I could hardly wait for breakfast to be over in the morning so that I
could hunt up Catty Atkins and find out just exactly what had happened.
I told Dad about it, but he didn’t say much.
“Catty said he wasn’t going to leave town, did he?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” I says.
“Well,” says Dad, with a kind of a hint of a grin, “I shouldn’t be
surprised if folks had to get used to Catty being here, then.”
“Can’t they make him go?” I asked.
“They could make some folks go. I guess it depends a lot on the folks.”
I found Catty arguing with his father, it seemed like his father was
willing to pull up stakes and go away, and Catty was insisting that they
were going to stay.
“But you can’t,” says Mr. Atkins, waggling his head kind of bewildered.
“They won’t let you. They’re a-goin’ to chase you off. This here town
don’t want no traffickin’ with us, no way. We might jest as well up and
leave friendly as to get chased by a bulldog.”
“There ain’t no bulldog,” says Catty.
“Can’t never tell. Bulldogs puts in appearances when least expected.”
“They hain’t got no right to chase us off. We hain’t vagrants like the
marshal said.”
“What be we, then?”
“Business men,” says Catty. “The marshal he says that a vagrant is a
feller with no visible means of support. Well, hain’t we got visible
means? Hain’t we in the paintin’ and decoratin’ business? Hain’t we got
a job? Hain’t we rented a place of business? I guess we have.”
“You’ll see,” says Mr. Atkins, solemn-like. “When town marshals wants to
run folks out of town, why, they jest up and runs ’em. Who’s a-goin’ to
stop ’em?”
“Me,” says Catty. He snapped it out like he was biting the word off a
chunk of the dictionary and it come hard.
“What you goin’ to do?” I says.
“Jest go ahead and mind my own business,” says Catty, “and let the
marshal do the doin’.”
“Um!” says I.
“Um nothin’!” says he. “You watch.... Now I got to git after them
ladders and that paint.”
“Hadn’t you better be seeing about this other thing first?” I says.
Catty looked at me a second, and he looked just like a fellow who had
made up his mind and wasn’t going to change it. He looked like he would
_fight_ and fight hard. “I’m goin’ to act jest like that marshal never
came here at all,” says he. “When does your newspaper come out?”
“To-night,” says I. “Most gen’ally it comes out Thursdays, when it don’t
come out Fridays or Saturdays or Mondays. It hain’t what you call
reg’lar. Editor has to go fishin’, or he loses his bottle of ink, or he
hain’t got money to git his paper out of the express-office, or
somethin’ else.”
“We’re goin’ to the printin’-office,” says Catty.
“What if that there town marshal comes back while you’re gone and starts
chasin’ me away?” says Mr. Atkins.
Catty laughed. “Don’t run no farther ’n you have to, Dad, and run slow.
I’ll catch up.”
“Dunno but what I’d rather be chased off than have to go paintin’ all
that buildin’ and git the colic,” Mr. Atkins says, under his breath, but
Catty jest grinned at him and patted him on the back, and we mogged
along.
“What kind of a feller is this editor?” says Catty.
“He’s all right, except that he hain’t got much gumption.”
We hiked along till we got to the printing-office and went in. I always
like to go into the printing-office on account of the smell. I don’t
know what there is about that smell that I like, but it sort of excites
a fellow and makes him think about things happening in far-off places,
and about adventures, and all sorts of interesting things. I suppose
that is because printer’s ink has been used to tell so many exciting and
bully things for years and years that, somehow or other, they have got
to be a part of the ink, and the smell of them has got into it. I’d like
to be a newspaper man some day and live in that smell all of the time.
Mr. Cuppy was sitting in front of a table, with his coat off and a shade
over his eyes and a corncob pipe in his mouth. He was all hunched over
like he was using the last drop of his brains to write an editorial
about something that was mighty important, and for a second I sort of
hesitated about interrupting him; but I took a look over his shoulder
and saw that what he was doing was painting up an artificial minnow with
streaks and polka-dots. There was another contraption that looked like a
mouse cut out of wood, and there were hooks and feathers and all sorts
of things scattered around.
“Mornin’, Mr. Cuppy,” says I.
“Mornin’, Wee-wee,” says he, just looking up and then looking back again
at his minnow.
“This is Catty Atkins,” says I, “and he wants to talk business with
you.”
“Does, hey? In a hurry is he? Because I’m mighty busy just this minute.
I think I’ve got it at last. Been trying for months to paint up a minnow
so it can’t fail, and now I’m on the track. Bet I’ve painted this one
forty times, but I’ll get it yet, and when I do I’ll show you how to
catch bass.”
“What’s the idea?” I says.
