for them, same as Tom Kimberly was with us, certainly'd more than made good. Likewise, I suppose our sheep and gondola pictures must of made good too. We couldn't exactly of been classed as heathen--not unless me and Old Man Wright was.

We didn't say nothing to Bonnie Bell about these things, and pretty soon she kissed her pa good night and went upstairs to her room. The old man and me set for a while thinking things over.

"What do you think of him, Curly?" says he to me after a while.

"Well," says I, "it ain't just as though the cat had brought him in. He's good-looking," says I, "and he can dance; and he's a pleasant fellow enough. I only sort of got it in for people that drink cocktails instead of straight liquor and push their hair back thataway."

"Well now," he went on, "you've got to allow for differences in different places. Riding and roping ain't so important in Chicago as dining and dancing--not among our best people," says he. "You've got to take account of that. A girl might do a lot worse."

"There ain't nobody good enough for Bonnie Bell," says I, "when it comes to that; but I was just sort of thinking I like a man to know something about riding and shooting, and that sort of thing, as well as dancing."

"Curly," says he, "you said your pa was a hard-shell?"

"Yes," says I.

"A hard-shell Presbyterian?" says he. "Anyhow, your folks must of been right exacting. Now don't be too hard on young folks."

"Listen to me, Colonel," says I. "Suppose you had two of 'em right here--one that didn't have no family nor no money, but took to ranch work sort of natural; and one that could dance and dine like you say. One of these men parts his hair on one side and one combs it back, without no part. Which one of 'em would you like most?"

"I'd have to see both men and size 'em up," says he. "But what makes you ask? The other kind of young man you're talking about ain't showed up yet. Besides, one thing that favors Tom is he don't have to marry for money. Bless you; he ain't thinking of her money--not one dollar; just thinking of her, right the way she is. He's gone--that's what he is."

"That's so," says I; "that's certainly so. But how about her?"

"They all take their chances," says Old Man Wright, solemn, after a while. "Anyway you can fix it a woman takes a chance. She's in a gamble all her whole born life. She's a gamble herself and she has to play in a gamble from the time she begins to toddle till the time they fold her hands. She can't tell if her husband's going to stick; she can't tell if her husband's going to make good; she can't tell how her kids is going to turn out--that's all a gamble too.

"Do your best, Curly, and try your damnedest, there ain't no way you can protect no woman against them gambles. If I wait for exactly the right man to come along, that don't comb his hair back, how do I know he'll ever come? If he does come maybe he'll have a eye on her bank roll, or maybe he'll measure forty inches around his pants. Either one--ary one--it's all a gamble for a girl.

"No," he went on; "about the only thing she can do, after all, is to use her own head and her own heart. It ain't in the nature of things that you can look ahead and see how the game's coming out for any girl--she has to take her chances. We've got to stand by and see her do it. I wisht it wasn't so. I loved her ma so much, and she looks so much like her ma--why, I wisht--why, I wisht---- Damn it, don't I wisht it wasn't such a dash-blamed, all-fired, hell-for-certain gamble for the kid!"

It wasn't no time for me to say anything about any hired man now! By and by the old man quit looking into the fire and got up and went off to bed.

XIX

THEM AND BONNIE BELL

It was a right fine place for me--probably not. Here I was, foreman under full pay, and bound to play on the level with the boss, to say nothing of the long time I'd worked for him. Of course I ought to tell him all about that Wisners' hired man; but how could I?

It come to a question whether I liked the boss best or Bonnie Bell, which is no fair place to put a man. Any man is apt to want to favor the woman in a case like that. Come to get down to cases, I found I liked Bonnie Bell a lot more than I ever'd realized I did. I was part her dad, you know, and I couldn't stand to see her unhappy.

The trouble with a cowpuncher, like I said, is that he hasn't got no real brains. I never used to notice that before, because it don't need no brains to be a puncher, as long as you stick to the ranch. But here I needed 'em right keen now.

Every day I walked the line fence; but there wasn't no work about that, for the bricks was mostly stuck back in the hole, and the hired man that had made all the trouble he kept on his own side--I didn't never see him no more at all.

Bonnie Bell didn't say a word to me, nor me to her. I thought she ought to come to me and talk things over; but she didn't. I knowed she hadn't said a word to her pa, and I knowed I hadn't neither.

Tom he called three times the first week. I didn't care much for him someways, though I knowed I ought. Bonnie Bell knowed she ought too. Her pa knowed he ought too. If ever a fellow played in a game like that, with all the ways greased for him, Tom was him.

Old Man Wright he turns to me one evening when we was setting by the fire in our room, and he says to me:

"Well, Curly, how are you enjoying yourself now in this hard and downtrod position that life has gave to you?"

"I don't like it none, Colonel," says I; "not none at all, nohow."

