Clarence Budington Kelland

“ Respectable means worthy of being respected, and to be that you have to act in just one way. It only takes a few words to tell you what that is; it is always to give the other fellow a fair deal. Just be fair, that’s all. If you’re always fair you can’t help being respected.”
“Uh-huh!” says Catty. “Much ’bleeged to you, Mr. Moore. Guess I’ll be moseyin’ along. Got a lot of things to do.”
“Catty’s took a contract to paint Mr. Manning’s new warehouse,” says I, “and all he’s got to do is convince his Dad to go to work and then get the ladders and brushes and paints to do the job.” ”

“ There have been horse-races and foot-races and balloon-races and dog-races, but never to our knowledge has the earth seen a painting-race. It remained for our town to set the lead in this new realm of sport, and it remained for our new and valued citizens, Atkins & Son, painters and decorators and contractors, to bring this honor to us. ”

“ It’s too bad the school can’t make a fellow enjoy studying like we did. If the school would only give a fellow a definite object for studying everything I’d learn twice as much three times as easy.
But I guess we got to be about the greatest experts in the world on churns. We knew them inside and out and up and down and sideways and wideways. We got so we could take a section of a churn and cover up the name of it, and we could tell just what it was and what churn it came out of—as easy as pie. Catty was better at it than I was. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ We had to get what lawyers call evidence so that everybody would believe us when we told them that instead of making them rich Kinderhook figured to smouge away every dollar that was put into his churn-factory. But it is a heap different to know a thing and to be able to prove it. You bet it is.
After the fight we went to the hotel, and there was Mr. Kinderhook, as usual, sitting on the front porch with about a dozen folks around, admiring him and taffying him and acting like they thought he was the man that invented the sun and moon. ”

“ He wanted folks to love the earth and He made it beautiful so they would enjoy living on it. Now, manners are like that. You can get along without them. But the more of the right kind of manners you have the more people enjoy being with you. Manners, when you get right down to brass tacks, are nothing but actions agreed upon by people with good sense to make it easier and more pleasant to get along with one another.”
“Um!” says Catty, kind of thoughtful. “I git the idee. Never thought of that. Guess I’ll git me a set of manners.” ”

“ What’s your idea of being respectable, Catty?”
“Why, to work and git all tired out, and to eat with somethin’ besides a knife, and to wear good clothes. Then folks respects you. I dunno why.”
“I thought you could think, Catty,” says Dad.
“I calc’late to.”
“But you’re not thinking. When you think you have to dig down into things and not just look at the skin. You’re looking at the skin.”
“If I be,” says Catty, “I hain’t enjoyin’ the looks of it.”
“You’re all wrong. Work and clothes and manners aren’t respectability. They’re just signs of it. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Trouble is I don’t own no store.”
“How do folks git to own stores?”
“Mostly their folks leave stores to ’em when they die, or money to buy ’em with. Some saves up money and buys ’em.”
“We never have any money to save.”
“Never had much need for money.”
“Would you like to own a store, or have a stiddy job, and never have anybody sneer at you any more and call you a tramp?”
“Sonny,” says Mr. Atkins, “you don’t never need to worry about what folks thinks of you. What you want to worry about is what you think of yourself.”
“I’ve been doin’ that, Dad.” ”

“ Until he has dug his cellar the skilled mason or bricklayer can’t lay a brick. They’ve got to have the hole dug for their foundation, and so they’re dependent on him. The carpenter can’t drive a nail until the bricklayer has the foundation dug. The plasterer can’t plaster till the house is up; the plumber and the paperhanger and the painter are dependent on the others. See all that? Every man that works is helping some other man that works, and all of them are providing a house for somebody to live in and be comfortable.”
“I see,” says Catty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A good many folks said it marked Kinderhook as being real aristocratic, but Catty and I wouldn’t agree any with that; at least, not till we knew he had a servant with tight pants to dress him while he ate his porridge. And how a man was going to eat while another fellow was pulling his shirt over his head I couldn’t make out. Catty couldn’t, either. He said a man was as apt to get a mouthful of shirt in such circumstances as he was a mouthful of porridge. ”

“ That hain’t brains. When you’re in business you don’t want to let no chances slip. Nobody ever knows what minute there’s goin’ to be a chance to make money. I always find out what everybody wants that comes in, and if they don’t want anything, why, I try to make them want something.”
“Hear that, Jones?” says the man with the whiskers. “You might remember it, too. It’s a good rule.... Now, young man, I’m Mr. Sommers—the boss, as you call it. What can I do for you?”
“I want to show you something,” says Catty, “and ask you if you don’t think there’s money in it.” ”

“ 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? ”

“ I heard one man say it would double the population of our town and make everybody’s property worth double what it had been, and that if every one there didn’t get rich out of it, why, it would be their own fault.
Catty told me that all sounded good to him. If lots of folks moved there, then there would be houses to build and paint and paper, and so Atkins & Phillips would make a lot more money. He was always thinking about Atkins & Phillips and making money and getting so respectable folks would be afraid to set down to the table with him. ”

“ I looked at Catty and Catty looked at me. “If he guarantees to take any job for less than you’ll take it for, how do you calc’late ever to get a job?” says I.
“Maybe folks won’t b’lieve him,” says Catty.
“They’ll try, anyhow,” says I, “and if he’s tellin’ the truth, he’ll git the business.”
“Maybe so,” says Catty, but he didn’t seem as worried as I was. “Dad and me is doing business as cheap as it can be done. If this feller knocks off five per cent, off’n our prices, he’ll lose money every time he takes a job. He won’t last long at that.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the man that hires the others to build him a house is helping his town by increasing the amount of property in it. He helps the bank by borrowing money, maybe. He pays taxes to help run the country. He has provided labor for a lot of men—and he, in his turn has had to work somewhere to get the money to build the house. ”

“ Just let somebody get to be a great man all in a minute, or become prominent or rich or something, and the very things they’ve been objecting to in him before are the things they make a fuss over now. Folks is funny.
Catty and his father went up to Captain Winton’s to dinner, and I wished I was invited, too, but I wasn’t, so I just hung around town, waiting for Catty to come out. And it was then that I saw a man get off the evening train, and the man was Mr. Sommers, of the big furniture-store in the city. The one that had been all het up over Mr. Atkins’s folding-table. ”

“ Why, that isn’t my way of doing business, sir.”
“It’s mine—in some cases,” says Mr. Atkins. “One hunderd dollars—in advance. No hunderd—no sign.”
“Don’t you trust me—me? I tell you I am Arthur Peabody Kinderhook.”
“Heard you say so. Tell you how it is: ’Tain’t that I mistrust you exact—and ’tain’t that I trust you. I dunno nothin’ about you. If I was to build that sign and spend money for lumber and paint, and put a lot of work onto it, I might worry about whether I was a-goin’ to git paid—if I hadn’t got paid in advance. Worryin’ upsets my stummick and puts me off’n my meals. ”

“ Bockers ’ll help us some, even if he does hurt us some.”
“I never ’u’d ’a’ thought of that scheme in the world,” says I.
“’Twasn’t much to think of,” says Catty. And that was just like him. He never was stuck up about the things he did, and it never tickled him to do something especial clever. He was all for business and manners and being respectable. If he could get what he wanted easy, why, he took it easy. If he had to use a lot of brains, why, he just went to work and used them. It didn’t seem to make a mite of difference to him. ”