Part 60

"Now, Curly----" says he.

I knew he was clear in his own mind by now that the girl had run away with that gardener. He'd maybe go over there.

"No, Colonel," says I; "you keep out of this."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't you my friend at all? Ain't I got a friend in all the world?"

"You're alderman here," I says, "and that's the same as being sher'f. When you was sher'f you couldn't do what the law said you couldn't--now could you? You have to keep up the law when you're a alderman or sher'f. With me, it's different. Besides, this is my job, not yours."

"Curly," says he, and I could see his jaw get hard all along the aidge, "Curly, ain't there no place on earth for a pore old broken-hearted man?"

"Never mind just yet, Colonel," says I. "It ain't your turn," says I--"that's all. Sometimes," I says to him, "it's best to go a little slow at first and not make no foolish breaks. Let's just take it easy till we see which way the cat has jumped--we don't know much yet."

"She--she wouldn't kill herself?" says he sudden; and he got even whiter.

"I don't think so," I says; "and I'll tell you why. I don't think she was thinking so much of dying when she said 'I am a woman.' It was life!"

He looked at me quiet.

"She said that?"

"Uh-huh!--sever'l times. And it was like you said, Colonel, after all. There ain't no fence high enough to keep a young man and a young woman apart. It was bound to come, and we didn't know it--that's all."

"We give her every chance. There was Tom."

"Yes," says I; "and there was the man next door. These things goes by guess and by Gawd. For instance," says I, "what in the world could Bonnie Bell's ma ever see in you, Colonel?"

That hit him hard, though I didn't mean it that way. He turned his face away, like he seen something awful before him.

"My Gawd!" says he. "I done that my own self! I stole her ma away. She loved me and I loved her. Ain't there no one to show a pore old helpless man what he ought to do?"

"It's life, and she showed us the way," says I. "When you stole Bonnie Bell's ma you was ready to meet her folks, I reckon, if they come to take her away. You taken your chance when you married her. So's the man that's run off with Bonnie Bell. Let him have a even break, Colonel. He loves her, maybe--and he seems to have a way with women."

"He's ruined her!" says Old Man Wright. "It's marriage he was after, of course; but look at the difference. I never touched a cent of her ma's money. We made our own way. But here's a low-down sneak that's come in at our back door and run away with my girl for her money! Don't you see the difference? What's this skunk like?" he says to me after a time.

"He ain't such a bad-looking fellow," says I, "if he was dressed up. He's a sort of upstanding fellow. His clothes was always so dirty he didn't look like much. He was a good-talking fellow enough."

"They all are--the damn fortune-hunting curs! I can believe that."

"I was too much a coward to tell you, Colonel," says I. "I love that girl a awful lot. I'd do anything I could to help the kid, even now when she's in so bad."

"Yes," says he.

"She had it in her natural," says I. "Her pa and ma run away. She was plumb gentle till she bolted--and then all hell couldn't hold her. Ain't that like her pa?"

"Yes," says he, humble; "it's like her pa."

"And she's handsome, and soft, and kind, and gentle--so any man couldn't help loving her. Ain't she like her ma thataway? Wasn't she thataway too?"

"Yes," says he, choking up like; "she's like her ma."

"Well, then?" says I. "Well then?"

So I pushed him outen the room and went on out down the walk.