The Man Next Door

When all three of us—Old Man Wright and Bonnie Bell and me—went inside the door of that big new house we stood there for a minute or so; and at first I thought we had got into the wrong place—especial since that sad man looked like he thought so too.

It was all lit up inside and you could see 'way back into the hall—little carpets of all sorts of colors laying round, and pictures on the wall, and a fire 'way on beyond somewhere in a grate. I never seen a hotel furnished better.

Old Man Wright was like a man that's won a elephant on a lottery ticket. Bonnie Bell looks at him and looks at me like she missed something. On the whole, I reckon we was the three lonesomest, scaredest, unhappiest people in all that big town—it was Christmas Eve too!

There was a lot of other people in a row standing down the hall, back of this sad man. He located us at last and began to help Old Man Wright take off his overcoat—and me too; but I wouldn't let him. I wasn't sick or nothing. So we stood there a little while, dressed up and just come to our new home ranch.

"That will do, William," says Bonnie Bell to the sad man.

"Father," says she, and she leads him to the row of folks in the hall, "these are all our people that I have engaged. This is Mary, our cook; and Sarah, the first maid. Annette is going to be my maid."

Well, she went down the line and introduced us to a dozen of 'em, I reckon. I just barely did know enough not to shake hands. Some of 'em touched their foreheads and the girls bobbed. They didn't talk none and they didn't shake hands.

By now Bonnie Bell's maid had her coat over her arm and them two was starting upstairs.

"I'll be back in a minute, dad," says she. "William will take you and Curly into your room."

The sad man he walks off down the hall, us following, and we come to a place right in the center of the house—and he left us there. We stopped when we went through the door.

What do you know? Bonnie Bell had fitted up that room precisely like the big room in the old home ranch! All our old things was there—how she got them I never knew. There was the old table, with the pipes and papers on it, and tobacco scattered round, and bottles over on the shelf, and a bridle or so—just the same place all the way through. She even had the stones of the old fireplace brought on, one nicked, where Hank Henderson shot the cook once.

"Look-a-here, Curly," says Old Man Wright after a while.

He leads me over to the corner of the room, aside of the fireplace. Dang me, if there wasn't our two old saddles, wore slick and shiny! Old Man Wright stands there in his spiketail coat, and he runs his hand down that old stirrup leather a time or two; and for a little while he can't say nothing at all—me neither.

"Ain't she some girl, Curly?" says he after a while.

"She's the ace, Colonel," says I.

"Ain't a thing overlooked," says he, thoughtful, walking round the place, his hands in his pockets.

By and by he come up to half a bottle of corn whisky—the same one that had stood on the table out on the Circle Arrow. He picks it up and pours hisself out a drink, thoughtful, and shoves it over to me.

"Every little thing!" says he. "Not a thing left out! It's the same place. Gawd bless the girl, anyways! I don't think I could of stood it at all if she hadn't fixed up this room for you and me. I was just going to stampede."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "here's looking at you! I see we've got a place where we can come in and unbuckle. It makes it a heap easier. I wasn't happy none at all before now."

"She done it all herself," says her pa, setting his glass down and looking round the room once more. "I give her free hand. The architect had marked this place 'Den,' I reckon. Huh! I don't call it a den—I call it home, sweet home. If it wasn't for this room," says he, "this would be one hell of a Christmas, wouldn't it, Curly? But never mind; we're going to break into this town, or get awful good reasons why."

"You reckon we can, Colonel?" says I.

"Shore, we can!" says he. "We got to! Don't she want it?"

"For instance," says I, "what's the name of our neighbors over next door to us, you reckon?"

"That's where Old Man Wisner lives," says he, grinning. "Them was the folks that set over at the table that Henderson pointed out to us tonight. He's the biggest packer in Chicago, president or something in about all the banks and everything else—there ain't no better people than what the Wisners are. And don't we live right next door to 'em? Can you beat it? That's why the land cost so much.

"Wisner didn't want us to buy this place; he wanted to buy it hisself, but buy it cheap. It was him or me, and I got it. Still, when I want to be neighbor to a man I'm going to be a neighbor whether he likes it or not."

"You reckon they'll like us?" says I.

"They got to," says he.

We was standing up, our glasses in hand, looking out through the door down the hall to where things was all bright and shiny; and just then we heard Bonnie Bell come down the stairs and call out:

"Oo-hoo, dad!"

We raises our glasses to her when she come in the door. She had took off the clothes she wore down at the hotel and had on something light and loose, silk, better for wearing in the house. The house was all warm, too, and in our fireplace, the old smoky one, some logs was burning right cheerful.

It was a new sort of Christmas to us, but we lived it down. The next morning we all acted as much like kids as we could, which is all there is to any Christmas. My socks was full of candy, and Old Man Wright he had a Teddy bear in his—part ways anyhow. Then Bonnie Bell she give him a new gold watch with bells in it, and me a couple of pins for my necktie. I never could get 'em in right.

After a while we come down to breakfast. We was in a big room that faced toward the Wisners' and likewise toward the lake. I reckon you could see forty miles up and down from where we set eating. It was warm in the room, though there wasn't much fire, and we all felt comfortable.

You could see out our windows right over the lot of the Wisners'; we could see into their house same as they could see into ours. There was a garridge set back toward the lake, same as ours, about on the same line, and beyond that you could see a boathouse. They had trees in their yard like ours, but ours was almost as big, though just planted. You could see where our flower beds was laid out, and the lines of little green trees all set in close together. On beyond the Wisners' you could see a whole row of other houses, all big and fine like theirs and ours.

