Chapter 7

"This here is going to be a changed ward. I ain't in no man's vest pocket. I ain't done yet. This is just the beginning. But where's the kid, Curly?"

I went and found her. William was still hid somewhere--the night's doings had grieved him plenty. She come in and set down by her pa.

"Well, sis," says he, "you see your dad is getting some of them Better Things we come to Chicago after."

"Dad," says she, pushing back a little way from him and looking into his face, "tell me something."

"What is it, Honey?"

"The truth now--the truth."

"Yes, Honey."

"Did you sell out the Circle Arrow and come to town on account of me?"

He didn't speak at first.

"Yes, I did, Honey," says he at last. "I said I'd tell you the truth. That was why we sold the old ranch--so as you could come here. I wanted you to go as high as any American woman could go. We educated you for that--we brought you up for it, Curly and me."

"We didn't win, did we, dad?" says she, slow like. "How is it done, dad?"

"Gawd knows," he says. "Tell me, sis, if we pulled out of here and went to some other town, would you be better? How about Kansas City?"

"No," says she. "Our feet ain't headed that way. I won't quit, dad."

"You'll break your heart first, and your dad's?"

"Yes, if necessary."

"All to break into them sepulchers?"

"No," says she; "there's a lot of things worth while more than that. These brick-and-stone houses are the trenches. They may be hard to take. But back of them lies the country, and it's the country that's worth while. You found it--over on the other side of the ward. For me--don't mind if I haven't found it just yet."

"Ain't you happy, sis?" says he.

"No," says she, quiet like; "I'm not."

He pats her on the back.

"Get out of doors," says he. "Do something--work at something! Look upwards and outside, and don't get to looking inwards," says he. "That ain't the way. Think what's in the fields beyond."

"Life, dad," says she, slow; and it seemed to me like she was sad. "Life!"

"Life?" says he. "Sis, what do you mean? Tell your old dad, can't you?"

She told him, then. She put her haid down on his neck.

"Oh," says she, "it's all right for you two--you've got something to do--you can work and fight; but what can I do? What is there for me to do in all the world? And you tried so hard to make me happy!"

"And you ain't happy?" says her pa.

"Dad!" says she. "Dad!" And she went on crying down his neck.

Ain't women hell? I went on away.

XI

US AND THE FREEZE-OUT

More and more folks begun to talk about us and our place since we got to be alderman. Of course more and more people begun to come in and visit with us now; but not one from Millionaire Row, though, if I do say it, we had the best-looking place now in the whole row of houses.

It was one of Bonnie Bell's ideas to make one of them sunken gardens, which she said was always done in Italy.

"I'll tell you," says she; "we'll build our sunken garden right up against Old Man Wisner's wall. How would it do to plant a few ivy vines to run up the side of the wall, dad?" she ast her pa.

"Why, all right," says he; "but you be mighty careful not to plant any olive branches."

So Bonnie Bell and me we was busy quite a while making plans for this here sunken garden. We read all the books we could find; still, she wasn't happy.

"I need some skilled gardener in this," says she; "them Dutch down at the park are no good at all. I wonder where the Wisners' gardener went."

"That fellow wasn't so much," says I to Bonnie Bell.

"What makes you say that, Curly?" says she.

"Well, I heard him talking one morning and I didn't like it. For that matter, I didn't like the way he talked about you neither. I told him we couldn't have nothing to do with the lower classes--let alone now, when we're alderman, we couldn't do that. He was fired and he ought to of been."

"How did you come to know all this, Curly?" says she.

"I heard him down at the boathouse talking to Old Lady Wisner. I think we're mighty well shut of the whole bunch of them--though I will say he was learning to rope all right, and I could of made a cowhand out of him if I'd had time."

"What did she say, Curly?" she asked me then, "Did she really talk about us?"

"Yes, she did. She thought you was a hired girl. And she says we was can-nye, and he wasn't to mix with us. Can-nye--what is can-nye, Bonnie?" says I.

She got red in the face and was shore mad at something.

"Can-nye, eh!" says she. "Can-nye! So that's what she thinks we are."

"Well, that was before we was alderman," says I. "Maybe they think different now, whatever can-nye is. What is it, anyway?"

