THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 EDWIN CORLE 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 JEAN CORLE
 
 SWATTY 
 
 A Story of Real Boys
 
 SWATTY JUST STOOD AND LOOKED (page 195)
 
 SWATTY 
 
 A Story of Real Boys 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLIS PARKER BUTLER 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 The Riverside Press Cambridge
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916, 1917, AND 1918, BY THE CROWBLL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY BLLIS PARKER BUTLER 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 TO 
 
 FRED ERNST SCHMIDT 
 
 OF MUSCATINE, IOWA 
 THE FAITHFUL COMPANION OF MY BOYHOOD 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 IS MOST GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 2037946
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE BIG RIVER ; i 
 
 II. MAMIE'S FATHER 27 
 
 III. THE "DIVORCE" 47 
 
 IV. THE STUMP 71 
 V. SCRATCH-CAT 95 
 
 VI. THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 122 
 
 VII. THE HAUNTED HOUSE 146 
 
 VIII. WASTED EFFORT 168 
 
 IX. THE MURDERERS 189 
 
 X. SLIM FINNEGAN 216 
 
 XL "THIEF! THIEF!" 241 
 
 XII. THE RED AVENGERS 255 
 
 XIII. THE ICE GOES OUT 273 
 
 XIV. HERB BESTIRS 293
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SWATTY JUST STOOD AND LOOKED Frontispiece 
 
 OUT OF THE BROKEN WINDOW AND HALFWAY 
 ACROSS THE STREET 44 
 
 WE WERE ON THE PORCH OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE! 158 
 
 I THOUGHT HE *D NEVER REACH THE ICE 2QO 
 
 From drawings by W. B. KING
 
 SWATTY 
 
 A Story of Real Boys 
 
 I 
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 I GUESS if teachers always knew how lickings were 
 going to turn out they would n't lick us fellows so 
 much. I am thinking about Miss Murphy, the one 
 that taught the room me and Swatty and Bony was 
 in, and about the time she was going to lick Swatty. 
 One of the times. There were plenty of others. 
 
 You see, me and Swatty and Bony is chums, and 
 we go together mostly, but this was when we was 
 in Miss Murphy's room. She's a good-looker, but 
 she's a tartar, too, when it comes to licking. 
 
 The way of it was this: My sister Fan was mushy 
 over Swatty 's brother Herb and she did n't care who 
 knew it, because they were engaged, and Fan was 
 fixing up her things to get married in, and she wished 
 I was a girl so I could be her flower girl at the wed- 
 ding, but she did n't know what she'd do with me. 
 She thought maybe she'd lock me in the cellar, she 
 said, but she did n't mean it. She was always cod- 
 ding me and Swatty. She'd cod us that way, and
 
 SWATTY 
 
 then she'd give us a dime or something. She was all 
 right, and Swatty thought so too. 
 
 So then Fan and Herb had a fight, like girls and 
 fellows always do have; but this was a good one. 
 It was because Herb said maybe Fan would like to 
 have Miss Murphy for a bridesmaid, and Fan got 
 mad because Herb had gone with Miss Murphy 
 once. So then Fan would n't forgive Herb. Herb 
 came over and fought for three evenings, and then 
 Swatty brought a note from him to Fan, and I took 
 one from Fan to Herb, and that was the end of it. 
 The note I took had a ring in it, because I could feel 
 it. Then Fan just moped around the house and cried 
 some, and after a while Herb had to go and teach 
 the eighth grade at school, because Professor Martin 
 broke his leg on the ice the janitor ought to have 
 scraped off the steps but did n't. So right away Herb 
 began to get thick with Miss Murphy, but that 
 did n't make any difference to me. As soon as a fel- 
 low has n't got one girl he has another one, anyway, 
 and I did n't blame Herb. I was just sorry for Fan. 
 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, did n't he, 
 because his brother was Miss Murphy's beau, and 
 Miss Murphy would n't lick him when his brother
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 was her beau. I did n'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 fel- 
 lows got around and yelled "Fight! Fight!" and I 
 had to fight him. It would have been a pretty good 
 fight if Miss Murphy had n't come along. She 
 jumped right at us and grabbed us both. 
 
 "Who started this fight?" she asked, hopping 
 mad. 
 V 1 He did," I said. 
 
 "Did n't neither!" said Swatty. "He did." 
 
 "Who struck the first blow?" says Miss Murphy. 
 
 Well, everybody told her Swatty did, which was 
 the truth, and she let me go. 
 
 "Just as I thought, you you little bulldozer," 
 she said, shaking him. "You've been getting entirely 
 too uppish of late, young man. You think you can 
 take advantage of of circumstances; but I '11 teach 
 you a thing or two. Get into school there, and wash 
 yourself, and see that you are in your seat when the 
 bell rings." 
 
 So Swatty did it. Me and the Bony Highlander 
 stayed out till the bell rung, and then we went in, 
 too, and as we went past Swatty's desk he whis- 
 pered, "She thinks she's going to lick me, but she 
 ain't." 
 
 "Bet she does, if she said so," I says; and I bet 
 she would, too. So did the Bony Highlander, because 
 we knew she was the sort that would rather lick a 
 fellow than not.
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Well, that was in the morning, and they never lick 
 at noon because the way some fellows wriggle and 
 twist it takes a long time to lick them, and it would 
 use up the noon hour. 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 
 could n't get Swatty to even pretend he might holler. 
 He said no teacher in" the world f could make him 
 holler. We all said it. Or, I don't know whether the 
 Bony Highlander said it or not. He'd never been 
 licked in school. He was n't the kind that gets licked, 
 somehow. But he was a pretty nice fellow, anyway. 
 We liked him just as well, but not as well as Swatty 
 and me liked each other of course, because me and 
 Swatty was cow-cousins. 
 
 Me and Swatty was both raised on the milk of 
 the same cow, but it was Schwartzes' cow, and when 
 I was being raised on it Herb Schwartz used to fetch 
 the milk around, the way Swatty does now. I guess 
 that's how Herb got to know Fan. But the Bony 
 Highlander was just a kid that moved into the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 His name was n't really Bony Highlander, but we 
 called him that because when he was reading a piece 
 of poetry out of the Reader in school, and ought to 
 have said "bonny Highlander," he said "bony
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 Highlander." But we mostly called him Bony for 
 short, like we called Schwartzy Swatty* for short. 
 He was all right, but he never started to do things; 
 he just went along when we did them, and waited 
 on the outside of the fence, and things like that. 
 
 Well, we waited on the corner for Swatty that 
 afternoon until the bell rung but he did n't come, so 
 we went along, and he was at school already, and 
 after he had stayed in to be licked and Miss Murphy 
 let him out, he told us why he went early. He knew 
 where she kept her rawhide, in the closet at the end 
 of the room on the shelf where the chalk boxes were, 
 and he went early at noon and took his pocket- 
 knife and cut the rawhide into little pieces about an 
 inch long. He laid them all out on the shelf in a row, 
 and he said he nearly died laughing when she went 
 to pick it up and it was all in pieces. So Miss Murphy 
 went to get another rawhide from another teacher, 
 but everybody had gone home, and she told Swatty 
 she would tend to him to-morrow. 
 
 "I'd rather have been licked to-day and then 
 I 'd be done with it," I said, but Swatty did n't say so. 
 
 "If you've got a licking," he said, "you've got 
 it, and you can't ever un-get it, but I ain't ever going 
 to get this one. I'll run away first." 
 
 "Ah, I bet you get it to-morrow," I said, and the 
 Bony Highlander said so too. 
 
 "Bet I don't!" said Swatty. So we made a bet. 
 I bet him my clay pipe against a nigger-shooter 
 rubber he had.
 
 SWATTY 
 
 So the next day was when we'd know, and at noon 
 Swatty came over to my barn to get some oilcloth 
 we had in the barn to put in his pants so the licking 
 would n't hurt so much, and I guessed I would win 
 the bet. But he could n't fix the oilcloth so it would 
 do any good and let him sit down. He thought Miss 
 Murphy would be onto it if he could n't sit down. 
 So he gave that up. So we went to school. 
 
 When school was nearly out Swatty got up and 
 started to walk down his aisle and up the next, like 
 he was going out for a drink, but Miss Murphy, who 
 was doing an example on the blackboard for the 
 B class, turned around and saw him. 
 } "Where are you going?" she asked, like tacks in 
 a bottle. 
 
 "Just to get a drink," said Swatty. 
 
 "You take your seat this instant!" said Miss 
 Murphy, and when she said it, Swatty started to 
 run; but she got there first and headed him off and 
 grabbed him by the arm. He kicked at her shins, 
 but she gave him a shake that made him see stars 
 and marched him back to the end of the room. I 
 thought she was going to take him to his seat, but 
 she did n't. 
 
 Our schoolhouse has four rooms on a floor two 
 in front and two in back and the hall comes in 
 the middle, but it don't run all the way from front 
 to back. In the middle in front on the second floor 
 there is a little room with some books in it, and they 
 call it the library room. 
 
 6
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 It has a window and three doors one into the 
 hall and one into our room, and one into the room 
 across the hall. So Miss Murphy yanked Swatty into 
 that room and locked all three doors. So she had him 
 safe until she got ready to lick him. Then she was 
 going to unlock the door and bring him out and do 
 a good job, because she had a new rawhide all ready. 
 I guess she made up her mind she'd lick him until 
 he hollered that time. 
 
 So Swatty waited until school was out. Then he 
 had to wait until Miss Murphy got rid of the ones 
 she had kept in to write their names five hundred 
 times, and things like that, but he did n't wait. He 
 opened the window and looked out, and right below 
 him was the peak roof of the porch. It was n't very 
 big, and it was slated, and if he slipped he'd be a 
 goner and break a leg or something, but he got onto 
 the window sill and hung down with his hands on 
 the sill, and dropped. He dropped straddle of the 
 roof and hung on the best way he could. 
 
 He said the only thing he thought about was 
 what a fool he had been not to shut the window, but 
 it was June and most of the windows were wide open 
 anyway, and I guess Miss Murphy did n't notice. 
 She unlocked the door and looked into the room and 
 Swatty was n't there. Then I guess she thought 
 maybe somebody had come to the library room for 
 a book and had let Swatty out. She never put her 
 head out of the window at all. So she was beaten 
 that time, and she went home.
 
 SWATTY 
 
 So Swatty waited until the janitor had swept all 
 the rooms and started to sweep the walk and he 
 hollered to him. It is none of the janitor's business 
 who gets licked or who don't, so he came up to the 
 room and helped Swatty get in the window. He just 
 laughed about it. 
 
 So the next day Swatty went to school just the 
 same as always, but at noon he came over to my 
 barn and Bony came with him. They generally came 
 because I had to feed my rabbits at noon. This time 
 Swatty sort of poked at the sawdust that was the 
 floor of our barn and did n't say much. He most 
 generally wore his hat on the back of his head, but 
 this time he had it pulled down over his eyes and 
 that was the way he did when he was getting ready 
 to fight a fellow. 
 
 After a while he looked up. 
 
 "Are you fellows going to school this afternoon?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Yes," I said. " Ain't you?" 
 
 "Go and get licked? I guess not!" he said. "I'm 
 going down to the river." 
 
 "What are you going to do down at the river?" 
 Bony asked. 
 
 "Going to look at it; what you think I'm going 
 to do?" said Swatty. 
 
 Well, looking at it was n't a bad thing to do, be- 
 cause the river was away up, and when the Missis- 
 sippi is up it is worth looking at. It looks twice as 
 big and sort of rounded up in the middle, and all 
 8
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 sorts of things floating down it dead trees, and 
 boxes, and logs, and dead pigs, and sometimes sheds 
 and things. It generally gets up in June, and we al- 
 ways go down on Saturdays to see how she 's getting 
 along. 
 
 "She's higher than she ever was," said Swatty. 
 
 "Well, I guess she'll be mighty high by Satur- 
 day," said Bony. 
 
 "No, she won't," said Swatty, "because she's 
 going to begin falling to-day, the paper says. Why 
 don't you come along down with me?" 
 
 "Yes, and get licked for staying out of school!" 
 I said. 
 
 "All right for you fellows, then!" said Swatty. 
 "I'll be mad at you for good. If you were going to 
 get licked I 'd just want to do something so I could 
 get licked too. Don't I always stick by you fellows? 
 And when I 'm going to get licked you go back on 
 me. You're 'fraid-cats." 
 
 "Who's a 'fraid-cat?" I asked, for I don't let 
 anybody call me that. 
 
 "You are!" said Swatty. "And so's Bony. You're 
 afraid to stay out of school one afternoon. You're 
 afraid to stay out the day the river hits high-water 
 mark. You'll look nice, won't you, with just you 
 and Bony and a lot of girls in school!" 
 
 "Who said we'd be the only kids there?" I asked. 
 
 "Who said it? Why, I said it. You don't think 
 any kids will go to school this afternoon, do you? 
 Everybody will be down at the levee men and 
 
 9
 
 SWATTY 
 
 everybody. If the river don't drop this afternoon 
 she'll go over the island levee. And you sit around 
 in school like it was a common day! Why, it's like 
 like election, or Fourth of July, or something like 
 that! It's worse than when the ice goes out." 
 
 Well, I never knew a boy to get licked for staying 
 out of school when the ice was going out of the river. 
 He gets kept in the next day, or something, but no- 
 body can blame a boy for wanting to see the ice go 
 out, not even a teacher. So I guessed I'd go with 
 Swatty, if I could sneak it. Bony did n't want to go 
 much, but he did n't like both of us to call him a 
 'fraid-cat, so he came. We climbed out of my barn 
 window, because Swatty said we'd have to be care- 
 ful; but I guess it was n't much use, because if we 
 had gone out of the back gate it would have done 
 just as well, and if we had gone out of the front gate 
 nobody would have thought anything but that we 
 were going to school. We kept in the alley all the 
 way down to Indian Creek, and Indian Creek was 
 worth seeing, I tell you. 
 
 Mostly there is nothing in it but a little bit of 
 water twisting along in the wet sand, away down in 
 the bottom of the creek bed, but now the creek was 
 full right up to the top, and there were rowboats 
 moored in it. We played in the rowboats a whi'e, 
 until a man came and chased us away, and then we 
 went down along the creek to the river. I tell you, 
 she was some river! 
 
 She went rushing along, all big and muddy and 
 10
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 foamy, and she was half covered with floating stuff 
 bark and whole haystacks and old trees and 
 boards and boxes and things. It scared a fellow just 
 to look at her. It made me feel the way a little baby 
 feels when a big twelve-wheel mogul engine comes 
 roaring up to the depot platform, only ten times as 
 scary. It was like a whole ocean starting out to rush 
 away somewhere. We just stood and looked at it, 
 and pretty soon Swatty says, "Gosh!" Only he 
 always says ' ' Garsh ! " And I said, ' ' Gee ! " That was 
 all we said, and Bony did n't say anything. He just 
 stepped backward three or four steps and looked 
 frightened. That's the way you always feel when 
 you see the old Mississippi on a rampage. You feel 
 as if you ought to do something to stop it, and you 
 know you can't that nobody can. When it gets 
 going it is going to keep right on. So we went down 
 to the levee. 
 
 Well, there was n't any levee! Our levee is just a 
 long down-hill of sand, and it was n't there. The 
 river had backed clean up to the railroad tracks and 
 was sploshing against the second rail of the outside 
 track, and at the down-river end of the levee it had 
 gone under the tracks and was all over Front Street 
 at the corner. The ferry dock, that was usually away 
 down at the bottom of the levee, was tied right up 
 close to the railroad track, and the ferry was tied in 
 behind the steamboat warehouse, so she would n't 
 wash away. The water was clean up over the floor 
 of the steamboat warehouse, too, and nothing looked 
 ii
 
 SWATTY 
 
 the way it used to look. It was worth forty lickings 
 just to see how different everything was. We just 
 stood and looked and could n't believe it. 
 
 "Come on," said Swatty, all at once, "let's have 
 some fun. Let's take off our shoes and stockings and 
 have some fun." 
 
 We went across the street and asked a man if we 
 could leave our shoes and stockings in his store, and 
 he said we could, and then we went back and began 
 to wade where the water was n't very deep. There 
 were a few other boys there, wading, and a lot of 
 men standing around, looking at the water. Some 
 would come down and look a while and then go away 
 again, and all at once Swatty said, "Garsh! \Vhat if 
 our fathers came down here!" 
 
 So we got away from there, quick. We went down 
 below the steamboat warehouse, where the ferry- 
 boat was tied, because nobody was apt to come 
 down there, and nobody did. We played on the 
 ferryboat a while and then we got off her, and 
 Swatty saw where somebody had fastened a lot of 
 logs and bridge timbers to the railway track. I guess 
 they were stuff some men had gone out in skiffs to 
 catch as they floated by, before the river got so 
 rampageous. The way they fastened them was to 
 drive a spike in one end and tie a rope to that, and 
 then tie the other end to the railway track. So 
 Swatty said, "Come on! Let's have some fun with 
 these logs and bridge timbers," or something like 
 that; so we did. We walked on them, and some of 
 12
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 them would sink under us, and then we would jump 
 to another. 
 
 Well, there below the steamboat warehouse the 
 water made an eddy, and the bark and foam and 
 some sticks kept going around and around in the 
 eddy, and pretty soon Swatty said: "Let's ride on 
 these logs," and that was all right, too, because we 
 could sit straddle of a log or a bridge timber and 
 paddle with our feet. So we did that. Swatty cut 
 three of them loose, and we each took a bridge tim- 
 ber, because they did n't turn over like the logs did, 
 and we paddled around in the eddy and played 
 we were steamboats. I was the "War Eagle," and 
 Swatty was the "Mary Morton," and Bony was the 
 "Centennial." We played that a long time and then 
 we took boards for paddles, and we could go better 
 that way so we played Indians in canoes, and I got 
 on Swatty's timber and let mine go, which was all 
 right because the timbers would just go around 
 and around in the eddy. But Bony would n't get on 
 with us, because he was afraid the timber would 
 sink. 
 
 It got along to about five o'clock, and Bony said 
 we had better go home. He was always the first to 
 want to go home. He told Swatty that Swatty would 
 be late going for his cow if he did n't start right 
 away, but Swatty said he did n't care if the old cow 
 never got home. He said it would n't hurt the old 
 cow to wait a while, anyway. So we started to paddle 
 around the eddy again, and that time we got almost 
 
 13
 
 SWATTY 
 
 too far out, I guess, and the end of the timber stuck 
 out beyond the eddy into the swift water. 
 
 "Back her up! Quick!" Swatty yelled, and we 
 both tried to back her with our board paddles, but 
 it was too late. The swift water caught her on the 
 side and swung her right out into the current. Gee, 
 but she went ! Right away she was half a block away 
 from Bony and I began to cry, for there was no tell- 
 ing where she'd stop. You could n't expect her to 
 stop this side of St. Louis or New Orleans. So I 
 began to cry, and I stooped down and hung onto 
 the timber with both arms. It was all I could think 
 of to do. But Swatty let on he was n't scared at all. 
 He tried to paddle toward shore, but there was so 
 much driftwood and stuff floating that he could n't 
 doit. 
 
 "Aw, shut up! Don't be a cry-baby!" he yelled 
 at me. "This ain't nothing. Grab your paddle, and 
 we'll paddle out to the Tow Head and we'll be all 
 right." 
 
 The Tow Head is the big island in the river below 
 town, but more to this side of the river than to the 
 other side. It is shaped like a horseshoe, with the 
 two ends down-stream. Me and Swatty knew it 
 pretty well because sometimes we used to row down 
 there. It was all trees except a strip of sand on each 
 side, and in low water there used to be a sandbar 
 below it. It looked like a good idea to get to the Tow 
 Head if we could; but I was afraid to sit up so I just 
 stayed the way I was. But Swatty paddled like a 
 14
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 good fellow. I guess the current helped him some. 
 In low water there are two channels, one on each side 
 of the Tow Head, but when the river is on a rampage 
 it don't care anything about channels it just goes. 
 But it kind of bends below town and I guess that 
 helped Swatty. 
 
 He kept yelling at me not to be a 'fraid-cat and to 
 paddle, but I did n't dare. So he paddled, and pretty 
 soon I saw he was going to hit the Tow Head all 
 right. That made me feel better and I kind of raised 
 up on my hands and stopped crying, but when I 
 looked I was scared worse than ever. It looked as if 
 the Tow Head was coming up-stream like a big 
 packet at full tilt. It did n't look as if we were float- 
 ing down to it, but as if it was tearing up-stream 
 toward us, and it was coming lickety-split. At its 
 nose, where the water hit it, the river reared up in a 
 big yellow wave, like the bow wave of a ship, and 
 was cut into foam and spray where it hit the trees 
 and then rushed away on either side like mad. So I 
 saw Swatty had made a mistake in trying to land 
 on the Tow Head. 
 
 There was n't really any Tow Head to land on. 
 The river was way up in the branches of the trees, 
 and I guess the water was ten feet deep all over the 
 Tow Head, or deeper, and rushing through the trees 
 like it was crazy. But we did n't have time to think 
 much about it. We just had time to be scared, and to 
 see the old Tow Head come rushing and foaming 
 at us, and then it sort of nabbed us, like a cat nabs a 
 
 15
 
 SWATTY 
 
 mouse. It was all a big swosh of water noises and a 
 big swosh of tree branches being slashed by the 
 water, and then me and Swatty was splashed all 
 over, and the bridge timber banged into two trees 
 and stuck. Swatty went off the timber like a stone 
 out of a nigger-shooter, but I hung on. I 've got a 
 black and blue spot inside my leg yet, where it hit 
 the edge of the timber. Right away the water began 
 to surge over the timber like a giant pushing against 
 me, and I saw I could n't hang on there very long, so 
 I reached up and grabbed a branch of one of the 
 trees and hoisted myself up and got up in the tree. 
 And there was Swatty! He was n't in my tree, but 
 he was in the tree next below mine. 
 
 "Garsh!" he said, and that was all he said right 
 then. So I began to cry. It would make anybody cry 
 to be there, up in a tree, with the whole Mississippi 
 River rushing along under him, so near he could 
 stick his toes down into it. It's an awful thing to 
 think about. You can sit in a tree and look at a creek 
 run under you and you don't care, but when the 
 Mississippi is on a tear it is different. It's the biggest 
 and strongest thing in the world, and there was all of 
 it rushing along right under us, and the tree sort of 
 waving back and forth. 
 
 So I cried. 
 
 "Aw, shut up!" Swatty said. "What are you 
 crying about?" 
 
 Well, I guess we were in a pretty bad fix worse 
 than we thought we were. No boat there ever was 
 16
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 could get at us where we were. No boat could come 
 at that Tow Head the way we did and last a minute, 
 because it would smash against the trees. And even 
 if anybody knew where we were they could n't get 
 to us. Even if the strongest men in town tried to row 
 a boat up-stream from below the Tow Head they 
 could n't get to us, because they could n't row 
 among the trees on it. So I cried. 
 
 "Shut up!" Swatty yelled at me, "Ain't it bad 
 enough without you bellering?" 
 
 So there we were. 
 
 When Bony saw us go out into the river he sat on 
 his timber with his mouth open, and he could n't 
 even holler he was so scared and then he just 
 paddled for shore and jumped off his timber and 
 ran. He did n't know where he was running he 
 was just running away from there. He was scared 
 stiff. When he come to, he was halfway home, and 
 blubbering and panting, and then he sat down on a 
 horse block and did n't know what to do. He thought 
 we were drowned, sure. So he thought the best thing 
 to do would be to not say anything about it. He 
 was afraid. First he thought he would go home and 
 act as if he had been at school and just stayed out 
 playing a while, and not do anything else about it 
 and let folks find out any way they could ; and then 
 he thought that Mrs. Schwartz would miss Swatty 
 when it was time to fetch the cow, and that she 
 would come over to his house to see if Swatty was 
 there, and he did n't know what else. So he thought 
 
 17
 
 SWATTY 
 
 he would go over to Swatty's house first and sort of 
 keep Mrs. Schwartz from doing anything like that. 
 So he went. He forgot he was in his bare feet, or that 
 he had ever had shoes and stockings. 
 
 When he got to Swatty's house Mrs. Schwartz was 
 on the front terrace in her calico dress and with a 
 birch switch in her hand, looking for Swatty, because 
 Swatty knew what time the cow ought to be fetched 
 home. Bony went up to the steps. 
 
 "Do you want me to fetch the cow home, Mrs. 
 Schwartz?" he asked. 
 
 "What for should you fetch the cow home?" said 
 Mrs. Schwartz, as angry as could be. 
 
 "I thought maybe Swatty was late, and I did n't 
 want to keep you waiting," he said. 
 
 "For why should you think he was late?" Mrs. 
 Schwartz asked. She always talked in a funny way, 
 because she was German. 
 
 "I thought maybe he was playing down at the 
 river," said Bony. "Lots of boys were playing down 
 there to-day." 
 
 "So!" said Mrs. Schwartz. "And he sends you 
 home to get his cow, yes? He could get his own cows. 
 I wait for him." 
 
 So then Bony did n't know what to say. He stood 
 around. And after a while he said: 
 
 "Maybe he won't come home to get the cows." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Schwartz. 
 
 "Maybe he's drowned," said Bony. "Maybe him 
 and Georgie went down to the river and and " 
 It
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 So then he began to cry, and the first thing any- 
 body knew he had me and Swatty drowned and our 
 bodies floating down to St. Louis or New Orleans, 
 and Mrs. Schwartz wringing her hands and hollering 
 for Herb. So Herb come out on the porch, and Bony 
 told him me and Swatty had floated away on a 
 bridge timber and got drowned, and Herb got Mr. 
 Schwartz out of the house, and then he come over to 
 my house to tell my father, and my father and 
 mother and Fan and all the Schwartzes and a lot of 
 neighbors all went running down to the levee, and 
 took the Bony Highlander with them to show them 
 where we had got drowned from. So that was why 
 Bony did n't go home, and why he got licked when 
 he did get home. 
 
 By that time it was n't dark but it was getting 
 dark. Me and Swatty just hung onto our trees, and 
 that was all we could do ; but all our folks and most 
 everybody in town got down to the levee, because 
 Tim Mulligan at the waterworks pump-house blew 
 the alarm whistle. The firemen all came, too, with 
 their hose carts and ladder trucks, but most of the 
 folks just went around saying it was too bad, but 
 that it was hopeless. Even the mayor said it was 
 hopeless. You see, nobody knew we were on Tow 
 Head. They thought we were drowned in the river, 
 like Bony said. So there was n't anything to do, be- 
 cause it was too hopeless to do anything. The only 
 thing to do was to wait until the river fell, in a couple 
 of weeks or so, and then maybe they 'd find what was 
 
 19
 
 SWATTY 
 
 left of me and Swatty down-river, where we'd be 
 washed up, if we ever was. 
 
 Well, that was what everybody thought. My 
 mother cried, and Mrs. Schwartz cried, and I guess 
 most of the women cried, and the men looked mighty 
 sober, and said what a pity it was so hopeless; but 
 what could they do? Everybody was sober or crying, 
 I guess, except Fan, and I guess she'd been so mad 
 at Herb she just could n't be anything but mad. 
 She was so full of mad that it had to come out, so 
 while everybody was crying and all she just flew up 
 in the air and went over and gave Herb a good 
 raking. 
 
 "Well!" she says. "And you call yourself a man! 
 Do you mean to stand around here like a bump on a 
 log and do nothing?" she says. "I'm glad I found 
 out in time what a helpless ninny you are," or some- 
 thing like that. She gave it to him good, I tell you! 
 "This trash," she says meaning the mayor and 
 the firemen and the city council and everybody 
 "I don't expect anything else from, but I once 
 thought you had some gump." Or something like 
 that. So Herb got red. 
 
 "Very well," he says, like a man ready to jump 
 off the high school roof, "if you say so, I'll take a 
 skiff and go out upon the river. You can't call me a 
 'fraid-cat, Fan. You'll never call me that." Or 
 something like that, he said. 
 
 "Skiff indeed!" says Fan. "You'd have a nice 
 picnic with a skiff, would n't you? Have some sense, 
 
 20
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 Herbert Schwartz. What good is that ferryboat do- 
 ing, tied up here?" 
 
 Well, that was what they done. At first Captain 
 Hewitt did n't want to take the ferryboat out. He 
 said it was hopeless, and that she was an old rotten 
 hull, and that a log would go through her like a 
 needle, and she 'd sink, and she could n't make head- 
 way up-stream against such a flood, and a lot more, 
 but with all the folks in town there he could n't keep 
 that up long; so he went aboard and fired up, and 
 sent up- town for Jerry Mason, who was the regular 
 fireman. By that time it was dark enough for any- 
 body, so Mr. Higgins, the steamboat agent, went 
 and got the two flambeaux he uses when steamboats 
 unload at night, and everybody that had a porch 
 lantern with a reflector got that, and they put them 
 all on the ferryboat. Flambeaux are big iron baskets 
 on iron poles, and the poles are pointed at the bot- 
 tom so they can be jabbed into the ground or a floor 
 or anything. You fill the baskets with tar and wood 
 and light them. So when that was all ready most 
 of the firemen got aboard with their hooks, off the 
 hook and ladder trucks, and a lot of other men got 
 aboard with pike poles and grapple hooks, and Herb 
 went up in the pilot house with Captain Hewitt, and 
 they set out to find our bodies. 
 
 But me and Swatty was n't bodies yet, we was 
 still folks. We were feeling a little bit better, too, be- 
 cause Swatty found out that the tree he was in was 
 a slippery elm tree, and he peeled off some slippery 
 
 21
 
 SWATTY 
 
 elm bark and chewed it, and he tossed some over to 
 me, and I chewed that. So we wondered how long a 
 fellow could live on slippery elm bark, and if Swatty 
 would have the tree peeled clean before the river 
 went down. If he did we'd starve to death; but 
 Swatty said that, as the water went down, more and 
 more of the tree trunk would be above water and we 
 could peel it and eat it. So we both felt better, only 
 there was a dead something had caught in the tree 
 branches and when the wind changed it did n't smell 
 very good. It smelled worse than that, even. So 
 about then we began to see the lights come out on 
 shore, and pretty soon we saw the big, smoky light 
 the flambeaux made. We thought it was a bonfire 
 on shore up at town. 
 
 Well, I guess we'd have been bodies before any- 
 body got to us, anyway, if we had n't had some bad 
 luck. Me and Swatty was there in our trees chewing 
 away at slippery elm when all at once something big 
 and black come slamming down onto the point of the 
 Tow Head. It looked like a house, but I guess it was 
 only a cow shed or something like that, that had 
 got floated off the river bottoms by the flood. It 
 came all of a sudden, and before we knew what had 
 happened it hit the Tow Head point and banged into 
 the tree I was on, and the water began to rush over 
 it, and then all at once the tree I was on began to 
 give. It began to topple. It went slow at first and 
 then it went quicker, and it fell over against the tree 
 Swatty was in, and the shed came bumping after it, 
 
 22
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 and then Swatty's tree keeled over, too, and me and 
 Swatty went down under, and the shed come grating 
 over us right over our heads and pushing our 
 trees down into the water. 
 
 All I ever knew was that the next thing I knew I 
 was slammed up against the side of the shed by the 
 water and pushed against it like a big hand was push- 
 ing me, and I was fighting to get more out of the 
 water, and then the shed sort of melted and went to 
 pieces and I was holding onto a board and going 
 down with the current between the trees of the Tow 
 Head. Sometimes the board hit a tree, and some- 
 times it did n't, but I thought I was all over with, 
 anyway, and then right ahead of me I saw the water 
 rushing and roaring up against something. 
 
 I did n't know what it was, but it was a log raft 
 the mill folks had put in behind the Tow Head so it 
 would n't get washed away. It was in the inside of 
 the horseshoe, and all across the front of it was 
 driftwood and trash and old boards and everything, 
 and that was what the water was splashing against, 
 and before I knew it I was slammed up against it 
 me and my board. And what I slammed up against 
 was the bridge timber I had been on before, or one 
 like it. If I had slammed up against where it was just 
 bark and driftwood I would have clawed at it a 
 while and then gone under, I guess; but I crawled 
 Dnto the timber and just lay there and tried to get 
 the water out of my nose. It looked like half a mile 
 of driftwood was jammed in between me and the 
 
 23
 
 SWATTY 
 
 log raft jammed in and pushed together the way 
 a flood can jam it and push it. 
 
 Well, that timber was n't any place to be. The 
 water rushed against it and over it, so I was getting 
 ducked all the time, and I put out my hand and 
 tried the drift stuff, but it did n't seem like it would 
 hold me up, but there was one board that was on 
 top of the stuff, and I tried that. I slid over onto 
 it and it seemed all right, so I edged along it, and 
 when I got to the end of the board the drift stuff 
 seemed firmer and I got on my stomach and edged 
 out onto it. It was firm enough, but not very firm, 
 but on my stomach that way I covered a good deal 
 of it at a time, and I sort of wiggled along, and the 
 more I wiggled the firmer it got. It had to, with all 
 the river pushing it, and the driftwood back of it 
 pushing too. 
 
 So it took me about an hour to get to the log raft, 
 and when I got to the edge logs, that are chained 
 together, I was all scratched and sore and I just sat 
 down and cried, because I knew Swatty was dead. 
 And all at once he said, "Hello, Georgie! " and there 
 he was, crawling along the logs toward me. He said 
 he went under when the tree fell over, and that he 
 went under all the driftwood and come up through 
 a hole in the raft. Maybe he did. There were holes 
 enough in the raft. But I did n't get there that way. 
 
 Anyway, there he was, and that made me feel a 
 lot better, and we crawled around the edge of the 
 raft, because we wanted to get to the lower side. 
 24
 
 THE BIG RIVER 
 
 Swatty said maybe we could push a log under the 
 outside chain of logs and paddle to shore on it, but 
 I was n't going to do it. Only I wanted to see him 
 do it if he did it. So we got to the lower edge of the 
 raft, where it stuck out below the Tow Head, and 
 just then along came the ferryboat. She was back- 
 paddling and going as slow as she could, and she 
 looked like an excursion with all the porch lamps and 
 the flambeaux. So me and Swatty hollered, but I 
 guess they saw us before we hollered. Everybody 
 came over on our side and that tipped the ferry over 
 a little, and a lot of the men threw ropes at us and 
 held out their pike poles, and me and Swatty 
 grabbed them and they yanked us aboard. So 
 then she whistled five times and waited and whistled 
 five times again, and so on, because that was the 
 signal they was to make if they found our bodies, 
 and they had found them, but they were alive yet. 
 So then Herb made the captain whistle long and 
 steady without stopping, so maybe they 'd know we 
 were alive yet. But nobody knew it, because nobody 
 thought we would be. 
 
 Well, the old ferry let out so much steam whistling 
 she couldn't go up-stream. I guess she couldn't 
 anyway. So they ran her into the shore just where 
 she was and tied her to a big tree, and when we got 
 to the road there was Mother and Father and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Schwartz in a livery rig, because they had 
 followed the boat all the way down. And Fan was in 
 the rig, too. So they all pawed me and Swatty over 
 25
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and saw how bad we was scratched and all, and said 
 we was suffering from exhaustion, but we was n't. 
 We was only played out. 
 
 So then Herbert said, "All right!" and started to 
 go away, and Fan said, "Herbert!" 
 
 "What is it?" he said. 
 
 "I want you to ride up-town with us," she said. 
 
 "No," he said, "I'll go back and help Captain 
 Hewitt get the boat in shape. I guess I've done 
 enough to show you I've some gump." 
 
 "But I want you to come," Fan says. "I want to 
 talk to you." 
 
 So he came. Him and Fan sat on the front seat 
 and drove and talked, and I guess their talk was all 
 right, because they fixed everything up. And that 
 was where Miss Murphy got left. Just because she 
 wanted to lick Swatty she lost her beau. That's why 
 I say I guess if teachers always knew how their lick- 
 ings were going to turn out they would n't lick us 
 fellows so much. Not when the fellow is the brother 
 of their beau, anyway.
 
 II 
 
 ; MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 I GUESS this is a good time to tell about Mamie 
 Little, because now you know who me and Swatty 
 and Bony are. Mamie Little was my girl, only she 
 did n't know it. Nobody knew it but me. It was a 
 secret I had. That's the way a fellow has a girl at 
 first: she's a secret and she don't know she's his girl. 
 Sometimes she don't never get to know it and the 
 fellow has to get another girl. But while he "has" 
 her the fellow knows it, and it makes him feel bash- 
 ful and uncomfortable and frightened when she is 
 near by and it is pretty bully. 
 
 The reason I picked out Mamie Little for my girl 
 was because she had the nicest eyes and nicest hair 
 of any girl I ever saw and the way she swished her 
 dress when she walked. She lived across the street 
 from my house and^ mostly played with my sister 
 Lucy. So when I played with Lucy I could play with 
 Mamie Little, too, and nobody would think it was 
 because she was my girl. They would think I was 
 just playing with my sister. 
 
 Mamie Little had been my girl a good while like 
 that, with nobody knowing it but me, and I guessed 
 that pretty soon it would be time for me to fight 
 Swatty or somebody about her and have her for my 
 real girl, if she did n't mind; but just then Toady 
 27
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Williams came to town and he picked out Mamie 
 Little to be his girl and did n't care who knew it. 
 And Mamie Little did n't care who knew it. 
 
 Toady was a new kid in town, because his father 
 had come to Riverbank to start a store. We never 
 said Toady could be one of our crowd and we never 
 wanted him to be, but he just joined on because he 
 felt like it. That's the kind of boy he was. He 
 thought anybody would be tickled to death to have 
 him be around with them. He was n't a fat boy, but 
 he was a plump one, and his breeches always fit him 
 so close they were like the skin on a horse; when he 
 wrinkled they wrinkled. He wore shoes in summer. 
 He looked all the time like company come to visit, 
 and I guess that was one reason we did n't care for 
 him much. 
 
 The reason we called him Toady was because of 
 his eyes. They popped out like a frog's eyes, sort of 
 like brown marbles, and the more he talked the more 
 they popped out. When he talked he could n't do 
 anything else but talk. Swatty could lie on his stom- 
 ach and chew an apple and play mumblety-peg and 
 kick a hole in the sod with one toe and talk, all at one 
 time, but Toady could n't. He had to sit up straight 
 and pop his eyes out. When he got started talking 
 you could cut in and say, "Was your grandmother 
 a monkey?" and he'd say, "Yes," as if he had n't 
 heard, and go right on talking. He would n't fight, 
 like me and Swatty, and sometimes Bony, would. 
 If you thought it was time to have a fight with him 
 28
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 and pitched into him he would bend down and turn 
 his back and let you mailer him until you got 
 through. But, mostly, he would talk somehow so 
 you would n't want to fight him. That's no way for 
 a boy to talk. It's the way girls talk. Or preachers. 
 
 Toady did n't get Mamie Little for his girl the 
 right way. He never said she was n't his girl, he just 
 said she was. The right way is that when the other 
 fellows find out he has a girl they holler at him: 
 "Mamie Little is Georgie's girl! Mamie Little is 
 Georgie's girl!" And he has to get mad and fight 
 them about it to prove it's a lie, but after he has 
 fought enough to prove she is n't his girl, why, then 
 she is his girl and he can have her for his girl and 
 nobody hollers it at him. So then she is the one he 
 chooses to kiss when they play "Post-Office" or 
 "Copenhagen" at parties, and if he's got anything 
 to give her he gives it to her, like snail shells or a 
 better slate pencil than she has, and such things. 
 So it's pretty nice, and you feel pretty good about 
 it and are glad she's your girl. 
 
 Well, a short while before Toady Williams came 
 to our town they had an election to see whether the 
 state was to be prohibition or not, and all the school 
 children whose fathers were prohibition paraded; 
 so Mamie Little paraded because her father had the 
 prohibition newspaper in Riverbank, and I paraded 
 because Mamie did and my father did n't care 
 whether there was prohibition or not. Swatty did n't 
 parade because his father was a German tailor, and 
 29
 
 SWATTY 
 
 when he felt like a glass of beer he wanted to have 
 it, and every fall Swatty's mother made grape wine 
 out of wild grapes that me and Swatty got from the 
 vines in the bottom across the Mississippi. When 
 they had the election, prohibition was elected all 
 over the state, but not in Riverbank; but we had to 
 have it in Riverbank because the state elected it. 
 
 Of course I was prohibition, because I had paraded 
 and because Mamie Little was, but Swatty was anti- 
 prohibition. I did n't say a thing to make Swatty 
 mad; all I said was: "Huh! You thought you was so 
 smart, did n't you? You thought prohibition was 
 going to get licked, but it was you got licked. Next 
 time you won't be so smart. I guess you and your 
 father feel pretty sick about it." 
 
 "Don't you say anything about my father!" 
 Swatty said. 
 
 " I '11 say he was licked, because he was licked," I 
 said. 
 
 So Swatty pulled off his coat and I pulled off 
 mine, and we had a good fight. He licked me because 
 he always did ; and when he was sitting on my ribs 
 and had his knees on my arms so I could n't do any- 
 thing, he asked me if I had had enough, and I said 
 I had. Because I had had. 
 
 "I guess I showed you how much the prohibitions 
 can lick the anti-prohibitions!" he said. 
 
 "Let me up," I said. 
 
 "Are you prohibition?" he asked. ! 
 
 I said, "Yes, I am." 
 
 30
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 "All right!" he said, and he put his hand on my 
 nose and pushed. He pushed my nose right into my 
 face. I never had anything hurt like that did. I 
 yelled, it hurt so much. I told him to stop. 
 
 "All right," he said, "if I stop what are you?" 
 
 I knew what he meant. He had already got me 
 from being a Republican to being a Democrat that 
 way once before. I was n't thinking of Mamie Little; 
 I was thinking of my nose. So I said : 
 
 " I 'm an anti-prohibition. Now let me up. You've 
 busted my nose and some of my ribs, and I want 
 to put some plantain on my eye before it swells 
 up." 
 
 We felt of my ribs and could n't find that any 
 seemed busted, and my nose stopped hurting and 
 came back into shape, so me and Swatty were better 
 friends than we had ever been, because we were 
 now both anti-prohibitions. We went around and 
 made a lot of prohibitions into anti-prohibitions be- 
 cause Swatty showed me how to push a nose the 
 way he pushed mine. But it did n't do much good, 
 I guess. The election was over and, anyway, there 
 were always more anti-prohibitions in Riverbank 
 than there were prohibitions. 
 
 It was almost right away after that that me and 
 Swatty and Bony met Mamie Little and Lucy one 
 Saturday afternoon. Lucy is my sister, and they 
 were going down-town. Me and Swatty and Bony 
 were sitting on the curb telling whoppers ; or I guess 
 Swatty and Bony were, I was just telling some things 
 
 31
 
 SWATTY 
 
 that had happened to me sometime that I 'd forgot 
 until I happened to think them up just then. 
 
 Swatty was telling how he went up to Derlingport 
 and his uncle introduced him to the man that had 
 the government job of making up new swear words, 
 when Mamie and Lucy came along. I said: 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "Down-town," Lucy said. 
 
 "Did Mother give you a nickel?" I asked, and I 
 was sort of mad, because Mother owed me a nickel 
 and had n't paid me, because she said she did n't 
 have one, and if she gave one to Lucy, why, all right 
 for Mother! 
 
 "No, she did n't give me a nickel, Mr. Smarty !" 
 Lucy said. "If you want to know so much, we're 
 going down to Mr. Schwartz's shop to see if he'll 
 let Mamie have a father." 
 
 I guess that would sound pretty funny if you 
 did n't know what she meant. It was paper dolls. 
 
 Girls always play paper dolls, I guess; so Mamie 
 and Lucy and all the girls played them; they got 
 them out of the colored fashion plates in the maga- 
 zines brides and mothers and sons and daughters. 
 
 The trouble was that a good family has to have 
 anyway one father in it, and the magazines did n't 
 have colored fashion plates of fathers. They did n't 
 have any fathers at all. 
 
 Some of the girls drew fathers on paper and 
 painted them, but they looked pretty sick. I guess 
 all the girls were jealous of Lucy because she was
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 kind of Swatty's girl, and Swatty sort of borrowed 
 an old colored tailor fashion plate out of his father's 
 store and gave it to Lucy. So Lucy had the only real 
 fathers that any of the girls had. She gave Mamie a 
 couple of fathers out of the fashion plate, but they 
 were the ones that had been standing partly behind 
 other fathers and had mostly only one leg, or pieces 
 cut out of their sides or something. They did n't 
 make Mamie real happy, I guess, so she thought 
 she 'd try to get some good fathers. They were going 
 down to ask Mr. Schwartz for a fashion plate. 
 
 Swatty was frightened right away, because he 
 had n't asked his father if he could have the old 
 fashion plate but had just sort of borrowed it. So 
 he said: 
 
 "What are you going to ask my father?" 
 
 "I'm going to tell him he gave you one for me," 
 Lucy said, "and I'm going to ask him if he'll give 
 me one for Mamie." 
 
 So then Swatty was scared. 
 
 "No, don't do it! "he said. 
 
 "I will, too, do it!" Lucy answered back. "I guess 
 I know your father, and I guess my father -buys 
 clothes of him, and I guess we take milk of your 
 mother, and I guess I will, too, ask him if I want to! " 
 
 Well, Swatty could n't answer back because he 
 had Lucy for his secret girl like I had Mamie Little. 
 So I got up and stood in front of Lucy and pushed 
 her a little, because she was n't my girl but only 
 my sister, and I said: 
 
 33
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "You will not do it. You go home!" 
 
 " You stop pushing me! I won't go home." 
 
 "Yes, you will, when I say so!" I said. 
 
 I was going to tell her that as soon as there were 
 any more old fashion plates at Swatty's father's, 
 Swatty would swi would get one for Mamie, but 
 Lucy got mad because I just took hold of her arm 
 too hard between my thumb and finger. She said I 
 pinched her, but I did not; I just sort of took hold 
 of her that way. She ran back a way and stuck out 
 her tongue at me. 
 
 "Now, just for that, Mr. Smarty," she yelled, 
 "I'm going to tell Mamie on you!" 
 
 "You just dare ! " I started for her, but she skipped 
 off. 
 
 " Mamie," she shouted, "you'll be mad when I 
 tell you! Georgie Porgie is an anti-prohibition! " 
 
 Mamie just stood and looked at me, because I'd 
 said I 'd always be a prohibition. 
 
 "Are you?" she asked. 
 
 If Swatty had n't been right there I would have 
 changed back to a prohibition again and it would 
 have been all right, but he was there and I was n't 
 going to have him think I would change just on 
 account of a girl. So I said: 
 
 "Uh, huh!" 
 