All the whole country was covered with snow that morning. The wind was still blowing and the lake coming in mighty rough; you could hear the noise of it through the windows. It looked mighty cold outside and it was cold. You can freeze to death respectable in Wyoming, but in Chicago you keep on freezing and don't freeze to death, but wish you would, you are that cold.

Well, like I said, it was warm in the big room where we et. Bonnie Bell had a couple of yellow canary birds which was able to set up and sing, which Old Man Wright said was almost more than he could do hisself. Breakfast come on a little at a time—you couldn't tell how much of it there was going to be; but it made good, though it didn't start out very strong. By and by it got round to ham and aigs, which made us feel better. I never tasted better coffee; it was better than anything we had on the Yellow Bull. Ours out there was mostly extract, in pound packages—beans, I think, maybe.

"How do you like our new house, dad?" says she.

"They can't beat it, Bonnie Bell," says he.

"Dad; dear old dad!" says she. "I'm so glad you like it. I done it all for you."

"How do you mean?" says he.

"Why, of course, you know what a sacrifice it was for me to come here and leave the old place! But I seen you wanted it. If I thought it wasn't all right I believe it would break my heart."

"I know it," says he. "I know what a sacrifice you made when you come here on my account. If anything comes out wrong for you because of that sacrifice it shore would break my heart. 'Button, button,' says he, 'who's got the sacrifice?' If you leave it to me I'd say it was Curly, and not neither of us. Forget it, sis, and have another warfle."

"How do you like the place, Curly?" says she to me.

"I never seen anything like it," says I. "Like enough you paid too much though. I bet you paid two or three thousand dollars for this land—you was fooling when you said over two hundred thousand; and there ain't enough of it to rope a cow on at that. You could have bought several sections of real land for the same money; and how many cows this here house cost there can't nobody figure."

About then I heard a noise out in the street. Four or five people—Dutch, maybe—was playing in a band out there in front of the Wisners'. A man come out and shooed 'em away. They stood out in front of our place then and kept on playing. It seems like you can't eat in Chicago without some one plays music around.

"Here; take 'em out some money, William," says Old Man Wright. "It's Christmas."

They played some more then, and every morning since. I always hated 'em and I reckon everybody else did along in there, but there didn't seem to be no way to run 'em off.

"Well," says Old Man Wright when we finished our breakfast, "what are we going to do today, sis?" says he. "It's good tracking snow, but there ain't nothing to track. There ain't no need to see how the hay's holding out or to wonder if the cows can break through the ice to get at water. There ain't no horses in the barns. We ain't got a single thing to do—not even feed the dogs."

Bonnie Bell was reading in the paper which William, the sad man, had put by our plates. Her eyes got kind of soft and wetlike.

"I'll tell you what we can do, dad," says she. "Look at this list of poor people here in town that ain't got no Christmas."

"I've got you, sis," says he. "William, go tell the driver to bring the big car round; and tell the cook to get several baskets, full of grub—we're going to have a little party."

Well, by and by the chauffore brought the car round in front and we went out; and William and the others loaded her up with baskets. The chauffore was looking kind of pale and shaky. He seemed to have something on his mind.

"I hope you'll excuse me, sir," says he, touching his hat to Old Man Wright. "I didn't mean to be late; but, you see, it was Christmas Eve——"

"Why, that's all right," says Old Man Wright to him. "Don't mention it—Christmas is due to come once a year anyhow."

"I'll not let it occur again," says the chauffore, touching his hat again.

"What? Christmas?" says he. "You can't help it."

The man looked at him kind of funny. I knew then he'd been celebrating the night before, and I was right glad he hadn't begun to celebrate until he'd drove us home, for he was jerky yet.

Christmas is a time when folks ought to be happy. We wasn't happy none that day. I never seen before what it was to be real poor. Here in this town, where there is so much money, it seemed like there was hundreds and thousands of people hadn't saw a square meal in their whole lives. You couldn't hardly stand it to see 'em—at least I couldn't. We spent our day that way—our first Christmas in town—trying to feed all the hungry people there was; and we couldn't. It was the saddest Christmas I ever had in all my life.

That night Old Man Wright and me didn't stop to put on our regular eating clothes, as Bonnie Bell said we ought to, and we all set down in her dining-room for dinner, feeling kind of thoughtful and thinking of how many people wasn't going to get no such a dinner that night. As for us, we had plenty; and, believe me, there was something which filled a long-felt want for Old Man Wright and me. What do you think? Why, ham shank and greens!

"Sis," says her pa, "you certainly are thoughtful."

We could see out our windows over into the Wisners' windows—it seemed like they had forgot to pull down their blinds, same as we had. They didn't seem to be nobody at home, only one young man. He come in all by hisself, all dressed up, and there was three men waiting on him at the table. At length I calls attention to this, and Bonnie Bell turns her head and looks across.

"William," says she, "draw the blinds; and be more careful after this."

Well, things rocked along this way and we got through the winter someways, though every once in a while I taken a cold along of being shut up so much. There wasn't nowhere to go and nothing to do except to read the papers and wish you was dead.

Old Man Wright couldn't stand it no more; so he goes downtown and rents him a fine large office in a big building, with long tables with glass on top, and big chairs, something like in a bank. He didn't put no business sign on the door—just his name: J. W. Wright.

I'm lazy enough for anybody, like any cowpuncher—I don't believe in working only in spots; but sometimes I'd get so tired of doing nothing at the house that I'd get the chauffore to take me down to Old Man Wright's office, where I felt more at home. Nobody never come in to see us once—not in three months. We didn't have no neighbors, and we begun to see that that was the truth. I couldn't understand it, for we'd never got caught at nothing.

