Swatty

“ Bony cried, and I said, “Aw! let's go back, Swatty!” because you couldn't tell whether it was ice under that water or air hole. Swatty looked all around, but he couldn't see any way to get to Illinois but to cross right over. Neither could any of us. So Swatty said:
“All right for you! You and Bony can let his father kill himself if you want to; but I won't, and when I get back I'll lick you both.”
Well, we didn't care if he did lick us. We'd rather be licked than be drowned. So Swatty said:
“Aw! Come on! I wouldn't have come if I thought you were a couple of cry-baby cowardy-calves. ”

“ He was too good a fighter. And half the fun of having a girl is getting mad because they yell it at you. And, anyway, Swatty was sort of rough to have Lucy for his girl, and she didn't like to have him for a fellow very much. As soon as school was out Swatty would begin clod fighting with the Graveyard Gang, or make a bee-line for the baseball lot, or get up a good fight. ”

“ So Swatty said: “What's she crying for? Why don't she shut up?”
He meant Mamie Little. So I said:
“She can cry if she wants to! I'd like to see you try to stop her! She's crying because your father gave her his fashion plate and it's going to be burned up, and if you say much I'll lick you!”
So Swatty said: “If that's all she's crying for, come on. We'll get her old fashion plate for her.” So I said to Mamie Little: “Stop being a baby and shut up, and we'll get your old fashion plate for you.”
Swatty just cut in through the crowd, and me and Bony followed after him. ”

“ So they lick after school in the afternoon when there is plenty of time. So me and the Bony Highlander waited for Swatty, and we tried to scare him. We told him we bet Miss Murphy would make him holler, because she licked with a rawhide pony switch and whipped on the legs where the switch would wrap around and sting, but we couldn't get Swatty to even pretend he might holler. He said no teacher in the world could make him holler. ”

“ Swatty said and then he climbed over beside me and sat on a root. “There's a man down there,” he said and he pointed.
“I heard him spit.” I whispered. I began to feel scary because there was n't any use for Swatty to be so whispery unless there was something to feel scary at, was there?
“He's got Bony's father's signet ring,” Swatty whispered. “Anyway, I guess he's got it. He's got a ring like what Bony says his father's ring is like. He's fishing and he's got the ring on his thumb.” ”

“ And pretty soon Swatty went on downtown. So she just stood there.
Well, me and Bony used to play with girls sometimes because they let us be the husbands and fathers, and boss them around and whip the children. So when we did Swatty used to come along. Mostly he would sit and whittle until me and Bony got through, but sometimes he would be the policeman to arrest the husbands when they got drunk, or a pirate, or an Indian lurking to scalp the wives, or a 'rangatang to carry the children off. ”

“ When we got to the edge of the cornfield Bony wouldn't go any farther. He was scared to go any nearer the dead man. Swatty and me crawled under the wires and went across the railroad track, and before we were across them we dodged back into the cut alongside the track, and Swatty dropped flat in the weeds. So I dropped flat, too. The reason was that there were eight or ten men on the front deck of the shanty house, and I don't know how many more inside. ”

“ Anyway, all at once she saw Swatty and us. She ducked like a shot, until only her head was out of water, and me and Bony laughed. But Swatty didn't. He pushed me and Bony back and said: “Hey! Scratch-Cat! Wait; I'll show you how to swim.” Only, he said, “I'll showr you how to swim,” the way he always says “show.” ”

“ I don't know how I ever got over a fence so quick—pickets and all—but I did, and I ran up the street with my hands over my ears. I knew Swatty knew and Mamie Little knew and that they were thinking: “Ho! Georgie is going to have a new baby at his house.” And I was trying to run away. When I came to the corner I dodged behind it, and stopped.
Almost right away Bony came and Swatty came right after him, and Scratch-Cat after Swatty, but we made her go back again. We didn't want any girls around at all. Swatty was almost as sore as me and Bony was. ”

