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."
"Hi am quite hinnocent of hany hinfraction of my duties," says he. "On the contrary, Hi've watched this Peanut dog most closely, sir. Yet at times 'e is habsent. Hi'm of the belief that the notes come from the hother side of the fence, sir. But has to their haddress, and has to their contents, sir, Hi assure you Hi'm hutterly hignorant; and hit was for that reason that Hi awsked you to come and see this one. Hit's just at 'and, sir."
I taken all three of them letters away from him and opened them, me being foreman; but when I begun to read I didn't tell William what they was. I only laughed out loud, hard as I could.
"This is just a joke, William," says I. "Don't pay no attention to it. You see, Peanut's been over there again, digging up some petunies," says I.
I went back into the room where Bonnie Bell was. I looked at her for a while.
"Miss Wright," says I—the second time I ever called her that—"I've played the game with you on the square, haven't I? You thanked me for that."
"Yes, Curly; yes," says she, "Why?"
"Have you played in on the square with me?"
"Yes, Curly, I have."
"I told you not to have nothing more to do across the fence, didn't I?"
"Yes. I haven't."
"Is that so, Bonnie Bell Wright?" says I. "Then what's this?"
I put in her hand the note—the one I'd read. It was my business to do that, the way it come to me.
"Read it," says I to her.
Near as I can remember, it run about like this:
Why don't you come again? When shall I see you? I'm in the same place every day and I wait and wait. Please! Please! Please!
Why don't you come again? When shall I see you? I'm in the same place every day and I wait and wait. Please! Please! Please!
It wasn't signed with no name—only just "The Man Next Door."
Bonnie Bell went pale as a sheet when she read that.
"Curly," says she, "I never saw it before."
I believed her. She'd of died rather 'n lie straight out to me. Maybe she'd lie some—almost any woman would—but not straight out from the shoulder between the eyes. So I believed her now.
"Read the next one," says I.
"Have you read my letters, Curly?" says she. She looked at me savage now.
"I read one of 'em," says I, "and part of the next one. I didn't only read the first page on that one. I didn't read the other one at all. But I read enough."
On the first page of this second letter was something more:
I've waited and waited [it said]. I ought never to have met you as I did—I ought never to have said what I did. I am in the deepest distress over all this, for I would not be guilty of an act to cause you pain. How could I when I——
I've waited and waited [it said]. I ought never to have met you as I did—I ought never to have said what I did. I am in the deepest distress over all this, for I would not be guilty of an act to cause you pain. How could I when I——
Right there's where the first page ended and the second page begun.
"Did you read it all, Curly?" says she to me once more.
"No; only the first page," I says. "This last one we just took off'n Peanut's collar. He brought 'em over."
She was reading the last letter now—the one I never did see. Her face got soft somehow. Her eyes got bigger and brighter, and softer, somehow, too.
She folded the letters all up and put 'em in her lap and looked up at me.
"You didn't read all my letters, Curly?" says she.
"No," says I; "and I won't never read no more. There mustn't be no more, Bonnie Bell. You know that."
"Yes," says she; "I know that."
But somehow she didn't seem unhappy like she ought to of been. I could see that.
"How did Peanut get through the fence, Curly?" says she at last.
"There's a hole in the lower corner near the garridge. I thought it was kept shut. Their hired man dug it through. He said it was to let Peanut through to enjoy hisself digging up their petunies," says I, "or to have a sociable fight with their dog. I reckon that's how Peanut got through. It was easy enough to fasten things on his neck. Whether it was a square thing to do, him knowing what he does—well, that's something you ought to know."
She didn't say anything at that.
"A honorable man," says I, "would of come around to the front door, Bonnie Bell."
"He had no part in this quarrel," says Bonnie Bell; at last, quiet like. "Why blame him?"
That made me hot.
"Why blame him?" I broke out "Didn't I see him? Ain't I heard him? Can't I see now? He ain't no part of a man at all or he wouldn't of done this way. Now," says I, "I've shore got to tell the old man. I hoped I wouldn't ever have to. But now I got to. The safest bet you ever made is that hell will pop!"
She turned around right quick then and jumped up on her feet, and her face was so white it scared me. She come up again and put her arms right around my neck and looked at me.
"Honey," says I, "you got us in wrong—awful wrong! Now us men has got to square it the best we can."