"Colonel," says I one morning, "do you reckon they're holding our past up against us anyways?" says I. "We spend a awful lot of money, but what do we get for it? Not a soul has came in our new house. As for me, I know I ain't earning no salary."

"Don't worry about that, Curly," says he. "You're getting plenty of grub and a place to sleep, ain't you? I'm the one that ought to worry, because I can't hardly find nothing to do here except make a little money."

"Won't there nobody play cards or nothing? Ain't there no sports in this town?" says I.

"Poker here is a mere name." He shakes his head. "If you push in a hundred before the draw you're guilty of manslaughter. But there is other ways of making money."

"How is the deferred payments on the Circle Arrow coming on?" says I.

"One come in, so far, interest and all," says he. "I wisht it hadn't. First thing I know, I'll be as rich as Old Man Wisner here. I see he wants to run for alderman up in that ward. Now I wonder what his game is there—it don't stand to reason he'd want to be a alderman now, unless there's something under it. You'd think he was trying to run the town and the whole world, too, wouldn't you?"

"I don't like that outfit," says I. "They ain't friendly. If a man don't neighbor with you, like enough he's stealing somewhere and don't want to be watched."

"That certainly is so," says he. "Still, I been busy enough for a while."

"The first thing you know," I says to him, "you'll lose your roll, and then where will we be?" But he only laughs at that.

"For instance," says he, "you see all them electric lights all over this town. I begun to study about them things when I first come here. There's a sort of little thing inside that they burn—carbon, they call it. I seen that everybody would keep their eyes on the light and not notice the carbon. But still they had to have carbon. I put a little into a company that made them things—not much; only a hundred thousand or so. Since then, what have they done? Why, they've turned in and gave me eighty per cent stock for nothing, and raised the cash dividend until I'm making twenty per cent on all I invested and what I didn't invest too. Such things bores me.

"Then again, there's my rubber business," says he, "rubber tires. The second day we owned the big car she busts a couple of tires—fifty dollars or so per each. I begun to figure out how many cars they was running in this town, up and down the avenue and all over all the other streets, each one of 'em with four tires on and any one of 'em liable to bust any minute. I figure the tires runs from fifteen to sixty dollars apiece and that somebody spends a lot of money for them. Then I went and bought into a good company that makes them things, a few months ago—not much; only a couple of hundred thousand or so. But what's the use?" He sets back and yawns, looking tired.

"I can't help it. I can't find no game in this country that's hard enough to play for to be interesting. What them rubber-tire people done was to make me a present of a whole lot of other stock the other day and raise the dividends. I can't buy into no company at all, it seems like, 'less'n every twenty minutes or so they up and declare another dividend. I don't like it. I wisht I could find some real man's-size game to play, because I'm like you—I get lonesome."

Still, he was looking thoughtful.

"Some games we can play," says he. "Then again, seems like there's others we can't. Now about the kid——"

"She's busy all the time," says I to him. "She reads and paints. Sundays she goes to church, while you and me only put on a collar that hurts. Week days she goes down to the picture galleries and into the liberry. She buys books. She's got her own cars—the big car and the electric brougham you give her on her birthday last week—ain't a thing in the world she ain't got. She's plumb happy."

"Except that she ain't!"

"You mean that we don't know nobody—nobody comes in to visit?" He nods. "Well, why don't we go in and call on them Wisner people that lives next to us?" says I.

"We can't do that; the rules of the game is that the folks living in a place first has to make the first call."

"That's a fool rule," says I.

"Shore it is; but Bonnie Bell knows all them rules and she ain't going to make any break—Old Man Smith taught her a few things—or maybe she learned it instinctive from her ma. Her ma was a Maryland Janney. They pretty near knew. And yet she told me—— Oh, shucks, Curly!"

"Well, what did she say?"

"She says she met Old Lady Wisner fair out on the sidewalk one morning and she was going to speak to her; they was both of them going down to their cars, which was standing side by side on the street. The old lady, she turns up her nose, such as there was of it, and she looks the other way. That hurt my girl a good deal. You know she ain't got a unkind thought in her heart for nobody or nothing on earth. She never was broke to be afraid of nothing or expect nothing but good of nobody—you and me taught her that, didn't we, Curly? And that old cat wouldn't look at my girl! Well, Curly, that's what I mean when I say there is some games that seems hard to play. Don't a woman get the worst of it every way of the deck, anyhow?"

"Well now," says I, "ain't there no way we can break in there comfortable like?"

"I don't see how," says he, shaking his head.

"Why can't we kill their dog?" says I. "Something friendly, just to start things going."

"That ain't no good," says he. "We tried it. Bonnie Bell already killed two of their dogs with her new electric brougham. You see, she had to go out and try it for herself, for she says she can ride anything that has hair on it, even if it's only curled hair in the cushions. First thing you know, the Wisner dog—pug nose it was, with its tail curled tight—it goes out on the road, acting like it owned the whole street, same as its folks does. Well, right then him and Bonnie Bell's new electric mixes it. The dog got the worst of it.

"Look-a-here, Curly," says he after a while, and pulls a square piece of paper outen his pocket. "Here's what we got in return for that—before Bonnie Bell had time to say she was sorry. The old lady wrote, for once:

"Ain't that hell?" says he. "Cheerful, ain't it? No name signed to it—nothing! But you can see from that just how they felt. That was three days ago. They got a new dog. Well, this morning Bonnie Bell killed that one!