“ It was pretty bad going into the dark rooms, one after another, not knowing whether something would jump out at you, and I guess me and Bony wouldn't have done it if Swatty hadn't made us. But there wasn't any way out, and that wasn't the worst. There wasn't even a little piece of board to pry the boards off the windows. There, wasn't a loose brick or anything. Nothing but dust, and maybe a couple of pieces of paper.
“What'll we do?” I asked, awfully scared. “Garsh! I don't know!” Swatty said. “We got to get out somehow. We'll starve to death here if we don't. ”

“ So, while he was gone Swatty said to Bony:
“Is it?”
He meant the cardinal's signet ring, and was it it.
“Yes, it's it,” Bony said, but not very loud. He was pretty much drowned yet.
So we all went back to town in the farmer's wagon; me and Bony and Swatty and the man and the farmer kid that was driving. So Swatty sat with the farmer kid and talked to him.
“That man saved Bony's life,” Swatty said. “Who is he?”
“Him? He's Lazy Joe,” the farmer kid said. “He's Lazy Joe Mulligan. He don't do nothing but fish and loaf.”
So then Swatty knew who the burglar was. ”

“ These hard seats are no place for a lady's man; come on over in the reserved seats.”
“I can't,” I said, “I've got to wait for Swatty.” He didn't know who Swatty was, so I told him. So when Swatty came in we went over into the reserved seats, right in front of the middle ring. So Mr. Little asked Swatty all about it, and Swatty told him, and Mr. Little wrote it down and went downtown to his paper with it. He told Mrs. Little to take good care of the three heroes. He meant me and Swatty and Bony.
So Jimmy and Annie got married. ”

“ She said:
“I can beat you running. I can beat you jumping. I can beat you climbing trees. I can beat you skinning the cat. I can chin myself ten times more than you can. I can stand on my head longer than you can.”
“Go awrn home!” Swatty said, and gave her another shove.
She stepped back again.
“Come on and play in my yard,” she said again. “I can throw you any hold you want. I can fight you and lick you.”
“Becors you're a scratch-cat,” Swatty said, and pushed her again.
“I can lick you without scratching,” the girl said. “Well, then, do it!” said Swatty. ”

“ That's the way Swatty always is; me or Bony would never think of going and taking a shotgun away from a father that wanted to kill himself, and if we did think of it we would never dare to do it; but Swatty wouldn't care who he took a shotgun away from if he got mad because somebody bellered about nothing. ”

“ Of course I burned it down, when I said I would!”
“Of course you would,” said Swatty. “If you took your oath to burn down Veek's barn you'd do it. Only I was the one that took the oath; you wasn't. Toady had better not say I'd take an oath and then not do it! When you trust a job to the Chief of the Red Avengers it'll be done. At nine of night I sneaked up to old Dad Veek's barn—”
“Ho! Nine!” I said. “Well, no wonder! ”

“ We made houses among the branches and leaves, and were fathers and mothers; and Swatty had a lair and was a 'rangatang, and hung by his knees and swang from branch to branch.
It was pretty good fun, even if it was playing with girls, because it was a jungle, and me and Bony hunted the wild 'rangatang between meals; and we were playing along all right when I saw my sister standing and looking. I guess you know how a girl stands and looks—the way a cow does—when she don't like something. So I looked, and out in the street was the girl in the red and black check woolen dress. ”

“ But they couldn't help it, because if they didn't let him me and Bony would go where Swatty went.
Well, one time when teacher kept Swatty in school to have the principal lick him, she went out to get the principal and locked Swatty in the room, and he climbed out of the window onto a maple tree branch and got away. So the principal licked him the next day. Anyway, the trees darkened the room all up, so they had the janitor cut down the two trees and they fell down the bank back of the schoolhouse. ”

“ So he walked through the water about half a block and me and Swatty went after him. Gee, it was cold!
When we got ashore Bony was up in the woods and we could hear him shouting, “Papa! Papa!” and crying, too. It was kind of a sick shout, part cry and part shout. It sounded like “Pwaw-pwa! Uh-uh! Pwaw-pa!” and then “Pwaw-pwa! Pwaw-pwa!” and then “Uh-uh-uh!” like a little kid cries when it has lost a penny it meant to get candy with and has cried all the way home.
All of a sudden we heard the shotgun again. ”

