Mr. Kinderhook came down about half past eleven and sat down to smoke a cigar about a foot long with a gold bellyband around it that was so shiny it glittered when the sun shone on it. He spoke to us like he always spoke to everybody he met—kind of oily-like and polite.
“Good morning, my little men,” says he. “Why aren’t you playing marbles this fine morning?”
That’s what he said! Just like that! Little men, says he, and marbles. Anybody knows boys don’t play marbles at that time of the year, and if I was big enough I’d lick anybody that called me “little man.” We had a Sunday-school superintendent once that always said that, and he was so unpopular that he quit being superintendent after a couple of weeks, on account of sitting down on a hornet that was tied in his chair with a piece of thread. It irritates a hornet to be tied with thread, and this one was about the maddest hornet you ever saw. He figured the superintendent was the one that tied him, I guess, but he wasn’t. I know who was, but I ain’t going to tell.
But we didn’t say anything to Kinderhook about what we thought. Catty says good morning as polite as could be, and then he says: “We come to talk to you about buyin’ some churn stock, mister. You’re goin’ to make everybody rich, and we sort of figgered we’d like to be rich, too. Kin we buy some?”
“If you’ve got the money,” says Mr. Kinderhook, and he winked at a man next to him.
“We got it,” says Catty, talking as foolish as one of the Ramsay twins that haven’t been just right since they fell off the roof of the barn together. “We got ’most a dollar—but we hain’t goin’ to risk it till we’re sure of gittin’ rich. No, sirree! We hain’t buyin’ nothin’ without seein’ it. We want to make money, but we don’t want to lose all we’ve worked for and saved up.... I’m scairt of churns, because once I knew some folks that bought a new-fangled one and it wouldn’t churn nothin’.”
“You needn’t worry, my young friend. My churn will churn,” says Kinderhook.
“Kin I see it?” says Catty.
“Young man,” says Kinderhook, real impressive, “nobody’s allowed to see that churn. It is a secret, and if the secret of it was stolen the trust would make churns like it and we wouldn’t make any money. Do you understand that?”
“I calc’late to,” says Catty, “but if I was investin’ my money I wouldn’t be apt to tell nobody what I seen so that I’ll lose all I put in, would I?”