“I’ve been figuring out what kind of a looking minnow I’d like to eat if
I was a bass,” says he, as solemn as a church. “I’ve been putting myself
in the place of the bass and thinking like he would think, and this
minnow is the result. Now, Wee-wee, if you were a bass, wouldn’t you
jump out of the water to grab that bait?”
“Dunno but what I would,” says I.
“Good!” says he. “What did you say his name was?” He jerked his thumb
toward Catty.
“Catty Atkins,” says I.
“New-comer?”
“Yes.”
“Give him a personal. Mr. Catty Atkins, of—where does he come from?—is
visiting friends in our midst. Something like that, eh?”
“I think,” says Catty, “that I’ve got better news than that for you.”
“Do, eh? What is it? Who’s been doin’ what?”
“It’s about Sands Jones and Darkie Patt,” says Catty.
“Only news about _them_,” says Editor Cuppy, “would be that they had
gone to work of their own accord.”
“They have,” says Catty, “and, what’s more, they’re goin’ to work on the
same job, and what’s more, it’s a race. Never had no paintin’-race in
this town, did you?”
“Not that I call to mind,” said Editor Cuppy, and he began to look
interested. “What’s the idee?”
Catty explained the whole thing to him, and Editor Cuppy began to laugh,
and then he grabbed a piece of paper and begun to write. “Best story in
a year,” says he. “We’ll run her down the front page.... So your Pa is
goin’ into business here, eh?”
“Yes. We’ve rented Mr. Gage’s store, and we’re goin’ to have the most
up-to-date paintin’ and decoratin’ shop in the state, and a
refreshment-stand in the little shop at the side.”
“Good! Glad to see enterprise comin’ to our midst. I’ll put in some
about it,” and he grabbed his pencil and wrote quite a lot about Catty
and his Dad being acquisitions to our town that the town ought to be
proud to welcome, and stuff like that. Then he said he was much obliged
and went out into the back room to set the story up in type.
Next we went to the hardware-store where they kept paints and brushes
and such-like things, and Catty walked right up to Mr. Moss, hardware,
and says: “Mr. Moss, my father, Mr. Atkins, who has the contract for
painting Mr. Manning’s new warehouse, sent me in to order this list of
supplies. He would like to have them delivered before noon at the
warehouse, so he can get to work mixing paints and one thing and
another. We start work Monday morning.” Catty had a list of things and
of quantities of oil and paint and everything. “We are new-comers here,”
says Catty, “and you don’t know us, but Mr. Manning will send you your
check in payment himself.”
“That’s all right. That’s all right,” says Mr. Moss. “Anything else I
kin do fur you?”
“Unless you have four or five ladders. We need some new ladders.”
“Nary a ladder, young man. But I’ll deliver these things before noon.
Much obleeged.”
“Don’t you find it a kind of a nuisance to handle paints with your
hardware business?” Catty says. “Must take up room you need for other
things, and use up a lot of time. Hain’t much profit into it, neither.”
“That’s right, young feller. But somebody’s got to handle ’em for
accommodation of the public.”
“Well, maybe Dad and you could make an arrangement,” says Catty. “We
might be willin’ to buy out your paint stock, if you was to put a
reasonable price onto it. Kind of calc’late to go into business
permanent here.”
“Do, hey? I want to know? Paints and sich?”
“Wall-papers and everythin’,” says Catty.
“Well, you jest come around and talk it over. Shouldn’t be a mite
s’prised if we could fix it up.”
And all this time, mind you, there was the town marshal going to run
Catty and his Dad out of the village! Catty went right ahead as if there
never had been any town marshal at all, and as if he and his Dad were
leading citizens instead of a couple of folks that hadn’t a pair of
pants to their name and was looked on by most as tramps.
“If I only had them ladders, now,” Catty says as he came out of the
store, “everythin’ would be all right.”
“Ladders it is,” says I. “Let’s go out and shoot us a couple. Might see
some flyin’ around in the woods.”
Catty could see a joke as far as anybody. “Let’s,” says he. “It’s open
season for ladders now.”
In a minute he stopped and says, “When does school start?”
“Five weeks,” says I.
“I’ll have to hustle,” says he. “What grade are you in?”
“Eighth,” says I.
“I got to go to school. Folks hain’t respectable if their children don’t
go to school,” says Catty. “But I hain’t got much education. I’d have to
start almost at the beginnin’ with the little kids. Don’t kind of like
the idee much.”
“You must know somethin’,” says I.
“I do,” says he, “but you can’t pass examinations in grammar with it. If
it was how birds live and about rabbits and about growin’ things, I
could git along, but I don’t know no rules to speak of.”
“But you know arithmetic.”
“Quite a sight of it. Dad he taught me some, because a feller has to
know some arithmetic. But I hain’t up on hist’ry nor language nor such.
Be they hard to learn?”