"Stop, Curly!" says she, and she shook me by the shoulder. "Stop! He's—he's a good man. He's—he's honest. He's meant all right. Give him a chance."
"He don't deserve no chance," says I, "and he won't get none."
"It was the best he could do! He had no chance to come here openly—not a chance in the world. Maybe he only wanted to say good-by—oh, how do you know?"
"Did he say good-by or good morning in that last letter, Bonnie Bell?" I ast her. "Not that it makes much difference either way."
"I won't tell you what he said, Curly," she flared up at me now. "I only say he did the best he could. He asked for his chance—that's all."
"His chance! The hired man of the worst enemy we got! His chance! His chance! What chance has he give you? How fair is he playing the game where all your happiness is up? Oh, Bonnie, shore you don't care for him?" says I. "Now do you?"
She didn't say a word and I turned toward the door.
"Where you going, Curly?" says she, coming after me.
"I'm going downtown," I says to her.
"Why?"
"To see your pa," says I. "I got to tell him all about this, and do it now."
She made a quick run at me then, and her arms come around my neck again.
"Oh, Curly! Curly!" she says; and she was crying now. "Oh, what have I done? It'll kill dad if anything of this gets out—I couldn't stand it. I can't stand to think of it, Curly. I can't! I can't!"
"Why can't you, Bonnie?" says I.
"Because, Curly"—she got me by the arms again and she was crying hard—"because—— I'll have to tell you—I'll have to, Curly. I can't help it! I didn't want it to happen—I fought it to keep it from happening as long as I could—I didn't want it to be this way. It was hard—so awfully hard. I tried every way I could; but I can't—I can'thelpit, Curly! I can't! I can't! It's no use!" She just run on, over and over.
"What is it, Bonnie?" says I. "Do you love him?"
"Yes, yes; it's true! I do, Curly—I love him!"
"Near as I can figure, Curly," says Old Man Wright to me soon after what had happened between me and Bonnie Bell—"near as I can figure, Old Man Wisner's been advertising that the old Circle Arrow Range is a great little place for the honest granger to raise bananas, pineapples and other tropical fruits."
"It ain't," says I, "except tomatoes—and them in tin cans."
"The honest yeoman," says he, "according to Old Man Wisner's description, he don't never have to eat anything as common as bread and butter, not after he's bought some of that land at four hundred and fifty dollars a acre. He lives after that time on bird tongues and omelet souflay, and all he has to do is to set on his wide veranda and watch his lowing herds increase and multiply at eighty-five dollars a head—and prices going up all the time. Ain't that fine, Curly? Things never used to happen just thataway when you and me owned that range, did they?"
"Not hardly," says I.
"No," says the old man, falling into one of them thinking spells. "No; they didn't."
Then after about half a hour he says:
"Nor they can't, neither. It'll cost that old miser, Dave Wisner, about three or four million dollars," says he. "He's put up his life, his fortune and his sacred honor on that irrigation scheme, and he's going to be lucky if he gets through with any of them before I call it off."
"Colonel," says I, "you and him remind me of two old Galloways out on the range, standing head to head, and pushing for a couple of hours or so at a time—only, you two been pushing for a couple of years."
"Uh-huh!" says he. "But I'm right cheerful; and I don't feel my neck giving none yet," says he; and he rubs his hand up and down it.
"Has Tom Kimberly been here lately?" the old man ast me, real suddenlike, right soon after that, though I hadn't said nothing to him.
"He was here this afternoon," says I. "He ast after Miss Bonnie. She says she was sick, had a cold, and couldn't see no one."
"I'll give Tom sixty days for to propose to Bonnie Bell," says he. "If he don't, then I'll have to. It don't stand to reason that girl's going to have a bad cold that's going to last for sixty days; so she'll be home sometimes when he comes over. I know how his ma and pa feel about it, and I know how I feel too. Maybe we can get Tom to part his hair after a while, or take up some manly habit like chawing tobacco instead of touching the light guitar. Just to take a look at him, I'd say he shaved with one of them little razors like a hoe. For all I know, he may wear garters. Still, time alters many things.
"He's marrying into crowned heads when he comes into our family," says he, going on, "because I'm alderman here, and if my freckles lasts I'm liable to keep on being alderman. Sometimes I wisht I'd put in the papers that I was clean broke and depended on the savings which a faithful old servitor—that's you, Curly—had brung me in my time of need. But I'm afraid it's too late for that now, though the time to test them things is before the wedding obsequies and not after."