"The trouble with them dogs is, they been used to thinking they own this whole end of the street. They don't seem to recognize that we're anybody at all. It's a awful thing and it put Bonnie Bell in wrong. She didn't know what to do. She was so mad she wouldn't write. So she sends for Jimmie—I mean James, our chauffore—he's got almost sober lately, it being three months or so since Christmas, and him knowing a lot about dogs. So she buys a new dog for them—a large one that you can see easy, a collie dog; and Jimmie says he paid one-fifty for it."

"A dollar and a half is more than any dog is worth," says I, "especial a dog that has anything to do with someone like that Wisner woman."

"A dollar and a half!" says he. "A hundred and fifty is what it cost; this was a swell dog—a young collie about a year old. Well, Bonnie Bell, she sends it round by James, our chauffore, with her compliments. Their butler takes it in. I don't know whether it's going to stick or not. It's a sort of olive branch. You see, Bonnie Bell can't write to no such people, but she is sorry for killing their dogs and she wants to make good somehow. I think it was a right good way. It looks like she could hold her own, and yet like she was willing to meet 'em halfway.

"Well, that's all we can do," says he. "Let it go the way it lays on the board. I don't like Old Man Wisner a little bit anyhow."

"Well," says I, "if he's running for alderman, why don't you run for sher'f or something, just to keep occupied?"

"I'm studying my ward," says he. "I don't know very many of the saloon people yet. You have to be pretty far along to get to be sher'f in a place like this. But now, a alderman might be easier, if you went at it right. Anyways, the way they have acted, I feel like I'd copper any game Old Man Wisner was playing. I kind of feel in my bones that him and me is going to lock horns, Curly. I don't like the way he acts; and, I tell you, when I want a neighbor to be friendly with me he's got to be friendly sometime."

Old Man Wright gets up now and walks around some, kind of grinning.

"But, on the whole, I may find something to keep me busy here in town. For instance, Old Man Wisner is back of some sort of steal, shore as you're born, in the Lake Shore Electric Extension that's going on up in there—the paper says he's been selling it, or the interests has. Why? He never done a direct thing in his life—that ain't the way he does business; for that matter, it ain't the way business is done in the city nohow. It's always done at a side door, not at a front door, the way we done it on the Yellow Bull—straight out, even-Stephen.

"I figure he starts that story to make that stock cheap. Well, the other day I buy up a little of it, right cheap at that—not much; only a few hundred thousand dollars. Now I figure that if it ever goes up for Old Man Wisner it will go up some for me. I may buy some more of it. I don't know as it is worth anything—maybe not; but it certainly would please me if I could find some kind of a side game here where I couldn't make no money. I'm bored, Curly," says he; "that's what's the matter with me."

But still he came round again and again to the real center of our coming to town—Bonnie Bell. Him and me could have had a good time, but we knew perfectly well that she wasn't having no good time.

"Curly," says he, kind of frowning and his jaw working some, "she ain't got a friend in this whole damn town."

"Listen at you!" says I to him. "What are you talking about? She has got us, ain't she? We are her friends. We've raised her. We are going to take care of her. Ain't that enough?"

"No, Curly," says he to me; "we ain't enough."

"Well," says Old Man Wright to Bonnie Bell one day about four o'clock when we was having a cup of tea, which William insisted we ought to drink then, "what have them folks over there said about the dog you sent 'em?"

"They haven't said a word," says Bonnie Bell. "They kept the dog though. I don't think much of that outfit, if you ask me, dad," says she.

"Nor me neither," says he. "It was too bad you run over their dog, or so many of their dogs; but then you done what you could, sending 'em another dog as big as all you killed. A collie is right smart. I hope this one will keep on the sidewalk and not get under the wheels. That Boston dog of yours always has me guessing."

Well, we talked on a while, both of us sort of joshing her on her dog deal, until she gets up and goes away from the little table where she is setting and stands in front of the window, looking out, her teacup in her hand. All at once she says:

"Good Lord!"

"What's wrong?" says her pa, and we all holler at her. But she is out of the room and down at the door before we can stop her, all in her gingham apern and cap, like she is then; for she had been looking after the housecleaning—though William looks at her sad for not being dressed up more.

We went to the window and looked out. All at once we heard a awful barking going on down there, and we seen what had happened. That new dog of theirs had come into our yard to look around, and Bonnie Bell's Boston dog, Peanut—which mostly rode in her car with her—had jumped this here visiting dog, and they was having it out sincere, right in our front yard.

Well, sir, it was one of the prettiest fights you ever seen. A collie ain't no slouch in a scrap, and if this dog wouldn't of been so young he like enough could of licked Peanut, all right. But, you see, Peanut he was taking care of his own folks, according to the way he figured it, and this was a intrusion on the part of the Wisner dog.

Anything that's got bull pup in him, like Peanut had, ain't got no sense about fighting; so Peanut he mixed it with the collie copious, and they tumbled all over the yard until you couldn't hardly tell which was which. At last Peanut got himself a good leg holt, and the collie hollers bloody murder and starts for home and mother through the fence, Peanut hanging on.

"Did you see the fight?" says Bonnie Bell.

"Sure I did! I was right there."

"Yes?" says she. "In such clothes?"

"Just like I am. I happened to be going past the room where they was holding their party and just then the dogs came in. Believe me, it was more fun than there has been in our house for a good many years. Of course it was some informal."

"Well," says Bonnie Bell, "I can see you must of been in the family a long time or you wouldn't feel the way you do."

"Twenty-odd years," says he, drawing hisself up. "I was taken captive in my early youth, and I have been in servitude ever since, with no hope of getting away," says he. "But a fellow has to make a living somehow and I had only my labor to sell. You see, I know something about flowers, and I can drive a car now some or run a boat."

