He talked different, too, and sometimes when he was talking business to somebody he talked in a way that made you sit right up and take notice. Dad said the man he used to be was coming to life, and that that original man must have been a pretty good one. Mr. Atkins and Dad got to be real good friends, and Mr. Atkins even came to dinner to our house once. It was hard to persuade him at first, but Dad managed it, and Mother said afterward that she didn’t see why folks objected to Mr. Atkins, because his table manners was as good as almost anybody’s in town.
I told her if she could hear Catty always nagging at the poor old feller about how to eat, and such things, she wouldn’t be surprised a bit.
Once, too, I heard Captain Winton say to Mr. Gage that that man Atkins was a good, sound, sensible business man, and that meant considerable in our town, I can tell you.
But, for all that, most of the folks felt just like they did at first, and there was lots of talk, and it was said that if Catty tried to go to school in the fall with the rest of the children that there was going to be genuine trouble. I told Catty this, but he just set his mouth like a pair of pinchers, and his eyes got like steel, and he says: “Dad and me are here to stay. They can’t drive us out. Maybe we hain’t as good as the rest of them yet, but we’re studyin’ and a-learnin’—and we’re makin’ money, too. I’ll bet Jack Phillips and Dad and me is makin’ ’most as much money as any firm in town. One of these days we’re a-goin’ to have a lot—and then we’ll see.”
“I’m afraid folks won’t forget you come in as tramps,” says I.
“I don’t want ’em to,” says he. “It’s more to be proud of. When we git up in the world I want everybody to know that we started as tramps and worked up ourselves with nobody to help us—that is, nobody but you, Wee-wee.”
“Me?” says I, for I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Yes, you. You helped more ’n anybody can ever tell,” says he, “just by stickin’ by me and bein’ my friend. That’s about the biggest help anybody kin give to anybody else.”
“Huh!” says I. “You’re crazy. I stuck with you jest because I liked you.”
“Yes,” says he, “but it wasn’t everybody that had the backbone to like a couple of tramps that everybody else was against.”