 "All right for you, Mr. Georgie! You needn't 
 ever speak to me again as long as you live ! " she said. 
 
 I felt pretty cheap. I tried to say something, and 
 I could n't think of anything to say, so I made a face 
 
 34
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 at her and she made one at me, and then we were 
 mad at each other and she went away. She went 
 toward down-town, and Lucy skipped across the 
 street and ran and went with her. And that was one 
 reason Mamie was glad that Toady Williams had 
 her for his girl when he came to town. She guessed 
 I did not like it. And I did n't. 
 
 Mr. Schwartz said Mamie could have the fashion 
 plate as soon as he was through with it, which would 
 be at the end of the season when he got a new one. 
 Lucy let me know that, all right ! I guess it was on 
 account of Lucy he promised to let Mamie have 
 the fashion plate, because he was awful fond of 
 Lucy. 
 
 Anyway, Mamie was mighty pleased to know she 
 was going to have a good father. 
 
 When she played paper dolls with Lucy I used to 
 sort of go over where they were and maybe stand 
 there to see if Mamie was mad at me still. About all 
 she said was how glad she 'd be when she had a good 
 father. I guess I heard her say it a hundred times, 
 but she never let on she knew I was there at all. 
 Sometimes I 'd sort of drop an apple or something 
 so it would fall where she could reach it, but she 
 never paid any attention. The most she would do 
 would be to pick up a one-legged father and say: 
 
 "'Where are you going, Mr. Reginald de Vere?' 
 ' I 'm going down-town to vote a while if you do not 
 need me to take care of the baby.' 'Not at all, but I 
 do hope you will show folks you are a prohibition. 
 
 35
 
 SWATTY 
 
 If I ever heard you were an anti-prohibition I would 
 cut you up into mincemeat.' " 
 
 So then I most generally went away. 
 
 I got kind of sick of girls. I made up my mind 
 they were no good anyway, and that I 'd never have 
 another one if I lived to be a million years old, and 
 when I wrote notes to Mamie in school it was n't 
 any use because she always tore them up without 
 reading them. It made me feel awful to have her so 
 mean. Because she was n't mean to Toady. 
 
 Well, it came to examination time and we began 
 to be examined. Swatty and Bony and I did n't 
 have to be examined in arithmetic until Thursday 
 afternoon and neither did Lucy or Mamie, so Swatty 
 and Bony and I thought we might as well go fishing 
 that morning. We got our poles and some bait and 
 started, and we went down Third Street and when 
 we came to the railway track we cut across through 
 Burman's lumber yard toward the river because that 
 was the quickest way. 
 
 Burman's sawmill was the biggest one in River- 
 bank then. I guess you know how big those sawmills 
 were. Great big red buildings with gravel roofs where 
 they sawed the logs that came down the river in 
 rafts, and where they made shingles, and the row 
 of sheds where they dried the lumber with steam, 
 and another big one where the planers were. There 
 were hundreds and hundreds of piles of lumber, each 
 one as tall as a house, and all the ground was made 
 of sawdust and rattlings, because it was filled ground. 
 36
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 There were railway sidings here, and there were 
 flat cars and box cars being loaded. 
 
 Burman's sawmill and lumber yards were just 
 under the bluff. Once there had been a brickyard 
 there, and the bluff was cut down steep where they 
 had dug clay. Across the street there was still a 
 brickyard, with hundreds and hundreds of cords of 
 wood, ready to be used to burn brick, and with the 
 kilns loosely roofed over. Back toward the town was 
 a sash and door factory, a pretty big building, and 
 then some houses, and then the stores began. About 
 the fifth store on one side was Swatty's father's 
 tailor shop. It was a building all by itself, and it 
 was one story high and frame, and it had a false 
 front above the first story, with Swatty's father's 
 name on it, and there was one window on the 
 street. 
 
 Well, Swatty and Bony and me went through the 
 lumber yard to the place where Burman's oil shed 
 was. 
 
 The oil shed was right up against the bluff, almost 
 at the railway, and it was up on stakes, so that it 
 was safer. It was about as big as a kitchen, and was 
 painted red and the floor and part of the sides and 
 part of the stakes were soaked with oil, and the 
 grass underneath was withered and oily because the 
 oil had dripped and killed it. 
 
 Just as we got there we saw Slim Finnegan, who 
 was in our class at school but ever so much older than 
 we were, and he was under the oil shed smoking a 
 
 37
 
 SWATTY 
 
 corncob pipe. His coat was on the grass beside him, 
 and just as we got there he jumped up and began 
 slamming at the grass with his coat, for the grass 
 was afire. Before we could guess what happened, the 
 flames seemed to run up the stakes like live animals, 
 and all at once the whole bottom of the floor of the 
 oil shed was afire. 
 
 Slim Finnegan gave one look at it, and tucked his 
 coat under his arm and ran. There were piles and 
 piles of lumber right there and he jumped in among 
 them, and I guess he hid. We did n't see him any 
 more. 
 
 Swatty ran for the sawmill. He shouted to the 
 first man he saw before he was halfway to the saw- 
 mill, and the man hollered "Fire!" and ran for a 
 hose wagon they had under a shed and began jerking 
 it out, and Swatty ran on, shouting "Fire!" 
 
 It was n't a second before all the men began piling 
 out of the sawmill and came running from the lum- 
 ber yards, and the mill whistle began blowing as 
 hard as it could. It almost made you deaf when you 
 were that close. Right away the whole place seemed 
 to fill up with men, and they all had axes or hooks 
 or whatever they ought to have had. 
 
 The mill whistle kept blowing without stopping, 
 and in a minute the whistle on the sash and door 
 factory joined in, and then the regular fire whistle 
 on the waterworks started up. The oil house was 
 just one big red flame that went up in the air and 
 turned into the blackest kind of smoke. We saw the 
 
 38
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 men with the mill's hose trying to throw water on 
 the oil house, and every one was shouting at the tops 
 of their voices. We saw men on top of the nearest 
 lumber piles, but almost as soon as we saw them 
 we saw them dodge away and climb down as quick 
 as they could, and the next minute those lumber 
 piles were afire on one side. They were red flames, 
 and they climbed right up the sides of the piles and 
 waved at the top. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony kept backing down the 
 railway track as the fire got too hot for us. There 
 were hundreds of people, but there were more than 
 that in other parts of the neighborhood. Almost 
 everybody in town came to the fire, because by this 
 time dozens of lumber piles were afire, and the saw- 
 mill had set fire to the dry-sheds and the planer. 
 You could n't see the bluff at all, because there was 
 just one big wall of flame in front of it. Whole boards 
 went sailing right up into the air, burning as they 
 went, and the blue smoke that blew over the town 
 was full of pine cinders and burning pieces of wood. 
 There never was such a fire in Riverbank. The 
 ground seemed to burn, too, and it did, because it 
 was sawdust and rattlings. 
 
 The brickyard burned everything that could 
 burn and the bluff of yellow clay, there and beside 
 the sawmill, was burned red, like brick and the 
 flat cars and the box cars all burned. It was an awful 
 fire! Wet lumber in the newest piles burned as if it 
 was dry. The railway bridge and two other bridges 
 
 39
 
 SWATTY 
 
 burned. At noon it was like evening, because the 
 smoke hid the sun. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony kept backing away as 
 the fire came toward us. Sometimes we would turn 
 and run. We backed away as far as ten city blocks 
 would be, I guess, before we were where we did not 
 have to back away any more. We forgot all about 
 school, and about fishing, and about everything. 
 It was the kind of fire where nobody thinks of going 
 home until it is all over. 
 
 It was about two o'clock when the people in front 
 and the firemen in front of them gave a sort of roar, 
 as if they were a lot of animals, and everybody 
 crowded back. The firemen on top of the sash and 
 door factory ran from one edge of the roof to the 
 other, looking down. Two of them jumped off. They 
 were killed, but the others got down the ladders, 
 and the next minute the factory and its oil house 
 were all afire at once just sort of spouted fire 
 from all the windows as if the fire had been all fixed 
 to break out that way. 
 
 Before you could turn around and then look back, 
 the sash and door factory was one big, hot flame, 
 and then the houses began to go. First one and then 
 another caught fire. 
 
 We got crowded back until we were in the street 
 right opposite to Swatty 's father's tailor shop, and 
 Swatty 's father was on the front step of it shaking 
 his hands in the air and shouting like a crazy man, 
 but nobody paid any attention to him. He was a 
 40
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 little man and he had gray hair, but he was mostly 
 bald. He did n't have a hat on and he looked pretty 
 crazy standing there and shouting. 
 
 Well, we did n't know until afterward what he 
 was shouting about, but I know now, so I might as 
 well tell it. There was a cellar under his shop and it 
 was full of barrels of whiskey. When prohibition was 
 elected the saloons thought they would have to 
 stop for a while and that then they could go ahead 
 again, so they hunted for some place to hide the 
 whiskey they owned, where it would be safe for a 
 while, and.Mr. Schwartz's cellar was one of the places 
 they hid it in. What Swatty's father was trying to 
 shout was that if his shop caught fire all the whiskey 
 in the cellar might explode and the people standing 
 around might be killed and the whole town burn up. 
 I don't wonder he was sort of crazy about it. I guess 
 Swatty felt sort of ashamed that his father was 
 acting so crazy. 
 
 So then the house next to Swatty's father's shop 
 caught fire, and the next minute the side of Swatty's 
 father's shop began to smoke. 
 
 The policemen were sort of crowding us back all 
 the time, but we would n't go back much, and all 
 at once Mamie Little started out of the crowd and 
 began to run toward Swatty's father's shop. But 
 when she was halfway there the fire marshal just 
 caught her by the arm and gave her a sort of twist 
 and slung her back, and then the policeman nearest 
 us caught her and jammed her back against me and
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Swatty. She was crying all the time; she kept 
 moaning, "My father! My father!" 
 
 So just then Swatty 's father ran out and grabbed 
 the fire marshal by the arm and talked to him in 
 German, because they were both German, and the 
 fire marshal ran toward his firemen and shouted 
 through his trumpet, and all the firemen up the 
 street came running back, dragging all their hose 
 and all shouting. 
 
 It was all wild and sort of crazy, and suddenly 
 the fire marshal ran back to where the firemen were 
 tugging at the heavy hose and shouting, and four 
 firemen who were holding on to a nozzle pointed the 
 stream into the air. It was worse than any rain you 
 ever saw. It was just "whoosh!" and we were all 
 soaked. So all the crowd hollered and screamed, and 
 we all turned and ran, and all I knew was that I had 
 hold of Mamie Little's hand and was helping her 
 run. I was awful sorry for her because she was crying 
 and her father was going to burn. 
 
 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 '11 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 
 42
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 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. He went up the side 
 street, and we climbed over the fence into the yard 
 of the corner house and cut across that yard and 
 over another fence. That way we got to the back of 
 Swatty 's father's shop without any one stopping us. 
 Bony kind of kept behind us. 
 
 It was mighty hot, because the house next door 
 was all afire, but the firemen were keeping all their 
 hose on the side of Swatty's father's shop, trying to 
 keep it from burning. We crouched down and kept 
 our backs to the fire so the heat would n't shrivel us, 
 and we got to the back door and it was n't locked. 
 We went in. It was hot like an oven inside, 
 and the noise of all the water on the side of the 
 house was like thunder, only louder. The inside of 
 the shop was like under a waterfall. You would n't 
 think anything so wet could burn, but it did. Before 
 we were halfway to the front window the fire began 
 to eat into the shop along the floor. The water on 
 that side just turned to steam and dried as fast as 
 it ran down. 
 
 Bony began to cry, but we had n't any time to 
 stop. Swatty took him by the hand and jerked him 
 along, and we got to the window and I grabbed the 
 fashion plate. Then we could n't go back because 
 the shop was mostly afire and we would have been 
 burned up. So then^Bony got real scared and ran 
 43
 
 SWATTY 
 
 to the front door and threw it open, and a stream 
 from a hose caught him and sent him head over heels 
 back into the shop where it was burning; he was 
 knocked unconscious because his head hit a table 
 leg. 
 
 So I did n't know what to do. I guess I began to 
 cry. I crouched down in the window because I 
 could n't get out at the door on account of the 
 stream of water that was coming in there a hundred 
 miles a minute, and I could n't go back because the 
 back of the shop was all afire now. But Swatty 
 crawled on his hands and knees under the table where 
 Bony was, where the fire was beginning to burn 
 harder, and he grabbed Bony and yanked him along 
 the floor back to the window. I guess I helped him 
 jerk Bony onto the window shelf, but just then 
 another stream of water busted the window in. 
 The glass fell all around us and one piece cut 
 Swatty on the hand, but he only said, "Jump! 
 Jump!" 
 
 Maybe we would have jumped, but we did n't. 
 The firemen had got to the back of the building and 
 had turned the hose in at the back window, and just 
 when Swatty said, "Jump!" the stream of water hit 
 us like a board. It took us as if we were pieces of 
 paper and slammed us out of the broken window 
 and halfway across the street, and threw us head 
 over heels in the mud, and the fashion plate, with 
 Mamie Little's father, came flying with us. 
 
 So I crawled over to where the fashion plate was 
 
 44
 
 MAMIE'S FATHER 
 
 and took hold of it and began to drag it to where 
 Mamie Little was. A policeman came and took me 
 by the shoulder and lifted me up, but I could n't 
 stand, and that was the first I knew my ankle was 
 sprained. But Swatty got up himself and sassed the 
 policeman that came to get him. He told him he had 
 a right to go into his father's own shop if he wanted 
 to, and that if the policeman said much more he 
 would go back again. 
 
 I guess the whiskey exploded all right. Three more 
 houses burned before they stopped the fire, but we 
 did n't see that because Bony ran all the way home, 
 and somebody carried me to a wagon, and drove 
 home with me, and Swatty's father got him and 
 took him up the main street and waled him on 
 the hotel corner with a half-burned shingle that had 
 blown from the lumber fire. 
 
 The next day my ankle hurt pretty bad and I 
 stayed in bed with linament on it and after school 
 Lucy came up to see me. "Come on up in my room 
 and play," I told her. 
 
 "No," she said, "I don't want to. I want to go 
 down and play with Mamie Little; we're playing 
 paper dolls. We're having lots of fun." 
 
 "Ho!" I said. "Paper dolls! They're no fun." 
 
 "They are, too," Lucy said. "And we've got to 
 cut out Mamie's fathers. She's got a whole fashion 
 plate full." 
 
 " Where 'd she get them?" I asked, because I 
 guessed right away what fashion plate it was. 
 45
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Why, Toady Williams gave them to her," Lucy 
 said. "He got them out of the fire or somewhere 
 and gave them to her. He's helping us cut them 
 out." 
 
 Gee! I felt sore!
 
 Ill 
 
 THE "DIVORCE" 
 
 AFTER I got out of bed and went back to school I 
 fought Toady Williams a couple of times, but it 
 was n't much good because he would n't fight back. 
 All the good it did was to make Mamie Little tell 
 Lucy I was a mean, bad boy and that she would 
 never speak to me again as long as she lived. Once 
 I almost told her that it was me that got the father 
 fashion plate out of the fire and that Toady Williams 
 did n't do anything but pick it up out of the mud 
 after I had got it for her, but I did n't tell her be- 
 cause then she would have thought I was sweet on 
 her. That would have made me feel cheap. 
 
 It made me feel pretty mean, just the same, to 
 see the way Toady Williams was playing with her 
 all the time, when I had picked her out to be my 
 secret girl. He gave her pencils and apples and 
 everything and I guess she liked it. I wished I was 
 grown up, so I could ride up on a bucking bronco and 
 sling a lasso over Toady's head and jerk him into 
 the dust. Then Mamie Little would say, "Hello, 
 Georgie ! Can I get up and ride behind you over the 
 wild plains, because I don't want to have anything 
 more to do with a 'fraidy-cat like Toady." 
 
 But it did n't seem as if anything like that was 
 going to happen. Not for years, anyway. 
 
 47
 
 SWATTY 
 
 One day Swatty came over to my yard and he 
 said, "Say!" so I said, "Say what?" and he said, 
 "Say, you know Herb's tricycle?" and I said I did. 
 Herb was Swatty's brother that wanted to marry 
 my sister Fan and he had got the tricycle a couple 
 of years ago, when all the bicycles were high-wheel 
 bicycles. He had got it for him and Fan to ride on, 
 and it was a two-seat one side-by-side seats 
 and after a few times Fan would n't ride on it be- 
 cause it made her as conspicuous as a pig on a flag- 
 pole. So Herb rode on it alone some, and with some 
 other fellow some, but mostly he kept it chained up 
 in Swatty's barn and said he would scalp Swatty 
 and skin him alive if Swatty ever touched it. 
 
 So this day Swatty came over and he said, "What 
 do you think!" because Herb said when he was 
 married to Fan, Swatty could have the tricycle. You 
 bet Swatty was tickled. So I asked him who would 
 ride on it with him. 
 
 "Well you will," he said. "And Bony. That's 
 when I ain't taking somebody else." 
 
 He did n't say who else, but I knew, because I 
 knew Swatty was having my sister Lucy for his 
 secret girl. 
 
 "And part of the time," I said, "I can have it 
 alone, can't I, Swatty?" 
 
 "It's my tricycle " he started to say. 
 
 "It ain't yet," I told him, " and I guess if I go to 
 work good and plenty it never will be, because if I 
 want to I can think up how to make Fan mad at 
 48.
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 Herb again and then you would n't get it. And, any- 
 way, if Lucy went to ride on it she might fall off 
 and get hurt, so I guess I 'd tell my mother not to 
 let Lucy ride on it. Unless I could take it sometimes 
 and find out that it was safe." 
 
 Because I guessed that if Mamie Little had a 
 chance to ride on that tricycle with me she'd be 
 pretty sick of that fat, old Toady Williams mighty 
 quick. So me and Swatty fixed it up that way, that 
 I was to have the tricycle part of the time and he 
 was to have it part of the time. The only thing was 
 to get Herb and Fan married off as soon as we could, 
 and to look out that nothing turned up to scare 
 them away from each other again like that Miss 
 Murphy fuss did. It was n't going to take much to 
 scare Herb away. I knew that. 
 
 Well, I guess grown folks don't care whether they 
 have a divorce or not, because they are always hav- 
 ing them and so maybe they get used to having them 
 and don't think much about it and are not ashamed 
 to have them, but I guess a kid is always kind of 
 ashamed when his folks get them. We never had one 
 in our family but we had babies and I guess a kid 
 feels about the same way when there is a divorce in 
 his family as he does when there is a baby. It makes 
 him feel pretty sick and ashamed and miserable. It 
 ain't his fault but he feels like it was. He goes out 
 the back gate and sneaks to school through the alley 
 and when a kid sees him the kid says: "Ho! you had 
 a baby at your house," and the kid that had the 
 49
 
 SWATTY 
 
 baby come to his house wishes he could sneak into 
 a crack in the sidewalk or die or something. 
 
 I guess that's the way it is when you have a 
 divorce at your house. It ain't your fault but you 
 feel like it was and you don't have any of the fun 
 of fighting and getting the divorce, like your folks 
 do; you just have the feel-miserable part. 
 
 So one day about when the river began to fall 
 again, only it was still mighty high, me and Swatty 
 and Bony went up to Bony's room in Bony's house. 
 It was muddy weather, in June, and I guess we had 
 been wading in the mud or something so we knew 
 Bony's mother would n't let us go upstairs to his 
 room unless we washed our feet first, unless we 
 sneaked it. So we sneaked it. 
 
 The reason we went up was so Bony could prove 
 it that the Victor bicycle his father might maybe 
 buy for him weighed only forty-five pounds. He had 
 a catalogue to prove it with but it was up in his 
 room, so we went up to get it. It proved it, all right. 
 Swatty said that was pretty light for a bicycle to 
 weigh, and I said it, too. So then we said a lot of 
 more things about a lot of other things but mostly 
 we talked about the bicycle, because Bony was going 
 to let me and Swatty learn to ride on it if he got it. 
 Swatty bet he could get right on it and ride right 
 off as slick as a whistle because he had an uncle in 
 Derlingport that had a dozen bicycles. So then Bony 
 said he'd like to know why, if Swatty's uncle had 
 that many, he did n't send Swatty one, and Swatty 
 
 50 .
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 said maybe he would. We just kind of talked and let 
 the mud dry on our feet and crack off onto the floor. 
 
 Well, in the floor in one place there was a hole 
 and Bony showed us how he could look through it 
 down into the dining-room and see what his mother 
 was putting on the table for dinner whenever she 
 was putting anything on. The hole was about as 
 big around as a stovepipe and it had a tin business 
 in it to keep the floor from catching afire because 
 that was where the stovepipe from the dining-room 
 stove came up through the floor to go into a drum to 
 help heat Bony's room when it was winter. So we 
 all looked down into Bony's stovepipe hole to see if 
 it was like he said. And it was. 
 
 Just then Bony's father came into the dining- 
 room. He had his hat on but it was n't time for 
 dinner or anything and he did n't come into the 
 dining-room as if he was coming for dinner. He came 
 in fast and threw his hat on the floor and pounded 
 on the table twice with his fist. The dishes jumped 
 and a milk pitcher fell over on its side and spilled 
 the milk. 
 
 "Mary! Mary!" he shouted. 
 
 So Bony's mother came in from the kitchen. 
 
 "Why, Henry!" she said; "what's the matter?" 
 
 "Matter? Matter?" he shouted. "I'll tell you 
 what's the matter! I '11 show you what's the matter! 
 Look at this! Look at this, will you!" 
 
 Me and Swatty looked but Bony kind of drew 
 back from the hole and his mother did n't look. I
 
 SWATTY 
 
 guess she did n't have to. I guess she knew what it 
 was without looking. It was a bill, all right. Me and 
 Swatty could see that but we did n't know what it 
 was for whether it was for a hat or a dress or 
 what. So Bony's father threw the bill on the table 
 and stood with one fist on the edge of the table and 
 the other fist opening and shutting. Bony's mother 
 had been paring potatoes or something, I guess. She 
 wiped her hands on her apron but she did n't pick 
 up the bill. 
 
 "Well? "she said. 
 
 "Of all the useless, idiotic, ill-timed, outrageous, 
 unheard-of extravagance ever incurred by any 
 brainless, gad-about, senseless, vain peacock of a 
 woman " Bony's father said. 
 
 "Henry! Stop right there!" Bony's mother said. 
 "This time I will not listen to your abuse. Year after 
 year I have put up with this browbeating. I go in 
 rags, and if I so much as buy " 
 
 ."Rags!" Bony's father shouted. "Rags! Ydu in 
 rags? You dare taunt me with that, when you crowd 
 enough on your back to support a dozen families? 
 Rags? When from year's end to year's end I do 
 nothing but struggle to pay your eternal bills!" 
 
 Well, maybe I have n't got what Bony's father 
 and mother said just the way they said it, but it was 
 like that. So they had a good start and they went 
 right on and pretty soon Bony's father was walking 
 up and down the room, talking loud and pounding 
 the table every time he passed it, and Bony 'smother 
 52
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 was sitting with a corner of her apron in each hand 
 and the hands pressed to her cheeks. Her eyes were 
 big and scary. So then Bony's father stopped in 
 front of her and said a lot and she did n't talk back. 
 So that made him mad and he took the tablecloth 
 and jerked it and all the dishes fell on the floor and 
 broke. 
 
 Bony just went to the bed and lay on his face and 
 squeezed his hands into his ears. I guess he felt 
 pretty mean. He was crying, but we did n't know 
 that then. We found it out afterward. 
 
 So then, when all the dishes broke, Bony's mother 
 sort of yelled and jumped up. Swatty said: 
 
 "Garsh! What's she going to do?" 
 
 But she did n't do anything like we thought she 
 was going to. She bent down and picked up a dish 
 that was n't all smashed to pieces and put it on the 
 table as easy as could be and then she untied her 
 apron and folded it up and laid it over the back of a 
 chair as neat as a pin. She looked at herself in the 
 mirror in the sideboard and then walked around 
 Bony's father and went toward the door into the 
 hall. 
 
 "Where are you going?" Bony's father asked. 
 
 "Going?" she said, or something like that. "I'm 
 going to see if I can't put a stop to this sort of thing. 
 I have had enough years of it. I 'm going to see Mr. 
 Rascop." 
 
 Well, we knew who he was ; he was a lawyer. 
 
 "Very well," said Bony's father, "go! I assure 
 
 53
 
 SWATTY 
 
 you you cannot get a divorce too quickly to suit 
 me!" 
 
 I guess that when the loud noise stopped Bony 
 thought the fight was over and listened again. Any- 
 way he was listening now and he heard what they 
 said. 
 
 "I thought that," said Bony's mother. "This is 
 not the first time, by many, that I have thought it. 
 You will be glad to be rid of me and I of you. My 
 mother will be glad enough to have me with her. I 
 shall, of course, take the boy." 
 
 "As you like!" said Bony's father. 
 
 "The boy" was Bony, so he began to blubber 
 worse than ever. He was pretty much ashamed and 
 when his folks began to talk quiet-like, without 
 shouting, me and Swatty began to be ashamed, too. 
 We felt the way you feel when there's just been a 
 baby at your house as if we had n't ought to be 
 there. So Swatty picked up his hat. 
 
 "Come on!" he said. "Let's go. It ain't no fun 
 up here in Bony's room." 
 
 "Wait!" Bony whispered, like he was scared to 
 be left there alone, so we waited. He came along 
 with us. 
 
 We tiptoed downstairs and outdoors and I tell you 
 it was good to get outside where there was n't any 
 divorce but just good spring mud and things. So 
 Swatty whistled at a kid down the street but it was 
 a kid Swatty had said he would lick if he caught 
 him, so the kid ran. 
 
 54
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 Well, we sat down on the grass under the tree and 
 me and Swatty talked pretty loud and fighty be- 
 cause Bony was n't saying anything at all and was 
 looking so earnest it made us feel sort of ashamed. 
 He was thinking of the divorce. So me and Swatty 
 talked fighty to each other to try and make Bony 
 forget. 
 
 But Bony did n't laugh. He did n't even smile. So 
 Swatty took some mud and stuck it on his nose and 
 pretended it was medicine or something; to make 
 Bony laugh. But Bony did n't laugh. I guess he felt 
 pretty bad. Maybe a kid always feels that way when 
 his folks are going to get divorced. So then Swatty 
 said: 
 
 "Hey, George! this is the way I '11 ride on Bony's 
 bicycle when he gets it!" 
 
 So he pretended he was on a bicycle and he pre- 
 tended to fall off all sorts of ways and to run into a 
 tree and everything. Then I thought of something. 
 I said: 
 
 "Say! if they get a divorce and Bony goes away 
 we can't learn bicycle riding on his bicycle!" 
 
 We had n't thought of that before and right away 
 we forgot about whether Bony was feeling sick or not. 
 We had n't stopped to think that a divorce Bony's 
 folks were getting would make a big difference like 
 that to me and Swatty. It kind of brought us right 
 into the divorce ourselves. Swatty looked frightened. 
 
 "Garsh! that's so!" he said. "We can't learn to 
 ride on a bicycle that 's in another town." 
 55
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "And, say!" I said, frightened, "if Herb hears 
 about it, and how married folks fight and get di- 
 vorces over hat-bills and things he's going to be 
 scared to marry Fan, because hat-bills are the 
 things father scolds Fan most about. He'll ask Fan 
 if she has hat-bills " 
 
 "Garsh!" said Swatty again, "we've got to stop 
 the divorce," only he said "diworce," because that 
 was how he talked. 
 
 I thought so, too. If Bony's folks got one and 
 Herb heard about it and got scared of marrying 
 Fan, then Swatty would n't have the tricycle and I 
 could n't take Mamie Little riding on it and make 
 fat, old Toady Williams look sick. So I thought like 
 Swatty did, but I said: 
 
 "Well, how are you going to stop it?" 
 
 "If Bony was to get the diphtheria, and get it 
 bad, that would stop it," he said. 
 
 I saw that was so. If Bony got the diphtheria,, 
 and got it bad, they would n't let him travel on the 
 train, and so his mother could n't go to his grand- 
 mother's and that would stop it. So I said: 
 
 "Yes, and while he was sick we could use his bicy- 
 cle all the time. How's he going to get diphtheria? " 
 
 "Why, as easy as pie," Swatty said. "They've 
 got it down at Markses. All he's got to do is to go 
 down there and sneak in and stand around in Billy 
 Markses bedroom until he gets it. Diphtheria is 
 one of the easiest things you can get. Anybody can 
 get it!" 
 
 56
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 It looked like a mighty good plan to me. Me and 
 Swatty went on talking about it and the more we 
 talked the better it was. We talked about how long 
 it would be after Bony got exposed to it before he 
 would really have it and Swatty said that would n't 
 matter. All Bony would have to do would be to go 
 right down to Markses and get exposed and then 
 hurry home and tell his mother. The divorce would 
 stop right away and would n't have to wait until he 
 was sick in bed before it stopped. So then I said that, 
 anyway, Bony's father would send for the bicycle 
 right away, because fathers always hurry up to get 
 things when their boys are good and sick. It was all 
 bully and fine and me and Swatty felt pretty good 
 about it, but Bony spoke up. 
 
 "I ain't going to get diphtheria!" he said. 
 
 Well, that 's the way some fellows are ! You go and 
 work your brains all to pieces thinking up things to 
 help them out of their troubles and then they say 
 something like that. We saw it was n't any use to 
 coax him. If we wanted to stop the divorce we would 
 have to do it another way. I said : 
 
 "I know the preacher that Bony's mother goes 
 to the church of." 
 
 "Well, what's that got to do with it?" Swatty 
 asked. 
 
 "Well, could n't we tell him about it and get him 
 
 to stop the divorce? When Jim Carter would n't 
 
 marry our cook my father told the Catholic priest 
 
 and he made Jim Carter marry her as easy as pie." 
 
 57
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "That's no good," Swatty said. "That was mar- 
 rying. That's what priests and preachers are for 
 marrying folks together they ain't for diworcing 
 them apart again. If it was somebody I wanted to 
 have married together of course I 'd have thought of 
 a preacher right away. You don't think I'm so 
 dumb as not to have thought of that, do you? But 
 this ain't marrying them together, it's keeping them 
 married together; it's keeping them from diworcing 
 apart." Then, all at once he said, "Garsh!" 
 
 "What are you garshing about?" I asked him. 
 
 "Garsh!" he said again. "I guess I am dumb! I 
 guess I ought to let a mule kick me ! I ought to have 
 thought of it right off!" 
 
 "Thought of what, Swatty?" 
 
 "Why, the judge! You, talking about preachers 
 and priests and all them and not thinking of the 
 judge! It's a judge that always diworces people 
 apart, ain't it? Well, what we 've got to do is see 
 the judge and tell him not to diworce Bony's folks 
 apart!" 
 
 "Come on! We'll go see the judge and tell him 
 not to diworce Bony's folks apart." 
 
 Well, I guess we did n't think when we started 
 how we would do it. We just started. 
 
 When we got down to the court-house, where the 
 judge stays, I did n't feel so much like doing it and 
 Bony did n't feel like doing it at all. It was different 
 when we got down there than it was when we were 
 sitting on the grass under my apple tree. All along 
 
 '
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 the front edge of the front porch of the court-house 
 were big pillars and each pillar was as big around as 
 twenty boys standing in a lump would be. So me and 
 Bony we sort of peeked into the hall and went out on 
 the porch again, but Swatty went right inside. So we 
 sort of frowned at Swatty and shouted in a whisper: 
 
 "Aw! come on, Swatty! Let's go home." 
 
 But Swatty spoke right out, as if he wasn't 
 afraid of the court-house at all. 
 
 "Aw, come on!" he said. "What are you afraid 
 of?" 
 
 I would n't have talked out loud like that for any- 
 thing. His voice came back in echoes: "Aw-waw- 
 come-um-um-on-non-non ! " Like that. Every word 
 he said said itself over and over that way. 
 
 But Swatty, when we did n't come, went down the 
 hall and when he found an open door he went right 
 in. He asked for the judge. We looked into the hall 
 and we saw Swatty come out of the door he had gone 
 in at and we saw him go up the wide stairs and push 
 open the green door at the head of the stairs and go 
 in. After a while he came out again and came down- 
 stairs and out on the porch. 
 
 "Did you see him?" I asked. 
 
 "No," he said. "I'd ought to have remembered 
 that this was Saturday. Judges don't have court on 
 Saturday; they go fishing." 
 
 So then Bony began to cry. He leaned against one 
 of the big pillars and began to snigger like a little kid 
 that's lost, and then he turned his face to the pillar 
 59
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and I guess he bawled to himself. I guess he had sort 
 of thought Swatty would have everything fixed so 
 there would n't be any divorce when he came from 
 the judge's room and it disappointed him. So Swatty 
 said: "Aw! shut up your bellerin'! We ain't going 
 to let your folks get diworced, are we? You make 
 me sick, acting like we w r as. I guess me and George 
 knows what we are going to do, don't we, George?" 
 
 So I says, "Yes; what is it?" 
 
 Well, Swatty knew just what we were going to do; 
 and so did I, after he told me. We were going to go 
 to the judge where he was fishing and tell him not to 
 divorce Bony's folks. And that was all right because 
 Bony's mother was afraid of the water and would n't 
 ride in a rowboat and so even if she wanted to get 
 divorced quick she could n't be until the judge came 
 back from fishing. So then I said: 
 
 "Aw! there ain't no fishing when the water is so 
 high in the river!" 
 
 "Aw! who told you so much?" Swatty said. 
 "You think you know all the kinds of fishing there 
 is, don't you? Well, I guess you don't! I guess me 
 and the judge knows more kinds of fishing than you 
 do." 
 
 So we walked down to the river and Swatty told 
 us. It was buffalo fishing you do with a pitchfork. I 
 guess you know what kind of a fish a buffalo is. At 
 first nobody ate buffalo fish but niggers, and they 
 ate dogfish, too, but pretty soon the fishmarket men 
 got so they shipped buffalo fish to Chicago and 
 60
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 everywhere just like they shipped catfish. But no- 
 body in our town ate them but niggers, because they 
 tasted of mud. Maybe the Chicago people liked to 
 taste mud. 
 
 Well, anyway, the buffalo fish eat grass or roots 
 or something and in the spring, when the river is 
 high and up over the bottoms, the buffalo fish swim 
 up to wherever the edge of the river has gone in the 
 grass and weeds and sometimes they swim in so close 
 that their backs stick out of water and they sort of 
 swim on their bellies in the mud dozens and hun- 
 dreds of them, big fat fellows. So then the farmer can't 
 plough yet, because it is too muddy in the fields, 
 and they get their farm wagons and some pitchforks 
 and drive down to the river. Then they separate 
 apart and wade out and come together again when 
 they are out about waist deep and they wade in 
 toward shore and the buffalo fish are between them 
 and the shore. Then the farmers go with a rush and 
 the buffalo fish get scared. Some of them get so 
 scared they try to swim right up on shore on their 
 bellies, and some try to swim out into deep water, 
 but whatever they try to do the farmers just pitch- 
 fork them up onto shore. Wagon loads of them! 
 So, before the Chicago folks got to like buffalo fish, 
 the farmers chopped the buffalo fish into bits and 
 ploughed them into the ground to make things 
 grow better, but now they mostly hauled them to 
 town and sold them to the fishmarket men for one 
 and one half cents a pound. So that was where the 
 61
 
 SWATTY 
 
 judge was. He was over to a farmer's named Sheb- 
 berd, in Illinois, because he had never pitchforked 
 buffalo fish before and he wanted to do it once and 
 see what it was like. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony knew where Shebberd's 
 was, because when you were over in Illinois you 
 could get a drink of water there. 
 
 I guess it was almost a mile across the river and 
 then it was almost five miles back to Shebberd's 
 bottom land cornfield. We got a skiff at the boat- 
 house and me and Swatty and Bony rowed across the 
 river. The water was mighty high and the current 
 was everywhere and not just in one place, and it was 
 strong. Bony sat in the stern and me and Swatty 
 rowed and we had to row almost straight up-stream. 
 It was hard work. My wrists swelled up and got hot 
 and tight but we kept thinking about the divorce we 
 did n't want Bony's folks to get and we kept on 
 rowing. Even with the boat pointed almost straight 
 up-stream we were about half a mile below where 
 we started, when we reached the Illinois side and 
 rowed in among the trees. It was easier there; not 
 so much current. 
 
 It was fine rowing through the trees, seeing every- 
 thing, and nothing looking like it usually does. We 
 came to the First Slough and it was just water 
 like a road of water between the trees and we 
 kept on rowing and came to the Second Slough and 
 the Third Slough and they were like that, too, and 
 tnen we came out of the trees and we were in a whale 
 62
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 of a lot of water. Bony said, "Oh!" and Swatty 
 looked over his shoulder and said, "Garsh!" and 
 stopped rowing. It looked like miles and miles of 
 water water we had never seen before and all 
 at once you felt little and lost and sort of frightened. 
 
 ' ' Garsh ! " Swatty said. ' ' I was never here before." 
 
 "Where is it?" I asked. 
 
 Swatty looked all around. 
 
 "I don't know," he said. "I never heard of a 
 place like this." 
 
 "Swatty!" I said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Let's go home!" 
 
 I guess I sort of whined it, and so Bony began to 
 cry. Swatty stood up and let his oars rest and looked 
 all around. He looked anxious and when Swatty 
 looked anxious it was time to be frightened. Any- 
 way, I thought so. 
 
 When Swatty had looked all around and did n't 
 know any more than he did before, he sat down and 
 looked over the edge of the boat at the water. So I 
 did it. 
 
 "What do you see, Swatty?" I asked, because I 
 was afraid he saw something to be frightened of. 
 But what he saw was little flecks of leaves and 
 things floating by in the water the way dust floats in 
 the sunlight, and the reason he looked was so he 
 could see which way the current was running, be- 
 cause no matter where we were we wanted to row 
 up-stream. We had gone into the woods below the 
 
 63
 
 SWATTY 
 
 bottom road and when the water was as high as it 
 was now the bottom road either made a dam across 
 the bottom or the water came over it like a water- 
 fall or rushed through in a rapids nobody could row 
 up. So Swatty knew we could n't have passed the 
 bottom road but must be below it somewhere and 
 the place we wanted to be at was just where the 
 bottom road hit the hill, so what we had to do 
 wherever we were then was to row up-stream. So 
 we rowed. We rowed I don't know how far and all 
 at once Bony said : 
 
 "Look out! you're rowing into something!" 
 
 Me and Swatty backed water as quick as we 
 could and looked over our shoulders. What we had 
 nearly rowed into was a pile of sticks and a heap of 
 dried grass. It was a good deal as if somebody had 
 chucked a couple of forks full of hay on a lot of 
 driftwood and set it adrift. 
 
 "There's something alive in it!" Bony sort of 
 shivered. 
 
 Swatty looked and I looked. 
 
 "Mush-rat's house!" Swatty said right away, 
 and it was. It was the kind the mush-rats make so 
 that when a flood comes it will float and not sink, 
 and there it was right out in the middle of the lake 
 we were lost in. 
 
 Then all at once Swatty said: "Say!" 
 
 Gee, but he scared me! 
 
 "What, Swatty?" I asked. 
 
 "Say!" he said; "we're floating away from that 
 64
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 mush-rat house and it ain't floating with us. I never 
 heard of a mush-rat house out in the middle of a 
 lake, with a current floating by, that did n't float 
 with the current!" 
 
 "Are you scared, Swatty?" I asked, for if he was 
 scared I did n't know what I would be. 
 
 "No, I ain't scared," he said, "but it ain't right. 
 It ain't possible, that's all! I bet this is a haunted 
 lake. I bet there is a haunted house around here, 
 or an ol' witch, or something." 
 
 "Come on, let's get out of it, then. Let's row!" 
 I said. 
 
 "You bet I'll row!" Swatty said, and we did. 
 We steered off to one side of the mush-rat's house 
 and rowed hard. We had a good double-ender skiff, 
 rounded bottom and not flat bottom, and we made 
 her hump! All of a sudden Swatty 's left oar came 
 out of the oarlock and he nearly fell backwards into 
 the bottom of the boat. He got up and slapped 
 the oar back into the oarlock and we both rowed 
 hard. 
 
 "We ain't moving!" 
 
 Bony said that. He was hanging onto the sides 
 of the skiff with both hands, looking scared and 
 white, and you never heard anybody say anything 
 the way he said that ! It was like he had seen a ghost. 
 Me and Swatty stopped rowing and looked. About 
 twenty feet away from us was that old mush-rat 
 house and we could see a little ripple of water on 
 the upper side of it but it was n't moving and we 
 65
 
 SWATTY 
 
 were n't floating away from it. There was the same 
 kind of ripple against the bow of our boat. 
 
 We rowed again and we rowed hard and the skiff 
 did n't move ! There we were, out in the middle of 
 that haunted lake, or whatever it was, and no bot- 
 tom that you could reach with an oar, and we 
 could n't row up-stream and we did n't float down- 
 stream. And over yonder was a mush-rat's house 
 just like we were. It sure looked like we were in a 
 haunted lake and I did n't blame Bony for being 
 scared and crying. I was scared myself. It looked 
 like we were in a haunted lake we could not row out 
 of and that we might have to stay there forever. 
 
 "Well, garsh!" Swatty said, "we rowed up here, 
 we ought to be good and able to row back where 
 we come from." So we swung the skiff around and 
 rowed down-current. No good! We did n't move at 
 all. Or we just moved a foot or two. 
 
 It was n't like when you run up on a snag or a 
 rock. It was n't stiff like that. We floated all right 
 but we could n't go anywhere. 
 
 ' ' Listen ! " Swatty said. 
 
 Away off far we heard voices and splashing, 
 sounding the way things sound when you hear them 
 across water. Swatty shouted. "Hello!" he shouted, 
 and his voice came back to him, "Lo-wo-wo!" in an 
 echo, the way echoes do. 
 
 "All right!" he said. "Now we know where the 
 Illinois hills are, anyway. That's the way they echo 
 back at you, so they must be over there. And I bet 
 66
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 those men splashing in the water are after buffalo 
 with pitchforks. So that's where we want to row." 
 
 That was pretty fine, was n't it, when we could n't 
 row at all? I told Swatty so. I said we'd better shout 
 and have the men come and get us. Swatty said 
 they'd just think it was kids shouting for fun; and 
 I guess that 's what they did think, for we shouted 
 and shouted, and when we quit we could still hear 
 the men laughing and talking and splashing. So then 
 Swatty sat down and put his head in his hands and 
 thought. When we looked up he said: 
 
 "Do you believe in haunts and things?" 
 
 "I don't know," I said. "Do you?" 
 
 "I don't know, either," Swatty said. "Maybe I 
 do and maybe I don't, but I know one thing: I ain't 
 going to believe in them until I have to. I ain't 
 going to believe this boat is 'witched here until I 
 know it ain't stuck here some other way. I 'm going 
 to find out." 
 
 "How?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, if we're stuck we're stuck on something 
 under the water and that 's sure, and I 'm going to 
 skin off my clothes and find out." 
 
 So he did. I would n't have done it for a million 
 dollars and I tried to make him not, but he did it. 
 He took off his clothes and lowered himself over the 
 side of the boat and said, garsh! how cold it was! 
 So then he edged himself along, holding onto the 
 side of the boat and all at once he swore. 
 
 "What?" me and Bony both asked at once. 
 
 67
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Bob wire!" he said, and he let go with one hand 
 and felt down into the water. Then he took hold of 
 the boat with both hands and felt along under the 
 boat with his feet. "It's a post," he said. "It's a 
 bob-wire fence." 
 
 So that was what it was. There was a bob-wire 
 fence and we had rowed right on top of one of the 
 posts and stuck there, on a nail or something, and 
 the post was loose in the mud and gave when we 
 rowed, so we could n't wrench loose by rowing. And 
 that was why the mush-rat house did not float down- 
 stream; it was caught on another post. So all at once 
 Swatty said: 
 
 "I know where we are; we're in Shebberd's lower 
 cornfield ! " And that was where we were. The water 
 had come up and covered it up to the tops of the 
 bob- wire fence posts. 
 
 Well, Swatty's teeth were chattering but he 
 would n't get right into the boat. He made me and 
 Bony row while he was out, and I guess with the 
 boat lighter it floated off the post easier, for it did 
 float off. So then Swatty got in and dressed and we 
 rowed toward the voices and the splashing. 
 
 It was Judge Hannan all right. He was pitch- 
 forking buffalo fish with the Shebberds. He had on 
 rubber hip boots and he was hot and having a good 
 time. We rowed in close to where he was and watched 
 them pitchfork awhile and then Swatty backwatered 
 the skiff up to where the judge was standing and 
 said: 
 
 68
 
 THE DIVORCE 
 
 "Say, mister judge!" 
 
 The judge leaned his hand on the stern of the 
 boat and said: 
 
 "Yes, my lad, what is it?" 
 
 "Are you the judge that gives diworces?" 
 
 "I'm the one that don't give them unless I have 
 to, son," the judge laughed. "Looking for one? You 
 don't look as if you had reached that age and state 
 yet." 
 
 " It ain't mine," Swatty said. "It's Bony's folkses. 
 They're having a fight and they're going to get a 
 diworce and me and Georgie and Bony don't want 
 them to. So we rowed over to tell you not to give 
 them one." 
 
 The judge felt in his pocket and got out his spec- 
 tacles and put them on and looked at us. He asked 
 which was Bony and then he knew who Bony was 
 and that he knew Bony's folks. He said he did. 
 
 "And you don't want any divorces in your family, 
 hey? "he said. "Why not?" 
 
 Bony did n't say anything, so Swatty started to 
 tell about the bicycle, but before he got very far 
 Bony just doubled over and put his head on his 
 knees and began to beller like a real baby. So the 
 judge stopped Swatty. 
 
 "Son," he said to Swatty, "I guess you've mis- 
 tooken the proper legal grounds for not giving 
 divorces. The desire of a youth to learn to ride one 
 of the condemned things when he is related to the 
 separating parties only by neighborhood is not suffi- 
 69
 
 SWATTY 
 
 cient to sway the court. But you, son," he said to 
 Bony, "have got exactly the right idea. You've 
 swayed this old, bald-headed court right down to 
 the mud he's standing in and, so help me John 
 Joseph Rogers! if those two parents of yours get a 
 divorce it will only be over my dead body! Hey, 
 Sheb! can these kids go up to your house and get 
 some buttermilk?" 
 
 So I said I did n't like buttermilk and the judge 
 said: "Caesar's ghost! I did n't mean get it for you; 
 I meant get it for us!" 
 
