Chapter 8

"Well, Alderman," says Old Man Kimberly after a time, "you certainly know how to live. I'm going to drop in here every day or so, evenings, because I can't get a match at the club without calling a boy, and here you can just reach out and get plenty."

"Come in as often as you like, neighbor," says my boss; and he fills his own pipe and passes the fine-cut.

Sometimes I think, after all, folks is a good deal alike inside, and what makes good in one place will in another. We used these people like we was all out on the Yellow Bull; and here was Old Man Kimberly feeling better than he had in two years and all of 'em glad to come back to our place. Which all happened right soon--and because of them two girls.

"Well," says Katherine's pa after a while, "if I had to choose I believe I'd rather be a ranchman out West than anything in the world. Tell me--what made you sell out and come East to live? Why couldn't you be content where you was at?"

"Well," says my boss, kind of smiling crooked out of the end of his mouth, "we come East to get some of the Better Things."

They looked then, both of 'em, over at the two young girls on the sofa. They was so busy talking they didn't know anybody was looking at 'em. When we was all quiet they both spoke out right at the same time. "I got mine at Madeleine's," Katherine was saying; and Bonnie Bell says: "We fry ours in butter." The Lord only knows what they'd been talking about; but it didn't make no difference.

Well, anyways, we all had quite a fine time, setting there in our ranch room, with the smoky mantelpiece and the old tables and chairs, and the sofa covered with a hide, where the two girls was setting.

By and by they all got up and said they had to go home. Old Man Kimberly he held out his hand to my boss, and they shook hands quite a while together, not saying very much.

"Will you come over some evening?" he ast Old Man Wright.

And he says:

"Shore!"

About then Katherine's ma was kissing Bonnie Bell some more--she seemed never to get tired of kissing Bonnie Bell. Then them two girls they walks off to the front door, their arms around each other. I seen 'em standing there under the light. By and by Katherine picks up Bonnie Bell's hand and looks it over, and there wasn't no rings on it.

"Are you engaged yet, Bonnie?" she ast.

Bonnie Bell kind of blushed at that.

"No," says she. "Are you?"

"No. Mommah says I'm too young," says she; "but then----"

"Yes," says Bonnie Bell; "but then----"

Old Man Wright he turns to me after they'd all went away.

"Well, Curly," says he, thoughtful, "I reckon we're coming on."

"Yes," says I; "but then----"

XIII

THEM AND THE RANGE LAW

When they all went home us three set quite a while in our ranch room, looking at the fire. It wasn't winter yet, but sometimes we lit the fire in the fireplace. Old Man Wright he seemed to be thinking of something, or trying to. At last he says:

"Sis, go get the fine-toothed comb and comb your pa's head--won't you, sis?" says he.

"Can't your barber do that for you?" ast she.

"He does; but no barber can really comb a alderman's head soothing," says he, "not like his own kid can. Now a alderman that's soothed proper might be induced to do almost anything, and combing him on his head is like scratching a pig along its back with a cob. You try it, kid; it might be perductive of a new car or something for you," says he.

So then she gets the comb and begins for to comb his head some, and he goes on talking with me. Evident he had something on his mind; that was the way he'd got used to think when something hard come up.

"Curly," says he to me after a while, "what would you say if we had a chance to buy in the Circle Arrow Ranch again?"

"I'd say it was the finest thing in the world," says I. "Them grangers ain't got a chance on earth. It takes a long course for to learn how to understand a cow's mind," says I.

"That's what they call sikeology in Smith," says Bonnie Bell.

"Well," says I, "you can't get no course in cow sikeology in no four years; it takes more than that on the range, like your pa and me done. They can't raise nothing out there in the Yellow Bull but cows, and they don't know how to raise them. Colonel," says I, "ain't them deferred payments deferring all right?"

"Some," says he. "They didn't pay nothing this year yet and it's way past due. Looks like there might be some trouble in there, don't it?"

"Well then," says Bonnie Bell, "where does that leave us? Look at this place; look at all our expense." She stopped combing then.

"Don't worry about that," says her pa. "We've made plenty of money other ways than that. For instance, I got a offer right now to sell out all our land below here toward the park for about three times what we paid for it. The Second Calvary Regiment wants to put up a barracks, or a armory or something, in there. Also, a French milliner wants in, just below here."