"Colonel," says I, "suppose a young man would of come along that didn't have no family back of him, nor no money, but parted his hair, and shaved with a real razor, and wore no garters, and et tobacco, and was right husky looking—what would you think?"
"I'd think the millennium had came, here in Chicago," says Old Man Wright. "I won't deny, Curly, if I had found a young man that could ride setting down, and chawed tobacco, I wouldn't needed to of thought about him twice—always provided he played a wide-open game and acted like he knew what he wanted."
"We don't seem to get together none," says I, despondent.
"Get together!" says he. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing," says I.
I had to own it up to myself—I'd lost my nerve. I tried more'n fifteen times to come out and tell Old Man Wright about them Peanut letters from their hired man to Bonnie Bell, and I couldn't—I would see her face every time come in between him and me.
I kept my eyes on that hole in the fence. I was setting there fixing up the bricks, ready to put them in, when I heard some one talking on the other side of the fence. You couldn't see nobody through the fence, no more'n if they was a thousand miles away; but you could hear 'em talk, all right, there, through the hole. I could tell who one of 'em was—it was the voice of Old Lady Wisner. She had the sort of a voice a woman has who has got a nose like a eagle. But I couldn't tell who she was talking to, for nobody seemed to answer much at first.
"James," says she—"James, what are you doing there?"
No one answered, but I felt sure now she was talking to their gardener. So he was home!
"Who made that hole? Who has done this, James?" says she again. "Who made that hole in the wall?"
Still, he didn't answer none; and she went on:
"I see! It must of been some of them awful Wrights that live acrost there. How dare they break through our fence? I'll have them sued!"
"Oh, no, you won't. It was done from this side—I can tell you that."
I knew his voice. It was him.
"Whoever did it," he went on, "I'm going to close it up. I saw their dog in our yard the other day. Did you see him in here today?"
"No—that same awful little cur?" says she. "They are the worst people, James! I certainly am glad you want nothing to do with them, even their dog. But, of course, you couldn't."
"No; it seemed not," says he.
"What do you mean?" says she, harshlike. "As for that maid of theirs, I was inexpressibly shocked, James, when I found that you so far forgot yourself—"
"I wouldn't say any more," says he.
"I shall say all I like, and you'll please remember who you are! The David Wisners can't afford to have it understood that they associate any way whatsoever with the Wright family. Not even our servants can visit acrost. I've been suspecting for some time."
"Well, that's plain enough," says he. "I don't see any use trying to make it any plainer. There's no use rubbing it in."
"If I had a servant," says she, right pointed, "who'd look at the best of them I'd discharge him as soon as I knew it. I've got my eye on Emmy, my second-floor maid, too. All I can say is, you'd all better be more careful, or, the first thing some of you know——"
"Naturally," says he, "I can imagine that," says he. "It's hell to belong to the lower classes!"
"What do you mean, James?" says she, solemn, "I'll not have profanity from you! Besides, you talk like a socialist person, and I'll not have that."
"Socialist, eh? Well, I'll admit, if I had all the money in the world," says he, "no wall nor bars would make any difference to me. Nor they wouldn't when I didn't have."
"James, continually you shock me beyond words!" says she, gasping. "What words from one in your position in life!"
He didn't say much then, but only sort of growled, like he was mad.
"James," says she, "what on earth are you doing—what's that you're eating?"
"It's good old tobacco I'm eating," says he. "I found the brand out West and I've used no other since."
"James! James!" says she. "You to chew the filthy weed! It's impossible!"
"No, it ain't," says he. "You watch me and I'll show you how far it is from impossible. I chaw it and I like it, same as any other socialist; and I want you to understand, ma'am, that I'm my own man, tobacco and all, while I stay here. If you don't like it, fire me again!"
She begun to gasp again, like I heard her before.
"You don't care!" says she. "Nothing is sacred to you!"
Them two had me guessing. I'd heard of middle-age women getting infaturated with chauffores. Why not gardeners, then? Something was going on between them two, else why should she be so damned jealous? And why should he be so damned sassy to her? I wondered what Old Man Wisner would think if he knew what I knew now about his wife. Didn't this even things up some? I wouldn't tell him, of course; but didn't it beat all how many secrets I was getting into?
