_ CHAPTER VII. WHAT THEIR HIRED MAN DONE
"Well," says Old Man Wright to Bonnie Bell one day about four o'clock when we was having a cup of tea, which William insisted we ought to drink then, "what have them folks over there said about the dog you sent 'em?"
"They haven't said a word," says Bonnie Bell. "They kept the dog though. I don't think much of that outfit, if you ask me, dad," says she.
"Nor me neither," says he. "It was too bad you run over their dog, or so many of their dogs; but then you done what you could, sending 'em another dog as big as all you killed. A collie is right smart. I hope this one will keep on the sidewalk and not get under the wheels. That Boston dog of yours always has me guessing."
Well, we talked on a while, both of us sort of joshing her on her dog deal, until she gets up and goes away from the little table where she is setting and stands in front of the window, looking out, her teacup in her hand. All at once she says:
"Good Lord!"
"What's wrong?" says her pa, and we all holler at her. But she is out of the room and down at the door before we can stop her, all in her gingham apern and cap, like she is then; for she had been looking after the housecleaning--though William looks at her sad for not being dressed up more.
We went to the window and looked out. All at once we heard a awful barking going on down there, and we seen what had happened. That new dog of theirs had come into our yard to look around, and Bonnie Bell's Boston dog, Peanut--which mostly rode in her car with her--had jumped this here visiting dog, and they was having it out sincere, right in our front yard.
Well, sir, it was one of the prettiest fights you ever seen. A collie ain't no slouch in a scrap, and if this dog wouldn't of been so young he like enough could of licked Peanut, all right. But, you see, Peanut he was taking care of his own folks, according to the way he figured it, and this was a intrusion on the part of the Wisner dog.
Anything that's got bull pup in him, like Peanut had, ain't got no sense about fighting; so Peanut he mixed it with the collie copious, and they tumbled all over the yard until you couldn't hardly tell which was which. At last Peanut got himself a good leg holt, and the collie hollers bloody murder and starts for home and mother through the fence, Peanut hanging on.
It seems like their front door was open; and the collie he made for it, hollering every jump, and Peanut after him. He chases him plumb up the steps and clear into the house, and that was all we could see for a while, except Bonnie Bell standing in her cap and apern, looking across. Then through the window we could see folks running round here and there, like the dogs had got into the middle of the house and was still mixing it.
By and by--three or four minutes--their butler comes out, holding Peanut by the collar, and drops him on the front steps. But Peanut he is game, and he ain't had no satisfaction out of this scrap; so he goes back and scratches most of the paint offen their front door, and barks and howls, trying to get back in to finish his job.
Bonnie Bell she stands there just crying because she is so much ashamed, and she calls and whistles to Peanut. When he comes, at last, he does it looking over his shoulder and growling, and daring that other dog to come out and knock a chip off'n his shoulder.
When Bonnie Bell come back in, carrying Peanut, happy, by the loose skin of his neck, she was more worried than I ever seen her about anything.
"Now we've done it!" says she. "Our dog run right in their house and chased their dog. There was guests there, too--look at the cars standing out there. They was holding some kind of a party--bridge, like enough. Oh, whatever shall we do!"
"Come here, Peanut," says Old Man Wright; which Peanut jumps up on his lap then. "Have something on the house," says he; "and if that dog comes over in here eat him up!"
Peanut understands this perfect, and he goes to the window and tries to get out, and barks until you could hear him a block.
"That is some dog, sis," says her pa. "It looks like, anyhow, some of our family has broke into polite society for once. Come here, pup!" And he pats Peanut on the head and laughs like he is going to die over it. But not Bonnie Bell!
There was a awful silence come in between them two big houses after that. There wasn't anything that we seen fit to say and they didn't pay no attention to us. Their hired man--that worked round the back yard sometimes in overalls and a sweater--he sometimes walks out in the yard with their collie, but he takes mighty good care to keep on his own side of the fence.
It was getting spring by now--sort of raw weather once in a while; but the grass was getting green, and some of Bonnie Bell's flowers she had planted was beginning to show up through the ground, and once in a while she would go out, in old clothes mostly, with maybe a cap and a apern and fuss round with her flowers. She wouldn't never look across at the Wisner house.
Their hired man that taken care of their dog was the one that taken care of their flowers, same as she did of ours. One morning it seems like, not noticing each other, they was working along kind of close to the fence, not far apart from each other, and all at once he stands up and sees her.
