what's the square thing in the world?
Sometimes it's hard to tell what is."

"That's so," says he, thoughtful. "Sometimes it is. I might of liked
some other man better'n Tom, maybe, if there'd been any other man; but
there isn't. I'm glad she's taken him. He'll turn out all right. He's a
good boy and his folks is good. He'll come out all right--don't you
worry."

"No," says I; "I reckon it'll do no good to worry, Colonel."

"What do you mean?" says he. "Ain't it all right?" says he.

"That remains to be saw," says I.

"She accepts him, don't she?"

"If I knew I'd tell you," says I; "but I don't know for shore."

"Of course," he says to me, "the girl wouldn't be apt to talk very free
to you about it, especial since you was in bed."

"Was I?" says I. "Oh, all right, if I was in bed! If I didn't talk to
Bonnie Bell a while here last night, then everything is done, and I'm
glad to know it."

"Well, where's she now?" says he. "I'm hungry as all get out; and you
know I can't eat till she comes down to breakfast--I've got to have her
setting right across the table from me, like her ma used to set. Oh,
hum! I suppose some day she won't be setting there no more. Just you and
me'll be setting there, looking at each other like two damn old fools.
That's what fathers is for, Curly," says he. "That's the best they can
get out of the draw.

"Well, that's what I've been living for ever since she was
knee-high--just to make her happy; just to give her, like her ma told me
I must, the place in life that she had coming to her. No little calico
dress and a wide hat for Miss Mary Isabel Wright now, I reckon, Curly.
Her game is different now. Them Better Things is coming her way, I
reckon now, Curly. She's left the ranch and is playing a bigger
game--and she's won it. Well, I'll tell 'em both how glad I am; but I
wisht she'd come down to breakfast, for I'm getting right hungry."

She didn't come. I couldn't say anything to him yet, for I didn't
exactly know what the truth was; Bonnie Bell hadn't told me whether or
not she accepted Tom, but only said he was going to come back again. I
wisht she'd come down and take this thing off my hands, for I was
getting cold feet as shore as you're born.

He walks up and down, getting hungrier all the time, and singing "Tom
Bass He Was a Ranger!" But she didn't come. At last he calls our
William; and says he to William:

"Go send Annette up to ask Miss Bonnie if she's ready for breakfast