"We've bought one of those little boats," says Bonnie Bell. "Sometime I'm going to take her out and learn how to run her myself."

"You ought to be careful about this lake," says he. "It gets awful rough sometimes. Still, it's good fun."

You can see they was visiting right and left—just her and the hired man! But, her being so lonesome that way all the time, it seemed like she'd have to talk to somebody, and this man seemed right friendly, though he was only a workingman. Bonnie Bell never was stuck up at all. Maybe he thought she was one of our maids.

"Gardening is all right," says he finally, drawing close to the fence; "but, for me, I'd rather be a cowman than anything I know. I'd rather ride a cowhorse than drive any car on earth. This life here gets on my nerves."

"Don't it?" says she to him. "Sometimes I feel that way myself."

"What anybody finds to like in a city is more than I can see. If I had money I'd buy a ranch," says he, "and then I'd live happy ever after."

Now wasn't that funny, him wanting to do just the very thing we had quit doing and us going to live right alongside of him that way? Still, of course, he was only a hired man—ain't none of 'em contented. I ain't always, myself.

Bonnie Bell thought this was getting too sort of personal and she starts in toward the house—she tells me a good deal of this afterward—but he come up closer to the fence and seemed kind of sorry to have her go; and says he:

"Wait a minute. I was telling you about my ranch. I'm going to have one some day. Do you think I'd live here all my life with the old gentleman and the old lady, and nothing to do but tinkering round flowers and cars? I ain't that trifling."

"I must be going in," says she then.

So she left him. He nearly climbed over the fence to keep her from going, and the last thing she heard him say was:

"I hope I can help you about the flowers." She began to think he was kind of fresh like. She told me what he said.

Her pa seen some of this out of the window and he called her down when she come in.

"I don't think I'd talk much with any of them folks if I was in your place," says he.

"Why, dad," says she, "you don't want me to be stuck up like them, do you?"

Then she told him how Peanut had chased their dog in there and broke up their bridge party. They both had to laugh at that.

"Their gardener, James, told me that Old Man Wisner ain't much, nor the old lady neither," says Bonnie Bell after a while. "It's just what I thought."

"I don't know as he ought to talk that way about the people he works for," says her pa. "I'd be kind of careful about any man that was knocking his boss—wouldn't you, Curly?"

"Well, it was all my fault, dad," says she. "He said good morning; then I ast him about the flowers and he offered to help me with the crocuses."

"Don't take no help from none of that Wisner outfit," says her pa. "You hear me?"

As spring come along and the weather got pleasanter, Bonnie Bell was happier, because she could get out of doors more. Now she took to running this new power boat we had. It was a whizzer. It didn't take her long to learn how to run it. About everybody in Millionaire Row had boathouses on the lake and most of them had these gasoline boats—you could hear them sput-sputting round out there evenings almost any bright day.

Her pa didn't like her to go out on the lake very much; being from Wyoming he was scared of water—especial so much of it. He tells Bonnie Bell to be careful and, if she must go out on the lake, to only go when it was smooth.

In one way there wasn't no need to be scared about the girl, for she could swim like a duck—Old Man Smith taught all of 'em that. Nearly every morning she would go out in her bathing suit down our walk and through our garridge, and across the dock, and dive into that water where it was more than forty feet deep and as cold as ice. She wasn't afraid. She would come back wet and laughing, and say she liked it. I wouldn't have done that for a farm. I don't believe in going into water unless you have to ford.

I hate anything that runs by gasoline, because it's a shore thing that sooner or later it'll ball up on you somewheres. A good cowhorse is the only safe thing to go anywhere with, and anybody knows that. Bonnie Bell coaxed me out in her boat once—but not more than once. The lake wasn't so rough neither; but the boat riz up and down until I didn't feel right, and I wouldn't go no more. But Bonnie Bell got so some afternoons she'd be out hours at a time, ripping and charging up and down, water flying out from the front of the boat. Mostly she'd ride in her bathing clothes, and her hair done up under her cap. There was kind of a wild streak in her anyway and she was always taking chances.

One evening round four or five o'clock, after a warm day in the summer time, she was out there about a quarter of a mile from the shore and all by herself. There was quite a wind up, and the waves was rolling pretty high, breaking white on top, too, and making such a noise I was plumb uneasy. Her pa was away from home; so I went down on the dock and stood out there trying to holler at her so she would hear me, but I couldn't make her hear. I waved things, too, but she didn't seem to see them.

She was a sort of dare-devil at riding or driving anything, and I reckon maybe she was enjoying that sloshing through the water, though I expected every minute to see the boat go upside down. I could hear the engine of the boat going fast—sput-sput-sput-t-t! I could only hope it would keep all right. All gas engines is sinful.

She had been the only one out on the lake right then, it being so rough; but along about now, down toward town, a half mile or so off, I seen another boat coming, lifting up high on top of the waves, then going out of sight in the hollow for quite a while. It was heading straight in for our place. The fellow in it was running kind of sideways to the waves and I would a heap rather it would of been him in the boat than me.

Bonnie Bell was a little farther out, heading into the waves and enjoying the rocking, it seemed like. By and by I seen her looking off to the south; and then her engine begin to sput-sput a heap faster, and I seen her boat swing out and head that way.

I looked out at the other boat then. I didn't see it for a while, but at last it swung up on top of a big wave. It wasn't the way it had been, but blacker. I seen the water shine on the boards. Then I knowed what had happened—the boat had turned over.

