Mr. Atkins

“ Alison's lips curled in scorn. "Give yourself no anxiety as to our future married happiness, Mr. Atkins! I believe that I am in all respects a match for my future wife.--But it must be time for us to go to Doctor Stephen's. May I ask you to get ready?"
Atkins lingered a moment. "Henry," he said entreatingly, "whatever may happen between you two, spare Jane; she has fearfully suffered in these last months."
"Has she spared me?" asked Alison with an icy coldness. "The proud Miss Forest would have cast me aside as a worthless burden, had not another's life rested in my hands. ”

“ Atkins and his idiosyncrasies remain an inscrutable enigma to our French allies.
And if the British soldier appears incomprehensible to the nimble-minded French, one can readily perceive that to the slow and methodically-thinking German he must seem merely mad. The French marvel that he is never "serious"; the Boche is perplexed to find that Hymns of Hate and other laborious insults afford him the keenest possible enjoyment. The secret lies in Mr. Atkins's sense of humor, which is another way of saying his sense of proportion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The steward, seeing that he was not wanted, went quietly from the room, intent upon securing his dinner.
Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise approached our hero, and the baronet laid a kindly hand upon the young earl’s shoulder.
“Forgive us for interrupting your happy reverie, Lord Towyn,” he said, “but we are very anxious. Miss Wynde writes from Brussels, and in good spirits? We have been troubling ourselves for nothing?”
The young earl did not look around, nor did he speak. He only clutched the letter tighter in his fingers.
“We have got into a panic for nothing,” said Atkins, smiling. ”

“ Wa’n’t you nigh scairt to death?”
“Nobody’d be scairt with Mr. Moore and Wee-wee’s mother.”
“How’d it come about, Sonny?”
“It was after a woman called me a tramp and other names and ordered her boy not to come near me. Mr. Moore he told her what he thought about her, and that I was his guest, and then he made me come to dinner, and we talked.”
“I’d like to git a squint at that Mr. Moore,” says Mr. Atkins, reflective-like.
“He’s comin’ to call on you,” says Catty.
“I want to know! Um!... Calc’late I better wait for him right here in my office. Men likes to talk in their places of business. ”

“ Atkins; and he laid down the New Hampshire Patriot, and peered over his spectacles, with a look which seemed to say, that an event so uncommon deserved particular attention.
"Why, she says that she means to go to Lowell, and work in the factory."
"Well, wife, let her go;" and Mr. Atkins took up the Patriot again.
"But I do not see how I can spare her; the spring cleaning is not done, nor the soap made, nor the boys' summer clothes; and you say that you intend to board your own 'men-folks' and keep two more cows than you did last year; and Charley can scarcely go alone. ”

“ Mr. Atkins yielded to nature, and was violently sick at the sight he had searched for so eagerly.
As soon as he recovered his powers, he bade the constables guard the body (it was a body, in law) , and see that no one laid so much as a finger on it until [Pg 224] some magistrate had taken a deposition. He also sent a messenger to Mr. Houseman, telling him the corpus delicti was found. He did this, partly to show that gentleman he was right in his judgment, and partly out of common humanity; since, after this discovery, Mr. Houseman's client was sure to be tried for her life. ”

“ I’d rather I was a wild Injun eatin’ raw meat,” says he.
“You hain’t no Injun, Dad. You’re a business man, and livin’ respectable. And more ’n that, you’re goin’ to keep on that way till every man and woman and baby in this town will point to you and say, ‘There goes Mr. Atkins, the respectablest man that ever lived.’”
“It’s an awful prospect,” says Mr. Atkins, that gloomy you would have thought he was just going to be taken out and drownded. “I don’t calc’late ever to be happy again.”
“Wait,” says Catty, “till we kin afford to git you them dress-up clothes....” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Atkins. “Just thrown away his talents, and misused his eloquence in denouncing the Compromise Measures, and Mr. Webster, and Slavery, and all the best interests of his country.”
“Be Jove, he’s a fool, that’s what he is,” remarked Thomas, caressing his military whiskerage.
“He’s worse, Tom,” replied his father; “he’s a traitor, and ought to be indicted for treason.”
“Does he move in good society here, Mr. Atkins?” blandly asked Mr. Lafitte.
“He! Why, sir, he’s a rank Disunionist!” exclaimed the merchant. “A Disunionist received into good society! ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Wade.
Then Catty told him about the telegram Mr. Kinderhook had sent to Mr. Binger to come, and all about that, and then all about how Mr. Atkins remembered how Kinderhook had another name once and used to run one of those cheat medicine shows. But by that time Mr. Wade was beginning to steady down and think. He began to look mad and then he began to laugh.
“So it took a couple of boys to figure out that scheme!” says he. “If that don’t beat anything! It’s equal to Napoleon at his best. Yes, sir, it’s better than Napoleon at his best. ”

