The Man Next Door Part 10

"I hope I can help you about the flowers." She began to think he was kind of fresh like. She told me what he said.

Her pa seen some of this out of the window and he called her down when she come in.

"I don't think I'd talk much with any of them folks if I was in your place," says he.

"Why, dad," says she, "you don't want me to be stuck up like them, do you?"

Then she told him how Peanut had chased their dog in there and broke up their bridge party. They both had to laugh at that.

"Their gardener, James, told me that Old Man Wisner ain't much, nor the old lady neither," says Bonnie Bell after a while. "It's just what I thought."

"I don't know as he ought to talk that way about the people he works for," says her pa. "I'd be kind of careful about any man that was knocking his boss--wouldn't you, Curly?"

"Well, it was all my fault, dad," says she. "He said good morning; then I ast him about the flowers and he offered to help me with the crocuses."

"Don't take no help from none of that Wisner outfit," says her pa. "You hear me?"

As spring come along and the weather got pleasanter, Bonnie Bell was happier, because she could get out of doors more. Now she took to running this new power boat we had. It was a whizzer. It didn't take her long to learn how to run it. About everybody in Millionaire Row had boathouses on the lake and most of them had these gasoline boats--you could hear them sput-sputting round out there evenings almost any bright day.

Her pa didn't like her to go out on the lake very much; being from Wyoming he was scared of water--especial so much of it. He tells Bonnie Bell to be careful and, if she must go out on the lake, to only go when it was smooth.

In one way there wasn't no need to be scared about the girl, for she could swim like a duck--Old Man Smith taught all of 'em that. Nearly every morning she would go out in her bathing suit down our walk and through our garridge, and across the dock, and dive into that water where it was more than forty feet deep and as cold as ice. She wasn't afraid. She would come back wet and laughing, and say she liked it. I wouldn't have done that for a farm. I don't believe in going into water unless you have to ford.

I hate anything that runs by gasoline, because it's a sh.o.r.e thing that sooner or later it'll ball up on you somewheres. A good cowhorse is the only safe thing to go anywhere with, and anybody knows that. Bonnie Bell coaxed me out in her boat once--but not more than once. The lake wasn't so rough neither; but the boat riz up and down until I didn't feel right, and I wouldn't go no more. But Bonnie Bell got so some afternoons she'd be out hours at a time, ripping and charging up and down, water flying out from the front of the boat. Mostly she'd ride in her bathing clothes, and her hair done up under her cap. There was kind of a wild streak in her anyway and she was always taking chances.

One evening round four or five o'clock, after a warm day in the summer time, she was out there about a quarter of a mile from the sh.o.r.e and all by herself. There was quite a wind up, and the waves was rolling pretty high, breaking white on top, too, and making such a noise I was plumb uneasy. Her pa was away from home; so I went down on the dock and stood out there trying to holler at her so she would hear me, but I couldn't make her hear. I waved things, too, but she didn't seem to see them.

She was a sort of dare-devil at riding or driving anything, and I reckon maybe she was enjoying that slos.h.i.+ng through the water, though I expected every minute to see the boat go upside down. I could hear the engine of the boat going fast--sput-sput-sput-t-t! I could only hope it would keep all right. All gas engines is sinful.

She had been the only one out on the lake right then, it being so rough; but along about now, down toward town, a half mile or so off, I seen another boat coming, lifting up high on top of the waves, then going out of sight in the hollow for quite a while. It was heading straight in for our place. The fellow in it was running kind of sideways to the waves and I would a heap rather it would of been him in the boat than me.

Bonnie Bell was a little farther out, heading into the waves and enjoying the rocking, it seemed like. By and by I seen her looking off to the south; and then her engine begin to sput-sput a heap faster, and I seen her boat swing out and head that way.

I looked out at the other boat then. I didn't see it for a while, but at last it swung up on top of a big wave. It wasn't the way it had been, but blacker. I seen the water s.h.i.+ne on the boards. Then I knowed what had happened--the boat had turned over.

