He was a prime favorite there, praising Keturah's cooking, joking with Angeline concerning what he was pleased to call her "giddy" manner of dressing and wearing "side curls," and telling yarns of South American dress and behavior, which would probably have shocked Mrs.Tripp--she having recently left the Methodist church to join the "Come-Outers," because the Sunday services of the former were, with the organ and a paid choir, altogether "too play-actin'"-- if they had not been so interesting, and if Captain Cy had not always concluded them with the observation: "But there! you can't expect nothin' more from ignorant critters denied the privileges of congregational singin' and experience meetin's; hey, Matilda ?" Mrs.Tripp would sigh and admit that she supposed not.
"Only I do wish Mr.Daniels, OUR minister, might have a chance to preach over 'em, poor things!" "So do I," with a covert wink at Mrs.Bangs, who was a stanch adherent of the regular faith.

"South America 'd be just the place for him; ain't that so, Keturah ?" He evaded all personal questions put to him by the boarders, explaining that he was renovating the old place just for fun--he always had had a gang of men working for him, and it seemed natural somehow.

But to the friends of his boyhood, Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs, he told the real truth.
"I swan to man!" exclaimed Bailey, almost tearfully, as the trio wandered through the rooms of the Cy Whittaker place, dodging paper hangers and plasterers; "I swan to man, Whit, if it don't almost seem as though I was a boy again.

Why! it's your dad's house come back alive, it is so! Look at this settin' room! Seem's if I could see him now a-settin' by that ere stove, and Mrs.Whittaker, your ma, over there a-sewin', and old Cap'n Cy--your granddad--snoozin' in that big armchair--Why! why, whit! it's the very image of the chair he always set in!" Captain Cy laughed aloud.
"It's more n' that, Bailey," he said; "it's THE chair.

'Twas up attic, all busted and crippled, but I had it made over like new.