"It means something common, vulgar and low down, Curly," says she.

"That wasn't no bouquet, then, was it?" says I. "Well, I didn't think so then, though I never heard it called to nobody in my life. I made it plain, though, to that hired man that he didn't have no chance to break into our house."

"Did he want to come over, Curly?" she ast.

"Crazy to! He wanted to get a look in our ranch room. I told you he was hankering to be a cowpuncher."

"Well, why didn't you bring him over if he was trying to learn things you could teach him?"

"What! Me bring him in our place? I reckon not! Now look here, kid," says I, "you don't half know how good-looking you are."

"I'm not," says she. "I got a freckle right on my nose. It don't come off neither."

"Well, maybe one freckle or so," says I; "but that don't kill off your looks altogether. Let me tell you, when it comes to common people like him talking your name out in public, why, it don't go!" says I. "Besides, another thing"--I went on talking to her right plain. "Look at the money you'll come into sometime! He has got to show me a-plenty what right he had to say you was wonderfully beautiful. You are, kid--but what business was it of his?"

"He has been gone four months and eight days," says she, thoughtful.

"How do you know he has? Do you keep a calendar on folks like him?"

"No; I was just thinking," says she, "that if he was here I might ask him about my sunken garden."

"That would be fine, wouldn't it?" says I. "But then, come to think of it, he wasn't in favor of that fence hisself. He was right free-spoken; I'll say that for him."

"He didn't like that fence idea?"

"Of course he didn't. He knew it wasn't right."

"Well," says she, "I'm going to plant ivy on it. If it runs over the top of the wall and hangs down on their side I'm not going to try to stop it."

Now, why she said that I never could figure out at all. I suppose women is peacefuller than men.

The folks in the ward where we live at they allowed their new alderman was on the square. I reckon it must of been them freckles. There ain't no way of beating a man in politics that has freckles and that can carry his liquor. So by and by all the papers come out and begun to say maybe Mr. John William Wright would be a candidate for treasurer next election. That is about as high as you can get in city politics. Treasurers make a heap more than their salaries usual in any large town. The people don't seem to mind it neither.

Times out on the range wasn't so good now as they might of been. Them high benches along the mountains never was made for farming. The new settlers that had come in under our old patents, through this here Yellow Bull Colonization and Improvement Company, they was shore having hard sledding along of their having believed everything they seen in the papers. They'd allowed they was going into the Promised Land. It was--but it wasn't nothing else but a promise.

It was Old Man Wisner's fault really. Though, after his usual way in side lines, he never showed his hand, he was deep in that company hisself. It was him now that had to hold the thing together. The settlers got sore and some of them quit, and most of them didn't pay their second or third payments. Of course that didn't make no difference, so far as we was concerned, for the Yellow Bull Colonization and Improvement Company had to make their deferred payments just the same to us. But when the company's money run out, and they maybe had to assess the stockholders, some of the stockholders got almighty cold feet.

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon we'll get back our ranch some of these days, won't we? I shore wish we would."

"So do I, Curly; but I'm afraid not," says he.

"Why not?" I ast him.

"Well, it's Old Man Wisner--that's the reason," says he. "You see, it's his money that they are working with now," says he. "Their new ditch has cost them more than four times what the engineer said it would--a ditch always does. They've been wasting the water, like grangers always do, and they're fighting among themselves. These States people has to learn how to farm all over again when they go out into that sort of country. As to them pore stockholders, I reckon you could buy them out right cheap; but, cheap or not, Old Man Wisner's in more than he ever thought he'd be," says he.

"Ain't you going to let the old man off on none of them deferred payments?" says I, grinning.

"I am, of course, Curly," says he, solemn. "Seeing what he has done for us, I'm just hankering for some chance of doing him a kindness!" says he.

I begun to believe that before this here game was all played there'd be some fur flying between them two old hes, neither of which was easy to make quit.

XII

US AND A ACCIDENTAL FRIEND

Bonnie Bell she was busy, after her little ways, fixing her garden or laying out her flower beds, or reading, or studying about pictures. She drove her electric brougham a good deal, riding around.

