We went on thataway a good while into the summer and nothing much
happened between us and our neighbors. Maybe once in a while our dog
Peanut would get over in their back yard and scratch up their pansies.
Peanut always liked to lay in fresh dirt, and he seemed to know
instinctive which was our pansy beds and which was theirn. Their hired
man only laughed when I seen him and apologized.
He used to come over once in a while, their hired man did, and meet me
on the dock back of the boathouse, where I give him lessons in roping. I
showed him a few things--how to let go when he got his rope straight,
and to give hisself plenty of double back of the hondoo. We used to rope
the snubbing posts where we tied the boats. Sometimes we'd practice for
a hour or so and he begun to get on right well. We visited that way
several days, usual of mornings.
"Don't the lady ever come down to the boats no more?" says he one time.
"No," says I. "Her pa's afraid she'll get drownded."
"Does she ever talk about saving the life of anybody?" he ast.
"No," I says; "she's used to such things. She don't take no account
anyways of saving the life of a laboring man," says I. "It's nothing to
her."
"Ain't it funny," says he, "how things work out sometimes? At first, you
know, I thought she was one of your housemaids."
"You done what?" says I.
"Well, I don't deny it. When I first seen her in the yard, the time she
chased that dog over, I thought she was one of the maids--you see, she
had on a cap and a apern. I didn't know at all. The old lady thinks it
yet."
"She's mighty kind-hearted, even with the lower classes," says I. "She
even gives money to them people that play music in front of our house
every morning. I wish they wouldn't."
"I wish she wouldn't do that," says he. "We have a awful time with that
band. The old man said if he ever got to be alderman he'd get a
ordinance through abolishing them off the streets. They play something
fierce!" says he.
"Is he going to run for alderman?" says I. "I seen something in the
papers about it."
"Well, yes; I believe he will--I heard him say he would."
"If he does," says I, "I reckon hell will pop in this ward."
"Why?" says he.
"Well, my boss is figuring he may run for alderman hisself--he's
naturalized here now. He used to be sher'f out in Cody whenever he
wanted to be. When he wants anything, seems like he can't hardly help
getting it. It's a way he has."
He looks kind of thoughtful at that.
"Well, now," says he, "well now, what do you know about that! As you
say, Curly, ain't that hell?"
He swore so easy and natural that I kind of liked him, and the way he
taken up roping was to my thinking about the best of any tenderfoot I
ever seen.
"What are they piling up them rocks along the side of the yard for,
Jimmie?" I ast him after a while.
You see, there was several wagonloads of brick and stuff had been put in
there that morning.
"I don't know," says he. "Something the old man ordered, I reckon. He's
away right now. They don't always tell me about things as much as I
think they might."
"I've often wondered they didn't fire you," says I.
"They can't," says he. "I told you I've got too much on 'em. They don't
dast to fire me none at all. I defy 'em!" says he.
"Well, you better be a little careful," says I. "I've seen people felt
that way about their boss before now, and right often they got the can.
You better not get fired till you know a little bit more about roping
and riding."
"Hush!" says he. "I think I heard someone over in our boathouse.
Good-by! I'll come round again tomorrow morning."
He went on down the dock into their boathouse. I set down not far from
the door, smoking and looking out over the lake. I heard someone in
there begin to talk. It was him and Old Lady Wisner--I'd heard her
before once in a while. I couldn't help hearing them if I'd wanted to,
and I did want to.
"James," says she, "where have you been? I've been looking everywhere
for you."
"Why, nowhere especial," says he carelesslike. "I was just over on the
dock doing some roping stunts with Curly."
"I suppose you mean that red-headed, pigeon-toed brute that hangs around
the Wrights' place," says she.
Say, when she said that I half riz up, for I shore was mad. I may be the
way she said, but I don't allow no one else to say so. But she wasn't a
man anyway; so I had to stand it. I read somewhere in a book it ain't
correct to listen when folks don't know you're hearing them; but that
didn't go with me no more, especial when people was talking about me and
my hair and legs thataway. So I set down and listened some more.
"Well," says Jimmie, "I haven't ever noticed that at all. But he's a
good scout and I like him," says he.
That made me feel just a little easier anyways.
"Well, it's no matter what you were doing over there," says she vicious.
"You're not to have nothing more to do with such can-nye no more. Why
can't you attend to your own business?"
"I'm just going to," says he. "You ain't ast my consent about mussing up
my flower beds. What's all that rock and brick doing up in the yard?"
Say, he was a sassy one!
"Since you ast me, I'll tell you. It's a fence we're going to build."
"A fence?" says he. "We got a perfectly good fence now."
"Oh, have we? Well, it ain't high enough to keep out our people from
mixing with them can-nye." I wondered again what can-nye was. "I'll not
have you talking with their maids."
"Is that so?" says he. "I hadn't noticed much of that going on lately,"
says he. "I wish it was."
"James!" says she, so mad she couldn't hardly speak. "James!" And about
all she could do was to guggle in her throat and say: "James!"
"Well," says I to myself, "here's where he gets the can tied to him, all
right. It don't stand to reason she'll allow that kind of talk."
Well now, they was talking about that fence. In two or three days it was
easy enough to see what the Wisners was going to do: They was going to
cut out the herd law and fence in their own range.
