“Do, hey? I want to know? Paints and sich?” “Wall-papers and everythin’,” says Catty. “Well, you jest come around and talk it over. Shouldn’t be a mite s’prised if we could fix it up.” And all this time, mind you, there was the town marshal going to run Catty and his Dad out of the village! Catty went right ahead as if there never had been any town marshal at all, and as if he and his Dad were leading citizens instead of a couple of folks that hadn’t a pair of pants to their name and was looked on by most as tramps. “If I only had them ladders, now,” Catty says as he came out of the store, “everythin’ would be all right.” “Ladders it is,” says I. “Let’s go out and shoot us a couple. Might see some flyin’ around in the woods.” Catty could see a joke as far as anybody. “Let’s,” says he. “It’s open season for ladders now.” In a minute he stopped and says, “When does school start?” “Five weeks,” says I. “I’ll have to hustle,” says he. “What grade are you in?” “Eighth,” says I. “I got to go to school. Folks hain’t respectable if their children don’t go to school,” says Catty. “But I hain’t got much education. I’d have to start almost at the beginnin’ with the little kids. Don’t kind of like the idee much.” “You must know somethin’,” says I. “I do,” says he, “but you can’t pass examinations in grammar with it. If it was how birds live and about rabbits and about growin’ things, I could git along, but I don’t know no rules to speak of.” “But you know arithmetic.” “Quite a sight of it. Dad he taught me some, because a feller has to know some arithmetic. But I hain’t up on hist’ry nor language nor such. Be they hard to learn?” “Hist’ry,” says I, “is jest like readin’ a book that you like. We hain’t had much but United States hist’ry yet.” “Got the book?” “Yes.” “Wonder if you’d loan her to me so’s I could be readin’ it nights?” “You bet,” says I. “I wisht there was some way of learnin’ them other things, so I could start in school where I ought to be. But ’tain’t much use wishin’. I ought to learn things easier ’n a little kid six or seven year old, and I ought to ketch up before long, but I’ll have to start in at the beginnin’, I expect.” “Say,” says I, “I got all the books. And my Dad knows everythin’. Why don’t you borrow them books and ask Dad if he won’t kind of teach you at odd times? Bet you’d learn quicker ’n greased lightnin’, with him to show you.” “Calc’late he’d be willin’?” “Who? Dad? Ho! Be tickled to death. I’ll ask him this noon.” “Much obleeged,” says Catty, “and while he’s teachin’ me he kin give me an idee about manners.. I got to be as full of manners as anybody, and fuller, ’cause folks won’t expect it of me, and I got to prove to ’em that I’m jest as good as they be and know as much about how to eat and them kind of things.... Now them ladders.” We walked along a spell and then Catty stopped all of a sudden.