"Good morning!" says he, which Bonnie Bell couldn't help.
She looks up and sees him standing there, with his hat in his hand, respectful enough; and, since he was only one of their hired people, her not feeling any way but friendly to anybody on earth that is halfway decent to her, she says:
"Good morning! I see you're fixing your flowers too."
"Yes," says he; "these crocuses will soon be out. What color is yours?"
"All sorts," says she; "and I do hope they'll all do well."
"I'd be glad to be of any help I could," says he.
"Well, that's kind of you," says she; "you, being a gardener, know more about these things than I do." About then this here collie dog comes up to where he is standing.
"Oh, goodness!" says Bonnie Bell. "Don't let that dog come over in our yard, whatever you do."
All at once he broke out a-laughing.
"I'll take care of him," says he. "I wouldn't take a thousand for that dog. They didn't want to keep him, but I said they'd have to. That was a good fight they had in the house," says he, and laughed again.
Bonnie Bell she got red, and says she:
"I'm awfully sorry. That dog of ours is a terror to fight. We can't break him of it any way. I hope you'll apologize to your people," says she--"that is, if they wouldn't take it wrong of us to have it mentioned. I don't know."
"Oh, no; I guess that'll be all right," says he. "I've been with 'em so long, you see, I can kind of make free about it. If you feel bad about it I'll tell 'em; but it wasn't your fault."
"It would be just like that bunch of yours," says she, "not to let on that they had heard from us that I was sorry. I oughtn't to say it maybe, but----"
"Well now," says the hired man, frank-like enough, "that's just the way I feel. I often tell the old man, myself, that he ain't so much--he come from Iowa once when he didn't have a cent to his name, and yet he puts on more side now than anybody else on the street."
"Did you ever dare to say that to him?" says Bonnie Bell.
"I certainly did, and more than once. I ain't afraid to say anything to either one of 'em," says he. "They don't dare say much to me. I know too much about 'em. But, say now--about that fight," says he. "I want to tell you that new dog we've got is some peach. Give him a year or so and he'll eat up that pup of yours."
"He never seen the day he could and he never will!" says Bonnie Bell. "If you feel that way about it----"
"Well," says he, "our dog is more of a trench fighter. He got under the tables where them old hens was playing bridge and he held out until your pup flanked in on him."
"Did you see the fight?" says Bonnie Bell.
"Sure I did! I was right there."
"Yes?" says she. "In such clothes?"
"Just like I am. I happened to be going past the room where they was holding their party and just then the dogs came in. Believe me, it was more fun than there has been in our house for a good many years. Of course it was some informal."
"Well," says Bonnie Bell, "I can see you must of been in the family a long time or you wouldn't feel the way you do."
"Twenty-odd years," says he, drawing hisself up. "I was taken captive in my early youth, and I have been in servitude ever since, with no hope of getting away," says he. "But a fellow has to make a living somehow and I had only my labor to sell. You see, I know something about flowers, and I can drive a car now some or run a boat."
"We've bought one of those little boats," says Bonnie Bell. "Sometime I'm going to take her out and learn how to run her myself."
"You ought to be careful about this lake," says he. "It gets awful rough sometimes. Still, it's good fun."
You can see they was visiting right and left--just her and the hired man! But, her being so lonesome that way all the time, it seemed like she'd have to talk to somebody, and this man seemed right friendly, though he was only a workingman. Bonnie Bell never was stuck up at all. Maybe he thought she was one of our maids.
"Gardening is all right," says he finally, drawing close to the fence; "but, for me, I'd rather be a cowman than anything I know. I'd rather ride a cowhorse than drive any car on earth. This life here gets on my nerves."
"Don't it?" says she to him. "Sometimes I feel that way myself."
"What anybody finds to like in a city is more than I can see. If I had money I'd buy a ranch," says he, "and then I'd live happy ever after."
Now wasn't that funny, him wanting to do just the very thing we had quit doing and us going to live right alongside of him that way? Still, of course, he was only a hired man--ain't none of 'em contented. I ain't always, myself.
Bonnie Bell thought this was getting too sort of personal and she starts in toward the house--she tells me a good deal of this afterward--but he come up closer to the fence and seemed kind of sorry to have her go; and says he:
"Wait a minute. I was telling you about my ranch. I'm going to have one some day. Do you think I'd live here all my life with the old gentleman and the old lady, and nothing to do but tinkering round flowers and cars? I ain't that trifling."
"I must be going in," says she then.