"What!" says Bonnie Bell. "That would ruin the whole Row. What do you mean by that?"

"Huh!" says her pa. "That's what they all say. Old Man Wisner was crazy when he heard something about it--he was going to get out a injunction. I hope he'll try it; for he can't. Seems like most of the things he's been trying on us he couldn't make go."

"Well, dad, I don't believe I'd like that barracks on our land either. Suppose we all think it over a little bit."

"All right," says he. "There may be other ways of having fun with Dave. I just thought of that one. Oh, well, I bought the lot north of them, and I'm thinking of putting a Old People's Home in there," says he. "Across the street from there I'm thinking of putting up a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm; some of my constituents they would come there Sunday and hold services," says he.

"Anything else you got on your mind, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Well, I just seen a chance to make a little speculation in a moving-picture company," says he. "I didn't put in much--only two, three hundred thousand dollars; but I didn't know but what it might make some money after a while. How would you like to be a actor man in our company, Curly?" says he. "The worst it could do would be to spoil a puncher that never was much good anyhow."

"No," says I; "it's too much like work."

"Well, we could make other pictures," says he, smiling contented. "For instance, we could set up two or three cameras right acrost the street from Old Man Wisner's 'most any morning. Then, when Old Man Wisner come out we could take his picture and show him how he looks when he has got a grouch. Or we could take a picture of the old lady getting in her car or getting out. Neither one of 'em has got much girlish figure now.

"Why, there's loads of pictures that we could take. If you didn't like to work much riding or anything in the movies," says he, "you could be taken leaning kind of careless on our gate and looking over the Wisners' fence--for instance, talking to their hired man.... Don't you dig my head no more, kid," says he. "I ain't no bomb-proof, like you think."

"Dad," says Bonnie Bell, "I ain't going to comb your head no more."

"Why?" says he.

"You're a mean and revengeful old man," says she. "It ain't right for us to treat our neighbors thataway," says she, "and I won't have it."

"I'm living up to my laws," says he, calm. "I've got to hand Wisner what he's trying to hand to me. You know the law that's been good enough for us. That's the range law."

"This ain't the range," says she.

"Ain't it?" says he. "This looks like a ranch house some. If you'll run your comb along over my dome, too, you'll find, unless I'm awful mistaken, something like the head of a cowman. Feel with your thumb good, Bonnie Bell," says he. "See if you can find any soft spot in there, like in a melon. See if you can find any place where it feels like I was going to lay down and let any yellow-livered son-of-a-gun try to ride me, and me not resent it," says he. "They started this and it's got to be finished--that's the law. Believe me, one way or the other, that old white-face over there is going to be a good oxen sometime, and he'll come up and feed outen my hand."

Bonnie Bell she quits combing and goes over and sets down on the lounge, and don't say nothing; nor me neither. We both knew about the old man when he started after anybody. He was that kind of a sher'f. It didn't look peaceful none to me what might happen now.

"Lock, stock and barrel?" says he to himself. "Lock, stock and barrel--that's the way we done. I dislike the color of their hair and eyes. Lock, stock and barrel," says he, "they got to settle! I don't want no truck with Dave Wisner, nor his old lady, nor their ox, nor their ass, nor their manservant, nor their maidservant, nor the stranger inside their gates--everything north of that fence is hostile to us and everything south of it is hostile to them. There's no crossing."

"Their maidservant and their manservant, dad?" says Bonnie Bell.

"You heard me!"

"What's their maidservant or their manservant got to do with it, dad?" ast she. She was setting on the lounge now, with the fine-tooth comb in her hand.

"He'd better not have nothing to do with it," said Old Man Wright. "Curly, you're foreman--see to it that not one of them crosses the line."

"All right, Colonel," says I; "orders is orders."

XIV

HOW THEIR HIRED MAN COME BACK

There was only one thing kept that armory from going up right on our flower beds. The weak side of Old Man Wright was, he couldn't help doing anything a woman ast him to do. This Katherine girl, one day she comes down to our place, with the paper in her hand, and she says to him:

"Look here, Colonel Wright," says she, "what's in the paper! Is that true?"

