“Move along there, Jane,” says Catty. “Make it thirty-seven,” says Mr. Gackins.
“Take you,” says Catty, passing over the leading-rope. “Cash.”
Mr. Gackins counted out thirty-seven dollars and Catty thanked him and back we hiked to Winklereid’s and paid him his thirty-two.
“There,” says Catty to me, “I needed three dollars and I made five. Wasn’t very hard, either, was it? Now we’ll go buy them painter’s clothes.”
We bought the clothes and went to the bayou where Mr. Atkins was talking to a man, and the man was the town marshal. As we came up the marshal says: “You won’t leave town, eh? Wa-al, we’ll see about that. Here’s a paper that says you got to come before the justice of the peace, and I calc’late he kin tend to your case. You be there this evenin’ at seven-thirty. And from there, Mister Man, you’ll take a trip to the calaboose.”
The marshal hustled off as dignified as if he was the President of the United States, and Catty went up to his Dad. “Here,” says he, “put on these clothes. Painter’s clothes. Git right into ’em and hustle over to Mr. Manning’s warehouse. I want you to git busy mixin’ paints and fixin’ things to start that job Monday mornin’.”
“Can’t do no paintin’ in the calaboose,” says Mr. Atkins.
“Never mind the calaboose,” says Catty. “You git on them clothes and go ahead. I guess we kin tend to the calaboose when we git to it.”
I says to myself that maybe he could and maybe he couldn’t, but all the same, when it comes to monkeying with the law and town marshals and justices of the peace, I didn’t want any of it on my plate. But I was interested to see how it was comin’ out and how Catty was calculating to handle it.