So she left him. He nearly climbed over the fence to keep her from going, and the last thing she heard him say was:
"I hope I can help you about the flowers." She began to think he was kind of fresh like. She told me what he said.
Her pa seen some of this out of the window and he called her down when she come in.
"I don't think I'd talk much with any of them folks if I was in your place," says he.
"Why, dad," says she, "you don't want me to be stuck up like them, do you?"
Then she told him how Peanut had chased their dog in there and broke up their bridge party. They both had to laugh at that.
"Their gardener, James, told me that Old Man Wisner ain't much, nor the old lady neither," says Bonnie Bell after a while. "It's just what I thought."
"I don't know as he ought to talk that way about the people he works for," says her pa. "I'd be kind of careful about any man that was knocking his boss--wouldn't you, Curly?"
"Well, it was all my fault, dad," says she. "He said good morning; then I ast him about the flowers and he offered to help me with the crocuses."
"Don't take no help from none of that Wisner outfit," says her pa. "You hear me?"
As spring come along and the weather got pleasanter, Bonnie Bell was happier, because she could get out of doors more. Now she took to running this new power boat we had. It was a whizzer. It didn't take her long to learn how to run it. About everybody in Millionaire Row had boathouses on the lake and most of them had these gasoline boats--you could hear them sput-sputting round out there evenings almost any bright day.
Her pa didn't like her to go out on the lake very much; being from Wyoming he was scared of water--especial so much of it. He tells Bonnie Bell to be careful and, if she must go out on the lake, to only go when it was smooth.
In one way there wasn't no need to be scared about the girl, for she could swim like a duck--Old Man Smith taught all of 'em that. Nearly every morning she would go out in her bathing suit down our walk and through our garridge, and across the dock, and dive into that water where it was more than forty feet deep and as cold as ice. She wasn't afraid. She would come back wet and laughing, and say she liked it. I wouldn't have done that for a farm. I don't believe in going into water unless you have to ford.
I hate anything that runs by gasoline, because it's a shore thing that sooner or later it'll ball up on you somewheres. A good cowhorse is the only safe thing to go anywhere with, and anybody knows that. Bonnie Bell coaxed me out in her boat once--but not more than once. The lake wasn't so rough neither; but the boat riz up and down until I didn't feel right, and I wouldn't go no more. But Bonnie Bell got so some afternoons she'd be out hours at a time, ripping and charging up and down, water flying out from the front of the boat. Mostly she'd ride in her bathing clothes, and her hair done up under her cap. There was kind of a wild streak in her anyway and she was always taking chances.
One evening round four or five o'clock, after a warm day in the summer time, she was out there about a quarter of a mile from the shore and all by herself. There was quite a wind up, and the waves was rolling pretty high, breaking white on top, too, and making such a noise I was plumb uneasy. Her pa was away from home; so I went down on the dock and stood out there trying to holler at her so she would hear me, but I couldn't make her hear. I waved things, too, but she didn't seem to see them.
She was a sort of dare-devil at riding or driving anything, and I reckon maybe she was enjoying that sloshing through the water, though I expected every minute to see the boat go upside down. I could hear the engine of the boat going fast--sput-sput-sput-t-t! I could only hope it would keep all right. All gas engines is sinful.
She had been the only one out on the lake right then, it being so rough; but along about now, down toward town, a half mile or so off, I seen another boat coming, lifting up high on top of the waves, then going out of sight in the hollow for quite a while. It was heading straight in for our place. The fellow in it was running kind of sideways to the waves and I would a heap rather it would of been him in the boat than me.
Bonnie Bell was a little farther out, heading into the waves and enjoying the rocking, it seemed like. By and by I seen her looking off to the south; and then her engine begin to sput-sput a heap faster, and I seen her boat swing out and head that way.
I looked out at the other boat then. I didn't see it for a while, but at last it swung up on top of a big wave. It wasn't the way it had been, but blacker. I seen the water shine on the boards. Then I knowed what had happened--the boat had turned over.
It was just like Bonnie Bell to head in to see if she could help. I hollered at her, but she couldn't hear and I don't reckon she'd of stopped anyways.
Them little boats goes awful fast and it seemed like
Bonnie Bell--for that was the name of her boat, her pa had gave it that name--didn't seem to hit the waves none, only in the high places. In just a little while she was where the upset had done happened. I seen her slow down and swing in, and then stand up and whirl a rope. Then she reached over and then hauled back.
