“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.
“Dad’s remembered,” says he, “but he’s a-thinkin’ it over. He won’t tell us till he’s got it figgered out to suit himself. I don’t care so long as he sticks at work and keeps on tryin’ to be respectable. I got him now so he kin eat pie with a fork. It was a chore to teach him, but it’s done. Next he’ll be eatin’ soup without makin’ a noise like a horse runnin’ through a mud-puddle.”