There was only one thing kept that armory from going up right on our
flower beds. The weak side of Old Man Wright was, he couldn't help doing
anything a woman ast him to do. This Katherine girl, one day she comes
down to our place, with the paper in her hand, and she says to him:
"Look here, Colonel Wright," says she, "what's in the paper! Is that
true?"
"If it ain't true," says he, "it may be before long."
"Why, Colonel Wright," says she, looking at him with her eyes wide
open--and when she looked at you thataway couldn't no man help liking
her--"I wisht you wouldn't do that, sir--please!" says she.
"Why not?" says he.
"Well," says she, "because."
He turns around and throws up both hands. He never said another word
about it after that. But after a while the calvary regiment went
somewheres else--on some more land he had bought, so it turned out.
Nobody knew what changed his mind. It was Katherine, the first girl
friend that Bonnie Bell had had in the city.
You see, Katherine used to come to our house regular now; her and Bonnie
Bell was right thick together. One time Katherine come in quite excited.
"My brother Tom's coming back next week," says she. "Ain't that fine?"
"Is that so?" says Bonnie Bell. "I'd like to see him."
"Tom's going to live with us," says Katherine, "and be in the office
downtown--unless he gets married, or something of that kind. I wisht he
would. Now I wisht he would get engaged. I'd like to see how he'd act.
You can't guess what I'd like!"
"No," says Bonnie Bell; "I can't."
"Well, he's awfully good-looking," says Katherine. "He hasn't got much
sense though. He dances and can play a mandolin, and has been around the
world a good bit. He's sweet-tempered, but he smokes too much. Sometimes
of mornings he's cross. But you can't guess what I'd like!"
"No; I can't," says Bonnie Bell.
Then Katherine kissed her and taken her hands.
"Why," says she, "I'd like it awfully if you and Tom could hit it off
together," says she. "I think it would be lovely--perfectly lovely!
Then we'd be sisters, wouldn't we?" Bonnie Bell she blushed a-plenty.
"Why, how you talk!" says she. "I've never seen your brother yet and
he's never seen me."
"I've told him you're lovely," says Katherine. "I'll bring him over
sometime."
"I don't know how I could allow it after what you said," says Bonnie
Bell; "but if he's as nice as you I'll jump right square down his
throat. Could you ask me to do anything more than that?"
They giggled, then, and held hands, and ate candy and drank tea, and
talked, both with their mouths full.
"Oh, look at the Wisners' new car!" says Katherine after a while, and
she run to the window.
Their car was just coming in to the sidewalk at their curb now. From
where I set I could see it. Their driver opened the door and Old Lady
Wisner got out; then a young man. They both went out of sight right away
around the fence--you couldn't see into their yard from where we set.
The girls by this time had got so sometimes they'd talk about the
Wisners. Bonnie Bell says now:
"Why don't you call on the Wisners any more?"
"Oh, because," says Katherine. "We're friendly, of course, for the
families have lived in here so long; but Mrs. Wisner and mommah haven't
been very warm since the last Charity Ball business."
"I don't know about that," says Bonnie Bell.
"Oh, Lord! Yes," says Katherine. "They didn't speak for a while. You
know, Honey, the Wisners are among our best people. But then, mommah's a
Daughter of the Revolution and a Colonial Dame, and a Patriot Son, or
something of the sort besides. Mrs. Wisner, she's only a Daughter and
not a Dame; so she doesn't rank quite as high as mommah. Some said that
she faked her ancestors when she come in too. Anyway, when she tried for
the Dames they threw her down. Mommah was Regent or something of the
Dames then too--not that I think mommah would do anything that isn't
fair. But Old Lady Wisner got her back up then, and she's been hard to
curry ever since. We don't try."
"Well," says Bonnie Bell, "isn't that strange? I thought everybody in
the Row was friendly except--except----"
"Except the Wisners?" laughed Katherine. "But don't you worry. There's
plenty of differences in the Row. They have their fallings out. You see,
they all want to be leaders."
"I know," says Bonnie Bell. "In any pack train there always had to be
one old gray critter, with the bell."
"That's it!" says Katherine. "Well now, all these leaders of our best
people they want to carry the bell and go on ahead. That's what Mrs.