"Well, anyhow," says I to myself, "she's saved a corpse," says I.
I learned afterward that he wasn't dead and that when Bonnie Bell reaches in and grabs him by the collar she tells him to keep still or she'll soak him over the head with the boat hook.
"We'll be in in a minute," says she to him. Of course I didn't know that then.
It seems like she didn't try to haul him plumb in, the waves running so high; and she run the engine with one hand and held on to him with the other, him dragging along at one side of the boat and getting a mouthful of water every once in a while. It wasn't very far off from our dock and pretty soon they come alongside.
"Grab him, Curly!" says she; so I grabbed him when she swung in and hauled him up.
He was wet all over and at first he seemed half mad. I seen who he was then--he was the Wisner's hired man.
"Why didn't you let me alone?" says he. "I'd 'a' got her all right pretty soon. You might have gone over too."
"What?" says she, scornful. "You're all right anyways, and you got no kick coming."
She stood up in her bathing clothes, wet as she could be, and part of her hair hanging down underneath her cap, and he looked at her kind of humble. And says he: "I thank you very much. Pardon me for what I said." Then he looks down at his clothes and seen they was wet, and he broke out laughing. "All to the candy!" says he. "My life saved for my country!" says he.
"There wasn't no sense in your going over," says Bonnie Bell, scolding him. "You was getting your mixture too rich and you clogged up your engine. You can't overfeed them two-cycles that way and get away with it."
"That wasn't the trouble at all," says he. "I caught my foot in the ignition wire and broke it off. Of course she couldn't run then; but I could of swum in from where I was and the boat would have drifted in."
"You would have got good and wet swimming in," says she, still scornful, "and you would have got pounded to pieces against the sea wall; that's what would have happened to you. Some folks," says she, "ain't fit to go out alone anyways."
And, so saying, she leaves us both, wet as she was in her bathing clothes, and runs on through the boathouse and up the steps. He stood looking after her, sober.
"Don't I know that!" says he, turning to me. "If it hadn't been for her it would have been all day with me. But I certainly thought she'd be over."
"It's a good thing Bonnie Bell could run that boat," says I.
"Bonnie Bell?" says he. "Is that her name? By Jove! Well now, by Jove! And what's your name?" says he.
"Wilson," says I. "They call me Curly for short."
"Curly?" says he. "That sounds sort of like a cowboy's name, don't it?"
"I never seen a cow camp yet where there wasn't some cowpuncher name Curly," says I.
"Cowpuncher! You wasn't ever one yourself, was you?" says he.
"I never was nothing else," says I.
Then he held out his hand.
"Shake!" says he. "Some folks gets what other folks wishes. Ain't it the truth?"
"What do you mean?" I ast him.
"Well," says he, "I always wanted to be a cowboy, yet I never did have a chance to go on a ranch."
"You're the gardener, ain't you?" says I, and he nods.
"That's all I get to do. Still, I may have a chance to do better sometime."
He was a right nice-looking fellow, clean shaved and his hair cut good, and his mustache cut right short. He looks down at his clothes now, but he didn't seem to care--acted like he had plenty more; and he laughed. He was wet, but he wasn't shivering. He come pretty near drowning but he wasn't scared. I rather liked him even if he was only a hired man like myself. He seemed sort of hardy.
"You know how she got me?" he ast me now. "She threw the loop of a rope over me, and if I hadn't got it in my hand I reckon she'd of choked me to death."
"She's a good roper," says I, "and she can ride as well as she can rope."
"Could you ever show me how to rope?" says he. "Would you?"
"Shore I'll show you sometime if we ever get a chance," says I. "I'll look round in our ranch room there in the house, and see if I can find a rope."
"Have you got a room in there like a ranch?" says he.
"Exacty like our old ranch," says I. "It's the main room out of the old Circle Arrow Ranch."
"Could she, now--would she help teach a fellow how to rope a drowning person?" says he. "That's what she done. She's a corker, ain't she?"
"She shore is," says I. "Her own folks mostly reserves the right to say that, though."
"I beg pardon," says he, and he got red again. "I know where I belong."
"Just kind of keep on knowing where you belong and where she belongs, son," says I--"it's two different propositions. I trust, my good man," says I to him, "that you understand I'm the foreman of the ranch."
"Don't it beat the world," says he to me after a while--us standing there still talking though he was wet as a rat--"how things is run? Sometimes it seems like we can't help ourselfs, and we all get into the wrong places trying to get into the right ones. Now I'd like to thank that lady; but I can't. She's wonderfully beautiful, isn't she--your mistress? I say now, Curly, you thank her for me, won't you?"
