“Why, clothes and manners is—well, maybe I can’t tell you, but my Dad kin. He’d know, and he’d tell you so’s you wouldn’t have no arguin’ and wranglin’ to do about it.”
“Let’s find him, then,” says he. “I got my mind made up to be respectable and all, but I’d kinder like to know what I’m bein’ it for and what good it’s doin’ me.”
“Come on,” says I.
We went up to my house, and Dad was fussing around in the garden.
“Hello!” says he, and straightened up, with a smile.
“Hello!” says I. “Here’s Catty and he wants you should explain to him what good it is to be respectable.”
“Um!... What’s your idea of being respectable, Catty?”
“Why, to work and git all tired out, and to eat with somethin’ besides a knife, and to wear good clothes. Then folks respects you. I dunno why.”
“I thought you could think, Catty,” says Dad.
“I calc’late to.”