She was riding along one day in the park below our house when she seen a girl go riding by, with some others and a young man or two, on horseback, bouncing along bumpety-bump, rising up every jump as though the saddle hurt 'em. One of the girls was on a mean horse, but she was going pretty well and didn't seem to mind it. But this horse he taken a scare at a automobile that was letting off steam, and, first thing you know, up went the horse in front and the girl got a fall.

There wasn't any of them very good riders, and this horse, being a bad actor, scared the others. They all bolted off, not seeming to know that this girl had fell off. She lit on her head.

Bonnie Bell seen all this happen, and she gets out of her car on the keen lope and runs over to where the girl is and picks her up. Her and a policeman took her in Bonnie Bell's brougham. She didn't know nothing yet, being jolted some on the head.

Now that girl was pretty as a picture herself, with light hair and blue eyes, and kind of a big mouth. She was smiling even when she didn't know a thing. She was always smiling. She was dressed like she had lots of money; and she was fixed for riding--boots and some sort of pants.

Bonnie Bell couldn't bring her to and she concludes to take her home to our house. First thing I know, there she was outside, hollering for me.

"Come here quick, Curly!" says she. "Come help me carry her into the house."

So I helped her. The girl still had her quirt in her hand and she was kind of white.

"Who is she, Bonnie Bell?" says I; and she says she didn't know, and tells me to go and get a doctor.

But while I was getting William to telephone--I couldn't use them things much myself--the girl comes to, all right; and she sets up and rubs her head.

"Oh, what do you know about that!" says she. "He got me off. I thank you so much. Which way did he go?" she ast.

"He was headed to the riding-school barn," says Bonnie Bell, "the last I saw of him. Your friends were all going the same way. So I thought the best thing I could do was to bring you here till you felt better."

I don't reckon the girl was hurt bad, she being young; and such girls is tough.

"Well," says she, "it certainly was nice of you. And how am I to thank you?" She kissed Bonnie Bell then for luck. "You're nice," says she, "and I like you."

Bonnie Bell, if you'll believe me, was kind of timid and scared, with it being so long since any woman had said a kind word to her. She didn't hardly know what to say, at first, till the girl kissed her again.

"I am Katherine Kimberly," says she. "We live just above the park. Where is this?"

"This is just above the park too," says Bonnie Bell--"on the boulevard. This is Mr. John William Wright's place," says she, "and I'm Miss Wright. Can I serve some tea to you?" So she calls William.

When William brings in the tea them two set up and begun to talk right sociable. This here Kimberly girl she rubbed her head once in a while, but she wasn't hurt much along of having so much hair to fall on her head with. The tea fixed her all right.

"I hit my coco a jolt!" says she. "Gee! I was going some. I'll never ride that long-legged old giraffe again; he's nothing but a dog after all--not that I'm afraid, but I don't like him," says she. "Do you ride?"

"Would you like to come and see my horses?" says Bonnie Bell. "If you like horses----"

"Do I like them? I'm crazy over them! Can you ride?"

"Oh, some," says Bonnie Bell. "Curly says I can."

"Curly?" And she looks at me.

"He's our foreman," says Bonnie Bell. "Talk to him if you want to know about riding--he's a rider."

"I was once, ma'am," says I, "but not no more. I wouldn't get on a mean horse now for a thousand dollars. I'm scared of horses, ma'am; but she ain't"--meaning Bonnie Bell. "She still thinks she can ride any of 'em."

"Yes," says Bonnie Bell; "and, as far as that goes, if I could get you to come with me I would always ride a horse and not go in a car or boat."

"Boat?" says Miss Kimberly. "Oh, of course you have 'em too."

"Come down," says Bonnie Bell, "and you and I can look at my horses and boat and things. After that I'll take you home."

"Oh, may I go?" says this Katherine girl. "You see, I suppose I must get home before they tell mommah."

Well, she hadn't more than got out on our porch than she knew in a minute where she was. This was where she showed she was a lady born and a good girl too. She never let on beyond that first look--she seen she had been brought into the house of us can-nyes. This was the house with the wall, where nobody of the Row ever went.

