Early in the morning Catty and I went to Mr. Wade in his office full of Napoleons, and had him draw up what papers we ought to have, and then we took Mr. Atkins and Jack Phillips to the bank and got the money. Jim Bockers signed the paper that Mr. Wade said was a bill of sale, and hustled for the train. He wanted to get away before his sister-in-law found out. Catty was tickled. “Now we’re all right,” says he. “I figger we made close to two hunderd dollars on this deal, and we got the paintin’ and paperhangin’ business of this town right by the ear. Anybody that wants some done has got to come to us. I guess maybe this hain’t a move toward gettin’ respectable.” They set to work and moved Jim’s stock over to their own store and put the ladders and scaffolds and things in the shed. It was the first time they had really been in shape to do business. Even Mr. Atkins acted kind of tickled. He hated to show it, but every once in a while you could see he was really getting interested in the business and that work wasn’t as disagreeable for him as it used to be. Catty was moving along toward where he wanted to be. CHAPTER XIV A day or two after that Catty and I were sitting on the platform of the station, waiting for the train to come in with some things Jack Phillips had ordered. Along came Captain Winton, the president of the bank, and Mr. Moss, the hardware-man. They sat down a little ways from us and began to talk. “We’ve got to get ready for it,” says Captain Winton. “It won’t be long before mill-hands will be moving in here with their families, and we haven’t any places for them to live. I’ve been thinking it over, and it looks to me like some of us could get together and build a dozen houses or so and pick up a nice profit—or make a good income from rents.” “I’ve been thinking about that, too. You own a piece of land down the new factory way, don’t you?” “Ten acres,” says Captain Winton. “We could run streets through and start in by building a dozen cottages. Then, if the thing went as I expect, we could put up more.” “How much would we have to put into it?” “Well, my guess is that we could put up the houses for a couple of thousand apiece—maybe twenty-five hundred. The bank would loan on each house and lot fifteen hundred. A dozen, including land and everything, would stand us in thirty-six thousand, and we would have to raise half of that.” “I’ve got a few thousand lying loose,” says Mr. Moss. “I wouldn’t want to put everything into this building thing, because I’m still hoping to persuade Mr. Kinderhook to sell me a block of stock—say five thousand dollars. He’s pretty friendly with me.” “I don’t know. He seems to want to hang onto it.” “_You_ got some,” says Mr. Moss.