“Monday morning at seven. By the way, have you any ladders we can rent?” “Jest rented my ladders to a feller in the next town. Wasn’t no paintin’ jobs in sight, so I figgered to realize on my investment.” “All right.” says Catty, not showing a mite that he was disappointed. “At seven sharp, on Monday.” “I’ll be there,” says Mr. Jones. After that we went over to Darkie Patt’s, and made about the same kind of talk, and got the same results. Patt had two ladders, but both of them was busted or something and couldn’t be used. Said he hadn’t figured on painting much this summer, because, what with night lines and one thing and another, he calc’lated to make a living a heap pleasanter than by buttering the side of a house with yellow paint. “Well,” says I, when we had gone off, leaving Mr. Patt hired for Monday morning at seven, “you got your men hired to paint, but you hain’t either ladders or brushes. How be you goin’ to make out?” “Main thing is to find ladders, or scaffoldin’ or somethin’. When I git them I calc’late to git the brushes and paints.” I was trying hard to think of any ladders I’d ever seen, but I couldn’t think of any. So we just walked along, down alleys and every place we could think, looking to see if we couldn’t see some. After a while we walked down Main Street, and just in front of the drug-store I saw Mrs. Gage and Mrs. Gordon, Skoodles’s mother. Catty didn’t notice them, and I thought maybe we would get past without being seen, but we didn’t. Just as we were alongside Mrs. Gage looked up and saw us. “There,” she says to Mrs. Gordon. “That’s the boy I mean—there, with the Moore boy. Nice thing to have coming to town, isn’t it? I thought there was a law or something about vagrants.... That Mr. Moore must be out of his head to allow his son to play around with a young tramp like that.” Mrs. Gordon looked and sniffed. “He’s got a hard face,” says she. “I told my boy never to let me catch them together, and he promised.” “When my husband comes home to-night I’m going to see if something can’t be done about it,” says Mrs. Gage. “I wonder if that boy ’ll have the cheek to go to school.” “Oh, that isn’t likely,” says Mrs. Gordon. “That sort don’t take to school much, I imagine.” Catty let on like he didn’t hear, but I knew he heard, because in about five minutes he spoke up and says: “When school starts this fall I be a-goin’ and nobody hain’t goin’ to keep me away from it. I got a _right_ to go. When my Dad’s a business man in this town I’ll have as good a right to go to school as anybody.” “Sure,” says I. “We got to have a place of business right on Main Street,” says he, kind of to himself. “It won’t do jest to work, but we got to make a show of it and look as big as we kin. I wonder if there’s a store we kin git?” “One down to the end of the block,” says I. “Let’s look at it,” says he.