"Why don't you join a cowpunchers' union, then?" he ast. "Pshaw! This is a good town and I rather like it. The game here is easy to beat--easier than it was in Wyoming. For instance, just the other day I bought a bunch of timber land out in Arizony--a place where I've never been nor want to go, because they've got the tick fever down there scandalous, and irrigation, which is a crime. Well, I only bought in on this timber because a friend of mine wanted me to come in with him; and, figuring I didn't know nothing about it, I allowed I certainly would lose for once--I couldn't tell a pine tree from a spruce to save my life."

"Huh!" says I. "I suppose then somebody comes along and offers you twice your money for it, maybe?"

"No; they didn't," says he. "I was hoping they would; but they didn't. No, it was old Uncle Sam come along through that part of the state, and he sees where we've got about all the best timber left on top of a range of mountains in there, and he allows he ought to keep that timber from ever being cut; so he buys it off us for four times what we give for it--not twice. Uncle Sam pays in real money."

"Huh!" says I. "I never did have no trouble like you have, Colonel, to find a game where I could lose money. I suppose maybe you made seegar money out of that too?"

"A little, maybe. I only put in a little in the first place--two, three hundred thousand dollars; not much. I was so in hopes I could lose some money so as to sort of encourage me like, you know. But it's no use, Curly!" And he sighs right heavy.

"You have my symperthy, Colonel," says I. "If ever you want any help, so as to make the game more interesting, just let me set in and take your hand for you--I'll guarantee on my record that I'll open your eyes in ways how to lose money."

"All right, Curly," says he. "I'll ast you sometime and maybe copper your bets. I always do that when my lawyer or my stockbroker gives me any tips. It's the surest way in the world to make a killing in this here, now, stock market.

"For instance, just the other day they told me down there to be shore and buy a lot of Blue Mountain Steel, which certainly was backed by the J. P. Morgan interests and was going to get a lot of war orders. So I didn't--I bought Steel Boat Electric Common instead of that. I didn't know anything about it, but somebody must of give them some war orders, submarines of something. I notice our stock has rose around two hundred per cent the last few weeks. I don't know why it is that things of been going on this way," says he. "It bothers me a lot, Curly. Yet I only put a few hundred thousand in that too.

"I'm setting aside two-thirds of all I make in this here city in the kid's name, Curly," says he. "It's a five per cent trust for keeps. It's getting to be something awful how much that fund of hers is! And, the best I can do, I can't help its increasing right along. There don't seem to be no way in which we can get broke and go back to honest work again, such as raising cows--though making four calves grow where there wasn't none in the sage brush before, that's really being useful in the world, war or no war."

He set there for some time looking in the fire, serious, and he come around again to the same old place.

"Curly," says he, "if there is any created critter on this human footstool that I hate and despise, and that every he-man in the world hates and despises, it's the man that'll marry a girl for her money. Look at them dukes and things that come over here and marry our American girls. I never shot a duke, but I will if one of 'em blows in here and starts anything like that with our girl."

"Maybe he won't come," says I. "You never can tell."

"Curly," says he, "you can always tell! Listen to me. There's just one thing certain in the whole world--or two. If a girl's handsome men'll come around. If she's rich men'll come around. They fall out of the sky. They come up out of the ground. They break in through the fence----"

"What's that?" says I. "Colonel, what do you mean about fences?"

"I mean to say that there ain't no fence on earth you could build that'd keep out young men from a handsome girl that's got money."

"Ain't that the God's truth, Colonel!" says I. "How come you to figure that out?"

"How? How come me to break through the fence that was built around Bonnie Bell's ma, back in Maryland, and carry her away from there? But when I think that, like enough, some low-down cuss like me'll come around and break through my fence and carry off my girl, to take such chances as her ma done--I tell you it makes the sweat come right out on me."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon if any young man comes along here, no matter if he gets in at the front door or crawls in under the fence, he's got to show some revenue as well as be all right other ways?"

He set some time thinking before he answered.

"That's a right hard question, Curly," says he. "I wouldn't bar a poor man if I was shore he was on the square. It wouldn't be so hard to decide if she didn't have any money; but she has, and it can't be concealed much longer."

He gets up and walks up and down a while talking.

"I declare, if I was a young man I'd never ast no rich young woman to marry me at all. I'd be afraid to ast her, for fear she'd spot me or accuse me, whichever way it was. I can't agree to no pore young man for her, for I couldn't trust him. And I can't agree to no rich young man for her, because none of 'em ain't worth a damm, as far as I've seen."

"It looks like a awful thing, Colonel, to have a cheeild that's rich and lovely."

"Yes," says he; "and it ain't no joke neither."

"Well now, Colonel," says I, "take the houses in this Row where we live. How many young men is there that we can tally out?"

He shook his head.

"There ain't none at all worth mentioning--believe me!" says he.

