I don’t know whether I told what a great whittler Mr. Atkins was, and
how, every spare minute, he was making some kind of a contraption with
his jack-knife and maybe a piece of wire or something. He didn’t just
whittle out chains, or balls in cages, and things like that, but he
always made _something_. I mean something that was like something folks
could use. He kind of invented things that way. If he saw something
somewhere that didn’t just work to suit him, he would go home and
whittle one out and fix it up so it _would_ work. I remember one thing
was a folding-table—like a card-table or a sewing-table. He bought one
for the shop, and pinched his fingers in it. It made him mad.
“By Jing!” he said. “I’m a-goin’ to whittle me out one that ’ll be a
heap sight better ’n that. I’ll do it jest to show it kin be done.” That
was his notion. He’d whittle out things just to prove to himself that he
could improve ’em, or make ’em work, and that was all there was to it.
When he had them done he would mostly throw them away or give them to
Catty and me. He fixed up a game for us one rainy day. Made it out of
wood and some old fish-net, and sawed round disks out of a broom-handle
to play it with. I never saw anything like it, but it was a dandy game.
He was just amusing himself and not trying to invent anything at all,
and none of us thought much about it, except that we knew he certainly
could whittle. That little folding-table he made was a dandy. The legs
folded under, and when you set it up it stood as solid as a rock. I said
right off that I bet a lot of folks would like to have tables like that,
and Mr. Atkins he said he didn’t know how they was to git ’em, because
that was the only one there was and nobody but him knew how to make it.
He wasn’t a bit interested, and I didn’t see any special reason why he
should be—then.
It was the day he whittled the little table that Jack Phillips fell off
a load of brick and sprained his ankle bad and had to stay in bed with
it. It was a bad time, because the houses were just getting started, and
laborers were on the job—and right on top of that a big lumber firm
wrote that they couldn’t get a shipment of lumber through for three
weeks, on account of a strike or something.
Jack was ’most crazy. He said those houses ought to be pretty nearly
finished in three weeks, and if that lumber didn’t come it would mean a
big loss. “It ’ll pretty nearly bust us,” he said, and groaned like his
ankle hurt him. “I ought to go right down to the city to see about it,
but here I am laid up so I can’t wiggle.”
“I hain’t laid up to speak of,” says Catty, as sober as a judge.
“Calc’late I’d go if I was asked.”
“Somebody’s got to,” says Jack.
“Dad can’t. He’s got to stay on the work. It ’ll have to be me.”
“Think you can manage it?” Jack said, pretty anxious and doubtful.
“Looks like I _got_ to,” says Catty, “and when you got to do a thing you
’most gen’ally do it.”
So that’s how it came that Catty and I went to the city. It was only a
couple of hours’ ride and my father let me go when Catty asked him if I
couldn’t. We took an early-morning train and got to the city before nine
o’clock. We went right to the office of the lumber company, but the man
that was at the head of it wasn’t there yet. He came in in a few
minutes, and went right to his office. Catty asked to see him, and told
the clerk he was from Atkins & Phillips. We were let in, and Mr.
Heminway looked us over and says, “What d’ you want?” Short and
sharplike he was.
“Lumber,” says Catty, as sober as he always is when he gets down to
business.
“Lots of folks do. What do you want it for? To build a dog-house?”
“I want to build a dozen cottages,” says Catty, “and, Mr. Heminway, I
got to have it. I jest _got_ to.”
“Oh, you’re from Atkins & Phillips? Of course. I remember. We wrote that
we couldn’t make delivery for three weeks.”
“In three weeks we won’t need it,” says Catty.
“Why?”
“We’ll be busted.”
“That’s too bad, young man, but we’re doing the best we can. We’ll fix
you up as soon as we can, but you’ll have to wait your turn, just like
the rest.”
“But we can’t wait. I jest can’t go back and tell Dad and Jack that I
couldn’t git that lumber.... It hain’t so much on account of losin’ the
money, but it ’ll be sich a setback to our becomin’ respectable.”
“Eh? What’s that? Respectable? What d’you mean?”
“Catty’s dead set on his father and him bein’ respectable,” says I.
“Seems like he’s almost crazy on the subject.”
“What’s the idea, young man?” says Mr. Heminway, turning to Catty, and
Catty set in to tell how he and his father came to our town just tramps,
and how Mrs. Gage had said he was a vagabond and how he had made up his
mind to settle there and show folks he was as good as anybody and make
them admit it; and how he was leaning manners and teaching them to his
father; and how folks tried to chase them out of town; and all about the
business and Jim Bockers and the contract and everything except Mr.
