“Stiddy and constant,” says Catty.
“Hain’t got no business to. It takes brains to be shiftless, Sonny, and folks hain’t able to appreciate it. Anybody kin work and earn a livin’ and stay in one place and never have no fun. But you take one of them stiddy men and turn him to live like we do, and what ’ll happen? He’ll starve, and before he starves he’ll die from sleepin’ on the ground, and before that he’ll have blisters onto his feet. We don’t do none of them things, and why? I ask you why. It’s because we’re smart and we’ve learned our trade.”
“Is it awful hard to work all the time?”
“Easy as fallin’ off a log. Everybody can do it.”
“Could you run a store, Dad?”
“I could run a train if I owned one. Trouble is I don’t own no store.”
“How do folks git to own stores?”
“Mostly their folks leave stores to ’em when they die, or money to buy ’em with. Some saves up money and buys ’em.”
“We never have any money to save.”
“Never had much need for money.”