Them folks didn't have so much on us, after all; for that hired man was shore a gay bird, and playing both sides the fence. I seen he was a socialist, all right—but, Lord, her, with that face!
Tom Kimberly he come to our house steady now. Every day he sent flowers in bundles, like he owned a flower ranch somewhere. Bonnie Bell put them in the dining-room, and the music room, and the reception parlors, and the staircase, and the bedrooms—and even in our ranch room.
"Whatever the papers says about bad crops, sis," says I one morning when a bunch of red roses come in about as big as a sheaf from a self-binder, "the flower crop is shore copious this year, ain't it? Likewise it seems to be getting better right along."
"He's a good boy," says she after a while—"a fine boy. And he comes of such a good family, and I like all his people so much. And Katherine—what could I do without Katherine?"
"Uh-huh!" says I. "Of course if you like a young man's sister, you ought to marry him. That stands to reason, don't it?" says I.
"And dad likes 'em all—Mr. Kimberly and Tom's mother."
"Shore he does! For all them reasons you ought to marry the boy. Never mind about love."
"They're the best people we've met in this town," says she, "and there aren't any better in any town. They're not only charming people but good people. They've everything you could ask, Curly."
"Yes," says I; "so it stands to reason you ought to marry that family," says I. "Here's them Better Things we come for. Love ain't in it."
You see, I was half her pa. Us two had raised her from a baby together. I couldn't tell the old man what I knew, but I had to talk to her like her pa would of talked. I allowed, if she'd get married to Tom Kimberly right quick, that'd sort of keep things from breaking loose the way they might, and keep me from having to tell Old Man Wright about the man next door. I knew plenty more about him now that I wouldn't tell her. I thought she'd forget him.
Well, she set around all that day sort of moping, with a green poetry book in her lap; and she had a letter in her hands. It didn't come by the Peanut route, neither, but by the postman. It was square.
"Tell me, is that from Tom Kimberly, Bonnie?" says I.
"It's absolutely none of your business, Mr. Curly Wilson," says she; "and I wouldn't tell you in any circumstances. But it is."
"Let me see it," says I.
"Indeed!" She looks me square in the face.
"Don't tell me a word, sis," says I. "I'm not so hard as you think."
"He's coming over tonight," says Bonnie Bell to me after a time.
"That's to get his answer?" asts I; and she nodded then.
"Well, Colonel," says I to the old man that evening when he come in and we was having a nip before dinner, "I reckon I got this thing all fixed up at last. It's been a hard pull for me, being half a pa to a girl like ours; but I done it."
"Is that so, Curly?" says he. "Well, it's been some chore, ain't it, for both of us? Well, how!"
When Old Man Wright taken a drink he never did say "Here's how!" He just said "How!" which is Western. When a man says "Here's how!" he comes from the East and is trying his best to hide it.
"How!" says I. "And a good health to the young and happy couple."
"What's that?" says he, sudden. "Has anything happened? She hasn't said anything to me. Why is she so tight-mouthed with me, Curly, and so free with you?"
"Oh, it's a way I have with women," says I.
"They all come and tell me their troubles. It's because I got red hair and a open countenance."
"Tell me, what's my girl confided to your red hair and open face?" says he. "I'd like to know."
"You notice a good many flowers around the last few weeks?" says I.
"I haven't noticed nothing else," says he.
"And that didn't make nothing occur to your mind?"
"Oh, yes, it did; only I didn't want to say anything to the kid—I didn't want to try to influence her in any way, shape or manner, in a time like this. Only I told her quite a while ago that Tom Kimberly was the only young man I seen in town that I'd allow to come around at all. I only said to her that the old man was my best friend and I liked Tom's ma as much as I could any woman with gray hair.
"Still, I said gray hair was all right for a grandma. Why, Curly," says he, "I been plumb thoughtful and tactful. I ain't said a word to let Bonnie Bell know what I thought about Tom Kimberly. I believe in leaving a young girl plumb free to follow her own mind and heart."
"Uh-huh! Yes, you do!" says I. "The truth is, Colonel, you believe in running the whole ranch here like you done out West. Now if you'd only keep out of this game and leave me alone in it you'd find things would come out a heap better," says I.
"But I just said I ain't said a word," says he. "She can do whatever she likes about getting married——"
"Just so she married Tom Kimberly," says I. "Ain't that about it?"
"Well," says he at length, "maybe that's about it; yes."
