"Oh, sometime some morning, like enough, down there on the dock. He says he'll sneak over from his place, so no one will see him. I don't reckon your pa will mind my showing a young fellow how to rope—I'd like to feel a rope in my hand again anyhow. I expect before long he'll be wearing a wide hat and singing 'O, bury me not on the lone prairee!'"
"Curly," says she.
"What?"
"Did you find my rope in along with those in the big room? I forget whether I brought it along."
"Kid," says I, "if there's going to be any instruction to hired men on the rope or mouth organ or jew's-harp, or anything of that sort, it's me that gives it. I'm segundo on this ranch. Now you go on upstairs."
She had her hair all pushed back now under her cap, wet as it was, standing there fixing it. She was in her bathing clothes still and awful wet, but she didn't seem cold. She looked kind of pink and sort of happy; I don't know why. Lord, she was a fine-looking girl! There never was one handsomer than Bonnie Bell Wright.
"Kid, you heard me!" says I. "Go on upstairs now and get your clothes on. And you don't go out in that boat no more!"
VIII - How Old Man Wright Done Business
As the weather begun to get warmer and we got out-of-doors more, it was cheerfuller around our place. Bonnie Bell chirked up quite a bit. She used to sing some. It seemed like she was going to get used to living in town—not me; never!