Part 12

There was a lot of other people in a row standing down the hall, back of this sad man. He located us at last and began to help Old Man Wright take off his overcoat--and me too; but I wouldn't let him. I wasn't sick or nothing. So we stood there a little while, dressed up and just come to our new home ranch.

"That will do, William," says Bonnie Bell to the sad man.

"Father," says she, and she leads him to the row of folks in the hall, "these are all our people that I have engaged. This is Mary, our cook; and Sarah, the first maid. Annette is going to be my maid."

Well, she went down the line and introduced us to a dozen of 'em, I reckon. I just barely did know enough not to shake hands. Some of 'em touched their foreheads and the girls bobbed. They didn't talk none and they didn't shake hands.

By now Bonnie Bell's maid had her coat over her arm and them two was starting upstairs.

"I'll be back in a minute, dad," says she. "William will take you and Curly into your room."

The sad man he walks off down the hall, us following, and we come to a place right in the center of the house--and he left us there. We stopped when we went through the door.

What do you know? Bonnie Bell had fitted up that room precisely like the big room in the old home ranch! All our old things was there--how she got them I never knew. There was the old table, with the pipes and papers on it, and tobacco scattered round, and bottles over on the shelf, and a bridle or so--just the same place all the way through. She even had the stones of the old fireplace brought on, one nicked, where Hank Henderson shot the cook once.

"Look-a-here, Curly," says Old Man Wright after a while.

He leads me over to the corner of the room, aside of the fireplace. Dang me, if there wasn't our two old saddles, wore slick and shiny! Old Man Wright stands there in his spiketail coat, and he runs his hand down that old stirrup leather a time or two; and for a little while he can't say nothing at all--me neither.

"Ain't she some girl, Curly?" says he after a while.

"She's the ace, Colonel," says I.

"Ain't a thing overlooked," says he, thoughtful, walking round the place, his hands in his pockets.

By and by he come up to half a bottle of corn whisky--the same one that had stood on the table out on the Circle Arrow. He picks it up and pours hisself out a drink, thoughtful, and shoves it over to me.

"Every little thing!" says he. "Not a thing left out! It's the same place. Gawd bless the girl, anyways! I don't think I could of stood it at all if she hadn't fixed up this room for you and me. I was just going to stampede."

"Well, Colonel," says I, "here's looking at you! I see we've got a place where we can come in and unbuckle. It makes it a heap easier. I wasn't happy none at all before now."

"She done it all herself," says her pa, setting his glass down and looking round the room once more. "I give her free hand. The architect had marked this place 'Den,' I reckon. Huh! I don't call it a den--I call it home, sweet home. If it wasn't for this room," says he, "this would be one hell of a Christmas, wouldn't it, Curly? But never mind; we're going to break into this town, or get awful good reasons why."

"You reckon we can, Colonel?" says I.

"Shore, we can!" says he. "We got to! Don't she want it?"

"For instance," says I, "what's the name of our neighbors over next door to us, you reckon?"

"That's where Old Man Wisner lives," says he, grinning. "Them was the folks that set over at the table that Henderson pointed out to us tonight. He's the biggest packer in Chicago, president or something in about all the banks and everything else--there ain't no better people than what the Wisners are. And don't we live right next door to 'em? Can you beat it? That's why the land cost so much.

"Wisner didn't want us to buy this place; he wanted to buy it hisself, but buy it cheap. It was him or me, and I got it. Still, when I want to be neighbor to a man I'm going to be a neighbor whether he likes it or not."

"You reckon they'll like us?" says I.

"They got to," says he.

We was standing up, our glasses in hand, looking out through the door down the hall to where things was all bright and shiny; and just then we heard Bonnie Bell come down the stairs and call out:

"Oo-hoo, dad!"

We raises our glasses to her when she come in the door. She had took off the clothes she wore down at the hotel and had on something light and loose, silk, better for wearing in the house. The house was all warm, too, and in our fireplace, the old smoky one, some logs was burning right cheerful.

It was a new sort of Christmas to us, but we lived it down. The next morning we all acted as much like kids as we could, which is all there is to any Christmas. My socks was full of candy, and Old Man Wright he had a Teddy bear in his--part ways anyhow. Then Bonnie Bell she give him a new gold watch with bells in it, and me a couple of pins for my necktie. I never could get 'em in right.