It was just like Bonnie Bell to head in to see if she could help. I hollered at her, but she couldn't hear and I don't reckon she'd of stopped anyways.

Them little boats goes awful fast and it seemed like Bonnie Bell—for that was the name of her boat, her pa had gave it that name—didn't seem to hit the waves none, only in the high places. In just a little while she was where the upset had done happened. I seen her slow down and swing in, and then stand up and whirl a rope. Then she reached over and then hauled back.

"Well, anyhow," says I to myself, "she's saved a corpse," says I.

I learned afterward that he wasn't dead and that when Bonnie Bell reaches in and grabs him by the collar she tells him to keep still or she'll soak him over the head with the boat hook.

"We'll be in in a minute," says she to him. Of course I didn't know that then.

It seems like she didn't try to haul him plumb in, the waves running so high; and she run the engine with one hand and held on to him with the other, him dragging along at one side of the boat and getting a mouthful of water every once in a while. It wasn't very far off from our dock and pretty soon they come alongside.

"Grab him, Curly!" says she; so I grabbed him when she swung in and hauled him up.

He was wet all over and at first he seemed half mad. I seen who he was then—he was the Wisner's hired man.

"Why didn't you let me alone?" says he. "I'd 'a' got her all right pretty soon. You might have gone over too."

"What?" says she, scornful. "You're all right anyways, and you got no kick coming."

She stood up in her bathing clothes, wet as she could be, and part of her hair hanging down underneath her cap, and he looked at her kind of humble. And says he: "I thank you very much. Pardon me for what I said." Then he looks down at his clothes and seen they was wet, and he broke out laughing. "All to the candy!" says he. "My life saved for my country!" says he.

"There wasn't no sense in your going over," says Bonnie Bell, scolding him. "You was getting your mixture too rich and you clogged up your engine. You can't overfeed them two-cycles that way and get away with it."

"That wasn't the trouble at all," says he. "I caught my foot in the ignition wire and broke it off. Of course she couldn't run then; but I could of swum in from where I was and the boat would have drifted in."

"You would have got good and wet swimming in," says she, still scornful, "and you would have got pounded to pieces against the sea wall; that's what would have happened to you. Some folks," says she, "ain't fit to go out alone anyways."

And, so saying, she leaves us both, wet as she was in her bathing clothes, and runs on through the boathouse and up the steps. He stood looking after her, sober.

"Don't I know that!" says he, turning to me. "If it hadn't been for her it would have been all day with me. But I certainly thought she'd be over."

"It's a good thing Bonnie Bell could run that boat," says I.

"Bonnie Bell?" says he. "Is that her name? By Jove! Well now, by Jove! And what's your name?" says he.

"Wilson," says I. "They call me Curly for short."

"Curly?" says he. "That sounds sort of like a cowboy's name, don't it?"

"I never seen a cow camp yet where there wasn't some cowpuncher name Curly," says I.

"Cowpuncher! You wasn't ever one yourself, was you?" says he.

"I never was nothing else," says I.

Then he held out his hand.

"Shake!" says he. "Some folks gets what other folks wishes. Ain't it the truth?"

"What do you mean?" I ast him.

"Well," says he, "I always wanted to be a cowboy, yet I never did have a chance to go on a ranch."

"You're the gardener, ain't you?" says I, and he nods.

"That's all I get to do. Still, I may have a chance to do better sometime."

He was a right nice-looking fellow, clean shaved and his hair cut good, and his mustache cut right short. He looks down at his clothes now, but he didn't seem to care—acted like he had plenty more; and he laughed. He was wet, but he wasn't shivering. He come pretty near drowning but he wasn't scared. I rather liked him even if he was only a hired man like myself. He seemed sort of hardy.

"You know how she got me?" he ast me now. "She threw the loop of a rope over me, and if I hadn't got it in my hand I reckon she'd of choked me to death."

"She's a good roper," says I, "and she can ride as well as she can rope."

"Could you ever show me how to rope?" says he. "Would you?"

"Shore I'll show you sometime if we ever get a chance," says I. "I'll look round in our ranch room there in the house, and see if I can find a rope."

"Have you got a room in there like a ranch?" says he.

"Exacty like our old ranch," says I. "It's the main room out of the old Circle Arrow Ranch."

"Could she, now—would she help teach a fellow how to rope a drowning person?" says he. "That's what she done. She's a corker, ain't she?"

"She shore is," says I. "Her own folks mostly reserves the right to say that, though."

"I beg pardon," says he, and he got red again. "I know where I belong."

"Just kind of keep on knowing where you belong and where she belongs, son," says I—"it's two different propositions. I trust, my good man," says I to him, "that you understand I'm the foreman of the ranch."

"Don't it beat the world," says he to me after a while—us standing there still talking though he was wet as a rat—"how things is run? Sometimes it seems like we can't help ourselfs, and we all get into the wrong places trying to get into the right ones. Now I'd like to thank that lady; but I can't. She's wonderfully beautiful, isn't she—your mistress? I say now, Curly, you thank her for me, won't you?"

I felt rather savage towards anybody coming from the Wisner side of the fence, but someway this fellow was so decent, and he evident meant to be so square, that I couldn't hardly feel no way but friendly to him.

"You've been with your folks quite a while, ain't you?" says I after a while.

"Oh, yes; I suppose I'm kind of useful in the scheme some ways or they'd tie a can to me."

"In Millionaire Row, the way I figure it," says I to him, "the Wisners is the king bees?"

He nods.

"I'm afraid that's about the truth. At least that's the way they think it is—the old man and the old lady. Folks that don't swing in line with their ways they get froze out."

