sit in your ranch
room--it's new to us and we like it. I know my husband would like it
very much. As for Katherine, I don't think I'll be able to keep her away
after this."

Well, that afternoon, late, Katherine calls up on the telephone
again--about the eighth time she had already that day--and she ast might
her pa and ma and her come over that evening to see our ranch room. Of
course Bonnie Bell told them to come.

"Well, what do you know, Curly?" says she to me. "This ain't according
to Hoyle. Mrs. Kimberly ought to of waited till I returned her call, and
till maybe one or the other of us had invited the other to a reception,
or to a dinner or something."

"What's a reception?" says I.

"Something we never had yet, Curly," says she. "It's a place where
people ain't happy; but there's plenty of 'em. Maybe tonight is the
closest we've come to it."

Well, they all came that night, all three of 'em--twicet in one day,
which was going pretty strong; and, like enough, something they hadn't
never done before in all their lives.

"No you don't!" says Mrs. Kimberly when Bonnie Bell was going to take
'em into the parlor. "We're going right into the ranch room and sit
there, all of us--mayn't we, please?"

So they come in and Old Man Kimberly he walked around and looked through
the place; and he was like a kid.

"By golly, Wright!" says he. "I didn't know a alderman could have as
much sense as this," says he. "This is the real goods," says he--"you
can set down in one of those chairs and not break its legs off. And
here's tobacco handy, and matches all over the place. Now over in the
club all you get is a place to smoke and a big chair, and a fireplace to
look into. Ain't a city a cold old place, John Wright?" says he.

"Well, you see," says Old Man Wright by and by--"you see, folks get to
be pretty busy with one thing and another. I know they all mean right
well," says he, "but they get so busy in a town like this they don't
have time for anything."

That was about all that ever was said about our being neighbors on our
street. Nobody apologized for not having done this or that. We just
dropped in like we'd always been doing that way.

"Well, Alderman," says Old Man Kimberly after a time, "you certainly
know how to live. I'm going to drop in here every day or so, evenings,
because I can't get a match at the club without calling a boy, and here
you can just reach out and get plenty."

"Come in as often as you l