Boys -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Tramps -- Juvenile fiction
“Um!... Keep your eye peeled, Catty, and maybe you’ll see me act like it
ag’in. Somethin’ about that feller that don’t set right, somehow.
There’s somethin’ about that feller—somethin’ about that feller—” He
scratched his head and bit his thumb and rapped his knuckles on the
counter. “Now did I ever see that feller before, or didn’t I?... And if
I did, where did I?... And if I didn’t, what makes me think I did?...
Um!... If ever I seen him it was some place and doin’ somethin’ that
kind of set me ag’in’ him.... Kind of funny. Set my teeth on edge, that
feller did.”
“But he’s a millionaire, Dad. Maybe we kin make lots of money out of
him.”
“Millionaire, hey? Don’t say. Wa-al, I swan to man!... I’m a-goin’ to
set down and think about that man, and remember if I kin remember him.
I’ll call him to mind if I have to set and remember every man I ever
seen since I was knee-high to a milkin’-stool. I’ll check ’em off one by
one, I will.... It’s made me itch, I’m that curious.... Catty, I hain’t
goin’ to do another tap of work till I remember who that feller is—if
he’s anybody.”
And, just as he always did, Mr. Atkins kept his word to the letter.
CHAPTER XIII
It seemed like the town got more and more excited every day about Arthur
Peabody Kinderhook and his factory. Nobody talked about much of anything
else, and every afternoon you could see a dozen men out walking around
the field where the factory was to be, pacing off distances and fooling
themselves into thinking they knew just where the buildings were to be,
and how big they would look and everything. And Mr. Atkins was on
strike.
Yes, sir, since the day he sold the sign to Mr. Kinderhook he hadn’t
done a tap of work, but had just sat around thinking and thinking and
thinking, laying to remember when he had seen the man before and where
he had seen him.
Then the news got around that Kinderhook had agreed to sell Captain
Winton some stock in his factory, and folks were almost crazy. They
thought it meant that maybe _they_ could get some, and if they did get
some they would get rich and never have to work any more, but just sit
around and draw dividends and travel and smoke five-cent cigars. But
Kinderhook wouldn’t sell to anybody else.
And then, one morning, I went down to the store and Mr. Atkins was at
work again. I knew right off he had thought where he had seen Mr.
Kinderhook, because he was the kind of man who kept his word, and he had
said he wouldn’t work till he remembered.
“Mornin’!” says I. “I see you’ve found out about the Kinderhook feller.”
“Uh!...” says Mr. Atkins, and Catty grinned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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