"If it ain't true," says he, "it may be before long."

"Why, Colonel Wright," says she, looking at him with her eyes wide open--and when she looked at you thataway couldn't no man help liking her--"I wisht you wouldn't do that, sir--please!" says she.

"Why not?" says he.

"Well," says she, "because."

He turns around and throws up both hands. He never said another word about it after that. But after a while the calvary regiment went somewheres else--on some more land he had bought, so it turned out. Nobody knew what changed his mind. It was Katherine, the first girl friend that Bonnie Bell had had in the city.

You see, Katherine used to come to our house regular now; her and Bonnie Bell was right thick together. One time Katherine come in quite excited.

"My brother Tom's coming back next week," says she. "Ain't that fine?"

"Is that so?" says Bonnie Bell. "I'd like to see him."

"Tom's going to live with us," says Katherine, "and be in the office downtown--unless he gets married, or something of that kind. I wisht he would. Now I wisht he would get engaged. I'd like to see how he'd act. You can't guess what I'd like!"

"No," says Bonnie Bell; "I can't."

"Well, he's awfully good-looking," says Katherine. "He hasn't got much sense though. He dances and can play a mandolin, and has been around the world a good bit. He's sweet-tempered, but he smokes too much. Sometimes of mornings he's cross. But you can't guess what I'd like!"

"No; I can't," says Bonnie Bell.

Then Katherine kissed her and taken her hands.

"Why," says she, "I'd like it awfully if you and Tom could hit it off together," says she. "I think it would be lovely--perfectly lovely! Then we'd be sisters, wouldn't we?" Bonnie Bell she blushed a-plenty.

"Why, how you talk!" says she. "I've never seen your brother yet and he's never seen me."

"I've told him you're lovely," says Katherine. "I'll bring him over sometime."

"I don't know how I could allow it after what you said," says Bonnie Bell; "but if he's as nice as you I'll jump right square down his throat. Could you ask me to do anything more than that?"

They giggled, then, and held hands, and ate candy and drank tea, and talked, both with their mouths full.

"Oh, look at the Wisners' new car!" says Katherine after a while, and she run to the window.

Their car was just coming in to the sidewalk at their curb now. From where I set I could see it. Their driver opened the door and Old Lady Wisner got out; then a young man. They both went out of sight right away around the fence--you couldn't see into their yard from where we set.

The girls by this time had got so sometimes they'd talk about the Wisners. Bonnie Bell says now:

"Why don't you call on the Wisners any more?"

"Oh, because," says Katherine. "We're friendly, of course, for the families have lived in here so long; but Mrs. Wisner and mommah haven't been very warm since the last Charity Ball business."

"I don't know about that," says Bonnie Bell.

"Oh, Lord! Yes," says Katherine. "They didn't speak for a while. You know, Honey, the Wisners are among our best people. But then, mommah's a Daughter of the Revolution and a Colonial Dame, and a Patriot Son, or something of the sort besides. Mrs. Wisner, she's only a Daughter and not a Dame; so she doesn't rank quite as high as mommah. Some said that she faked her ancestors when she come in too. Anyway, when she tried for the Dames they threw her down. Mommah was Regent or something of the Dames then too--not that I think mommah would do anything that isn't fair. But Old Lady Wisner got her back up then, and she's been hard to curry ever since. We don't try."

"Well," says Bonnie Bell, "isn't that strange? I thought everybody in the Row was friendly except--except----"

"Except the Wisners?" laughed Katherine. "But don't you worry. There's plenty of differences in the Row. They have their fallings out. You see, they all want to be leaders."

"I know," says Bonnie Bell. "In any pack train there always had to be one old gray critter, with the bell."

"That's it!" says Katherine. "Well now, all these leaders of our best people they want to carry the bell and go on ahead. That's what Mrs. Wisner wants--and maybe mommah, though she has a different way of doing things. Mommah's a dear! So are you, Honey; and I do wish Tom and you----"

"I was just wondering who it was got out of their car just now," says Bonnie Bell. "But the fence----"

"Ain't the ivy pretty on your side of your fence?" says Katherine.

Bonnie Bell stood in front of her and looked at her square.

