Part 69

"So that's the way you act when I'm not here!" says she. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," says she. "I won't have any more of this."

Their hired man set down now, right serious. He didn't laugh none nor try to pass it off. We all knew that it was a show-down, that it was a settlement, and that it had to go through.

Old Man Wright he didn't seem to look at anyone but Bonnie Bell. If you can say a man can look hungry with his eyes, that's the way he looked then. By this time she was crying, and she puts her arms around his neck now.

"Dad!" says she. "Pore old dad! Pore old foolish, unhappy dad!" Now she begins to kiss him some; but he can't talk none--only pats her shoulders.

"I'm the wretchedest, wickedest girl on earth," says she to him, pushing back his hair, "and I'm the happiest too! Dad, listen to me. You mustn't sit in judgment. Don't take things so hard. Wait--try to see. Try to see if maybe there isn't some other will in the world besides your own, dad--maybe some will bigger than all of ours. I couldn't help it, dad--I couldn't! I'm so happy," says she, "so foolish happy now!"

"Happy?" says he at last; and he pushes her away from him. "With him, there?" He nods now at the hired man, having got him placed. "What's he doing here?" says he.

"Why shouldn't he be here?" says Old Man Wisner right then, speaking for the first time. "He's my son!"

"What's that?" says Old Man Wright. "Your son!"

"Shore!" says he. "Who'd you think he was? He can eat at my table. He's done well; he's married the best girl I ever seen!" says he. Then he gets so he can't talk worth a cent too.

Shucks! I wisht I was most any place else. His son! How could his son be his hired man, and where was the hired man if this wasn't him? I felt myself begin to get sweaty on my face and all over. I'd been one awful fool, me.

"Dave Wisner," says Old Man Wright, "I come acrost to settle things with you. Our account is some long. You've made it hard for me--awful hard!--when you made your hired man run off with my girl. Your son! What kind of talk is this? What do you mean?"

"But he is our son!" says Old Lady Wisner right then, her speaking for the first time. "In heaven's name, who did you think he was? Hired man! What do you mean?"

"It's what I been trying to tell you and Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, holding to her pa's coat with one hand and patting him hard on the shoulder with the other. "I told you it was all a mistake--everything was all mixed up. Except for Gawd's mercy sending me here right now, somebody might of been killed, for all I know," says she. "You men ain't got no more brains than a rabbit. It's time I come!"

"Your son!" says Old Man Wright. "Son! And Curly said he was your hired man!"

Old Man Wisner laughs right out loud at that.

"Hired man! Oh, I see how you thought that! You maybe seen him pottering around in the flowers like--he was always dotty about them things--but no hired man; he wasn't hardly worth a salary."

"And what do you think?" laughs Bonnie Bell at Old Lady Wisner then. "His mother thought once I was a hired girl!"

Old Lady Wisner for quite a while she'd been playing a sort of accompaniment, talking to herself. First, she starts in and says: "Oh, my laws! Oh, my laws sakes! Oh my laws sakes alive!"--over and over again, she was that scared. And now she begun to say: "Bless my soul! Gawd bless my soul! Oh, Gawd bless my soul!" And she says that right over and over again too.

"I told you, Curly," says Bonnie Bell now, "that there'd been a mistake all around. Why didn't you tell my dad I was here?"

"Well," says I, "I allowed he'd find it out after a while. Ain't he?"

I was sweating awful now and I felt how red my hair was. I toed in so bad my legs was crossed.

"I've found out a lot of things," says Old Man Wright now, right sudden and swift. "I been making some mistakes my own self; but you"--and he faces their hired man now--"you passed yourself off for a servant."

"That's true, sir," says he. "I was under false colors for a long while and I hated it as much as anyone could. But what could I do? I couldn't find any way to meet her. I didn't want her money and I didn't want her to want mine. Well, that's how it happened. I deceived you all, that's true. I deceived her too--she didn't really know who I was until less than a week ago. Then she came home."

"Why didn't you come and tell me at first?" says Old Man Wright.

"How could I?" says he. "I knew what that would mean, from all Curly said. Besides, I wanted to win her just for what I was--just for what she was. I wanted to be sure she'd love me the way I wanted, for just what I was. I'm sure now.

"But I was going to come and tell you; we came on now for that very thing--the two of us, as you see. It wasn't any pleasure for me to deceive either you or her--I never liked that any more than you did."

Old Man Wright he just set looking at him, and he couldn't talk. The young fellow went on.

"I loved her the first time I saw her, sir," says he. "I resolved, the first time I ever saw her, that sometime I'd marry her. I did. And we're happy--we're happier than I ever thought anybody could be. How can you bear a grudge against a girl like that--your own girl? She's only done what she thought was right. And it was right too! And it goes!"