“There’s lots of things folks thinks is necessary that I don’t see any use in. There’s being well off, for instance. What’s the use? Nobody ever had a better time ’n Dad and me has had. There’s them tall silk hats. Some day Dad’s got to wear one, though I’ll bet it ’ll be a job to git it on his head. He’d shy off a hat like that jest the same way a horse shies away from an elephant. Then there’s this thing of being respectable.” “But you got to be respectable,” says I. “Why? All I can see to bein’ respectable is workin’ and gittin’ tired out and bein’ tied down to one place instead of bein’ shiftless and moseyin’ along wherever you want to, and enjoyin’ yourself. I can’t see why folks set so much store by makin’ themselves miserable.” “There’s more ’n that to bein’ respectable,” says I. “There’s bein’ honest and havin’ manners and—oh, a heap of things.” “We always calc’lated to be honest,” says Catty. “As for manners, them we had was plenty for us. Dad he never complained of mine and I never complained of his’n. ’Twasn’t nobody else’s business that I kin see.” “But you eat with your knife,” says I. “’Twouldn’t cut nobody’s mouth but mine,” says he. “Respectable folks don’t do it. Eatin’ with your knife is the worst thing a feller kin do.” “Worse’n stealin’?” “I wouldn’t go so far’s to say that.” “Bet Mrs. Gage would think it was,” says Catty. “She’s one of them kind of folks that don’t see nothin’ but the trimmin’s. If Dad and me had drove into town behind a team of milk-white horses, and each of us wearin’ stovepipe hats, and a bushel of dollar bills scattered on the floor of the buggy, she’d ’a’ invited us to dinner, and wouldn’t have cared how much her boy played with me. Not even if we stole them dollar bills.” “I dunno,” says I. “I do,” says he. “The way I see it there’s jest good folks and bad folks. If you’re good you’re good, no matter if you’re respectable or not, nor if you eat with a shingle instead of a fork; and you’re bad if you’re bad, and no amount of eatin’ with the right kind of tools nor wearin’ silk hats kin make you good.” “That’s right,” says I. “Well, then?” “Why, clothes and manners is—well, maybe I can’t tell you, but my Dad kin. He’d know, and he’d tell you so’s you wouldn’t have no arguin’ and wranglin’ to do about it.” “Let’s find him, then,” says he. “I got my mind made up to be respectable and all, but I’d kinder like to know what I’m bein’ it for and what good it’s doin’ _me_.” “Come on,” says I. We went up to my house, and Dad was fussing around in the garden. “Hello!” says he, and straightened up, with a smile. “Hello!” says I. “Here’s Catty and he wants you should explain to him what good it is to be respectable.” “Um!... 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.”