The folks in our town were going to have an Old Home Day, when everybody
that used to live there and had moved away were coming home. There was
going to be a celebration, with speeches and a band and decorations, but
the only part of it I saw any sense to was that there was going to be
lots to eat, and most of it free. That was something like. I don’t mind
a band playing. I sort of like it if there’s a good snare-drum, but I
can’t abide speeches. Speeches always get a fellow into trouble and the
police hadn’t ought to allow them, on that account. Speeches have got me
into more trouble than ’most anything else. You see, you set and a man
talks and talks and talks about something nobody cares a rap about, and
pretty soon you get to itching and your shoes hurt and something crawls
down your back—and you jest naturally have to _do_ something. Then you
up and do it, and your father takes you out to the woodshed and _he_
does something. I remember the last speech I was at I went with a garter
snake. He was a pet I was raising to go into the circus business with
and he had got real tame and friendly. Well, after about half an hour of
listening to that man tell about something I don’t believe he understood
very clear himself, I got to itching like I said, and before I knew it I
jest took little Joseph—Joseph was my snake’s name—and tossed him ahead
a couple of rows into Mrs. Whidden’s lap—what there was of her lap.
Joseph was as quiet and well behaved a little snake as I ever owned, but
I don’t suppose Mrs. Whidden knew that, for she let out a squawk and
passed Joseph on awful quick to old maid Martin, and _she_ squawked and
passed Joseph on to Jim Splint that has the St. Vitus dance, and he like
to have flew apart, and passed Joe on to a woman I didn’t know, and she
stood up and clawed the air and passed Joseph on four or five rows to
the minister’s wife, and _she_ give him a scream and a toss, and so on,
till almost everybody in the audience had took a turn at having Joseph.
Yes, sir, almost everybody, and they all would, every one, if Mrs.
Snow’s aim hadn’t been bad and she tossed him right into the speaker’s
ice-water pitcher. After that there wasn’t much speaking. I heard Pazzy
Bills say the snake got to the wrong kind of a speech, that he ought to
have showed up at a temperance lecture.
Anyhow, that’s what I think of speeches. Dad licked me that time, but it
wasn’t near as hard as he could, and I heard him sort of snickering to
himself even while he was laying it on. I pretended to holler so as to
satisfy him, because it hain’t right for your father to have to take the
trouble to lick you if he don’t git results. They like to hear a holler
and I expect they’re entitled to it. So I give Dad a good one.... But
that hain’t got anything to do with the Old Home celebration.
It was on this day that Catty and me fixed things up for Banty and
Skoodles. Banty and Skoodles was going to play a duet on the piano, as
part of the celebration, so you kin see what kind of a celebration it
was. Banty and Skoodles took lessons on the piano and had to practise an
hour every day. They pertended to like it. I wouldn’t mind taking
lessons on a snare-drum or a bugle, but a feller needs more fingers than
a centipede’s got legs to play on a piano, and when you got it learned
you hain’t got nothin’ to speak of when it comes to _noise_. No, sir,
when I pick out an instrument to play jest gimme one that folks kin
_hear_.
Well, Banty and Skoodles were to play that duet at half past four in the
afternoon, and they was plumb scairt about it, so to sort of git
themselves into the humor to make a exhibition of themselves, they took
and sneaked off to the swimming-hole down at the bend. As soon as Catty
and me saw them head that way we knew where they was going, and I says
to Catty: “They got all their best clothes on. Let’s sneak down and
chaw-beef ’em.”
Catty thought a minute and then he says he’s got a better idea than
that. So we sneaked down to my house and went up in the attic and
rummidged around till we found two of the dog-gonedest outfits of
women’s clothes you ever seen. They was sich clothes as a respectable
person wouldn’t have wore to put out a fire in a slaughter-house. One
was a red-flannel underskirt that used to belong to a cook we had, and
another was some pantalets like girls used to wear about a hunderd years
ago, and the other things was to match.
So we put off to the swimming-hole and there was Banty and Skoodles in
all alone, a-splashing and enjoying themselves to beat the band.
