The Man Next Door Part 27

"Well, Curly, how are you enjoying yourself now in this hard and downtrod position that life has gave to you?"

"I don't like it none, Colonel," says I; "not none at all, nohow."

"Why don't you join a cowpunchers' union, then?" he ast. "Pshaw! This is a good town and I rather like it. The game here is easy to beat--easier than it was in Wyoming. For instance, just the other day I bought a bunch of timber land out in Arizony--a place where I've never been nor want to go, because they've got the tick fever down there scandalous, and irrigation, which is a crime. Well, I only bought in on this timber because a friend of mine wanted me to come in with him; and, figuring I didn't know nothing about it, I allowed I certainly would lose for once--I couldn't tell a pine tree from a spruce to save my life."

"Huh!" says I. "I suppose then somebody comes along and offers you twice your money for it, maybe?"

"No; they didn't," says he. "I was hoping they would; but they didn't.

No, it was old Uncle Sam come along through that part of the state, and he sees where we've got about all the best timber left on top of a range of mountains in there, and he allows he ought to keep that timber from ever being cut; so he buys it off us for four times what we give for it--not twice. Uncle Sam pays in real money."

"Huh!" says I. "I never did have no trouble like you have, Colonel, to find a game where I could lose money. I suppose maybe you made seegar money out of that too?"

"A little, maybe. I only put in a little in the first place--two, three hundred thousand dollars; not much. I was so in hopes I could lose some money so as to sort of encourage me like, you know. But it's no use, Curly!" And he sighs right heavy.

"You have my symperthy, Colonel," says I. "If ever you want any help, so as to make the game more interesting, just let me set in and take your hand for you--I'll guarantee on my record that I'll open your eyes in ways how to lose money."

"All right, Curly," says he. "I'll ast you sometime and maybe copper your bets. I always do that when my lawyer or my stockbroker gives me any tips. It's the surest way in the world to make a killing in this here, now, stock market.

"For instance, just the other day they told me down there to be sh.o.r.e and buy a lot of Blue Mountain Steel, which certainly was backed by the J. P. Morgan interests and was going to get a lot of war orders. So I didn't--I bought Steel Boat Electric Common instead of that. I didn't know anything about it, but somebody must of give them some war orders, submarines of something. I notice our stock has rose around two hundred per cent the last few weeks. I don't know why it is that things of been going on this way," says he. "It bothers me a lot, Curly. Yet I only put a few hundred thousand in that too.

"I'm setting aside two-thirds of all I make in this here city in the kid's name, Curly," says he. "It's a five per cent trust for keeps. It's getting to be something awful how much that fund of hers is! And, the best I can do, I can't help its increasing right along. There don't seem to be no way in which we can get broke and go back to honest work again, such as raising cows--though making four calves grow where there wasn't none in the sage brush before, that's really being useful in the world, war or no war."

He set there for some time looking in the fire, serious, and he come around again to the same old place.

"Curly," says he, "if there is any created critter on this human footstool that I hate and despise, and that every he-man in the world hates and despises, it's the man that'll marry a girl for her money.

Look at them dukes and things that come over here and marry our American girls. I never shot a duke, but I will if one of 'em blows in here and starts anything like that with our girl."

"Maybe he won't come," says I. "You never can tell."

"Curly," says he, "you can always tell! Listen to me. There's just one thing certain in the whole world--or two. If a girl's handsome men'll come around. If she's rich men'll come around. They fall out of the sky.

They come up out of the ground. They break in through the fence----"

"What's that?" says I. "Colonel, what do you mean about fences?"

"I mean to say that there ain't no fence on earth you could build that'd keep out young men from a handsome girl that's got money."

"Ain't that the G.o.d's truth, Colonel!" says I. "How come you to figure that out?"

"How? How come me to break through the fence that was built around Bonnie Bell's ma, back in Maryland, and carry her away from there? But when I think that, like enough, some low-down cuss like me'll come around and break through my fence and carry off my girl, to take such chances as her ma done--I tell you it makes the sweat come right out on me."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "I reckon if any young man comes along here, no matter if he gets in at the front door or crawls in under the fence, he's got to show some revenue as well as be all right other ways?"

He set some time thinking before he answered.

"That's a right hard question, Curly," says he. "I wouldn't bar a poor man if I was sh.o.r.e he was on the square. It wouldn't be so hard to decide if she didn't have any money; but she has, and it can't be concealed much longer."

He gets up and walks up and down a while talking.

"I declare, if I was a young man I'd never ast no rich young woman to marry me at all. I'd be afraid to ast her, for fear she'd spot me or accuse me, whichever way it was. I can't agree to no pore young man for her, for I couldn't trust him. And I can't agree to no rich young man for her, because none of 'em ain't worth a damm, as far as I've seen."

"It looks like a awful thing, Colonel, to have a cheeild that's rich and lovely."

"Yes," says he; "and it ain't no joke neither."

"Well now, Colonel," says I, "take the houses in this Row where we live.

How many young men is there that we can tally out?"

He shook his head.

"There ain't none at all worth mentioning--believe me!" says he.

I did believe him. That left just Tom for the entry in the Bonnie Bell Stakes. Looked like he couldn't lose.

XX

WHAT OUR WILLIAM DONE

n.o.body said a word to Bonnie Bell about Tom Kimberly--neither her pa nor me; for she was so quiet and shut up like we couldn't seem to break in noways. We had to let it go like it laid on the board. One thing sh.o.r.e, being in love or not being--whichever it was--had changed Bonnie Bell a heap. She wasn't the same girl no more.

It used to be that Bonnie Bell didn't care so much for her piano as for things out of doors, but now she taken to soaking that pore helpless thing--sometimes sad and lonesome, and then again so hard she'd near bust the keys. Then, maybe after she'd pasted the stuffing out of it a few times, she'd set looking out of the window with her hands in her lap--and so forgetful of her hands that they lay there, little as they was, on their backs, with the fingers turned up on the ends, and even her thumbs. It made me sorry.

Then again she'd cut off the music for days and go to reading books, mostly in the window seat, her head puckered, like it was hard work.

"What're you reading, Hon?" says I one day. "Seems to me it must be a bad-luck story. Also, why have you took to reading books upside down?"

"Nonsense!" says she. "I been brushing up in my sikeology," says she.

"That was one of our senior studies--the last year I had in Smith's, you know."

"What's it for?" says I. "Does it say anything about whether it's going to rain next Tuesday?" I ast her.

"Well, it's something needed to train us to meet the problems of life as they arrive, Curly," says she.

"Does it show you how to look any young fellow in the face," says I--"one that's got his hair combed back and no part in it, and playing La Paloma on a banjo or a guitar, and guess what he's thinking about, Bonnie?" says I.

She got a little red and tapped her foot on the carpet.

"What do you mean, Curly?" says she.

"Nothing," says I. "Only I was wondering if they'd put me in a long coat at the wedding. I never was backed into one of 'em in my whole life."

"Well, Curly," says she, "if you wait for my wedding you may need the long coat for your funeral first."

"Huh!" says I. "Huh! Is that so? You don't know your pa none," says I.