I got up and went out of the room. I wouldn't talk to him no more. He wasn't noways consistent with hisself and every time I talked with him it got harder for me to hold down my job.
But, anyhow, Tom come over that night. He wouldn't go in the ranch room; but he made some sort of a talk about music, one thing or another, and he toled Bonnie Bell out into the music room. But she didn't play and he didn't. From there they must of went out into our flower house, which is called the conswervatory. I didn't hear anything then for a long time. Old Man Wright he goes off to bed at last, pleasant as if he'd ate all the canaries in the shop. Me, I wasn't so shore.
It wasn't right for me to think of them young people, I reckon; but I set there restless, knowing what was going on and how much it meant, and all the time wondering just what them two young folks was talking about. It made me feel sort of dreamy, too, and I begun to figure on this whole damn question of girls and young men. I begun to see that what Old Man Wright and me had worked for all our lives was just this one hour or so in our conswervatory. It was for her—that was all. If she chose right now she'd be happy, and so would we. But if she didn't, what was the use of all her pa's money and all her pa's work?
What chance for happiness would there be in this world for him if she wasn't happy? He loved the girl from the top of her head to her feet, like he'd loved her ma. He was wrapped up in her. If things didn't come right it was going to be mighty hard for him. He'd never get over anything that meant the unhappiness of Bonnie Bell.
So what Tom was doing in our conswervatory around ten or eleven o'clock was settling the happiness of Bonnie Bell and her pa—and me, if you can say I counted.
"Well," says I to myself at last, "this is the way the game is played in the cities. The girl's got to figure on heaps of things that don't bother so much in Wyoming. It ain't the same as if Bonnie Bell was pore and he was pore too. It's a good match—if any match can be good enough for her. She'll forget."
I could just almost see her standing there all in her pale-blue silk and little pale-blue slippers, with her hair done up in a band, like she was when she come down the stair that night, smiling but still ca'm, when she knew Tom was coming. I could see her—— Aw, shucks! What's a cowpuncher got to do with things like that? I wisht I was out on the range, where I belonged.
I set there I don't know how long—maybe I went to sleep once or twice—when I heard the front door close easylike and knew somebody had went out—I didn't know who it was. I waited for a long time after that, but no one come in and no one spoke.
By and by I heard her dress rustle, and she come into our room, where I was setting.
She was white as a ghost—I never seen anyone as white as she was. She didn't know I was there, and she threw her hands up to her face and almost screamed when I moved. Then she went over to our rawhide lounge and set down, and held her hands together so tight I could see her knuckles was white. She knew I was there, but she didn't seem to see me.
I didn't say a word. When a woman's fighting out things in that way it ain't no time to meddle. I wisht I was out of there, but I didn't dare go. She set and looked at the fire and wrung her hands. Whenever you see a horse wring his tail, he's done for. Whenever you see a woman wring her hands that way, she's all in; and she's shore suffering. But I had to stay there and see her suffer.
"Bonnie," says I, "what is it?"
She turns her eyes on me, and they was wide open and awful.
"Curly," says she, "I'm in trouble. It's awful! I don't know——"
"What's awful?" says I. "What's happened, Bonnie, girl? Tell old Curly, and he won't say a word to a living soul. I'm in with you, any sort of play—only don't look that way no more."
"Curly," says she, "it's come! I—I didn't know——"
"What's come?" says I. "Tell old Curly, can't you? I'll help all I can."
She set for a while, and when she spoke it was only in a whisper.
"I—I'm a woman!" says she. "I didn't know! I'm—I'm a woman. I'm not a girl any more. I'm a woman...."
She got up now and stood there as straight as though she was cut out of marble, and her silk dress hung round her legs, and she was still wringing her hands, and her eyes was wide open. But she wasn't crying.
"I didn't know," says she. "I never knew it would be this way. I didn't know."
"You didn't know what, Honey?" says I. "There's heaps of things we all don't know. But is there anything your old friend Curly can do for you now? Listen, sis, I've got you mighty much to heart," says I. "Tell old Curly, can't you, what's gone wrong? Your pa he's just gone to bed. Shall I go and get him?"
"No, no, no! For Gawd's sake, no! I can't see him—I could never tell him."
"It's got to be told," says I.
Then she nodded up and down, fastlike, and didn't say anything.
"It ain't really any of my business," says I, "but have you and him—— Well now——"
"You men——" She broke down. "You men—what do you know about a girl? What have you men done to me?"
