“Rats!” says he. “They teach you everything on purpose. They got a reason for it. You learn figgerin’ so’s to be able to count money and do business. That’s that. They teach you geography so’s you’ll know where to find places in the world if you want to git to ’em or sell things to ’em. They teach you writin’ and readin’ so’s you’ll be able to write letters about business and read letters and printed things about buyin’ and sellin’ goods. That’s why. All business. They run schools just so’s you can learn how to make a livin’—with the exception of teachin’ you how to talk. There hain’t but one reason for that. Bein’ able to talk _right_ is a mark of bein’ respectable. There’s a certain way the best kind of folks talk, and if you kin talk that way, why, right off everybody believes you’re one of them.... And that’s good business, too. Bein’ respectable is useful in business, as Dad and me has found out. If we’d been respectable we wouldn’t ’a’ had all this trouble here.... So I’m goin’ to git after Dad to make him talk right.” You see every word he said had something to do with business or being respectable. He had ’em on the brain. Table manners and clothes and talking right—nothing but the idea of being respectable, and so being able to do business the way it ought to be done, and the more business you done, why, the more respectable you was. That was Catty’s idea. Maybe he was right. I dunno. Well, sir, a couple of weeks after that Mr. Kinderhook came into the store and says, “Can I have a sign printed here?” “You kin,” says Catty, and he called his father. “This gentleman,” says he, “wants to have a sign painted.” “I want a very large sign, sir,” says Mr. Kinderhook, beaming at Mr. Atkins like he wanted to kiss him. “I want it erected on a piece of property I have arranged to purchase as the site of my factory. The sign is to be ten feet high and thirty feet long, and I wish to have it white with enormous black letters—do you get the idea?” “Want the letters to spell anythin’?” says Mr. Atkins, interested-like, “or was you jest figgerin’ on any letters at all put on helter-skelter?” Mr. Kinderhook looked at him kind of funny a minute, and then he says: “I want the following words lettered: ‘This Is the Site of the Kinderhook Farm Utilities Corporation. Our Enormous Factory Will Be Completed January First.’ Can you manage it, my good man?” “I kin,” said Mr. Atkins. “I calc’late I could put ’most anything onto sich a sign. I kin put _that_ on easy. If you want, I kin put on somethin’ real hard.” “That will do very well,” says Mr. Kinderhook, and he turned to walk toward the door. “Was you calc’latin’ on payin’ for it?” says Mr. Atkins. “Certainly—certainly.” “Um!... Int’rested to know how much it ’ll cost you?” “To be sure.”