The Man Next Door Part 16

"Yes, if necessary."

"All to break into them sepulchers?"

"No," says she; "there's a lot of things worth while more than that.

These brick-and-stone houses are the trenches. They may be hard to take.

But back of them lies the country, and it's the country that's worth while. You found it--over on the other side of the ward. For me--don't mind if I haven't found it just yet."

"Ain't you happy, sis?" says he.

"No," says she, quiet like; "I'm not."

He pats her on the back.

"Get out of doors," says he. "Do something--work at something! Look upwards and outside, and don't get to looking inwards," says he. "That ain't the way. Think what's in the fields beyond."

"Life, dad," says she, slow; and it seemed to me like she was sad.

"Life!"

"Life?" says he. "Sis, what do you mean? Tell your old dad, can't you?"

She told him, then. She put her haid down on his neck.

"Oh," says she, "it's all right for you two--you've got something to do--you can work and fight; but what can I do? What is there for me to do in all the world? And you tried so hard to make me happy!"

"And you ain't happy?" says her pa.

"Dad!" says she. "Dad!" And she went on crying down his neck.

Ain't women h.e.l.l? I went on away.

XI

US AND THE FREEZE-OUT

More and more folks begun to talk about us and our place since we got to be alderman. Of course more and more people begun to come in and visit with us now; but not one from Millionaire Row, though, if I do say it, we had the best-looking place now in the whole row of houses.

It was one of Bonnie Bell's ideas to make one of them sunken gardens, which she said was always done in Italy.

"I'll tell you," says she; "we'll build our sunken garden right up against Old Man Wisner's wall. How would it do to plant a few ivy vines to run up the side of the wall, dad?" she ast her pa.

"Why, all right," says he; "but you be mighty careful not to plant any olive branches."

So Bonnie Bell and me we was busy quite a while making plans for this here sunken garden. We read all the books we could find; still, she wasn't happy.

"I need some skilled gardener in this," says she; "them Dutch down at the park are no good at all. I wonder where the Wisners' gardener went."

"That fellow wasn't so much," says I to Bonnie Bell.

"What makes you say that, Curly?" says she.

"Well, I heard him talking one morning and I didn't like it. For that matter, I didn't like the way he talked about you neither. I told him we couldn't have nothing to do with the lower cla.s.ses--let alone now, when we're alderman, we couldn't do that. He was fired and he ought to of been."

"How did you come to know all this, Curly?" says she.

"I heard him down at the boathouse talking to Old Lady Wisner. I think we're mighty well shut of the whole bunch of them--though I will say he was learning to rope all right, and I could of made a cowhand out of him if I'd had time."

"What did she say, Curly?" she asked me then, "Did she really talk about us?"

"Yes, she did. She thought you was a hired girl. And she says we was can-nye, and he wasn't to mix with us. Can-nye--what is can-nye, Bonnie?" says I.

She got red in the face and was sh.o.r.e mad at something.

"Can-nye, eh!" says she. "Can-nye! So that's what she thinks we are."

"Well, that was before we was alderman," says I. "Maybe they think different now, whatever can-nye is. What is it, anyway?"

"It means something common, vulgar and low down, Curly," says she.

"That wasn't no bouquet, then, was it?" says I. "Well, I didn't think so then, though I never heard it called to n.o.body in my life. I made it plain, though, to that hired man that he didn't have no chance to break into our house."

"Did he want to come over, Curly?" she ast.

"Crazy to! He wanted to get a look in our ranch room. I told you he was hankering to be a cowpuncher."

"Well, why didn't you bring him over if he was trying to learn things you could teach him?"

"What! Me bring him in our place? I reckon not! Now look here, kid,"

says I, "you don't half know how good-looking you are."

"I'm not," says she. "I got a freckle right on my nose. It don't come off neither."

"Well, maybe one freckle or so," says I; "but that don't kill off your looks altogether. Let me tell you, when it comes to common people like him talking your name out in public, why, it don't go!" says I.

"Besides, another thing"--I went on talking to her right plain. "Look at the money you'll come into sometime! He has got to show me a-plenty what right he had to say you was wonderfully beautiful. You are, kid--but what business was it of his?"

"He has been gone four months and eight days," says she, thoughtful.

"How do you know he has? Do you keep a calendar on folks like him?"

"No; I was just thinking," says she, "that if he was here I might ask him about my sunken garden."

"That would be fine, wouldn't it?" says I. "But then, come to think of it, he wasn't in favor of that fence hisself. He was right free-spoken; I'll say that for him."

"He didn't like that fence idea?"