It was just like Bonnie Bell to head in to see if she could help. I hollered at her, but she couldn't hear and I don't reckon she'd of stopped anyways.

Them little boats goes awful fast and it seemed like _Bonnie Bell_--for that was the name of her boat, her pa had gave it that name--didn't seem to hit the waves none, only in the high places. In just a little while she was where the upset had done happened. I seen her slow down and swing in, and then stand up and whirl a rope. Then she reached over and then hauled back.

"Well, anyhow," says I to myself, "she's saved a corpse," says I.

I learned afterward that he wasn't dead and that when Bonnie Bell reaches in and grabs him by the collar she tells him to keep still or she'll soak him over the head with the boat hook.

"We'll be in in a minute," says she to him. Of course I didn't know that then.

It seems like she didn't try to haul him plumb in, the waves running so high; and she run the engine with one hand and held on to him with the other, him dragging along at one side of the boat and getting a mouthful of water every once in a while. It wasn't very far off from our dock and pretty soon they come alongside.

"Grab him, Curly!" says she; so I grabbed him when she swung in and hauled him up.

He was wet all over and at first he seemed half mad. I seen who he was then--he was the Wisner's hired man.

"Why didn't you let me alone?" says he. "I'd 'a' got her all right pretty soon. You might have gone over too."

"What?" says she, scornful. "You're all right anyways, and you got no kick coming."

She stood up in her bathing clothes, wet as she could be, and part of her hair hanging down underneath her cap, and he looked at her kind of humble. And says he: "I thank you very much. Pardon me for what I said." Then he looks down at his clothes and seen they was wet, and he broke out laughing. "All to the candy!" says he. "My life saved for my country!" says he.

"There wasn't no sense in your going over," says Bonnie Bell, scolding him. "You was getting your mixture too rich and you clogged up your engine. You can't overfeed them two-cycles that way and get away with it."

"That wasn't the trouble at all," says he. "I caught my foot in the ignition wire and broke it off. Of course she couldn't run then; but I could of swum in from where I was and the boat would have drifted in."

"You would have got good and wet swimming in," says she, still scornful, "and you would have got pounded to pieces against the sea wall; that's what would have happened to you. Some folks," says she, "ain't fit to go out alone anyways."

And, so saying, she leaves us both, wet as she was in her bathing clothes, and runs on through the boathouse and up the steps. He stood looking after her, sober.

"Don't I know that!" says he, turning to me. "If it hadn't been for her it would have been all day with me. But I certainly thought she'd be over."

"It's a good thing Bonnie Bell could run that boat," says I.

"Bonnie Bell?" says he. "Is that her name? By Jove! Well now, by Jove!

And what's your name?" says he.

"Wilson," says I. "They call me Curly for short."

"Curly?" says he. "That sounds sort of like a cowboy's name, don't it?"

"I never seen a cow camp yet where there wasn't some cowpuncher name Curly," says I.

"Cowpuncher! You wasn't ever one yourself, was you?" says he.

"I never was nothing else," says I.

Then he held out his hand.

"Shake!" says he. "Some folks gets what other folks wishes. Ain't it the truth?"

"What do you mean?" I ast him.

"Well," says he, "I always wanted to be a cowboy, yet I never did have a chance to go on a ranch."

"You're the gardener, ain't you?" says I, and he nods.

"That's all I get to do. Still, I may have a chance to do better sometime."

He was a right nice-looking fellow, clean shaved and his hair cut good, and his mustache cut right short. He looks down at his clothes now, but he didn't seem to care--acted like he had plenty more; and he laughed.

He was wet, but he wasn't s.h.i.+vering. He come pretty near drowning but he wasn't scared. I rather liked him even if he was only a hired man like myself. He seemed sort of hardy.

"You know how she got me?" he ast me now. "She threw the loop of a rope over me, and if I hadn't got it in my hand I reckon she'd of choked me to death."