Today was the day Old Man Wisner was to get home; and that evening me
and Old Man Wright laid out to go over there and have a talk with him.
So a lot of things had to be done that day.
Old Man Wright he got up at sunup, and almost all day he was busy in the
room he used for a office at the house; he hadn't hardly went downtown
at all since Bonnie Bell run away. He had a desk full of papers here,
and now he sent for his lawyer and his barber to come over early in the
day.
"Why, Alderman," says the lawyer man, "you act like you was making your
last will and testament, and getting ready to close up business."
He laughs then; but Old Man Wright don't laugh.
"I am," says he. "It's time; I've been dead more'n a week now."
They made out some papers about houses and lots and stocks and things,
how they was to be distributed in case of the deemise of the said John
William Wright. Then after a while they come around to the papers in
the big case we had against Old Man Wisner for the last deferred payment
on the Circle Arrow trade that hadn't been paid yet and wouldn't be. Old
Man Wright sets back and looks at them papers right ca'm.
"I know what Old Man Wisner's been East for," says he. "He couldn't
raise that much money--nigh on a million dollars--on anything as wildcat
as strawberries and cream in Wyoming; not these times. Even the banks is
wise onto that now. Stenographers and clerks and ministers and doctors
don't bite like they used to no more; it's harder to find people that's
willing to pay in so much a month for a bungalow in Florida or Wyoming
while they set home engaged in light and genteel employment. Every oncet
in a while the American people gets took with a spasum of a little horse
sense. There's places for peaches and cream, and there's places for
cows, but you don't want to get your wires crossed.
"So," says he, "I know I've got Old Man Wisner broke right now. He's
been over to Holland to see if he couldn't form a Dutch syndicate for to
unload on. The Dutch is the last resort of the American landboomer. When
you can't sell out a bunch of greasewood land for a pineapple colony to
no one else, go over and sell it to them Dutch; they're easy. I seen a
man one time sell almost all the north end of New Mexico to a Dutch
syndicate for a coffee plantation. It was good for cows; but he had
pictures of steamboats and canals and things out there in the
sagebrush--you've got to have a canal on your blueprint if you sell
anything to them Holland people. Like enough Old Man Wisner had pictures
of canals. But he couldn't sell this property none, following on the war
over there; they're busy with other things.
"The result is he's come back here broke. He knows the banks has got
wise and they ain't going to back him no further than they have. They're
too busy lending a billion dollars or so to the folks over in Europe to
help blow up some steamboats for us.
"Therefore," says he, jarring the paper weight on the table when he
brings down his fist, "if times gets any harder, as like enough they
will, Dave Wisner's got to let that property go on the market for what
it'll bring inside his one year of grace after foreclosure. I know what
that means; it'll mean I got a few thousand acres of land more to
distribute among my heirs and assigns, my executors, friends, faithful
servitors, villagers and others--however you got that figured out in
them papers.
"Let me see them papers," says he after a while. "Are you shore you got
my girl's name spelled Katherine? And that she gets this city residence
here?"
Then they went over it again. But after a while the lawyer got done, and
so did the barber, and they both went away; and the old man turns to me.
"Curly," says he, "I'm rich. I'm awful rich. I didn't know how rich I
was till I begun to figure it up with Fanstead, Maclay & Horn, my
lawyers here. I reckon, taking fair values, I'm worth ten or twelve
million dollars--maybe twenty or forty--most of it made in this here
town in a couple of years or so, and all out of the Wisner money we got
for the ranch, which we're going to get back pretty nigh clean of cost,
you might say. I didn't mean to; but I'm rich--awful rich!
"And so, seeing I ain't got no heirs of my own blood and kin, I been
looking around for a few others. There's that Katherine; she's a good
girl. She kissed me right here once." And the old man put his hand on
the top of his head. "I'm going to give her a little something after I'm
dead; for instance, this house and the things here--half a million
dollars maybe. Likewise, I've fixed up a few things for my faithful
servitor aforesaid, Henry Absalom Wilson--which is you, Curly. I give
you only enough for cigarette money," says he; "never mind how much. And
as for them two," says he--"her and the Wisners' hired man--not a cent!
Not a damned cent! I'll show him!
"The old ranch," says he, "is going to be fixed up sometime--some of my
heirs and executors'll get a hold of that. It's easy to get plenty of
heirs if you have twelve or fifty million dollars. I've left
instructions to make improvements out there. It'll sort of be the best
apology I can make to the woman that's buried out there--Gawd bless
her!--as good a woman as ever lived on earth. I can't see how she could
have such a girl like she done. Well," he finishes, sort of sighing. "I
done my best. I may not live more'n thirty or forty years more.
"So, now then, Curly," says he after a while, "since we've finished all
our day's work and have a little time left, we can now engage in some
simple pastime, such as mumblety-peg, or maybe marbles, till later in
the evening. I'm through cutting her off, Curly, and I'm happy. I've
left it as clean as I know how. Now I'll bet you a thousand dollars I
can beat you three games out of five at mumblety-peg. My executor,
without bond," says he, going right on, "is Old Man Kimberly."
"You're on, Colonel," says I; "though I don't know where I'll get a
thousand till after your will is probated."
So we went outdoors and set down on the grass and played
mumblety-peg--me losing that thousand, natural. Then we sort of fussed
around outdoors one way or another till it come towards dark. He left
me after a while and went into the house alone.
When I went in I seen him standing by hisself in our ranch room, looking
at some things he'd picked up. They was a white silk scarf and a pair of
long white gloves--he'd like enough found 'em back of the sofa, where
Bonnie Bell probably dropped 'em the night when I seen her setting there
wringing her hands because she didn't know what to do. We never let no
one clean up the ranch room. He put 'em down soft on the sofa and
smoothed out the scarf and folded the gloves; it was like he was laying
'em away in a drawer.
We didn't enjoy nothing much to eat, not even ham and aigs. It begun to
get dark right soon after that and I sort of wandered out on the front
walk to look around. Old Man Wright was in the house by hisself.
Right then I seen a car come in right fast and pull up at the sidewalk
about halfway between our house and the Wisners'. Someone got out of the
car and come running up our walk. I could see it was a woman. Not
wishing no one to be bothered then, I went down to meet her.
It was Bonnie Bell! She'd come home then.
I run down the walk to meet her and pushed her away. I knew it wouldn't
do for them two to meet now. But she run up and put her arms around my
neck. She was alone, though there was someone in the car that hadn't got
out.
"Curly!" says she, "Curly! I saw you standing there and I came in. Where
is he, Curly?"