"Look here, Kitty Kimberly, you're as sweet as can be and I love you, but don't try to keep up the bluff about that fence. They built it to keep us--to keep us----"

"Well, maybe," says Katherine. "But they can't."

"They built it to show us our place," says Bonnie Bell, brave as you like. "They didn't think that--they didn't know----"

"It was cruel," says Katherine, red in her face now, she was so mad about it. "I'm glad you mentioned that fence--I couldn't; but all my people said it was the meanest thing ever done. It was vulgar! It was low! That's what my mommah says. We were always sorry for you, but we didn't know how---- But, Honey, I'm glad you planted the ivy on it. It shows you're forgiving."

"We're not," says Bonnie Bell. "We're far from it--at least my dad. He's awful when you cross him. He won't quit--he'll never quit!"

"We all know that," says Katherine. "Everybody in the Row does."

"I don't know how much you know," says Bonnie Bell. "I don't know how much people have talked about us."

"Well, I can tell you one thing," says Katherine. "We heard some of the talk; and I want to say that it isn't favorable to the Wisners. There are others in town besides them. Tell me, Honey, aren't you all the way American?"

"Yes," says Bonnie Bell. "I can be a Daughter of the Revolution and a Colonial Dame, and a Patriot Son, and all the rest, so far as having ancestors is concerned."

"Could you?" says Katherine. "Then I rather guess you will!"

"We go back to the Carrolls a good deal, in Maryland," says Bonnie Bell. "You see, my mother married my father and went West, and out there we didn't pay much attention to such things. I didn't know they cared so much here. But my people were first settlers and builders, and always in the army and navy."

"How perfectly dear!" says Katherine. "We'll start you in as a Daughter; that'll make Old Lady Wisner mad, but she can't help it--mommah will take care of that. Then we'll make you a Dame next--that'll help things along. And when you're in two or three more of these Colonial businesses, where the Wisners can't get--well, then I'll be more comfortable, for one.

"I don't blame your poppah for feeling savage towards the Wisners," says she after a while. "Who're the Wisners anyways? Carrolls--huh! I guess that's about as good as coming from Iowa and carrying your dinner in a pail while you're getting your start selling sausage casings in a basket. I don't think a packer's much nohow. We're in leather.

"But, good-by," says she now. "I've got to go home. I've got to tell mommah to get those papers started. Pretty soon I'll bring Tom over."

Nothing much happened around our place for a little while. I didn't see nobody from the Wisners' and I didn't care to. Kind of from force of habit I used to walk up and down the line fence once in a while, just to have a eye on it. I done that one evening and walked back towards our garridge, for it seemed to me I heard some sort of noise down that way. It wasn't far from the end of the wall that was close to the lake. I set down and waited. It seemed to me like someone was trying to break a hole through the wall. I could hear it plunk, plunk, like someone was using a chisel or crowbar, soft and easy, like he didn't want to be heard. I waited to see what would happen.

By and by I seen a brick fall out on our side of the wall. I just picked it up and set there waiting to bust in the head of anybody that come through after the brick if he couldn't explain what he was about.

The fellow on the other side kept on working. He pulled bricks out on his side now. By and by I could see light through--it wasn't right dark in the yard yet. He pulled out the bricks and made quite a little hole close to the ground.

"Hello there!" says he, soft like. "Is that you, Curly?" says he.

"Who're you and what do you want?" says I.

"I am the hired man, Jimmie," says he. "I've come back."

"The hell you have!" says I. "Well, I can't talk to you. What made you come back? Where you been?"

"Out West," says he, "on the Circle Arrow Ranch."

"What's that!" says I. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. I've been working out there. I found I could rope a little and I didn't always fall off a horse. You see, the old man owns a lot in that company."

"Why didn't you tell me you was going out there?" says I. "And how come these folks to take you back?"

"They couldn't help it," he says. "I told you I had too much on them. You'd ought to see how things is going out there! They had to take me back."

"Well, what are you breaking a hole in our fence for?" says I. "Quit it! Do you want to get buried in a sunk garden, instead of on the lone prairee? Leave our fence alone."

"Your fence? It's our fence. Don't I know all about it? It was a damn shame, Curly."

"What business is it of yours?" says I to him.

