Part 56

"I didn't neither," says I; "and I don't know now."

"You can't," says she. "It's terrible! I'm--I think I'll go now."

She taken herself off my knee then; and, the first thing I know, she was gone.

I stayed there looking at the place where she'd been. I knew that now there shore was hell to pay!

XXIV

HOW BONNIE BELL LEFT US ALL

I never went to bed none at all that night. I couldn't of slept, nohow. I set there in the ranch room thinking and trying to figure out what I had ought to do. I concluded that might depend some on what Bonnie Bell was going to do; and I couldn't tell what that was, for she didn't seem clear about it herself.

Along about daybreak, maybe sooner, when I set there--maybe I'd been asleep once or twice a little--I heard the noise of a car going out not far from us. I suppose, like enough, it was over at the Wisners'; maybe some of their folks was going or coming. In the city, folks don't use the way they do on a ranch and night goes on about the same as daytime.

I'd been studying so hard over all these things, trying to see how I'd have to play the game, that I didn't notice Old Man Wright when he come in that morning, about the time he usual got up for breakfast. He wasn't worried none, but seemed right happy, like something was clear in his mind.

"Well, Curly," says he, "you're up right early, ain't you? What makes you so keen to hear the little birds sing this morning?"

He fills up his pipe. I didn't say nothing.

"Well," says he after a time, smoking and looking out the window, "I suppose I'm a fond parent again right now. Maybe I'll be a grandpa before long--who can tell? I never did figure on being a grandpa in my born days," says he; "but such is life."

"What do you mean, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Well," says he, "I ain't a real grandpa yet, maybe, but I reckon it's like enough. All them flowers and that sort of thing--and that late executive session last night. When's the day?"

He still looks right contented. What could I say to him then?

"Too bad," says he, "you couldn't of stayed up to get the happy news, Curly!" says he. "I expect Tom Kimberly would of been right glad to tell you or me; but I knew how the thing was going. I been a young man once myself. He don't want old people setting round--he wants the whole field clear for hisself. It takes young folks several hours sometimes to set and tell things to each other that could be told in just a minute. Proposing is a industrial waste, the way it's done customary.

"Well, well!" he goes on. "I'm glad my little girl's going to be so happy. She's a good girl and she loves her pa. Sometimes I even think she's right fond of you, Curly," says he. "I can't see why. You're a mighty trifling man, Curly," says he. "I don't see why I keep you."

Then I knowed he was feeling good. He wouldn't turn me off noways in the world, but he liked to joke thataway sometimes.

"Well," says he after a while, "what do you say about it your own self, Curly?"

"I say she loves you as much as any girl ever did her pa. She loves me, too, though I don't know why, neither."

"Shore she does!" he nods. "And she'll do the square thing by us two--that's shore."

"Is it?" says I. "Well, who knows what's the square thing in the world? Sometimes it's hard to tell what is."

"That's so," says he, thoughtful. "Sometimes it is. I might of liked some other man better'n Tom, maybe, if there'd been any other man; but there isn't. I'm glad she's taken him. He'll turn out all right. He's a good boy and his folks is good. He'll come out all right--don't you worry."

"No," says I; "I reckon it'll do no good to worry, Colonel."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't it all right?" says he.

"That remains to be saw," says I.

"She accepts him, don't she?"

"If I knew I'd tell you," says I; "but I don't know for shore."