It was a day or two afterward that I run across Catty Atkins poking
along the road on the edge of town, all alone. I hollered to him and he
stopped.
“How’s things?” says I.
“Sich as there is, they’re perty fair,” says he. “Hain’t moved on yet?”
He sort of grinned. “Oh yes. We left for Philadelphy two days ago.
Arrived there about ten this mornin’.”
“Huh!” says I. “Come on back to my house and let’s shoot with my rifle.”
“Don’t guess I better,” he said, kind of hesitating, but I could see he
wanted to come.
“Come on,” says I. “Dad was askin’ after you this mornin’.”
“Was he?” says Catty, and his eyes got bright as anything. “Was he
really?... I’ll come.”
When we got there Banty Gage, who lives next door, and Skoodles Gordon
were sitting on top of the shed, waiting for me to turn up. I had told
them about Catty Atkins, and they were interested to see him and to
watch him shoot with that beanie of his. When Catty saw them he came
close to turning around and going off, but I hung onto him, and Skoodles
and Banty came down off of the shed.
“This is Catty Atkins that I told you about,” says I, and then I told
him what their names were. He didn’t say much and acted sort of offish
and quiet, but that didn’t last. In a while we were shooting away and
having a bully time. Dad came out on the porch a minute and asked how we
were getting along, and spoke special to Catty, and then sat down to
read his paper.
About ten minutes after that Banty Gage’s mother came out and stood
looking at us. Then she called to Banty and he went over to the fence.
We could hear what she said.
“Who is that boy?” she asked, sort of cold and severe.
“Catty Atkins,” says Banty.
“_Who_ is he? Where did you get acquainted with him?”
“Wee-wee brought him home with him.”
“Is he that boy you were talking about the other evening? The one whose
father is a tramp and who is hanging around that old shanty down by the
waterworks?”
“Yes, ’m.”
“Then you come right straight home. If Mrs. Moore wants her boy to play
with that sort of people, all right, but my boy can’t. No telling what
he’ll lead you into.” She stopped and looked hard at Catty, who was
standing very still, with his lips set and his eyes kind of like they
was made out of pieces of polished steel. “He’s a tramp, and there’s no
telling what else. Such people aren’t fit to be let at large. I don’t
see what the town is thinking of not to shut them up or make them go
away. You come right home, and never let me see you with that boy again.
Now march.”
Catty looked at Mrs. Gage and looked at me and looked at Dad, and then
he says to himself, “I sort of knew folks _thought_ that about us, but I
didn’t ever hear one of ’em _say_ it before.” And he turned around and
started for the back gate.
“Where you goin’?” says I, and I was good and mad.
He didn’t answer, but kept right on. Then Dad spoke from the porch.
“Catty,” says he, and his voice had something in it that sounded good.
Catty stopped and looked at him, very sober, with his lips shut tight.
“Wait just a moment, Catty,” says Dad, and then he turned to Mrs. Gage.
“Mrs. Gage,” says Dad, “Catty is my guest, and as my guest he is
entitled to the courtesy of those who are my friends and neighbors. I
know Catty, and I am very glad to have him come to my home and play with
my son. I am going to give myself the pleasure of calling on Catty’s
father. I am sure you spoke hastily and had no wish to hurt this boy as
you have hurt him.”
“Mr. Moore,” said Mrs. Gage, as sharp as a needle, “you can have any
tramp or criminal or anybody you want to play with your family, but you
can’t force them on mine.... You heard me tell you to come home,
Thomas.” Banty’s right name was Thomas.
“I know, Mrs. Gage,” said father, in a gentle sort of way he has, “that
you will be sorry you have hurt this boy. If you knew him, when you know
him, I am sure you will want to apologize.”
“Know him!... Apologize to a young tramp!...” Mrs. Gage turned and went
into the house, slamming the screen after her, and Banty followed. Then
she gave Banty what for, and didn’t take a bit of trouble to lower her
voice. “You heard what I said,” she says. “You keep away from that
ragamuffin.”
“But Mr. Moore says—”
“I don’t care what Mr. Moore says. I sha’n’t put up with his crazy
ideas. The idea! Mr. Moore ought to know better, but he doesn’t seem to.
After this you keep away from the Moores.”
Dad looked down at me and smiled sort of humorous and at the same time
sort of sad, and then he came down off the porch and walked right up to
Catty.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this thing happened,” he said, and
looked straight into Catty’s eyes. “I know Mrs. Gage didn’t intend to be
cruel. She doesn’t understand, that’s all. You mustn’t be hard on the
rest of us because some people don’t understand things. You won’t, will
you?... And remember that you are always welcome here and that I am glad
to have Wee-wee play with you. We’re going to have dinner in a few
minutes and I shall be very glad indeed if you will stay and eat with
us.”
“Eat with you!” says Catty, and looked down at his clothes.
“Of course.”
“I hain’t never been invited to dinner no-wheres. I wouldn’t know how to
act.”
“Catty, there’s folks in this world who always know how to act. The
finest manners I ever saw were shown by a French lumberjack who couldn’t
write his name. Being a gentleman doesn’t consist in knowing which fork
to use first, Catty. Those things are just trimmings, but a gentleman is
a gentleman because he’s got something inside—something that I know
you’ve got. Do you know what a gentleman is, Catty, and what it is that
makes any man good enough to dine with any other man, or to do anything
else in the world with any other man?”
“No, sir,” says Catty.
“It’s a feeling inside him that he wants to act toward everybody just as
he wants everybody to act toward him.”
