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?"