“No, sir,” says Catty.
“It’s a feeling inside him that he wants to act toward everybody just as he wants everybody to act toward him.”
“I thought,” said Catty, “that a gentleman was somebody with a white shirt who thought most folks was beneath him.”
Dad laughed. “Come on in and wash for dinner—and meet Wee-wee’s mother.”
“Will she—will she want me, sir?”
Dad laughed again, and I laughed this time, because that was really funny. If Dad was to bring home a hippopotamus to dinner Mother would be glad of it—just because Dad brought him. I’ve took notice that Mother always thought that whatever Dad did was just right, and, now that I come to think it over, she thought so because everything that Dad did was just right.
Mother shook hands with Catty just as if nothing out of the ordinary run was happening at all, and acted just as she would act if Catty had been the Presbyterian minister or president of the bank, or anybody else. Then Catty and me washed up and came down to dinner, and Dad talked a lot until pretty soon he got Catty to talking some, and what he said was mighty interesting to me—all about walking around the country, and what they saw, and how they lived. I kept my eye on him jest to find out what kind of table manners he had, but I couldn’t find out, because he kept his eyes on my mother all the time, and never did a thing until he saw her do it first, and then did it just like she did. I saw Dad grin to himself a couple of times.
“Mr. Moore,” said Catty, serious as all-git-out, “I wonder kin I ask you a piece of advice?”
“Fire ahead, Catty.”
“Well, I’m wonderin’ if I ought to lick that kid before Dad and me goes away.”