“ And I thought Herb was crazy to make up to a school-teacher, especially a tartar like Miss Murphy. She was an awful licker. She'd lick a fellow for anything.
Well, one day me and Swatty was going to school and we was talking at each other the way we always did, and I said he thought he was great, didn't he, because his brother was Miss Murphy's beau, and Miss Muiphy wouldn't lick him when his brother was her beau. I didn't mean anything, I just said it, but Swatty hauled off and hit me one and dared me to say that again. So I said it again, and all the fellows got around and yelled “Fight! ”

“ I guess Bony thought the same thing, for he got white and started to run down the railway bank toward our skiff. So I started after him. But Swatty he started to run the other way, down the bank to the cornfield, towards where the woman was screaming. He rolled under the bob-wire fence and started down between the com rows as hard as he could go. Me and Bony stopped and looked, and then we went after him, only slower. When we got deep into the com we got more scared. We didn't like to be so far from where Swatty was, with a woman screaming like that and being murdered. ”

“ Bony began to cry sort of funny, like a sick animal with a voice that was too weak to cry very good. All I can remember was that I put out my hands and felt Swatty and hung onto his coat with both hands.
I hung on and held my breath and waited for the explosion to come. We heard Slim cracking sticks across his knee; we could hear the sticks snap. Then we heard him piling the sticks against the outside of the powder house, and pretty soon we heard scratch! scratch!—like a match on a box. It was the hardest waiting for anything I ever did. Waiting to be blown up is always like that, I guess. ”

“ But that was n't why he said it.
“Why, garsh! plenty of people would want to buy them,” Swatty said. “I guess I ought to know. I guess I've got an uncle in Derlingport, ain't I? I guess he ought to know about pond-lily roots, oughtn't he?”
It looked like that ought to be so, because Derlingport is three times as big as Riverbank, and Swatty's uncle was older than any of us. But Bony said: “Aw! what does your old uncle know about pond-lily roots, anyway?” ”

“ It was just an old stump that wasn't worth anything and wasn't any good to anybody.
Swatty and Bony and me started to move the capstan into the front yard where the stump was. It was so heavy we could hardly wiggle it, so after we had moved it an inch or two I said:
“Aw! we can't move it!”
So Bony said the same thing; but Swatty stood and looked at the capstan awhile, and then he said: “Yes, we can move it, too! We can make it move itself.” ”

“ Bony blubbered, and then we knew that Bony's father was really going to kill himself, because if Bony hadn't been pretty sure he would have said he wasn't, because he knew how Swatty can push a fellow's nose into his face with the bottom of his hand when he has got him down and he don't say what Swatty wants him to say. So we knew it must be pretty serious. So Swatty didn't push Bony's nose, but he said:
“Well, your father ain't killing himself in the barn, because he went by here a little while ago with his shotgun. How do you know he's going to kill himself?” ”

“ So then all the kids were coming over to my yard to shoot all the time—Swatty and Bony and the whole lot of them—and we shot at tin cans and things against the barn, but we weren't any of us very good shooters. I guess Swatty was the best. Or maybe I was about as good as he was.
That was all right, and I guess nobody cared anything, only Mother was always putting her head out of the window and saying, “Boys, do be careful with that gun!” So one day Swatty come over, like he always does, and he says, “Say! we can't shoot the rifle any more!” And I says, “Why can't we?” ”

“ Bony said.
So then Swatty said, aw! he didn't believe anybody would kill himself because he was fighting over bills. He said he didn't believe any grown-up man would fight over a little thing like bills; so that made me mad, and I said, aw! any man would fight over bills, and that my father did, and that my father was a better man than Swatty's father any day in the week and could lick Swatty's father any time they wanted to try it. And that was true, and Swatty knew it, because my father was bigger than his father and not so old. ”

“ Bony and Swatty were out there now, and Mamie Little and Scratch-Cat, and I didn't know how I would dare talk to them. I sort of felt like they would see it in my face. If they did I would feel so mean I'd die.
I guess you know how a fellow feels about it. Any fellow would almost rather go to jail than have a baby come to his house. The fellows yell at him, “Aw, Georgie, you got a baby at your house.” And he knows it is so and he can't tell them they're liars. ”