 So we got it. So Bony's folks did n't get a divorce. 
 Anyway, if they did they did n't separate apart 
 from each other and that was all me and Swatty 
 cared for because Herb Schwartz would n't be scared 
 to marry Fan, and maybe we could hurry up the 
 wedding and get the tricycle sooner.
 
 IV 
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 WELL, you never can tell how things are going to 
 go in this world, I guess. I don't mean that I spent 
 all my time thinking how getting the tricycle with 
 two seats would make Mamie Little think more of 
 me than she thought of Toady Williams, because I 
 did n't. I had school and my chores and me and 
 Swatty and Bony was building a capstan in our 
 side yard, to pull up stumps and move houses if we 
 wanted to, but once in a while I did think how I 
 would ride up to Mamie Little's front gate on the 
 tricycle and say, "Say! wanta take a ride?" 
 
 It looked as if it would n't be long before Herb 
 and Fan got married, because they had n't fought 
 for a long while and Fan was embroidering towels 
 by day and by night. One reason it all looked good 
 was that Miss Murphy, who was my teacher and had 
 had Herb for a while, had gone away for a while 
 and Miss Carter was substituting for her in our 
 room. So Fan need n't be jealous of Miss Murphy 
 any more. 
 
 So I felt pretty good mostly but I was feeling 
 pretty mean this day, because Swatty and Bony 
 had been let out on time and Miss Carter had kept 
 me in after school. I was feeling mean because they 
 would be working on the capstan, and it was the 
 
 71
 
 SWATTY 
 
 day we thought we would get it finished and begin 
 capstaning things with it, and I would n't be home 
 when they got it done. I wanted to be there when 
 they started to use it. So that made me feel mean 
 one way, and teacher made me feel meaner, another 
 way. 
 
 I liked Miss Carter better than any teacher I ever 
 had. So all I did was not know my geography-lesson, 
 or my arithmetic-lesson or my grammar-lesson, or 
 my history, and I missed in spelling. I guess maybe 
 I read all right, because she did n't say I did n't, 
 but maybe she forgot to talk about that because she 
 was so busy saying my deportment was bad and it 
 was certainly an outrage that my copy-book was so 
 poorly kept. So she kept me in to study, and it was 
 four o'clock pretty soon, and she put her papers in 
 her desk and shut down the lid and came back to 
 my seat. Everybody else had gone home. I was sort 
 of scared. I thought she was going to say her patience 
 was exhausted and then whale me with the rawhide 
 she kept in the closet. 
 
 But she did n't. She came back to where I was, 
 and when she got to my seat she sat down in it 
 beside me and I had to move over so she would have 
 room. I guess I ought to have put my hands in my 
 pockets, but of course I did n't know what she was 
 going to do, and the first thing she did was to put 
 her left hand on top of my hand and hold it, like 
 that, on top of my desk. So I tried to pull it away, 
 but she held on. So then she put her arm her right 
 72
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 arm along the desk back of me, and I felt mighty 
 mean. A boy don't like to be armed around that 
 way, or his hand held like that. 
 
 "George," she said, "what is it? Why are you 
 acting the way you are? Are you doing it to try to 
 distress me?" 
 
 Well, I could n't say anything to that, could I ? 
 I just looked at the top of the desk and moved my 
 feet around. 
 
 "Tell me!" she said as if she was n't mad at all 
 but as if she was sorry. " I can't understand it. It is 
 no use for you to pretend you can't learn your les- 
 sons, for I have seen that it is no trouble at all for 
 you, when you want to. And you are such a natu- 
 rally good, well-behaved boy at heart why are 
 you trying to act as if you were not? Are you doing 
 it to distress me?" 
 
 I guess I sort of said "No!" I don't know what I 
 did say. I felt pretty bad, with my hand held like 
 that and her arm right there and liable to get around 
 my shoulders the way she does to the girls when 
 she 's fond of them and they disappoint her and she 
 has a talk with them and makes them cry. 
 
 "Then what is it, George?" she asked. 
 
 Well, you can't blat right out and say nothing is 
 the matter only you don't feel like learning any old 
 lessons or anything, can you? There was n't any- 
 thing the matter. I did n't have it in for teacher or 
 anything. I just did n't feel like learning any les- 
 sons about then, and it was mean of teacher to let 
 
 73
 
 SWATTY 
 
 on I was doing things because I did n't like her or 
 something. So I did n't say anything. I sort of 
 scrooged down in my seat so she could n't put her 
 arm around me any more than it was. 
 
 "Is it Mamie Little?" she asked then, all of a 
 sudden. 
 
 That was an awful mean thing to say, and I guess 
 she knew it was, because when a fellow has a girl 
 he don't want anybody to know it or talk about it. 
 He'll fight any fellow that says it, but he can't fight 
 his teacher when she says it. 
 
 "I think it must be Mamie Little, George," she 
 said next, "because I have noticed you keep your 
 eyes on her more than you do on your lessons." 
 
 That made me squirm, I guess! But that was n't 
 the worst. She was n't hardly started. 
 
 "I don't blame you for liking Mamie, George," 
 she said. "She is a sweet child and I love her, too, 
 and I am glad you are fond of her; but don't you 
 think she would like you better if you learned your 
 lessons and behaved in a manner she could admire, 
 instead of trying to attract her attention by smarty 
 tricks? Don't you think a boy with your ability 
 should try to impress her by his excellence rather 
 than by his smarty tricks?" 
 
 Gee! I felt mean! Running a fellow's girl in on 
 him like that! 1 was so ashamed all over that I 
 could n't move. I did n't dare to move even a finger. 
 I could n't do anything but swallow. 
 
 "Now, we won't say anything more about it," 
 
 74
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 she said, and she patted my hand! " You know how 
 much I like you, George, and how proud I usually 
 am of you, and I think Mamie is fond of you, too. 
 I don't think you need to be a smarty to attract her. 
 If you don't care to do it for me, George, tell me 
 you will try to learn your lessons and behave better 
 on Mamie's account. You will, won't you? Say you 
 will!" 
 
 I guess I tried to say I would, but I could n't even 
 swallow. I did n't know how I 'd even get away from 
 there, because Miss Carter might stay until I said I 
 would or something, and I could n't work my voice: 
 it had dried up, I guess. But I did n't have to say 
 anything. Miss Carter put her hand on my head 
 and let it stay there a minute, and then she smiled 
 and jumped up as if everything was fixed and I had 
 said I would, and she said: "All right, George; you 
 can go home." And I went, you bet. 
 
 Well, that settled Miss Carter with me! She had 
 been one of the three women I thought were dandy, 
 because the other two were my mother and my 
 grandmother that everybody calls "Ladylove" be- 
 cause she is so dear, but after that I was done with 
 Miss Carter. Anybody that would talk to a fellow 
 about his girl as if she was his girl ! I guessed maybe 
 I would n't go back to school any more unless I 
 could get transferred to another teacher's room. 
 
 So I felt pretty mean and sore and everything 
 when I got home, and I started around to the side 
 yard, where Swatty and Bony were finishing the 
 75
 
 SWATTY 
 
 capstan, and all at once my mother came to the end 
 of the porch and pulled the vines aside and said: 
 
 "George, come here!" 
 
 I tried to think what I had done to make her say 
 it like that, but I could n't, only a fellow is always 
 doing something, so it did n't matter much what it 
 was. I went around and onto the porch. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," I said. 
 
 "George," my mother said in the way they call 
 severe, "Mrs. Martin was here." 
 
 "Yes'm," I said, for I did n't know what else to 
 say, because I did n't know why Mrs. Martin had 
 been there. I knew who Mrs. Martin was and where 
 she lived, because she was the lady that had the 
 lame boy that would never grow up but would al- 
 ways be about five years old. He was thirteen years 
 old, and he played with a rag doll and always stayed 
 in his yard, but sometimes he looked out between 
 the fence-pickets. Sometimes when I went down- 
 town on errands and got a nickel for it and bought 
 some candy, I 'd give him a piece when I went by, 
 and so would Swatty and so would Bony. Sometimes 
 he'd say, "Where you get that ball? I want it!" just 
 like a little baby, and if we did n't give it to him, 
 he 'd cry, but we could n't give him our ball, could 
 we? So when we went by his house we hid anything 
 he might cry for, so he would n't cry for it. That 
 was all I knew about Mrs. Martin, only she was 
 a widow and she was cross sometimes. Anyway, 
 sometimes she looked cross. 
 76
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 "George," my mother said and I guess she 
 never spoke to me any sadder than she did then 
 "Mrs. Martin told me something I would never 
 have believed of my boy. I have always thought you 
 were a kind-hearted, considerate boy. Oh, George, 
 why why did you strike that poor, helpless little 
 cripple?" 
 
 "I did not! I did n't do any such thing! It ain't 
 so!" I said, because I knew she meant I had hit 
 Sammy Martin. 
 
 My mother sort of threw out her hand. 
 
 "Don't!" she said. "It is enough without that. 
 It is enough to be a bully without being a liar. Mrs. 
 Martin has told me " 
 
 "I ain't a liar!" I said, because I was so mad I 
 could have cried. "If she said that, she's a liar; 
 that's what she is!" 
 
 Well, I ought n't to have called a lady that, or 
 anybody, but I was so mad I did n't think. I was n't 
 thinking about how I said it, and when a fellow's 
 mother looks at him the way my mother was looking 
 at me, and won't believe him when he's telling the 
 truth, what's he going to do? I guess my mother 
 was feeling pretty bad herself or she would n't have 
 said any such thing to me as that I was one. Because 
 I wasn't one! Not about that! I had never hit 
 Sammy Martin. I had never done anything to him 
 but give him candy once in a while. 
 
 "George!" said my mother, and she was sad 
 about it, as if she was now quite hopeless about me. 
 77
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Then she went on, as quietly as if we were at a 
 funeral : 
 
 "That poor child's mother came here to beg me 
 to protect her child against you to beg me to ask 
 you not to harm him again! You called him to the 
 fence and struck him across the face with a stick or 
 a switch. Oh, don't deny it! She has seen you coax 
 him to the fence before and give him candy, and 
 when he came crying to her with a welt rising on his 
 poor face, he told her you had done it. And I thought 
 you were I thought " 
 
 So then she cried, and I could n't do anything 
 but stand there and feel oh, I don't know how I 
 felt! I guess I had never felt like that in my life. It 
 was n't so, and 1 knew it was n't so, and nobody 
 would ever believe it was n't so. I could n't do any- 
 thing but stand there and wish I was dead or grown 
 up or something. I just stood and looked down, and 
 once in a while I blinked. So then, after a while, my 
 mother wiped her eyes and walked past me without 
 saying anything or looking at me and went into the 
 house, and I stood there awhile and then I sort of 
 turned and went to the edge of the porch and 
 sneaked around to the back yard. It was n't fair 
 to think such things of me when they were not 
 so, and I felt awful bad. I never wanted to see 
 my mother again. So then Swatty saw me and 
 shouted. 
 
 "Come on!" he yelled. "We've got her done I 
 She's a dandy!" , 
 
 78
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 So I ran to where the capstan was, and she was a 
 dandy! 
 
 I guess you know what capstans are the things 
 they use in moving houses? In Riverbank they 
 move a lot of houses, because people are always 
 wanting to build other houses where houses already 
 are, and you can't move a house without a capstan. 
 They have them on boats, too, but not quite the 
 same kind. The house- moving kind is like a square 
 box, without sides. In the middle, up and down, is a 
 kind of roller that the rope rolls onto, and the roller 
 has to stick up above the top of the box so there 
 can be a place to stick a pole into to turn the roller. 
 When they move houses they set the capstan in the 
 middle of the street a long way from the house, and 
 carry a rope back and fasten it to the house, and then 
 a horse that is fastened to the pole walks around and 
 around the capstan, stepping over the rope every 
 time he passes it, and winds up the rope, and that 
 pulls the house. Only we did n't have any horse, so 
 we thought maybe we'd use Swatty's cow. But we 
 did n't. We turned the capstan ourselves. All the 
 time we were making the capstan Swatty said the 
 cow would turn it, but when we got it done he said: 
 
 "Who ever heard of a cow turning a capstan?" 
 
 "I did," I said. "In the Bible-book there is a 
 picture of a cow turning a capstan." 
 
 "Well, that ain't the same thing," Swatty said. 
 "That's a Bible-cow, and ours is part Alderney and 
 part Holstein." 
 
 79
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "And this is n't any cow-capstan, anyway," 
 Bony said. "A cow could n't work this capstan, 
 because a cow has two toes, and she 'd get the rope 
 caught between her toes and fall and kill herself." 
 
 "Whose cow are you saying would fall and kill 
 herself my cow?" Swatty asked, the way he did 
 when he meant: "Take it back or I'll lick you!" 
 Then he says: "You'd better not say my cow would 
 fall and kill herself. If my cow could n't step over a 
 rope without getting it between her toes, I'd take 
 her and kill her." 
 
 "Aw, you would not!" I said. 
 
 "Yes, I would, too!" Swatty said. "We had a cow 
 once that could n't step over a rope without getting 
 it between her toes, and my father took her down 
 to the river and killed her. You need n't say we'd 
 have a cow that can't step over a rope " 
 
 "I never said it," I said. 
 
 "Well, if you did n't say it, who did say it, I'd 
 like to know," Swatty asked. "Bony did n't say it 
 and you'd better not say he said it, because he 
 came over and helped me finish the capstan, and 
 you stayed in school and let us do it." 
 
 "I did n't stay in school; I was kept in." 
 
 "Well, you say you was, but I don't have to be- 
 lieve it, do I?" Swatty said. "I don't have to believe 
 everything you say just because I'm because I 'm 
 in your yard, do I? " 
 
 Well, I saw Swatty wanted a fight, and I wanted 
 a fight anyway. I felt like it. So I said: 
 80
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 "Who are you calling a liar?" 
 
 I went up close to him, and he went up close to 
 me; and then I pushed him and he pushed me back; 
 and then I hit him and he hit me back. And when he 
 had me down and asked me if I had had enough and 
 got off of me, we went ahead with the capstan. I 
 was n't hurt anywhere except on the inside of my 
 cheek, where a tooth cut it. 
 
 The capstan was a good one. Swatty showed how 
 it worked, and pushed the pole around, and it 
 worked fine. So then I got my sled out of the barn, 
 where it had been since last winter, and we took 
 turns being pulled on the sled. So then we wished 
 we had a house to move, but there was n't any house 
 or building we dared move. I bet we could have 
 done it. So we looked for something we could n't 
 move without a capstan, so we could use the capstan 
 to move it. There is no use having a capstan if you 
 have n't anything to do with it. You might just as 
 well not have made one. So I said : 
 
 "I'll tell you! Let's pull up the old stump that's 
 in our front yard!" 
 
 "All right let's!" Swatty said. 
 
 We had a lot of trees in our yard a big silver 
 poplar in the back yard that was twice as big around 
 as a barrel, and a yellow-mellow apple, and a Benoni 
 apple, and a black-heart cherry, and a row of pines 
 leading down to the gate, and big maples inside the 
 fence, and maybe some more. There were trees all 
 over town, lots of them, and you would have thought 
 81
 
 SWATTY 
 
 there had always been trees, but I guess that is n't 
 so. People planted them. When people came to 
 Riverbank and made a town of it, they planted the 
 trees because there were none when they came, and I 
 guess they liked it better with trees growing than 
 when it was all bare. I know my grandmother did. 
 
 My grandmother was an old, old woman, and she 
 lived with us because the house had been built by 
 my grandfather, and my grandfather had planted 
 the trees. That was a long time before I was ever 
 born. We called my grandmother "Ladylove," be- 
 cause I guess that is what my grandfather called her. 
 Nobody ever called her anything else but Ladylove, 
 not "Gran'ma" or anything like that. 
 
 I guess nobody ever loved trees the way she loved 
 them. I guess she was always sorry she had come 
 away from Pennsylvania where there are lots of 
 trees and hills. Sometimes, early in the morning, she 
 would come out on the porch and look up and say, 
 11 1 lift up mine eyes to the hills ! " and then she would 
 sigh and shake her head. That was because there was 
 no hills in Riverbank when she lifted] up her eyes 
 from our porch, and I guess she was thinking of the 
 hills in Pennsylvania, because when she was a girl 
 and lived there, there were always hills to lift up her 
 eyes to hills that were covered with trees. 
 
 That was the way my grandmother Ladylove was, 
 
 as old as old, and nobody ever loved trees the way 
 
 she did. She liked boys too. She liked all the boys 
 
 that ever came to play with me. She was the only 
 
 82
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 one that never scolded me. Plenty of times when we 
 had fresh cookies and nobody was to touch a single 
 one until the next day, Ladylove would see us play- 
 ing in the yard and she would come out with a china 
 plate with a napkin on it piled up with cookies. Then 
 she would say a verse of poetry and give us the 
 cookies and go into the house just as happy as could 
 be. Sometimes she would forget she had brought us 
 any and would come right out with another plateful 
 and say the poetry over again and be just as happy 
 over that one as she was over the other. 
 
 When I said, "Let's pull the old stump that's in 
 the front yard," I did n't think anything but that it 
 would be a good thing to pull. I did n't even know 
 it had ever been a tree; it had always been a stump 
 since I was a little bit of a kid, anyway. It was n't 
 much of a stump any more. It was only about as 
 high as my knee, and right at the ground it was only 
 as big around as a man's knee. Once I had a little 
 hatchet, but it would n't cut much, but I chopped 
 the stump with it. 1 could only chop off a little splin- 
 ter at a time, and I never got much off. It only made 
 the stump raggedy at the top. It was just an old 
 stump that was n't worth anything and was n'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!" 
 83
 
 SWATTY 
 
 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." 
 
 "How can we?" 
 
 "You come ahead and I'll show you," he said; 
 and he did. He drove a stake into the ground about 
 as far as our capstan rope would reach, and fastened 
 the rope to it. Then he made Bony turn the capstan 
 pole, and that wound up the rope, and the capstan 
 just had to move toward the stake. When we got 
 it to the stake we knocked the stake out with an axe 
 and put it in again farther along. That way we 
 moved the capstan to where we wanted it. Swatty 
 thought of how to do it. 
 
 So then we had the capstan in the front yard, and 
 we tied the rope around the old stump and tried to 
 pull it, but the capstan just moved up to the stump. 
 So Swatty said he knew what was the matter and 
 that we were all crazy because we did n't think of it 
 before, and that all the house-movers, when they 
 were moving houses, drove stakes in front of their 
 capstans to keep them from moving, and stakes 
 behind them to keep them from tipping up. 
 
 We got some stakes and did it. Swatty drove the 
 stakes because he was strongest, and anyway, he 
 knew how to swing an axe, because he had] often 
 studied how the circus roughnecks swung them. 
 Anyway he said he had. He said he had sat for over 
 an hour and just studied how they swung axes at 
 84
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 stakes and that then he asked one roughneck to let 
 him try it, and he did, and he drove over a hundred. 
 He said that while he was driving stakes Mr. Bar- 
 num came out of the big tent and watched him, and 
 that he liked the way he was driving stakes so well 
 that he offered him a hundred dollars a year just to 
 drive stakes for the circus. So I asked Swatty if he 
 took up the offer, and he said he did. He said he 
 went with the circus all over the United States, driv- 
 ing stakes, and that he drove so many he got so he 
 could drive a stake with one blow. So then he said 
 he went to Mr. Barnum and asked him to pay him 
 two hundred dollars a year, but Mr. Barnum said he 
 could n't afford it. He said Swatty was worth two 
 hundred dollars a year but the show could n't afford 
 it. So, Swatty said, he came home. That's what 
 Swatty said, but I did n't hardly believe it. But, 
 anyway, we had to let him drive the stakes. 
 
 Well, the stump did n't come out as easy as we 
 had thought it would. It was pretty rotten, and it 
 pulled off piece by piece, but the inside was tough. 
 Our rope was old, too, and broke nearly every time 
 we tautened it. But it was good fun, anyway. We 
 took turns turning the capstan pole. One would turn 
 and the other would keep the rope on the stump and 
 the other would be boss and shout, "Whoa! Get up! 
 Whoa there, you!" A lot of boys came and looked 
 through the picket fence and wished we would let 
 them come in and help us capstan the stump, but 
 we would n't. What 's che use of having something 
 
 85
 
 SWATTY 
 
 somebody else has n't got, if you are going to let 
 them have it too? 
 
 Pretty soon we got the stump all pulled. There 
 was only a hole where it had been and the rotted 
 wood was scattered around on the grass, and we felt 
 pretty good about it, because nobody wants old 
 stumps sticking up in their yards. Swatty said 
 maybe my father would give me a quarter for pull- 
 ing the stump and I thought maybe he would, too. 
 We all felt as if we had done something pretty fine, 
 and I wished I could go and get my mother and have 
 her come out and see how good our capstan was and 
 have her say, "Why, that's fine, Georgie! I '11 have 
 your father give you a quarter when he comes 
 home." But I remembered about Mrs. Martin. I 
 remembered that my mother would probably never 
 think anything I ever did again was any good at all. 
 So I did n't call her. 
 
 Just then Ladylove my grandmother came 
 out of the side door. She stood a moment on the top 
 step, looking, and then she came down to the grass 
 and started toward us. She had a plate in her hand, 
 and there were graham crackers on it, because there 
 were no cookies that day. I guess she heard us shout- 
 ing and thought we would like some graham crack- 
 ers, because we were boys. 
 
 As soon as I saw her I jumped and ran toward her, 
 because she was some one we could show what we 
 had done. 
 
 "Come here, Ladylove," I shouted. "Come on, 
 86
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 we want to show you what we did with our cap- 
 stan!" 
 
 "Yes! yes!" she said. 
 
 So I took the plate of crackers, and with the other 
 hand I sort of steadied her elbow, because our yard 
 was n't very smooth and she did n't walk very 
 steady or very fast. We came to where the capstan 
 was, and she steadied herself with one hand on it. 
 
 "There!" I said. "See what we did, Ladylove! 
 We pulled that old tree stump right out of the 
 ground. We got rid of that old stump all right!" 
 
 Ladylove stood quiet so long that I got frightened. 
 She looked up at the sky and when she looked down 
 at me there were tears in her eyes. I could see them. 
 
 "My tree! My beautiful tree!" she said. "Ah, 
 Georgie, could you kill my tree?" And then she 
 closed her eyes and held out her hands and said: 
 
 "Degenerate Douglas! Oh, the unworthy lord! 
 Whom mere despite of heart could so far please 
 To level with the dust a noble horde, 
 A brotherhood of venerable trees!" 
 
 It was n't a horde of trees at all, nothing but an 
 old rotten stump and no good to anybody, but I felt 
 awful bad about it as soon as she spoke that poetry 
 not because the old stump was any good but be- 
 cause my grandmother was so old and seemed to 
 think so much of the old stump. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony just stood and did n't 
 know what to say. We wished she had scolded us or 
 something instead of feeling that way. 
 
 87
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Gone! Gone!" she said, letting her hands fall, as 
 if that old stump was the only thing she ever cared 
 for. "Gone!" 
 
 "It is not now as it has been of yore; 
 Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
 By night or day, 
 The things which I have seen I now can see no more!" 
 
 Well, we could n't say anything, could we, when 
 she felt like that? We could just feel mean. It did n't 
 matter that we knew it was just an old, rotten, no 
 good stump, because she thought it was a tree and 
 that we had cut it down. She shook her head, and 
 then: 
 
 "Some they have died, and some they have left me, 
 And some are taken from me; all are departed; 
 All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." 
 
 So then she turned and walked away with her 
 head bent down and the tears running down her 
 cheeks, and I stood there with the plate of graham 
 crackers in my hand and did n't know what to do 
 or what to say, and Bony stood and looked kind of 
 scared. I did n't dare look after my grandmother. I 
 just felt mean and sneaky and ashamed and sort of 
 miserable about everything, because I knew she 
 thought I had done it when I knew I ought n't to 
 have done it. At the step of the side door she stopped 
 and looked back and then went into the house, all 
 old and sad-looking. I guessed I had broken her 
 heart, she felt so bad about it. 
 
 So then Bony started to go home. He did n't say 
 88
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 anything, but he sort of edged off as if he wanted to 
 sneak away and get out of any trouble I was in. 
 Swatty spoke right up. 
 
 1 ' You come back here ! " he said. ' ' You come back, 
 or I'll show you!" 
 
 I was glad to have anybody say anything, even 
 that. 
 
 "Aw, I got to go home," Bony said. But he came 
 back. He knew what Swatty would do to him if he 
 did n't. So then Swatty made a face at the pieces of 
 old stump. 
 
 "Garsh!" he said. "Garsh! who'd of thunk any- 
 body cared for that old stump? We did n't know 
 Ladylove cared that much for it, did we? Well, 
 come on!" 
 
 "Come on where?" Bony sort of whined. 
 
 ' ' Where do you think ? ' ' Swatty asked. ' ' What do 
 I care where? Anywhere we can get a tree to plant 
 that's where. We'll get a big tree, like those maple 
 trees, and we'll fetch it here and plant it; that's 
 what we '11 do ! I '11 tell you what. We '11 take the cap- 
 stan rope and go out to the cow pasture and dig up 
 a big tree and let my cow drag it here. We '11 play 
 she's a team of oxen." 
 
 Well, we got to fighting about who would drive 
 the team of oxen and who would ride on the tree, 
 and we forgot all about being ashamed of pulling up 
 the stump. We took a spade and the axe, and went 
 out to the pasture, but when we saw how big a big 
 tree was, we guessed we'd get one that was n't so 
 89
 
 SWATTY 
 
 big, and then we guessed we 'd get one that was n't as 
 big as that, because Swatty said he did n't want his 
 cow to strain herself pulling it. So the one we got 
 was n't very big, after all, but it was more of a tree 
 than that old rotten stump was. It was a willow 
 tree. We got a willow tree after we 'd tried to dig up 
 the roots of an elm tree. Swatty said that a willow 
 tree did n't need any roots. 
 
 The cow did n't like pulling a tree very well, but 
 she got used to it before we got home only we 
 could n't ride on such a little tree. We had to take 
 turns being the ox-driver. But we got home all right 
 and dug a hole where the old stump had been, and 
 we planted the tree. She looked bully. She looked 
 almost like a real tree. So then I went into the house 
 to get my grandmother, to show her, so she would n't 
 feel so bad about the old stump. 
 
 I guess she had forgotten all about it. She was 
 sitting by the window, reading the limber-backed 
 psalm-book, and when I came in she looked up and 
 smiled. 
 
 "Come on out in the yard," Lady love," I said. "I 
 want to show you what me and Bony and Swatty 
 did." 
 
 She closed the psalm-book with her glasses inside 
 and put the book on her sewing-table and went with 
 me. I took her right to where the tree was. 
 
 "There!" I said. "Me and Bony and Swatty 
 planted a new tree for you where that old stump 
 was." 
 
 90
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 My grandmother looked at the tree. Her eyes 
 were full of tears again, but they were n't the kind 
 that worried me. She held out a hand toward the 
 tree and said some more poetry: 
 
 "What plant we in this apple tree? 
 Buds, which the breath of summer days 
 Shall lengthen into leafy sprays; 
 Boughs, where the thrush with crimson breast 
 Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest. 
 
 We plant upon the sunny lea 
 A shadow for the noontide hour, 
 A shelter from the summer shower, 
 
 When we plant the apple tree." 
 
 Well, it was n't an apple tree, but I did n't care, 
 and neither did Swatty or Bony. I was just glad be- 
 cause Ladylove was glad, and I guessed she knew 
 it was n't an apple tree, because when you use po- 
 etry you have to use the kind there is, and it don't 
 always fit. But this one fitted close enough to show 
 how happy Ladylove was. She was very happy, and 
 when she had said the verses she laughed and kissed 
 Swatty's hand, and then Bony's and then mine, and 
 took her skirt in two hands and made us a curtsy 
 and went away as happy as anything. I felt pretty 
 good. 
 
 So just then my father came home, because it was 
 supper-time. He came into the yard, and he walked 
 across the grass to where we were. He looked sort of 
 sober, the way fathers do when they want to know 
 what their sons have been doing. 
 
 "What's that?" he asked, short.
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "It's a capstan," I said. "Me and Bony and 
 Swatty made it." 
 
 "What are you going to do with it?" 
 
 "I don't know. Maybe nothing." 
 
 "Hm! And what is this tree doing here?" 
 
 "Why " I said, and then I did n't know what 
 to say. 
 
 "Why, there was an old stump here," said Swatty, 
 "and we pulled it up with the capstan, and Lady- 
 love, she came out, and she felt pretty bad " 
 
 "She couldn't remember it wasn't a tree any 
 more," said Bony. 
 
 "And so we went and got a tree and planted it for 
 her," I said. 
 
 My father looked at me. Then he turned away. 
 
 "Don't do any damage with that capstan thing," 
 he said, and that was all. 
 
 Well, nobody said anything at supper, so after 
 supper I went out and sat on the porch, and Herb 
 Schwartz had come over to talk with Fan awhile and 
 they were there too. So pretty soon my father came 
 out and lighted a cigar and gave Herb one. Then my 
 mother came out and I guessed I would go into the 
 back yard or somewhere, because I knew she would 
 tell my father about what Mrs. Martin had lied 
 about me hurting her crazy boy. So I went and 
 sat on the woodshed step awhile, because if my 
 father was going to lick me he would do it out there 
 anyway. 
 
 But he did n't come, so after a while I went 
 92
 
 THE STUMP 
 
 around front again. I stopped by the vines at the 
 end of the porch, because my father was talking. 
 
 "And I will tell you something else," he was say- 
 ing. So he told them about the stump, and how we 
 had pulled it up and then gone and got another tree 
 because Ladylove felt so bad about it. "And Mrs. 
 Martin nor any one else need tell me that a boy that 
 would do that would torment a crippled child," my 
 father said. "I think I know my son George fairly 
 well. What did George say about it?" 
 
 "He said Mrs. Martin lied," said my mother. 
 
 "And she probably did," said my father. "Unin- 
 tentionally but none the less wickedly. I am going to 
 see her. I think she is going to apologize." 
 
 So I felt bully about that, and my father went 
 down the walk and mother went into the house. I 
 felt bully because father was right. Only I was n't 
 the one that thought of planting the new tree. That 
 was Swatty. But I guess I 'd have thought of it if 
 Swatty had n't. 
 
 I was just going to go up on the porch when Fan 
 said something. What she said was: 
 
 "Poor father! The way he lets Georgie behave 
 and then stands up for him!" 
 
 "Why, Fan," Herb said, "you don't think George 
 did anything of the sort Mrs. Martin said, do you?" 
 
 "1 would n't put it beyond him," Fan said. 
 
 "That's not fair! That's unjust!" Herb said. 
 
 "Oh! I'm unfair, am I? I'm unjust, am I?" Fan 
 flared up. 
 
 93
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "You are if you say such things about George," 
 Herb said, and he said it out flat, too, as if he meant 
 it. 
 
 "Oh!" Fan said. "The last time I was jealous. 
 Now I am unjust! I'm sure I thank you for your 
 opinion of me " 
 
 "And, now, Frances," said Herb, standing up be- 
 cause Fan was, "you are unfair and unjust to me. 
 Either that or frivolous." 
 
 "Oh!" Fan cried out and she slung something on 
 the porch that bounced and rolled. It came through 
 the vines and to where I was, and I picked it up. It 
 was her engagement ring, but she did n't care where 
 it went, because she went slamming into the house, 
 and Herb went stamping to the gate and out of the 
 yard. 
 
 So I stood there and looked at the ring and felt 
 pretty sick, because it was just because Herb 
 thought I was n't a liar and a mean cripple-torturer 
 that he had stood up for me. And, just because I 
 was n't, his wedding was off again and nobody could 
 tell when me and Swatty would get his tricycle.
 
 V 
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 WELL, when mother heard that Herb and Fan had 
 had another fight she was so hurt by it she just set 
 down and cried and said, "Fan! Fan! I don't know 
 what is going to become of you with that temper 
 of yours, because Herbert Schwartz is one of the 
 finest young men in the whole world and if you keep 
 on you'll delineate his affections away from you en- 
 tirely forever," or something like that. 
 
 And it did look like it. Professor Martin's leg 
 did n't get any better and he had to go over to the 
 hospital at Chicago to have it broke again and fixed 
 and Herb was made a regular professor at our school 
 and principal of it, and every day he used to come 
 into our room and talk awhile with Miss Carter, and 
 walk home with her. I tell you it looked mighty bad 
 for Fan, and I did n't blame Herb, because Miss 
 Carter was nice. She was nice for a teacher, I mean, 
 and sweet and pretty and everything. 
 
 Well, I had the engagement ring. I did n't know 
 whether it was mine or whose it was, because Fan 
 had thrown it away and Herb had n't bothered to 
 pick it up. So it looked as if it was mine, because 
 finders is keepers. So I asked Swatty. So Swatty 
 wanted to look at the ring and when he saw it had a 
 diamond in it he said it was my ring, because Herb 
 
 95
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and Fan had thrown it away, but that half of it was 
 his, because Herb was as much Swatty's brother as 
 Fan was my sister, and if they had of had the fight 
 on Herb's porch instead of Fan's porch, it would of 
 been Swatty that found the ring. So we had it in 
 pardnership and said we would keep it, because if 
 Herb got engaged again to Fan or to Miss Carter or 
 anybody we could trade it to him for his two-seat 
 tricycle, maybe. 
 
 Bony was sitting there all the time, listening to 
 us, so all at once he said : 
 
 "Ain't any of the ring going to be mine?" 
 
 The reason he said it was because most of the 
 things we have we have sort of in cahoots, the three 
 of us. 
 
 "Garsh, no, Bony," Swatty said. "We'd like to 
 have you part own it but you ain't got no excuse to. 
 Herb ain't your brother, and Fan ain't your sister, 
 like they are mine and Georgie's, are they? You 
 ain't related to the ring no way. We wish he was, 
 don't we, Georgie? but he ain't." 
 
 Well, Bony was sort of mad at it, but it was n't 
 our fault. So then Swatty said to me: 
 
 " I ain't going to play with your sister any more." 
 
 "Why ain't you?" I asked him. 
 
 "Because I ain't," he said. "If my brother Herb 
 ain't good enough for your sister Fan, then I ain't 
 good enough to play with Lucy. And I won't." 
 
 Well, I knew what he meant, even if he didn't say 
 it out in words. He meant that he had been having 
 96
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 Lucy for his secret girl, like I wanted to have Mamie 
 Little for mine, and now he was n't going to have 
 her any more because Fan had been mean to Herb. 
 
 "Well, 1 don't blame you," I said. "I wouldn't 
 either." 
 
 So none of us said anything for a while. Then all 
 at once Bony said something. 
 
 "Say!" he said. 
 
 "Say it yourself and see how you like it," Swatty 
 said. 
 
 "Why, say!" Bony said, getting red in the face 
 and digging into the grass with his toe; "if if you 
 don't want to play with her, can I play with her?" 
 
 He meant with Lucy. He meant could he have 
 Lucy for his girl if Swatty did n't want her any more, 
 only he did n't say it right out, of course. So Swatty 
 said he could. He said he did n't want her and Bony 
 could have her. 
 
 "Well, then" Bony said. "Well, then, I'd 
 ought to be part owner of the ring." 
 
 So we talked it over and me and Swatty thought 
 that would be all right, because if Bony was n't a 
 brother or sister of Herb or Fan he was going to have 
 Lucy for his girl and Lucy was my sister and Fan's. 
 So we told Bony he was third pardner in the ring. 
 
 I guess Bony felt pretty set up and proud to have 
 a girl that Swatty had had, when he had never had 
 any girl before. Right away he began to get mad 
 when we said Lucy was his girl, and that's a good 
 sign, because that's the way fellows feel. 
 97
 
 SWATTY 
 
 But girls don't feel that way when they have fel- 
 lows. Right away they begin to wiggle their skirts 
 when they walk, and want their mothers to curl 
 their hair every day, and put fresh hair-bows on 
 them. So they start right in saying how they hate 
 the fellow that's their fellow; but they take slate 
 pencils and apples and things from him when he 
 gives them on the sly, and they begin writing notes 
 to him in school, like "Don't you think you 're smart 
 with your new shoes on," and things like that. So he 
 feels pretty good after all, and gives her apples when 
 nobody is looking, and pushes her around mean-like 
 when anybody does look. 
 
 But she don't mind being pushed around, because 
 that's one way she knows he's her fellow. So, when 
 there is a party, she is the one he drops a pillow be- 
 fore, and if she don't kiss him, all right for her! But 
 mostly she does. She lets on that she hates it, but 
 she don't. She likes it. 
 
 Well, I guess one reason Swatty was glad to get 
 rid of Lucy was because Swatty did n't care for kiss- 
 ing games anyway, and it was n't much fun for him 
 to have a girl, because nobody hardly dared yell at 
 him: 
 
 "Swatty! Swatty! Swatty! 
 Lucy she is your girl!" 
 
 He was too good a fighter. And half the fun of hav- 
 ing 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 did n't like to have him for 
 98
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 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. He never wanted to sort of walk on 
 the edge of the sidewalk when the girls were walking 
 on the middle of it, and cut up funny to make them 
 look and giggle. It was boys he liked to push around, 
 and not girls. 
 
 One reason Lucy did n't care much to have him 
 for her fellow was because his father and mother 
 were German, and none of the girls like a Dutchy 
 for a fellow, because lots of Dutchies worked in the 
 sawmills and could n't talk good English. But 
 Swatty's father did n't work in a sawmill; he was a 
 tailor. But he was a Dutchy just the same, and when 
 the fellows got mad at Swatty sometimes they would 
 yell: 
 
 "Dutchy! Dutchy! Stuffed with straw 
 Can't say nothing but 'Yaw! yaw! yaw!'" 
 
 Well, when I had time to think it over I thought it 
 was funny that Swatty had let Bony have a third 
 partnership in the engagement ring as easy as he 
 had. And then one day I found out why it was. It 
 shows how slick Swatty was to keep a secret or 
 anything. 
 
 The vacation before the time I 'm telling about 
 which was almost vacation time again there was 
 a new girl came to Riverbank. She lived in a little 
 house across Main Street that had a picket fence 
 and a yard that ran mostly down the gully toward 
 
 99
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Front Street, and the first I knew about her was 
 one day when I had to go down town on an errand 
 and went past her house. 
 
 I had on some new shoes, so I knew everybody 
 would see them and be thinking of them, and I felt 
 pretty mean; and when I went by the little house 
 the girl was behind the picket fence, looking out. 
 So I made a face at her, because it was none of her 
 business if I did have on new shoes. 
 
 It was summer, of course, and hot; but the girl 
 had on a woolen dress red and black checks 
 and it fitted her pretty tight all over, and was too 
 short and little, so that it was tight like skin, and 
 her wrists stuck out too far. She was barefoot, too, 
 and that was funny, because girls don't go barefoot. 
 It was as funny to see her barefoot as to see me with 
 shoes on. 
 
 I was going to yell something at her, but I did n't, 
 I only made a face at her. But she did n't make one 
 back at me. She just looked. 
 
 She was n't like any girl in Riverbank that I ever 
 saw. She was brown almost like an Indian but 
 she had reddish cheeks, and her hair was as black 
 as tar and cut short, like a boy's, only it was banged 
 in front, and her bangs were so long they came down 
 to her eyes, and were cut as straight as a string. 
 
 She stood behind the picket fence and just looked 
 
 at me, and I did n't like it. Her eyes were like big 
 
 black marbles and her mouth like a painted red. So 
 
 I whistled and looked the other way and the first 
 
 100
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 thing I knew she was out of the gate and after me. 
 I tried to run, but she cornered me and took me by 
 the hair and jerked me back and forth. I thought 
 she was going to jerk my head off. So I pulled loose 
 and ran, because no girl can jerk me around by the 
 hair like that. So all she got for her smarty business 
 was just a handful of hair or two. And who cares 
 for a handful of hair? 
 
 Well, you bet I got even with her, all right! I 
 never went past her house alone after that. 
 
 So that 's the way she was. She stayed in her yard, 
 and when a boy came along she would jump out and 
 grab him by the hair, or slap him, and chase him 
 away from in front of her house. She was a tartar, 
 all right. She was like a spider that is always wait- 
 ing and comes out and grabs flies; only what she 
 grabbed was n't flies it was boys. So we all got 
 afraid of her, and we did n't dast go past her 
 house unless we were two or three together. And 
 then we generally went round some other way. 
 Except Swatty. 
 
 Because one day Swatty he went past her house, 
 and she come out and was going to pull his hair, like 
 she did the rest of us ; and when she came at him he 
 backed up against the fence, and when she reached 
 out for his hair he hit her hand away with one hand 
 and slapped her on the face good and plenty. He 
 slapped her two or three times and dared her to 
 touch him. So she did n't say anything, and Swatty 
 did n't say anything, and they just stood there. 
 101
 
 SWATTY 
 
 And pretty soon Swatty went on downtown. So she 
 just stood there. 
 
 Well, me and Bony used to play with girls some- 
 times because they let us be the husbands and 
 fathers, and boss them around and whip the chil- 
 dren. 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 police- 
 man 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. 
 
 I guess the girls wished he would n't come, be- 
 cause a 'rangatang is such an interruption to plain 
 housekeeping, and pirates and policemen are an 
 awful nuisance to mothers who want to bring up a 
 peaceful family and don't want their husbands 
 taken to jail just when the mud pies are cooked and 
 dinner is ready. But they could n't help it, because 
 if they did n'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 that day the leaves were only beginning to 
 102
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 wither, and the branches of the trees made a bully 
 place to play in. So Mamie Little and my sister and 
 me and Bony went right out there after dinner and 
 played house ; and when Swatty had been licked, or 
 whatever he had been kept in for, he came there 
 too. 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. She was just standing and looking back at 
 my sister. It made my sister mighty mad. I guess 
 girls can look the things boys generally holler at 
 each other. So my sister said : 
 
 "Bony, I don't want that girl to look at me!" 
 
 So Bony looked, and when he saw who was looking 
 he said : 
 
 "Aw! let her look! Let her look, if she wants to. 
 She ain't hurting anybody!" 
 
 So then my sister got awful mad. She stamped her 
 foot. 
 
 "I won't let her look at me that way." 
 
 So she started on a run for the girl. She did n't 
 103
 
 SWATTY 
 
 get quite up to her. Before she got quite to her, the 
 girl sort of flashed up to my sister. That was about 
 all I could see. The next I saw, she was standing just 
 where she had always been, and my sister was 
 flopped down on the ground with her arms over 
 her head, yelling bloody murder. So I jumped out 
 of the tree and ran up to my sister. Her face was all 
 scratched up. There were four long scratches on 
 each side of her face where the girl had raked her 
 with her claws. So Mamie Little came running too, 
 and helped my sister up. 
 
 "If I was a boy," she said, "I would n't let any- 
 body do that to my sister unless I was a 'fraid-cat." 
 
 "Aw! who's a 'fraid-cat?" I said. I wasn't no 
 more 'fraid-cat than she was, but I guess I knew 
 that girl. 
 
 So Mamie Little took my sister by the arm. 
 
 "Come on," she said. " I guess everybody around 
 here is a 'fraid-cat. You and me will be mad at them 
 and stay mad for ever and ever!" 
 
 So I had to go. I was n't going to hit the girl. I 
 just thought I'd sort of push her away only 
 maybe a little rough until I pushed her inside 
 her gate, so I could show a smarty like Mamie Little 
 who was a 'fraid-cat and who was n't. I walked over 
 to where the girl was, and she waited for me. All I 
 had time to see was the girl's eyes turning to some- 
 thing like prickly black fire, and something plumped 
 against me like a bag of flour shot out of a sling. It 
 was as if her body hit against me everywhere at 
 104
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 once. And then something grabbed my hair and 
 yanked me, and I felt scratches burning on my face, 
 and, somehow, I was on the ground, yelling and 
 holding my arms above my head. The girl was stand- 
 ing where she had always been. I heard Mamie 
 Little and my sister yelling: 
 
 ' ' Scratch-Cat ! Scratch-Cat ! " 
 
 Swatty came on the run. He was pretty mad, 
 because him and me was chums, and I was his cow- 
 cousin and his double Dutch uncle, and he ran right 
 past me and up to the girl. He gave her a push with 
 his hand, and it sort of pushed her around ; but she 
 straightened up again and just looked at him. 
 
 "You scratch-cat!" he said, as mean as he knew 
 how. "Who are you scratching around here, I'd 
 like to know?" 
 
 I thought she'd jump on him and claw him, like 
 she did me; but she did n't. 
 
 "I ain't going to hurt you," she said. 
 
 "You bet you ain't!" Swatty said. " 'Cause why? 
 'Cause you darsent, that's why!" Only he said, 
 "'Cors why?" like he always does. 
 
 She did n't say she did dare, and she did n't say 
 she did n't dare. She said: 
 
 "Come over in my yard and play with me. Don't 
 you play with them. I can play good." 
 
 So Swatty pushed her again, and she stepped 
 back a step. 
 
 "Don't you play with girls!" she said. "You 
 come and play with me." 
 
 105
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Aw! you're a girl too," Swatty said. "Go awrn 
 home and play with yourself." 
 
 So he gave her another push. She looked as if she 
 had n't ever thought that she was a girl before. She 
 said: 
 
 " I can beat you running. I can beat you jumping. 
 I can beat you climbing trees. I can beat you skin- 
 ning 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. "Go on and do 
 it, why don't you? I want to see you do it!" 
 
 So each time he said it he gave her a push. 
 
 "I won't!" she said. "I ain't going to fight you." 
 
 "You darsent!" 
 
 "I ain't going to!" 
 
 "You don't dare!" 
 
 "I ain't going to!" 
 
 So every time Swatty said anything he shoved 
 her again, and pretty soon he had her pushed clear 
 back against the fence of her yard, and he left her 
 1 06
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 there and came back. We went on playing. But every 
 once in a while we thought of her, and when we 
 looked she was standing just where Swatty had left 
 her. 
 
 Well, we found out her name was Dell Brown, 
 because my father went to speak to her father about 
 the way she scratched my sister. Her father's name 
 was Reverend Brown; but he had adopted her be- 
 cause her folks died, and she was a sore trial, but 
 no doubt willed by the Almighty. The Reverend 
 Brown was a sort of preacher, and had an old white 
 horse and drove around the country and preached 
 wherever he thought they needed preaching. Mrs. 
 Brown was a sort of invalid and old, like Reverend 
 Brown was, and he was almost too old to adopt 
 Dell Brown for his daughter. He had ought to have 
 adopted her for his granddaughter when he was 
 adopting. 
 
