Catty

“ Not that Catty didnt have proper respect and enthusiasm for my fortunes. I had completed my notes for Chancellorsville to the End—that is, I had a mass of clues, guideposts, keys, ideas, and emphases which would serve as skeleton for a work which might take years to write—and Catty was the audience to whom I explained and expounded and used as a prototype of the reader I might reach. Volume one was roughly drafted, and we were to be married as soon as it was finished, shortly after my thirtieth and Catty’s twenty-fourth birthday. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Catty's faithfulness was unsurpassable. She had wanted to marry Blenkiron, the stonemason at Morfe, but first she wouldn't because of Mamma and then she wouldn't because of Miss Mary. When you told her to go back and marry him at once she would only laugh and say, "There's your husband, and there's your children. You're my child, Miss Mary. Master Roddy was Jenny's child and you was always mine." ”

“ Most likely the mutineers have taken possession of it by now, both the Porpoise and your big yacht.”
“Then,” says Catty, “the Albatross is our only hope.”
“If there is any hope,” says I.
“I’m beginning to get an idea,” says Catty, “but we’ll have to wait for dark.”
“I hope it’s a good one,” says Mr. Dunn.
“It will be,” says Catty, “if it works.”
“Is there any danger in it?” says I.
“Plenty,” says Catty, as satisfied as a cat with a dish of cream.
“Then,” says I, “you can get right to work thinking up another one. What I want is something nice and safe—and comfortable.” ”

“ As, from this part of our history, the hero will rise in importance, those who have hitherto stood forward, must proportionably draw back, to give him due place; especially Jack and Catty; the grand drama of whose lives has been closed by a matrimonial union; whence, henceforth, they must sink into inconsiderable personages.
In consequence of the squire’s liberality on the celebration of Catty’s wedding, and a general report prevailing that he was inclined towards the Welsh, a protector of their customs, a general good-will towards him was manifested by the country people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ See how the tree-tops are bendin'!—That's three times I heerd it now,” said Catty. “If ye live to be as old as me, you 'll not think light of a warnin'. You think your hearin' better because you're younger; but I tell you that there 's sounds that only reach ears that are goin' to where the voices came from. When eyes grow dim to sights of this world, they are strainin' to catch a glimpse of them that's beyond it.” Although no tears rose to her eyes, the withered face trembled in her agony, and her clasped hands shook in the suffering of her sorrow. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Atkins, very short and prompt.
“Why?”
“Because I hain’t got nothin’ to do in this world but look after Catty and kind of make him glad he’s alive. Folks ought to be glad they’re alive. I be. I don’t want Catty to grow up and think that I ever denied him anythin’ that I could give to him that wasn’t harmful. Yes, if Catty says stay, why, we stay.”
“And what do you say, Catty?”
“I don’t say nothin’ yet. I hain’t ready to say. I got to think about a lot of things, and make up my mind what we’d do if we was to stay, and if Dad could be happy stayin’ instead of movin’ around. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Catty stood a minute looking at the man, and then he kind of studied the sky and peered at the sand and waggled his head. “Pretty slick,” says he, and his voice was sort of admiring. “This man House isn’t anybody’s fool, is he. I like to see a man with brains, even if he is a pirate. Well, Mr. Guard, we’ll be getting along now, but you can get word to your boss that we’ll be back.” ”

“ Not even you, Catty, could fathom all the tears this theme has cost me, nor with what a sinking of the heart I have thought over my actual unfitness for my station.”
“Arrah, don't provoke me! don't drive me mad!” cried the old woman, in real anger. “There never was one yet as fit for the highest place as yourself; and it is n't me alone that says it, but hundreds of—”
“Hundreds of dear, kind, loving hearts,” broke in Mary, “that would measure my poor capacity by my will to serve them. But no matter, Catty ”

“ He wouldn’t neglect his regular business, and he wouldn’t let down on learning manners and then teaching his father what he had learned. At the rate Catty was going I figured out he would be the most respectable and the politest man in the world by the time he was old enough to vote. Most folks get manners sort of by accident. They just sop manners up, anyhow, as they go along, and never notice it, but Catty made a businessof it same as he’d make a business of learning to pull teeth or cut off legs like a doctor. ”

“ I asked Catty.
“Dunno, ’cause I dunno what I want it for.”
“Maybe my Dad ’u’d lend it to you,” says I.
“He won’t,” says Catty, emphatic.
“Why?”
“’Cause I won’t let him,” says he. “I’m goin’ to make it. Got to. Be more fun.”
“Fun!” says Mr. Atkins. “D’you call workin’ and makin’ money fun? Strange idee of fun. Fun’s somethin’ you laugh at and enjoy. Who ever heard of anybody laughin’ at work?”
“And we can’t live here,” says Catty.
“Why?” says Mr. Atkins.
“’Tain’t respectable. Houses without no winders into ’em hain’t respectable, and folks looks up to furniture and carpets.” ”