Catty says in a whisper, “Enjoy yourselves, fellers, for there’s a hour
of trouble approachin’.” And we swiped every last pair of pants and coat
and shirt and shoe they had and made off with them, leaving right on the
spot them ridiculous clothes we got out of the attic. When Banty and
Skoodles come out they would have their choice between wearing what they
found and not wearing any at all.... And we knew they’d stay in till the
last minute and then set on a log to let their hair dry before they
bothered about their clothes. That would mean it would be time for them
to play their duet when they come out.
Banty and Skoodles didn’t _want_ to play that duet. I’ll give them
credit for that. But they had to. I heard Mrs. Gage tell Banty she would
’most skin him alive if anything happened so he didn’t show up to play,
and she was the kind to keep her word. So Catty and me figured that
Banty and Skoodles would go and play no matter what clothes they had,
because they wouldn’t dast do anything else—and they wouldn’t have time
to change.
We hid their clothes good and safe and then sneaked back and hid where
we could watch and hear. After quite a while they came out of the water
and sat down to dry off, and they talked some about the duet and how
they hated to play it, and how they had to do it or get the worst
licking in the world, and we ’most laughed out loud. Then they were
pretty well dried and went for their clothes. Skoodles got there first
and he looks at the pile and says, “Where’d we leave our clothes,
Banty?”
“Right on that log,” says Banty.
“But they ain’t here.”
“They got to be.”
“They ain’t. You kin look. There ain’t nothin here but a lot of old
women’s rags.”
“We left ’em somewheres.”
“I know that,” says Skoodles, “but I thought it was right here.”
So they looked all around, getting worrieder and worrieder all the time,
and at last it sort of come to them that somebody had swiped their duds
and left what was there in their place. Then you could have heard them
holler to Jericho.
“What ’ll we do?” says Banty.
“What kin we do?” says Skoodles.
“We got to get to the celebration tent.”
“You sneak home and git us some clothes.”
“You do it.”
But neither of them would and time was passing, and then they sat down
and didn’t say anything for a spell, until Banty says there wasn’t
anything to do but put on the rags, because they’d get arrested for
going through town if they didn’t. So they picked up the clothes we’d
fixed for them, and that started a rumpus because both of them would
rather wear the red-flannel skirt than the pantalets. They ’most had a
fight over it, but they decided to draw straws, and Skoodles lost. Then
they got to dressing, and I had to hold my hand over Catty’s face and he
had to stuff his fist into my mouth to keep ourselves from laughing out
loud. You never saw sich looking critters in all your born life. They
looked like as if they had escaped from a lunatic asylum while the
keeper was having delirium tremens, or something like that, and when
they saw each other I thought they was going to set down and cry.
“We can’t go through town lookin’ like this,” says Banty.
“We got to,” says Skoodles.
“Oh, my goodness!” says Banty, “the duet! We got to play the duet!”
“Like this?”
“We’ll be late now. We got to. I dassent _not_ play it. Ma would fix me,
and your Ma would fix you. It ’ll be worse not to show up than it will
be to go like this.”
“I won’t.”
“We got to.”
So they argued about it some more, and both of them was sniveling some,
but the upshot of it was that they started out pretty slow and taking
back streets when they could. But the town was crowded with folks and
strangers, and before they was half-way to the tent in the square they
had about forty kids tagging after them, hollering and yelling, and when
they went into the tent the whole audience turned to look, and then let
out a holler of laughing. They started right up the center aisle. I
guess they was so flabbergasted by that time that they didn’t know what
they was doing.... And then Mrs. Gage and Mrs. Gordon caught on to who
it was that was making the disturbance, and both of them women busted
out of their seats with fire in their eyes and swooped down on Banty and
Skoodles like a couple of excited cyclones, and each of them grabbed a
kid by the ear and jest naturally lifted him up in the air and _carried_
him out. I took particular notice of their ears after that—Banty’s and
Skoodles’s—and the ones their mothers grabbed that day was all of half
an inch longer than the others forever after....
Catty and me was suspicioned about that, I guess, but nobody had any
regular evidence, and my father didn’t ask any questions. That was like
Dad. He didn’t want to have to lick me for that, because he knew what
Banty and Skoodles had been doing to Catty, but if he _knew_ we did it,
why, he’d have to. Fathers are like that. They _have_ to lick you
whether they want to or not—if you really get caught at something, but
they can know you did it, and sort of approve and hope you won’t get
caught. We didn’t, and we wouldn’t have cared a lot, anyhow. I’d have
been willing to take a licking any day to do it again.