 So he said he would pray about it, and Mrs. Brown 
 said she could n't understand Dell Brown, hardly, 
 why she had the fighting streak in her, because at 
 home she was all love and affection to Mrs. Brown, 
 and a word made the child weep. I guess Dell Brown 
 had just so much fight in her and had to get it fought 
 out* I guess she thought it was better to go out and 
 fight than to fight Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Maybe she 
 was sort of fond of them because they were funny 
 and old and had adopted her. I guess she was like 
 George Washington: she was good and nice, but she 
 liked to fight. 
 
 107
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Well, after while school started again. I kind of 
 hated to go, because I always hate to, but more 
 because I thought Dell Brown would go to school. 
 So she did, and the first time she got me alone she 
 took me by the hair and walloped me good. I had n't 
 done nothing to her, except maybe yell "Scratch- 
 Cat ! " at her sometimes when I was far enough away. 
 So after that I did n't go to school very early, but 
 kind of hung around until Dell Brown went in, and 
 then 'I went in. I never told on her. If she says I did 
 she tells what ain't so. It was Toady Williams. 
 
 Me and Swatty was kept in that day, like we 
 'most always were, and Bony was waiting outside. 
 So Miss Murphy thought it was n't any use talking 
 to Dell Brown any more ; it was time to rawhide her. 
 She got the rawhide out of the closet, and told Dell 
 Brown to come to the back of the room, and 
 Dell Brown went. Miss Murphy put one hand on Dell 
 Brown's shoulder, and lifted up the whip to switch 
 her across the legs, and the next thing she did was 
 to let out a scream, and you could n't have believed 
 her dress could be torn so in just a second if you 
 had n't seen it. Her hands were beginning to get 
 red in streaks where Dell Brown had scratched them. 
 So Dell Brown just threw Miss Murphy's hair 
 switch on a desk, and stood there with her chest 
 swelling in and out under her red and black checked 
 dress, and Miss Murphy backed away and began 
 winding her switch on her head again. 
 
 When Miss Murphy got her hair on, she went out 
 108
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 and locked the door and got Professor Martin, the 
 principal, who is her beau. He came in, and he was 
 pretty mad. He grabbed Dell Brown and gave her 
 a shake, and she flew at him like a cat and scratched 
 him across the face. He slung her around, and she 
 hit a desk and fell on the floor. It made her cry, and 
 Professor Martin was scared of what he had done 
 and went to pick her up. But when he stooped she 
 clawed at him and scratched his other cheek, and he 
 left her alone and told her to get up and go home, 
 because she was expelled from school. 
 
 So Dell Brown got up, and held her hand to her 
 side, and went and got her books and went home. 
 But there was only one rib broke, and I guess it 
 healed all right, because she was young and tough. 
 But nobody whipped any more girls in school. I 
 guess they thought it was safer to whip boys. They 
 are more used to it, and their ribs ain't so brittle. 
 Or maybe the school board stopped it. Professor 
 Martin almost got fired because he had broken a 
 rib for Scratch-Cat and he would of been fired only 
 Scratch-Cat was such a ruffian, everybody said. 
 
 Well, of course the expelling did n't take, and Dell 
 Brown came back after while, when Miss Murphy 
 went away and Miss Carter came. She did n't fight 
 much, because her rib was brittle yet, but she was 
 cross all the time. It looked like she hated every- 
 body and everybody hated her. 
 
 But one day Miss Carter was walking down the 
 aisle and she had some flowers pinned on, and one 
 109
 
 SWATTY 
 
 dropped in the aisle, and Dell Brown picked it up 
 and put it in a book. She used to open the book and 
 look at the flower. She used to sit and look at Miss 
 Carter, and you could n't tell whether she was mad 
 at her or not, because her face was so dark and her 
 bangs so long that she always looked scowly. But I 
 guess she was n't mad, I guess she wanted Miss 
 Carter to like her, but did n't know how to make 
 her. 
 
 None of the girls played with Scratch-Cat because 
 she scratched ; and none of the boys played with her 
 either, because they were afraid of her. As soon as 
 school was out she would go home and play in her 
 own yard. I guess she was pretty lonely. 
 
 Well, that was how it was up to the time I'm 
 telling about, just before school closed, in June, and 
 the weather was bully and warm. It made you want 
 to do things. So on Saturday me and Swatty and 
 Bony was sitting in my barn and talking about what 
 we would do that afternoon. We thought of a lot of 
 things, and said them, but, every time, Swatty said: 
 "Aw! no, let's don't!" So we didn't. So then I 
 said: 
 
 "I'll tell you what!" 
 
 "What?" Swatty asked. 
 
 "Pshaw, no!" I said. "It ain't no use. We could 
 n't get any. It ain't time for them yet." 
 
 "Aw ! what are you talking about? " Swatty asked. 
 "What ain't it time for?" 
 
 "Water-lilies," I said. "If it was time for water- 
 no
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 lilies we could row up to the water-lily pond and get 
 some water-lilies." 
 
 So then Swatty he talked up. 
 
 ''Well, we could row up the river anyway, could 
 n't we?" he said only he said "rowr" instead of 
 "row," like he always does. "We could rowr up the 
 river and get some pond-lily roots and sell them." 
 
 "Aw! who would buy old pond-lily roots?" Bony 
 wanted to know. 
 
 Well, I thought at first that the reason Swatty 
 said we could sell pond-lily roots was because once 
 I had told him about a man or somebody who had 
 made money getting pond-lily roots and selling them 
 to people who wanted to raise pond-lilies in a tub 
 in their gardens. 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, 
 ought n't he?" 
 
 It looked like that ought to be so, because Derling- 
 port 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?" 
 
 ( "I guess he knows plenty about them," Swatty 
 said. ' ' I guess if you went up to Derlingport to visit 
 him you'd see whether he knows anything about 
 them or not! I bet my uncle is the richest man in 
 Derlingport, and the reason he is is because once, 
 in
 
 SWATTY 
 
 when I was out pond-lilying, I sent him a pond-lily 
 root and he grew it in a tub, and when folks saw it 
 they wanted to grow some too. So my uncle he 
 rowred up the river to a pond-lily pond, and he got 
 some roots and sold them. First orff he only got a 
 few and sold them ; but pretty soon he had a hundred 
 men getting pond-lily roots for him, and he had to 
 build a pond-lily root elevator, like the grain elevator 
 down on the levee, but ten times bigger." 
 
 "Gee-my-nentily!" Bony said. "Ten times big- 
 ger! Gee!" 
 
 "Ho! that ain't nothing!" Swatty said. "That 
 was when he was just beginning to start out. He's 
 got ten of them elevators now, and he 's got al- 
 most ten trillion-billion pond-lily roots in them. He's 
 got a railway switch and a steamboat dock to each 
 elevator, and when he ships pond-lily roots he ships 
 them by the trainload. Only, when he sells them in 
 Dubuque or Keorkuk, he ships them by the boat- 
 load." 
 
 " Gee-my-nentily ! " said Bony again. "Come on! 
 Let's" 
 
 "Well, I guess so!" said Swatty. "I guess it's no 
 wonder he 's the richest man in Derlingport ! And I 
 can just go and visit him any time I want to. I can 
 go visit him and take a bath right in his china bath- 
 tub." 
 
 "Aw! go on!" I said. "He ain't got a china bath- 
 tub!" 
 
 "Yes, sir! just like a tea-cup." 
 
 112
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 "Gosh!" Bony said. "Did you take a bath in it?'* 
 
 "Garsh, no!" said Swatty. "Do you think I'd go 
 taking bath-tub baths when I did n't have to? When 
 I visit him my uncle lets me do just what I want to. 
 I don't have to wash my feet, or take a bath, or go 
 for a cow, or fetch in wood " 
 
 "Who fetches in the wood?" Bony asked. 
 
 "Nobody," Swatty said. "My uncle don't burn 
 sawmill slabs or cord wood. He burns coal." 
 
 "Well, somebody has to fetch in the coal, don't 
 he?" I wanted to know. 
 
 "Well, I guess not!" said Swatty. "He he has 
 a a bridge built right over the top of his house, 
 so he can run a railroad over it, and he has a big 
 iron box on top of his house under the bridge, and 
 the railroad hawrls the cars of coal right up on top 
 of the roof and dumps the coal into the iron box, 
 and it runs down the chimbleys right into the stove." 
 
 Well, me and Bony did n't say nothing. We just 
 sat there and thought what we thought. 
 
 "And he's got a road scooped out under his house 
 for a railroad to run on," Swatty said, "and there is 
 a train of cars under the house, and when my uncle, 
 or anybody, shakes the grate the ashes fall right 
 down an iron pipe into the cars." 
 
 "Come on!" I said. "Come on! Let's go some- 
 where." 
 
 So Swatty looked at me ; but I had n't said he 
 was a liar or anything, so there was nothing to fight 
 about. If I had wanted to I could have said I had an
 
 SWATTY 
 
 uncle somewhere that did n't bother with dirty old 
 coal and ashes at all, but had his own natural gas 
 well and used natural gas; but my nose was sore 
 yet from the last time Swatty had pushed it into my 
 face, so I did n't say it. 
 
 We went down to the boat-house and hired a skiff 
 and rowed up the river to the pond-lily pond. The 
 river was pretty low and it was muddy on the bank 
 of the river over knee-deep in mud. Swatty got 
 out over the bow of the skiff to pull it up on the 
 mud, so the wash from any steamboat would n't 
 send it adrift, and he went in over the knees of his 
 pants, so we thought we had better undress in the 
 skiff, and we did. It felt bully to be undressed out- 
 doors again. 
 
 I guess you know how the lily-pond is. On one 
 side is the railroad and on the other side is the river; 
 but between the pond and the river is narrow sand, 
 with willows on it bush willows. It makes a bank 
 all around the lower end of the pond-lily pond and 
 ends at the railroad. So me and Bony and Swatty 
 talked it over, and thought we'd better not leave 
 our clothes in the skiff, because somebody might 
 steal them. First we thought we 'd hide them in the 
 willows, and then we thought we'd carry them 
 around by the sand spit to the railroad, because the 
 pond-lily roots were over by the railroad more. So 
 we did. We walked around to the railroad and left 
 our clothes there, and waded in. Swatty went first. 
 
 It was pretty tough. You went into the mud 
 114
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 pretty deep, and there were plants that had scratch- 
 els on them, and the lily plants and the arrow-leaf 
 plants were so thick you could hardly wade. They 
 were all around the shore for two or three rods, and 
 you could n't see over them. They rustled like corn 
 when we pushed through them. But we knew there 
 was a big clear place in the middle of the pond, so 
 we waded on out to it. It was the place where I 
 learned to swim. It was n't over head anywhere. 
 
 Well, Swatty came to the open place first, and he 
 stopped and said: 
 
 "There's somebody out there." 
 
 Me and Bony peeked, and there was. Right off 
 we saw who it was it was Scratch-Cat. She was 
 in where the water was under-arm deep, and she was 
 sort of crying, she was so mad. Then we saw what 
 she was trying to do she was trying to learn her- 
 self to swim. It was enough to make anybody laugh. 
 
 It looked like she had been at it a long time, for 
 she was so cold she was shivering. We were near 
 enough to her to see that the black spot on her arm 
 was a mole and not a leaf or a vaccination, and we 
 could see her shiver as plain as could be. The way 
 she was learning herself to swim was this: she put 
 her hands out in front of her and sort of jumped off 
 her feet and then kicked and pounded the water 
 and went down under. I guess you know how that 
 feels. You can't get your head above water when 
 you are that deep unless you stand up ; so you paw 
 in the mud, and get scared because you can't get to
 
 SWATTY 
 
 your feet. Dell Brown would come up scared to 
 death, and spit and blow, and sort of cry, and shiver, 
 and then she would do it all again. 
 
 I guess it was pretty tough. Every time she went 
 down she must have got scratched up by the weeds 
 with scratchels on them some kind of smartweed 
 and she was scared and chilly. It was mighty 
 funny. I guess I laughed out aloud. 
 
 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 
 did n't. He pushed me and Bony back and said : 
 
 "Hey! Scratch-Cat! Wait; I'll show you how to 
 swim." Only, he said, "I '11 showr you how to swim," 
 the way he always says "show." 
 
 So he slid his hands out on the water and turned 
 on his side and swam towards where she was. He 
 did n't mean nothing. All he meant was to show her 
 how to swim, because she would never learn the 
 way she was trying. But Scratch-Cat turned and held 
 her arms straight out in front of her and hurried for 
 the shore, pushing the weeds away with her hands. 
 
 Swatty kept telling her to wait, and once he came 
 up to her, and she turned and hammered him with 
 her fists, crazy mad, and he let her go on. The weeds 
 must have scratched her pretty bad, ripping through 
 them that way; but she got to the railway track and 
 began putting her clothes on fast. So Swatty said: 
 
 "Garsh! I bet she gets our clothes and hides them 
 or something!" 
 
 116
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 So me and Swatty and Bony hurried to where our 
 clothes were and dressed. We got most of our duds 
 on and were putting on the rest, when we heard 
 somebody yelling. It was a woman, and she was over 
 on the river road, across a cornfield from where we 
 were, and she was yelling like she was being mur- 
 dered. I was mighty scared. All I thought of was that 
 whoever was murdering her would murder her and 
 then come over and murder us. 
 
 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 scream- 
 ing. He rolled under the bob-wire fence and started 
 down between the corn 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 
 corn we got more scared. We did n't like to be so far 
 from where Swatty was, with a woman screaming 
 like that and being murdered. So I hurried up, and 
 Bony came along, blubbering. I told him to shut up. 
 
 We came to the edge of the cornfield and stopped. 
 It was Miss Carter, our teacher, and a tramp had 
 her by the throat, trying to make her stop her yell- 
 ing. And just then Swatty jumped on the tramp. 
 He had a rock, and he lammed at the tramp with it 
 and hit him on the arm. So then Miss Carter went 
 limp and stopped yelling, and fell in a pile on the 
 road, because the tramp let go of her and she fainted. 
 
 "7
 
 SWATTY 
 
 The road was all tramped up and covered with 
 walked-on flowers Miss Carter had been getting; 
 but the tramp reached around and grabbed Swatty 
 and got him by the neck and began to pound his 
 head. Me and Bony crouched down and looked be- 
 tween the boards of the cornfield fence, because we 
 was too scared to run away. 
 
 Swatty done the best he could, but it was n't 
 much use. He was getting killed, I guess. But all at 
 once Scratch-Cat came a-sailing out of the cornfield 
 and lit on the tramp with both hands. 
 
 When her eight claws came raking down his face 
 he let loose of Swatty and grabbed for Scratch-Cat ; 
 but she was n't where he grabbed. She was stand- 
 ing away, with her hands clawed and her head sort 
 of pointed at him, ready to jump again. So Swatty 
 picked up the rock and slung it, and caught him in 
 the back of the neck. He hollered like a bull and 
 turned, and Scratch-Cat went at him and raked him 
 on the side of his face. He lammed at her, and I guess 
 he caught her on her brittle rib, because she hollered. 
 
 She did n't care what happened, I guess, when he 
 hit her brittle rib, so she went right at him, and 
 Swatty made a dive for his legs and got a hold on 
 them. The tramp fought good and hard. He went 
 down, but he kept on fighting; and Swatty hollered 
 for me to get a rock and whack the tramp on the 
 head with it. Maybe I would have. I don't know. 
 Just then a top buggy came around the bend of the 
 road, and the tramp showed all he was worth and 
 118
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 beat off Swattyand Scratch-Cat and cut into the 
 woods. We heard him cracking the brush as he 
 scooted, and that was all we knew about him. 
 
 Well, the man in the top buggy was Herb 
 Schwartz. So he got out and picked up Miss Carter 
 and fetched her to, and Swatty told him what had 
 happened. So Herb went to where Scratch-Cat was 
 sitting on the side of the road, with her hand where 
 her brittle rib had busted. So Swatty went over 
 there too. 
 
 "Garsh! I'd of been killed if you had n't come!" 
 he said. But she stood up and looked at him. 
 
 "What'd you come swimming at me when I was 
 naked for?" she said, and she was as mad as hops. 
 I guess her rib hurt her and made her sort of crazy 
 mad, and Swatty was the first one that came near 
 her, so she picked on him. "Why'd you dare?" she 
 screeched at him. "I'll show you not to!" or 
 something like that. 
 
 So she went for him. She did n't scratch, either; 
 she used her fists. She fought like crazy, and got her 
 leg back of his, and threw him and piled on top of 
 him. He had to fight as hard as he knew how to, and 
 it was all right, because she was n't a girl she was 
 something crazy mad. It was a quick fight and a 
 good one, and then Herb Schwartz grabbed Scratch- 
 Catby the shoulder and pulled her off Swatty; but 
 that did n't matter, because the fight was over any- 
 how. Swatty had said: "Enough! I won't do it 
 again!" 
 
 119
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Well, as soon as Herb had stood Scratch-Cat up, 
 she turned white and fell down. She had fainted. It 
 was a good deal of a mess-up. Miss Carter had 
 got hysterical, and was laughing and crying so she 
 could n't put her hair up where it had fell down, and 
 Scratch-Cat was stretched out fainted, and I guess 
 Herb Schwartz was never so busy in his life before. 
 He sent me and Bony and Swatty over to the pond- 
 lily pond for a hatful of water, and while we were 
 gone he hugged Miss Carter until she was n't hys- 
 terical, because I guess that was what she needed to 
 cure her, and then he soused Scratch-Cat with the 
 water and she came around all right. So he took 
 Miss Carter and Scratch-Cat back to town in the 
 top buggy, and me and Swatty and Bony went back 
 to our skiff and rowed home. 
 
 Swatty was pretty quiet. I guess he thought Herb 
 and Miss Carter would tell all over town how he had 
 been licked by a girl ; but he told me and Bony he 
 would kill us if we told it, so we did n't. But neither 
 did Herb or Miss Carter. The reason was that 
 Scratch-Cat told them not to tell she had been fight- 
 ing. Herb told Swatty that Scratch-Cat had asked 
 them not to. 
 
 After a while Scratch-Cat's brittle rib healed up 
 again and she did n't have to stay in bed, and I was 
 going down-town on an errand past her house, and I 
 saw Swatty in her yard. They were playing mum- 
 bledy-peg. So after that she played with me and 
 Bony and Swatty, and pretty soon with Mamie 
 120
 
 SCRATCH-CAT 
 
 Little and my sister and the other girls, and she 
 was almost the one they liked best. 
 
 So one day Swatty said to me: 
 
 "Don't you ever darst yell at me that Scratch- 
 Cat is my girl!" 
 
 "Aw! I never yelled it!" I said. 
 
 ."You better not!" he said. "Because she ain't." 
 
 So then I knew she was.
 
 VI 
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 WELL, for about a day I guess Bony thought he was 
 about the smartest kid that ever lived. Anyhow, he 
 acted that way and the reason was that his house 
 had been burglared and mine and Swatty's houses 
 had n't been. But that was n't our fault. 
 
 Swatty did n't say much because he thought 
 maybe the burglar would come around and burglar 
 his house and then he would be as good as Bony. 
 But the burglar did n't go to any more houses, and 
 me and Swatty got pretty sick and tired of hearing 
 Bony bragging about the burglar climbing right in 
 at his window and almost falling over his bed, and 
 about how if he had wakened up he would 
 have gone into his father's room and got his father's 
 shotgun and shot the burglar. 
 
 We got pretty sick of hearing about the reward 
 Bony's father had offered, and about how the 
 policemen came to the house and looked at Bony's 
 bedroom window and everything and wrote it all 
 down. 
 
 "Garsh!" Swatty said; "it ain't nothing to brag 
 about to be burglared! The way you talk you'd 
 think nobody in the world could be burglared but 
 you. If I wanted to I could write to my uncle in 
 Derlingport and he 'd send down a burglar to burglar 
 
 122
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 my house in a minute. And he'd burglar Georgie's 
 house, too. And my uncle would send down a real 
 burglar, too." 
 
 That was a good one on Bony, because the news- 
 paper said the policemen said the burglar that bur- 
 glared Bony's house was n't a real burglar but only 
 "local talent." 
 
 "Well well " Bony said, "well, if your uncle 
 can send down so many real burglars, why don't he 
 do it, and not leave you sitting there talking about 
 what he can do all the time? " 
 
 "Aw! if you say much more about your old bur- 
 glar I will write to my uncle to send some down," 
 Swatty said. 
 
 "Aw! and if you did he wouldn't get nothing! 
 What'd he get at your house? I bet he would n't get 
 any cardinal's signet ring." 
 
 Well, I guess that made Swatty pretty mad. I 
 guess we had heard about all we wanted to hear 
 about that old signet ring, so Swatty started to go 
 away, and he said to me: 
 
 "Come on! he thinks there ain't nothing in the 
 world but that old signet ring. I bet it was brass, 
 anyway." 
 
 But the cardinal's signet ring was n't brass, be- 
 cause it said in the newspaper it was gold. 
 
 I guess I knew plenty about that signet ring be- 
 fore the burglar ever got it, because once Bony told us 
 about it when we were at his house and he would have 
 showed it to us, only his mother would not let him. 
 123
 
 SWATTY 
 
 It had been in the family from generation unto 
 generation. So when Bony's mother would not let 
 us see it because her hands were in the dough and 
 boys are too careless, Bony told us what it was like 
 and said he guessed it was worth a million dollars, 
 or maybe a hundred, anyway, because it was solid 
 gold and had a red, carved stone in it, and the car- 
 dinal had given it to his son, and he had given it to 
 his son, and it had always been in the family. So 
 I said: 
 
 "Aw! 't ain't so! Because cardinals could n't give 
 anything to their sons; they don't have any sons to 
 give anything to." 
 
 "Well, this cardinal gave this ring to his son, so 
 he did/' Bony said. "This cardinal had a son." 
 
 "No, he did n't!" I said. "I guess I know about 
 cardinals. They don't have any sons. They can't 
 have sons. That's the law." 
 
 Well, Bony did n't know what to say, because he 
 knew I was right, because I read a lot of books and 
 he don't. So, if it had n't been for Swatty I don't 
 know what we would have done about it. I guess me 
 and Bony would have been mad at each other for- 
 ever, or had a fight or something, but Swatty had 
 just been listening and spoke up. 
 
 "Aw!" he said; "that ain't nothing to fight 
 about. The cardinal's signet ring could be an heir- 
 loom from generation to generation and the cardinal 
 need n't have any son either. He could give it to his 
 grandson, could n't he?" 
 
 124
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 "Of course he could!" Bony said. "That's what 
 he did." 
 
 "Sure he did!" said Swatty. "That's how all 
 cardinals do. When they want to start an heirloom 
 going they look around for a son to give it to, and 
 when they have n't any sons they give the heirloom 
 to their grandsons." 
 
 Well, the burglary was about Monday of the 
 last week of school, and about Tuesday we were 
 sick and tired of it me and Swatty was but 
 we did n't know how to shut Bony up, because 
 we could n't have burglars come to our houses 
 just because we wished they would. So Tuesday 
 after school when I went home my sister Fan was 
 out in the side yard, where the vines grow on 
 the porch, and she was down on her hands and 
 knees. 
 
 Fan had been looking pretty sick for a good while 
 and it was because Herb had gone back on her, or 
 her on him. I felt mighty sorry for her, even if she 
 was my sister, and mother said she was worried and 
 that the only thing to cheer Fan up would be to send 
 her somewhere, far from the scene. So Fan had said 
 she would go. 
 
 So there she was on her knees in the grass and 
 when she saw me she said, "Georgie!" 
 
 "What?" I said. 
 
 "Georgie," she said, "I lost a ring here one 
 with just one diamond in it " 
 
 " I know. The ring Herb gave you." 
 125
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Yes. If you find it for me, George," she said, 
 " I '11 give you I '11 give you ten dollars." 
 
 Well, I tried to divide three into ten, and you 
 can't do it, so I said : 
 
 "Maybe I can find it for fifteen dollars, "because 
 that would be five dollars apiece for me and Swatty 
 and Bony. 
 
 Fan looked at me, and then said, "Very well, 
 find it if you can, please." 
 
 And that wasn't like Fan, because what she 
 would mostly say, would be, "You little imp, you 
 know where that ring is! You get it this instant or 
 father will attend to you." 
 
 So I knew she was pretty sick about Herb. 
 
 Well, as soon as Fan said that I skipped out the 
 back way, over to Swatty's, and asked him for the 
 ring, because we had had it in pardnership, and I had 
 let him have it awhile. I told him what I wanted it 
 for and he said : 
 
 "I ain't got it. I thought you or Bony had it; I 
 gave it to Bony." 
 
 So we went over to Bony's house, and the minute 
 we said "ring" he was scared stiff. 
 
 "It was stole," he said. "The burglar stole it out 
 of my pants pocket, but I did n't say nothing be- 
 cause I guessed the police would get it back again." 
 
 So that was a nice one, was n't it? So me and 
 
 Swatty were mad at Bony and we would n't talk to 
 
 him or let him play with us unless we got the ring 
 
 back, and none of the policemen caught Bony's bur- 
 
 126
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 glar. Bony's father printed a reward of fifty dollars 
 in the newspaper, but my father said that whoever 
 caught the burglar would n't be half as lucky if he 
 caught him as he would if he ever got fifty dollars 
 out of Bony's father, because my father would be 
 blessed if he believed Bony's father had ever seen 
 fifty dollars at one time. So maybe the policemen 
 knew that. Anyway, they did not catch the burglar. 
 I guess folks thought he would never be caught, and 
 he never would have been if it had n't been for me 
 and Swatty and Mamie Little. I guess he would 
 never have been caught if Mamie Little had known 
 how to spell "sulphur." 
 
 The burglar got plenty of other things from 
 Bony's house, too, but the signet ring is the thing 
 I 'm telling about because it was the signet ring that 
 helped Swatty to catch the burglar. That and Mamie 
 Little, only Mamie Little did n't know she helped 
 until I told her, and then she did n't understand any 
 better than she did about the sulphur bag. I guess 
 nobody will know unless I tell it. So I '11 tell it. 
 
 Thursday afternoon I went past Mamie Little's 
 yard about five o'clock and she was trying to fix up 
 a couple of old boxes to make a playhouse and I 
 leaned on the fence and was glad I was there, be- 
 cause nobody else was there to see me. So I said : 
 
 "Aw! that's no way to make a playhouse out of 
 boxes!" 
 
 "Oh, dear!" she said. " I know it ain't. I want this 
 one on top of the other one but I can't lift it." 
 127
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "I bet I could lift it!" I said. 
 
 11 1 know you could," she said. "Boys are stronger 
 than girls." 
 
 " If you don't tell anybody," I said, "I'll come in 
 and lift it for you." 
 
 So I went in and lifted it, and she was glad. She 
 said it made a dandy upstairs for her playhouse, and 
 she said boys were fine, because they were so strong. 
 So I felt pretty good. So she took a hammer and be- 
 gan to nail some nails, to make shelves and things, 
 and I told her girls did n't know how to nail, and she 
 said she knew they did n't. 
 
 So I took the hammer, and just then I saw Swatty 
 coming. So I threw down the hammer mighty quick 
 and said: 
 
 " I got to go now. My mother wants me, but if you 
 want me to I '11 come over Saturday and we'll fix up 
 the playhouse nice." 
 
 So she did want me to, and I said I 'd come and I 
 felt gladder than I had ever felt before, and I dodged 
 behind the lilac bushes and got out of her yard the 
 back way, and Swatty did not see me. So that was 
 all right. 
 
 Well, I guess there was diphtheria or scarlet fever 
 or something in town then and, anyway, my mother 
 and lots of the kids' mothers made us wear sulphur 
 bags. That was so we would n't catch it, whatever it 
 was. They were little bags about as big as a watch, 
 and there was sulphur in them and aseophidity, or 
 asophedeta, or asofiditty, or whatever you spell it. 
 128
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 It smells pretty rank but it keeps away whatever 
 you might catch. 
 
 Well, going to school Swatty met me and he 
 said: 
 
 "Say, let's go fishing down the Slough, to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "I can't, Swatty," I said, because I wanted to do 
 what I had said I would do for Mamie Little, only I 
 did n't want to tell Swatty that, so I said: " I've got 
 to stay home and work." 
 
 " Pshaw!" Swatty said, only he said it " Pshawr!" 
 like he always does. "If you can't go I won't go, 
 either! If you can't go I 'm going to stay home and 
 split the wood I ought to split." 
 
 "Well, I can't go," I said. So we went into the 
 schoolhouse and into our room. Mamie Little was 
 there. She had just hung up her hat and she was 
 standing by her desk, nearly across the room, and 
 she looked fine, her cheeks were so red and her eyes 
 were kind of sparkly. There were only one or two 
 there besides us. 
 
 So, while she was standing by her desk she sort of 
 picked at her dress on her chest a couple of times 
 the way I had been picking at my shirt front, and 
 I was glad to think she had a sulphur bag, too, like 
 I had. It was nice to think we both had the same, 
 only she did n't know I had one. 
 
 So I whistled a little whistle "Wheet!" and 
 she looked at me. I guess she smiled at me. I felt 
 mighty brave. So I started with the deaf-and-dumb 
 129
 
 SWATTY 
 
 alphabet, pointing at my eye for "I," and rubbing 
 my hands across each other for "h" and I spelled 
 out "I have a" and she nodded her head at each 
 word to show she knew what I was spelling. So I 
 spelled out "sulphur," because what I wanted to tell 
 her was " I have a sulphur bag, too," but when I got 
 to "sulph" she shook her head and I had to begin 
 again, because she could n't understand. 
 
 I was standing up and she was standing up and she 
 was standing so she looked right at me, and I spelled 
 and spelled. Sometimes I began at the beginning and 
 spelled " I have sulph " and sometimes I spelled "sul- 
 phur" over and over, but she just shook her head 
 each time and smiled and waited. She was awfully 
 interested, and more and more scholars came in, and 
 pretty soon they were all watching me and trying to 
 spell what I was spelling, but nobody did, I guess. 
 Mamie Little got awfully interested and she was 
 mighty eager to find out what I was trying to spell. 
 Then, all at once, I knew why she could n't tell ; it 
 was because she did n't have any sulphur bag on. 
 So, all at once, I felt mighty cheap ! There she was, 
 thinking I had something awfully important I was 
 trying to tell her, and she did n't have a sulphur bag, 
 and I was making a fool of her before the whole 
 school, because what would she think of me telling 
 her I had a sulphur bag if she did n't have one? And 
 making such a fuss about it, as if it was something 
 wonderful like telling her her father was dead, or 
 something. 
 
 130
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 Then, all of sudden, I remembered I was going to 
 her yard the next day, to help her with her play- 
 house, and I felt worse than ever. The first thing she 
 would want to know would be what I had tried to 
 spell out, and if I told her she would think I was 
 crazy to make so much fuss about such a thing, and 
 if I did not tell her she would be mad at me forever 
 and maybe talk about me to the other girls. I 
 could n't bear to think about it and I could n't help 
 thinking about it. So, after school, I hurried away as 
 fast as I could, and when Swatty caught up with me 
 I told him I had changed my mind and that I would 
 go fishing with him. So that is how Mamie Little 
 helped catch Bony's burglar. If it had n't been for 
 Mamie Little not knowing how to spell "sulphur" I 
 would n't have gone fishing, and Swatty would n't 
 have gone either, and the burglar would n't have 
 been caught. 
 
 So Saturday morning I got in enough wood for all 
 day and it was n't much, because it was summer and 
 the kitchen wood was all I had to get in. Then I 
 hunted up a new tin can, because when we get 
 through fishing we always throw the old one into 
 the Slough, because by that time the worms that 
 are left are pretty? bad. Sometimes, if the can has 
 been in the sun, they are even worse than that. 
 So I got a new can and went around to the other 
 side of the barn and the spade was there yet, from 
 the last time I had dug worms, so I dug some 
 more.
 
 SWATTY 
 
 T Just then Swatty came into the yard and he was 
 ready to start. So my mother^came to the back door 
 with some sandwiches and things in a box, and I 
 said: 
 
 1 ' Aw ! I don't want to carry a big box like that ! Aw ! 
 I just want a couple of sandwiches in my pocket!" 
 
 "Georgia!" she said. "You take this box! You'll 
 be glad enough of everything that's in it!" 
 
 Me and Swatty went up over the hill and down 
 past the Catlic church to South Riverbank and we 
 stopped at the pump on the corner and had a good 
 drink and cooled off our feet in the mud under the 
 pump spout, because the sidewalks were hot. 
 
 The water in the Slough was n't high and it was n't 
 low. Once the Slough ran through to the river at this 
 end but now it was all filled in with sawdust from 
 the sawmill, and a big conveyor blowpipe kept blow- 
 ing more sawdust into the Slough from the mill, and 
 all the surface of the Slough was floating sawdust. 
 Then, a little further along, it was water-lily leaves. 
 Then, further along, it was plain Slough for miles 
 and miles and miles. 
 
 The water was three or four feet down from the 
 top of the bank and the bank was covered with 
 pretty good grass, and all along the Slough there 
 was a path worn, because kids and fellows had fished 
 in the Slough ever since there was a Riverbank, and 
 before that the Indians had fished in it, I guess. 
 Everywhere, close to the edge of the bank in the 
 shade of the trees, there were places worn smooth 
 
 132
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 like an old chair seat where fellows had sat and 
 fished for years and years until they were regular 
 fishing places. When you saw one of them you knew 
 it was a good fishing place and that there was a 
 bent root, all worn smooth and sometimes almost 
 worn in two, part way down the bank, to rest your 
 feet on. 
 
 It was all quiet and still, like a fishing place should 
 be, except for the "urr-urr " of the mills away off, or 
 the "caw caw!" of crows or, once in a while, some- 
 body knocking the ashes out of a pipe against a root, 
 across the Slough or a little splash when somebody 
 caught a fish. Then everything would be quiet 
 again. 
 
 So me and Swatty walked along down the path, 
 because we thought we would go as far as we had 
 ever been, or farther, this time. Once we stopped and 
 ate 'most all of my lunch. It was nine o'clock but we 
 were mighty hungry. Then we went on. 
 
 We got two or three miles down the Slough and 
 most of the fishing places were empty there and I 
 wanted to stop but Swatty said: "Aw! come on! 
 Let's go on down to the point!" so we went. 
 
 The point was n't much of a point but you felt 
 more out in the Slough when you were on it. There 
 was a big water maple at the end of it, with fine 
 roots to sit on, and I sat on some of the roots and 
 fished and Swatty sat on some others and fished. It 
 was good and hot and the Slough smelled warm and 
 weedy and we liked it, because that was part of the 
 133
 
 SWATTY 
 
 regular fishing smell. There was just a little ripple 
 and the corks bobbed up and down gently and we 
 set our poles among the roots and just leaned back 
 and felt good. Over across the Slough was another 
 point, but more rounded and bigger, and it was green 
 and cool looking, with grass and three big elms on it, 
 and back in the fields a cow's bell jingled once in 
 a while, and the crows cawed, and the sawmill 
 hummed away off in the distance, and it got hotter 
 and hotter. I watched my cork until it seemed to 
 lose itself in the ripples and my eyes got sleepier and 
 sleepier and, the next thing I knew, I woke up and 
 Swatty was n't there! Neither was my cork! 
 
 The first thing I did was give my pole a yank and 
 out came a jim-dandy goggle-eye sunfish, just about 
 as good as I ever caught. I held him so the stickers 
 would n't sting me and got the hook out of him and 
 strung him on a piece of twine and I was tying the 
 string to a root so the goggle-eye would be in the 
 water when somebody down the Slough a ways 
 hawked, clearing the tobacco out of his throat, and 
 I looked around and saw Swatty coming back to the 
 point, not making any noise. He held up a finger for 
 me to be quiet and then he climbed out onto the 
 roots of the maple and sat down. 
 
 "I caught a dandy goggle-eye, Swatty," I 
 whispered. 
 
 He leaned over toward me. 
 
 "Don't make any noise!" he whispered. "Bony is 
 over on that point." 
 
 134
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 I looked and I saw him. It was pretty far across 
 the Slough and Bony could n't hear us if we whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "Well, he can't hear us, can he?" I whispered 
 back. 
 
 "No," Swatty said and then he climbed over be- 
 side 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." 
 
 Well, then I knew what Swatty had done. While 
 I was asleep he had sneaked down to see what luck 
 the man was having and he had seen the ring. 
 
 "Gee!" I said. 
 
 Swatty sat awhile with his forehead wrinkled and 
 looked at the Slough and he was thinking. 
 
 "Garsh!" he said; "I'd like to be the one to get 
 that fifty dollars. I wish I knew for certain it is 
 Bony's father's ring. Fifty dollars is a lot of money. 
 If I had it I'd put it in the bank." 
 
 "What bank?" I asked him. "The Savings Bank 
 or the Riverbank National? " 
 
 " I guess maybe I 'd put half hi one and half in the 
 
 135
 
 SWATTY 
 
 other," Swatty said. "Then if one bank busted I'd 
 have half left, anyway." 
 
 "Well, if one did bust maybe you'd get some of 
 your money back," I said. "My father had money 
 in a bank once and it busted and he got part of it 
 back." 
 
 "That's so," Swatty said. "If I put in twenty- 
 five and the bank busted maybe I 'd get back fifteen 
 of it. That would be forty dollars I'd have, even 
 if the bank did bust. I 'd like to have it." 
 
 So we sat there awhile and the crows cawed and 
 the cowbell jingled and it was quiet, but we did n't 
 catch any more fish. 
 
 " If we had n't got mad at Bony he would be over 
 here," Swatty said after a while. 
 
 "Well, what if he was?" I said. 
 
 "Well, he could sneak up and see if that ring is his 
 father's ring, could n't he?" said Swatty. 
 
 "Well, then," I said, "why don't you call to him 
 to come over?" 
 
 As soon as I said it I knew it was n't much to say, 
 because it was two or three miles back to the end of 
 the Slough and four or six miles Bony would have to 
 go to get around to us, and he would n't come any- 
 way because he'd think maybe we wanted to lick 
 him or something. And if we shouted what we 
 wanted him for, the burglar would hear us and would 
 get away from there mighty quick. 
 
 "I'm going over and get Bony." 
 
 "How are you going to get him?" I asked. 
 136
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 " I 'm going to row over," he said. "You stay here 
 and watch that man and I '11 go over and get Bony." 
 
 Well, I guessed that if he said he would, he'd find 
 some way to row over whether there was a boat or 
 not, because that was the way Swatty was. When 
 he wanted to do anything he did it. So I looked 
 down the Slough and I could see the end of the man's 
 fishpole sticking out over the water and his cork 
 floating and Swatty climbed onto the bank and took 
 his fishpole and went up the Slough. He had to go 
 pretty far before he found a boat and the boat he 
 found was not much good. It was an old flat boat and 
 one end was busted some and it was water-logged. 
 Swatty had to stay away up in one end to keep the 
 busted end out of water and he paddled the best he 
 could with a piece of fence board. He paddled out 
 to the middle of the Slough and stopped there and 
 pretended to fish a while and then he paddled a little 
 nearer Bony and pretended to fish a while longer, 
 and then he paddled to shore near where Bony was 
 and got out of the flatboat and went up to Bony. For 
 a while they sat together and I guessed Swatty was 
 talking to Bony about the ring and the fifty dollars 
 and the man, and coaxing Bony to come to our side 
 of the Slough and see if it was his father's ring the 
 man had on his thumb. 
 
 So all the time I kept looking three ways at 
 Bony and Swatty, and at my cork, and at the end 
 of the man's fishpole and all at once when I 
 looked the man's fishpole was n't there. It was gone! 
 
 137
 
 SWATTY 
 
 So I looked harder, but it was gone, no matter how 
 hard I looked. So then I knew Swatty would give me 
 a whale of a licking if he came back and found out 1 
 had let the man get away while he was fetching 
 Bony, and I climbed off the root and up the bank 
 and I was just starting to run, to go where the man 
 had been, when I saw him. He was right in the mid- 
 dle of the path near where he had been fishing and 
 he was bent down with his back toward me, picking 
 up fish, because the string he had had them strung 
 on had broken. He was stringing them again and as 
 he picked them up I could see the ring on his thumb. 
 
 Pretty soon he had all his fish strung again and 
 then he straightened up and took a chew of tobacco 
 and looked up into a tree that was right there, and I 
 looked up and saw he had put his fishpole up the 
 tree, so I guessed maybe he fished there pretty 
 often, or was coming back sometime. So then he 
 slouched off. I watched him. 
 
 He was big but he was n't very old. Maybe he 
 was twenty or thirty. His clothes were pretty old 
 and faded and he looked lazy in the arms and legs 
 and when he walked he walked tired. He went down 
 the path a ways and then he climbed over the fence 
 there was along there and I went across the path 
 and watched him from behind another tree. It was a 
 ploughed field there and he walked in a furrow clear 
 across the field to the road that was on the other 
 side and climbed over another fence. So I climbed 
 up on my fence and watched to see where he would 
 
 138
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 go. There were three little houses across the road 
 and he went into the one on the end toward town. 
 So then I guessed that was where he lived and I got 
 down off my fence and went back to the point. 
 
 Swatty and Bony were in the boat and Swatty 
 was paddling it as well as he could but it was only 
 halfway across. Then, all at once, Swatty began to 
 paddle harder. He paddled as hard as he could and 
 then, I guess, he said something to Bony and Bony 
 began to bail out the boat as fast as he could. Then 
 Bony began to cry. I could hear him where I was and 
 Swatty shouted at him and looked over his shoulder 
 to see how far he had to paddle. Then Swatty 
 dropped his paddle stick and began to bail with his 
 hat like he was crazy. And before I could see it, al- 
 most, the old, rotten flatboat took a dive and Swatty 
 and Bony were in the water. Bony yelled and went 
 under but Swatty came right up, spitting water and 
 kicking out with his hands. It was a good thing he 
 was barefoot. 
 
 Well, Swatty looked all around as soon as he got 
 the water out of his eyes but he could n't see Bony. 
 So he dived for him. 
 
 There 's one place nobody ever swims and that is 
 the Slough. All you have to do is to look down into 
 it anywhere and you know why. All you see when 
 you look down is seaweed tons and oceans of it 
 all tangled and twisty, and old trees and branches 
 sticking around in it to get caught onto. When the 
 Slough is low you can't row on it because the sea- 
 
 139
 
 SWATTY 
 
 weed grabs your oars and holds on like it was some 
 mean man trying to drown your boat. It scares you. 
 And all in among the seaweed are tough weeds and 
 water-lily stems and water vines. There have been 
 plenty of boys drowned in the Slough, I guess. So 
 Bony had got caught in the weeds and vines and 
 things. 
 
 Pretty soon Swatty came to the top but he did n't 
 have Bony, but his arms were covered with seaweed. 
 He spit out water and scraped the seaweed off his 
 arms and then he took his nose in his hand and dived 
 again. That time he got him. He got him by one leg 
 and he swam for shore dragging Bony behind him 
 and the seaweed strung out behind Bony. His head 
 was all covered with it. 
 
 I was crying pretty hard, I guess. So Swatty told 
 me to shut up and he turned Bony over on his back 
 and began scraping the seaweed off his face, and 
 Bony's face was scratched a good deal from the 
 rough weeds and maybe from where I had dragged 
 him up the bank on his face. I thought he was dead 
 but Swatty did n't. He leaned down and listened to 
 Bony's heart and said all he needed was to be 
 pumped out. So he started to pump him out. 
 
 Swatty got down on his knees a-straddle of Bony 
 and took Bony's hands in his and pumped him the 
 way he had heard you ought to pump a drowned 
 person. He pushed Bony's arms clear back until they 
 touched the ground over his head and then he drew 
 them forward until they touched the ground again, 
 140
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 and he kept right at it. Every once in awhile Swatty 
 would shake his head to shake the water out of his 
 ears but he went right on pumping. So I stood and 
 blubbered. 
 
 Well, no water pumped out of Bony. Swatty 
 pumped and pumped but no water came out of 
 Bony's mouth and pretty soon Swatty stopped and 
 took a couple of deep breaths. 
 
 ''Garsh!" he said; "I thought he would pump 
 easier than that!" 
 
 So he pumped him again a few times and then 
 stopped again. It looked as if it was n't any use. 
 
 "I know what's the matter," Swatty said. 
 "We've got to prime him. There ain't enough water 
 in him to start unless he 's primed. When our cistern 
 is low at home we have to prime it before the water 
 starts pumping up, and that's what we've got to 
 do." 
 
 Well, I guessed that was so. Our cistern pump was 
 that way too. So I took my bait can and washed it 
 out good and clean and got a can of water and I 
 primed Bony. I poured a little water in Bony's 
 mouth and Swatty pumped. 
 
 "Prime him some more," Swatty said. 
 
 So I primed him some more. It did n't seem to do 
 any good. 
 
 "Aw, prime him a lot!" Swatty said, so I poured 
 all the water I had in the can into Bony's mouth 
 and went and got some more. 
 
 "Keep on!" Swatty said. "He'll start pretty 
 141
 
 SWATTY 
 
 4 
 
 soon. We've got to get the water" pumped out of 
 him." 
 
 So I was priming Bony again when somebody 
 behind us said: 
 
 "What are you trying to do to that boy?" 
 
 I looked around, and Swatty looked around. It 
 was the man with the ring on his thumb. 
 
 "He's drowned," Swatty said, "and we're trying 
 to pump him out." 
 
 The man took ahold of Swatty's shoulder and 
 threw him almost into the fence. He stooped down 
 and grabbed Bony and threw him across a big maple 
 root, face down, and began to pump and pretty 
 soon Bony began to pump out. The man pumped 
 him pretty dry and then he put him in the sun and 
 began to rub him good and after a while Bony opened 
 his eyes. To see him open his eyes was one of the 
 best things I ever saw. I was mighty glad I had 
 helped to undrown him. 
 
 Bony was pretty much wilted. Me and Swatty 
 did n't know how we would ever get him home but 
 we did n't have to. 
 
 "About one more can of water in this kid and he 
 would have been gone for good," the man said. 
 "Now, you help him onto my back and I '11 get him 
 home for you." 
 
 We got Bony onto his back and Bony hung around 
 
 his neck and the man held Bony's legs under his arms. 
 
 He climbed the fence with him that way and started 
 
 off across the ploughed field and me and Swatty 
 
 142
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 went after him. We did n't even think about taking 
 our fishpoles along. We went across the field and the 
 man stopped at his house and called his mother and 
 she gave Bony some whiskey in hot water while the 
 man went over to a farmer's house and got a team 
 and a wagon. 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. 
 