Wisner wants--and maybe mommah, though she has a different way of doing
things. Mommah's a dear! So are you, Honey; and I do wish Tom and
you----"
"I was just wondering who it was got out of their car just now," says
Bonnie Bell. "But the fence----"
"Ain't the ivy pretty on your side of your fence?" says Katherine.
Bonnie Bell stood in front of her and looked at her square.
"Look here, Kitty Kimberly, you're as sweet as can be and I love you,
but don't try to keep up the bluff about that fence. They built it to
keep us--to keep us----"
"Well, maybe," says Katherine. "But they can't."
"They built it to show us our place," says Bonnie Bell, brave as you
like. "They didn't think that--they didn't know----"
"It was cruel," says Katherine, red in her face now, she was so mad
about it. "I'm glad you mentioned that fence--I couldn't; but all my
people said it was the meanest thing ever done. It was vulgar! It was
low! That's what my mommah says. We were always sorry for you, but we
didn't know how---- But, Honey, I'm glad you planted the ivy on it. It
shows you're forgiving."
"We're not," says Bonnie Bell. "We're far from it--at least my dad. He's
awful when you cross him. He won't quit--he'll never quit!"
"We all know that," says Katherine. "Everybody in the Row does."
"I don't know how much you know," says Bonnie Bell. "I don't know how
much people have talked about us."
"Well, I can tell you one thing," says Katherine. "We heard some of the
talk; and I want to say that it isn't favorable to the Wisners. There
are others in town besides them. Tell me, Honey, aren't you all the way
American?"
"Yes," says Bonnie Bell. "I can be a Daughter of the Revolution and a
Colonial Dame, and a Patriot Son, and all the rest, so far as having
ancestors is concerned."
"Could you?" says Katherine. "Then I rather guess you will!"
"We go back to the Carrolls a good deal, in Maryland," says Bonnie Bell.
"You see, my mother married my father and went West, and out there we
didn't pay much attention to such things. I didn't know they cared so
much here. But my people were first settlers and builders, and always
in the army and navy."
"How perfectly dear!" says Katherine. "We'll start you in as a Daughter;
that'll make Old Lady Wisner mad, but she can't help it--mommah will
take care of that. Then we'll make you a Dame next--that'll help things
along. And when you're in two or three more of these Colonial
businesses, where the Wisners can't get--well, then I'll be more
comfortable, for one.
"I don't blame your poppah for feeling savage towards the Wisners," says
she after a while. "Who're the Wisners anyways? Carrolls--huh! I guess
that's about as good as coming from Iowa and carrying your dinner in a
pail while you're getting your start selling sausage casings in a
basket. I don't think a packer's much nohow. We're in leather.
"But, good-by," says she now. "I've got to go home. I've got to tell
mommah to get those papers started. Pretty soon I'll bring Tom over."
Nothing much happened around our place for a little while. I didn't see
nobody from the Wisners' and I didn't care to. Kind of from force of
habit I used to walk up and down the line fence once in a while, just to
have a eye on it. I done that one evening and walked back towards our
garridge, for it seemed to me I heard some sort of noise down that way.
It wasn't far from the end of the wall that was close to the lake. I
set down and waited. It seemed to me like someone was trying to break a
hole through the wall. I could hear it plunk, plunk, like someone was
using a chisel or crowbar, soft and easy, like he didn't want to be
heard. I waited to see what would happen.
By and by I seen a brick fall out on our side of the wall. I just picked
it up and set there waiting to bust in the head of anybody that come
through after the brick if he couldn't explain what he was about.
The fellow on the other side kept on working. He pulled bricks out on
his side now. By and by I could see light through--it wasn't right dark
in the yard yet. He pulled out the bricks and made quite a little hole
close to the ground.
"Hello there!" says he, soft like. "Is that you, Curly?" says he.
"Who're you and what do you want?" says I.
"I am the hired man, Jimmie," says he. "I've come back."
"The hell you have!" says I. "Well, I can't talk to you. What made you
come back? Where you been?"
"Out West," says he, "on the Circle Arrow Ranch."
"What's that!" says I. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. I've been working out there. I found I could rope a
little and I didn't always fall off a horse. You see, the old man owns
a lot in that company."