"We done all in God Almighty's world we knew how to do for you," says I. "We'd of done more for you if we'd knowed how."
"Ah, is it so! You've made me the most unhappy girl in all the world."
I couldn't say a word to that. It went through me like a knife-cut. I was glad that Old Man Wright wasn't there to hear it. I seen then that him and me had failed. We could never play no other game, for this was the only girl we had.
"You've brought me here," says she, "and I've been like a prisoner. But I've done all I could."
"Didn't you like it here?" says I. "We done considerable on your account. Don't you like us none?"
"Like you, Curly?" says she. "I love you! I love you!"
She come now and taken me by the shoulders and shook me. I didn't know she was so strong before.
"I love you—love both of you," says she. "I'd die for you any minute," says she. "I'd try to cut my heart out for either of you now—if it come to that. I tried it now, tonight. I tried it for an hour—two hours. I didn't know what it meant before."
"He ast you, Bonnie?" says I.
"Yes, yes," says she. "The poor boy! I like him so much—I pity him."
"My Gawd! Bonnie, you haven't refused him?" say I. "You haven't done that? You haven't broke the pore fellow's heart?" says I. "Why did you——"
"Why did you!" says she after me. "I told you he made it plain to me."
"What was it he made plain, Bonnie?" says I. "I suppose he, now, made some sort of love? It ain't for me to talk of that."
"Yes, yes!" She says it out sharp and high. "He did.I know now what it means to be a woman and in love. I never knew that before. But it wasn't—it wasn't for him! He held me—I was a woman—and it wasn't for him. How can I love—— What can I do? Why, I love you all, Curly—I love you all! I love Tom in one way; and I'm sorry, because he's good. But that isn't being a woman. It wasn't for him—it wasn't for him!"
She was sort of whispering by now.
"So he went right away?" says I.
She nodded.
"Maybe I've broken his heart. I've broken yours and my father's and my own—all because I couldn't help being a woman. And I'm the unhappiest woman in all the world. I want to die! I don't know what to do. I want to be square and I don't know how."
"Bonnie," says I after a while, slow, "I know all about it now. You've been plumb crazy and you're crazy now. You've kept on remembering that low-down sneak next door. You've turned down a high-toned gentleman like Tom—and you done it for what? You ain't acted on the square, Bonnie Bell Wright," says I. "It ain't needful for me to tell all I know about him now. I could tell you plenty more."
"No," says she, and she was crying now; "it was an evil thing of me ever to listen to him. I've done wrong," says she. "But what must I do?" says she, "Must I lie all my life? I can't do that."
"'I know now what it means to be a woman and in love.'""'I know now what it means to be a woman and in love.'"
"Well, some women are able to—just a little," says I. "Maybe you'd get over that business of that man next door if you was married and had a few kids of your own running around. You'd be happy with Tom. We'd all be happy. You'd forget—of course you'd forget. Women are built that way," says I. "I reckon I know!"
"Curly——" And, though she looked just like she always had, young and white and beautiful, and fit only to be loved by anybody, her face had something in it that made her look old, real old, like one of them statutes in our front yard.
She was twenty-three, and pretty as anything ever made in marble—and white as anything in marble; but she looked a thousand years old as she stood there then. There was something in her face that seemed to come down from 'way back in the past. She was—well, I reckon she was what she said—a woman!
"Curly," says she, "some women may be able to forget. It's the easiest way—maybe most of them do it. The average woman lives that way. But I can't, Curly; I can't—it isn't in my blood. Women like me have got to follow their own hearts, Curly—no matter what it means.
"I tried with all my heart to lie to Tom tonight. I even told him I wouldn't answer now—even told him to come back again after while; but I knew all the time I couldn't lie forever. I knew I could love some man—a man—but it wasn't for him. I'm like my father and like my mother, Curly. Do you want to crush the life out of me? Do you want to make me do something we'd all regret as long as ever we lived?"
She stopped talking then; but, sort of swinging around, she went on:
"It's been but a little while, Curly," says she. "It's been but such a little time! I don't know whether I can get over it—I don't know whether I can forget. But, oh, Curly, for one hour let me open my heart—for just this time let me be a woman!... But it wasn't for him!"
And now she was whispering again.
"I'm a thief, Curly!" says she after a while. "I've stolen your life and dad's. I've taken all you gave me. I don't deserve it."