 We drove up to town and Swatty told the farmer 
 kid where to drive and pretty soon we came to 
 Bony's house. The man, Lazy Joe Mulligan, looked 
 pretty funny, you bet, when we drove right up to 
 the house he had burglared. He put his hand in his 
 pocket and when he pulled it out the ring was gone. 
 
 "Come on!" Swatty said to me. 
 
 "Where to? "I asked him.
 
 ' SWATTY 
 
 "Down to Bony's father's to get that fifty dol- 
 lars," Swatty said. So we went. 
 
 Well, I guess we forgot to tell Bony's father about 
 Bony being drowned and pumped out. We just told 
 him we had the burglar up at his house and that we 
 wanted the fifty dollars, and he rushed out and up 
 the street and got a policeman and hurried to his 
 house. Lazy Joe was there yet, telling Bony's mother 
 how he had pumped Bony out, but the farmer kid 
 was n't there, because Bony's mother had sent him 
 down to get Bony's father. She wanted Bony's 
 father to give Lazy Joe five dollars or something 
 for pumping Bony out. 
 
 Then me and Swatty and Bony's father and the 
 policeman came in and Bony's father was saying: 
 "Officer, arrest him! He's the man that stole my 
 property," while Bony's mother was saying: "Ed- 
 ward, give him five dollars or something! He's the 
 man that saved your son's life." 
 
 "How is that?" asked Bony's father, and he was 
 pretty much mixed; "I thought this was the 
 burglar." 
 
 "He is the burglar," said Swatty. "He's got the 
 cardinal's ring in his pocket right now. I seen it, 
 and Georgie seen it, and Bony seen it." 
 
 Then Lazy Joe did n't know what to say. Then 
 he said: 
 
 " I '11 give everything back." 
 
 So that was how they fixed it. Bony's father saved 
 fifty-five dollars. He saved the five dollars he ought 
 144
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SIGNET RING 
 
 to have given Lazy Joe for saving Bony's life and 
 he saved the fifty dollars he ought to have given 
 Swatty. So all me and Swatty knew next was that 
 we were out on the street and we did n't have any- 
 thing to show for catching the burglar. All we had 
 was what Bony's father said. What he said was: 
 
 "Get out of here, you little rats! Be thankful you 
 have n't my child's death on your shoulders!" 
 
 Well, I was going, but Swatty stood right there. 
 
 "No, sir!" he said. "I won't go. You can cheat 
 us out of fifty dollars reward, maybe, but you've 
 got to give back the diamond ring this burglar has 
 that belongs to Herb and Fan. You got to give that 
 back, because it ain't yours." 
 
 "Have you got a ring like that?" the policeman 
 asked Lazy Joe. 
 
 "Yes," he said, and he took it out of one of his 
 pockets. So Swatty took it and we skipped out. We 
 went right over to my house, because it was dark 
 by now, and I went to Fan and told her we had her 
 ring for her. I did n't know what I would say when 
 she asked me where I got it, but she did n't ask. 
 She just went to her drawer and got out fifteen 
 dollars and gave it to me and did n't say anything. 
 Only when I went out of the room I heard her bed 
 creak sudden, and I knew she had sort of thrown 
 herself down on it, broken-hearted, like in a novel.
 
 VII 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 WELL, it looked like that vacation would be a sort 
 of nice one at the beginning of it, anyway 
 because Fan had taken mother's advice and gone 
 over to Chicago to visit Aunt Beatrice, and Mamie 
 Little had gone down to Betzville to be on her uncle's 
 farm awhile, because it would do her good. 
 
 When Fan went she went in a closed carriage as 
 far as the depot, because she was so pale and peaked 
 she did n't want anybody to see her and have Herb 
 hear of it. She sent him his ring back, I guess, before 
 she went. 
 
 I thought it was pretty mean that Fan had to be 
 mostly sick like that, while Herb was as well as ever 
 and having a good time with Miss Carter, as far 
 as I knew, but it was n't any of my business. Mother 
 said she guessed Fan would get over it, because she 
 was young yet and, goodness knew! there wasn't 
 so much difference between one man and another, 
 but that if people like Bony's mother did n't stop 
 coming over and talking about it she would go mad. 
 And I guess that was so because Bony's mother is 
 some talker. I Ve heard her talk. 
 
 I heard her talk about Fan one day, and it made 
 me sick. And then she talked about Bony, and it 
 made me sicker. 
 
 146
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 I was sitting on the edge of our porch waiting for 
 Swatty and Bony. I was tying a piece of salt pork 
 on the bottom of my foot to keep from getting the 
 lockjaw, because I had stepped on a rusty nail, and 
 I thought maybe I had better scrape some of the 
 sand out of the nail hole before I put the pork on, 
 so it would heal quicker, and I was scraping it out 
 with my barlow knife. That 's how I happened to be 
 sitting on the edge of the porch ; but Bony's mother 
 and my mother were at the other end of the porch. 
 
 So then Bony's mother said : 
 
 14 No, I have never used a switch on my son. I have 
 never struck him with my hand, nor has his father. 
 We don't believe in it. We use moral suasion." 
 
 That means they jaw Bony. They corner him up 
 somewhere and jaw him until he blubbers, the way 
 the teachers jaw the girls when they get too big to 
 paddle, and then Bony's mother blubbers and makes 
 Bony kiss her and say that now he will be a better 
 and truer boy and keep the Ten Commandments and 
 not smoke corn silk any more. Or whatever it is. 
 
 So my mother did n't say anything because when 
 she thinks I need it she wales me good. Anyway, I 'd 
 rather be waled ten times a day than be moral- 
 suasioned like Bony, and so would Swatty, and so 
 would all the kids, and so would Bony. But my 
 mother did n't say anything because Bony's mother 
 was a caller and you don't fight with callers until 
 after they've got you so perfectly exasperated you 
 just have to speak your mind. 
 147
 
 SWATTY 
 
 So Bony's mother said: 
 
 "Yes, indeed!" and she said it the way women 
 say things when they're being stylish. "Yes, indeed! 
 the rod implants fear in the child, and we should 
 rule by love. My child shall never know fear. The 
 normal child never knows fear." 
 
 Well, that's when I almost laughed out loud. Such 
 a smarty, sitting there and letting on she knew any- 
 thing about boys ! Say, I guess she never was a boy ! 
 "Normal boys never know fear!" She must have 
 thought she was in heaven, talking about kid angels 
 and not about boys! 
 
 Boys are always afraid of something. Even Swatty 
 used to be afraid of that old witch, Mrs. Groogs. 
 We other boys used to go across the street from 
 where she lived and holler: 
 
 "Old Mother Groogsy, oh! 
 Lost her needle and could n't sew! 
 Old Mother Groogsy, oh ! 
 Lost her nee-dul and could-dent sew! 
 Old Mu-uth-er Gur-roog-sy, oh! 
 Lu-ost her nee-eedul and ku-uld-dent sew!" 
 
 And then we'd throw clods at her shanty until she 
 came out with a stick or broom mostly it was the 
 cane she used to walk with and then we'd all 
 throw clods at her at once and run. It made her 
 pretty mad. But Swatty made her maddest. He 
 knew a German rhyme he could say pretty fast, 
 and he 'd say it and she would get so mad she would 
 shake all over. 
 
 148
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 Well, one day when we were all sort of teasing her 
 like that, and Swatty was with us, she came out with 
 a sword. It was a horse soldier's sword, a saber, and 
 it was so big she could hardly lift it, but she could 
 with both hands, and she came right at us across 
 the street, swinging it around her head. If it had hit 
 us it would have killed us, but we ran. So after that 
 whenever she came out she would have the sword, 
 but we were n't afraid of her when we were together. 
 It was when one of us alone had to go anywhere 
 near her shanty. We would n't do it. We 'd go 'round. 
 
 Well, she was one of the things we were afraid of, 
 but the new street got her away from there. The 
 new street went right through where her shanty 
 was, so they tore the shanty down, and after that 
 we were n't afraid of her any more, because she 
 was gone. 
 
 So this day it was Saturday I was sitting 
 on the porch fixing my foot when Swatty came over, 
 like he said he would. Bony was with him, but he 
 waited in the alley because he knew his mother was 
 at my house. I got around the corner of the house 
 without my mother seeing I was limping much, so 
 she did n't call me back, and when we got to the 
 alley Bony was there all right, with a shovel he had 
 borrowed out of their coal bin while his mother 
 was n't home. It was to go ahead and make another 
 room in our cave with. I could walk pretty good, 
 but I had to walk on the toe end of one of my feet 
 to keep the heel off the ground because the nail hole 
 149
 
 SWATTY 
 
 was in the palm of my foot. We got to our cave all 
 right. 
 
 Our cave was a good one, it was the best one I 
 ever saw anybody make. It was in the clay bank 
 at the side of Squaw Creek up where there are no 
 more Irish shanties or geese and where the creek 
 bed is gravelly instead of sandy. We found the place 
 one day when we were explorers, exploring the 
 creek to its headwaters, only we stopped when we 
 got to this place and turned pirates and began dig- 
 ging the cave. We did n't do much that day, but 
 the next chance we got Swatty had us go up and 
 dig again. We dug a little every time we went up 
 until the hole was big enough for us all to get in, and 
 then Swatty said we'd keep right on digging until 
 it was big enough to live in. 
 
 That was what we thought of right at first, but 
 we forgot it. We had had enough cave digging, I 
 guess. Swatty said: "Aw, garsh! come on and make 
 a good cave!" but we did n't want to. We wanted 
 to smoke corn silk and talk and be comfortable. 
 So Swatty went outside and climbed up the bank; 
 but pretty soon he came sliding down the bank. 
 He made the silence sign and motioned us to come 
 with him. He looked good and scared. So we all 
 climbed up the bank and looked. 
 
 The grass and weeds came right to the edge of the 
 
 bank and from the edge they stretched away over a 
 
 big field. All around the field were trees, edging it 
 
 in, but that was n't what Swatty wanted us to see. 
 
 150
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 Away over in one corner of the field the Graveyard 
 Gang was playing One Old Cat. 
 
 So that was where we were. The old Squaw Creek 
 had turned and twisted until it went right into the 
 part of the edge of town where the Graveyard Gang 
 kids lived, and we had dug our cave right in a place 
 where we had never dared to go. Gee, I was scared! 
 
 We were always scared of the Graveyard Gang. 
 They had to come down to our school, and there 
 were a lot of them and mostly bigger than we were 
 and we generally fought after school, but it was 
 only sometimes that they could catch us and mailer 
 us, because we could throw clods at them and then 
 skip into our yards where we lived, and they could n't 
 come after us. But what they always tried to do 
 was to get some of us cornered off and chase us out 
 toward the cemetery way. If they got us out there 
 they could surround us and mailer the life out of us. 
 And they would. 
 
 So me and Bony saw that our cave was a pretty 
 good thing. If the Graveyard Gang got us cornered 
 off and we had to run out their way they would 
 think they had us, but we would just run and slide 
 down to our cave and then we could fight them until 
 they had enough or we had killed them all. So every 
 day that we went to the cave we took up stones, 
 and we dug and dug. It was a dandy cave. It was 
 big enough to stand up in, and we made a stove out 
 of old iron and made a hole up through the ceiling 
 for the smoke to go out, and we had some potatoes
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and things so we could stand a long siege. We 
 worked at it nearly all vacation. Swatty showed 
 us how to make a door, and we made it and we 
 painted the outside with wet clay so the door 
 would look like the side of the bank but it did n't. 
 It did some, but not much. 
 
 Well, when school began again we began having 
 clod fights with the Graveyard Gang again and 
 some of them were pretty tough fights. Once, 
 Swatty said, when me and Bony was n't with him 
 some of the Graveyard kids cornered him off and 
 chased him all the way out to their part of town, 
 but he dodged and went behind some bushes and 
 got to the cave and hid there until night, and they 
 never found him. So we knew the cave was a good 
 thing to have. So this day I'm telling about we 
 went right up the creek to our cave and the minute 
 we got there Swatty stopped short. 
 
 "Somebody has been here!" he said. 
 
 The door of the cave was busted in and was off 
 one of its hinges. Our stove was all kicked over and 
 the table we had made was busted down and every- 
 thing we had was all kicked around. We guessed 
 the Graveyard Gang had found us out, so Swatty 
 and me and Bony went to work and fixed up the 
 door and mended the stove. We did n't know when 
 they would come back. 
 
 They came back quick enough. The first we 
 heard was them talking at the top of the bank, and 
 then all of them slid down. I guess they wanted 
 152
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 to stop when they got to the cave mouth, but 
 Swatty was in the door of the cave and he had his 
 pockets full of our throwing stones, and he leaned 
 out and let them have them. They yelled and slid 
 right on down to the creek. 
 
 Bony began to cry. 
 
 Well, there were about twelve of the Graveyard 
 Gang down there in the creek. They got together 
 and talked about how they would get us and then 
 they began throwing stones. I tried to help Swatty 
 stone them, but the door was too narrow, and he 
 told me to stay inside and hand him stones to throw. 
 He threw as fast as he could and sometimes he hit 
 a Graveyard kid and sometimes he missed, but one 
 kid can't hardly throw against twelve, and pretty 
 soon a stone hit Swatty on the forehead just on his 
 eyebrow. He put up his hand to feel the place and 
 another hit him on the crazy bone, and he came 
 inside and lay down on the floor of the cave and 
 hugged his elbow and rocked himself and groaned. 
 I guess it hurt him pretty bad. Bony just stood and 
 bellered: "Oh, I want to go home! I want to go 
 home!" 
 
 J went to the door and began to throw stones, 
 but I was so mad I could n't aim straight. Swatty 
 sat up and rocked himself and hugged his elbow. 
 
 "Shut the door!" he howled at me. "Come in 
 and shut the door! Shut the door!" 
 
 So I did. I was n't much afraid of being hit, but 
 I knew the door shut right away, so I shut it. The 
 
 153
 
 SWATTY 
 
 minute it was shut the stones hit against it like hail. 
 The Graveyard Gang cheered, but it did n't do them 
 any good ; the little throwing stones could n't break 
 the door and they could n't throw big ones up that 
 far. 
 
 In a little while Swatty was just rubbing his 
 elbow and he got up and helped me brace the door 
 shut with the shovel and things. His forehead was 
 swelled up like an egg, but he did n't mind that. 
 
 "There!" he said. "This shows it was a good 
 thing we have a cave," and I guessed he was right. 
 He went over and made Bony stop blubbering. He 
 made him stop by telling him to hurry and build 
 a fire in the stove because maybe we might have to 
 stay there a week or even longer, and we'd have 
 to cook potatoes to live on or else starve to death. 
 So Bony forgot to cry and started to make a fire. 
 
 Between the boards of our door we could see out 
 through the crack and we could see that the Grave- 
 yard Gang did n't know what to do next to get us. 
 Once in a while they threw a stone or two but that 
 did n't hurt us. And then they did the thing that 
 chased us out. 
 
 I guess it was about five o'clock by then. We 
 thought it was later because it was getting dark, 
 but we could n't see that there was a big storm 
 coming up. It was coming up back of us and was 
 hiding the sun. All at once there was thunder, and 
 then the stove began to smoke out into the cave. 
 Then the whole cave began to fill with smoke. 
 
 154
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 I coughed, and me and Bony thought the wind was 
 blowing the smoke down the chimney, but Swatty 
 went to the stove and kicked the top off and began 
 scattering the wood and coals over the floor to put 
 out the fire. Some of the Graveyard Gang had put 
 something over the top of our chimney so that the 
 smoke would come into the cave and smoke us out. 
 
 Well, that was all right. We kicked the fire out 
 and that ought to have stopped the smoke but it 
 did n't. The smoke came in worse than ever, and 
 then Swatty knew what was the matter. The Grave- 
 yard Gang was filling our chimney with burning 
 grass or straw or something and then stopping the 
 top of the chimney so the smoke would come down 
 into the cave. 
 
 The smoke got so thick we could n't see and we 
 could n't breathe. Swatty looked out of the door 
 cracks and there were eight or nine of the Grave- 
 yard Gang down there in the creek laying for us, but 
 what could we do? We could n't stay in the cave and 
 be suffocated to death, could we? So what we had to 
 do we had to do mighty quick. 
 
 Swatty threw open the cave door. He had picked 
 up a stick and he sort of waved it over his head. 
 Bony was blubbering again and I could n't see very 
 well for the smoke in my eyes, and neither could 
 Swatty, I guess, but Swatty waved the stick and 
 shouted : 
 
 "Come on, now!" he shouted. "We've got 'em 
 surrounded! Charge 'em! We've got 'em now!" 
 
 155
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Well, the Graveyard kids looked up at the top 
 of the other bank and Swatty started to slide down 
 the bank right at them, and me and Bony we started 
 to slide down, and the Graveyard kids turned and 
 ran up the creek. I guess they were scared that 
 Swatty had seen a lot more of our kids coming. Any- 
 way, they ran about half a block and then they saw 
 there was just Swatty and Bony and me and that 
 we were climbing up the other bank to get away, 
 and they came for us. 
 
 We did n't have much of a start. We did n't know 
 exactly where we were. We ran where the running 
 was easiest, and pretty soon we came to a fence and 
 climbed over and we were in a road. We turned and 
 ran up the road, and the first of the Graveyard kids 
 was piling over the fence already so we just let out 
 our legs and ran! Even Bony stopped crying. He 
 just turned white and scared-looking and ran. He 
 ran so fast he ran in front of us and we could hardly 
 keep up with him. 
 
 The whole Graveyard Gang was after us now, 
 shouting and running and pretty soon we knew 
 where we were we were on the Four Mile Road 
 because off in the distance we could see the big red 
 building of the Poor Farm. We knew that building 
 pretty well because it is one of the places we kept 
 away from because they keep the crazy folks there. 
 You never know when a crazy man will cut you 
 open with a knife or something. 
 
 We did n't have time to think of that scare then, 
 156
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 we were so scared of what would happen to us if the 
 Graveyard kids caught us. I guess we did n't think 
 of the Poor Farm crazy folks at all. 
 
 So pretty soon Bony began to drop back, and we 
 caught up with him. It was thundering and light- 
 ning hard now and the wind was blowing the way 
 it does just before a big storm big whoofs that 
 throw up the dust in thick waves and make the 
 trees bend low down and shake the leaves out of 
 them and Bony was crying again. Swatty shouted 
 at him, but we could n't hear what he was saying, 
 the wind and the thunder and trees made so much 
 noise. I looked back and saw that the Graveyard 
 kids were right after us and then Bony fell down! 
 
 He did n't fall flat. He fell half and took half a 
 step and then turned and fell sideways, and when he 
 tried to get up he could n't. I ran a little bit before 
 I stopped, but Swatty stopped short and when I 
 looked back he was trying to drag Bony up again. 
 There was an awful flash of lightning, one of the 
 kind you can't see for a minute after, and then a 
 bang like a thousand cannon, only keener, and a big 
 tree at the side of the road just split in two and one 
 half fell across the road. I guess maybe I cried a 
 little, but I didn't stop to do it; I ran back to 
 Swatty and Bony and grabbed hold of Bony's other 
 arm and helped Swatty drag him. 
 
 I don't know what happened to the Graveyard 
 Gang. I guess they got scared of the storm and went 
 home but we didn't think of that then. All we 
 
 157
 
 SWATTY 
 
 thought of was to get Bony away in a hurry. It was 
 awful! The lightning and thunder were just glare, 
 glare, glare! and bang, bang, bang! and no rest 
 in between, and the wind was bending the trees 
 almost down to the ground and holding them there 
 stiff, not swaying. I was just bellering and yanking 
 Bony by the arm and saying, "Oh, come on, Bony! 
 Oh, come on, Bony!" over and over. Swatty was 
 shouting at me all the time, but I could n't tell what 
 he was saying, but he pulled more at his arm of 
 Bony than I pulled at mine, and then I saw he was 
 taking him off the road, because there was a house 
 right where we were and he wanted to get him to 
 the house. 
 
 Just when we got Bony onto the porch of the 
 house it began to rain. It did n't rain down, it 
 rained straight across, like the lines on writing paper, 
 and it did n't rain a little it rained all the rain 
 there ever was or will be, I guess. The rain came into 
 that porch like water shot out of a fire hose nozzle, 
 just swish-swash against the front of the house and 
 then up to your ankles on the rotten floor of the 
 porch. And then, when there was a white flash of 
 lightning I saw where we were. We were on the 
 porch of the Haunted House ! 
 
 All the kids knew about the Haunted House. The 
 way I knew about it was because we used to go out 
 the Four Mile Road nutting and then we used to 
 see it. Anybody would know it was a haunted house 
 just by looking at it. The glass in the windows was 
 
 158
 
 WE WERE ON THE PORCH OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 all gone and boards, any old boards, were nailed 
 across the windows, and the doors were either nailed 
 up or broken in and hanging crooked on one hinge. 
 The paint was all off and the chimneys had toppled 
 over and the bricks and mortar were all scattered 
 down the roof and some on the porch roof. The 
 shingles were all curled up and there were bare 
 patches where they had blown off. 
 
 It was a big house, two stories and a half, and 
 there was a porch all across the front, but at one 
 corner the porch post had rotted down so that the 
 porch roof sagged almost to the floor there, and 
 the rest of the roof was all skewish. The floor of the 
 porch where we were was all dry-rotted and some 
 of the boards were gone, and the grass and weeds 
 grew up through the floor everywhere. The yard 
 was all weeds, as high as a man, and tangled black- 
 berry bushes, and at night, so Swatty and all the 
 kids said, something white used to come to the win- 
 dows and stand there, and you could hear moans. 
 It was a haunted house all right. All the boys knew 
 that and all the boys kept away from it. And there 
 we were, right on the porch and the rain just drown- 
 ing us. 
 
 "Come on, we got to get him inside," Swatty said, 
 and he took hold of Bony again. 
 
 I did n't want to. It was bad enough to be on the 
 
 porch of a haunted house or anywhere near it, but 
 
 the thunder and lightning and rain and wind and 
 
 everything made all things kind of different than 
 
 159
 
 SWATTY 
 
 on other days. It was n't like real ; it was like dreams. 
 It was like the end of the world, when you don't 
 think what you do but just do it; and so I took hold 
 of Bony and helped. 
 
 We got Bony to the front door and into the hall 
 of the house. In there it was so black we could n't 
 see except when the lightning flashed, and then we 
 could n't see much. The rain was blowing in at the 
 door and running down the hall. The old house 
 shook and trembled. A brick or something rolled 
 down the roof and thumped on the porch roof. 
 
 We got Bony into a dry corner of the hall and let 
 him sit on the floor and Swatty tried to feel Bony's 
 leg to see if it was broken or what, and while he was 
 doing that there came a big crash and the rain 
 stopped coming in at the front door. It was the 
 porch roof. It had blown down the rest of the way, 
 shutting up the door and shutting us in. But we 
 did n't know then that we were shut in. We were 
 just frightened by the noise. We thought maybe the 
 house had been struck by lightning. 
 
 Well, after that it was darker in the house than 
 ever. We did n't get the light from the lightning 
 through the door any more, and we only got it 
 through the cracks between the boards at the win- 
 dows. We just stood there, me and Swatty, and 
 Bony on the floor, and listened to the storm and the 
 water swashing against the house and to the old 
 house creaking and grating, and Bony moaned over 
 his ankle and cried because of everything. I was 
 1 60
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 just plain scared. I just stood and got more and more 
 scared. I tried to listen whether the creaking and 
 grating was the house or ghosts, and I listened so 
 hard my ears seemed to reach out. I did n't dare to 
 breathe. Pretty soon I was too scared for any use. I 
 said, "Swatty!" 
 
 "What?" he answered back. 
 
 "I'm scared," I said. 
 
 Well, then Bony began to beller loud. 
 
 "Aw, shut up!" Swatty told him. "I'm scared, 
 too, ain't I? Feel my wrist," he says to me, "it's all 
 goose flesh, ain't it? That's how scared I am, but it 
 don't do any good to beller about it." 
 
 So we just stayed there. Bony held on to Swatty's 
 ankle with one hand and I sort of edged over so I 
 was close to Swatty, and we just waited, because 
 that was all there was to do. So after a while the 
 storm let up. It rained a little yet, but the thunder 
 and lightning stopped. The wind blew some, but not 
 so much. It was pretty dark in the house. We knew 
 it must be getting toward night. 
 
 " I guess we can go now," Swatty said, and I was 
 glad of it. We boosted Bony up so he could hobble on 
 one leg between us and we went to the front door. 
 Well, we could n't get out! 
 
 And that was n't the worst of it; every other way 
 out was boarded up! We went all around the first 
 floor and tried all the windows and the back door 
 and they were all boarded up. We were fastened 
 tight into the Haunted House. 
 161
 
 SWATTY 
 
 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 
 would n't have done it if Swatty had n't made us. 
 But there was n't any way out, and that was n't the 
 worst. There was n't even a little piece of board to 
 pry the boards off the windows. There was n't a 
 loose brick or anything. Nothing but dust, and 
 maybe a couple of pieces of paper. 
 
 "What '11 we do?" I asked, awfully scared. 
 
 "Garsh! I don't know!" Swatty said. "We got to 
 get out somehow. We '11 starve to death here if we 
 don't. We got to get something to pry off a board 
 from a window." 
 
 Well, there was n't anything to pry one off with. 
 Not down where we were. So Swatty said, all of a 
 sudden: 
 
 "Come on ! I 'm going to see if there 's anything we 
 can get upstairs." 
 
 "Aw, no, Swatty!" I begged. "Don't go up there! 
 I don't want to go up!" 
 
 "Well, you don't have to, do you?" he said. "I 
 did n't ask you to. I said I was going." 
 
 So he went alone, and I stayed down with Bony. 
 We were all alone in the dark down there and Swatty 
 went up the stairs. He went up a step at a time and 
 then stopped and listened, and then he went up an- 
 other step and listened. Pretty soon he got to the top 
 of the stairs and then we heard him going from one 
 room to another and feeling with his foot for a board 
 162
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 or something that would do to pry our way out. 
 Then we did n't hear him for a minute, I guess. 
 
 Pretty soon he came to the head of the stairs. He 
 leaned over the balusters. 
 
 "Hey ! George ! Come on up," he said in a whisper. 
 "There ain't nothing up here. I want to go up in the 
 attic." 
 
 Bony would n't go. Swatty had to come down and 
 talk to him like a Dutch uncle and tell him what 
 he thought of him, and then he blubbered while we 
 were helping him up the stairs. He said it was all 
 right for us to go up because if anything he did n't 
 say a ghost, because he was afraid to, but that was 
 what he meant jumped out at us we could run, 
 but he could n't because his ankle was sprained. 
 But we got him up all right. 
 
 We got him up and I stayed with him at the head 
 of the stairs, and Swatty went and opened the attic 
 stair door. He opened it, and then he stood there a 
 second. Even where I was I could hear it. It was like 
 a groan like a long, sick sort of groan and it 
 was from up there in the attic. I turned so stiff and 
 cold I could n't open or shut my lips. I could n't 
 breathe. I was like ice, numb and cold all over ex- 
 cept my hair pulled upward all over my head. A 
 ghost could have come and put its cold hand on me 
 and I could n't have moved. 
 
 "Oh! Oh !" came that long moan from up in 
 the attic. Bony stood up, and his ankle gave way and 
 he fell down the stairs all the way to the bottom. 
 163
 
 SWATTY 
 
 He stayed there, just calling out, "Swatty, Swatty !" 
 over and over. 
 
 It was dark there now, dead dark. All at once I 
 screamed. Something had touched me on the arm. 
 
 "Aw, shut up!" Swatty said, because it was 
 Swatty that had touched me. "Shut up and don't be 
 a baby ! I Ve got to go up there, and you Ve got to go 
 up with me." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I don't want to go up there alone," he 
 said. "That's why if you want to know." 
 
 "What do you want to go up for, anyway?" 
 
 "Well, you won't go up alone, will you? And 
 Bony won't go up alone, will he? Somebody's got to 
 go up and see if there 's anything up there we can pry 
 our way out with. Come on ! That noise ain't nothin* 
 but the wind, or maybe an owl, or something else." 
 
 So I had to go. I made Swatty go first, and he 
 went up the attic stairs real slow, and I did n't 
 crowd him any, you bet ! At the top of the stairs he 
 stopped short. So I stopped short. 
 
 "What's the matter?" I whispered. Swatty stood 
 still. 
 
 "There's something up here or somebody 
 something alive," he whispered back in terror. 
 
 And there was ! Between the moans I could hear 
 it breathe, a long breath, like "Ah-ah!" So the next 
 thing I knew I was down two flights of stairs at the 
 front door, trying to scratch my way through the 
 porch roof with my finger nails, and Bony was hang- 
 164
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 ing onto my legs, and we were both scared stiff. I 
 guess it was n't so long after we heard something 
 breathe in the attic, about a second after, maybe. 
 And I could n't scratch my way out. So I began to 
 yell: "Swatty! Oh, Swatty! Come here; why don't 
 you come here? Oh, Swatty, come!" And Bony 
 yelled too. We both did. I guess we both cried, we 
 were so scared and frightened and afraid. Shut in a 
 haunted house like that and something moaning and 
 breathing in the attic! Anybody would be scared. 
 Anybody but Swatty. 
 
 Afterward, the next time we got together after 
 Bony's ankle was well and after the manager of the 
 Poor Farm had given us each a watch and chain for 
 what we did, Swatty said he was n't scared when he 
 heard the groaner breathe, because he had heard his 
 folks's cow when it had the colic, and that was the 
 way the cow groaned and breathed when it had it. 
 Anyway, when I ran away from him and left him 
 alone he stood and listened, and then he went up the 
 last step and listened again. It was black up there. 
 So he said, "Who's there?" and waited and the 
 groaning kept on. So he walked right over toward 
 where the groaning kept coming from. He walked 
 slowly, pushing one foot ahead of him and holding 
 out both hands, because the floor might not be all 
 there, and all at once his foot hit something hard 
 and cold. He was barefoot, like all of us. 
 
 It might have been a snake. It might have been 
 anything, for all Swatty knew, but he bent down 
 165
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and felt it with his hand. I would n't have done it for 
 a million dollars, and Bony would n't have done it 
 for ten million dollars! No, sir! So at first Swatty 
 thought it was an old scythe blade somebody had 
 left there, and he was mighty glad anyway, because 
 it would do to pry the boards off a window and let 
 us out, but when he tried to pick it up it was held 
 onto. 
 
 Well, I guess I might as well say it right out. It 
 was a sword, and it was Mrs. Groogs's sword, and it 
 was old Mrs. Groogs that was holding onto the other 
 end of the sword and lying there and groaning and 
 breathing! It was her son's sword, and he had been 
 killed in the war Grant and Lincoln and Swatty's 
 father had been in, and when she ran away from the 
 Poor Farm and they could n't find out where she 
 had gone, that was all she took and that was where 
 she went to die there in the attic of the Haunted 
 House. She went there because she was kind of crazy 
 and thought the mother of a son that had died for his 
 country ought n't to die in the Poor House. But she 
 did n't die in it, either, because the Woman's Relief 
 Corps rented a room for her and the city gave her 
 Outside Support again. 
 
 So if it had n't been for us Mrs. Groogs would 
 have starved to death in the Haunted House, and if 
 it had n't been for her and her sword maybe we 
 would have starved to death in it. So I guess it was 
 all right. 
 
 So that time none of us got licked when we got 
 1 66
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 home. Swatty did n't because his father was a 
 G.A.R. and Mrs. Groogs was a G.A.R.-ess, and I 
 did n't because my folks were glad I had n't been 
 struck by lightning, and Bony did n't because his 
 folks were moral suasion. They jawed him.
 
 VIII 
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 WELL, a good many things happened that vacation. 
 Fan stayed over at Chicago and Herb Schwartz 
 began studying to be a lawyer in Judge Hannan's 
 law office. Miss Carter went off to a school some- 
 where but I don't know whether she was teaching 
 or learning. Mamie Little was down at Betzville, on 
 a farm, and Lucy never did tag along with us any- 
 way, so it looked as if me and Swatty and Bony was 
 <?oing to have one of the best vacations we ever had. 
 /e used to go up to our cave and work on it. 
 Scratch-Cat went with us mostly, but we did n't 
 count her for a girl. So it looked pretty good. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony liked vacation because 
 we never did have time to do all we wanted to do 
 when school kept. What we wanted to do most was 
 to finish up our cave in the clay bank up Squaw 
 Creek. The Graveyard Gang had chased us away 
 from it, but that was all right when vacation came 
 because the Graveyard Gang kids all have to go to 
 work when school is over. Some of them work for 
 the farmers on the Island, and some work in the saw- 
 mills. So we went up and looked at the cave. 
 
 The cave was all right. The Graveyard Gang had 
 fixed up the door and made it look better, and the 
 stove was there, and they had made another room 
 168
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 to the cave, in behind, only it was n't all dug out 
 yet. So me and Swatty and Bony and Scratch-Cat 
 thought we would finish digging the new room and 
 then, maybe, we would get a Catling gun or some- 
 thing and put it in the cave, so we could hold the 
 fort when school began again and the Graveyard 
 Gang tried to chase us out again. Swatty said 
 maybe his uncle would give him a Gatling gun for 
 his birthday if he wrote to Derlingport and asked 
 him. So me and Bony thought that sounded good, 
 and we went ahead and dug at the cave. 
 
 Well, it looked like we was going to have the best 
 vacation we ever had. I guess we ought to have 
 known that when everything looked so bully some- 
 thing was going to spoil it all. It was too good to be 
 right. Swatty's mother's cow went dry, and Swatty 
 did n't have to go home early to get her from the pas- 
 ture so he could deliver the milk around to the neigh- 
 bors, and that was too good to be right ; and Bony 
 sort of stopped bawling at every little thing, and 
 that was n't like him. We ought to have knowed 
 something was going to happen. 
 
 It was too nice. Most always, in vacation, my 
 mother made me and my sister wash and wipe the 
 dinner dishes at noon, and it did n't do any good to 
 drop plates and break them, or whine, or get a bad 
 headache all of a sudden ; I had to wipe. There ought 
 to be a law so boys could n't wipe dishes, but there 
 ain't ; so about all I could ever do was to wipe them 
 as mean as I could and leave the butter between the 
 169
 
 SWATTY 
 
 tines of the forks when my sister did n't wash it all 
 out. 
 
 Well, when this vacation came I thought I 'd have 
 to start in wiping the doggone dishes again ; but I 
 did n't. My mother got back the hired girl we had 
 off and on. Her name was Annie Dornbacher and 
 she was a strong girl and a happy one, and she 
 did n't care any more for work than shucks. She 
 could wash and wipe dishes and enjoy it, so maybe 
 she was crazy; but what did I care if she was? She 
 pitched in and even carried in her own wood, and 
 made a jar of cookies every two days. I thought it 
 was bully. I ought to have knowed better. I ought 
 to have knowed that mothers don't get hired girls 
 that will carry in the wood and everything unless 
 they ' ve got something mean they are going to do to 
 a fellow pretty soon. 
 
 The first thing that happened was Bony. Me and 
 Swatty had got so we did n't hardly think of Bony 
 as a cry-baby any more, and here all at once he was 
 different. He used to come yelling and "yoo-ooing" 
 to meet us, and then one noon he come sort of 
 sneaking, like a dog you've told to go home and 
 thrown a stone at. He come up to us, mighty quiet 
 and looking pretty sick, and did n't say nothing. 
 
 "What's the matter, Bony?" Swatty asked. 
 
 "Nothing. You 'tend your own business, can't 
 you?" he answered back. 
 
 But it was n't scrappy the way he said it; it was 
 whiny. 
 
 170
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 So I started to say something, but Swatty stopped 
 me. 
 
 "Aw! let him be!" he said. "If he wants to be a 
 whine-cat let him be one. What do we care?" 
 
 So we let him. He came along to the cave with us 
 and dug; but he didn't seem to have no fun. It 
 would n't have taken much to make him blubber. 
 He acted ashamed, that 's what ! 
 
 Well, that was one day, and the next morning he 
 was just as bad. We teased him some that morning, 
 but he took it and never jawed back. Then he went 
 down to the creek to get a drink, and me and Swatty 
 talked about him. Bony's father and mother fought 
 a good deal with their jaws sometimes, like when we 
 thought Bony's father was going across the river to 
 kill himself and we went to keep him from it, and 
 me and Swatty decided there must be a big fight 
 going on at Bony's house, because that always makes 
 a fellow feel cheap and mean. So we said we would n't 
 tease him about it. So Bony came back and we dug 
 awhile and went home to dinner. 
 
 And the next thing was that Mamie Little came 
 back from Betzville and began playing with Lucy 
 and Toady Williams again, and that made me feel 
 mean. And then Fan came back from Chicago. 
 
 So, one day after dinner I had to go for an errand 
 for my mother, and when I came back Swatty and 
 Bony had n't come yet, but Mamie Little was at our 
 house waiting for my sister. She was on the front ter- 
 race braiding the grass where it was long. So I picked 
 171
 
 SWATTY 
 
 some grass and made a ball of it and threw it at her 
 and she said to stop, and I got some more and was 
 going to throw it at her, and I felt pretty good, be- 
 cause she said: "Oh, George! now don't!" but just 
 then my father came out of the house, so I stopped. 
 I had thought he had gone already. I stood and 
 did n't do anything until he went by, and then I 
 happened to think I had left my nigger-shooter on 
 my bureau in my room and I went to get it. 
 
 I went into the house and up the stairs on the 
 jump and busted into my room, and then stopped 
 mighty short because my mother was in my room. 
 She was at my bureau and had a drawer pulled 
 out and was taking out some of my clothes. So 
 I grabbed my nigger-shooter off the bureau and 
 was going to go mighty quick, because mothers al- 
 ways think of something for you to do when they 
 see you. 
 
 "George," she said, "you are going over to your 
 Aunt Nell's to stay a week or two. I'll get your 
 clothes all ready, and I want you to be a good boy 
 while you're there and be as little trouble as pos- 
 sible." 
 
 "Aw, gee!" I said. "What do I have to go over 
 there for?" 
 
 It made me sick, because Aunt Nell is always try- 
 ing to do right by me when I 'm over there and comb- 
 ing my hair and making me wash my feet before I 
 go to bed and everything. So I said: 
 
 "Aw, gee! I don't want to!" 
 172
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 My mother went right on taking clothes out of my 
 bureau. 
 
 "I'm going to tell you something, Georgie, and 
 then perhaps you will be more reasonable. You and 
 Lucy are going to Aunt Nell's because there is a 
 little new baby coming here. Now, will you be a 
 good boy and say nothing more?" 
 
 " Yes'm," I said, and I got out of the room pretty 
 quick. I tiptoed down the stairs and stood at the 
 bottom. I did n't know whether to go out or not. 
 Bony and Swatty were out there now, and Mamie 
 Little and Scratch-Cat, and I did n'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. 
 
 But just then my mother came out of my room 
 and said: "Georgie!" 
 
 So I got out of the front door in a hurry. I was 
 afraid she was going to say something about it again. 
 Women don't know any better; they'll say anything 
 right out and think it is all right and don't care how 
 a fellow feels sick to hear it. So I skipped. I went 
 down to the front gate, and Swatty and Bony and 
 Mamie Little and Scratch-Cat were there. Bony was 
 off to one side, looking sick, and Swatty was " Aw- 
 
 173
 
 SWATTY 
 
 ing" at Mamie Little about something, but I felt 
 too mean and cheap to "Aw!" back at him, like I 
 ought to have done. I let him "Aw!" I got as far 
 away from Mamie Little as I could and went over 
 and sat by Bony and Scratch-Cat. 
 
 Well, all at once I guessed maybe I knew what 
 was the matter with Bony, because I felt just like 
 the way he had been acting. So I said : 
 
 "Say, Bony, are you going to have a baby at your 
 house?" 
 
 He got sort of red and did n't dare look at me. 
 Then he began to cry, mad-like. 
 
 "I don't care!" he blubbered out. "If you tell 
 anybody I '11 lick you, I will, I don't care who you 
 are! I'll I'll shoot you. I'll kill you!" 
 
 Scratch-Cat didn't laugh. She just said, "Oh!" 
 
 So I knew that was it. So just then Mamie Little 
 called out, "Oh, Georgie." But I just hollered, "Aw, 
 shut up!" So I said: "Aw, come on, Swatty, let's 
 go up to the cave." 
 
 Well, just then my sister came out of the house. 
 She had on a clean dress, and she came hippety- 
 hopping down the walk as happy as could be and 
 happier. She came right down to where Swatty was 
 teasing Mamie Little, and she said: 
 
 "Mamie! Mamie! What do you think? We're go- 
 ing to have a little new baby!" 
 
 Well, I got up and climbed over the fence and ran. 
 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 
 
 174
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 with my hands over my ears. I knewSwatty 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 did n't want any girls 
 around at all. Swatty was almost as sore as me and 
 Bony was. He just threw himself down on the grass 
 and said, "Garsh!" 
 
 "Well, you don't need to go and blame me," I 
 said. " I ain't the only one. Bony 's going to have one 
 at his house, too." 
 
 So then Swatty sat up. 
 
 "Aw, garsh!" he said. "You and Bony's always 
 spoiling all our fun. I ought to have knowed what 
 was the matter with him, and now you '11 be the same 
 way. You bet I don't have no babies coming to my 
 house, making everybody grouchy. But you and 
 Bony don't care ; you don't care how you spoil the 
 fun." 
 
 Bony did n't say anything, but it made me mad. 
 
 "Well, it ain't my fault, is it?" I asked. "I don't 
 want no baby to come to my house, do I? I did n't 
 order it from the doctor, did I?" 
 
 "What doctor?" Swatty asked. "What has a doc- 
 tor got to do with it?" 
 
 "Well, a doctor brings it, don't he?" I asked. 
 
 "No, he don't!" Swatty said. "A stork brings it. 
 
 175
 
 SWATTY 
 
 My mother told me so a million times, and I guess 
 she knows, don't she?" 
 
 "Aw! That's in Germany," I said. "I know that, 
 I guess. In Germany a stork brings it, but how can it 
 in the United States where there ain't no storks? 
 Did you ever see a stork in the United States?" 
 
 "Well, no," Swatty had to say, because he did n't. 
 
 "Well, you've seen plenty of doctors in the United 
 States, have n't you?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes," Swatty had to say, because he had. He 
 saw Doctor Miller almost every day, starting out or 
 coming back with his old gray mare. He was our 
 doctor and Bony's folks' doctor, but Swatty's folks 
 had Doctor Benz, because they were German and 
 water-curers. Doctor Miller was a big-piller. So 
 Swatty had to say yes. 
 
 "Well," I said, "don't that prove it?" Of course 
 it did. Swatty had to say it did. So he said: 
 
 "Well, garsh! if doctors bring them in the United 
 States I guess I would n't be sitting around whining 
 if I was you and Bony. I know what I'd do!" 
 
 "What would you do?" I asked. 
 
 " I would n't let a doctor bring any, that's what I 
 would n't do," said Swatty. " I 'd find out what doc- 
 tor was going to bring it, and I'd fix him all right, 
 you bet your boots!" 
 
 "Well, Doctor Miller is going to bring them, if 
 anybody does," I said. "He's our doctor and he's 
 Bony's doctor, ain't he? What can me and Bony do, 
 I'd like to know?" 
 
 176
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 "Well, I could help you, couldn't I?" Swatty 
 wanted to know. "I would n't have to go back on 
 you just because Doctor Miller is n't our doctor, 
 would I?" 
 
 "Well, what would we do, then?" I asked, but 
 you bet I felt a whole lot better; if Swatty was will- 
 ing to help us it was different. He was a good helper. 
 Bony looked better, too. 
 
 Swatty pulled a handful of grass and fooled with 
 it and I could see he was thinking mighty hard. 
 
 "We've got the cave, ain't we?" he said after 
 while. "Well, then, all we've got to do is to get Doc- 
 tor Miller and put him in the cave and keep him 
 there, and then he can't do anything about it, can 
 he?" 
 
 Of course that was so. I would n't have thought 
 of it, and Bony would n't, but Swatty thought of it 
 in less than a minute. But right away I thought of 
 how hard it would be to do. If Doctor Miller had 
 been a kid it would have been easy, but he was a 
 man and he was a mighty big man, too. He was 
 bigger around than any man in town, I guess, and 
 almost as tall. 
 
 I asked Swatty, and he said of course we could n't 
 grab Doctor Miller and push him a mile or so out to 
 the cave and boost him up the clay bank and into 
 the cave. 
 
 "We've got to think out a plan," he said, only he 
 said "plarn," like he always does, and "gart," in- 
 stead of "got." So we thought, and it was n't any 
 177
 
 SWATTY 
 
 use. So Swatty said we might as well go out to the 
 cave and do some work and think out there. So we 
 went. 
 
 The more I thought the more I could n't think of 
 anything. All I could think of was how big Doctor 
 Miller was, and I guess Bony thought the same 
 thing. I thought of his whiskers, too. 
 
 You're always kind of scared of a doctor, almost 
 like you're scared of a minister. They ain't like 
 common folks. Common folks are just men, except 
 when they are your fathers ; but ministers and doc- 
 tors are men and something else, and Doctor Miller 
 was more doctory than any other doctor in town. 
 That was why so many folks had him. He had red- 
 brown whiskers and nothing on his chin or upper 
 lip, and his whiskers were not stiff and tough like 
 whiskers generally are, but smooth and silky and 
 fluffy. He laughed a lot, too, and was always smiling, 
 but he knew all about your insides better than you 
 did. It is creepy to see a man smiling so much and 
 feel that he knows more about you than you do 
 yourself. And so you were mighty scared of him. 
 
 Well, we did n't think of anything, and I went 
 home feeling pretty mean and went in the alley way 
 and my mother was keeping supper for me and had 
 my things and sister's all ready for us to go over to 
 Aunt Nell's and after supper she kissed us and we 
 went. She gave me a dollar and she gave Sis fifty 
 cents, and she hugged us a long time before she let 
 us go. 
 
 178
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 The next morning Aunt Nell started right in on 
 me. She made me go upstairs and brush my hair 
 again and looked at my finger nails and in my ears, 
 and then said I did n't look as well as usual and 
 wanted to know if I slept well. I got away as soon as 
 I could and went up to the cave. Swatty and Bony 
 was there already, digging at the roof of the back 
 room of the cave. 
 
 " What you doing that for?" I asked. " If you dig 
 up there much more the roof will bust through." 
 
 "Well, ain't that what we want it to do? " Swatty 
 asked. 
 
 "Why do we?" I asked back. 
 
 "You come on and help us work," he said, "and 
 I '11 tell you why." 
 