"How lovely it is!" says she. "Do you know you have the nicest place on this whole street? It's tasteful. I like this little sunken garden--it's a dear! And see how the ivy grows on the wall! And over there's the boathouse. May I see your things?"

Now what she said last wasn't any bluff. It was just the girl in her talking to another girl. I seen Bonnie Bell give her another look, kind of asting like--she herself was free and friendly every way; but she hadn't been used to this right along lately. So she looks at this Katherine Kimberly right close for about half a second, till she seen she was on the square.

Then this Kimberly girl puts her arm round Bonnie Bell. That was the way them two went down to the boathouse--their arms around one another. When they come back, in about ten minutes or so, they was talking so fast neither one of them could of heard what the other was saying.

"Oh, my goodness!" says Katherine after a little. "I must be going home. It isn't far, you know."

"Yes; I know," says Bonnie Bell, quiet.

"And you said you'd take me home in your car?"

"And you want me to?" says Bonnie Bell, kind of funny.

"I wish you would--if you will. Of course I could walk."

"Does your head hurt now?" ast Bonnie Bell.

The girl looked at her straight. Then I knew she was on the square.

"No, it don't," says she; "but I'd like it if you would take me home in your car," says she. "I want you to come in and meet my mommah. We want to come down here if you'll let us, all of us. Will you let us? Will you let us, Bonnie?" says she.

Now, ain't it funny how much can happen quiet and easy? I expect more had happened for Bonnie Bell this last hour or so than had in a whole year before--and all by accident, like most good things comes to us. Not a woman in that block had ever called on Bonnie Bell and it didn't look like they ever would. We wasn't on the map--even me, that ain't got any brains at all, knowed that.

And yet I could tell that if Bonnie Bell Wright drove along the front of that block with Katherine Kimberly in her car, and they got off at the Kimberlys' and went in--and if the Kimberlys come up to our house, too--why, then I knowed we was on the map. I don't think Bonnie Bell cared. What was in her heart was mostly gladness at meeting some girl friend she could talk to right free.

Of course, living there so long, I couldn't help knowing some of the things along the Row. I knowed there was a sort of a fight there as to which was the queen of Millionaire Row, which was the same as being the queen of the society of this here city of Chicago. Either it was this Mrs. Henry D. Kimberly or else it was Mrs. David Abraham Wisner. The Kimberlys was in wholesale leather, while the Wisners was in wholesale beef and pork, and them things. Most everybody in the Row, it seemed to me, had something to do with a cow, one shape or another, except us--which, dealing with cows on the hoof, might of been said to be at the bottom of the whole game. But that ain't respectable, like I told you. Sausage or hides or leather is better--especial if wholesale.

Bonnie Bell was quiet. She taken up the collar of this Katherine girl and looks at the little pin she wore on it.

"What year was yours?" says she.

"Last June," says Katherine.

Then I seen they was both scholars of that same Old Man Smith, where Bonnie Bell had went to school. They had on some sort of pins so they knew each other, like Masons. Not having nothing better to do, they kissed each other again.

By the time Bonnie Bell had drove over to the Kimberlys' house folks had found Katherine's horse, but not her; so her ma was scared silly, natural enough. When she seen her long-lost daughter coming with Bonnie Bell, both of them able to walk and talk, she was right glad, and fell on the necks of both of them, weeping some.

"And who is this young lady," says she, meaning Bonnie Bell, "who has been so kind as to bring you home to your mother?"

And she smiled at Bonnie Bell, her being the second woman to do that in Chicago in two years. You see, if a girl is handsome women mostly hate her; the men don't--which is why.

"This is our neighbor, Miss Wright, mommah," says Katherine. "They live just below us a little way."

She got red in the face then, for everybody on the street there knew about us and the high fence; yet nobody knew us personal. But Katherine's ma was different from most of these other people. Besides, you only needed one good look at Bonnie Bell to see that she wasn't any common folks.

"She left Smith the year before I went in, mommah," says Katherine, "and she's in my sororyety; and she's been here ever since they built their fine house; and she's a dear and I love her." Katherine had a way of talking all in one breath, like a sprinter running a hundred yards flat. "I want you to love her, too," says she to her ma.

And then Old Lady Kimberly she taken Bonnie Bell in her arms and kissed her some more; and the kid, like enough, come near to spilling over then.

