You see, I was half her pa. Us two had raised her from a baby together. I couldn't tell the old man what I knew, but I had to talk to her like her pa would of talked. I allowed, if she'd get married to Tom Kimberly right quick, that'd sort of keep things from breaking loose the way they might, and keep me from having to tell Old Man Wright about the man next door. I knew plenty more about him now that I wouldn't tell her. I thought she'd forget him. Well, she set around all that day sort of moping, with a green poetry book in her lap; and she had a letter in her hands. It didn't come by the Peanut route, neither, but by the postman. It was square. "Tell me, is that from Tom Kimberly, Bonnie?" says I. "It's absolutely none of your business, Mr. Curly Wilson," says she; "and I wouldn't tell you in any circumstances. But it is." "Let me see it," says I. "Indeed!" She looks me square in the face. "Don't tell me a word, sis," says I. "I'm not so hard as you think." "He's coming over tonight," says Bonnie Bell to me after a time. "That's to get his answer?" asts I; and she nodded then. "Well, Colonel," says I to the old man that evening when he come in and we was having a nip before dinner, "I reckon I got this thing all fixed up at last. It's been a hard pull for me, being half a pa to a girl like ours; but I done it." "Is that so, Curly?" says he. "Well, it's been some chore, ain't it, for both of us? Well, how!" When Old Man Wright taken a drink he never did say "Here's how!" He just said "How!" which is Western. When a man says "Here's how!" he comes from the East and is trying his best to hide it. "How!" says I. "And a good health to the young and happy couple." "What's that?" says he, sudden. "Has anything happened? She hasn't said anything to me. Why is she so tight-mouthed with me, Curly, and so free with you?" "Oh, it's a way I have with women," says I. "They all come and tell me their troubles. It's because I got red hair and a open countenance." "Tell me, what's my girl confided to your red hair and open face?" says he. "I'd like to know." "You notice a good many flowers around the last few weeks?" says I. "I haven't noticed nothing else," says he. "And that didn't make nothing occur to your mind?" "Oh, yes, it did; only I didn't want to say anything to the kid--I didn't want to try to influence her in any way, shape or manner, in a time like this. Only I told her quite a while ago that Tom Kimberly was the only young man I seen in town that I'd allow to come around at all. I only said to her that the old man was my best friend and I liked Tom's ma as much as I could any woman with gray hair. "Still, I said gray hair was all right for a grandma. Why, Curly," says he, "I been plumb thoughtful and tactful. I ain't said a word to let Bonnie Bell know what I thought about Tom Kimberly. I believe in leaving a young girl plumb free to follow her own mind and heart."