“ House and another man came along and turned flashlights on us. House kind of grunted.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” says the other man to Catty, but before Catty could answer, Mr. House spoke up and says, “They’re the two kids from the Albatross.... The ones we got the chart from.”
“So,” says the other man, whose name turned out to be Robbins. “That’s how it is, eh? What were you hiding out here for and spying on us?”
“We came out for a sail with a man that owned a cat. He charged us a dollar,” says Catty, “and then went off and left us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was dark except where the street lights showed and nobody was on the street to see the circus. I gained on Mr. House, and he gained some on Catty. Catty isn’t as good a runner as he ought to be. Running is my strong point. When a fellow gets scared of as many things as I do, he naturally learns to use his legs. ”

“ Catty screamed, and both jumped up mutually terrified, as sudden fear had p. 31magnified the little animal to the proportions of an enormous brute of an enraged bull, whose uninvited visit and uncalled for appearance at their dinner table, portending nothing less than death. When Twm and Watt’s laughter at length undeceived them, the spoon merchant, who had been so liberally assisted with spoon and meat, found to his dismay, that with his heart Catty had carried away the skirt of his coat, by the sudden jerk of rising from their seats ”

“ Catty, with a bitter conscience, now found that p. 125her son had a step-father, and she a husband, who was a rude and churlish tyrant. To give him his due, Jack was far from being regardless of her sorrow, but showed the tenderness of a husband in comforting her, in a manner most natural to himself. “What signifies crying for such an imp of a devil as that?” said this kind step-father: “if he starves in the field by being out to-night, it will save him from dying at the gallows, where he would be sure to come some day or other.” ”

“ The mother of Twm became the pink and paragon of schoolmistresses. ’Tis true, the noise and uproar of her school was so great, that the pigs were frightened from their trough, and the curate’s wife, who rode an ill-tamed horse, was thrown headlong into the well, when passing the academy, from the animal taking fright; but that was no fault of Catty’s; people should break in their horses properly, and curates’ wives should learn to ride and keep their seats better. ”

“ Anything."
"Would you, Mary? Would you have the courage?"
"It would take infinitely more courage to marry you. We should be risking more. All the beautiful things. If it wasn't for Mamma.... But there is Mamma. So—you see."
She thought: "He hasn't kissed me. He hasn't held me in his arms.
He'll be all right. It won't hurt him."
V. That was Catty's white apron.
Catty stood on the cobbled square by the front door, looking for her. ”

“ Atkins got so he was afraid to move at the table till Catty explained to him how it ought to be done. Once in a while he complained.
“Catty,” says he, as doleful as a funeral, “you’re a-goin’ to starve your Dad to death. With all these manners I’m plumb losin’ my appetite. I’m scared. Every time I take a bite I’m all excited for fear I hain’t bit it according to the way the first families do their bitin’.”
“Stick to it, Dad,” says Catty. “I’m learnin’, too. After a while it ’ll git to be a habit to eat right, and you won’t notice it. It ’ll come natural.” ”

“ But every time Catty saw his father make a move he was right at his heels.
“You can be shiftless evenin’s, Dad,” he said, “but daytimes you got to be a business man. It’s jest startin’ in that’s hard. First you know you’ll get int’rested, and then nobody could drive you off.”
“Don’t want to git int’rested,” said Mr. Atkins, sorry-like. “What I want is what we always done—jest nothin’ in special.”
“You ought to like it,” says Catty, “and so you got to like it. Take you and me as we be, and we hain’t worth a basket of shucks. We don’t amount to nothin’. ”

“ Catty’s mouth shut tight a minute and his eyes got bright.
“We’ll stick or bust,” says he. “We’re respectable. We hain’t shiftless any more, leastways most of the time we hain’t. Dad has his shiftless days, but they’re gettin’ fewer and fewer, and I keep my eye on him sharp. Pretty soon he’ll be respectable all the way through. We calc’late to give everybody a square deal, and if we kin jest keep on gittin’ work until everybody sees we hain’t tramps, but respectable folks, I don’t see but what we’ll git where I want to git.” ”

“ Atkins, “that if a feller had a boil long enough he might git sort of fond of it, but a boil hain’t my idee of a pet. You kin get used to havin’ one leg, and you can git used to a corn, but I dunno anybody that wants to. Work is right in the class with them. It’s painful, that’s what it is.”
“It’s got to be done,” says Catty. “You and me has got to make a lot of money, and were a-goin’ to. The time’s a-comin’, Dad, when you and me is goin’ to own a house and keep a hired girl and invite folks in to dinner. You wait. I got it all figgered out jest what we’re a-goin’ to do.... ”

“ He turned around to me and grinned and says: “Figgered it would come out right.... Looks like we was movin’ along toward bein’ respectable. What become of Mrs. Gage?”
“She left early,” says I.
“Calc’lated she would,” says Catty. The way he said it, kind of sober and dry, made me laugh right out. “Figger Mr. ”

“ He looked like the kind of man who would be careless with other folks’ health.
So things quieted down again and the digging went on and waiting went on.
“I wonder,” says I, “what they think on board the Albatross. I’ll bet Naboth and Rameses III are boiling over. They’ll think we’re drowned or something.”
“Can’t be helped,” says Catty. “When there’s an adventure like this going on, somebody’s got to worry. They always do. It might as well be Naboth.” ”