s a week does work for him."

"He shore makes plenty of money," says I. "I expect he's got more money
than anybody in town."

"I'm willing to stack up a little money in this alderman game against
him if I thought I'd get any fun out of it. I'm just marking time here,
the way it is."

"Doing what?" I ast him.

"Making money and waiting."

"What for?" says I, not understanding.

"For some man," says he.

"What man?" I ast him, still not understanding.

"That's what I don't know. For some man that will make Bonnie Bell
happy. But all the young men in a city talk alike and look alike and
dress alike. I ain't seen more than one or two that was worth a
cuss--not a one I thought was good enough for my girl. And yet it stands
to reason that something will happen; and it might be any time. It makes
me uneasy."

I couldn't see why more folks didn't come into our house, like they used
to out on the Circle Arrow; and I said that.

"It's easy to see why they don't," says Old Man Wright, and he busts the
glass top of his table with his fist. "It's plumb plain to see why. It's
them Wisners has blocked our game. They coppered us from the
start--that's what! We got in wrong at the start with them; we didn't
kotow to them and they've always been expecting it."

"That puts us in pretty hard," says I.

"It wouldn't be hard for you or me, Curly," says he. "There ain't a game
on earth that that pie-faced old hypocrite can play that I can't beat
him at; I don't fear him no more than I like him. But when I see how
easy it was for him and his folks to make my girl miserable---- It ain't
on account of myself, Curly," says he, and he sweeps his hand over the
desk and knocks every paper and everything else on the floor. "She's all
I got," says he. "I loved her ma and I love her. Whatever goes against
her happiness goes against me all the way through. And," says he, "I'll
buck this here city game until some day I bust the bank!"

I left him setting there, sort of looking down at his feet, with his
hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out. He wasn't happy none at
all, though all the time he'd been hollering for some game that he
couldn't beat.

IX

US AND THEIR FENCE

We went on thataway a good while into the summer and nothing much
happened between us and our neighbors. Maybe once in a while our dog
Peanut would get over in their back yard and scratch up their pansies.
Peanut always liked to lay in fresh dirt, a