ewspaper in front of him. "When I first come here," says he, "I seen
that everybody was riding in cars, and I figured that more of them was
going to; so I taken a flyer, sixty thousand dollars or so, in some
stock in a company that was making one of them cars that sells right
cheap. Now them people have gave me eighty per cent stock for a bonus
and raised the dividend to twenty-five per cent a year. She's going to
make money all right. Shouldn't wonder if that stock would more than
double in a year or so."

"For heaven's sake, Colonel," says I, "ain't there nothing a-tall that
you can get into without making money?" says I.

"No, there ain't," says he, sad. "It happens that way with some folks--I
just can't help making it; yet here I am with more money than any of us
ought to have. But I had to do it," says he to Bonnie Bell. "I get sort
of lonesome, not having much to do; so that I have to mix up with
something. Cars, sis?" says he. "Why, let me give you two or three of
the kind our company makes."

"No you don't!" says Bonnie Bell. "I want one that----"

"Huh! that costs about eight or ten thousand dollars, maybe?"

"Well," says she, "you have to sort of play things proportionate, dad;
and I think that kind of a car is just about proportionate to what you
and me is going to do in this little town when we get started."

She turns and looks out the window some more. That was a way she had.
You see, all these months we'd been there already we didn't know a soul
in that town. Womenfolks always hate each other, but they hate
theirselves when other womenfolks don't pay no attention to them. Bonnie
Bell was used to neighbors and she didn't have none here; so, though she
was busy buying everything a girl couldn't possibly want, she didn't
seem none too happy now.

"What's wrong, sis?" says her pa after a while, pulling her over on his
knee. "Ain't me and Curly treating you all right?"

She pushed back his face from her and looks at him; and says she, right
sober:

"Dad," she says, "you mustn't ever really ask me that. You're the best
man in all the world--and so is Curly."

"No, we ain't," says he. "The best man hasn't really showed yet for you,
sis."

"Why, dad," says she, "I'm only a young girl!"

"You're the finest-looking young girl in this town," says he, "and the
town knows it."

"Huh!" says she, and sniffs up her nose. "It don't act much like it."

"If I can believe my eyes," says her pa, "when I walk