"Near as I can figure, Curly," says Old Man Wright to me soon after what had happened between me and Bonnie Bell--"near as I can figure, Old Man Wisner's been advertising that the old Circle Arrow Range is a great little place for the honest granger to raise bananas, pineapples and other tropical fruits."

"It ain't," says I, "except tomatoes--and them in tin cans."

"The honest yeoman," says he, "according to Old Man Wisner's description, he don't never have to eat anything as common as bread and b.u.t.ter, not after he's bought some of that land at four hundred and fifty dollars a acre. He lives after that time on bird tongues and omelet souflay, and all he has to do is to set on his wide veranda and watch his lowing herds increase and multiply at eighty-five dollars a head--and prices going up all the time. Ain't that fine, Curly? Things never used to happen just thataway when you and me owned that range, did they?"

"Not hardly," says I.

"No," says the old man, falling into one of them thinking spells. "No; they didn't."

Then after about half a hour he says:

"Nor they can't, neither. It'll cost that old miser, Dave Wisner, about three or four million dollars," says he. "He's put up his life, his fortune and his sacred honor on that irrigation scheme, and he's going to be lucky if he gets through with any of them before I call it off."

"Colonel," says I, "you and him remind me of two old Galloways out on the range, standing head to head, and pushing for a couple of hours or so at a time--only, you two been pushing for a couple of years."

"Uh-huh!" says he. "But I'm right cheerful; and I don't feel my neck giving none yet," says he; and he rubs his hand up and down it.

"Has Tom Kimberly been here lately?" the old man ast me, real suddenlike, right soon after that, though I hadn't said nothing to him.

"He was here this afternoon," says I. "He ast after Miss Bonnie. She says she was sick, had a cold, and couldn't see no one."

"I'll give Tom sixty days for to propose to Bonnie Bell," says he. "If he don't, then I'll have to. It don't stand to reason that girl's going to have a bad cold that's going to last for sixty days; so she'll be home sometimes when he comes over. I know how his ma and pa feel about it, and I know how I feel too. Maybe we can get Tom to part his hair after a while, or take up some manly habit like chawing tobacco instead of touching the light guitar. Just to take a look at him, I'd say he shaved with one of them little razors like a hoe. For all I know, he may wear garters. Still, time alters many things.

"He's marrying into crowned heads when he comes into our family," says he, going on, "because I'm alderman here, and if my freckles lasts I'm liable to keep on being alderman. Sometimes I wisht I'd put in the papers that I was clean broke and depended on the savings which a faithful old servitor--that's you, Curly--had brung me in my time of need. But I'm afraid it's too late for that now, though the time to test them things is before the wedding obsequies and not after."

"Colonel," says I, "suppose a young man would of come along that didn't have no family back of him, nor no money, but parted his hair, and shaved with a real razor, and wore no garters, and et tobacco, and was right husky looking--what would you think?"

"I'd think the millennium had came, here in Chicago," says Old Man Wright. "I won't deny, Curly, if I had found a young man that could ride setting down, and chawed tobacco, I wouldn't needed to of thought about him twice--always provided he played a wide-open game and acted like he knew what he wanted."

"We don't seem to get together none," says I, despondent.

"Get together!" says he. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing," says I.

XXII

ME AND THEIR LINE FENCE

I had to own it up to myself--I'd lost my nerve. I tried more'n fifteen times to come out and tell Old Man Wright about them Peanut letters from their hired man to Bonnie Bell, and I couldn't--I would see her face every time come in between him and me.

I kept my eyes on that hole in the fence. I was setting there fixing up the bricks, ready to put them in, when I heard some one talking on the other side of the fence. You couldn't see n.o.body through the fence, no more'n if they was a thousand miles away; but you could hear 'em talk, all right, there, through the hole. I could tell who one of 'em was--it was the voice of Old Lady Wisner. She had the sort of a voice a woman has who has got a nose like a eagle. But I couldn't tell who she was talking to, for n.o.body seemed to answer much at first.

"James," says she--"James, what are you doing there?"

No one answered, but I felt sure now she was talking to their gardener.

So he was home!

"Who made that hole? Who has done this, James?" says she again. "Who made that hole in the wall?"

Still, he didn't answer none; and she went on:

"I see! It must of been some of them awful Wrights that live acrost there. How dare they break through our fence? I'll have them sued!"

"Oh, no, you won't. It was done from this side--I can tell you that."

I knew his voice. It was him.

"Whoever did it," he went on, "I'm going to close it up. I saw their dog in our yard the other day. Did you see him in here today?"

"No--that same awful little cur?" says she. "They are the worst people, James! I certainly am glad you want nothing to do with them, even their dog. But, of course, you couldn't."

"No; it seemed not," says he.

"What do you mean?" says she, harshlike. "As for that maid of theirs, I was inexpressibly shocked, James, when I found that you so far forgot yourself--"

"I wouldn't say any more," says he.

"I shall say all I like, and you'll please remember who you are! The David Wisners can't afford to have it understood that they a.s.sociate any way whatsoever with the Wright family. Not even our servants can visit acrost. I've been suspecting for some time."

"Well, that's plain enough," says he. "I don't see any use trying to make it any plainer. There's no use rubbing it in."

"If I had a servant," says she, right pointed, "who'd look at the best of them I'd discharge him as soon as I knew it. I've got my eye on Emmy, my second-floor maid, too. All I can say is, you'd all better be more careful, or, the first thing some of you know----"

"Naturally," says he, "I can imagine that," says he. "It's h.e.l.l to belong to the lower cla.s.ses!"

"What do you mean, James?" says she, solemn, "I'll not have profanity from you! Besides, you talk like a socialist person, and I'll not have that."

"Socialist, eh? Well, I'll admit, if I had all the money in the world,"

says he, "no wall nor bars would make any difference to me. Nor they wouldn't when I didn't have."

"James, continually you shock me beyond words!" says she, gasping. "What words from one in your position in life!"

He didn't say much then, but only sort of growled, like he was mad.

"James," says she, "what on earth are you doing--what's that you're eating?"

"It's good old tobacco I'm eating," says he. "I found the brand out West and I've used no other since."

"James! James!" says she. "You to chew the filthy weed! It's impossible!"

"No, it ain't," says he. "You watch me and I'll show you how far it is from impossible. I chaw it and I like it, same as any other socialist; and I want you to understand, ma'am, that I'm my own man, tobacco and all, while I stay here. If you don't like it, fire me again!"

She begun to gasp again, like I heard her before.