 So I helped them work and Swatty told me he 
 had thought of a bully plan. I would n't have thought 
 of it in a thousand years. I had stayed awake all 
 night or anyway almost half an hour trying 
 to think how we could get Doctor Miller into the 
 cave, and all I could think of was grabbing him 
 somehow and tying ropes to him and yanking him 
 up to the door of the cave, and I knew we could n't 
 do it, because we were n't strong enough. But 
 Swatty had thought it all out, like he always does. 
 I might have known he would. 
 
 We went ahead and dug at the roof of the cave, 
 
 and pretty soon we dug through to daylight. It took 
 
 us all day and the dirt we got we spaded into the 
 
 tunnel between the two rooms and filled it up good 
 
 179
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and solid, except a short way out of the front room. 
 The next day we worked hard, too. We dug out 
 more of the roof of the back room, and then worked 
 on the door of the cave so we could fasten it up 
 sound and quick when we got the doctor in it. We 
 took the stove out and everything else he could use 
 to dig with, and when we had to go home for supper 
 we had it all ready. Swatty said so. 
 
 Well, all of us knew Jake Hines, the doctor's hired 
 man, and he was foreman of Fearless Hose Company 
 No. 2, and every night he went over to the hose- 
 house and played cards after he got his work done 
 at the doctor's. I went to bed about nine o'clock, 
 but I left my clothes on, and when I thought it was 
 midnight I got up and went downstairs and went 
 out into the alley. Swatty was there already, sitting 
 in the shadow of Doc Miller's manure box, but 
 Bony had n't come, so we guessed he was a 'fraid- 
 cat and did n't dare. So we went ahead without him. 
 
 The doctor's old gray mare was standing with her 
 head at the little square window, and Swatty got on 
 the manure box and climbed in. He opened the 
 stable door and I went in after him. The old mare 
 looked around at us, but she did n't make any 
 trouble, and Swatty untied the halter strap and 
 we led her out into the alley. We led her across the 
 public square, and down into the creek and then up 
 the creek to where our cave was. She came right 
 along as easy as anything and we got her up the 
 bank and to where we had caved in the roof of the 
 1 80
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 back cave. She did n't want to go down there. I 
 guess she thought it was kind of funny to be taken 
 into a hole like that, but a doctor's horse is used to 
 being out at night and to going into all sorts of 
 places, and at last she set her front feet and slid 
 down. It was pretty steep, but she went down easy. 
 Swatty tied the halter strap to one of her front feet 
 and we left her there. 
 
 We went back home and I went to bed. I was 
 pretty scared. I thought the doctor would get up in 
 the morning and see his mare was gone and would 
 get a lot of people and police and there would be 
 crowds hunting the mare. I had pretty bad dreams. 
 I dreamed I was hung about eight times for horse 
 stealing. 
 
 When I got up in the morning I was mighty sick 
 of it, you bet. I made up my mind I would n't do any 
 more, no matter how many babies the doctor 
 brought to our house. I would stay at Aunt Nell's 
 and let on I did n't know anything about gray mares 
 or anything. I was through. 
 
 So about nine o'clock, Swatty came to Aunt Nell's 
 to get me, and he was just hopping, he was so tickled. 
 
 ' ' Garsh ! " he said. " It 's better than I ever thort it 
 would be. I came through the alley and Jake Hines 
 was sitting on the manure box waiting for the mare 
 to come home. And what do you think?" 
 
 "What?" I asked. 
 
 "He said he would give me a quarter if I found the 
 mare," Swatty said. "He said he guessed he had left 
 181
 
 SWATTY 
 
 the stable door open and she had wandered away 
 and maybe she would come back, but if I hunted 
 around and found her and brought her back he 
 would give me a quarter. So I'm hunting around 
 for her." 
 
 Well, I did n't feel so bad. Bony came and said it 
 was n't because he was scared that he did n't come 
 out last night, but because he had gone to sleep and 
 had n't waked up. So Swatty talked some more and 
 we all felt fine. We seen it was bully. So I took my 
 dollar, like we had fixed it for me to do, and I bought 
 some bread and some butter and some things to eat 
 while Swatty and Bony went out to the cave. We 
 did n't want Doctor Miller to starve to death while 
 we had him locked in the cave because that would 
 be murder. So I took what I had bought to the cave 
 and we put it where the doctor could see it, and then 
 we went down to the doctor's house. It was about 
 ten o'clock. We went to the front door and rung the 
 bell and Mrs. Miller came to the door. 
 
 "Is Doctor Miller at home?" Swatty asked. 
 
 She said he was, and Swatty told her we had 
 found his horse, and she said she would tell him. He 
 came right out. He looked sort of jolly and he said: 
 
 "Well, boys, I suppose you are looking for a 
 reward. Did you bring old Jenny home?" 
 
 "No, sir," Swatty said. "We would of but we 
 could n't. We could n't get her out of the hole." 
 
 So he wanted to know what hole and Swatty told 
 him. He told him we had a cave up the creek and 
 182
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 that it looked like the old mare had walked on top 
 of the cave and fell through. He asked if she was 
 hurt and we said she was n't, we guessed, but she 
 would n't come out for us. He got his hat. 
 
 "Come on," he said; "I'll see about it." 
 
 Well, he took us out the back way to the stable 
 and yelled for Jake, and Jake came. 
 
 "Jake," f he said, "these boys have found'Jenny, 
 and she's fallen into a hole and they can't get her 
 out." 
 
 "All right," Jake said; "I'll go with them." 
 
 You could have knocked me over with a feather. 
 We had n't thought of that. The doctor started to 
 go back to the house. Then he stopped. 
 
 "Just wait a minute," he said. "I think I'll go 
 with you. If the mare is hurt, I may be able to attend 
 to her right there." 
 
 When the doctor came out with his medicine case 
 we started, and me and Swatty pretended to be 
 eager to hurry up. Bony sort of held back behind. 
 The doctor talked to us a lot. He was sort of happy 
 and good-natured about it, like fat men are, and 
 joked some how far it was. We took him out the 
 Graveyard Road and down into the creek bottom 
 and showed him the mouth of our cave up the bank. 
 
 "Well, well," he said. "This is mountain climbing 
 indeed! If I had much of this to do I 'd be a smaller 
 and a better man." 
 
 He made me carry his medicine case so he could 
 use both hands, and I went first. Then Jake came 
 183
 
 S WATTY 
 
 and then the doctor, and then Swatty and then 
 Bony. When we got to the door of the cave I stopped 
 and Jake looked in. 
 
 "Where's the mare?" he said. "I don't see no 
 mare." 
 
 He turned to look back and the doctor was just 
 behind him, panting pretty hard. 
 
 "What?" the doctor asked, and he stepped up. 
 I started to say it was the back cave the mare was 
 in, but just then the doctor bumped against me and 
 went sort of down on his knees. It was as dark as 
 pitch. Swatty had slammed the door shut against 
 the doctor and jolted him into the cave, and me and 
 Jake with him. I heard Swatty fastening the cave 
 door, and there we were me and the doctor and 
 Jake. We were locked in the cave. 
 
 I was the first one to know what Swatty had done, 
 and I pounded on the door and hollered for them 
 to let us out, but they did n't do it. Jake was just 
 standing and saying: 
 
 "I'll be durned! I'll be durned!" 
 
 "What does this mean?" Doctor Miller asked. 
 
 I did n't know what to say, I was so scared. But I 
 did n't have to say anything. Jake said it. 
 
 "I know mighty well what this means, Doc," he 
 said. "This is some of Tom Foley's work, this is. 
 He's been trying to get me out of the foremanship 
 of Fearless Hose No. 2 for the last three years, and 
 we've got the annual election to-night. He knows 
 mighty well if I ain't there to-night he can put it 
 184
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 over on me, and this is his game. I 'm mighty sorry 
 you got drug into it, Doc; but I'll make him suffer 
 for this when I get out!" 
 
 He struck a match and saw the food I had brought. 
 He kept striking more matches and looking around 
 the cave. 
 
 "Yes, by Susan!" he said. "Look at the food. 
 This is Foley's work the great big mush ! He 
 thinks this is a good joke. I'll show him! Son," he 
 said to me, "did Foley talk to you?" 
 
 "No, sir," I said. 
 
 "I knew it!" Jake said. "It's that Swatty kid. 
 He's a terror, he is. Well, son, don't you mind; we'll 
 mighty soon get out of here." 
 
 I felt a whole lot better. But I guess the doctor 
 did n't. 
 
 "Get out? How '11 we get out? "Jhe wanted to 
 know. "If your friend Foley fixed this up, you may 
 be sure he did not expect you to get out to-night. 
 And I've got to get out. I've got two important 
 cases, and I must get out." 
 
 "Oh, we'll get out, Doc," said Jake. And he lit 
 another match. 
 
 He looked at the door and tried it, butting into 
 it with his shoulder. But we had fixed it dandy. It 
 did n't give at all. It was like butting a rock. He 
 tried it awhile, and then he said, but not so gay: 
 
 "Well, we'll have to dig out." 
 
 "Then, Jake, let us dig," said the doctor. And 
 they dug. I dug too, but mostly I only pretended to 
 185
 
 SWATTY 
 
 dig. It was dark in there and you could n't see, and 
 clay is n't anything to dig with your fingers. Jake 
 and the doctor had pocket knives, but you know 
 how much you can dig with a pocket knife. But 
 they had the right idea. They did n't try to dig 
 through the tunnel, like me and Swatty thought 
 they would. They dug around the door. 
 
 Well, when Swatty and Bony had locked us in 
 they went and sat on the bank across the creek to 
 see what would happen. Nothing happened. Then 
 Swatty got to thinking. He didn't worry about 
 Jake, because Jake was a hired man and nobody 
 ever knew when he would get home; but he knew 
 my aunt would want to know where I was. That 
 made him think of Mrs. Miller, and she would want 
 to know where the doctor was. He was mighty wor- 
 ried. We had thought that maybe we could keep 
 the doctor in the cave a couple of weeks until every- 
 thing was all right, but he knew right away that me 
 and Jake and the doctor could n't live on the food 
 I had put in the cave, and he knew my aunt would 
 start out to find where I was, and Mrs. Miller to 
 find out where Doctor Miller was. He was mighty 
 worried, and he did n't know what to do. So he 
 did n't do anything. 
 
 Tt turned out like he thought it would. My aunt 
 was mad when I did not come home to dinner, and 
 madder when I did n't come home to supper, but 
 when I did n't come home at all she was worried 
 almost crazy and she got my father to go hunt for 
 186
 
 WASTED EFFORT 
 
 me. He hunted awhile, and then he got some other 
 men to hunt for me, because he had to go home. 
 
 They hunted all night. Along toward morning the 
 hunters who were hunting for me ran into the hunt- 
 ers who were hunting for Doctor Miller. They had 
 Swatty with them, because Mrs. Miller had said 
 Swatty had come to the house and the doctor had 
 gone away with him. They were trying to make 
 Swatty tell where the doctor went, but he would n't. 
 He just let on like he was crying and said he did n't 
 know. 
 
 Well, the hunters who were hunting for Doctor 
 Miller had just started out, because Mrs. Miller 
 had n't got worried until toward morning, because 
 she thought he was attending to his business. But 
 toward morning my father and Bony's father came 
 to his house, and it was at their houses Mrs. Miller 
 thought Doctor Miller was. So she was frightened 
 and got some men to hunt him. 
 
 I guess I went to sleep about ten or eleven o'clock 
 that night while Jake and Doctor Miller were still 
 digging. I woke up all of a sudden and there I was 
 in the cave, and the door open and men coming in 
 and Doctor Miller brushing off his hands. Him and 
 Jake had almost dug a way out, but the hunters had 
 got Swatty to tell where we were. So about the first 
 thing I heard was a man saying: 
 
 "Where's that Swatty? Don't let him get 
 away!" 
 
 But he had got. We did n't see him for about a 
 187
 
 SWATTY 
 
 week. He went over into Illinois and got a job with 
 a farmer. 
 
 Well, all the way home Jake kept talking about 
 Tom Foley and what he would do to him, and when 
 the hunters heard it they laughed like sixty and 
 said it was the best joke they ever heard. They said 
 they would have to hand it to Foley he was a 
 dandy. So I guess they told Foley so. I guess he lis- 
 tened to them and did n't let on, only said he did n't 
 do it, and of course they did n't believe him, because 
 he had been elected foreman of Fearless Hose No. 2, 
 like Jake had said he would be. So Foley got sort of 
 proud of it and let them think. So me and Bony and 
 Swatty never got anything, except Swatty got licked 
 for being away for a week, and that was all right ; it 
 was worth it for the fun we had. 
 
 But the worst of it was that all of it was n't any 
 use. We had gone to all the work for nothing. We 
 had caved up the wrong doctor. We ought to have 
 caved up Doctor Wilmeyer and Doctor Brown. Be- 
 cause while we had Doctor Miller caved up, and 
 thought we had everything fine and dandy, it was 
 Doctor Wilmeyer and Doctor Brown who were the 
 ones all the time. When we got home from the cave 
 with the hunters there was a new baby at our house 
 and one at Bony's house, and they had brought 
 them. And that was n't the worst they were both 
 girls. So we had done worse than nothing, because 
 if we had left Doctor Miller alone he might, anyway, 
 have brought boys.
 
 IX 
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 WELL, when we came to find out about it the new 
 babies at my and Bony's houses were n't near as 
 hard to bear as we had thought they would be. One 
 reason was because they came at vacation time, 
 when we did n't have to go to school, and the other 
 was that they didn't make us take them out in 
 baby carriages like we was afraid they would. One 
 thing was that they was too fresh yet, and the other 
 was that they would n't trust them to such young 
 hoodlums anyway. 
 
 At our house Fan spent most of her time loving 
 the new kid, and Lucy and Mamie Little did n't do 
 much but hang around and coax to hold the baby a 
 minute, and Toady Williams just hung around and 
 waited for Mamie Little to come out and play. I 
 guessed that I would never have anything to do 
 with Mamie Little again, but that when I got a new 
 girl it would be a different kind, like Scratch-Cat. 
 I wished I had n't got religion, or anything that I 'd 
 got because of Mamie Little. 
 
 A lot of us got religion at once, because that's 
 how you usually get it. It makes it easier and you 
 don't feel so foolish going up front. 
 
 Well, they had this revival at our church the 
 
 .189
 
 SWATTY 
 
 winter before the vacation I 'm telling about. When 
 they had it I was having Mamie Little for my secret 
 girl and she went up in front, so I got religion and 
 went up in front too. But you see I 'd ought to have 
 waited, because it made me feel a lot worse about 
 murdering a man. Or maybe it did n't. I guess 
 Swatty felt almost as bad as I did. We both felt 
 awful bad. Swatty did n't go to our church, he went 
 to the German Lutheran church, and nobody in 
 that church ever got religion, they just had it. At 
 our church we did n't have it until we got it, and 
 mostly we got it when there was a revival meeting, 
 and that was when I got it. 
 
 So, I guess it was a lot worse for me when the 
 thing happened that I 'm going to tell you, because 
 I had religion and Swatty had n't. 
 
 Well, the way it happened was this way: I'm 
 awfully croupy. I don't know anybody that's as 
 croupy as I am, so they rub hot goose grease on me 
 when I get to honking and then make me swallow 
 a lot out of a spoon, and that was all right when I 
 was little enough so they could hold my nose, but 
 after I got big Mother said she would n't struggle 
 with me another time, and she changed and gave 
 me a dime a spoonful. So I took the old stuff because 
 if I had n't took it Father would have licked me, and 
 I 'd have had to take it anyway. So I got a dime a 
 spoonful. So I bought a target rifle with the money, 
 when I had enough, and then the rifle got broke and 
 I could n't get it fixed until my mother gave me 
 190
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 three dollars because I had been such a good boy 
 when the new baby came. 
 
 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 were n'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 any- 
 thing, 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?" 
 And Swatty says, "They made a law that we can't." 
 And I says, "Who made a law that we can't?" And 
 Swatty says, "The city council made a law that 
 nobody can shoot inside the city limits." 
 
 So I guessed they had, because that winter they 
 had made a law we could n't slide down Third Street 
 hill, and if they made a law like that they might 
 make almost any kind of a law. So Swatty says, " If 
 we want to shoot we've got to go outside the city 
 limits." And I said I don't know what I said but 
 I guess I said that was so. 
 
 So, anyway, we did n't shoot in my yard any 
 more, and that was n't our fault but the fault of 
 the city council. So that was one of the things we 
 thought of after we killed the man ; but it did n't 
 seem to make us feel much better, like you 'd think 
 191
 
 SWATTY 
 
 it would. I guess there was n't anything could make 
 us feel better. Nobody wants to be hanged unless 
 he has to be, I guess. 
 
 Well, it was vacation time, anyway, and we did n't 
 want to shoot all the time because part of the time 
 we wanted to do something else. Only when we 
 wanted to go rowing on the river we took the rifle 
 along anyway, because sometimes we rowed up 
 beyond the city limits and then it was all right to 
 shoot if we wanted to. 
 
 So one day me and Swatty and Bony we went up 
 the river in a skiff. We always hired a skiff from old 
 Higgins because it was ten cents an hour or three 
 hours for a quarter from him, and Rogers charged 
 ten cents straight. So when we got into the skiff and 
 Higgins gave us the oars he said, "Well, boys, have 
 a good time, but don't shoot anybody with that 
 cannon." And we said, all right, we would n't. We 
 took turns rowing, like we always did, and pretty 
 soon we got to the Slough, and we rowed in and shot 
 at turtles awhile, and then Bony said, "Gee! the 
 mosquitoes are eating me up," and they were eating 
 all of us up, so we floated out onto the river and just 
 floated. We threw the bailing can over and shot at 
 it until it went down, and just about then we were 
 going past the old shanty boat, and we began to 
 shoot at that. 
 
 It was up on the mud and partly sunk into it and 
 the hull was so rotten you could kick a hole in it, 
 and it was n't anybody's anyway. Everybody had 
 192
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 thrown stones at the windows in the side and broken 
 them and nobody cared, I guess; but nobody had 
 broken all the windows in the end toward the river, 
 because that end was toward the river, so we shot 
 at the windows. At first we could n't hit them and 
 we drifted below, but we rowed back again and in 
 closer and then we all hit them. We hit them a lot 
 of times, until they were all smashed out, and we 
 began to say who had hit the most times, and Swatty 
 said, "Let's go ashore and see who is the best shot. 
 I bet I am." So we went. 
 
 So we shot at cans and things, and Swatty was 
 the best shot, and then nobody said anything but 
 we just thought we'd go on the shanty boat for fun. 
 We climbed up on the little front deck, and Bony 
 was first, and Swatty was next, and then I come. So 
 Bony pushed the door open and looked in, and he 
 stood there looking in and did n't move, and then, 
 all at once he made a sound well, I don't know 
 what kind of sound it was. It was a frightened sound. 
 I guess it was like the sound a rabbit makes when 
 you step on it by mistake. And then he turned, and 
 his face was so scary it frightened me and Swatty 
 and we turned and jumped off the front deck onto 
 the railroad bank; but Bony jumped sideways off 
 the deck and landed on the cracked crust that was 
 over the mud the shanty boat was stuck in. He went 
 right through the crust and over his knees in the 
 mud, but me and Swatty was so scared we started 
 to run down the railroad track as fast as we could.
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Pretty soon we stopped, because the sand between 
 the ties was full of sandburs, and then we did n't 
 know what we were running for, so we looked back. 
 Bony was sort of swimming on top of the mud crust 
 and he was crying as hard as he could cry, but not 
 loud. He was trying to get away from the shanty 
 boat as fast as he could, and every time he got a 
 foot out of the mud and tried to step he broke 
 through the crust again, so he sort of laid on the 
 crust and bellied along. He looked like an alligator 
 swimming in the mud, and he was crying like an 
 alligator, too. Only I guess it is crocodiles that cry. 
 Bony was trying to get to the skiff, and Swatty knew 
 that if Bony got there before we did he would get in 
 the skiff and go home and leave us. So we picked the 
 sandburs out of our feet and tried to hurry, but 
 Bony got to the skiff and got in and pushed off. 
 
 We ran and hollered, but he did n't stop. He was 
 so frightened that the oars jumped out from between 
 the pins almost every time he pulled on them, and 
 he was crying hard; but he rowed the boat pretty 
 fast because he was working his arms so hard. Swatty 
 and me hollered at him and told him what we would 
 do to him if he did n't come back, but it did n't do 
 any good. He was too scared. All he wanted to do 
 was to get away. 
 
 Well, we tried to throw stones at him, to bring 
 him back, but we could n't throw that far and we 
 just stood and watched him row down-river as hard 
 as he could. 
 
 194
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 "Say, what do you think he saw in there? " Swatty 
 said after while. 
 
 "I don't know what he saw," I said. "What do 
 you think he saw?" 
 
 ! "I don't know what he saw, but I 'm going to see 
 what he saw," Swatty said. 
 
 Swatty was always like that. If anybody saw any- 
 thing he wanted to see it too. 
 
 "I ain't afraid to see it," he said. 
 
 "Well, I ain't afraid if you ain't afraid," I said. 
 
 So we climbed up on the deck of the shanty house 
 again. We climbed up careful and went to the door 
 and peeked in. 
 
 As soon as I had the first peek I turned, and 
 jumped off the deck and started to run, but Swatty 
 just stood and looked. I hollered at him. I guess I 
 was crying, too. 
 
 "Swatty! Swatty, come on! Oh, Swatty, come on, 
 Swatty!" I hollered. 
 
 He turned his head and looked at me and then 
 he looked back into the shanty boat. All he said to 
 me was, "Shut up!" 
 
 I guess you know what we saw when we looked 
 into the shanty boat. There was almost a whole 
 page about it in the paper later on. He the man 
 was lying there on the floor of the shanty boat in 
 the broken bottles and straw and the dry mud that 
 had sifted in when the river was high. He was lying 
 on his face with his feet to the door and he was sort 
 of crumpled up with one hand stretched out. He was 
 
 195
 
 SWATTY 
 
 dead. One side of his face was up and there was 
 blood from the place in his forehead where he had 
 been shot. It was on the floor. 
 
 I did n't dare run away without Swatty, because 
 I guess I was as scared as Bony had been, and I 
 did n't dare go back to the shanty boat, so I just 
 stood, and all at once I began to shake all over, the 
 same as a wet kitten shakes in cold weather. I 
 could n't help shaking. I felt pretty sick. But most 
 of all I was scared. 
 
 I thought Swatty was going to stand there for- 
 ever, looking into the shanty boat, but pretty soon 
 he went inside, and that shows he's as brave as he 
 always brags he is. I would n't have gone in for a 
 million billion quadrillion dollars. In a minute he 
 come out and he dropped off the end of the deck 
 and sort of crouched low. He kept crouched low as 
 he come up the railroad bank, and he crouched low 
 when he dodged down the other side, so I crouched 
 low, too, and went down the other side of the rail- 
 road bank. And when Swatty come up to me I saw 
 he was scared, too, but he was n't scared the way 
 I was. I was just scared because I 'd seen a dead man, 
 but Swatty was frightened. 
 
 There was a lot of tall ragweed and a pile of rail- 
 road^ties in the bottom of the cut along side the 
 railroad track, and Swatty went right in close to the 
 pile of ties where the ragweed hid everything and 
 he sat down there. He looked pretty frightened. 
 
 "Well," he said, "we killed him."' 
 196
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 That was the first I'd thought that we'd killed 
 the dead man ; but the minute Swatty said it I knew 
 we had killed him by shooting through the windows 
 of the shanty boat. I could n't shake any more than 
 
 I had been shaking so I just kept on shaking like I 
 had been, but I got sicker at my stomach. When I 
 was through being sick Swatty he got mad. 
 
 "Stop shaking like that!" he said. "We've gone 
 and done it and we ' ve got to think what we 're going 
 to do about it. Stop shaking and help me think." 
 
 "I c-c-c-can't stop sh-sh-sh-shaking ! " I said. "I 
 w . w . w . WO uld if I c-c-c-c-could, w-w-w-would n't I?" 
 
 " Well, you've got to stop shaking," Swatty said. 
 
 II If you go shaking all around town like that every- 
 body will know we did it. If you don't stop shaking 
 I'll lick you!" 
 
 I began to cry. I did n't cry because Swatty said 
 he 'd lick me but because I just had to cry. So Swatty 
 tried to make me stop shivering. He took the back- 
 bone of my neck in his thumb and fingers and 
 pinched it hard, because you can stop hiccoughs 
 that way; but it didn't do any good. So he got 
 madder. 
 
 "What are you shaking for, anyway?" he asked. 
 "I ain't shaking." 
 
 "W-well, y-y-you h-h-have n't got r-r-religion," 
 I said. "It's w-w-worse for anybody that's g-g-g-got 
 r-r-religion to kill anybody." 
 
 Well, he hauled off and hit me. He hit me in the 
 jaw, and then he said what I would n't let anybody 
 197
 
 SWATTY 
 
 say about my getting religion, and I fought him. 
 Then we stopped fighting and I was still shaking, 
 but not so bad. 
 
 "Yah! Little sissy boy got religion!" he said. 
 "Little sissy boy went and got religion 'cause he's 
 stuck on Mamie Little!" 
 
 Well, that did make me mad ! I lit into him, and 
 we had another good fight, and pretty soon he said, 
 "'Nuff!" and I stopped. So I started to tell him 
 what I 'd do to him if he ever said that again. I was 
 crying, I guess. 
 
 "That's all right," he said; " I just said it on pur- 
 pose. I just said it to make you fight. You ain't 
 shaking now." And I was n't. I 'd got so mad I for- 
 got to shake. So, as Swatty had just said what he 
 said on purpose, I did n't care. So I stopped crying. 
 
 "Now you've got some sense," Swatty said. 
 "Don't you get that way again. We don't want to 
 get hung, do we?" 
 
 I had n't thought of that. Of course they would 
 hang us if they found out we'd killed the man in 
 the shanty boat, and it made us pretty sober. I guess 
 I began to cry again. 
 
 "Oh, shut up!" Swatty said. "If you're going to 
 blubber all the time, and not try to help, I wish I 'd 
 killed that man all by myself. You shut up and try 
 to help me think what to do, or I '11 go and tell every- 
 body you killed him." 
 
 "You won't do it!" I said. 
 
 "Yes, I will," he said back. "And I'll prove it on 
 198
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 you. You did n't look at that man and I did, and 
 I know what kind of a man he is." 
 
 "What kind of a man is he?" I asked. 
 
 "He's a tough kind," Swatty said. "And if you 
 don't shut up your bawling I'll say you and him 
 got into an argument about religion, and you shot 
 him because he would n't come and join in with you 
 and get it. And folks will believe that, because you Ve 
 just got it, and there ain't any other reason why 
 any of us should kill him. I have n't got religion, 
 have I?" 
 
 "Well," I said, for I saw Swatty could do like he 
 said, "what are we going to do, anyway?" 
 
 "We've got to keep from getting arrested and 
 put into jail and hung," Swatty said. " I don't know 
 how, but we've got to. We've got to be careful, and 
 not let anybody know we shot that man. If they 
 find it out they'll hang us sure." 
 
 "We did n't mean to shoot him," I said. "We had 
 a right to shoot outside the city limits." 
 
 "We did n't have a right to shoot anybody," said 
 Swatty. "We had a right to see if there was anybody 
 in the shanty boat before we shot at it. We'll all 
 three be hung if they find out we did it." 
 
 Well, I had an idea just then, but I did n't say 
 it to Swatty. I did n't really think it, it just come. 
 I knew as soon as I thought it that I would n't be 
 so mean, and I knew Swatty would n't either. But 
 it would have been easy enough for me and Swatty 
 to say Bony did it. We was two to one. Maybe I 
 199
 
 SWATTY 
 
 would have said it if I had n't got religion. But it 
 made me feel better for a while to think that I'd 
 thought it and had n't said it. So the next thing I 
 thought was that it would be mighty noble and true 
 and religious if I'd go to the mayor or somebody 
 and just say: "I killed a man up there at the old 
 shanty boat on the river, but nobody is to blame 
 but me. Swatty ain't and Bony ain't, so go ahead 
 and hang me. I did it, and it was my target rifle." 
 But I thought that if I was going to be hung I 'd not 
 feel as lonesome if Swatty and Bony got hung too. 
 Anyway, Swatty started to talk, and I forgot it. 
 
 "If Bony had n't gone off with the skiff," he said, 
 "we'd be all right. We'd get in the skiff and row 
 out to the middle of the river and lay flat in it, and 
 nobody would see us. We could float down the river 
 as far as we wanted to and hide in a cane-brake or 
 somewhere. Or maybe, we'd row up the Missouri 
 and hide in the Rocky Mountains. If they got after 
 us we could turn bandits or something." 
 
 "You could," I said, "but I could n't." 
 
 "I forgot you'd got religion," he said. "You'd 
 have to start a ranch. But we can't do that, because 
 Bony went off with the skiff." 
 
 What we decided was that nobody would be apt 
 to find the dead man that day. Maybe they 'd never 
 find him. Unless somebody like us happened to go 
 into the old shanty boat he might never get found, 
 and then, the next spring, when the Mississippi had 
 her spring flood, or that same fall, if the water got 
 200
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 high enough, we could come up and float~the old 
 shanty boat out of the mud and take her out in the 
 river and sink her. We talked over a lot of things, 
 and the more we talked the more it did n't seem so 
 bad. It looked as if we had a chance not to get hung, 
 after all. 
 
 I wanted to cut across the cornfield to the hill 
 and go home that way, so that if anybody saw us 
 they 'd think we had been up in the woods and not 
 near the shanty boat, but Swatty said that would n't 
 do because our footprints would show in the corn- 
 field, and detectives would trace us by them if they 
 started out to find who murdered the man. He said 
 it would be more innocent to go right down the rail- 
 road track, and if anybody asked us anything to say 
 we had n't been as far up as the shanty boat, and 
 that Bony had got a stomach ache or something and 
 gone home first with the boat. So we did that. We 
 walked down the track. We talked about the mur- 
 der all the time, and the more we talked the surer 
 we were nobody would think we did it. 
 
 Well, we got to my gate all right, and Swatty and 
 me crossed our hearts we would n't say anything 
 about killing the man, and I tried to think how I 'd 
 act so nobody at home would think anything differ- 
 ent than they always did, and I went into the house. 
 It was pretty late. They were eating supper. So I 
 went in and sat down, and Father scolded me a little 
 for being late, like he does nearly every day, and 
 then he said something else. 
 201
 
 r SWATTY 
 
 "Son," he said, "after supper you'll get that 
 target rifle of yours and turn it over to me." 
 
 Well, I almost jumped out of my skin, I was so 
 scared. 
 
 "Now, you need n't begin any of that," he said. 
 "I mean what I say. Do you know who was shot 
 to-day?" 
 
 ? I was so scared I could n't swallow my piece of 
 meat. I choked on it. 
 
 "No, sir!" I said, pretty weakly. 
 
 "Well, Benny Judge shot his little sister," said 
 my father. "Only by the greatest luck she was n't 
 killed. As it is she has a bullet in her arm. Now, 
 mind! I want that rifle." 
 
 Well, I was glad and I was scared stiff, too. 
 
 I had left the target rifle on the rocks up by the 
 shanty boat. I began to shake again because I knew 
 somebody would find the target rifle and it had my 
 initials on it, and when they found the dead man 
 they would know I killed him. I guess my teeth 
 chattered. Anyway I could n't think of anything at 
 all. I just wished I was dead, because after supper 
 Father would want the rifle, and I did n't have it, 
 and some one would find it and I would be hung. 
 is* Then Mother saw me shake, and she said, ' ' What 's 
 the matter? Are you cold?" 
 
 "Y-y-yes'm," I said. Well, it was n't a lie. I 
 was sort of cold. 
 
 "Father, the poor child is sick," Mother said 
 "See him chatter his teeth." 
 202
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 So Father looked at me. "Malaria," he said. So 
 he asked me if I had been up to the Slough, because 
 he had been reading in a magazine about Slough mos- 
 quitoes biting you and giving you malaria. I did n't 
 know what to say. It did n't look good to say I had 
 been up there so near the old shanty boat, and I 
 did n't like to lie about it, because I was on proba- 
 tion for getting religion. So I did n't say anything. 
 I just shivered and chattered my teeth. 
 
 "Huh!" my father said. "I knew well enough 
 something was the matter with that boy when he 
 got religion. He 's had this malaria spell coming on. 
 Put him to bed and give him a big dose of quinine." 
 And then he said to me, "Just let me catch you up 
 near that Slough again, understand? Get to bed, and 
 quick! This family is just one thing after another!" 
 [ I got to bed pretty quick and Mother gave me 
 one of the big capsules. She heated the scorched 
 blanket at the kitchen stove and wrapped me up in 
 it and put all the bed covers she could find on top of 
 me. I started to sweat right away. So she said, " If 
 you want anything I '11 leave the door open and you 
 can call me," and she went down again. She told 
 Father she guessed I was pretty sick because I 
 looked like it, and all he said was, "Huh! boys!" 
 And I guessed he was right, and I made up my mind 
 to live a better and truer life, but I kept thinking 
 of the man we had killed. I never sweat so much in 
 my life. 
 
 All at once the doorbell rang and I sat right up in 
 203
 
 SWATTY 
 
 bed. I thought the police had come for me. But it 
 was n't the police; it was something just as bad 
 almost. It was old Higgins, the skiff man. He was 
 talking to Father. He asked him if I had got home all 
 right. So Father said I had, and I was sick and in 
 bed. Then old Higgins said, "Well, I don't know 
 what to make of it. Nobody brought my skiff back. 
 Your boy and two other boys hired it off of me, and 
 when it got late and they did n't bring it back I got 
 frightened. You ask him where he left my skiff, and 
 if they lost it somebody 's got to pay me back for it." 
 
 Well, I was mighty scared. I guessed Bony had 
 been so scared he had upset the skiff and got 
 drowned, and maybe me and Swatty would get 
 hung for that, too, though we did throw rocks at 
 Bony to try to get him to come back. But, anyway, 
 me and Swatty would have to tell why Bony had 
 gone off in the skiff alone, and then they would know 
 everything, and take us to jail and hang us. I 
 crawled down under the covers and pretended to be 
 asleep, but it was n't any use, because Father shook 
 me by the shoulder. 
 
 "Now, what?" he said, cross. "Here's Higgins, 
 the skiff man, and he says you hired a skiff and 
 did n't bring it back. What 's the meaning of all this? 
 And are you putting on this malaria on this account? 
 Explain, young man!" 
 
 So I sat up and I said, "Bony took it." 
 
 "Come, now, explain!" my father said. 
 
 "Well, we was up the river," I said, "and me and 
 204
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 Swatty and Bony got out of the skiff and and we 
 went ashore. So so then me and Swatty, we 
 ' run down the railroad track a little way and and 
 when we looked back Bony was going to get into the 
 skiff, and we hollered for him to wait for us, but he 
 would n't. He got into it and rowed away." 
 
 "And left you there?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 I guess he did n't believe it. I guess he thought I 
 was just trying to put it onto Bony, to get out of it 
 myself. He forgot I'd got religion, I guess. So he 
 snapped his fingers the way he does when he 's mad. 
 
 "Get out of that bed and get into your clothes and 
 make haste about it!" he said, and I said, "Yes, 
 sir!" and I got out of bed right away. I dressed 
 quick. 
 
 Mother cried because it was wrong to make a sick 
 boy dress and go over to Bony's house out of a sweat 
 and I'd catch pneumonia; but I had to go. So no- 
 body said anything on the way over, except Mr. 
 Higgins tried to talk about what nice weather we 
 were having, but Father would n't talk. I did n't like 
 to go, because well, I thought all Bony's folks 
 would be crying because he was drowned when we 
 got there; but of course if you think about it, they 
 would n't know. So when we got to their house they 
 were n't crying, but Mr. Booth he was Bony's 
 father just come to the door in his socks and said, 
 "Well, what is it now?" because I was there, and he 
 knew something was the matter or I would n't be 
 205
 
 SWATTY 
 
 there with my father. So Father said, "Did your son 
 come home?" 
 
 "Yes, he come home," Mr. Booth said, "but he 
 ain't well, and Ma put him to bed." 
 
 I was glad he was n't drowned, anyway. Unless 
 he'd told about the dead man, and then maybe it 
 would n't have been so bad if he had been drowned. 
 So Father and Mr. Higgins told about the skiff, and 
 Mr. Booth sent Bony's ma to up ask Bony. Pretty 
 soon she came down. 
 
 "He's pretty sick," she said. "He's complaining 
 of pains in his arms and back and he 's shaking like 
 he had the ague; but I hope not, because his temp'- 
 ature ain't high. I guess maybe he caught a chill. 
 And he tied the skiff under the creek bridge. He left 
 the oars in it. But he shall never again play with 
 those two boys! Never again! The idea of them run- 
 ning off and leaving my poor child to row home all 
 alone!" 
 
 Well, that was a lie, but I was n't sore at Bony 
 because he's a coward and it was better for him to 
 tell a lie like that than to blab about the dead man. 
 Anyway, a fellow has to tell some lies until he gets 
 religion. After that it 's different. 
 
 "So you've been lying to me again!" Father said 
 to me, but I did n't say anything. Saying it was a 
 lie did n't make it a lie, and all he could do was lick 
 me, anyway. But he did n't lick me, because he 
 thought maybe I did have malaria because I 'd got 
 religion. I guess that was what he thought. So Mr. 
 206
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 Higgins said, "Never mind, I'll get the skiff, but it 
 will be about a dollar." So Father paid him and said 
 he would take it out of my allowance ; but he hardly 
 ever paid me my allowance, anyway, so that was all 
 right. He just gave me an allowance so he could say 
 he would n't pay it to me, I guess. Anyway, we went 
 home. 
 
 Well, I stayed awake for hours, thinking about 
 the murder and what we had better do about it, 
 but maybe it was only a few minutes, and the next 
 morning Swatty came over before I was out of bed. 
 He waited for me in the side yard until I come down. 
 
 "Well," he said, "have you thought of anything 
 to do?" 
 
 I had n't thought of anything except maybe I 'd 
 better go to the minister and tell him all about it. 
 So Swatty said if I did that he would knock my 
 head off, and I knew he would, if he could. 
 
 "Well, have you thought of anything, then?" I 
 asked him. 
 
 So he told me he had sat up all night thinking 
 about it. He said he had paced the floor with his 
 hands behind him and his brow knotted in thought 
 throughout the still hours of the night until cock- 
 crow. I thought he was lying, but I did n't tell him 
 so. I told him I went to sleep, and I told him about 
 Bony and Mr. Higgins. I told him about the rifle 
 we had left on the rocks. He said that complicated 
 matters, but we would have to make the best of it. 
 
 Then he showed me the braided horsehair bridle 
 207
 
 SWATTY 
 
 he had in his pocket that'his uncle had brought back 
 from Texas, and the wooden tobacco pipe he had 
 in the other pocket. He said we might have gone to 
 Texas, only somebody in Texas might recognize 
 the bridle and know it was the one his uncle had 
 had, and then know him and connect him up with 
 the murder in the shanty boat, so we would go to 
 Montana or maybe New Mexico. He was n't sure 
 which we would go to, but that it would be better 
 to start right away. 
 
 Well, I did n't like to leave home and never come 
 back until I was a big man with a beard, and the 
 murder was forgotten about, but it seemed the only 
 thing to do. I talked and Swatty talked, and it 
 seemed the only way we could keep from being hung, 
 because "murder will out," as it says in our reader. 
 I only had twenty-five cents that I had n't paid 
 Mr. Higgins forthe skiff, and Swatty only had four- 
 teen cents. We knew that was n't nearly enough 
 money. We did n't know what Bony had, but after- 
 ward we found he only had a dime. But Swatty said 
 we could get work to do in some of the places we 
 would get to, and we could steal green corn and 
 roast it only he would have to steal it, because it 
 would n't be right for me. 
 
 We thought the best thing to do would be to start 
 out of our back gate and go due west, and keep going 
 west until we came to Montana or New Mexico, or 
 wherever we got to, only we had to get the rifle first, 
 because if we left it, it would be evidence against 
 208
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 us, and anyway we might kill some game with it. 
 We had it all fixed up how we would do, and just 
 then Bony came over the back fence, and we told 
 it all over again. We did n't think he would go with 
 us, but he said he would. 
 
 So we talked it all over, and it was n't like any 
 other time we had ever talked anything over. Most 
 times we just talked about running away but we 
 did n't mean it, but this time it was a mighty serious 
 thing and we meant it. Other times when we talked 
 we were afraid to run away, but this time we were 
 afraid not to. It was almost noon when we got ready 
 to go, and just as we were going Mother saw us and 
 called us back. She asked me if we were going to the 
 woods, and we were, so I said we were, and she said 
 we ought n't to go without lunch, so she made us 
 sandwiches, and we were glad to have them. I said 
 "Good-bye, Mother," and she said "Good-bye, 
 son," and she did n't know that maybe it was the 
 last time she 'd ever say it to me, but I knew it be- 
 cause maybe she would grow old and die before I 
 ever came back. 
 
 Well, we started off. We did n't talk much even 
 Swatty did n't. We went past his barn, and he went 
 in to say good-bye to his dog, but we did n't dare 
 take him along, because somebody might know us 
 by him, so he whined and cried when we went away. 
 We did n't say anything much until we got to the 
 city limits and then Swatty said, "Well, anyway, 
 now the town police can't touch us, because we are 
 209
 
 SWATTY 
 
 out of town, and they can't touch anybody out of 
 town", and Bony began to cry. 
 
 But he did n't cry loud he just sort of sniggered 
 to himself and wiped his eyes with the back of his 
 hand. I guess maybe I cried, too, but not very loud, 
 either. 
 
 If it had n't been for being hung I would have 
 gone back, and I would have told the minister all 
 about killing the man, because I kept thinking about 
 Mamie Little and that some other boy would play 
 with her and grow up and marry her, and maybe I 'd 
 never see her again, even if he did n't marry her. 
 Swatty was the only one that did n't cry a little. 
 He did n't have to, because he let on to be mad at 
 us for being mushies, and he swore instead. He swore 
 at me and Bony, and I could have kept from crying, 
 too, if I could have swore, but I could n't because I 
 gave it up when I got religion. 
 
 After we got beyond the houses that are beyond 
 the city limits we went across the vacant lots and 
 across the old fair grounds and down over the hill. 
 We got down to the river road and climbed over the 
 fence and got under the bob-wire fence on the other 
 side of the road and went through the cornfield. 
 We forgot about our footprints. 
 
 When we got to the edge of the cornfield Bony 
 would n'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 
 210
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 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. 
 
 They had found the man we had murdered. 
 
 We just lay there and held our breath. I could n't 
 think of anything, I was so scared again. I just re- 
 membered how "murder will out," and how a mur- 
 derer will always come back to where he murdered 
 anybody, and that there we were, and that as soon 
 as they saw us they 'd know we were the murderers, 
 because we had come back. I don't know what 
 Swatty was doing, and I did n 't know what 
 I was doing, but I guess as soon as I was able I 
 started to try to dig a hole in the railroad embank- 
 ment with my finger nails, to crawl into and hide, 
 because that was what I was doing when I heard 
 the men come up the other side of the embankment. 
 f They were coming up from the shanty boat, and 
 one of the men was saying, "Steady now! Keep that 
 door level, can't you?" So I could n't dig any more. 
 My fingers would n't work. My arms and legs felt 
 as if they were full of cold ice water, and I could n't 
 lift up my hands to put my hat on tighter, which I 
 wanted to do because I could feel my hair lifting up 
 and lifting my hat up. I did n't think about being 
 hung or anything, but just how awful it would be 
 if the men let the door tip and rolled the murdered 
 man down on top of us. I guess I ought to have 
 211
 
 SWATTY 
 
 thought of how innocent I was, but I did n't. I 
 did n't even think of being religious. I just felt my 
 backbone creep and my hair lift up and my arms 
 and legs get colder and colder. 
 
 We heard the men carrying the dead man away. 
 I could n't move, and I guess I would never have 
 dared to move again if it had n't been for Swatty. 
 As soon as we could n't hear the men any more 
 Swatty lifted his head and crawled up the embank- 
 ment and looked. I would n't have done it for a 
 million billion quadrillion dollars. He looked, and 
 when he saw they were n't thinking of us, but were 
 all looking at the dead man on the door and going 
 away from us down the railroad track he scrabbled 
 up the rest of the embankment and scrabbled across 
 the track and down the other side. He was back 
 right away, with the target rifle, and then he told 
 me to get up and get away from there, but I could n't 
 get up. So he kicked me two or three times hard, and 
 when he kicked me on my hip bone I got mad and 
 forgot to be so scared and got up. We ran through 
 the cornfield and got Bony, and all three of us got 
 across the road and ran up the hillside into the 
 woods as hard as we could run. 
 
 I don't know how many miles we ran. We ran 
 until we had to fall down because our legs would n't 
 work any more. We sat in the bushes awhile and 
 rested, and then we went on, but we walked mostly. 
 We only ran once in a while. We came to a road we 
 did n't know, but it went sort of west ; and we went 
 212
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 on down that road a long way and that night we 
 slept in a haystack not because it was cold but 
 to be hid. The next morning we went on again, and 
 before noon we were mighty hungry. Bony was 
 hungriest, and he cried a lot, and I cried a little, but 
 Swatty was willing to fight us whenever we wanted 
 to stop and rest too long, because it was n't safe yet. 
 We were a long way from Arizona or Montana or 
 wherever we were going, and it was just about the 
 time the sheriff and everybody would start out to 
 find us if they thought we were the murderers. We 
 just plugged along and felt mean and tired, and I 
 thought about Mother and Mamie Little a lot. I felt 
 so bad I almost did n't care if they did catch me and 
 hang me. That's the way Bony felt, too, but Swatty 
 kept us going. 
 
 Swatty went up to a house about supper time and 
 asked for some bread and butter, and he got it and 
 brought part of it to us. Then he made us go on, 
 because he said we ought to get as far from that 
 house as we could after we'd been seen there. So we 
 went until I was ready to die, and we found a 
 hayrick in a field and we were just going to hide in 
 it when three men on horseback and some in a buggy 
 two more came up the road and saw us and 
 shouted at us. 
 
 Well, we knew it was all up. The men started to 
 
 climb over the fence, and we walked toward them 
 
 because we knew we could n 't get away, and it was 
 
 just as well to be hung as to be shot trying to run 
 
 213
 
 SWATTY 
 
 away. I guess it was the most awful feeling I ever 
 had in my life. 
 