"Well, I hate to see the family I work for make such fools of theirselfs." He was setting up close to the wall now, looking through. He went on talking: "If I put the bricks in again on my side, and you on yours, who'll know the hole's there?"

"We've got ivy on our side," says I. "It's green and 'most to the top of the wall. But I don't know now why you broke that hole through."

"Curly," says he, "I want to let Peanut through, so's he can have a good friendly fight with my dog once in a while. Sometimes I'll pull some of the bricks out. I reckon Peanut'll do the rest."

"Peanut'll not do no more visiting," says I; "and I've got orders not to have any sort of truck with anyone on your side of the fence."

He set quite a while quiet, and then says he:

"Is that so, Curly?" says he.

"It certainly is," I answered him. "When a thing starts, till it's settled you can't stop Old Man Wright. Sometimes he pays funeral expenses," says I, "but when anybody gets on the prod with him I never saw him show no sign of beginning to quit. He can't," says I; "none of them Wrights can."

"Do you mean they're all that way, Curly?"

"The whole kit of 'em, me included," says I, "and the servants within our gate, and our ox, and our hired girl, and all our hired men."

"Even the maidservant within your gates?" ast he of me.

"Shore!" says I. "Her especial and worst of any."

"But you don't take no hand in this war?" says he.

"That's just what I do," says I to him. "That's what a foreman's for. You'd better plug up that hole and stay on your own side of the fence."

He set quiet for a time and then he says:

"I'm darned if I do!"

"Good-by, Jimmie," says I.

"Oh, shucks!" says he. "I'll see you from time to time."

I didn't make no answer but to put the bricks back in the hole on our side.

Now for reasons of my own, not wanting to rile Old Man Wright, I didn't say nothing to him about this hole in the fence. Neither did I say anything to Bonnie Bell about the hired man having came back; because she was doing right well the last day or so, brighter and more cheerful than she had been. That, of course, was because of what Katherine'd told her about her brother Tom. Any girl likes to hear about a young man coming around, of course. Far as any of us could tell, Tom Kimberly might be all right.

Bonnie Bell now, all at once, she taken to wanting to go on the lake with her boat, and she insists our chauffore and her and me must go down and fix up the boat. We didn't none of us like it especial, but she said she hadn't been on the lake for so long she wanted to go once more before it got too cold.

I didn't know nothing about boats, but sometimes I'd go down to the boathouse and watch Bonnie Bell while she was tinkering with the engine or something. One day I went down to the boathouse about the middle of the afternoon, expecting to meet her out on the dock. All at once I hear voices out there, one of them hers. I stopped then, wondering who could of got on our dock.

There wasn't no way from the Wisners' yard to get on our dock now, because the door into their boathouse had been nailed up. The wall run clear down to their garridge, and their garridge faced onto the boathouse, which was lower down. The only way anybody could get on our dock from their place was to get in a boat and come round from the lake. Then it would of been easy.

I said I heard Bonnie Bell's voice. She was talking; who she was talking to, I didn't know.

"It's all wrong!" says she. "You are presuming too much. Of course I pulled you out of the lake--I would anybody; but your employers are not friends of ours. Even if they were you've no right in the world to speak to me."

Then I heard another voice. I knew it was Jimmie, their hired man. He spoke out and I heard him plain.

"I know I haven't," says he, "none in the world; but I've got to."

"You must not!" says she. "Go away!"

"I'll not," says he. "I can't help it! I tell you I can't help it."

Me being foreman, I reached around now to get hold of a brick or something. I couldn't help hearing what they said.

He'd been ordered off; yet here he was talking to Bonnie!

XV

THE COMMANDMENT THAT WAS BROKE

I stood close up to the boathouse door and was going to step out, but what the hired man was saying to Bonnie Bell was so nervy I had to stop. Besides, I wanted to hear what she'd say to show him his place.

"From the first minute I saw you," says he, "I couldn't help it. I swore then I'd meet you some day, and sometime----"

"Is this the way?" I heard her say, low.

"It's the only way I have," says he. "If there was a better, don't you think I'd take it? But what chance did I have? I had to make some way; I wouldn't of been any sort of man if I hadn't."

She must just of stood looking at him. I couldn't see.