"Is that so?" says I, getting hot under the collar right away. "Well, let me tell you something: When it comes to playing any kind of freeze-out, where Old Man Wright is concerned, believe me, there's two sides to that game. Do you see?"

I looked straight at him, and I went on:

"Nobody ever seen Old Man Wright weaken in nothing he once begun. As for money, he can't be making less than a million a month or so right here in this town where he is now. He's one of them kind that does."

"I believe you," says he. "Was you saying that your folks used to own the Circle Arrow Ranch out in Wyoming?"

"Uh-huh; and I wisht we did right now."

"That's funny," says he. "And you sold it to a syndicate?"

"Uh-huh—damn 'em!"

"And Old Man Wisner was one of the silent partners and one of the biggest owners in that syndicate—colonization and irrigation. There ain't anything that he won't go against that there's money in, and he mostly wins," says he.

"Well, what do you know about that!" says I. "Us moving in here and living right next door to him—that's the funniest thing I ever did hear. They shore was on opposite sides of that game, wasn't they, them two folks? Well, Old Man Wisner got the worst of it—that's all. You can't raise nothing on that land except cows and he'll find it out. We got some of our deferred payments coming in, like enough; but it wouldn't surprise me if we got all that land back sometime, and I shore hope we do."

He kind of puckers up his mouth and puts his fingers on it.

"By Jove!" says he. "By Jove! Would you give me a job cowpunching, Curly?" says he.

"Not unless you could rope better then than you can now," says I. "And if you can't ride a horse any better than you can a boat I don't think you could earn your board."

He took it all right, and only laughed.

I went up through the boathouse and the garridge and up the back steps into the little portico—sort of storm door that's over the back door of our house where it looks out over the lake. If you'll believe me, there was Bonnie Bell standing there, all in her bathing clothes! She hadn't gone in yet.

"Has he gone, Curly?" says she.

"He has just went," says I. "What are you doing here, all wet? Why didn't you go in right away?"

"Is he all right, Curly?" says she, sort of rolling her hair up off her neck and into her rubber cap.

"Yes," says I; "he ain't hurt none."

"What were you talking about so long?" says she.

"A good many things—you, for instance," I says to her.

"What did he say?" she ast of me.

"Why, nothing much; only how sorry he was you saved his life."

"Sorry—why?"

"Well, it makes a man feel mighty mean to have a woman save his life."

"Did he say that?" she says to me. Now when Bonnie Bell smiles she sort of has a dimple here and there. She sort of smiled now. "What kept you out there so long? You two people was talking like two old women."

"Well," I says, "I was just promising to show him how to rope; he says he wants to learn."

"When are you going to show him, Curly?"

"Oh, sometime some morning, like enough, down there on the dock. He says he'll sneak over from his place, so no one will see him. I don't reckon your pa will mind my showing a young fellow how to rope—I'd like to feel a rope in my hand again anyhow. I expect before long he'll be wearing a wide hat and singing 'O, bury me not on the lone prairee!'"

"Curly," says she.

"What?"

"Did you find my rope in along with those in the big room? I forget whether I brought it along."

"Kid," says I, "if there's going to be any instruction to hired men on the rope or mouth organ or jew's-harp, or anything of that sort, it's me that gives it. I'm segundo on this ranch. Now you go on upstairs."

She had her hair all pushed back now under her cap, wet as it was, standing there fixing it. She was in her bathing clothes still and awful wet, but she didn't seem cold. She looked kind of pink and sort of happy; I don't know why. Lord, she was a fine-looking girl! There never was one handsomer than Bonnie Bell Wright.

"Kid, you heard me!" says I. "Go on upstairs now and get your clothes on. And you don't go out in that boat no more!"

As the weather begun to get warmer and we got out-of-doors more, it was cheerfuller around our place. Bonnie Bell chirked up quite a bit. She used to sing some. It seemed like she was going to get used to living in town—not me; never!

But Old Man Wright didn't seem to worry none somehow. He was one of the sort that, put him down anywheres and he'd be busy at something. If he was set down on a sand bar beside a creek he'd reach around to find some sticks; and, first thing you know, he'd be building a house out of 'em—he just always was making things somehow. I never seen a man could size up a piece of country for what it would perduce better than him.

"Curly," says he to me one day when I was down in his new office and he was talking about making money, "there's different ways of getting rich," says he, "but only one system. Either get what a mighty few thinks they got to have—that's things for rich folks; or else get something that everybody has got to have whether they want it or not—that's things for poor folks. And when you're in the game you buy when things is low and sell when they is high. Nigh about every man you know plays the game just the other way around. That's why there's so many poor folks," says he. "Yet the game is plumb easy to beat when you know how, if making money is all you care about.

"For instance," says he, "when I bought that bunch of stock in the Lake Electric a while ago it was when nobody wanted it or let on they wanted it. Since then it has riz round fifteen or twenty points and it'll go higher. When I sold the Circle Arrow it was when them folks wanted it right bad. Between you and me, them people paid more for it than it was worth. I may buy it in some day when they don't want it no more."

"You reckon you ever will, Colonel?" says I, plumb happy to think of that.

"If I was alone in the world, with just you, I shorely would right off," says he, "no matter what it cost. With Bonnie Bell in the game, too, I don't know what I'll do nor when I'll do it.

"I don't have such a hard time here," he went on after a while. "For instance, just a few weeks ago I was reading in the papers about this war in Europe—which is a shame and a awful thing; and I hope it won't come here, though if it does you and me are in," says he. "Well, I seen how they make so much powder and sell it—smokeless powder. For that they have to use a awful lot of picric acid."