I did believe him. That left just Tom for the entry in the Bonnie Bell Stakes. Looked like he couldn't lose.

XX

WHAT OUR WILLIAM DONE

Nobody said a word to Bonnie Bell about Tom Kimberly--neither her pa nor me; for she was so quiet and shut up like we couldn't seem to break in noways. We had to let it go like it laid on the board. One thing shore, being in love or not being--whichever it was--had changed Bonnie Bell a heap. She wasn't the same girl no more.

It used to be that Bonnie Bell didn't care so much for her piano as for things out of doors, but now she taken to soaking that pore helpless thing--sometimes sad and lonesome, and then again so hard she'd near bust the keys. Then, maybe after she'd pasted the stuffing out of it a few times, she'd set looking out of the window with her hands in her lap--and so forgetful of her hands that they lay there, little as they was, on their backs, with the fingers turned up on the ends, and even her thumbs. It made me sorry.

Then again she'd cut off the music for days and go to reading books, mostly in the window seat, her head puckered, like it was hard work.

"What're you reading, Hon?" says I one day. "Seems to me it must be a bad-luck story. Also, why have you took to reading books upside down?"

"Nonsense!" says she. "I been brushing up in my sikeology," says she. "That was one of our senior studies--the last year I had in Smith's, you know."

"What's it for?" says I. "Does it say anything about whether it's going to rain next Tuesday?" I ast her.

"Well, it's something needed to train us to meet the problems of life as they arrive, Curly," says she.

"Does it show you how to look any young fellow in the face," says I--"one that's got his hair combed back and no part in it, and playing La Paloma on a banjo or a guitar, and guess what he's thinking about, Bonnie?" says I.

She got a little red and tapped her foot on the carpet.

"What do you mean, Curly?" says she.

"Nothing," says I. "Only I was wondering if they'd put me in a long coat at the wedding. I never was backed into one of 'em in my whole life."

"Well, Curly," says she, "if you wait for my wedding you may need the long coat for your funeral first."

"Huh!" says I. "Huh! Is that so? You don't know your pa none," says I.

"What do you mean, Curly?" says she, sharp.

"He ain't going to be boarding you all your life, kid," says I. "He can't noways afford it."

"I reckon dad isn't worried much," says she.

"Are you so shore, kid?" says I to her. "Now look here: I'm, say, half your pa. I haven't said a word to you about certain things. What's more, I haven't said a word to your pa about them neither."

"I know it, Curly," says she, looking at me sudden. "I love you for it. You're one grand man, Curly!"

"I'm one worried man," says I. "I've gone back on my job with your pa."

"Do you feel that way, Curly?" says she, and she looked scared. "And is that my fault?"

"I shore do and it shore is," says I.

"But you haven't said a word."

"No--not yet."

"Don't, Curly!" says she, right quick. "Don't--oh, please don't!"

She puts her hand on my arm then and looks into my eyes.

She had me buffaloed right there. I couldn't get her hand off'n my arm. I couldn't help patting it when it laid there.

"Aw, shucks!" says I to her. "Come now!"

Right then our William he come in at the door, and stood there and coughed like he done when he had anything on his mind.

"Ahum!" says he, sad like.

"What is it, William?" says Bonnie Bell, looking round at him.

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but might Hi speak with Mr. Wilson for a moment?"

You see, he called me Mr. Wilson, that being my last name. It was in the Bible, or else I probably would of forgot it.

"Oh, all right," says I; and I got up and went out with him.

He was standing in his little hall when I come out, and he has our Boston dog, Peanut, tied to a chair leg there with a piece of rope. Peanut barked joyful at me, thinking I was going to take him outdoors maybe.

"Hexcuse me, sir," says William, right sad, "but this little dog is a hobject of my suspicion, sir."

"What's that?" says I. "What do you suspect him of--embeazlement, maybe?"

William he stoops down then and unties something that Peanut has fastened in his collar. It was a envelope. It didn't have no name on it.

"This is the third one Hi found on 'im," says William. "Hi 'ave the other two in my desk. Hi don't know, sir, for whom they may be hintended, sir."

"Well, who sent 'em? Is anybody going to blow up our place unlessen we put twelve thousand dollars under a stone on the front sidewalk?"

"That's what Hi wish to hinquire, sir. Hi became alarmed," says William. "Hi thought Hi'd awsk you about it, sir, Mr. Wright not being at 'ome."

"Why didn't you awsk Miss Wright?" says I.

"Hi didn't wish to alarm her, possibly."

We stood there, with this letter in our hands, looking it over.

"You say you don't know where this dog's been?" says I.

"Oh, no, sir; quite the contrary. I don't doubt he's often been through the--ahum!--ahum!----"

"Well, how often has he been through the ahum, William?" says I. "What made you let him go? You know it's against orders."