Catty stood and thought a few minutes, and then he shook his head and said he guessed his father was right. “But we know what’s true,” he says, “and it’s our duty as respectable folks to put a stop to it.... And I’m a-goin’ to.” “How?” says I. “Hadn’t but one way,” says he, “and that is to git proof that folks ’ll have to believe. We kin do that, Wee-wee, and we’ll go to work and watch Kinderhook, and foller him and nose out jest what he’s up to. It’s our job. We kin do it between-times while I’m helpin’ to run our own business and make Dad respectable. Want to help, Wee-wee?” “Be reg’lar detectives?” says I. “Sure,” says he. “You bet,” says I. “But why not tell folks right out?” Catty looked at me like he was sorry for anybody that didn’t have any more brains than to ask that. “Because,” says he, “folks is all het up over this here man Kinderhook. They think he’s the greatest man in the world, and _anybody_ would git in trouble that said a word ag’in’ him. _Anybody_ would, but what would folks do to _us_? Lemme ask you that. They want to run us out anyhow, but if we was to spread a story about Kinderhook they’d ride us out on a rail.” “Guess you’re right,” says I, “but how’ll we go about provin’ it? And when we’ve got it proved, what ’ll we do?” “I dunno,” says Catty. “That ’ll have to come when it comes. Main thing is for us to tend to our business and watch our chance. We kin ketch Kinderhook at it if he’s meanin’ some snide game. He’ll be showin’ it somehow.” “Whatever you say,” says I. From that minute I was a heap more interested in Kinderhook than I had been before. As soon as you find out something like that about a man you begin to notice things, and to watch, and to figure out what he means when he says anything. It’s a lot of fun, and I didn’t want to do anything else but just trail ’round after him, but Catty wouldn’t have that. He wouldn’t neglect his regular business, and he wouldn’t let down on learning manners and then teaching his father what he had learned. At the rate Catty was going I figured out he would be the most respectable and the politest man in the world by the time he was old enough to vote. Most folks get manners sort of by accident. They just _sop_ manners up, anyhow, as they go along, and never notice it, but Catty made a _business_of it same as he’d make a business of learning to pull teeth or cut off legs like a doctor. There was quite a lot of talk around town about Jack Phillips coming into business with the Atkinses and about how they managed to find something to do in spite of what the women thought about it. It made the folks that didn’t like Catty and his father more determined than ever to get rid of them, and you could hear women and men talking it over almost any time if you were to listen. More than one woman came to my mother to complain about my going around with Catty so much, and a couple of men spoke to Dad, but they never did it more than once. I heard Dad say to one man: