“They’d be,” says Catty, slow and deliberate, “that Mrs. Gage up and called me names, and that I wouldn’t want to run away without showin’ her that she didn’t have no business callin’ me names. And they’d be that I’d want to learn myself table manners so’s I wouldn’t be scairt if I ever et with Wee-wee’s mother ag’in. But mostly they’d be that folks seems to think that shiftlessness hain’t respectable, and that it gits under my skin to have folks sneerin’ at you and me.” “Folks sneers, do they?” “Stiddy and constant,” says Catty. “Hain’t got no business to. It takes brains to be shiftless, Sonny, and folks hain’t able to appreciate it. Anybody kin work and earn a livin’ and stay in one place and never have no fun. But you take one of them stiddy men and turn him to live like we do, and what ’ll happen? He’ll starve, and before he starves he’ll die from sleepin’ on the ground, and before that he’ll have blisters onto his feet. _We_ don’t do none of them things, and why? I ask you why. It’s because we’re smart and we’ve learned our trade.” “Is it awful hard to work all the time?” “Easy as fallin’ off a log. Everybody can do it.” “Could you run a store, Dad?” “I could run a train if I owned one. 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.” “And what do you think of yourself?” “I hain’t sure, but it looks kind of like I was goin’ to think that the way we live hain’t what you’d call _valuable_. Seems like everybody ought to be _makin’_ somethin’ or _doin’_ somethin’. Seems like I’d like to have folks respect me—and it seems like I’d like sort of to live the same way other boys does and play with ’em without their folks tellin’ them to git away from me.” “Sonny, you hain’t gone and got ambitious, have you?” “What’s _ambitious_, Dad?” “Ambitious means wantin’ to git to a place where you can look down on other folks.” “I don’t quite agree with you, Mr. Atkins,” says a voice, and we looked around to see my Dad standing there. “I believe ambition means a desire to improve yourself and to become something more valuable than you are. It means that you’re not satisfied with yourself.” Mr. Atkins got up and looked at Dad, and Dad looked back at Mr. Atkins. “Be you Mr. Moore?” says Catty’s Dad. “Yes, Mr. Atkins.” “I’m much obleeged to meet you,” says he, and he shook hands with Dad very polite.