Kinderhook. Catty never mentioned Kinderhook once.
“I never heard the like,” says Mr. Heminway, looking kind of queer at
Catty; “and do you think you can do what you’ve set out to do?”
“I figger it’s ’most done,” says Catty. “All we got to do is to make
money now to _look_ respectable. Dad’s learnin’ to work ag’in, and his
manners is improvin’. You ought to ketch sight of him in his Sunday
clothes. Why, I got him lookin’ respectabler ’n a judge or a deacon.”
“You seem to have a pretty good head for business, Atkins,” says Mr.
Heminway. “There’s always a way to get what you want in business, and
you want this lumber bad. I can’t give it to you, but maybe you can find
a way to get it—to make me give it to you. I wish I could help you, but
I try to do business the same way you are trying to do it—by giving
everybody a square deal. It wouldn’t be right for me to show you favors,
nor to put you ahead of somebody whose order came in first, would it?”
“No, sir,” says Catty.
“Well, then?”
“Lemme think.” Catty went over by the window and thought and thought. As
far as I was concerned I figured he might as well be thinking about what
a nice day it was, for all the good it would do, but I didn’t say
anything. I just waited and watched him. His thin face looked a lot
thinner, and you could see the corners of his jaws and his lips were as
straight as if you had drawn them with a ruler. Every once in a while he
bit his under-lip and sort of scowled.
“It wouldn’t be right to offer you more money, ’cause that would be jest
like bribin’,” says he.
“That’s right,” says Mr. Heminway. “Would it be all right for you to
tell me the names of some of the folks that come ahead of us?” Catty
says.
“Not in the least,” says Mr. Heminway, and he gave Catty four or five
names and addresses.
“Any of these orderin’ the same kind of lumber we be? Dimension stuff
and spruce and floorin’ and sich?”
“Brown & Bolger have an order very like yours, but larger. Two or three
car-loads larger.”
“Uh-huh. In town here, hain’t they?”
“Yes.”
“When be you goin’ to deliver to them?”
“We’re starting deliveries to-day.”
“Look here, Mr. Heminway. Will you order in cars to put that lumber on
for me? I’m goin’ to have it. Will you git ready to load it right off?
I’ll pay whatever extry expense there is, or, if I can’t git this
lumber, I’ll pay whatever your trouble costs.”
“I’ll do it,” says Mr. Heminway, and his eyes kind of got bright, like
he was interested.
“Come on,” says Catty to me. “We’re goin’ to Brown & Bolger’s.”
We got on a street-car and got to the place we were headed for in about
twenty minutes. Brown & Bolger’s office was in a little square wooden
house built on the corner of a subdivision, and we walked in. Mr. Bolger
was there. He was a red man. His hair was red and his face was red and
his hands was red, and he had a voice that sounded like he wanted to
scare anybody to death even when he was whispering.
He was talking to a couple of men and all three of them were mad.
“We won’t do it, and that’s flat,” says he. “You can all take your tools
and go home. We’re paying as high wages to our carpenters as anybody in
the country, and we can’t raise another cent. That’s final. We can live
without building these houses, and if I didn’t have all that lumber
coming to-day, to be paid for within thirty days, I wouldn’t even talk
to you. But you think you got us by the short hairs.... I’ll show you.
With the costs of building now, there ain’t any money in it, anyhow.
That lumber will keep. It won’t spoil.”
The two men turned around and walked out, and Mr. Bolger says to a young
man at another desk: “Pretty kettle of fish. I wouldn’t give a hang if
it wasn’t for that lumber. But it’s got to be paid for in thirty days,
and we can’t borrow on buildings until they’re pretty well along. It’s
going to pinch us like the mischief.”
Catty got up and walked over to Mr. Bolger and Mr. Bolger bawled at him,
“Well, what do you want around here?”
“I come to take that lumber off of your hands,” says Catty. “Not that we
want all of it, but jest to help you out we’ll take the whole mess—at a
price.”
“What lumber? What you talkin’ about?”
“The lumber from Mr. Heminway. We kin use some of it, and the rest ’ll
keep. Cash. Or we’ll settle with Heminway, jest as you say.”
“Who are you?” bawled Mr. Bolger.
“I’m representin’ Atkins & Phillips, and I got authority to make a
deal,” says Catty. “I jest happened to hear what you said about that
lumber, and I figgered it wa’n’t nothin’ more ’n decent to offer to help
you out—as long as we could use the stuff.”
“You did, did you? I’d like to know how a kid like you can use lumber
enough to build twenty houses.”
