“Don’t you find it a kind of a nuisance to handle paints with your hardware business?” Catty says. “Must take up room you need for other things, and use up a lot of time. Hain’t much profit into it, neither.”
“That’s right, young feller. But somebody’s got to handle ’em for accommodation of the public.”
“Well, maybe Dad and you could make an arrangement,” says Catty. “We might be willin’ to buy out your paint stock, if you was to put a reasonable price onto it. Kind of calc’late to go into business permanent here.”
“Do, hey? I want to know? Paints and sich?”
“Wall-papers and everythin’,” says Catty.
“Well, you jest come around and talk it over. Shouldn’t be a mite s’prised if we could fix it up.”
And all this time, mind you, there was the town marshal going to run Catty and his Dad out of the village! Catty went right ahead as if there never had been any town marshal at all, and as if he and his Dad were leading citizens instead of a couple of folks that hadn’t a pair of pants to their name and was looked on by most as tramps.
“If I only had them ladders, now,” Catty says as he came out of the store, “everythin’ would be all right.”
“Ladders it is,” says I. “Let’s go out and shoot us a couple. Might see some flyin’ around in the woods.”
Catty could see a joke as far as anybody. “Let’s,” says he. “It’s open season for ladders now.”