“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. CHAPTER XX During the next week Catty got more than twenty churn catalogues, and the way we studied them you would have thought we were trying to pass some kind of an examination. Every spare minute we got we read about churns and looked at pictures of the insides of churns and compared churns to see how they were alike and how they were different. It’s funny how easy it is to study something you don’t have to. We could have learned a grammar by heart with the work we put on churns—but that would have been _work_. 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. I’ll bet you could blindfold him and stick the plunger or the handle of a churn under his nose, and he could tell what it was just by the smell. It came in mighty handy, too, you can bet. “Now,” says Catty, “we got to see that churn of Kinderhook’s.” “Yes,” says I, “we have. Sounds easy. Let’s jest walk up and look at it. He’ll be tickled to death to have us.” Catty grinned sort of drylike. “We’re a-goin’ to see that churn,” says he, “if we have to eat a hole through the wall.” “S’pose he really keeps it in his room?” “Bet he sleeps with it under his pillow.” “Then we better not go to look at it at night,” says I. “Let’s kind of sort of snoop around the hotel,” says he, “and get the lay of the land.” So we went down to the hotel and walked all around it and looked at it outside as careful as we could, but that was about as good as looking at the outside of an egg to see what colored chicken would hatch out of it. We didn’t know what floor Mr. Kinderhook’s room was on, nor what side of the hotel. “We kin ask,” says I. “And have folks wonderin’ why we want to know,” says Catty. “The best part of this whole mess is that Kinderhook don’t suspect _we_ suspect. He hain’t got no idee anybody’s thinkin’ he hain’t a good and great man. That makes it easier. If he don’t know somebody’s watchin’ him he won’t take so much pains to hide up what he’s doin’.”