It wasn't a fence at all. It was a wall they built, day after day--a
regular wall! Pretty soon it was up as high as our second-story window,
and it keep on a-going. It took them weeks to finish it. When it was
done it run clean from the sidewalk back to their boathouse. From our
side, on the ground, you couldn't only see the top of their house, and
from their side you couldn't only see the top of ours.
Well, anyway, the wall went up and we didn't stop it, because we
couldn't. It was like we was living in two different worlds, with that
wall between us, and that was the way they meant it. Nothing could cross
from one side to the other. It was the coldest deal I ever seen one set
of folks give another. And why? I couldn't figure why.
Bonnie Bell was right still and quiet. Old Man Wright he went around
thoughtful for quite a while. He seen this was a insult put on him, but
he didn't know what to do. At last he goes to Bonnie Bell one day, and
says he:
"Sis, it's coming along kind of hot in the summer. How'd you like to go
to White Sulphur or somewheres for a few months?" says he. "You're
looking kind of pale now for the last few weeks," says he, "and I don't
like to see it."
She turns and looks at him square in the eyes for a minute, and pointed
out the window.
"With that thing going on?" says she. "I'll see them damned first!" says
she.
That was the first time I ever heard Bonnie Bell cuss. I liked her for
saying it, and so did her pa.
"It's a hard game we got to play, sis," says he; "but we'll play it."
She nods, and we let it go at that.
That fence ruined the street, as far as our end of it was concerned.
Them that lived north of it could look on up the lake for quite a ways,
but for more than a quarter of a mile down toward the park there
couldn't nobody see down that part of the street at all. The papers got
to talking about it, and some complaints was printed too. Old Man Wright
he only sort of laughed. The papers made fun of the Wisners for building
that fence--sort of treating the whole thing like a joke.
About now the campaign for alderman got busier. Old Man Wright printed
a full page in all the papers, with a picture of hisself, and saying
that J. W. Wright was running for alderman in that ward. Right opposite
his full-page ad was about six or eight inches, with a smaller picture
of Old Man Wisner with it; and he said that Mr. David Abraham Wisner
begged to submit his name as a candidate for the sufferedges for
alderman in that ward. I didn't know what sufferedges was at first, but
I knew what my boss was out after--it was votes, and he was liable to
get 'em.
From that time on the boss was busier than he had been before. He got
better acquainted over on the west side of our ward. Sometimes he
wouldn't get back till midnight, but he always come home under his own
steam. In his office I saw all sorts of people. He seemed to take to
this alderman business natural.
Anyways he was a hard man to buck in any kind of a game. He had his own
idea all the time maybe about that fence in Millionaire Row. One day he
taken a little pasear down the lake front toward the head of the park,
where there was some vacant land below us. He was sizing things up. Two
or three weeks after he told me he'd bought that tract--the whole works,
clear down to the end of the park. I don't know what he paid for it, but
it must have been a lot of money.
"You see," says he, "all them people up there north of us on the row
they ain't got only a little bit of land for their houses. Me, I'm going
to have a place with half a mile or so of ground to it. Bonnie Bell has
got to have a place to herself for to raise crocuses and other flowers,"
says he, "and to cultivate her Boston dog."
It was kind of hard times right then and a good many men was out of
work. Old Man Wright put a lot of 'em to work on his new Bonnie Bell
Addition, as he called it. He dug it up and smoothed it down and laid it
out, and planted it with trees and sodded it. And then, down at the far
end of it, he just puts up a high wall like the Wisners', but 'way off
from it. Then we dug down along the Wisner wall.
Folks used to go along and wonder what it was done for and who done it.
And later on some folks farther up the drive allowed it was some kind of
a new Italian garden and some of them begun to put up them walls too. It
got right fashionable. The whole looks of that part of town was changed.
But, while they had little bits of yards you couldn't swing a cat in, we
had land enough to start a hay ranch if we had of wanted to.
"I can afford it," says Old Man Wright.
And by the time he had the improvements started the real-estate men come
and pestered him to take at least three times as much money as he give
for it.
"I may sell it sometime," says he, "but not now," says he. "I like it.
My girl likes to raise crocuses, and what she likes she gets. We're
going to raise plenty of crocuses and tulips and hollyhocks," says he.
It wouldn't be right to say Bonnie Bell didn't have no friends. Once
there come quite a bunch of girls from out of town--girls she had knew
in Smith's; and they had quite a visit. They tore up the house and for a
week or so Bonnie Bell was right happy; but by and by they went away
again. Then nobody come into our place, the sort we wanted to come.
There was one man come to call on us--it was Henderson, of our old
hotel. We used to go down there and eat sometimes, and every time we
done so he'd come to stand around. He couldn't keep his eyes off Bonnie
Bell. I reckon he was about forty years old.
Now one day he come up to our house in the afternoon all dressed up,
with a white flower in his coat and a high hat on, and shiny shoes, and
he ast for Old Man Wright; and William showed him into the back parlor.
I was setting in our ranch room, so I could hear what went on--I
couldn't very well help it. I heard what Mr. Henderson said; so I knowed
what brought him there all dressed up.
"Mr. Wright," says he, "I won't waste time. I'm used to doing business
in a direct way. So today I come down--I come down--that is to say, I
come today----" says he.
"Well, for a direct man, you're taking some time to say what you want to
say," says Old Man Wright; "but maybe I can guess it if you can't say
it. It's my girl you come to talk about?"