“ The door is open, and if any of your neighbors should happen by—any ladies, for instance, I—”
“Ladies!” Mr. Atkins regarded him frowningly. “In the fust place, there ain't a neighbor nigher'n four miles; and, in the next, I'd have you understand no women come to this house. If you knew me better, young feller, you'd know that. Set where you be.”
The nightshirt was one of the lightkeeper's own, and, although Seth was a good-sized man, it fitted the castaway almost too tightly for comfort. ”

“ Atkins. “When folks gives an order, and don’t worry none about how much they got to pay for it, I always git a sneakin’ idea it’s because they don’t calc’late they’ll ever have to pay. Funny notion, hain’t it?”
“Very,” says Mr. Kinderhook, with a funny kind of a grin. “But you must know me, sir. My name is Kinderhook.”
“Seen you ’round town,” says Mr. Atkins. “Been sort of lookin’ you over once or twice. Int’restin’ feller, you be, I sh’u’d say. Got int’restin’ and everythin’. Always wear that high hat?” ”

“ Atkins chased out of town, and had come down to make sure her husband did it. We went in and sat down inside the railing, and pretty soon everybody else came in, and then Mr. Gage sat down in his chair behind the desk and cleared his throat and scowled at everybody as important as all-git-out.
“Case of the People against Atkins,” he says. “Is the defendant present?”
“I be,” says Mr. Atkins.
“You’re charged with being a vagrant. Guilty or not guilty?”
“Wa-al,” says Mr. Atkins, looking like a banker that was thinking about lending fifty thousand dollars, “there’s two ways of lookin’ at it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Atkins.
“Why, we kin bid on every job that comes along, and accordin’ to his agreement he’s got to bid lower ’n what we do. We’ll figure what a job will cost, and then we’ll be able to bid quite a lot lower ’n it ’ll cost to do it. Bockers ’ll have to bid lower ’n that, so that every time he takes a job we’ll be compellin’ him to lose a heap of money. Don’t figger he’ll be able to keep it up very long.”
“Sounds reasonable,” says Mr. Atkins. “But I dunno nothin’ about buildin’.”
“Don’t tell anybody,” says Catty, with a grin. “Let’s hike and see Mr. Witherspoon.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ We hustled back, you can bet.
“Git over to the bank quick and sign a note ’fore he changes his mind,” says Catty, calm as a puddle of rain-water. “The money’s there waitin’ fur you.”
“You’re joking,” says Jack.
“You’ll find the money hain’t no joke,” says Catty. “You and Dad—git!”
Mr. Atkins shook his head sadlike. “’Tain’t no use,” says he. “I’m fated to be a business man. There hain’t no hope, nohow.”
“Not a mite,” says Catty. “And, Jack, think up all the manners you kin to teach us. Captain Winton says they’re an asset, whatever an asset is. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Catty said it was encouraging.
“What’s the idee?” says Mr. Atkins.
“Our sign says builder, don’t it?”
“Calc’late it does.”
“Know anythin’ about buildin’, Dad?”
“Not a doggone thing.”
“Don’t make no difference. Somebody knows about it, and we kin make arrangements to make use of what they know.”
“Uh-huh. S’pose so.”
“Well, I hear Mr. Witherspoon is goin’ to build him a house. Thing for us to do is to git the job. Git it sudden ’fore folks know we’re after it. It ’ll keep us busy, and keep our men busy so’s nobody kin hire ’em off of us. ”

“ Why can’t we start out like that? No need of my paintin’ if we kin hire men to do it for me.”
“We’ve got to begin small. What we make on this job we’ll put into stock and git a start. In a little while you won’t have to do anythin’ but boss and look after the work, and maybe paint a little on jobs that’s too good to trust to anybody else.”
“Hope we don’t git many of them kind of jobs,” said Mr. Atkins, mighty sadlike.... “Wa-al, Sonny, if you’re sot on your ol’ Dad a-fallin’ off a ladder with the colic, why, you go ahead, and I’ll tumble for you as often as I kin till I wear out. ”

“ Now I hain’t got anything to do but git together the ladders and brushes and paints and workmen to do the job.”
It looked to me like that was quite a chore, but Catty didn’t seem discouraged any. “We got to git busy,” says he.
CHAPTER V Catty had the rest of Thursday and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get together the things he had to have to paint Mr. Manning’s warehouse—and to convince his father he had to go to work. That last looked to me to be about as difficult as the other was. Mr. Atkins didn’t look like work. I never saw a man who looked less like it in my life. ”

“ 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’. ”