I felt rather savage towards anybody coming from the Wisner side of the fence, but someway this fellow was so decent, and he evident meant to be so square, that I couldn't hardly feel no way but friendly to him.
"You've been with your folks quite a while, ain't you?" says I after a while.
"Oh, yes; I suppose I'm kind of useful in the scheme some ways or they'd tie a can to me."
"In Millionaire Row, the way I figure it," says I to him, "the Wisners is the king bees?"
He nods.
"I'm afraid that's about the truth. At least that's the way they think it is--the old man and the old lady. Folks that don't swing in line with their ways they get froze out."
"Is that so?" says I, getting hot under the collar right away. "Well, let me tell you something: When it comes to playing any kind of freeze-out, where Old Man Wright is concerned, believe me, there's two sides to that game. Do you see?"
I looked straight at him, and I went on:
"Nobody ever seen Old Man Wright weaken in nothing he once begun. As for money, he can't be making less than a million a month or so right here in this town where he is now. He's one of them kind that does."
"I believe you," says he. "Was you saying that your folks used to own the Circle Arrow Ranch out in Wyoming?"
"Uh-huh; and I wisht we did right now."
"That's funny," says he. "And you sold it to a syndicate?"
"Uh-huh--damn 'em!"
"And Old Man Wisner was one of the silent partners and one of the biggest owners in that syndicate--colonization and irrigation. There ain't anything that he won't go against that there's money in, and he mostly wins," says he.
"Well, what do you know about that!" says I. "Us moving in here and living right next door to him--that's the funniest thing I ever did hear. They shore was on opposite sides of that game, wasn't they, them two folks? Well, Old Man Wisner got the worst of it--that's all. You can't raise nothing on that land except cows and he'll find it out. We got some of our deferred payments coming in, like enough; but it wouldn't surprise me if we got all that land back sometime, and I shore hope we do."
He kind of puckers up his mouth and puts his fingers on it.
"By Jove!" says he. "By Jove! Would you give me a job cowpunching, Curly?" says he.
"Not unless you could rope better then than you can now," says I. "And if you can't ride a horse any better than you can a boat I don't think you could earn your board."
He took it all right, and only laughed.
I went up through the boathouse and the garridge and up the back steps into the little portico--sort of storm door that's over the back door of our house where it looks out over the lake. If you'll believe me, there was Bonnie Bell standing there, all in her bathing clothes! She hadn't gone in yet.
"Has he gone, Curly?" says she.
"He has just went," says I. "What are you doing here, all wet? Why didn't you go in right away?"
"Is he all right, Curly?" says she, sort of rolling her hair up off her neck and into her rubber cap.
"Yes," says I; "he ain't hurt none."
"What were you talking about so long?" says she.
"A good many things--you, for instance," I says to her.
"What did he say?" she ast of me.
"Why, nothing much; only how sorry he was you saved his life."
"Sorry--why?"
"Well, it makes a man feel mighty mean to have a woman save his life."
"Did he say that?" she says to me. Now when Bonnie Bell smiles she sort of has a dimple here and there. She sort of smiled now. "What kept you out there so long? You two people was talking like two old women."
"Well," I says, "I was just promising to show him how to rope; he says he wants to learn."
"When are you going to show him, Curly?"
"Oh, sometime some morning, like enough, down there on the dock. He says he'll sneak over from his place, so no one will see him. I don't reckon your pa will mind my showing a young fellow how to rope--I'd like to feel a rope in my hand again anyhow. I expect before long he'll be wearing a wide hat and singing 'O, bury me not on the lone prairee!'"
"Curly," says she.
"What?"
"Did you find my rope in along with those in the big room? I forget whether I brought it along."
"Kid," says I, "if there's going to be any instruction to hired men on the rope or mouth organ or jew's-harp, or anything of that sort, it's me that gives it. I'm segundo on this ranch. Now you go on upstairs."
She had her hair all pushed back now under her cap, wet as it was, standing there fixing it. She was in her bathing clothes still and awful wet, but she didn't seem cold. She looked kind of pink and sort of happy; I don't know why. Lord, she was a fine-looking girl! There never was one handsomer than Bonnie Bell Wright.
"Kid, you heard me!" says I. "Go on upstairs now and get your clothes on. And you don't go out in that boat no more!" _