“Git over to the bank quick and sign a note ’fore he changes his mind,” says Catty, calm as a puddle of rain-water. “The money’s there waitin’ fur you.”
“You’re joking,” says Jack.
“You’ll find the money hain’t no joke,” says Catty. “You and Dad—git!”
Mr. Atkins shook his head sadlike. “’Tain’t no use,” says he. “I’m fated to be a business man. There hain’t no hope, nohow.”
“Not a mite,” says Catty. “And, Jack, think up all the manners you kin to teach us. Captain Winton says they’re an asset, whatever an asset is. Anyhow, it’s somethin’ that helps you borrow money.”
“Catty,” says Jack, “I’ll cram the pair of you so full of manners that you’ll look like a busy day in a crowded dancing-school.”
“Guess we kin manage to use all you got to spare,” says Catty, as sober as a judge.
CHAPTER XII
Just on the edge of town was a big stock-farm where a company raised Holstein cattle. There were half a dozen big barns—bigger than any barns in our county, all painted white. Everything inside the barns was white, too. The way those folks kept their cattle you would have thought they were made out of diamonds instead of beef just like any other cow. There was a bull there that we heard had cost more than fifty thousand dollars. Catty and I were talking about that bull and we figured that a steak off of him would cost about a hundred dollars a bite. Eating that bull would be sort of like as if cannibals was to capture Mr. Rockefeller and eat him.
All at once Catty says, “They must be paintin’ on them barns all the time to keep ’em so white.”