 When we got up to them one of the men was 
 Swatty's father and another was my minister. As 
 soon as Swatty got there his father took Hm by the 
 collar of his coat, and shook him and hit J im on the 
 side of the head and told him what he thought of 
 him for running away and making so much trouble ; 
 but when he let go of him Swatty just dropped down 
 on the grass and shut his eyes, because he was so 
 played out that all he had to be was shook, and he 
 went unconscious. So Bony started to cry and the 
 minister said, "Shame!" and then Swatty's father 
 got red in the face, and dropped on his knees beside 
 Swatty and picked him up and kissed him. He cried. 
 It was the first time I ever saw a man cry. 
 
 So then I guessed I 'd confess the whole thing to 
 my minister, and I did. The other men were all try- 
 ing to get Swatty to open his eyes and my minister 
 listened to me. He listened to all of it all about 
 the murder and all. Then he put his hand on my 
 shoulder, and he said, "You poor boy! And you 
 thought I was hunting you down?" And I said, 
 "How long will it be before they hang us?" And he 
 said, "George, I hope you will never be hung, be- 
 cause that man was n't murdered. He was a suicide, 
 and he wrote a letter about it before he went to do 
 it." So I started to say how glad I was and, when I 
 come to, I was at a farmhouse and my minister was 
 trying to get me to drink some milk. 
 214
 
 THE MURDERERS 
 
 So after while we went home. Father was n't 
 there, because he was out with some other folks 
 hunting for us, but Mother and Fan and a lot of 
 people were, and my minister told them all about it, 
 and the women all cried to think of us three all alone 
 with a murder on our minds and our legs tired, I 
 guess, and not much to eat. But I was so tired I 
 did n't care. I was so tired I did n't care who was 
 there. I was so tired I was n't even glad I was n 't 
 a murderer. Then somebody came out from behind 
 the women where she had been, where they would n 't 
 notice her much, and she did n't look at me or any- 
 body. She just said: 
 
 "Well, I guess I'll go home now." 
 
 "Why, Mamie Little, have you been waiting up 
 all this while?" my mother said. "You should be in 
 bed, child." 
 
 So she did n't look at me, and I did n't look at her. 
 She just went home. But then I knew I was glad I 
 was n't a murderer. Because I knew that Mamie 
 Little would n't have thought I 'd got religion very 
 good if all I 'd got let me go around murdering men 
 in shanty boats. And I did n't want Mamie Little 
 to think that about me, because well, I did n't 
 know why, I just thought it.
 
 X 
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 WELL, I guess the nearest Swatty ever came to 
 having a lot of money was the time Mr. Murphy 
 got it and Swatty did n't. It was a thousand and 
 five hundred dollars, and if Swatty did n't get it 
 Mamie Little ought to have had it; and if Mamie 
 Little did n't get it I ought to have had it; but we 
 did n't any of us get it, because Mr. Murphy got it. 
 
 I told you about the time Mamie Little got mad 
 at me because I had been prohibition and changed 
 over to anti-prohibition because Swatty could lick 
 me, and about how her father had the prohibition 
 newspaper. Well, he kept publishing in his news- 
 paper that the saloons ought to be closed; so one 
 day somebody blew up Mr. Little's house with dyna- 
 mite only it was gunpowder. But they called it 
 dynamite. They called the men that blew up the 
 house the dynamiters. They blew up two other 
 houses, too, and that was why Mr. Murphy was in 
 town. He was a detective. He came and worked in 
 the sawmill, and nobody knew he was a detective 
 until he got the money me or Swatty or Mamie Lit- 
 tle ought to have had. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony was sitting on the 
 empty manure bin back of our barn, smoking corn- 
 silk cigarettes, and that reminded us of the time we 
 216
 
 ' SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 were up the river smoking driftwood grapevine 
 cigarettes, when we saw Slim Finnegan steal the 
 gunpowder, and we got to talking about it. 
 
 "Well, if anybody ever finds out Slim Finnegan 
 stole it he won't stab me!" Swatty said; "because 
 he would n't think I told on him, because I ain't 
 prohibition and I never was ; and I guess Slim and 
 everybody knows it." 
 
 So that made me and Bony feel pretty scared, 
 because everybody knew Slim Finnegan was a 
 stabber. He'd just as soon stab you as not. I don't 
 remember whether he ever had stabbed anybody; 
 but I guess he had, because everybody said so. Any- 
 way, he was always showing us the knife he stabbed 
 fellers with when he wanted to stab them, and he 
 said he'd stab any of us for two cents. The knife 
 had a staghorn handle and a six-inch blade, with a 
 curve in it and a spring in the back that, when you 
 pressed it, snapped the blade open all ready to stab 
 with. 
 
 Once, when he met me when I was alone, he 
 grabbed me by the neck and backed me against a 
 fence post, and pulled out the knife and opened it. 
 I bellered and said: "Aw, lemme alone, Slim! I never 
 done nothin' to you!" And he said he knew mighty 
 well I had n't and that I 'd better not try to, be- 
 cause he was a stabber, and if I did anything he 
 did n't like he 'd cut my heart out and leave it stick- 
 ing to the fence post with the knife in it, to show 
 fellers not to monkey with Slim Finnegan. So I said 
 V2I7
 
 SWATTY 
 
 I 'd never, never do anything he did n't want me to, 
 and please to let me go. So he said, well, he guessed 
 he 'd stab me, anyway, while he had me ; and he put 
 the point of his knife against my stomach and leaned 
 up against me, so that all he had to do was lean a 
 little harder against the handle of the knife and I 'd 
 be stabbed. 
 
 I thought I was going to be killed, sure. I held my 
 breath, and my bones felt like water; and just then 
 he laughed at me and bumped my head against the 
 post three times and threw me down on the grass 
 and went away. 
 
 That was before me and Swatty and Bony saw 
 him set the lumber yard afire too. After we saw him 
 set the lumber yard afire we were all more scared of 
 him than ever; even Swatty was scared of him, and 
 said so. When we saw him set the lumber yard afire 
 Slim was in our class at school ; but he was twice as 
 big as anybody in our room, because he only went 
 to school when he wanted to and he did n't want to 
 very often ; and after the fire he quit going to school. 
 I guess he went bumming for a while. 
 
 The first I knew about Slim Finnegan was when I 
 was a little bit of a kid and not big enough to ride 
 belly buster or knee gut on a sled or slide down the 
 big hills. I had a high sled and rode on it sitting down, 
 and rode from the sidewalk into the gutter, and 
 things like that. So my father got me a new sled on 
 my birthday, a clipper sled with half-round irons, 
 and it was painted red and was named Dexter. I 
 218
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 took it out on the hill where the big kids were sliding 
 and tried to ride belly buster on it, which is lying 
 flat on your stomach and steering with both feet, 
 like knee gut is lying on one knee and steering with 
 the other foot, but the runners on my sled were 
 so slick that when I put the sled down it slid away 
 before I could get onto it. 
 
 So I was trying that when Slim Finnegan came up. 
 I had n't ever seen him before, but he acted nice 
 and said the way I was trying to get onto the sled 
 was n't the right way and he would show me how. 
 So he took my sled and ran away and belly busted 
 onto it. He went down the hill like a flash. I watched 
 him until I could n't tell which was Slim and which 
 was some other feller, away down the hill, and then 
 I could n't tell any one from any other, and I waited 
 for him to come back. One feller came up the hill, 
 and then another and dozens came up, but Slim 
 did n't come back with my sled; and after a while I 
 began to blubber the way kids do, and a girl I did n't 
 know took me by the arm and led me home, saying, 
 "Don't cry, Georgie! Don't cry, Georgie!" all the 
 way. 
 
 So the girl told my mother somebody had stolen 
 my sled, and that was the first I knew it was stolen. 
 When my father came home he asked me what the 
 boy was like that took my sled and I told him, and 
 he went out and after a long time he came back and 
 he had my sled. It was all painted over with fresh 
 drab paint except where my father had scraped the 
 219
 
 SWATTY 
 
 paint off to show that it was my sled. He said: "That 
 drunken Finnegan's dirty son stole it!" So that was 
 the first I knew of Slim Finnegan. 
 
 When I got old enough to play away from the 
 house I mighty soon knew that Slim Finnegan was 
 the feller that would sneak up on us little kids when 
 we were playing marbles and grab up our marbles 
 and steal them and, if we said anything, twist our 
 arms behind us until we yelled. He was the one that 
 would sit in the long grass out in the field when we 
 played ball and, if the ball came near him, grab it 
 up and put it in his pocket and laugh at us. He was 
 the one that, if he came on us when we were fishing, 
 would throw our worm can in the Slough and take 
 the fish we had caught, and then swear at us. He 
 was a sneak and a thief and a tough, and his father 
 was a tough and a drunkard; and it was n't safe to 
 send your washing to Mrs. Finnegan because some- 
 times she got drunk and did n't do it for a week, 
 and sometimes it did n't all come back. 
 
 Well, Swatty said that Slim Finnegan would n't 
 stab him, because he was anti-prohibition and Slim 
 was too ; so Bony thought maybe he 'd better turn 
 anti-prohibition, and he did. And I hoped Slim 
 knew I had turned, but I was afraid he did n't. 
 
 Well, one day that spring but pretty late 
 me and Swatty and Bony went down to the levee 
 and hired a skiff from Higgins like we always did; 
 and we rowed across the Mississippi to the Illinois 
 shore above the old ferry landing. I guess maybe we 
 220
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 were after turtle eggs; so when we saw the shore was 
 all mud Swatty said : 
 
 "Let's row up to the head of the Slough and row 
 down the Slough." 
 
 "What for?" I asked him. 
 
 "Oh, just for cod!" he says. So we did. 
 
 We rowed up to the place where the Slough 
 branches off from the river, and there was a good 
 deal of water in the Slough yet, so we rowed down 
 the Slough until we came almost to the ferry road, 
 and then we thought we would stop and get some 
 grapevine driftwood to smoke, and we did. We 
 rowed to the shore of the Slough and got out and 
 found plenty of driftwood where it had lodged 
 against the bushes and tree roots, and we lit up and 
 smoked and sat awhile just doing that. 
 
 Then Swatty said: "Come on! Let's go over to 
 that sand by the powder house and see if there are 
 any turtle eggs there yet." 
 
 That was a good place for turtle eggs, because the 
 sand was hotter there sooner than anywhere else. 
 It was a sort of cleared place without many trees or 
 bushes, all soft sand and not very far from the ferry 
 road. So we walked along down the Slough and 
 pretty soon we came to a skiff pulled up on the 
 shore. I was nearest, so I jumped into it; but 
 Swatty did n't. He said: 
 
 "Garsh! You'd better get out of that skiff. Some 
 feller has just left that skiff there, because his foot- 
 prints on the bow seat ain't dry yet. If he came back 
 221
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and seen us playing in his skiff he 'd like as not give 
 us good and plenty!" 
 
 And that was right, because when a feller rows 
 over from town or anywhere he don't like kids to 
 fool with his skiff ; because if the skiff got away how 
 could he get back to town? So if they catch you in 
 their skiffs they bat you a good one. So I got out of 
 the skiff and Swatty went on ahead, and me and 
 Bony followed; and we come to the sandy place by 
 the powder house. 
 
 A powder house is a little square shack about as 
 big as a closet, covered with sheet iron and painted 
 red for danger. This was the only one on the Illinois 
 side, but there were two more on the Iowa side, up 
 the river from town a good ways; and the reason 
 they were so far from town was because the whole- 
 sale grocers sold powder, but the city did n't allow 
 them to keep any inside the city limits. When they 
 sold some they sent over to get it. The powder houses 
 were painted with big letters to say DANGER ! and 
 that nobody must shoot at them or build a fire near 
 them, or they might explode. So that was why this 
 one was in the middle of the sandy place sand 
 can't burn like grass does. 
 
 So we come through the bushes to where we could 
 see the powder house and we all stopped short right 
 there, for there was Slim Finnegan coming out oi 
 the powder house with a bag over his shoulder, with 
 what anybody could tell was an iron powder keg in 
 it. As soon as we saw him he saw us and we dodged 
 
 222
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 back into the bushes and ran. We ran pretty far, 
 and then we stopped and listened and did n't hear 
 anything; so we hid down behind a log and waited. 
 We knew that if Slim Finnegan found us he 'd stab 
 us or something. Anyway, we thought he would. 
 Me and Bony did. I guess Swatty did too. 
 
 After we had waited what seemed like a couple 
 of hours but I guess it was about half a minute 
 Swatty put his head up above the log and looked, 
 and did n't see anything. Then he got up and went 
 round the log and started to go back to the powder 
 house. Bony did n't say anything, because he was 
 too scared, but I yelled, "Swatty! Swatty!" in a 
 whisper, because I wanted him to come back; but 
 he just turned and motioned us to be still, and he 
 went on. He walked as careful as he could. Pretty 
 soon he came back and dropped down behind the 
 log again. 
 
 "It's Slim Finnegan, all right," he said only 
 he said "orl right," like he always does; "and he's 
 stealing a keg of powder" only he said it sort of 
 like "kerg of powder." 
 
 "What'd you see, Swatty?" I whispered. 
 
 "I seen him shift the bag from one shoulder to 
 the other," Swatty said, "and I could see the ridges 
 on the keg, all right ! If we wanted to we could tell 
 the police and they'd put him in jail." 
 
 "Aw, don't, Swatty!" I said. "If you do that he'll 
 wait until he gets out and then he'll stab all of us. 
 Aw, don't tell the police, Swatty!" 
 223
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Maybe I will and maybe I won't," Swatty said. 
 "I ain't made up my mind yet what I'll do. I ain't 
 afraid of his old stabbin' knife, I tell you that ! He 
 can't scare me! There ain't any Slim Finnegan that 
 ever lived could scare me. If he pulled his old frog 
 stabber on me I'd " 
 
 He stopped short and I saw him put out one hand 
 and grab the log, and his face looked like a dead 
 man's, and then I looked up from the callus I was 
 fixing on my foot and I saw Slim Finnegan too. He 
 was standing right in front of us with a pistol in his 
 hand and the pistol was pointed right at us. He had a 
 mean-looking face, sort of foxy and sort of sneery, 
 and now it had a sort of grin on it, and it was ugly. 
 It was the kind of grin he had when he twisted a 
 little kid's arm and made him scream. He was just 
 like he always was, sort of muddy-haired and yellow- 
 faced and slouchy in the shoulders, and tobacco 
 juice in the corners of his mouth. He looked just the 
 way he always looked when he was going to have 
 some fun hurting somebody. 
 
 I felt pretty sick. I felt hot in the stomach, as if a 
 bullet had already made a hot hole there. I sort of 
 twitched in different places as each place got to 
 thinking it was the place the bullet was going to hit. 
 I don't know what Bony did ; I had all I wanted to 
 do without thinking of anybody else. All of a sudden 
 Slim opened his dirty mouth and swore at us the 
 worst anybody ever heard. 
 
 "Get up out of there, you" something 
 224
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 "rats!" he said in the meanest voice he had. "Get 
 up!" 
 
 So we got up. 
 
 "You get along there, now!" he ordered, swearing 
 some more ; and he waved us where to go. 
 
 We did n't say a word, not even Swatty. We just 
 went ; and instead of thinking I felt the bullet com- 
 ing into my stomach I thought I felt it coming into 
 the joints of my back. I put my hand behind me to 
 sort of help stop it if it came. That way he sent us 
 through the brush to the sandy place. He walked us 
 toward the powder house, and then, all at once, he 
 shouted at us to throw down our grapevine ciga- 
 rettes. He asked us if we wanted to blow him to hell. 
 So we threw them down. 
 
 Then he came up to me and hit me on the side of 
 the head and knocked me down in the sand, and 
 threw Bony on top of me, and slapped Swatty so he 
 staggered; but Swatty didn't fall. He swore back 
 at Slim, and Slim slapped him again and knocked 
 him down. For a million dollars I would n't have 
 sworn back at a stabber that had a pistol ; but that 's 
 how Swatty is. Anyway, he was the only one of us 
 that could swear good enough to make it worth 
 while swearing back. 
 
 Well, Slim had left the door of the powder house 
 open and when he had us all knocked down he came 
 over and kicked at us, and I was the one he kicked. 
 He swore all the time, a steady stream, and it was 
 the thoroughest swearing I ever heard. It sounded 
 225
 
 SWATTY 
 
 like business. Then he jerked Swatty up and slung 
 him toward the powder house and slung him inside, 
 and then he took me and Bony and slung us the 
 same way. He slung us all into the powder house. 
 
 " I'll teach you to go blattin' about me when you 
 see me!" he said. "Dirty little rats! I'll learn you 
 a lesson ! You '11 never come your sneakin' spy in' on 
 me again! You'll have enough when I get through 
 with you this time. You want to know what I'm 
 goin' to do with you?" 
 
 Well, we did sort of want to know, but we did n't 
 say so. 
 
 "I'm goin' to lock you in there," he said; "and 
 I'm goin' to leave you in there to starve, like the 
 dirty sneaks you are. I '11 teach you to go tellin' lies 
 about me! You'd go and say I stole that can of 
 powder, would n't you? Well, I did n't steal it 
 see? I bought it. I bought it and they sent me over 
 to get it. It's none of your business, anyway. You 
 sneakin' rats!" 
 
 Bony started to cry. Slim told him to shut up, 
 and he did. He scowled at us. 
 
 ' ' No, by " something he said , swearing ; 
 "starving is too good for tattle-tellin' rats like you. 
 Somebody might come and let you out. I know what 
 I 'm goin' to do to you. I 'm goin' to lock you in and 
 then I 'm goin' to set a fire and blow you to a million 
 pieces. I '11 blow you up, like the sneakin' rats you 
 
 are 
 
 " 
 
 I can't make it sound the way it sounded to us, 
 226
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 because I can't swear the way he did. He swore, 
 to show he meant it, and then he slammed the iron- 
 covered door and we heard the iron bar scrape as 
 he put it across the door, and we heard the padlock 
 click into the staple. We were in the dark, darker 
 dark than I was ever in before. 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. 
 
 The place where he was piling the sticks was one 
 of the front corners of the powder house, and there 
 was n't so very much powder in the house, and what 
 there was was in different piles, for the different 
 kinds and sizes of kegs. All of a sudden Swatty 
 pushed my hands off him and stooped down and 
 began feeling on the floor in the corner where the 
 fire was going to be. There were four or five little 
 kegs of powder in that corner and Swatty began 
 picking them up and putting them on one of the 
 other piles that was not so near the corner. I guess 
 nobody but Swatty would have thought of doing 
 227
 
 SWATTY 
 
 that; but when he started I started, too, and we 
 moved the powder as fast as we could. Then the 
 door opened. 
 
 Slim had taken off the padlock and the iron bar 
 so quietly we had n't heard him, and when he opened 
 the door he caught us shifting the kegs. 
 
 "Come out of there!" he said. "Now you know 
 what I '11 do to you if you go telling about me. If I 
 ever hear you have mentioned my name, or if you 
 ever say it to each other, I '11 get you and bring you 
 over here and finish this job right!" 
 
 Well, we guessed he'd do it. 
 
 "I'd have done it now," he said, "only I don't 
 want to blow up powder that don't belong to me. 
 And here's the keg I had," he said, throwing one 
 into the powder house. "Now, you get! And if you 
 ever say a word you'll know what '11 happen to you. 
 Get!" 
 
 We ran. We ran like scared deer, and all I wanted 
 to do was to get as far away as I could. We ran a 
 long way up the Slough and then Swatty stopped, 
 and I stopped because he stopped, but Bony kept 
 on running. 
 
 "Come on!" I said to Swatty. "What you stop- 
 ping for?" 
 
 "Hide in there," he said, pointing to some bushes. 
 "I'll come back." 
 
 He crouched Indian fashion and went toward the 
 Slough and out of sight. It was quite awhile before 
 he came back. 
 
 228
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 "Garsh, he's a liar!" he said when he came back. 
 "That keg of powder he stole was n't the one he put 
 back. He 's got that one in his skiff yet. It was an- 
 other one he put back." 
 
 "Swatty, you ain't goin' to tell on him, are you?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "You bet I ain't!" he said. "I just wanted to 
 know. You bet I ain't going to tell; if I did he'd 
 stab us in a minute." 
 
 Well, I guess we waited round an hour before we 
 went home, and then we were mighty glad there was 
 any of us left to go home, because we had all thought 
 we were going to be blown into such little pieces 
 nobody would ever find any of us again. 
 
 Now about the dynamiters: After I had marched 
 in the prohibition parade because Mamie Little's 
 father was a prohibition man there was prohibi- 
 tion in Iowa, all over, and for a while Riverbank 
 did n't have any saloons because it was against the 
 law. So Slim Finnegan's father got a shanty boat 
 and started a saloon on it across the river, where 
 there was n't prohibition ; and Slim helped tend bar, 
 and then other bumboats started, and pretty soon 
 I guess folks got tired of that and the saloons started 
 up again in Riverbank, so people could get drunk 
 without having to hire a skiff and go across the 
 river. 
 
 So three or four or five men made up their minds 
 they would stop the saloons again, and they started 
 in to do it. Mamie Little's father was one of them, 
 229
 
 SWATTY 
 
 because he printed the newspaper that wanted the 
 saloons closed; so one night three or four of the 
 men's houses were blown up with gunpowder, but 
 the fuse went out on the other keg, so it did n't blow 
 up its house. But three of them were blown up. That 
 was about three months after me and Swatty and 
 Bony saw Slim Finnegan steal the keg of powder; 
 and right away we thought of that and that Slim 
 Finnegan was one of the men that blew up the 
 houses. 
 
 Gee! We was scared! All we could think of was 
 that now Slim Finnegan would come round and 
 stab us, so we would n't tell on him. One whole after- 
 noon we hid in the old box stall in my barn and 
 did n't dare talk above a whisper; and we had my 
 target rifle, because if Slim came we were going to 
 sell our lives dearly. 
 
 But that was afterward. We went to see the 
 blown-up houses first right after breakfast the 
 morning after the night they were blown up and 
 they were all pretty bad. Everybody said it was a 
 miracle nobody was killed, and how Mamie Little 
 and her folks walked across the bare rafters and got 
 out, and everything like that. So then the mayor 
 offered five hundred dollars reward and the governor 
 offered a thousand dollars more ; and there was a big 
 meeting downtown one night and everybody gave 
 money to hire detectives to catch the dynamiters. 
 
 There were lots of detectives came to Riverbank ; 
 I guess maybe there were a thousand. Everybody 
 230
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 said it would be just a little while before the dyna- 
 miters were all caught and sent to prison ; but pretty 
 soon everybody began saying the detectives were 
 no good, and that Mr. Murphy, who was the one 
 the committee had hired, was just pretending it was 
 worth while to detect, and that he would never get 
 the dynamiters, and that all he was staying in River- 
 bank for was to get the money the committee paid 
 him every week. All he found out, I guess, was that 
 the dynamite was gunpowder and that some of it 
 was stole from the powder house across the river 
 and some from the powder houses up the river. But 
 me and Swatty and Bony knew who stole it. That 's 
 why we were scared. 
 
 And you bet we were mighty scared! We made a 
 fort in the hayloft of my barn, with loopholes to 
 shoot my target rifle through, so we could flee to it 
 if Slim Finnegan came round, and pop him from 
 behind the fort before he could stab us. Swatty got 
 us to do that. He was going to show us how to fix the 
 barn stairs with each step on a hinge so when we 
 pulled a rope the steps would drop and make a slide, 
 so that whenever Slim tried to come up the steps he 
 would get just part way and then slide down again; 
 but when we tried to pry the treads of the steps loose 
 the nails were rusted and the treads split; so we 
 thought we'd better not. 
 
 We got up a signal word only it was Swatty 
 thought of it so that when any of us saw Slim 
 we could say it, and we'd know we had to run for 
 231
 
 SWATTY 
 
 shelter to our fort. The word was Vamoose ! But it 
 was too long, so Swatty shortened it. He made it 
 Vam! 
 
 We did everything we could to get ready not to 
 be stabbed. We made daggers out of some kitchen 
 knives I got in my kitchen, and Swatty showed us 
 how to do it while me and Bony turned the grind- 
 stone. We sharpened them on both edges and made 
 points on them and tied string round the handles 
 in loops, so we could hang them on our suspender 
 buttons and let them hang down inside our pants. 
 Swatty showed me how to carry my target rifle stuck 
 down one pants leg, too, so it would n't be visible. It 
 made me walk stiff-legged, like I was lame, but Swatty 
 said that was a good thing it would throw Slim 
 Finnegan off his guard. Swatty showed us how to 
 stand back to back when Slim Finnegan attacked 
 us, so we would have a dagger in each direction and 
 he could n't stab us in the backs. 
 
 Whenever we could we got together and Swatty 
 told us new ways to keep from being stabbed, be- 
 cause he said he knew a feller in Derlingport 
 where he had visited once who was fixed just like 
 we were, with a big feller after him; and Swatty 
 remembered other things he had done. He did n't 
 remember them all at once, but every day he re- 
 membered a new one. When he remembered them 
 we did them. One of them was to rub our knee joints 
 with sewing-machine oil, so they would be limber 
 and we could run like a deer when Slim Finnegan 
 232
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 took after us. Before he got through Swatty remem- 
 bered a lot of things like that. We did them. 
 
 Well, after a while I guess we sort of forgot about 
 Slim Finnegan, because he did n't come round to 
 stab us. Maybe it was because Swatty could n't 
 remember any more of the things the feller in Der- 
 lingport had done, and maybe it was because school 
 began again. We sort of turned the fort in my hay- 
 loft into a dressing room for a circus. Swatty was 
 ringmaster. So then Bony's birthday started to 
 come and his mother thought she'd have a party 
 for him, because they had a new parlor carpet and 
 had had the dining-room papered. So she had it. 
 
 At first Bony said he was n't going to his party, 
 because there would be girls there and they would 
 want to play kissing games; but Swatty said, Aw! 
 he was n't afraid to kiss all the girls there were in 
 the world! and that if Bony would go to the party 
 he would go too. So I said if Bony and Swatty would 
 go I would go. I said, Aw! I bet I was n't afraid to 
 kiss all the girls in the world, either! only I bet I 
 would n't kiss Mamie Little if she asked me a 
 million times, because she was mad at me. So we 
 went to Bony's party. 
 
 It was a pretty good party. Right at first it was n't 
 much because the girls sat on one side of the room 
 and tried to keep their white dresses from getting 
 wrinkled, and the boys sat on the other side. It 
 would n't have been any fun at all, that first part, 
 only Swatty had brought some beans in his pocket 
 233
 
 SWATTY 
 
 and we had some fun shooting them at the girls 
 with our thumbs. Every once in a while Bony's 
 mother would come in from the kitchen and clap 
 her hands and say: 
 
 "Come, now! We must all have a good time! All 
 you boys and girls think of a game and play it. 
 Bony" only she called him Harold "I'm sur- 
 prised you don't start a game!" 
 
 So then Bony wished he had n't come to his 
 party. So after a while Bony's mother said to the 
 cook: 
 
 "Well, Maggie, we 'd better give them the refresh- 
 ments now, instead of later; they won't liven up 
 until they are fed." 
 
 We went into the dining-room and all sat round 
 the big table, and we began to have a good time. 
 Us kids would get up and sneak round and steal a 
 girl's cake or something, and she would holler and 
 be mad; and then we started in to pull their hair- 
 bows, and maybe their hair a little, and they would 
 slap at us and scold and giggle. They pretended they 
 did n't like it ; but they did. So pretty soon some of 
 them got up and chased us round the table, and 
 after the ice cream it turned out we were playing 
 tag; and Bony's mother said: 
 
 "Heaven save the furniture! But, anyway, I'm 
 glad they've waked up!" 
 
 Well, I did n't pull Mamie Little's hair, or any- 
 thing. I guess I wanted to, but I sort of did n't dare. 
 All she did was to make a face at me once across 
 
 234
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 the table, and when I threw a little piece of cake at 
 her she brushed it off her dress and said : 
 
 "I consider that very rude!" 
 
 So then we went into the parlor again and got to 
 playing kissing games Copenhagen and post-office, 
 and games like that. So then we played pillow. I 
 guess the girls like it because there is n't so much 
 game and there is more kissing, and I guess the boys 
 don't care because by the time you get to playing 
 pillow they 're used to it. You take a sofa pillow and 
 drop it in front of the girl you want to kiss and drop 
 on your knees, and she drops on her knees and then 
 she kisses you. Then she takes the pillow and drops 
 it in front of the fellow she wants to kiss next, and 
 she kneels on it, and she kisses him. So I guess 
 Kate White dropped the pillow in front of me and 
 kissed me; and then I took the pillow and looked 
 round the row of chairs. 
 
 I saw Mamie Little and she looked as if she was 
 trying to look as if she did n't want me to drop the 
 pillow in front of her, but really did want me to. I 
 did n't know what to do. Toady Williams was in the 
 next chair to Mamie Little. I guess maybe I wanted 
 Mamie Little to kiss me, but I was sort of scared to 
 put the pillow in front of her. I got sort of hot. So, 
 all of a sudden, I dropped the pillow right in front of 
 her and plumped down on my knees. Everybody 
 laughed and clapped their hands, except Toady 
 Williams. 
 
 But Mamie Little did n't plump down on her 
 
 235
 
 SWATTY 
 
 knees in front of me. She stuck her chin in the air 
 and said: 
 
 "No; thank you." 
 
 I guess I got hotter than I ever was in my life. I 
 was burning hot. And I guess I was pretty mad. 
 I got up and held the pillow by one corner. 
 
 ' ' All right for you, then ! " I said ; and all I thought 
 of was to make her sorry for making me look silly 
 before the whole crowd. "All right for you! I know 
 who dynamited your house, and now I won't 
 tell!" 
 
 Well, right away she got down on her knees. She 
 took the pillow from me and got down on her knees 
 on it. So I kneeled down on it, too, and she let me 
 kiss her on the cheek. It was the softest cheek I ever 
 kissed, I guess. So then she got up, and took the pil- 
 low and looked around the circle for a boy to drop it 
 in front of, and when she did n't drop it in front of 
 Toady Williams the very first thing, I felt fine. 
 Swatty leaned over to me and said: 
 
 "Garsh! Now you done it!" 
 
 "Well," I said back, "I got a right to tell if I 
 want to, haven't I?" 
 
 "No, you hain't," Swatty said. "If you tell then 
 Slim Finnegan will stab the whole three of us." 
 
 "Well, let him stab ! " I said, because that was how 
 I felt just then, because Mamie Little had not put 
 the pillow down in front of Toady Williams but in 
 front of Bony, and that did n't mean much, because 
 it only meant that she wanted Bony to have it next, 
 236
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 because he would give it to Lucy. So, when he went to 
 kiss Mamie she turned her head and he hardly got 
 any kiss at all, and she had let me kiss her fair and 
 solid. So I felt pretty good. I felt as if she was going 
 to be my girl again. And I guess she was, because 
 when somebody put the pillow in front of her again, 
 she came right to me with it, and that time it was 
 a good kiss too. I felt great ! 
 
 When us boys was getting our hats, when the 
 party was over, Swatty came up to me. 
 
 "If you tell her I'm going to lick you," he 
 said. 
 
 "All right lick!" I said. "I ain't afraid of your 
 lickings. Lick all you want to. I told her I 'd tell and 
 you nor nobody else can't make me a liar!" 
 
 So Mamie Little waited for me at the front door, 
 and when I came out I knew she had waited so I 
 could walk home with her, and I did. 
 
 "Well, I'm glad we are n't mad any more," she 
 said when we were walking along. 
 
 "Ah! who was mad? I was n't mad," I said. 
 
 "Well, I ain't mad now," she said. "Who was it 
 blew up our house?" 
 
 "Oh, somebody!" I said. 
 
 We walked a little way and then she said: 
 
 "Who blew up our house?" 
 
 "Slim Finnegan," I said. 
 
 "How do you know he did?" she said. 
 
 "Because me and Swatty and Bony saw him 
 steal the powder to do it with," I told her. "We was 
 237
 
 SWATTY 
 
 over in Illinois and we saw him steal it from the 
 powder house that's over there." 
 
 So we talked about that and when we got home to 
 her house she told me to come up on the porch, and 
 I did; and then she opened the door and called for 
 her father, and he came to the door. 
 
 "Papa, this is Georgie," she said; "and he knows 
 who blew up our house." 
 
 Well, he took me inside the house and asked me to 
 tell all about it, and I told him, and Mamie sat in a 
 chair and listened to me tell it. When he had asked 
 me everything he could think of he went to the door 
 with me and said: 
 
 "George, you are a fine boy!" 
 
 I said: 
 
 "Yes, sir!" and then I said, "Good-bye, Mamie!" 
 
 And she said : 
 
 "I don't like that mean old Toady Williams." So 
 I went home. 
 
 That evening Mr. Murphy, the detective, came 
 up to my house and Mr. Little came with him ; and 
 Mr. Murphy asked me all the questions Mr. Little 
 had asked, and a lot more, and I told him all about 
 Slim Finnegan. He asked where Swatty and Bony 
 lived and how to get to their houses. So then Mr. 
 Murphy said: 
 
 "If the boy is telling the truth this may be more 
 important than we imagined. I have thought for 
 some time that the reason Slim Finnegan left town 
 was because he knew something of this affair." 
 238.
 
 SLIM FINNEGAN 
 
 So I guess that was the reason Slim Finnegan 
 had n't come around to stab us he was n't in 
 Riverbank. I guess it was a month more before they 
 found him down in Oklahoma and fetched him back 
 to Riverbank because me and Swatty and Bony had 
 oathed that he had stolen the keg of powder. Petty 
 larceny was what it was called. That was what they 
 arrested him for. 
 
 Well, come to find out, Slim Finnegan had n't 
 blown up anything, and it was n't even his keg of 
 powder that done it. He had stole the powder to load 
 a shotgun with, to go hunting, and he showed Mr. 
 Murphy the dry powder keg, with most of the pow- 
 der in it yet. So he was n't the dynamiter, after 
 all. 
 
 But his father was. Mr. Murphy gave Slim Finne- 
 gan three degrees and said to him, "I guess you 
 know who blew up the houses and if you don't tell 
 I '11 send you to the penitentiary for twenty years," 
 and Slim Finnegan the mean sneak told that 
 his father and two other men had done it, and they 
 were arrested and went to prison. 
 
 So me and Swatty and Bony talked about which 
 of us ought to have the one-thousand-five-hundred- 
 dollars reward, and we made up our minds that 
 Swatty ought to have it because he was the one that 
 went back and saw that Slim Finnegan was really 
 stealing a keg of powder, and that if Swatty did n't 
 get it I ought to have it, because I was the one that 
 told Mamie Little, and that if I did n't get it Mamie 
 
 239
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Little ought to have it, because if it had n't been 
 for her I never would have told. 
 
 But none of us got it. Mr. Murphy got it. The 
 only thing Swatty and Bony got was that they 
 did n't get stabbed. And I got Mamie Little back for 
 my secret girl again.
 
 XI 
 "THIEF! THIEF!" 
 
 WHILE Mamie Little's father's house was getting 
 fixed up, after being dynamited, they went some- 
 place else to live, and the only people that lived 
 across the street from us were the Burtons. There 
 were n't any Burtons to play with, because the only 
 children they had was Tom Burton, who was older 
 than my sister Fan, and that summer he began 
 taking Fan to ride with the dandy horses and car- 
 riage the Burtons' hired man took care of. 
 
 The Burtons' hired man's name was Jimmy, and 
 everybody called him that except Mrs. Burton 
 she called him James. I guess Jimmy was forty years 
 old. Or maybe he was fifty, or thirty-five, or some- 
 thing. He was thin and balder than hired men gen- 
 erally are, and his only bad habit was putting angle 
 worms in a pickle bottle and setting the bottle in the 
 sun to dissolve the worms into angle- worm oil for his 
 rheumatism in the winter; but summer was when 
 the worms were, so he had to get a lot of worms in 
 the summer to last through the winter. 
 
 Well, Jimmy had been with the Burtons six years 
 and Annie, our hired girl, had been with us on and 
 off, for five years. I guess everybody thought she 
 had n't any other name at all until one evening 
 when Jimmy came over and knocked at the back 
 241
 
 SWATTY 
 
 door and asked Mother if Miss Dornbacher was 
 home. She was n't, because she had gone to the 
 Evangelical Lutheran Church; but after that Jimmy 
 used to come over, and Annie would put two chairs 
 out in the yard under the apple tree and they would 
 sit and talk. Or Jimmy would talk. He would talk 
 and talk and talk, and every once in a while Annie 
 would say, "Yes," and, after she learned it, "No." 
 So, after a couple of years, Jimmy began to hold 
 Annie's hand when he talked to her, and in a couple 
 of years more they got engaged. I guess they liked 
 each other. 
 
 I was in our dining-room one day, looking to see 
 if Annie had put any fresh cookies in the jar in the 
 closet, when I heard my mother say, "Oh, Annie!" 
 in the kitchen, as if she was sorry about something. 
 So then Annie said: 
 
 "I bin sorry to go avay, too, ma'am, but it is 
 right everybody should get married once or twice." 
 
 "I know," my mother said; "but I don't know 
 what I will ever do without you, Annie." 
 
 So then Annie cried, and there were no cookies, so 
 I went out. 
 
 Well, it was like this: Jimmy had been saving his 
 money ever since Annie came to our house and now 
 he had enough to get married on and buy a couple of 
 acres; so they were going to be married, and he was 
 going to leave the Burtons and raise garden stuff 
 and peddle it. Annie was going to raise chickens and 
 sell eggs, and they would have a cow and sell milk. 
 242
 
 THIEF! THIEF! 
 
 So now I come to the story part of the story. I guess 
 what the story is about is that sometimes it is a good 
 thing for a fellow to have a girl, because if Mamie 
 Little had n't been my girl maybe Jimmy and 
 Annie would never have been married. 
 
 There were two parts about the story. One was 
 that a circus was coming to town and me and Swatty 
 were n't going; the other was that the schoolhouse 
 wore out and they built a new one. 
 
 The night before the circus was coming there was 
 going to be a reception in the dandy big new school- 
 house to raise money for a library. Everybody was 
 going to go, and I guess everybody old enough was 
 going to take his girl. Anyway me and Swatty and 
 Bony got to talking about taking girls to parties and 
 receptions and things, and the first thing you know 
 we said we 'd do it. 
 
 I guess I said Swatty was afraid, and Swatty 
 dared me back, and we both dared Bony, and so we 
 would n't any of us take the dare. So Bony asked 
 Lucy and she said she 'd go with him if my mother 
 would let her. When Bony told me I did n't believe 
 him, but I asked Lucy and she said Bony had asked 
 her, and that Mamie Little was as mad as mad be- 
 cause I had n't asked Mamie. So I said: 
 
 "Aw! How could I ask her when I hain't seen her 
 yet?" 
 
 "You could, too, see her, if you wanted to," Lucy 
 said. "You could see her every minute of every day, 
 if you was n't a 'fraid-cat." 
 243
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "T ain't so. I'm not a 'fraid-cat!" I said. 
 
 " 'T is so, and you are ! 'Fraidie-cat ! You ain't going 
 to take Mamie Little, and you're her fellow!" 
 
 "I am, too, going to take her!" I said back. 
 
 But I was n't going to take Mamie Little. I 
 would n't have asked her for a million dollars. But 
 I did n't have to ask her. I met her that afternoon. 
 She was on the other side of the street and I just 
 went along as if I did n't see her. So she called across: 
 
 ' ' Oo-oo ! Georgie ! You know ! ' ' 
 
 "Aw! What do I know?" I asked back. 
 
 "You know! The reception!" she said. Well, I just 
 went along and did n't say anything. But that eve- 
 ning when I got home my mother said : 
 
 "I hear you are getting to be quite a beau, 
 Georgie." 
 
 I did n't know what she meant, so I said, "Huh?" 
 
 "Mrs. Little called this afternoon," my mother 
 said, "and she told me you had asked Mamie Little 
 to go to the new school reception with you. That 's 
 very nice." 
 
 I did n't say anything. It was Lucy, and I was 
 mighty mad at her for telling Mamie Little I was 
 going to take her; but I was kind of glad, too. I 
 thought, "Well, anyway, Swatty and Bony are 
 going to take girls." 
 
 The reception was the next night, so when Swatty 
 
 and Bony came over the next afternoon I told them 
 
 I was going to take Mamie Little, and Swatty said 
 
 that was right, everybody was going to take a girl. 
 
 244
 
 THIEF! THIEF! 
 
 So T asked him who he was going to take, because he 
 had never let on he had a girl. 
 
 "Garsh!" he said, "I ain't going to take any 
 girl!" 
 
 That made me sick. Me and Bony had stood right 
 up like men and had asked girls, and Swatty had 
 promised he would take one, and now he was back- 
 ing out. So I said: 
 
 "Aw! You said you would take one!" 
 
 "Well, don't I know it?" Swatty said. "Of course 
 I said I would, but I forgot." 
 
 "What did you forget?" I asked. 
 
 "I forgot I was married," Swatty said. 
 
 We were all sitting under our apple tree, out in the 
 yard, and it was a good thing we were not sitting on 
 a roof, because I would have fell off and killed my- 
 self, I was so surprised. 
 
 "Aw! When was you married?" I said. 
 
 "That time I went to Derlingport to visit my 
 uncle," Swatty said. 
 
 "Aw! Who did you marry?" 
 
 "A girl," he said. 
 
 "Well, if you married a girl why did n't you ever 
 tell us about it before?" 
 
 "Garsh! I can't remember everything that hap- 
 pened when I was in Derlingport, can I? Mebbe I 
 forgot I was married." 
 
 "Aw, pshaw!" I said. "What did you want to go 
 and get married for, Swatty?" 
 
 "Well, I couldn't help it, could I?" he asked. 
 
 245
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "You don't think I'd go and get married if I could 
 help it, do you? My my uncle made me." 
 
 " Why did he make you?" asked Bony. 
 
 "Because my aunt had a felon on her finger. She 
 had a felon on her finger and it almost killed her to 
 darn stockings, so my uncle said if I wore any more 
 holes in my stockings I 'd have to get a wife of my 
 own to darn them." 
 
 So then we asked Swatty what his wife was like, 
 and he told us a lot about her. She was an Indian 
 princess, and when you first looked at her she looked 
 all right, but pretty soon you saw she had a toma- 
 hawk in her belt and the edge of it was all dried over 
 with blood, because she had had eight other hus- 
 bands before Swatty, and she had got mad at all of 
 them and had killed them and scalped them. She 
 had an album on her parlor table, but instead of 
 photographs in it she had the scalps of her husbands. 
 
 Swatty said there was just room in the scalp al- 
 bum for one more scalp, and that every once in a 
 while when he was at her house having his stock- 
 ings darned she would look at his head and kind 
 of sigh. 
 
 Well, we talked it over, and Swatty made us 
 promise never to tell any one he had been married, 
 because if his mother knew it she would take him 
 out in the stable and wale him with a strap. He said 
 that was why he did n't dare take any girl to the new 
 school reception, because if his wife heard of it she 
 would be jealous and she would come down and 
 246
 
 THIEF! THIEF! 
 
 tomahawk him and maybe kill him. And if she 
 did n't kill him his mother would notice his scalp 
 was gone, the next time she washed his head, and 
 would wale him anyway. 
 
 Well, my mother helped me dress for the recep- 
 tion, and then she gave me twenty cents to spend. 
 I had five cents of my own she did n't know about. 
 So that was all right. 
 
 It was dark already. I went along, kind of drag- 
 ging my hand along the pickets of the fences and 
 wishing I was dead or something, and it got darker 
 and darker. The new house Mamie Little lived in 
 was away out over Grimes's Hill, and when I got to 
 the door Mr. Little and Mrs. Little and Mamie were 
 just getting ready to come out, and Mr. Little said: 
 
 "Well! Here is our cavalier!" 
 
 Mamie and me walked in front, and it was n't as 
 bad as I thought it would be, but I kept feeling sort 
 of chilly when I thought of going into the reception 
 with Mamie. But before we got to the schoolhouse 
 Mamie said to me: 
 
 "Say, Georgie! Don't you want a ticket for the 
 circus?" 
 
 I said aw, I did n't want to take her ticket away 
 from her; but she said she had one too, because her 
 father was editor of the paper and he got them com- 
 plimentary. 
 
 . As soon as we got to the reception Mrs. Little 
 said: "Now, you children run along and enjoy 
 yourselves." 
 
 247
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Mamie said, right away: "Shall we get some ice 
 cream first?" 
 
 I said that would be all right, because mebbe peo- 
 ple would n't notice I was with Mamie Little and 
 think I brought her. So we sat down at a table 
 and a girl took our order and brought us straw- 
 berry and vanilla big dishes and passed us the 
 cake and we took two pieces of cake Apiece. 
 
 That was all right; but when we were eating 
 Swatty and Bony came past and said : ' ' Ho, Georgie ! 
 He brought a girl!" 
 
 That was all right for Bony! He had sneaked out 
 of bringing a girl, and that was mighty mean, after 
 he had gone and got me to bring one. I said I 'd fix 
 him when I got him, and he was scared, too ! So then 
 we ate our ice cream slow, to make it last longer, 
 and I forgot how mean I felt because I had brought 
 a girl, when whoever was opposite us got through 
 and asked how much he owed. 
 
 "Let me see!" the girl said. "Two ice creams at 
 ten cents is twenty cents, and two pieces of cake. 
 That makes thirty cents." 
 
 Well, I almost rammed my spoon down my 
 throat! I had never thought" about the cake being 
 extra, and we had had four pieces, and that made 
 twenty cents, and the ice cream was twenty cents 
 so it made forty cents all together, and twenty-five 
 cents was all the money I had ! I was so scared my 
 throat sort of closed up on me. I guess my face got as 
 red as fire, and I leaned forward and took a big bite 
 248
 
 THIEF! THIEF! 
 
 of cake, so Mamie Little would n't see how red my 
 face was, and then I choked on the cake! I guess I 
 never was so choked in my life. And I put a paper 
 napkin up to my face and went out into the hall. 
 
 I guess Mamie Little sat there at the table; I don't 
 know. As soon as I was out in the hall I knew what I 
 was going to do. I squeezed in among the people and 
 got to the door and skipped. 
 
 As soon as I got home my father asked me did I 
 take Mamie Little home ; so I did n't say anything. 
 I went right upstairs to bed. After while my father 
 came up' and asked me again if I had gone home with 
 Mamie Little, so I said I hadn't; I said I didn't 
 want to. I said her folks could take her home if they 
 wanted to. So Father said he had a mind to lick me ; 
 but he did n't. So I guess Mamie Little got home all 
 right. It would n't have helped her home if my father 
 had licked me, but that 's the way fathers are. 
 r The next morning, about four o'clock, me and 
 Swatty and Bony went down to see the circus un- 
 load. We saw it. And then we went up to the circus 
 grounds and saw the tent go up and everything. So 
 Bony said: 
 
 "Aw! Don't you wish you was going to the 
 circus?" 
 
