“We’ll make them mind it,” says Mrs. Gage. “If we just get together and agree, we can force the men to do something. I, for one, won’t stand it. Do you think I want my boy going to school with that little tramp? Do you think I want them being friends? Nobody can tell what that Atkins boy will teach our children. And look at his father—a regular old reprobate.... The worst of it is that both of them are schemers. See how they did in court the other night. It was a shame.”
“It was,” says another woman. “We’ve got to stand together. Why, the first we know the boy will be coming to Sunday-school!”
“They’ve got to be forced out of town,” says Mrs. Gage.
“How can we do it?”
“There’s just one way. We must make our husbands all promise not to have anything to do with them. If they can’t earn a living they’ll have to go away. My husband rented them a store before he knew what he was about, and I suppose that can’t be helped. But if nobody gives the man work to do, why, he’ll be worse off than ever, because he’ll have rent to pay and nothing to pay it with.”
“You’ve got the right idea, Mrs. Gage. Of course we don’t want such people here, and you’ve found the way to get rid of them. We’ll make our husbands boycott them.” There was a lot more such talk, about how dangerous Catty and his father were to a decent community, and such-like things. It made me mad all the way through. I looked at Catty. He was sort of pale, but his lips were pressed together and his whole body was as stiff as if it had been frozen.
“Huh!” says I.
“They can do it,” says he.
“Fiddlesticks!” says I.
“They can,” says he, “if they stick together. And I guess they’ll stick. They don’t want us here. It doesn’t make any difference to them whether we’re honest or respectable or not. This Mrs. Gage is mad because she got the worst of it, and she’ll go around talking, and maybe she won’t always tell just exactly the truth, and she’ll stir folks up against us. It’s rotten.”