"Come right in and have a cup of tea," says she.

So they went into the house, and the Kimberlys' sad man, which was named William, too, brought them some tea. They didn't need it none, because they was full of it already; but women can hold plenty of tea. When they was drinking that and, like enough, all three of them talking at once, Katherine tells her ma all about how she got threw from her horse, and how Bonnie Bell saved her life and carried her home and took care of her, and now brought her back.

"Mommah, their place is lovely," says she. "They've all sorts of nice things and we're going to call as soon as Bonnie Bell will let us."

"Yes, indeed," says her ma, who was going to back any play her girl made.

"Bonnie Bell," says she--"that is a odd name and a very pretty one."

Bonnie Bell laughed at that.

"It's one my dad gave me," says she. "My real name is Mary Isabel. My dad always called me Bonnie Bell; and so did Curly."

"Curly?" says the old lady, not knowing who that was--me.

"Oh, Curly's a dear," says Katherine then. "He's a cowboy, or was when he was younger; but he isn't young now. And he can ride any sort of horse living, and rope things--I think he must be the stableman."

"Indeed he isn't," says Bonnie Bell. "He's our foreman."

They didn't know what that was, being city people; so she told them. Them Kimberlys couldn't see why they took me to the city when they didn't have no cows. I reckon they must of talked of me and Old Man Wright plenty--you see, Bonnie Bell told me of it like it happened. She told me what Katherine's ma wore and what their William looked like, and what sort of pictures was on the walls. Womanfolks can see more than a man and remember it better.

Well, sir, it wasn't any more than a week before Old Lady Kimberly drove up to our house in her car; and she come right up the walk herself and didn't send in any of them little cards that says: "Tag; you're It."

She come into our parlor, and our William went out and got Bonnie Bell for her, and them two must of had a regular visit, because Katherine's ma insisted on seeing our ranch room, which pleased her mighty much. She said she certainly was going to bring her husband over, because he would be crazy over it.

"Tell me," says she--"when can we come?"

"Why," says Bonnie Bell, "in a real ranch there isn't a time of the day or night when you can't come and be welcome. Everybody's welcome at a ranch, you know."

Old Lady Kimberly, she seemed kind of thoughtful over that; but she didn't say nothing about being slow starting. Says she:

"If you'd let us come we'd all be so glad to come and sit in your ranch room--it's new to us and we like it. I know my husband would like it very much. As for Katherine, I don't think I'll be able to keep her away after this."

Well, that afternoon, late, Katherine calls up on the telephone again--about the eighth time she had already that day--and she ast might her pa and ma and her come over that evening to see our ranch room. Of course Bonnie Bell told them to come.

"Well, what do you know, Curly?" says she to me. "This ain't according to Hoyle. Mrs. Kimberly ought to of waited till I returned her call, and till maybe one or the other of us had invited the other to a reception, or to a dinner or something."

"What's a reception?" says I.

"Something we never had yet, Curly," says she. "It's a place where people ain't happy; but there's plenty of 'em. Maybe tonight is the closest we've come to it."

Well, they all came that night, all three of 'em--twicet in one day, which was going pretty strong; and, like enough, something they hadn't never done before in all their lives.

"No you don't!" says Mrs. Kimberly when Bonnie Bell was going to take 'em into the parlor. "We're going right into the ranch room and sit there, all of us--mayn't we, please?"

So they come in and Old Man Kimberly he walked around and looked through the place; and he was like a kid.

"By golly, Wright!" says he. "I didn't know a alderman could have as much sense as this," says he. "This is the real goods," says he--"you can set down in one of those chairs and not break its legs off. And here's tobacco handy, and matches all over the place. Now over in the club all you get is a place to smoke and a big chair, and a fireplace to look into. Ain't a city a cold old place, John Wright?" says he.

"Well, you see," says Old Man Wright by and by--"you see, folks get to be pretty busy with one thing and another. I know they all mean right well," says he, "but they get so busy in a town like this they don't have time for anything."

That was about all that ever was said about our being neighbors on our street. Nobody apologized for not having done this or that. We just dropped in like we'd always been doing that way.