The Man Next Door Part 23

I never'd heard any man hand out any talk of this sort to any girl before. It was right interesting and I was glad I listened.

"How can a girl tell?" says she, like she was talking to herself.

"Sh.o.r.ely she can't tell all at once," he answers. "I'd never ask you to do more than wait. I'd want to go away and stay away till I could come in at your front door and be welcome," says he. "I wouldn't ask you to decide one thing now. But, as for me, I decided everything long ago."

She didn't say nothing.

"As to your money," says he after a while, "listen to me. Look at me--look close. Look into my eyes. Am I not honest? Tell me--if truth like mine can be mistaken for deceit, then what chance has any man on earth?"

She didn't answer, and he goes on like he had stepped up closer--I don't know but what he did.

"Look into my eyes," says he. "Look at me close. Maybe that'll help me some, for sh.o.r.ely you can see how much I----"

"Don't!" says she. "Don't!"

I don't believe she looked into his eyes at all.

"I wouldn't touch you," says he. "I wouldn't touch your hand--I wouldn't touch the hem of your garment. It wouldn't be right. It maybe ain't right for me to think of meeting you again; but it's right this once."

She didn't answer at all. He come to what seemed to trouble him.

"Is it the money?" he says again. "What's money if you've got nothing else?"

"Not much," says she; "not very much."

"I've not coveted it," says he. "It's another commandment I've broke.

I've coveted that which was my neighbor's. I've coveted you--no more, so much! If you and I had a shack on the Yellow Bull out there, and forty acres to start with," says he, "out where the sun s.h.i.+nes all the time, and the wind is sweet, and the mountains rise up around you----"

"Don't!" says she again. "Don't! Please go away--I can't stand that."

I couldn't stand it neither; so I opened the door.

XVI

HOW I WAS FOREMAN

They jumped apart--or farther apart--when I walked out. They wasn't holding hands, but she must of been looking at him and him at her.

"Miss Wright," says I, quiet--the first time I ever called her Miss Wright in all my life--"Miss Wright," says I, "come up to the house."

"Curly," says she, "oh, don't--don't!"

But she seen I didn't have no gun.

"Get across there quick!" says I to him.

"You overheard!" says he. "You overheard what I've been saying?"

"All of it," says I. "It was my business to. Of all the low-down things any man ever done in all his life, that's what you done now. I heard it all."

"Stop!" says he. "I won't stand that for a minute."

"You'll stand it for a lot longer than that," says I. "If you show this side the fence again I'll kill you!"

"Curly!" says he. "Why, Curly!"--like he was surprised. "Is it like that?"

"That's what it's like," says I. "Don't never doubt we can take care of our womenfolks. It's my own fault this has happened. I ought to of watched her closter. I ought never to of allowed you on our dock, let alone mixing with you. I thought you was more of a man than this," says I.

When I said that Bonnie Bell jumped and throwed her arms around my neck, and held on with both hands.

"Curly," says she, "stop! I'll not have this. Stop, I say!"

"You'll have this, and a lot more," says I to her, "till this thing is settled. Let me alone with him. Haven't your pa and me give up our lives for you? It's a fine trade you're trying to make; to trade us for a low-down coward like this. They built that fence, not us. h.e.l.l could freeze before your pa or me would ever cross it; but here you're talking the way you done with their hired man--that has sneaked around here to meet you."

He didn't give back none, though he couldn't talk at once.

"Go slow!" says he. "Curly, be careful! I didn't have any other chance."

"Any other chance?" says I. "For what? To make love to a girl that ain't had much experience--to make love to her because she's got a load of money? I've seen some sort of dirt done in my life," says I, "but this is the lowest down I ever seen," says I.

"And Bonnie Bell," says I--she still had me around the neck, holding my arms down, and I didn't want to hurt her--"how'll I tell the old man?

You know I've got to come through with him. You, the girl we loved so much, Bonnie Bell," says I, "we never thought you'd cla.s.s yourself below your own level."

"She hasn't!" says he, right sudden then. "It wasn't her fault. She hasn't promised a thing to me, and you know that. She's not to blame for a thing, and you know that too. She hasn't said a word she couldn't say before all the world. What more do you want? She's too good a girl to get the worst of it. Her father's too good a man to get the worst of it too. She'd never let him."

"She won't have to do that," says I. "I'll take care of that. That's my business."

"Curly," says she, "what are you going to do? Don't you love my father at all--or me? You're like another father to me. And I've loved you; and I always will, whatever you do to me."

I couldn't put her arms down--I wasn't very strong, because I was thinking.

"If you tell my father," says she, "you'd break his heart. Cover it up for me, Curly--I've not promised anything. But, oh, Curly, I didn't mean harm to anyone; and I'll never be happy any more."

"You see what you've done!" says I to him after a while.

He got white now, instead of red.

"How can I make it up? I can't stand to hear her talk that way," he says.

"Whose business is it how she talks?" says I to him. "d.a.m.n you! What right have you to come here and make her unhappy for a minute? Didn't you know how we loved her?"

"Everyone does," says he. "Till I die I'll do that. How can I help it any more than you can? And if I've hurt her now," says he, "G.o.d do so to me and more also. But I've declared myself--I'll not take back a word. I didn't lie then and I won't now."

He seemed game. Still, so long as it's just talking, you can't always tell how much of a bluff a man is throwing.