And then—"Wilfred!" says his wife, as though it wasn't polite to say you liked things.
Since Katherine was talking to me all the time, and since Tom couldn't see nothing but Bonnie Bell, I reckon the whole party was pretty well suited.
After dinner, while we was setting in the ranch room—which they all liked so well—and could have sherry or coffee, or both, or maybe Scotch, Mrs. Kimberly kept on saying to the old man:
"Wilfred, I'm surprised!"
"So'm I, my dear," says he—"surprised that we've never been here all the time before. You may mark us down as steadies now," says he.
We had in the middle of the house, offen the ranch room, a long room, with a piano in it, and a smooth floor, and rugs that could be easy pushed away. Nothing'd do for them folks but they must go to dancing now. Sometimes Katherine played the piano and sometimes Bonnie Bell; she shore could slug a piano plenty when she wanted. She didn't get to play much, because Tom he wanted to dance with her all the time—turkeys' trots, I think they called it, or fox hops, or something of the kind.
Seems like she could do that, too, for she had lessons downtown. When Katherine got Old Man Wright to dance with her there wasn't no one left to play; so we set a music box going, and Katherine made me play on a Jew's-harp too.
Tom Kimberly certainly was up in all the late steps of dancing; that was one thing he could do. While him and Bonnie Bell was dancing I could see all the old folks looking at them quietlike. It was plain that he was mighty hard hit with Bonnie Bell. Old Man Wright he'd look at him once in a while—right close too. As for Bonnie Bell, she was pleasant, like she always was; but it didn't seem to me she laughed as much as usual. We was all of us showing off our goods.
When they come to go away, Katherine she hugged Bonnie Bell tighter than ever, and Old Man Kimberly held her hand for quite a while.
"You'll take pity on a old man, won't you," says he, "and come to see us often? You really must."