Part 68

So us two walk together out of our front door. He shuts the door then behind him and we go on down the walk together. He only turns once and looks back at the house.

The whole street laid there in front of us when we walked out from our yard to go over into theirs. The lights was all lit now, miles and miles of 'em; and below us was the hundreds of thousands more of the lights of the big city--the city that hadn't made us as happy as we thought it was going to. I heard a boat whistle deep somewheres out on the lake--it sort of made my stomach tremble.

Over west, beyond our part of the city, you could hear a low sort of sound like maybe of street cars; but on our side there wasn't anything but automobiles--thousands of 'em--going along as swift and smooth as birds. Most of them was going north still; but on the other side of the street some was going down, maybe with people going to the theaters. It was about the time when people in the city eat what they call dinner. The moon was coming up back of our house, which lay there all black--not a light in it now. I could see the flower beds in our yard, and the white naked statutes standing there. It looked right pretty, but cold like a graveyard.

The front door was shut and, the moon being up over east, the part of the house toward us was black-like. I remembered what the lawyer man had said about things being signed, sealed and delivered. Well, we'd closed the books. It was to hell with them Better Things!

I didn't tell Old Man Wright that Bonnie Bell had been there, because he had things hard enough the way it was and I was working for him yet a little while. He was ca'm as a summer day now.

I'd been his deputy once or twice when we had to go and arrest a bad man. He was now just like he was then. He walks, his thumbs, on both sides, just resting on the waistband of his pants. I don't know what he had in his mind; but you couldn't of saw the sign of a gun on him and I'd throwed my gun away. His coat tails hung straight down. Outside he was plumb civilized. His face was white and he looked right gentle--just gentle. He wasn't. As for changing him, it would of been as easy to change one of them marble statutes over in our garden.

Them Wisners wasn't watching their own gate like they'd ought to of. We walked on up their stairs and the old man rung the bell and stood there, his face without no expression now.

We heard some noises inside there--their dog begun to bark and it seemed like people was talking. Their William opened the door and we all stood there.

Old Man Wright reaches out his arm and pushes him to one side, and him and me go on in, walking fast toward the middle of the house.

XXX

HOW IT COME OUT AFTER ALL

There was a curtain acrost the door between the hall and the room beyond. Old Man Wright made one sweep and throwed open the whole room before us. We stood there in the door, neither of us making any move. Everything stopped then. There wasn't nobody talking no more. What we seen before us was something you couldn't hardly of figured on seeing at all.

They was all setting at the dinner table and they was all dressed up. There was Old Man Wisner and the old lady, and Bonnie Bell--she was setting next to the old lady. Just beyond, and square acrost the table from us, facing us, was the hired man--the man on whose account we'd come to square things now and leave them signed, sealed and delivered.

I thought it was right funny for their hired man to be eating with them, and him all dressed up just like them. Then I remembered how fresh he'd always been and how he'd bragged about the pull he had with them people. And I remembered the talk I'd heard between him and Old Lady Wisner too. Anyways, there he was setting, big as life; and if they was having any trouble over anything you couldn't see it. No one was shedding no tears and there didn't seem to be no war going on.

I felt like I was up in the air. I felt like I'd been dreaming about something and hadn't woke up. I couldn't figure out what it was I seen. No one spoke a word.

You must remember that Old Man Wright didn't know yet Bonnie Bell was anywhere within three thousand miles of him. And when he pulled aside the curtain there she was, setting right at their table! And right acrost was a young man setting, too--a young man who he don't know none.

You see, he never had saw that hired man at all, so as to know him. I hadn't told the old man about Bonnie Bell being there, because I allowed he'd find it out anyways. Now he had.

It was Bonnie Bell that moved first--for she knew what might happen. She made one jump for her pa and threw her arms round him--not around his neck, but down around his arms. She didn't try to kiss him--she didn't say a word; she was scared. She knowed where he carried his gun--up under his shoulder. I never knowed whether she found it or not.

"No!" says she, quick; and she locked her hands behind his back so he couldn't get his arms loose. "No! No; you can't--you shan't! No, no!" she says. "Dad! Dad!"

Ordinary she would of been no more than a straw to him, he was that strong. But, you see, he wasn't expecting to see her--and a lot of things come over him all at once. Here she was, with her arms around him anyways, no matter what for.

For once Old Man Wright forgot. His hand only kind of went out to hers where they was, and he says, trembly:

"Bonnie, girl! I didn't know you was here!"

By that time everybody was on their feet. The hired man starts for us, but I stopped him.

"Not yet," says I. "I'm working for the old boss till midnight tonight. You stay where you are."

When I said that Old Man Wisner and Old Lady Wisner they just froze right where they was. But Bonnie Bell didn't. She turns to me now and I felt her hand on my arm.

"What do you mean, you men? Are you crazy?" says she. "I'll not have this! Set down! You, Curly--you make any break here and I'll slap you in the face," says she. "You hear me? Don't you start anything here!"

Well, now, you wouldn't think we'd all been broke up thataways just by a girl, would you? But she had us on the run before we got started. It was mostly because of all this being so unexpected. I didn't expect to see the hired man at their table and Old Man Wright didn't expect to see Bonnie Bell at all; so the whole herd begun to mill round.

She pushed her pa down into a seat, and me too.