“Oh, we’re building houses right along, and we can store what we don’t
use right off ... if the price is right. You’ll have to borrow money to
pay for that stuff, and it ’ll cost you six per cent, to do that. Won’t
it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ll take it off your hands at five per cent, less ’n you paid
or promised to pay. You’ll be savin’ one per cent, that way.”
“Huh!”
“When did you order this here lumber?”
“March.”
“Um!...” Catty’s eyes kind of twinkled. “If you don’t believe I’m
responsible, telephone Mr. Heminway.”
“I’ll just do that thing,” yelled Mr. Bolger. And he did.
“Say,” he bellowed into the telephone when he got his connection,
“there’s a kid out here wants lumber. Says you know him. What’s it all
about? Some kind of a joke?”
Mr. Heminway said something we couldn’t hear.
“He’s all right, eh? His firm’s good?”
Mr. Heminway said yes, I guess, for Mr. Bolger hung up the receiver and
turned around to us. “It’s a deal,” says he. “You take the invoices and
pay ’em to Heminway less five per cent., and I’ll give you a check for
that. Suit you?”
“Yes. Glad to have a chance to help you out, Mr. Bolger. Will you write
a letter to Mr. Heminway, telling him about the deal and puttin’ in the
price you agreed to pay him, and all about it?”
Mr. Bolger turned around and dictated a letter, reading off the
specifications of the lumber and his March contract price, and when it
was done he wrote a check for five per cent, of the amount and gave it
to Catty. “Much obliged, young man,” says he. “You sure helped me out of
a hole, and any time Brown & Bolger can do anything for you just chirp.
Thankee again.”
“You’re welcome,” says Catty, with a kind of a ghost of a grin, and we
went out and got on the street-car again to go back to Mr. Heminway’s
office. Catty was wiggling, he was so tickled, and I says, “You act like
you was goin’ to bust.”
“I be,” said he. “I calc’late I’ll bust before I git there. We’ve made
some money.”
“How?” says I.
Catty grinned. “Why,” says he, “Brown & Bolger bought this lumber on
contract last March when the prices was about three dollars a thousand
lower ’n they be now. Three dollars a thousand lower ’n we agreed to pay
for our stuff when we ordered it. We git all we need for them houses of
ours, and enough to build a lot more. We’ll make nice money out of it.”
We hustled up to Mr. Heminway, who was waiting for us, and showed him
the letter. He grinned at Catty. “Good stroke of business, eh? Saved
some money.”
“I figger so,” says Catty.
“How’d you work it? Brown & Bolger have been pestering me for that
lumber for thirty days. How did you get it away from them?”
“Luck,” says Catty, and he told the story. “Maybe it was luck,” says Mr.
Heminway, “but there was business sense added to it—and all the time you
made Bolger think you were doing him a favor! It’s too good to keep. And
gouged him for an extra five per cent., too.... Young man, if ever you
want a job, come to me.”
“I calc’late to own my own business,” says Catty. “It’s more
respectable.”
“You’ll own it, all right. And you go back and tell Atkins & Phillips
that as long as you’re connected with their firm they can get whatever
they want from this concern. You’re a business man and you’ve got luck.
I like to tie to people with luck.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Heminway. Have you ordered those cars in?”
“The first is being loaded now. All of them will go out before to-morrow
night.”
“I’m sure a heap obliged to you,” says Catty. “Now I got some more
business, and I got to be gettin’ along. G’-by, sir.”
“Good-by, young man, and come to see me whenever you come to the city.
Good luck.... I hope you get as respectable as you want to be.”
“I figger to,” says Catty, as we went out of the door.
“Now what?” says I.
“Oh, we’ll git us some dinner and then I want to see about somethin’
else. I got an idee. Hain’t sure it amounts to anythin’, but you can’t
tell. I got to make sure.”
“What is it?” says I.
“You’ll see,” says he, which was the way he always did. He kept things
to himself till he was ready to tell, and sometimes he didn’t tell them.
It seemed like he hated to give up any information.
We went to a restaurant and ate till we ’most busted, and afterward we
had two ice-creams apiece and a bag of peanuts and went to a
picture-show. By that time it was two o’clock, and Catty walked me down
the street quite a ways, looking in windows and planning what we would
buy if we had lots of money. He was interested in clothes, and stopped
quite a while in front of a big clothing-store where boys’ suits was
fixed up on wax figures.
“I got to dress up some,” says he, “as well as Dad. I been puttin’ away
a little money to git me some clothes—real respectable clothes, and as
soon as we’re through our business I’m a-goin’ in and git me a suit and
some shirts and shoes that ’ll knock the eyes right out of the folks
back home. Wait till you see me.”