There was a awful silence come in between them two big houses after that. There wasn't anything that we seen fit to say and they didn't pay no attention to us. Their hired man--that worked round the back yard sometimes in overalls and a sweater--he sometimes walks out in the yard with their collie, but he takes mighty good care to keep on his own side of the fence. It was getting spring by now--sort of raw weather once in a while; but the grass was getting green, and some of Bonnie Bell's flowers she had planted was beginning to show up through the ground, and once in a while she would go out, in old clothes mostly, with maybe a cap and a apern and fuss round with her flowers. She wouldn't never look across at the Wisner house. Their hired man that taken care of their dog was the one that taken care of their flowers, same as she did of ours. One morning it seems like, not noticing each other, they was working along kind of close to the fence, not far apart from each other, and all at once he stands up and sees her. "Good morning!" says he, which Bonnie Bell couldn't help. She looks up and sees him standing there, with his hat in his hand, respectful enough; and, since he was only one of their hired people, her not feeling any way but friendly to anybody on earth that is halfway decent to her, she says: "Good morning! I see you're fixing your flowers too." "Yes," says he; "these crocuses will soon be out. What color is yours?" "All sorts," says she; "and I do hope they'll all do well." "I'd be glad to be of any help I could," says he. "Well, that's kind of you," says she; "you, being a gardener, know more about these things than I do." About then this here collie dog comes up to where he is standing. "Oh, goodness!" says Bonnie Bell. "Don't let that dog come over in our yard, whatever you do." All at once he broke out a-laughing. "I'll take care of him," says he. "I wouldn't take a thousand for that dog. They didn't want to keep him, but I said they'd have to. That was a good fight they had in the house," says he, and laughed again. Bonnie Bell she got red, and says she: "I'm awfully sorry. That dog of ours is a terror to fight. We can't break him of it any way. I hope you'll apologize to your people," says she--"that is, if they wouldn't take it wrong of us to have it mentioned. I don't know." "Oh, no; I guess that'll be all right," says he. "I've been with 'em so long, you see, I can kind of make free about it. If you feel bad about it I'll tell 'em; but it wasn't your fault." "It would be just like that bunch of yours," says she, "not to let on that they had heard from us that I was sorry. I oughtn't to say it maybe, but----" "Well now," says the hired man, frank-like enough, "that's just the way I feel. I often tell the old man, myself, that he ain't so much--he come from Iowa once when he didn't have a cent to his name, and yet he puts on more side now than anybody else on the street."