“I thought,” said Catty, “that a gentleman was somebody with a white
shirt who thought most folks was beneath him.”
Dad laughed. “Come on in and wash for dinner—and meet Wee-wee’s mother.”
“Will _she_—will _she_ want me, sir?”
Dad laughed again, and I laughed this time, because that was really
funny. If Dad was to bring home a hippopotamus to dinner Mother would be
glad of it—just because Dad brought him. I’ve took notice that Mother
always thought that whatever Dad did was just right, and, now that I
come to think it over, she thought so because everything that Dad did
_was_ just right.
Mother shook hands with Catty just as if nothing out of the ordinary run
was happening at all, and acted just as she would act if Catty had been
the Presbyterian minister or president of the bank, or anybody else.
Then Catty and me washed up and came down to dinner, and Dad talked a
lot until pretty soon he got Catty to talking some, and what he said was
mighty interesting to me—all about walking around the country, and what
they saw, and how they lived. I kept my eye on him jest to find out what
kind of table manners he had, but I couldn’t find out, because he kept
_his_ eyes on my mother all the time, and never did a thing until he saw
her do it first, and then did it just like she did. I saw Dad grin to
himself a couple of times.
“Mr. Moore,” said Catty, serious as all-git-out, “I wonder kin I ask you
a piece of advice?”
“Fire ahead, Catty.”
“Well, I’m wonderin’ if I ought to lick that kid before Dad and me goes
away.”
“What kid?”
“Banty Gage.”
Dad kept his face very straight, but I knew by the looks of him that he
wanted to laugh. “What has Banty done to you?”
“_He_ didn’t do anythin’—but his Ma did. I can’t lick his Ma, because
fellers don’t pick fights with wimmin, but it seems as if I ought to
lick _somebody_, and, her bein’ his Ma, he comes closest to bein’ the
right person.”
“You feel like fighting, eh? Well, I don’t blame you.... You said before
you and your father went away. Are you going away?”
“When I git home I’m goin’ to tell Dad it’s time to move on.”
“And he’ll go?”
“’Course. Dad’s always willin’ to go.”
“And you’re going because of what Mrs. Gage said?”
Catty nodded.
“Um!...” said Dad. “Looks kind of like running away, doesn’t it? As if
you had been scared out?”
“Eh? Scared out?” Catty’s lips came together thin again and his eyes got
glittery. “I don’t allow nobody to say I’m scared, Mr. Moore.”
Dad nodded and says: “That’s right. But you can’t stop them from
thinking it. Not by fighting with your fists, anyhow. There’s only one
way to keep folks from _thinking_ you’re afraid of a thing, and that is
to show them you aren’t.”
Catty looked at Dad a long time and didn’t say a word, but you could see
he was trying to study out what Dad meant.
“Aren’t you ever kind of lonesome when you’re walking about the
country—and never settling down any place to get acquainted with folks?”
asked Dad.
“Not when I’m with my Dad,” said Catty, and the way he said it you
almost got the idea he was proud of his father.
“Good boy!... But don’t you ever want to have other boys to play with,
and go to school, maybe, and know folks, and have a chum like most boys
have?”
Catty didn’t answer, but sat looking out of the window.
“Do you know what would hurt Mrs. Gage’s feelings more than anything
else in the world?”
“No, sir.”
“To be shown that she was wrong about you, and to know that she ought to
beg your pardon for what she said. I don’t know that she ever _would_
beg your pardon, because lots of people are queer, but it would be about
as bad a thing for her as I can think of if she came to know that she
_ought to_ do it. Wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know much about folks,” said Catty. “Maybe so.”
“If you were to run away now you never could make her feel that way,
could you?”
“No.”
“Catty, there is something you would like to have very much.”
Catty looked at Dad quicklike and then looked away.
“It’s the respect of people,” said Dad, quietlike and kind of gentle.
“Jest because we’re shiftless they think we’re bad,” said Catty. “We
ain’t. We mind our own business and never do no damage to anybody.”
“But things like this that happened to-day have happened before, haven’t
they? And you’re afraid they’ll happen again?”
“I’m not _afraid_ they’ll happen, but I _know_ they’ll happen.”
“If I were a boy,” says Dad, “and wanted something very much, I’ll bet
I’d _get_ it.”
“You can’t steal the respect of people that don’t know you off’n the
clothes-line,” says Catty, stubborn-like.
“Isn’t part of your trouble that you never let folks know you? You never
stay any place long enough to let them get acquainted.”
“Nobody wants to get acquainted.”
“How do you know? Didn’t _we_ want to get acquainted? And there are
thousands of other folks just like us.”
“I hain’t never seen anybody like you, Mr. Moore.”
“Well,” says Dad, “I won’t pester you about it, but think it over. If
you should decide to change your mind and not let Mrs. Gage have her way
and drive you out of town, why, you’ve got some friends here to start
with. Hasn’t he, Mother?”
“Yes,” said Mother. She didn’t say any more, but just that one word. You
knew she meant it, and that was enough.
We all got up from the table and I was dragging Catty away, when he
stopped and turned to Mother.
“I—I enjoyed the dinner a heap, Mrs. Moore,” said he, “but what done me
most good was jest a-lookin’ at you. I calc’late it must be awful nice
to have a mother—and her as dog-gone perty as you be.”
“Catty,” said Mother, “I think that’s the nicest thing I ever had said
to me,” and she leaned right over and give him a kiss. Then we went out,
but all the rest of the afternoon I noticed that every little while he
reached up and touched his cheek where the kiss had landed, kind of
stroked the spot and patted it like it had got to be the most valuable
part of his face.