holesale
beef and pork, and them things. Most everybody in the Row, it seemed to
me, had something to do with a cow, one shape or another, except
us--which, dealing with cows on the hoof, might of been said to be at
the bottom of the whole game. But that ain't respectable, like I told
you. Sausage or hides or leather is better--especial if wholesale.

Bonnie Bell was quiet. She taken up the collar of this Katherine girl
and looks at the little pin she wore on it.

"What year was yours?" says she.

"Last June," says Katherine.

Then I seen they was both scholars of that same Old Man Smith, where
Bonnie Bell had went to school. They had on some sort of pins so they
knew each other, like Masons. Not having nothing better to do, they
kissed each other again.

By the time Bonnie Bell had drove over to the Kimberlys' house folks had
found Katherine's horse, but not her; so her ma was scared silly,
natural enough. When she seen her long-lost daughter coming with Bonnie
Bell, both of them able to walk and talk, she was right glad, and fell
on the necks of both of them, weeping some.

"And who is this young lady," says she, meaning Bonnie Bell, "who has
been so kind as to bring you home to your mother?"

And she smiled at Bonnie Bell, her being the second woman to do that in
Chicago in two years. You see, if a girl is handsome women mostly hate
her; the men don't--which is why.

"This is our neighbor, Miss Wright, mommah," says Katherine. "They live
just below us a little way."

She got red in the face then, for everybody on the street there knew
about us and the high fence; yet nobody knew us personal. But
Katherine's ma was different from most of these other people. Besides,
you only needed one good look at Bonnie Bell to see that she wasn't any
common folks.

"She left Smith the year before I went in, mommah," says Katherine, "and
she's in my sororyety; and she's been here ever since they built their
fine house; and she's a dear and I love her." Katherine had a way of
talking all in one breath, like a sprinter running a hundred yards flat.
"I want you to love her, too," says she to her ma.

And then Old Lady Kimberly she taken Bonnie Bell in her arms and kissed
her some more; and the kid, like enough, come near to spilling over
then.

"Come right in and have a cup of tea," says she.

So they went into the house, and the Kimberlys' sad man, which was named
William, too, brought them some tea. They didn't need