Skoodles and Banty knew who did it, all right, but they didn’t have
anything to say, either, and they didn’t show up much in public for a
long time, because every time they did every kid in town would tag after
them and ask them questions about those clothes and say things they
thought was funny. It taught them a good lesson, that it wasn’t safe to
monkey with Catty—and the rest of the kids in town got the same idea. I
never heard a kid say “Tramp” to Catty after that, and some of the kids,
whose folks weren’t too particular, even offered to play with us. But we
wouldn’t have anything to do with any of them.
“Jest wait,” says Catty. “The time’s comin’ when Dad and me ’ll be as
good as any of ’em. Then we’ll see. I’ll pick who I want to go around
with, you can bet.”
“You hain’t goin’ to be one of them ’risto-crats, be you?”
“No,” says he, “I sha’n’t be stuck up, but I’ll be self-respectin’. You
wait till Dad goes to church in a silk hat.”
“He won’t—never,” says I. “He’ll run away first.”
“You jest watch,” says he. “Dad’s improvin’ every day.”
And that was true. Honest, you wouldn’t have known Mr. Atkins was the
same man I saw first sitting on a log down by the bayou. He was neat
looking and kept his hair and beard trimmed, and there was a different
look in his face, and even his walk was different. He used to sort of
slouch along, but now he had a sort of a snap to his step, and if you
didn’t know him you would think he was a regular, respectable man of
business instead of a tramp that wasn’t more than half reformed.
He talked different, too, and sometimes when he was talking business to
somebody he talked in a way that made you sit right up and take notice.
Dad said the man he used to be was coming to life, and that that
original man must have been a pretty good one. Mr. Atkins and Dad got to
be real good friends, and Mr. Atkins even came to dinner to our house
once. It was hard to persuade him at first, but Dad managed it, and
Mother said afterward that she didn’t see why folks objected to Mr.
Atkins, because his table manners was as good as almost anybody’s in
town.
I told her if she could hear Catty always nagging at the poor old feller
about how to eat, and such things, she wouldn’t be surprised a bit.
Once, too, I heard Captain Winton say to Mr. Gage that that man Atkins
was a good, sound, sensible business man, and that meant considerable in
our town, I can tell you.
But, for all that, most of the folks felt just like they did at first,
and there was lots of talk, and it was said that if Catty tried to go to
school in the fall with the rest of the children that there was going to
be genuine trouble. I told Catty this, but he just set his mouth like a
pair of pinchers, and his eyes got like steel, and he says: “Dad and me
are here to stay. They can’t drive us out. Maybe we hain’t as good as
the rest of them yet, but we’re studyin’ and a-learnin’—and we’re makin’
money, too. I’ll bet Jack Phillips and Dad and me is makin’ ’most as
much money as any firm in town. One of these days we’re a-goin’ to have
a lot—and then we’ll see.”
“I’m afraid folks won’t forget you come in as tramps,” says I.
“I don’t want ’em to,” says he. “It’s more to be proud of. When we git
up in the world I want everybody to know that we started as tramps and
worked up ourselves with nobody to help us—that is, nobody but you,
Wee-wee.”
“Me?” says I, for I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Yes, you. You helped more ’n anybody can ever tell,” says he, “just by
stickin’ by me and bein’ my friend. That’s about the biggest help
anybody kin give to anybody else.”
“Huh!” says I. “You’re crazy. I stuck with you jest because I liked
you.”
“Yes,” says he, “but it wasn’t everybody that had the backbone to like a
couple of tramps that everybody else was against.”
“Fiddlesticks!” says I, for it didn’t look to me like there was any
sense to what he was saying. I liked him at first and I kept on liking
him, that was all, and I didn’t give a tinker’s hoot who else liked him
or hated him.
“Wee-wee,” says he, “I wisht I could go to dancin’-school.”
“Why?” says I.
“I read in a book that you can learn how to carry yourself, and how to
be mannerly and not clumsy better in a dancin’-school than anywhere
else.”
“If that’s so,” says I, “I calc’late on goin’ clumsy most of my life.
Kin you see me dancin’?” says I. “I’d look perty, wouldn’t I?
Dancin’!... Whoo!”
“I’d do anythin’,” says he, in that set voice of his, “to make me and
Dad more presentable.”
And I guess he would, too.