“Hist’ry,” says I, “is jest like readin’ a book that you like. We hain’t
had much but United States hist’ry yet.”
“Got the book?”
“Yes.”
“Wonder if you’d loan her to me so’s I could be readin’ it nights?”
“You bet,” says I.
“I wisht there was some way of learnin’ them other things, so I could
start in school where I ought to be. But ’tain’t much use wishin’. I
ought to learn things easier ’n a little kid six or seven year old, and
I ought to ketch up before long, but I’ll have to start in at the
beginnin’, I expect.”
“Say,” says I, “I got all the books. And my Dad knows everythin’. Why
don’t you borrow them books and ask Dad if he won’t kind of teach you at
odd times? Bet you’d learn quicker ’n greased lightnin’, with him to
show you.”
“Calc’late he’d be willin’?”
“Who? Dad? Ho! Be tickled to death. I’ll ask him this noon.”
“Much obleeged,” says Catty, “and while he’s teachin’ me he kin give me
an idee about manners.. I got to be as full of manners as anybody, and
fuller, ’cause folks won’t expect it of me, and I got to prove to ’em
that I’m jest as good as they be and know as much about how to eat and
them kind of things.... Now them ladders.”
We walked along a spell and then Catty stopped all of a sudden.
“I got to git Dad one of them painter’s suits made out of white stuff.
You know the kind. Got to have that to-day, too.”
“Why?” says I.
“You’ll see,” says he, which was a way of his. He didn’t always tell a
fellow everything that was in his mind, and he took a lot of pleasure in
surprising folks. “Ought to git one for along about three dollars,
hadn’t I?”
“Guess so,” says I. “Got the three dollars?”
“No, but three dollars hadn’t ought to be hard to git if you set your
mind to it.”
“Huh!” says I. “Might as well be a million.”
“You’ll see,” says he. “I hain’t earned much money, but it kin be done.
Everybody does it, and if everybody kin do it, why, I calc’late I kin,
too.”
“How?”
“Don’t know, but jest keep your ears open and your eyes open, and
somethin’s sure to turn up.”
“If you had a cow—” says I.
“What if I did?” says he.
“Why, you could sell her.”
“I could sell an elephant if I had one, I expect, but I hain’t got no
elephants, nor no zebras, nor no ornithorincuses. Know somebody wants to
buy a cow?”
“Mr. Gackins next door to Gage’s was sayin’ to Dad the other night that
he was lookin’ out for a Jersey.”
“Um!... Jersey, eh? S’pose he meant it?”
“Know he did,” says I. “His last cow took sick and died, and he needs
another.”
“Let’s go see him,” says Catty.
So we walked up toward Gackins’s, and Mr. Gackins was digging in the
garden.
“Mr. Gackins?” says Catty.
“What kin I do fur you, young man?” says Mr. Gackins.
“I hear tell you aim to buy a cow.”
“Calc’late to, if I kin git a good one.”
“Cash?”
“On the spot,” says Mr. Gackins. “Got a Jersey fer sale?”
“Expect to have. How high d’you aim to go fer sich a cow?”
“Depends on the cow,” says Mr. Gackins. “Pervidin’ she was a
good-dispositioned critter that wasn’t give to kickin’ over the
milk-pail and stickin’ her hoof in the milk, and pervidin’ she give a
generous pailful, why, I might go as high as thirty or maybe thirty-five
dollars.”
“Um!... Goin’ to be home all mornin’?”
“Yes.”
“Figger I kin fetch around jest the cow you want. Won’t be more ’n an
hour or two.”
“I’ll be waitin’ fer you, but mind she’s sweet-tempered. I got to milk
her myself, and I hain’t hankerin’ to git kicked over the fence, nor yet
hooked in the stummick. Always name my cows Jane. Git me one by the name
of Jane, if you kin.”
“Her name ’ll be Jane,” says Catty, as serious as a judge.
We hustled off, and then Catty says to me, “Who owns a good Jersey cow?”
“Hiram Winklereid, out a half a mile, keeps quite a herd.”
“That’s where we’re headin’,” says Catty. We mogged along the road till
we came to Winklereid’s and went back into the big barn. Mr. Winklereid
was walking around, looking at his cattle, and Catty went up to him as
big as life and more than three times as natural.
“Mr. Winklereid,” says he, “I got a man that wants to buy him a
good-natured Jersey cow by the name of Jane, that gives a pailful of
milk. Got sich a cow fer sale?”
“All but the name of Jane,” says Mr. Winklereid, with a grin. He was a
great big man, and about as pleasant as any farmer in that part of the
state. Everybody liked him on account of him always grinning and joking
with folks, and it was said of him that he treated the animals on his
place better than most men treated their families.
“If you got the cow,” says Catty, and he grinned, too, “I guess I kin
tend to christenin’ her Jane.”
