But that wasn’t all. He had on clothes. Not just cloth that sort of covered him up, but clothes like you see on men that come from New York or Boston or some place. You could tell in a minute they was made on purpose for him and nobody else, and he had on a hat that was _swell_, and shoes, and his cuffs was just showing below his sleeves and there was a necktie tied like you see them in pictures, with a pin sticking in it. Say, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to hear this man was president of a college or a senator or ’most any kind of a man—but he wasn’t. He was Mr. Atkins, Catty’s father! I looked at Catty, and Catty was looking at his father, and there were tears running down his cheeks. Honest, there was. I kind of blinked myself. Then Catty says kind of quiet, “Dad, honest Injun, is it you?” “I calc’late it is, Catty,” says his father. “Dad,” says Catty, “I’m awful proud—awful proud. I always knowed I had the _best_ Dad there was, but I never knowed till this minute that I had the best lookin’.” “I hid my beauty under them whiskers,” says Mr. Atkins. “And we was tramps,” says Catty to himself. “_He_ was a tramp. Honest, he was a tramp.... But look at him now!” I don’t wonder Catty was flabbergasted, because I was kind of keeled over myself. There hain’t a bigger change between a cocoon and a butterfly than there was between the old Mr. Atkins and this new one—not that he was a butterfly, you understand, but the change was like that. “Think I’ll look all right, eh?” says Mr. Atkins. “Dad,” says Catty, “nobody ever looked as good as you do since King Solomon.” “Well, then, we better git started,” says Mr. Atkins. “I kind of wish I had more good language to talk with, but what I got will have to do.” “Right after this demonstration,” says Catty, “I’m a-goin’ to see that your language gits looked after. I’m a-goin’ to sick Jack Phillips onto you, and he’s got to teach you to talk like they do in college.” Mr. Atkins made a face. “Life’s awful, hain’t it?... Well, Catty, so long’s you’ve started out to tinker with me, you might as well make a full job of it.” “You kin bet I’m a-goin’ to,” says Catty, with that kind of a determined look around his mouth. “I’m goin’ to make you so respectable that the man that wrote the book ’ll be comin’ around to you for pointers.” “I calc’late,” says Mr. Atkins to Jack, “that he means it. I hain’t never goin’ to have another peaceful, shiftless hour.” _“You bet you hain’t!_” says Catty. CHAPTER XXIII The band was playing when we got there, and the crowds were packed about the grand-stand, and Kinderhook was sitting up there with his silk hat on and the red, white, and blue churn on a table draped with bunting. “Looks just like he used to sellin’ patent medicine,” says Mr. Atkins.