“Calc’lated she would,” says Catty. The way he said it, kind of sober and dry, made me laugh right out. “Figger Mr. Gage is goin’ to git unpleasant things said to him ’fore mornin’.”
He sat down in a chair like he was all tired out.
“It’s dog-gone hard work to git respectable,” says he.
CHAPTER IX
“Now let’s see,” says Catty on Sunday afternoon while we were sitting under a tree down by the bayou. “I guess everything’s ready for to-morrow. We got our paints on credit; we got our brushes and them things, we got our painters, and we got our ladders, and the only ready money we had to have was for our painter’s clothes for Dad. Seems like you can git a lot without money sometimes, don’t it?”
“But you got to have money some time,” says I.
“To be sure,” says Catty, “but the money’s comin’ after the job. We kin finish it in a week, and then we’ll have quite a wad. But we ought to have some in the mean time. Got to eat.... I’ll have to scurry around and git some, I guess. That and keepin’ an eye on Dad so’s he won’t go traipsin’ off to fish or set down alongside of a brook, or tramp off through the country, will about keep me busy.”
“I never saw anybody look so different as your father does,” says I.
“It hain’t a patch on how different he’ll look when I git through with him,” says Catty. “Say, Wee-wee, you know quite a lot about manners, don’t you? Your Ma and Pa teaches you how to eat proper and all that?”
“Dad says sometimes that I hain’t got no more manners than an alley cat,” says I.