"Why didn't you tell me you was going out there?" says I. "And how come
these folks to take you back?"
"They couldn't help it," he says. "I told you I had too much on them.
You'd ought to see how things is going out there! They had to take me
back."
"Well, what are you breaking a hole in our fence for?" says I. "Quit it!
Do you want to get buried in a sunk garden, instead of on the lone
prairee? Leave our fence alone."
"Your fence? It's our fence. Don't I know all about it? It was a damn
shame, Curly."
"What business is it of yours?" says I to him.
"Well, I hate to see the family I work for make such fools of
theirselfs." He was setting up close to the wall now, looking through.
He went on talking: "If I put the bricks in again on my side, and you on
yours, who'll know the hole's there?"
"We've got ivy on our side," says I. "It's green and 'most to the top of
the wall. But I don't know now why you broke that hole through."
"Curly," says he, "I want to let Peanut through, so's he can have a good
friendly fight with my dog once in a while. Sometimes I'll pull some of
the bricks out. I reckon Peanut'll do the rest."
"Peanut'll not do no more visiting," says I; "and I've got orders not to
have any sort of truck with anyone on your side of the fence."
He set quite a while quiet, and then says he:
"Is that so, Curly?" says he.
"It certainly is," I answered him. "When a thing starts, till it's
settled you can't stop Old Man Wright. Sometimes he pays funeral
expenses," says I, "but when anybody gets on the prod with him I never
saw him show no sign of beginning to quit. He can't," says I; "none of
them Wrights can."
"Do you mean they're all that way, Curly?"
"The whole kit of 'em, me included," says I, "and the servants within
our gate, and our ox, and our hired girl, and all our hired men."
"Even the maidservant within your gates?" ast he of me.
"Shore!" says I. "Her especial and worst of any."
"But you don't take no hand in this war?" says he.
"That's just what I do," says I to him. "That's what a foreman's for.
You'd better plug up that hole and stay on your own side of the fence."
He set quiet for a time and then he says:
"I'm darned if I do!"
"Good-by, Jimmie," says I.
"Oh, shucks!" says he. "I'll see you from time to time."
I didn't make no answer but to put the bricks back in the hole on our
side.
Now for reasons of my own, not wanting to rile Old Man Wright, I didn't
say nothing to him about this hole in the fence. Neither did I say
anything to Bonnie Bell about the hired man having came back; because
she was doing right well the last day or so, brighter and more cheerful
than she had been. That, of course, was because of what Katherine'd told
her about her brother Tom. Any girl likes to hear about a young man
coming around, of course. Far as any of us could tell, Tom Kimberly
might be all right.
Bonnie Bell now, all at once, she taken to wanting to go on the lake
with her boat, and she insists our chauffore and her and me must go down
and fix up the boat. We didn't none of us like it especial, but she said
she hadn't been on the lake for so long she wanted to go once more
before it got too cold.
I didn't know nothing about boats, but sometimes I'd go down to the
boathouse and watch Bonnie Bell while she was tinkering with the engine
or something. One day I went down to the boathouse about the middle of
the afternoon, expecting to meet her out on the dock. All at once I hear
voices out there, one of them hers. I stopped then, wondering who could
of got on our dock.
There wasn't no way from the Wisners' yard to get on our dock now,
because the door into their boathouse had been nailed up. The wall run
clear down to their garridge, and their garridge faced onto the
boathouse, which was lower down. The only way anybody could get on our
dock from their place was to get in a boat and come round from the lake.
Then it would of been easy.
I said I heard Bonnie Bell's voice. She was talking; who she was talking
to, I didn't know.
"It's all wrong!" says she. "You are presuming too much. Of course I
pulled you out of the lake--I would anybody; but your employers are not
friends of ours. Even if they were you've no right in the world to speak
to me."
Then I heard another voice. I knew it was Jimmie, their hired man. He
spoke out and I heard him plain.
"I know I haven't," says he, "none in the world; but I've got to."
"You must not!" says she. "Go away!"
"I'll not," says he. "I can't help it! I tell you I can't help it."
Me being foreman, I reached around now to get hold of a brick or
something. I couldn't help hearing what they said.
He'd been ordered off; yet here he was talking to Bonnie!