"Oh, yes, you do," says I; "you deserved all we done for you. We loved you, Honey, and we do now."
"But you can't any more, Curly," says she. "I've been a thief. I've stolen your lives—from you two big, splendid men. But, oh! give me my hour—the one hour out of all my life.
"I stole from him too—from Tom," says she. "I've taken from him what I didn't pay for and can't. I never can. At least I can't until I've had—my hour.
"A woman has to face things all her life, Curly," says she; "and always she says: 'Well, let it be!' She takes her losses, Curly, and sometimes she forgets. But if she ever forgets what is in my heart tonight—if she forgets that—then life is never worth while to her again. There's nothing to do then—it's all a sham and a fraud. If that's what life means I don't want to live any more."
"Bonnie," says I, "you mustn't talk that way." I sort of drew her down on my knee now, and pushed her hair back and looked at her. "Listen at you—you that used to be up in the morning so early and hoorahing all through the ranch—your cheeks red with the sun, and your hair blowing, and your eyes like a deer's! Why, nothing but life was in the world for you then—nothing but just being alive."
"I wasn't a woman then, Curly," says she. "I didn't know."
"I didn't neither," says I; "and I don't know now."
"You can't," says she. "It's terrible! I'm—I think I'll go now."
She taken herself off my knee then; and, the first thing I know, she was gone.
I stayed there looking at the place where she'd been. I knew that now there shore was hell to pay!
I never went to bed none at all that night. I couldn't of slept, nohow. I set there in the ranch room thinking and trying to figure out what I had ought to do. I concluded that might depend some on what Bonnie Bell was going to do; and I couldn't tell what that was, for she didn't seem clear about it herself.
Along about daybreak, maybe sooner, when I set there—maybe I'd been asleep once or twice a little—I heard the noise of a car going out not far from us. I suppose, like enough, it was over at the Wisners'; maybe some of their folks was going or coming. In the city, folks don't use the way they do on a ranch and night goes on about the same as daytime.
I'd been studying so hard over all these things, trying to see how I'd have to play the game, that I didn't notice Old Man Wright when he come in that morning, about the time he usual got up for breakfast. He wasn't worried none, but seemed right happy, like something was clear in his mind.
"Well, Curly," says he, "you're up right early, ain't you? What makes you so keen to hear the little birds sing this morning?"
He fills up his pipe. I didn't say nothing.
"Well," says he after a time, smoking and looking out the window, "I suppose I'm a fond parent again right now. Maybe I'll be a grandpa before long—who can tell? I never did figure on being a grandpa in my born days," says he; "but such is life."
"What do you mean, Colonel?" I ast him.
"Well," says he, "I ain't a real grandpa yet, maybe, but I reckon it's like enough. All them flowers and that sort of thing—and that late executive session last night. When's the day?"
He still looks right contented. What could I say to him then?
"Too bad," says he, "you couldn't of stayed up to get the happy news, Curly!" says he. "I expect Tom Kimberly would of been right glad to tell you or me; but I knew how the thing was going. I been a young man once myself. He don't want old people setting round—he wants the whole field clear for hisself. It takes young folks several hours sometimes to set and tell things to each other that could be told in just a minute. Proposing is a industrial waste, the way it's done customary.
"Well, well!" he goes on. "I'm glad my little girl's going to be so happy. She's a good girl and she loves her pa. Sometimes I even think she's right fond of you, Curly," says he. "I can't see why. You're a mighty trifling man, Curly," says he. "I don't see why I keep you."
Then I knowed he was feeling good. He wouldn't turn me off noways in the world, but he liked to joke thataway sometimes.
"Well," says he after a while, "what do you say about it your own self, Curly?"
"I say she loves you as much as any girl ever did her pa. She loves me, too, though I don't know why, neither."
"Shore she does!" he nods. "And she'll do the square thing by us two—that's shore."
"Is it?" says I. "Well, who knows what's the square thing in the world? Sometimes it's hard to tell what is."
"That's so," says he, thoughtful. "Sometimes it is. I might of liked some other man better'n Tom, maybe, if there'd been any other man; but there isn't. I'm glad she's taken him. He'll turn out all right. He's a good boy and his folks is good. He'll come out all right—don't you worry."
"No," says I; "I reckon it'll do no good to worry, Colonel."
"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't it all right?" says he.
