The Man Next Door Part 13

We went on thataway a good while into the summer and nothing much happened between us and our neighbors. Maybe once in a while our dog Peanut would get over in their back yard and scratch up their pansies.

Peanut always liked to lay in fresh dirt, and he seemed to know instinctive which was our pansy beds and which was theirn. Their hired man only laughed when I seen him and apologized.

He used to come over once in a while, their hired man did, and meet me on the dock back of the boathouse, where I give him lessons in roping. I showed him a few things--how to let go when he got his rope straight, and to give hisself plenty of double back of the hondoo. We used to rope the snubbing posts where we tied the boats. Sometimes we'd practice for a hour or so and he begun to get on right well. We visited that way several days, usual of mornings.

"Don't the lady ever come down to the boats no more?" says he one time.

"No," says I. "Her pa's afraid she'll get drownded."

"Does she ever talk about saving the life of anybody?" he ast.

"No," I says; "she's used to such things. She don't take no account anyways of saving the life of a laboring man," says I. "It's nothing to her."

"Ain't it funny," says he, "how things work out sometimes? At first, you know, I thought she was one of your housemaids."

"You done what?" says I.

"Well, I don't deny it. When I first seen her in the yard, the time she chased that dog over, I thought she was one of the maids--you see, she had on a cap and a apern. I didn't know at all. The old lady thinks it yet."

"She's mighty kind-hearted, even with the lower cla.s.ses," says I. "She even gives money to them people that play music in front of our house every morning. I wish they wouldn't."

"I wish she wouldn't do that," says he. "We have a awful time with that band. The old man said if he ever got to be alderman he'd get a ordinance through abolishing them off the streets. They play something fierce!" says he.

"Is he going to run for alderman?" says I. "I seen something in the papers about it."

"Well, yes; I believe he will--I heard him say he would."

"If he does," says I, "I reckon h.e.l.l will pop in this ward."

"Why?" says he.

"Well, my boss is figuring he may run for alderman hisself--he's naturalized here now. He used to be sher'f out in Cody whenever he wanted to be. When he wants anything, seems like he can't hardly help getting it. It's a way he has."

He looks kind of thoughtful at that.

"Well, now," says he, "well now, what do you know about that! As you say, Curly, ain't that h.e.l.l?"

He swore so easy and natural that I kind of liked him, and the way he taken up roping was to my thinking about the best of any tenderfoot I ever seen.

"What are they piling up them rocks along the side of the yard for, Jimmie?" I ast him after a while.

You see, there was several wagonloads of brick and stuff had been put in there that morning.

"I don't know," says he. "Something the old man ordered, I reckon. He's away right now. They don't always tell me about things as much as I think they might."

"I've often wondered they didn't fire you," says I.

"They can't," says he. "I told you I've got too much on 'em. They don't dast to fire me none at all. I defy 'em!" says he.

"Well, you better be a little careful," says I. "I've seen people felt that way about their boss before now, and right often they got the can.

You better not get fired till you know a little bit more about roping and riding."

"Hush!" says he. "I think I heard someone over in our boathouse.

Good-by! I'll come round again tomorrow morning."

He went on down the dock into their boathouse. I set down not far from the door, smoking and looking out over the lake. I heard someone in there begin to talk. It was him and Old Lady Wisner--I'd heard her before once in a while. I couldn't help hearing them if I'd wanted to, and I did want to.

"James," says she, "where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Why, nowhere especial," says he carelesslike. "I was just over on the dock doing some roping stunts with Curly."

"I suppose you mean that red-headed, pigeon-toed brute that hangs around the Wrights' place," says she.

Say, when she said that I half riz up, for I sh.o.r.e was mad. I may be the way she said, but I don't allow no one else to say so. But she wasn't a man anyway; so I had to stand it. I read somewhere in a book it ain't correct to listen when folks don't know you're hearing them; but that didn't go with me no more, especial when people was talking about me and my hair and legs thataway. So I set down and listened some more.

"Well," says Jimmie, "I haven't ever noticed that at all. But he's a good scout and I like him," says he.

That made me feel just a little easier anyways.

"Well, it's no matter what you were doing over there," says she vicious.

"You're not to have nothing more to do with such can-nye no more. Why can't you attend to your own business?"

"I'm just going to," says he. "You ain't ast my consent about mussing up my flower beds. What's all that rock and brick doing up in the yard?"

Say, he was a sa.s.sy one!

"Since you ast me, I'll tell you. It's a fence we're going to build."

"A fence?" says he. "We got a perfectly good fence now."

"Oh, have we? Well, it ain't high enough to keep out our people from mixing with them can-nye." I wondered again what can-nye was. "I'll not have you talking with their maids."

"Is that so?" says he. "I hadn't noticed much of that going on lately,"

says he. "I wish it was."

"James!" says she, so mad she couldn't hardly speak. "James!" And about all she could do was to guggle in her throat and say: "James!"

"Well," says I to myself, "here's where he gets the can tied to him, all right. It don't stand to reason she'll allow that kind of talk."

Well now, they was talking about that fence. In two or three days it was easy enough to see what the Wisners was going to do: They was going to cut out the herd law and fence in their own range.

It wasn't a fence at all. It was a wall they built, day after day--a regular wall! Pretty soon it was up as high as our second-story window, and it keep on a-going. It took them weeks to finish it. When it was done it run clean from the sidewalk back to their boathouse. From our side, on the ground, you couldn't only see the top of their house, and from their side you couldn't only see the top of ours.

Well, anyway, the wall went up and we didn't stop it, because we couldn't. It was like we was living in two different worlds, with that wall between us, and that was the way they meant it. Nothing could cross from one side to the other. It was the coldest deal I ever seen one set of folks give another. And why? I couldn't figure why.

Bonnie Bell was right still and quiet. Old Man Wright he went around thoughtful for quite a while. He seen this was a insult put on him, but he didn't know what to do. At last he goes to Bonnie Bell one day, and says he:

"Sis, it's coming along kind of hot in the summer. How'd you like to go to White Sulphur or somewheres for a few months?" says he. "You're looking kind of pale now for the last few weeks," says he, "and I don't like to see it."

She turns and looks at him square in the eyes for a minute, and pointed out the window.