“Shouldn’t be s’prised a mite,” says Mr. Winklereid. “Who be you,
anyhow?”
I introduced them and Mr. Winklereid looked at Catty kind of sharp and
says, “How come you in this deal?”
“To make money,” says Catty. “I needed some money for a purpose I got in
mind, and when I heard of a man that wanted a cow I figgered I’d buy him
one and turn it over at a profit.”
“Um!... You got gumption, young feller. Prepared to pay cash, be you?”
“The man I’m a-sellin’ to, he’ll pay cash.”
“How much?”
“Don’t seem like I ought to tell you that. What I aim to do is to buy
this cow off of you as cheap as I can and sell it to him as high as I
can. If you knew what he’d pay me, why, you’d charge me more.”
“Maybe so. Can’t tell. But you got business idees all right. Now here,
young feller, is a cow I’ll guarantee to be kind and gentle, and capable
of fillin’ the pail every evenin’ with the sweetest milk in this
section. She’s young and willin’, and I’ll sell her to you for
thirty-five dollars.”
“Too high,” says Catty. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you
thirty-two, even. I’ll drive her into town and sell her and fetch back
the money in no time.”
“How do I know you won’t run off with the money?” says Mr. Winklereid,
but his eyes was kind of twinkling.
Catty looked at him a minute like he was going to get mad, and then he
says, “You know by the looks of me,” says he. Just like that.
Mr. Winklereid laughed. “By Jing!” says he, “that was a mighty good
answer. You git the cow, Sonny. Wait a minute till I put a leadin’-rope
on her. Good luck to you. Any time you got business dealin’s of this
here kind jest drop in to see me.”
“Thankee,” says Catty, and in a couple of minutes more we were driving
the cow down the road toward Mr. Gackins’s house.
As we turned in his driveway Catty began talking to the cow. “Careful
now, Jane,” says he. “Watch where you’re steppin’. You’re comin’ to your
home now, and I hope you’re goin’ to enjoy it. There never was a better
or pleasanter-natured cow than you and the way you give milk is a
caution. I hate to part with you, but Mr. Gackins here needs a
first-class cow and I want to find a home for you....” Then he pretended
to notice Mr. Gackins, and says: “Here she is, sir.... Jane, here’s your
new owner, Mr. Gackins. Come over and leave him pat your head.”
Mr. Gackins came over and looked at Jane and talked to her and patted
her head.
“Guaranteed,” says Catty. He told how much milk she gave and all that as
he had learned it from Mr. Winklereid.
“I like her looks. How much?” says Mr. Gackins.
“Thirty-nine dollars,” says Catty. “She’s about the finest Jersey in
this neck of the woods.”
“Too high. Couldn’t pay a cent more ’n thirty-five.”
“Too bad.... Well, guess we’ll have to drive you home, Jane. G’-by, Mr.
Gackins. Hope you git as good a cow somewheres else, but I doubt it.”
[Illustration: As we came up the marshal said to Mr. Atkins: “You won’t
leave town, eh? Wa-al, we’ll see about that”]
“Hey, hold on there! What’s the hurry? I’ll go thirty-six.”
“Move along there, Jane,” says Catty. “Make it thirty-seven,” says Mr.
Gackins.
“Take you,” says Catty, passing over the leading-rope. “Cash.”
Mr. Gackins counted out thirty-seven dollars and Catty thanked him and
back we hiked to Winklereid’s and paid him his thirty-two.
“There,” says Catty to me, “I needed three dollars and I made five.
Wasn’t very hard, either, was it? Now we’ll go buy them painter’s
clothes.”
We bought the clothes and went to the bayou where Mr. Atkins was talking
to a man, and the man was the town marshal. As we came up the marshal
says: “You won’t leave town, eh? Wa-al, we’ll see about that. Here’s a
paper that says you got to come before the justice of the peace, and I
calc’late he kin tend to your case. You be there this evenin’ at
seven-thirty. And from there, Mister Man, you’ll take a trip to the
calaboose.”
The marshal hustled off as dignified as if he was the President of the
United States, and Catty went up to his Dad. “Here,” says he, “put on
these clothes. Painter’s clothes. Git right into ’em and hustle over to
Mr. Manning’s warehouse. I want you to git busy mixin’ paints and fixin’
things to start that job Monday mornin’.”
“Can’t do no paintin’ in the calaboose,” says Mr. Atkins.
“Never mind the calaboose,” says Catty. “You git on them clothes and go
ahead. I guess we kin tend to the calaboose when we git to it.”
I says to myself that maybe he could and maybe he couldn’t, but all the
same, when it comes to monkeying with the law and town marshals and
justices of the peace, I didn’t want any of it on my plate. But I was
interested to see how it was comin’ out and how Catty was calculating to
handle it.