"What kind of acid?" says I. "Pickles?"

"I don't know," says he. "I wouldn't know it if it was on a plate—only I know they have to make smokeless powder out of it. So I bought all I could find laying round here or there—not very much; only two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth.

"Well," says he, stretching out his legs and yawning, "it's the same old story, Curly. I couldn't help it and I didn't mean to do it the least way in the world; but now this here picric acid—whatever it is—it's worth two or three times what it was just a little while ago. I cleaned up—oh, maybe two or three hundred thousand dollars on that. There ain't enough in these things to keep me very busy. I don't care for making money nohow, because it's so easy. If there was a real man's game now, I wouldn't mind mixing with it."

"Cows is something that folks has to have whether they are rich or poor," says I to him.

"Shore; and it's a good game too. If you look around you'll find that there is some things that everybody has got to use somehow, somewhere—wood, copper, oil, iron; things like that. You can't build houses and live in 'em unless you have some of them things. Everybody has to buy 'em in wholesale or in retail. I like to buy 'em a little farther back even than wholesale—when they are what you call raw resources.

"If you take things that's made up in packages you can sell them too, a little at a time, but slow. Some folks likes to trade that way; they got to have pictures—objects—right before 'em to believe their money's safe. That's a little slow for me and you, Curly. I like to take the goods before they are put up in packages and buy a lot of them—something that folks has got to have."

"That's where your game is weak, Colonel," says I. "For instance, you deal in cows on the hoof. That ain't respectable. When you cut up cows and hogs into sides, hams and sausage, then's when you get respectable. Ain't you got plenty proof of that? Look at them Wisners, for instance."

He snorts at that and ain't happy.

"Well, it's the truth," says I. "Look at us! We ain't nobody here. Old Man Wisner's the king bee of this here row of houses. We ain't one-two-ten in this race."

"Huh! Is that so? I'm running free, under a pull; and you can't kick. But then, we're having all the fun—not Bonnie Bell."

"I ain't having no fun worth speaking of myself," says I. "But she's doing well enough—she's disgusting healthy—sounder in wind and limb than anybody else in this town. And she's busy too; she's found a new kind of car that she says she's got to have. She says the Wisners bought one a little shinier than hers."

"Well, she can have whatever she wants. We are doing pretty well, seems like. I just went into a little speculation last week that will maybe pay for that new car."

"What's it about this time, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Well, it has something more to do with this here war. Whenever there is a war somebody makes money and everybody loses it. Now you see they're using a awful lot of sharpnel over there—bullets packed up in packages ready to be busted open. It takes a certain kind of lathe to turn them sharpnel, and there is only one kind of lathe in this country that does it faster than any other; and the people that makes sharpnel can't get enough of them. Well, I bought the control of that there lathe. Looking around not long ago, I found a little stove factory down in the sand hills; and I bought it and put a few of them lathes in there and started a little company.

"Besides, I control them lathes that goes into all the other factories where they make sharpnel. Shouldn't wonder if we'd run into a little money before long—enough to buy a car—five hundred thousand dollars or so. If they got to have sharpnel I suppose we might as well make 'em and make 'em good."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I hope you'll find enough to do, so that one of these days you can be right comfortable."

"So do I," says he, and he sticks out his legs again, with his hands in his pockets. "But sometimes I almost lose heart about it. Things looks mighty sad to me, because I can't find no game that's interesting for to play."

"How about that running-for-alderman business?" says I.

"I'm looking that over," says he. "I know a good many of the fellows over on the west side of our ward. My freckles helps me some in that part of the ward. They can't look at freckles like mine and call me anything but a honest man. Our ward is in two parts, and a little wears silk socks and a good deal of it don't. Wisner, he's strong with them that does. He maybe ain't so strong with them that makes eight dollars a week. Maybe none of them works for Wisner, but plenty of other people that works for eight dollars a week does work for him."

"He shore makes plenty of money," says I. "I expect he's got more money than anybody in town."

"I'm willing to stack up a little money in this alderman game against him if I thought I'd get any fun out of it. I'm just marking time here, the way it is."

"Doing what?" I ast him.

"Making money and waiting."

"What for?" says I, not understanding.

"For some man," says he.

"What man?" I ast him, still not understanding.

"That's what I don't know. For some man that will make Bonnie Bell happy. But all the young men in a city talk alike and look alike and dress alike. I ain't seen more than one or two that was worth a cuss—not a one I thought was good enough for my girl. And yet it stands to reason that something will happen; and it might be any time. It makes me uneasy."

I couldn't see why more folks didn't come into our house, like they used to out on the Circle Arrow; and I said that.

"It's easy to see why they don't," says Old Man Wright, and he busts the glass top of his table with his fist. "It's plumb plain to see why. It's them Wisners has blocked our game. They coppered us from the start—that's what! We got in wrong at the start with them; we didn't kotow to them and they've always been expecting it."

"That puts us in pretty hard," says I.

"It wouldn't be hard for you or me, Curly," says he. "There ain't a game on earth that that pie-faced old hypocrite can play that I can't beat him at; I don't fear him no more than I like him. But when I see how easy it was for him and his folks to make my girl miserable—— It ain't on account of myself, Curly," says he, and he sweeps his hand over the desk and knocks every paper and everything else on the floor. "She's all I got," says he. "I loved her ma and I love her. Whatever goes against her happiness goes against me all the way through. And," says he, "I'll buck this here city game until some day I bust the bank!"

I left him setting there, sort of looking down at his feet, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out. He wasn't happy none at all, though all the time he'd been hollering for some game that he couldn't beat.