"Except that she ain't!"
"You mean that we don't know nobody—nobody comes in to visit?" He nods. "Well, why don't we go in and call on them Wisner people that lives next to us?" says I.
"We can't do that; the rules of the game is that the folks living in a place first has to make the first call."
"That's a fool rule," says I.
"Shore it is; but Bonnie Bell knows all them rules and she ain't going to make any break—Old Man Smith taught her a few things—or maybe she learned it instinctive from her ma. Her ma was a Maryland Janney. They pretty near knew. And yet she told me—— Oh, shucks, Curly!"
"Well, what did she say?"
"She says she met Old Lady Wisner fair out on the sidewalk one morning and she was going to speak to her; they was both of them going down to their cars, which was standing side by side on the street. The old lady, she turns up her nose, such as there was of it, and she looks the other way. That hurt my girl a good deal. You know she ain't got a unkind thought in her heart for nobody or nothing on earth. She never was broke to be afraid of nothing or expect nothing but good of nobody—you and me taught her that, didn't we, Curly? And that old cat wouldn't look at my girl! Well, Curly, that's what I mean when I say there is some games that seems hard to play. Don't a woman get the worst of it every way of the deck, anyhow?"
"Well now," says I, "ain't there no way we can break in there comfortable like?"
"I don't see how," says he, shaking his head.
"Why can't we kill their dog?" says I. "Something friendly, just to start things going."