"That remains to be saw," says I.
"She accepts him, don't she?"
"If I knew I'd tell you," says I; "but I don't know for shore."
"Of course," he says to me, "the girl wouldn't be apt to talk very free to you about it, especial since you was in bed."
"Was I?" says I. "Oh, all right, if I was in bed! If I didn't talk to Bonnie Bell a while here last night, then everything is done, and I'm glad to know it."
"Well, where's she now?" says he. "I'm hungry as all get out; and you know I can't eat till she comes down to breakfast—I've got to have her setting right across the table from me, like her ma used to set. Oh, hum! I suppose some day she won't be setting there no more. Just you and me'll be setting there, looking at each other like two damn old fools. That's what fathers is for, Curly," says he. "That's the best they can get out of the draw.
"Well, that's what I've been living for ever since she was knee-high—just to make her happy; just to give her, like her ma told me I must, the place in life that she had coming to her. No little calico dress and a wide hat for Miss Mary Isabel Wright now, I reckon, Curly. Her game is different now. Them Better Things is coming her way, I reckon now, Curly. She's left the ranch and is playing a bigger game—and she's won it. Well, I'll tell 'em both how glad I am; but I wisht she'd come down to breakfast, for I'm getting right hungry."
She didn't come. I couldn't say anything to him yet, for I didn't exactly know what the truth was; Bonnie Bell hadn't told me whether or not she accepted Tom, but only said he was going to come back again. I wisht she'd come down and take this thing off my hands, for I was getting cold feet as shore as you're born.
He walks up and down, getting hungrier all the time, and singing "Tom Bass He Was a Ranger!" But she didn't come. At last he calls our William; and says he to William:
"Go send Annette up to ask Miss Bonnie if she's ready for breakfast."
"Yes, sir; very well, sir. Hit's all growing quite cold, sir," says William; and he went away.
He come back in a few minutes and stood in the door and said his Ahum! like he always did, and the old man turned to him.
"Beg pardon, sir, but Miss Wright's mide says Miss Wright 'as not come in."
"Not come in! What do you mean?"
"She's not in her room, sir. The mide thinks she's not been in her room during the night."
"What's that? What's that?" says he. "Curly, didn't you just now say she was here? Wasn't you up after I was?"
"I seen her around midnight," says I—"maybe later; I don't know. I thought she went to bed. I never did hear her go out. She couldn't of gone out—I'd of heard her."
"You'd of heard her! With you in bed yourself? What do you mean?"
The old man turned to me now and seen my face. He come close up to me.
"Where was you?" says he. "What do you mean?"
"Colonel," says I, "she was here after midnight. I ain't been to bed at all tonight."
"What did she say to you? Why didn't you go to bed? Where is she? What have you done?"
"I ain't done nothing," says I. "I've been trying to talk to you for days, and I couldn't. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to interfere in any girl's business and this shore is hers."
"It's hers?" says he, cold and hard. "I'm in this too. There's something in here that's got to come out. Come!" says he.
He motioned to me and I followed him up the staircase to the part of the house that was Bonnie Bell's—the second story and on the corner toward the lake. She had a fine, big bedroom, with wide windows, all the wood in white, and all the silks a sort of pale green.
We walked into the room; and he didn't knock. The room was empty! Her bed hadn't been slept in. On a chair, smoothed out, was her pale blue dress, which I remembered.
"That's the one she wore last," says I, pointing to it. "She's changed it."
"She's—she's gone!" says her pa. "Gone—without asking me—without telling me! Where's she gone? Tell me, Curly. Has—has anybody—— My girl—where is she? Tell me!"
He had hold of my shoulders then and shook me; and I ain't no chicken neither.
I got a look at the bed then, and there was something on the pillow. I showed it to him. It was a letter.
If you've ever seen a man shot, you know how it gets him. He'll stand for a time like he ain't hurt so bad. Then his face'll pucker, surprised, and he'll begin to crumble down slow. That was the way Old Man Wright done when he read the letter. It was like he was shot and trying to stand and couldn't, only a little while.
"She's—she's gone!" says he, like he was talking, to someone else. "She's run away—from me! She's gone, Curly!" He says it over again, and this time so loud you could of heard it for a block. "Our girl's left here—left her father after all! Curly, tell me, what was this? Could she—did she—— How could she?"
I taken the piece of paper from his hand when he didn't see me. It said: