The Man Next Door Part 42

"They'll get along all right now," says the hired man--James, or Jimmie, or Jim, whatever you ought to call him.

I couldn't believe he was young Mr. James Wisner. Sometimes I don't hardly even yet.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," says Bonnie Bell. "I declare, men are brutes anyhow!"

"I know it, Bonnie Bell," says I. "I've made plenty of trouble, but not no more. I'm taking the morning train West," says I.

"Where to?" she ast me; and I can't answer--for me the whole world was upside down, same as this room here.

About then the two old men come back into the room, both of them serious; but you could see easy that they hadn't had no war--only some kind of a squaring and settling up; I reckon because of Bonnie Bell and this James, or Jimmie, or Jim, not being no hired man none after all, which maybe he had a strawberry mark on his arm--I don't know how they proved it.

Old Man Wright he stood up, with his hand on top of a chair; and he made a little after-dinner talk that cost him, maybe, several million dollars--not that he cared!

"I come here tonight," says he, "to maybe take the law into my own hands--anyways I reckon I come here to set in judgment; but I wasn't no good judge, because I was trying the case without having all of the facts. But I'm this kind of man," says he, "that when I've made a mistake, and know it, I'm game to stand up and say so. That's what I'm doing now. I reckon I been wrong. Some things you can't help. I ain't going to try to help this no more.

"The fact is, I reckon, maybe it's the best thing that could of happened. It didn't happen through me. I done my best to keep it from happening. That's where I was wrong. I'm glad of all this now and I take back what I said. I've been a twenty-two carat, pink-eyed, black-striped wild a.s.s of the desert, though not halfway as big a fool as Curly. It was him that got us all in wrong."

Old Man Wisner he stands up too; and he makes his confession that's good for his soul. His Adam's apple kind of walked up and down his neck, but he come through.

"Don't say no more, Colonel," says he. "I'm to blame for all this myself. I was the biggest fool that ever was. That fence--why, that fence now----"

James, or Jimmie, or Jim, and Bonnie Bell they looks at each other then and laughs right out.

"You didn't build it high enough," says he; "you couldn't!"

"I'm glad I couldn't," says Old Man Wisner. "Things are going to come out all right, the way they ought to come. I've learned a lot tonight--a lot about being neighbors. Son, we had a neighbor and we didn't know it.

Maybe it's that way plenty times. We had one neighbor that has saved your father from being broke and disgraced before all the world--before tomorrow night. That's what kind of neighbors we had all along," says he; "and we tried to build a fence and keep them away from us! Yes; thank Gawd, I couldn't build the fence high enough," says he.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She knowed where he carried his gun."]

"I knew something about this, dad," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim, then.

"I could of told you long ago that ranch deal couldn't win. Scale it down, get at the real business and human values, and it ought to win--and win big!"

Old Man Wisner he's always rather strong for organization. He looks over at Old Man Wright and they both look at this young man; and they both nod.

"That's a good idea," says Old Man Wright--"a d.a.m.n good idea! Now then, we're beginning to talk. Why can't we throw the two businesses in together and make one hand wash the other, and let this young gentleman take care of the reorganization on the spot?"

"That's the idea!" breaks in Bonnie Bell right then. "There ain't any better cow country out-of-doors than the Yellow Bull Valley. I know that. Give us a chance and we'll pull this whole business out of the hole," says she.

"James," says Old Man Wright, and he walks around and holds out his hand, playing the game wide open, like he always done--"James," says he, "will you shake hands with the worst old fool there is in the whole world--except Curly?"

Now James he's been doing pretty well up to now, but this about knocks him out. He gets up, kind of red and startled, and he shakes hands with the Old Man; but he couldn't say nothing and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. So he puts his hand in his pocket, like a man will, and he seems to feel something there; and all at once, not being able to think of nothing else, he pulls out what he found and holds it out to Old Man Wright.

"Colonel," says he, "will you have a chew? It's Arrow Head--same name as our home spring out there," says he. "I've used no other since. I just heard you own most of the stock in the Arrow Head Tobacco Company; but I ain't surprised. You ain't overlooked much!"

I reckon that was the luckiest accident ever happened to him--when he found that piece of plug. Old Man Wright taken a bite of it liberal, and says he:

"Son, do you wear garters?"

Everybody fell to laughing then, excepting me and Old Man Wright. It was serious for us. We was figuring on cowmen now. Bonnie Bell, she goes up to her pa once more and hugs him, and looks at the hired man.

"Don't mind him, Jim," says she. "He's awful sometimes; but he means all right and he has his own ways of figuring. I've got the best dad in the world!" says she.

"You had the best ma in the world," says Old Man Wright. "Seems to me sometimes you favor your ma," says he.

Then they kissed each other; fact is, most everybody got kissed around there excepting me. Yet, when you come to figure about it, I'd been responsible for a good many of those things and the way they come out, and I didn't get no credit for it. No foreman ever does.

Old Lady Wisner, like I said, she was setting there and saying mostly: "Gawd bless me!" and "Gawd bless my soul!"--n.o.body paying much attention to her. But now Bonnie Bell she sidles over to her and sort of puts out her hand, shy. The old lady she puts a arm around her, and she begins to cry too. They was both right happy. Dogs has to fight and women has to cry; then they're happy. I reckon them two had some sort of understanding.

"Son," says Old Man Wright after a while to James, or Jimmie, or Jim, "where have I saw you before?" He'd been looking at him for some time.

"The first time you ever seen me, Colonel," says he, "was when I fell in love with your daughter, sir," says he. "That was when I drove you home to your house on Christmas Eve."

"You drove--when you drove us home!" says Old Man Wright. "What do you mean about that? We had our own car; and I give the driver a ten-dollar gold piece that night because it was Christmas Eve. He got lit up; so he was wabbly next day too. I remember that."

"So do I," says James, laughing. "I've got that money now. But it was your real driver that got lit up, not me. You see, when Bonnie Bell come out in the storm that night she didn't notice that it wasn't her car.

Hers looked a good deal like it--both the same make and right new. Maybe she wasn't very well acquainted with her new chauffore yet; so she says to me to take her home. So I had to do that."

"How did you know where to go?" ast Bonnie Bell then, laughing.

"I knew all about you!" says he. "I'd been busy for over a hour there in the hotel dining-room with Henderson, and that was long enough to learn all I ever wanted to know. I knew how rich you were. That was why I drove you home and didn't let you know who I was; that was why I never tried to call; that was why a lot of things happened right the way they did. I had some fool theories of my own, maybe; maybe I did get a touch of socialism or something of that kind when I was in college.

"But anyway, Colonel Wright," he goes on, "I want to say to you, sir, that I've known you and admired you a lot more than you ever knew. I voted for you for alderman--though my own dad was running against you. I thought you stood for what I thought was right. All the world is really neighbors," says he, "and the human democracy is good enough for me. I voted for you then--and I do now. My dad has a lot to learn."

He turns to his pa then, and the old man like to of blew up, he was so mad; but we all ended by laughing at this too.

"Son," says Old Man Wright, "did you say to me that you used one of them old-fas.h.i.+oned razors? I'm this sort of man that sometimes they say has got prejerdices. Now I always hone my own razors."

"So do I," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim.

The old man he hesitates a while and looks at him right sad; and he says, like he was talking to hisself:

"Well, well! I do wonder how I was such a hand-painted idiot all the time! I believe we sh.o.r.e can make a cowman out of you yet," says he.

"It's in sixes and sevens," says James, or Jimmie, or Jim, "but there's a chance there on that ranch. Maybe I can learn. And it's so fine out there--with the mountains, and the skies, and the wind blowing in the sage, and the----"

"Hush, man!" says Old Man Wright to him. "You're making me so homesick I can't stand it. We'll all go out there to live. I'll tell you what we'll do," says he in his rus.h.i.+ng way, sort of taking the lead of things.

"We'll keep these two houses in here for both of us for our city homes, and we'll all of us have the old ranch for our country homes," says he.

"And we'll all run the business plumb sensible on good business lines,"

says he, "with the peaches and cream out, and the ribs, chucks and plates all in. Why, we'll----"

"Oh, dad!" says Bonnie Bell, and she goes up to the old man, crying because she was happy. She'd seen him change right there before her--he'd got forty years younger in the last ten minutes. "Dad," says she--"dad, we will--when?"

"Daughter," says he, "we're going to begin right now to get them Better Things we started out for. You're going to have the place in life that your ma said you'd ought to have. You and Katherine," says he, "will have to fix it up about that house I was going to leave in my last will and testament. But, like I said, I'm going to give Katherine half a million when she marries--if she marries as good a man as you did. You see, Katherine kissed me--right here in a soft spot--on top of my old bald head."

He rubs the place then. Bonnie Bell she kisses him there too--for maybe sever'l million.

After a while I sort of moved over toward the door, it seeming like it wasn't no place for me no more.