 So I said he need n't be so smart, that I was going, 
 because I had a ticket. So then I remembered that I 
 had the twenty cents my mother had given me to 
 buy the ice cream with, only I had n't spent it be- 
 cause I came away so quick. So I told Swatty he 
 249
 
 SWATTY 
 
 could have the ticket, because I had twenty-five 
 cents to get into the circus with. So Swatty was 
 glad. He said he'd be my Dutch uncle as long as I 
 lived, and that the first dollar he saw rolling uphill 
 he 'd pay me back, if he could catch it. 
 
 Well, we walked downtown with the parade and 
 saw it, and walked back to the circus grounds with 
 it. Me and Swatty and Bony was the first to go into 
 the tent. We were right up against the rope when 
 the ticket taker let it down. So we hurried right 
 through, because a lot of folks was pushing behind 
 us. The ticket taker yelled something at us, but I 
 did n't hear what it was and we scooted for the 
 menagerie tent. 
 
 When we were looking at the ostriches in their 
 cage Swatty got close beside me and said: "Lookee 
 here!" 
 
 I I looked down, and he had his ticket in his hand 
 yet, because that was why the ticket taker had 
 yelled at us. Swatty had sneaked in without giving 
 his ticket. 
 
 "What did you do that for?" I said. 
 
 "Because I'm hungry," he said. 
 
 "You can't eat your ticket," I said. 
 
 "You wait and you'll see," he said, so then we 
 went into the big tent and we climbed up to the top 
 row. When we poked our heads out we could see 
 right down where the ticket taker was taking tickets 
 and all the people were crowding to get in. Right 
 down below us on the ground a bum, or tent man, 
 250
 
 THIEF! THIEF! 
 
 was asleep on his face with his arm under his head. 
 His coat was beside him. He was breathing hard. 
 
 So then Swatty leaned out as far as he could and 
 waved the ticket he had, and called out who wanted 
 to buy a ticket for a quarter. That was just like 
 Swatty anyhow. He was pretty slick. So pretty soon 
 a man said he'd buy the ticket, and he tossed a 
 quarter up to Swatty. With a quarter we could get 
 enough peanuts to keep alive until supper time. 
 
 Me and Swatty and Bony was just going to draw 
 our heads in when we saw Jimmy and Annie. I was 
 going to yell at them when I saw something that 
 made me forget to yell. Swatty saw it, too. 
 
 There was a man standing by the ropes that made 
 the narrow place people had to go through, but he 
 was outside of the ropes on our side, and just when 
 Jimmy came opposite him and got a step past him 
 his hand went out like a flash and something dropped 
 on the ground and the bum slid out his hand and 
 grabbed what had dropped, and slid it under the 
 coat and went on pretending he was asleep. The 
 man by the ropes had picked Jimmy's wallet out of 
 his pocket. 
 
 Well, I did n't know it, but Jimmy had all the 
 money he was going to buy a farm with in that 
 wallet. It was circus day, and he did n't dare leave 
 it at home, because of thieves; so he brought it with 
 him. 
 
 I did n't think of anything to do, and neither did 
 Bony, but Swatty did. He looked down, and then 
 
 251
 
 SWATTY 
 
 slid one leg and then the other over the wall of the 
 tent and hung there a second and looked down. He 
 hand-over-handed a reach or two and then gave 
 himself a sort of push and let go. He came down 
 right on the bum's head, straddle of his neck, and 
 yelled: "Police! Police!" Only he yelled it "Porlice! 
 Porlice!" like he always says it. I guess the bum 
 was surprised, but he reached up and grabbed 
 Swatty. 
 
 It was n't a fair fight, Swatty against a man, but 
 it was a good one while it lasted. Everybody on the 
 top seats stuck their heads out and yelled, and 
 everybody down where Swatty was came running. 
 One of the town cops was first the cross-eyed one 
 and he leveled a lick at the bum with his club and 
 caught Swatty across his breeches, and Swatty 
 yelled and let go of the bum. He could fight one bum 
 but he could n't fight a cross-eyed policeman with 
 a club, too. 
 
 The minute the bum got loose he dived under the 
 tent. We saw him scutter along under the seats, and 
 then we saw him come out away down the side of 
 the tent and scoot. The cross-eyed cop started after 
 him, but he never got him. 
 
 Swatty did n't run. He just stood on the bum's 
 coat, with his feet spread out, and in a minute 
 Jimmy and a lot of folks were crowded around 
 him. Then he lifted up the coat. We could see it all. 
 Under the coat was Jimmy's wallet and about six 
 more. Jimmy just dropped on his wallet and hugged 
 252
 
 THIEF! THIEF! 
 
 it. He sort of blubbered and did n't know what to 
 do, so he kissed Swatty, and Swatty hit out at him 
 and hit him in the chest. 
 
 By that time a circus man in uniform had come 
 up. He had a big hickory club, peeled, and he pushed 
 into the crowd. Behind him were four or five more 
 circus men, but they had tent stakes. 
 
 "What's this row?" he asked. 
 
 Somebody started to tell him. The man that took 
 the wallet from Jimmy was right there, and he 
 turned away. So I shouted out: 
 
 "Hey, mister! there's the man that took it." 
 
 The circus man looked around and the thief 
 started to hurry. He did n't have a chance to hurry 
 much. The circus man made one jump for him and 
 caught him by the collar and gave one jerk, and the 
 thief's coat and vest came off and his shirt ripped 
 right off him. The other circus men were on him. 
 If it had been me it would have killed me, but I guess 
 he was tough. 
 
 When I turned around Mr. Little was standing 
 right back of me. He had come up to see what it all 
 was, so he could put it in his paper. When he saw it 
 was me that had yelled, he said : 
 
 "Why, hello, it's our gallant cavalier! 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 did n't know who Swatty was, so I told him. 
 So when Swatty came in we went over into the re- 
 ?53
 
 SWATTY 
 
 served 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. All Mamie 
 Little ever said about my going home was : 
 
 "I guess you think you were pretty smart, going 
 home and letting Papa take me home and pay for 
 the ice cream!" 
 
 But that did n't hurt me any. Girls are always 
 saying things like that.
 
 XII 
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 WELL, vacation got over, and school started again, 
 and me and Swatty and Bony got promoted into 
 the A Class in Miss Carter's room, and so did Mamie 
 Little and Scratch-Cat. Lucy got promoted into 
 the B Class in Miss Carter's room, and she hated 
 Miss Carter. I guess the reason was because Miss 
 Carter got in love with Herb Schwartz when Fan 
 was mad at him. 
 
 Anyway Miss Carter heard Lucy tell somebody 
 that if Fan wanted Herb Miss Carter would never 
 have got him, and that anybody could catch a 
 second-hand fellow that a body had thrown away, 
 so Miss Carter and Lucy did n't like each other. 
 But I guess it was Lucy's fault, because I always 
 liked Miss Carter all right. Most always. 
 
 So school started again. Professor Martin came 
 back with only a limp in his leg and Herb Schwartz 
 stopped being a professor and was in Judge Hannan's 
 law office all the time. He began smoking a curved 
 pipe and wearing spectacles and his hair pompa- 
 dour, because he would pretty soon be a lawyer, and 
 he kept on going with Miss Carter, but I did n't 
 care, because Fan had stopped dying of love. She 
 was going with Tom Burton. 
 
 We liked Tom Burton good enough me and 
 
 255
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Swatty and Bony did until the time Dad Veek's 
 barn burned, but after that we did n't. We had it in 
 for him after that. 
 
 I guess old Dad Veek was a cabinet maker or 
 something. Anyway, he used to work in his barn 
 with a saw and a plane and he made a lot of shav- 
 ings. His barn was level, but to make it level it had 
 to be up on posts at the hind end because it was on 
 a side hill, and that made a kind of cave under it, 
 and sometimes me and Bony and Swatty, when we 
 got tired playing in the creek, or it was raining, or 
 we got cold skating, would go up there and maybe 
 smoke corn silk or maybe just talk. So we got all 
 the shavings old Dad Veek swept out of his barn, 
 and we made a kind of nest under the barn, and we 
 called it that the Nest. 
 
 Dad Veek did not like to have us under his barn, 
 because when we smoked corn silk the smoke would 
 go up between the boards of the floor and he would 
 come out and chase us. He did n't like us much, 
 anyway, [or any boys, because there were grape- 
 vines between his barn and his house and he thought 
 maybe when we thought he was n't around we 
 crawled through the fence and took some grapes. 
 And we did. But only when they were ripe and we 
 happened to be over there. 
 
 So one night his barn burned down. 
 
 I guess that don't sound like much, but it was a 
 good deal more than it sounds like. You don't know 
 about Toady Williams and the Red Avengers and 
 256
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 the fire insurance inspector yet. The fire insurance 
 inspector was a man who came over from Chicago 
 and said old Dad Veek had set the barn afire to get 
 the insurance money, and said he guessed he would 
 put old Dad Veek in jail for it, because there was too 
 much of that sort of thing just now, and it was time 
 to learn somebody a lesson. And I guess nobody 
 would have cared much if it had n't been for Mrs. 
 old Dad Veek. 
 
 The reason my mother felt sorry for Mrs. old 
 Dad Veek was because when my mother was a little 
 girl Mrs. old Dad Veek's name was Tilly, and she 
 worked for my mother's mother, and now she was a 
 dear old lady and it was too bad her husband was 
 going to jail. So she thought somebody ought to 
 bestir themselves. 
 
 Well, while my mother and the Ladies' Aid were 
 bestirring themselves me and Bony and Swatty and 
 Toady Williams were out in our barn, and I felt 
 pretty bad, because it was tough to have my mother 
 bestirring herself about that barn fire when the 
 chances were that I would be one she would bestir 
 into jail if she kept old Dad Veek out. Now you 
 know that much, you can see why we felt pretty sick 
 out there in my barn. 
 
 It was winter when old Dad Veek's barn burned 
 down, and it was about nine o'clock at night. I was 
 going to bed because I had been skating all day. 
 I wore boots to skate in, like all the fellows, and my 
 boots kind of wrinkled around the ankles and they 
 257
 
 SWATTYj 
 
 rubbed my ankles until they were raw. So about 
 eight o'clock I said, "Aw, come on, Swatty ! Let's go 
 home!" but he would n't. 
 
 "Well, if you won't go home with me I'm going 
 up to the Nest and I'll wait for you up there," I 
 said. 
 
 So then Toady came up, and he asked where I 
 was going and I told him I was going to the Nest, 
 and he said he was going to skate some more, but 
 Swatty and Bony said, "All right, we'll go up with 
 you awhile." They didn't take off their skates. 
 They walked up the hill to the barn on their skates 
 and we sat awhile in the Nest under old Dad Veek's 
 barn and smoked some corn-silk cigarettes. Then 
 Swatty and Bony wanted to skate some more, and 
 they did and after a while I went home. Gee! but 
 there was a raw spot on my ankle when I got my 
 boot off ! I was sitting on the edge of my bed looking 
 at it, about nine o'clock, when the fire-house bell 
 rang. Right away my mother came into my room 
 and said: 
 
 "George, there is a fire across the Square, and I 
 think it is Mr. Veek's barn. You can go if you want 
 to." 
 
 I hid my raw ankle, because if my mother knew it 
 was so bad she would n't let me skate any more until 
 it got well, and I pulled on my boot and went to the 
 fire. 
 
 There was a pretty big crowd there already and 
 the barn was burning bully. I found Swatty first and 
 258
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 then we found Bony, and we watched until the fire 
 burned out, and then we went home. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and when I got up I 
 told my mother I had a headache, like I always told 
 her Sunday mornings; but I had to go to Sunday 
 school just the same. After dinner I went over to the 
 ruins, and Swatty and Bony and Toady and a lot of 
 folks were there. It was good to see and smell. When 
 we got tired we went back to my yard, and it was 
 too cold to go into the barn, so we went up to my 
 room. As soon as the door was shut Swatty sat down 
 on the edge of my bed and said : 
 
 "Well, men, the Red Avengers have been true to 
 their oath! The enemy's property lies in ruins!" 
 
 You see it was like this: Me and Swatty and 
 Toady and Bony were the Red Avengers. Maybe 
 you never read the book "The Red Avengers, or 
 The Boy Heroes of the Trail" but it is a bully 
 book. It 's a dime lib'ry, and if it had n't been for 
 Toady we would never have had it. There was one 
 thing about Toady that was pretty good he had 
 lots of books. Dime lib'ry books. He got the new ones 
 as fast as they were printed, and he read them be- 
 hind his geography at school, and it was because he 
 had them that we got to read "The Red Avengers." 
 
 The Chief of the Red Avengers was a boy named 
 Dick, and when he was a young and tender nursling 
 his fond parents took him out West and they started 
 a ranch that covered almost a whole state. They had 
 millions of cattle, but a lot of Mexicans came and 
 259
 
 SWATTY 
 
 burned the ranch and Dick's parents were burned to 
 death and Dick only escaped by creeping into the 
 chaparral and hiding until he grew up into a sturdy 
 youthhood. So then the Mexicans had divided up 
 the ranch and had built houses and barns and things, 
 and when Dick asked for the ranch back they 
 laughed at him. So he got together a lot of true and 
 faithful youths and started the Red Avengers of the 
 Trail and whenever they came to one of the Mexican 
 houses or barns they burned it down. Whenever 
 anybody did anything mean to anybody in the band 
 of the Red Avengers, Dick wrote a note saying the 
 mean person's house would be burned at a certain 
 minute, and the note would appear mysteriously on 
 the door of the house. And the house burned down 
 just as the Red Avengers said it would, and right on 
 the minute. 
 
 So me and Swatty and Bony we started a Red 
 Avengers band. We swore a solemn oath never to 
 divulge the secrets of the band or to tell what any 
 of us did, and to follow the orders of the Chief, 
 whate'er might'betide. We had an election for Chief, 
 and me and Swatty and Bony each got one vote, so 
 we made Swatty the Chief. Swatty made us make 
 him. So I was elected Secretary and Bony was elected 
 Treasurer. The Secretary had to write the vengeance 
 warnings and keep track of them in a memorandum 
 book, so we would n't forget who we were going to 
 be revenged on. The Treasurer did n't have anything 
 to do. It was an easy job. 
 260
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 We did all that one day out in'our barn, and, just 
 when we had the Red Avengers all fixed up, in came 
 Toady. He wanted the dime lib'ry back. 
 
 "Aw! come on, Toady!" Swatty said. "Let us 
 keep it! You don't want it!" 
 
 "Yes, I want it," said Toady. 
 
 "All right for you, then, Toady!" Swatty said. 
 "I was going to tell you something, but if you're 
 going to be that mean I won't." 
 
 "What was it?" he asked. 
 
 " It 's all right what it was ! " said Swatty. "You '11 
 never know! Think we'd tell you when you want 
 your old dime lib'ry back? We won't ever tell him, 
 will we, George? Will we, Bony?" 
 
 So we said no, we would n't. 
 
 So then Toady looked at us and his eyes popped 
 out; but Swatty threw "The Red Avengers" book 
 at him. 
 
 "Take it!" he said. "We don't want it anyway. 
 We know everything that's in it and we don't need 
 it. Only, if your house burns down you'll know why. 
 Garsh ! here we were all ready to make you one of 
 the band, and give you the oath, and elect you 
 What were we going to elect him, George?" 
 
 "Librarian," I said. 
 
 "Yah!" said Swatty, as if Toady made him sick. 
 "That's the kind of a fellow you are!" 
 
 So Toady did n't know what to do. He picked up 
 the dime lib'ry and stood looking. So Swatty did n't 
 pay any attention to him. He said to me: 
 261
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Seckertary, write in the Book of Doom that the 
 first house the Red Avengers will burn down will be 
 Toady Williams's house, because he's a stingy-cat 
 and took his torn, old, no-good dime lib'ry away 
 from us!" 
 
 Toady looked awhile. Then he said: 
 
 "Oh, I did n't know you were going to make me a 
 librarian. I did n't know you were going to do that. 
 What do I have to do if I'm Librarian?" 
 
 "Why, you keep charge of the library," I said. 
 11 You take an oath to keep and preserve it, in that 
 starch box over there." 
 
 "And then you can be one of the band and take 
 the oath, and if anybody is mean to you we'll burn 
 their houses down," said Swatty. So Toady said all 
 right, he would be Librarian, and we gave him the 
 oath, and he put "The Red Avengers" in the starch 
 box, and we held a council. We talked about whose 
 houses the Red Avengers ought to burn down first. 
 
 I guess we all thought about Miss Carter first, 
 because she had kept us in school after hours that 
 very afternoon; but she lived in a boarding house 
 and we could n't burn down her room without burn- 
 ing down the rest of the house, so we thought we 
 would just record her in the book and wait until she 
 got married sometime, and had a house of her own, 
 and then burn that down. We thought of every- 
 body, but the one we thought was the meanest was 
 old Dad Veek. So we wrote his name at the top of 
 the list in my memorandum book, and we said we'd 
 262
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 burn his barn, and that we would do it at nine of 
 night on the eighteenth of December. I wrote the 
 letter of warning that was to be stabbed onto his 
 door with a dagger, because I was Secretary, and I 
 wrote the date of revenge in the memorandum book, 
 and we all went out and over to Veek's barn. 
 
 We hid in the dead weeds at the side of the road 
 and drew straws to see which of the Red Avengers 
 had to go up and dagger the warning onto old Dad 
 Veek's barn, and Bony drew the fatal straw ; but of 
 course he was afraid to do it, so Swatty did it ; He 
 sneaked through the fence into Veek's yard and up 
 to the barn door. He did n't have a dagger, so he took 
 a sort of splinter and ran it through the warning 
 and stuck the point in a crack in the door, and 
 scooted back to us. It was a daring deed, worthy of 
 our fearless Chief, and we received him with silent 
 cheers, because we had scarce hoped he would return 
 from his perilous mission alive. (That's from the 
 dime lib'ry book.) 
 
 Well, that was pretty good, and we felt bully. 
 I guess we would have gone ahead and put up some 
 more warnings another day, but it turned cold that 
 night and the skating got good and we forgot to be 
 Red Avengers. You can't be everything all the time. 
 We did n't think any more about it until the day 
 after the fire. That was the Sunday we were up /in 
 my room and Swatty said: 
 
 "Well, men, the Red Avengers have been true to 
 their oath! The enemy's property lies in ruins!" 
 263
 
 SWATTY 
 
 So I said: 
 
 "Yes, Chief, I carried out the orders of the band 
 to the fullest. My trusty torch has laid the vermin's 
 dwelling low." 
 
 "You?" said Swatty. "You did n't do it. I did it." 
 
 Toady was sitting on the window sill, and Bony 
 was in a chair looking at a magazine. Toady just 
 sat and popped his eyes at us. 
 
 "Aw, now!" he said, "you did n't burn that barn 
 down, either of you. You're just fooling." 
 
 Well, I guess that was a little too much for any- 
 body to say, especially when he was a member of the 
 Red Avengers himself. 
 
 " I did, too!" I said. "I took my oath to do it, and 
 I did it. Do you think I'd take my oath to do it, 
 and then not do it? 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 bam you'd do it. 
 Only I was the one that took the oath ; you was n'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! No won- 
 der you thought you did it, sneaking up at nine! 
 Now I know why you thought you did it, when I 
 was the one that really did it ! Why, I would n't wait 
 until nine when I had promised to set a barn afire at 
 nine. I 'd be afraid I might not get the match lit in 
 264
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 time, or something. I was there at a quarter of nine, 
 and I had the barn on fire long before nine." 
 
 Swatty kind of looked at me. 
 
 "Oh!" he saidi "Whereabouts did you set the 
 fire going?" 
 
 I thought a minute. 
 
 "Around at the far side, away from the road, 
 Chief," I said. 
 
 ' ' Well, then, no wonder ! ' ' said Swatty .- ' ' That f s 
 why I did n't see you doing it. I set the side toward 
 the road burning. So I guess I was the one that set 
 the barn afire first, because it would take you a long 
 time to go around the barn to the other side." 
 
 "Maybe we both set it afire at the same time," I 
 said. 
 
 "All right, maybe we did," Swatty said. 
 
 "Because," I said, "I ain't going to be cheated 
 out of having set it afire by you or anybody, Swatty, 
 when I went to all the trouble I did." 
 
 "I know," said Swatty, "but you can't say I 
 did n't set it afire, either, because when I was walk- 
 ing down to the creek from the West I turned my 
 ankle and had to take my skates off and limp home. 
 Ain't that so, Bony?" Bony said yes, it was. "And 
 Bony thought I had really sprained my ankle," 
 said Swatty, "but you know what I was up to. 
 Throw 'em all off the track! Be alone so I could do 
 the deed!" 
 
 "Well, I guess we both did it at the same time," 
 I said, and Swatty said he guessed we did, so that 
 265
 
 SWATTY 
 
 settled it. But when Swatty got ready to go home I 
 whispered to him: 
 
 "You did n't really do it, did you?" 
 
 "No," he said, "I just wanted to make Toady 
 and Bony think I did. I was in my kitchen putting 
 arnica on my ankle. Did you really do it?" 
 f "Of course I did n't!" I said. "I was up here in 
 my bedroom looking at my raw ankle. But we won't 
 let on." 
 
 "Sure not!" said Swatty. 
 
 Well, pretty soon some of the fellows or some- 
 body began saying maybe old Dad Veek would have 
 to go to jail for setting his own barn afire, like I 
 told you in the beginning. Then, after while, I heard 
 my mother say to my father, that some of the 
 Ladies' Aid ladies were bestirring themselves because 
 they were sure that old Dad Veek would n't set his 
 own barn afire, and they had asked Tom Burton to 
 help them and he was helping. But one day we were 
 up in my barn me and Swatty and Bony and 
 Toady came up. 
 
 He came up the stairs far enough to see into the 
 hayloft, then he stopped and when we saw him he 
 came on up. I said: 
 
 "Hello, Toady!" 
 
 "Hello! "he said. 
 
 "What do you want? " I asked, because he had n't 
 been playing with us much. 
 
 "Oh, I just thought I'd get my dime lib'ry," he 
 said. "You don't want it any more, do you?" 
 266
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 "No, we don't want it," I said, and he went to 
 the starch box and got it, and he came over to where 
 we were, and he said: "I guess you have n't set any 
 more barns afire, have you?" 
 
 "What barns?" Swatty asked. 
 
 "Well, you did set one afire, didn't you?" said 
 Toady. "You and George set Veek's afire, didn't 
 you?" 
 
 Swatty stood up then, all right! He stood up and 
 folded his fists. 
 
 "Who said we set Veek's barn afire?" he asked, 
 and he was pretty mad. But I was n't; I was just 
 scared. It 's incenderyism, or something like that, if 
 you set a barn afire, and you get sent to reform 
 school for life. 
 
 , ' ' Who said it ? I did n't say it," said Toady. ' ' You 
 said it. You and George said you did." 
 
 Well, of course I had n't been lying when I told 
 Toady and Swatty and Bony how I had set Dad 
 Veek's barn afire, but I had just been fooling. So I 
 said: 
 
 "Aw! I never said no such thing! I never either 
 said I set it afire. Swatty said he set it afire. I 
 could n't have set it afire, because I was sitting on 
 my bed when it got afire." 
 
 So Swatty got mad. I guess he wanted to lick 
 somebody, but he did n't know whether to lick me 
 or to lick Toady. 
 
 "Aw! I never either said I set it afire!" he said. 
 4 'If anybody set it afire George did, because I 
 267
 
 SWATTY 
 
 was home, putting arnica on me, when the fire 
 started." 
 
 "Well, you said you did," I said. "You said so 
 right up in my room. You did so." 
 
 "I did not! You said you did." 
 
 "I did not! I never said anything like it. If any- 
 body said he set Veek's barn afire, Swatty said it." 
 
 "Aw! I did not!" Swatty said. "You said it. You 
 said it. You said you took a torch, and went around 
 to the far side and set the barn afire. I heard you 
 say it. And you said I could n't have set the barn 
 afire because you had it all afire before I got there. 
 Did n't he say that, Toady?" 
 
 Well, I guess Toady knew mighty well that if he 
 was going to get mallered for saying either of us 
 said it he had better say I said it, because Swatty 
 could lick any of us. So he said I did say it. 
 
 So I went for him and mallered him as much as I 
 could. I got so mad I cried, and I guess I kicked him. 
 Not Swatty, Toady. So when I got tired I was still 
 mad, and I sat down on a box and cried. Then 
 Toady sneaked over to the stairs and went part way 
 down, and just before he was out of sight he looked 
 back. 
 
 "Cry-baby!" he said, and that meant me. Then 
 he said: "All right, you'd better look out! You both 
 said you did it, and you both said you said it, and 
 Dad Veek 's got that Red Avengers' notice you fas- 
 tened on his barn door and Tom Burton knows all 
 about it." 
 
 268
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 Gee, we were scared! I was so scared I didn't 
 throw anything at Toady, and Swatty was so scared 
 he just said: "Garsh!" and stood there. Well, me 
 and Swatty we talked it over. 
 
 We knew we had n't set the barn afire, but we 
 knew we had said we had, and we knew old Dad 
 Veek would do 'most anything to keep out of jail, 
 and that my mother and the Ladies' Aid ladies were 
 bestirring. So then we knew why Toady had come 
 up to get us to say again we had done it; he was 
 one of the Red Avengers and unless we said we had 
 set the barn afire ourselves all the Red Avengers 
 would be sent to reform school, and he wanted to 
 get out of it and had gone and told Tom Burton 
 about us and the Red Avengers and that we had set 
 the barn afire. 
 
 "Garsh!" said Swatty, "he took the memoran- 
 dum book you had old Veek's barn wrote down at 
 the top of the list of!" 
 
 And he had ! So Bony sort of doubled down in his 
 corner and cried, but me and Swatty sat down on a 
 box to think and talk and see what we had better do. 
 
 Well, the way Tom Burton had gone to work to 
 help my mother and the Ladies' Aid ladies who were 
 bestirring themselves, was this: He found out that 
 the reason old^Dad Veek had so much insurance was 
 because he was a slow worker, and sometimes he 
 had the barn almost full of stuff he was working on, 
 and then it was worth as much as it was insured for. 
 So that helped some. Then old Dad Veek showed 
 269
 
 SWATTY 
 
 him the Red Avengers' warning Swatty had fastened 
 on his barn door, and that was pretty bad, because 
 the time it said the barn would burn down was the 
 time it did burn. 
 
 I guess he might have thought it was some men 
 or something, if it had n't been for the name of the 
 Red Avengers. It sounded like boys. So Tom Burton 
 found out there was a dime lib'ry named "The Red 
 Avengers," because one was hanging in Toady 
 Williams's father's store window, and then he knew 
 it was boys. So he asked Toady Williams if he 
 knew anything about it, and Toady went and told 
 him. He told him me and Swatty and Bony was 
 the Red Avengers and that we had set the barn 
 afire. 
 
 We found all that out mighty soon, because it 
 was n't half an hour after Toady went out of the 
 bam before Tom Burton came up. The tattle-tale 
 had gone right to him. 
 
 Tom Burton came up and he stood and talked to 
 us. He told us he knew all about the Red Avengers 
 and that he had our memorandum book with Dad 
 Veek's name in it and everything, and that he knew 
 who had written the memorandum book, and the 
 notice that was daggered on Dad Veek's door, and 
 everything, and he asked us which one of us done it. 
 Gee, I was scared! But none of us said anything. 
 Maybe we were too scared to. 
 
 So then he said, "All right! it will only be a little 
 while before all will be known, and the one that did 
 270
 
 THE RED AVENGERS 
 
 it will surely be sent to reform school, so the other 
 two, that did n't do it, had better tell on the one 
 that did do it." 
 
 But none of us said anything. So he talked awhile 
 and then he went away. Me and Bony did n't say 
 anything. 
 
 "Garsh!" Swatty said. "It's mighty bad." 
 
 Me and Bony did n't say anything yet. We was 
 too scared. Bony began to blubber. 
 
 "You don't need to cry," Swatty told him. "You 
 ain't going to be sent to reform school. You did n't 
 do it." 
 
 "Well well," Bony blubbered. "You and 
 Georgie did n't do it, either." 
 
 "Well, it don't matter whether we did it or did 
 n't do it," Swatty said. " We wrote down that we 
 were going to do it, and they 've got the warning and 
 the memorandum book, and we both said we'd done 
 it ourselves, and we both said the other had done it, 
 and I guess they'll send us to reform school." Bony 
 kept on blubbering, so we told him he had better 
 go home if he was a cry-baby, and he went. So then 
 Swatty said: 
 
 "I guess it ain't much use; but we've got to say, 
 no matter how they ask us, that we ain't the Red 
 Avengers." 
 
 " That 'd be a lie," I said. 
 
 "Well, no, it wouldn't," said Swatty, "because 
 there won't be any Red Avengers, and we'll say, 
 'No, we ain't!' and that'll be the truth, because we 
 271
 
 SWATTY 
 
 won't be then. We'll bust up the Red Avengers 
 right now." 
 
 So we took a vote and voted that we were not the 
 Red Avengers any more and that we never had been 
 the Red Avengers. So that settled that, but it did n't 
 make us feel much better. We sat and thought 
 awhile and then Swatty said: 
 
 "I know! Georgie, you can ask Fan to tell Tom 
 Burton to let us go free." 
 
 "Aw! that won't do any good," I said. '"* 
 
 And I did n't think it would, but Swatty said it 
 was our only chance, so I said I would ask Fan, and 
 I did. I hated to, but I did it.
 
 XIII 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 FIRST, of course, I made Fan promise she would 
 never tell, hope to die and cross her heart, and she 
 promised, and then I told her all about the Red 
 Avengers and how, if we did set Dad Veek's barn 
 afire we didn't mean to, and she said she would 
 talk to Tom Burton about it, but she said Tom 
 Burton was stubborn and she would have to wait 
 until she had the right chance. She was nicer than 
 she had ever been to me. 
 
 "Have you told anybody else?" she asked me.' 
 
 "No," I said. 
 
 "Did Swatty tell his brother Herbert? " she asked. 
 
 "No. Nobody has told anybody," I said. 
 
 Well, me and Swatty felt pretty bad and scared 
 and sick, and one reason was that Bony stopped 
 playing with us. His father found out about the 
 Red Avengers and made him promise he would n't 
 play with me and Swatty any more because we were 
 bad boys and would ruin Bony. So we never expected 
 to play with Bony again, but we did, and this was 
 how it happened. 
 
 Bony's father and mother used to fight like every- 
 body else, and about bills, because they were having 
 a fight like that when Bony's father took the shot- 
 gun and went away from home. I guess it was a hat 
 273
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Bony's mother had bought that was the worst, but 
 Bony was n't sure. He said they began to fight when 
 the grocery bill came and fought harder and harder 
 the more bills there were, but it was n't until the 
 hat bill came that Bony's father stopped sassing 
 back, and got solemn and quiet and said that some- 
 times he felt that it was no use trying to keep up 
 the struggle against poverty and starvation, and 
 that sometimes when these evidences of extrava- 
 gance came in he felt just like going off somewhere 
 by himself and ending everything. So then Bony's 
 mother said, "Oh! nonsense!" and pretty soon 
 Bony's father got his shotgun and went out of the 
 house. 
 
 So Bony just sat there in the room expecting every 
 minute to hear the shotgun and to run out and see 
 his father dead in the stable. He sat there and pre- 
 tended to be studying his geography lesson for Mon- 
 day, but all he was doing was listening to hear the 
 shot. It was a mighty mean job, I guess, sitting 
 there listening like that, and waiting to hear his 
 father kill himself; but he did n't hear anything. 
 
 So pretty soon he shut up his book and sort of 
 tiptoed out of the house, but he did not dare go near 
 the stable. He did n't know what to do. He went 
 out on the front steps and stood there, and pretty 
 soon he saw me and Swatty at the corner, and he 
 waved to us and came running, and we waited for 
 him. 
 
 It was January, but it was n't cold because we 
 274
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 were having a thaw. It was good snow to make 
 snowballs of, so when Bony started to come toward 
 us we made a few snowballs and just threw them at 
 him. I guess we hit him five or six times, but he 
 didn't beller for us to stop, like he usually does; he 
 put his arm in front of his face and came right on. 
 When he got too close for us to throw at him any 
 more we stopped and then we saw he was crying. 
 
 "Aw, shut up and don't be a baby!" Swatty said; 
 "we didn't hurt you." But Bony kept right on 
 bawling. He did n't bawl the way a cowardy-calf 
 bawls when he gets hurt, he bawled like well, I 
 guess he bawled like a fellow bawls when his father 
 has gone off with a shotgun to shoot himself. So then 
 we did n't tell him to shut up any more. Swatty 
 said: 
 
 "What's the matter, Bony?" 
 
 So then Bony put his arm up against a tree and 
 cried into it, and after he had cried awhile he said: 
 
 "My my fath-father's out in the barn sh- 
 shooting himself with his shotgun!" 
 
 "He ain't neither!" Swatty said, and I said it too. 
 
 "He is, too, killing himself!" Bony said, and he 
 blubbered at the same time. "You need n't think, 
 just because your fath-fathers don't kill themselves, 
 nobody else's father never kik-kills himself! My fa- 
 father said he'd kik-kill himself, and if he said so he 
 w-will!" 
 
 1 ' Aw ! He ain't neither killing himself in the barn ! ' ' 
 Swatty said, and I guess that made Bony mad, be- 
 275
 
 SWATTY . 
 
 cause it was like saying Bony's father was a liar, 
 or that Bony was, anyway. Mostly Bony would n't 
 fight, no matter what you said, because he's a cow- 
 ardy-calf ; but I guess when a fellow's father is killing 
 himself in a barn or anywhere he don't care what 
 happens to him, so Bony was so mad he forgot how 
 easy Swatty could lick him, and he sort of howled 
 like a cat when you step on its tail and he pitched 
 into Swatty with both fists. So Swatty had to lick 
 him. He licked him good. So when Swatty had him 
 down and was sitting on him, Swatty said: 
 
 "Now is your father killing himself in the 
 barn?" 
 
 "Yes, he is!" Bony blubbered, and then we knew 
 that Bony's father was really going to kill himself, 
 because if Bony had n't been pretty sure he would 
 have said he was n't, because he knew how Swatty 
 can push a fellow's nose into his face with the bot- 
 tom 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 did n'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?" 
 
 "I know it because him and Mother was fighting 
 over bills, and he said he would," Bony said. 
 
 So then Swatty said, aw! he did n't believe any- 
 body would kill himself because he was fighting 
 276
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 over bills. He said he did n'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. So Swatty said, aw! well, 
 his oldest brother could lick my father, anyway. So 
 I said he'd better try it if he wanted to find out, 
 and Swatty said, Aw! And I guess that's all we said 
 about that. 
 
 Anyway, it did n't seem to make Bony feel any 
 better that his father had taken his shotgun and 
 had gone off somewhere else to kill himself instead 
 of killing himself right at home in the barn. He kept 
 right on with a kind of whine-blubber, even when 
 Swatty and me were jawing, so Swatty said: 
 
 "Aw! what you bellerin' about?" 
 
 "I'll I'll beller if I want to," Bony said. "I 
 guess you'd beller if your father was going to kill 
 himself, you would." 
 
 "I would not so!" Swatty said. " What's the use 
 of bellerin' when you can't do nothing about it? If 
 he's going to kill himself, he's going to, and you 
 can't help it. If my father was going to do what you 
 said your father was going to do I 'd let him do it, 
 and I would n't spoil everybody's fun by bawling 
 about it. I'd just go ahead and play like nothing 
 277
 
 SWATTY 
 
 was going to happen, until I had to go in and dress 
 for the funeral." 
 
 Well, I guess that was n't a very good thing for 
 Swatty to say, because it made Bony blubber more 
 than ever. So then Swatty got sore and disgusted 
 and he said : 
 
 "Aw! shut up, then, and we'll go and find your 
 father and take the shotgun away from him, if you 're 
 going to be a baby about it!" 
 
 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 would n't care who he took a shotgun 
 away from if he got mad because somebody bellered 
 about nothing. So we knew he'd do it if we went 
 along. So we went along. 
 
 When we saw Bony's father go by with the shot- 
 gun he was going toward downtown, so me and 
 Bony and Swatty started toward downtown, and we 
 talked about where Bony's father would probably 
 go to kill himself if he did n't want to kill himself in 
 his barn, and none of us thought he would go down- 
 town to do it because somebody might see him start 
 to do it and stop him. So we talked about it and we 
 made up our minds we would go over into the Illi- 
 nois bottom, across the Mississippi, because a man 
 once went over there to kill himself, and did it and 
 nobody bothered him while he was doing it or knew 
 about it until afterward. 
 
 278
 
 f THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 Of course the ferry was n't running, but it was 
 easy enough for Bony's father to get across the river 
 because the ice was frozen and the river was closed 
 and he could go over on the ice. 
 
 We went down to the river. There was a good deal 
 of water on the ice in some places, and the snow was 
 mushy everywhere on it and it was pretty bad 
 walking. I guess you know what the river is like 
 when it is closed. There is a lot of snow on it because 
 nobody shovels it off, and they could n't if they 
 tried, because the river is three quarters of a mile 
 wide there, and there 's no place to shovel the snow 
 to, and it 's just as good right where it is as it would 
 be anywhere else. 
 
 But before the thaw comes the snow blows off 
 some of the smooth places and banks up against the 
 rough places on the ice in drifts. The river don't 
 freeze over all at once the ice floats down and 
 jams and stops and the bare places between freeze 
 over; but when the ice jams, it crumples up on the 
 edges and makes ridges, and it is where the ridges 
 are that the snow banks up into drifts. Sometimes 
 the drifts are all around a smooth sheet of ice, and 
 then when the snow begins to melt, the smooth ice 
 turns into a sort of pond, and maybe the water on 
 top of the ice is an inch deep and maybe it is more. 
 
 Here and there there are air holes, because I guess 
 a river has to breathe like anybody else and the 
 air holes are where it breathes. They are different 
 sizes. 
 
 279
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Well, the road across the river on the ice is always 
 crooked. The farmers over in Illinois make the road 
 to bring over cordwood and hay and stuff, because 
 they can bring it over on the ice free and it costs 
 twenty-five cents a load when the ferry is running. 
 
 So the first farmer that dares drive across on the 
 ice starts out from the Illinois shore, and he starts 
 straight, but pretty soon he has to curve around a 
 drift, and then he has to curve around an air hole, 
 and then he has to go around a piece of ice that looks 
 thin, and by the time he has got to town he has 
 made a crooked road; and the next farmer drives 
 in the same path, because the first farmer's horses' 
 shoes have roughed it up a little and made it easier 
 to travel. 
 
 So that is how the road gets made, and before 
 very long it gets to be quite a road. It gets dark and 
 dirty from the horses and the dirt off the cordwood 
 and maybe some coal the farmers take home, and 
 there are wisps of hay all along, rubbed off loads 
 when they passed other teams. 
 
 By the time the thaw comes, a good deal of the 
 river in front of town gets so you know how it looks, 
 just like the town itself. The wood road goes zig- 
 zagging across, and maybe if it is a cold winter 
 the trotting-horse men have a speed track on the 
 ice that is different from the wood road and marked 
 off to show a mile. Wagon loads of waste stuff get 
 dumped on the ice in piles and maybe a dozen or 
 two dozen dead horses. You get so you know how it 
 280
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 looks, and you get to feeling as if the river had al- 
 ways been frozen over and had always looked like 
 that. Maybe you have names for things, so anybody 
 like Swatty or Bony knows what you mean when 
 you say: "You know, where the wood road comes 
 nearest to the horseshoe air hole." 
 
 Well, it was pretty mushy when we started across 
 the river. It was warm, too, warm enough to make 
 us sweat ; but there was a good breeze blowing from 
 the Illinois shore and it was n't as warm as it might 
 have been. But, anyway, it was warm. Swatty 
 showed us where to go. He went first and we went 
 behind him, and pretty soon we were far off the 
 wood road because wherever there was a drier place 
 he went that way. 
 
 When we got out toward the middle of the river, 
 away from the town dirt, I wished we had n't come. 
 Out there the ice had n't been cut up by being skated 
 on, and there were whole big places where the ice 
 was perfectly smooth and green and clear, and with 
 the snow water on top of it we could n't tell whether 
 it was ice or air hole. We had to walk on the snow 
 close to the ridges, because there we knew there 
 was ice under us, even if we did wade through slush 
 up to our knees. It was scary enough for anybody 
 and Bony began to cry. 
 
 I guess we would have gone back if it had n't 
 
 been for Swatty, and even Swatty did n't tell Bony 
 
 to shut up and stop crying. I guess Swatty felt pretty 
 
 scared himself. You could n't see anybody on the 
 
 281
 
 SWATTY 
 
 ice anywhere ; we were the only ones. I guess every- 
 body was afraid to go on the ice, it was getting so 
 rotten. That 's what I thought then, but it was n't 
 the reason; Swatty knew the real reason, but he 
 did n't tell us then because he was afraid we would 
 be more scared than we were. Nobody was on the 
 ice because they were afraid it might go out any 
 minute. 
 
 So all Swatty did was to say, "Hurry up!" be- 
 cause he was afraid if we did n't hurry up maybe the 
 ice would go out before we got across, and nobody 
 likes to get drowned in ice water. 
 So pretty soon we came to a place where there 
 was n't any snow and where there were no ridges 
 nothing but clear ice with water on it, and the wind 
 making little ripples. 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 could n'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 did n'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. I'll dare you to come!" 
 
 But we did n't. So Swatty said: 
 282
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 "I double tribble dare you, and whoever don't 
 take the dare is a sooner!" 
 
 Well, a sooner was the worst thing anybody could 
 call you ; even Bony would fight if you called him a 
 sooner, but we did n't care what he called us ; but 
 just then we heard a gun go off over in the woods, 
 and before either of us could stop him Bony started. 
 He ran right out on the wet ice, crying and blubber- 
 ing, and he fell down in the water and got up again 
 and ran on. Every little while he would fall down, 
 but he would get right up and run again. The water 
 was almost up to his knees, but he did n't care. I 
 guess he kind of liked his father and wanted to get 
 to him. 
 
 Swatty shouted and told him to stop and come 
 back, or anyway to wait for us, but Bony ran right 
 on. Swatty shouted: 
 
 "Hey, Bony! come back, I was only fooling! Your 
 father ain't going to kill himself." 
 
 Because Swatty knew Bony's father was n't going 
 to kill himself, but he was afraid Bony would be 
 drowned. He just wanted us to cross the river be- 
 cause nobody had ever crossed it when the ice was 
 so rotten and we would be the first that ever did it, 
 and he knew we would n't do it unless we thought 
 we were going to save Bony's father, or something. 
 So all we could do was to go after Bony, and we did. 
 We waded through the water after Bony, and I was 
 glad Bony had gone first because we were sure there 
 was no air hole where Bony had been ahead of us. 
 283
 
 SWATTY 
 
 But I made Swatty give me his hand anyway. I 
 did n't like it much. I did n't like it any. 
 
 Well, we got across, and before we got across 
 Bony had reached the shore ice. It was pretty rotten 
 and it rubbered down under him, and if he had n't 
 been running so fast I guess he would have broken 
 through. Then he stopped and looked, because be- 
 tween him and the shore was a wide open space 
 no ice, nothing but water. He just stopped and 
 looked, and then looked back at us and then he ran 
 to the edge of the ice, and it broke under him and he 
 was in water up to his arms. It was because there 
 was a long sandbar reached out from the shore 
 there; if not he would have been drowned. 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 I Pwaw-pvfa I ' ' 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. It 
 was toward down-river and not near us at all. Bony 
 heard it, too, and he stopped to listen and we caught 
 up with him. I guess he was as good as crazy, be- 
 cause when we got to him he started to run, and he 
 ran right into a grapevine tangle and began pulling 
 284
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 and pushing through it, although he could have 
 taken ten steps and have gone around it. I guess he 
 must have liked his father a lot to get so crazy about 
 him. Swatty went right after him. He swore at him 
 in German and told him that the way was to go out 
 on the shore where the sand was, so he could run 
 faster. So Bony went and we went, too, and we all 
 ran. 
 
 We did n't say much. Swatty kept telling Bony 
 what kind of a fool he was for thinking his father 
 was going to kill himself, and Bony kept sobbing and 
 running. I guess maybe I cried a little, too. I felt 
 kind of I don't know frightened, I guess. So 
 then we got around the bend, and all at once we 
 saw Bony's father. 
 
 He was out on the ice. When we saw him first he 
 was about as far out on the ice as two blocks would 
 be, and he had on his rubber boots and his hunting 
 coat, and it looked bulged around the pockets, so 
 me and Swatty knew he had been hunting and had 
 got two rabbits, or maybe three. We guessed that 
 what had 'happened was that when he got sick of 
 fighting about bills he went hunting, to forget about 
 it, because Swatty's father when he felt that way 
 went down to his tailor shop and sewed coats or 
 pants, and when my father felt that way he would 
 go out and split wood or maybe clean out the barn. 
 But I guess Bony's father thought he'd go hunting. 
 I guess maybe he thought he'd like to kill something. 
 
 When we saw him out on the ice he was walking
 
 SWATTY 
 
 fast, or sort of running, going toward the Iowa 
 shore, but that was n't what scared us. What scared 
 us was that the ice was moving ! 
 *&We did n't see it at first. Bony was yelling at his 
 father, and \ his father heard him and turned and 
 looked back, and then started to run toward us. 
 Where we were, at the bend, the ice came close in to 
 the, high bank and on the ice there was a limb of a 
 big tree. Somebody had made a fire under it and it 
 was partly burned. Bony ran up and down the bank 
 looking for a good place to climb down, but Swatty 
 was going to slide down right there and let his feet 
 get on that old dead limb. But when Bony's father 
 saw Bony running up and down he shouted to Jim, 
 "Back! Back!" Swatty looked at Bony's father to 
 see why he*was shouting that. Then he looked down 
 at the old limb again. It had moved along! 
 
 Well, you bet he was frightened for a minute ! He 
 was n't thinking of the ice, he was thinking of that 
 dead branch, and for a dead branch to s^art and 
 move like that is n't natural. He felt the way you 
 feel when you go to pick up a stick and it is a live 
 snake. For a minute he just stood and held his 
 breath and was scared, and then he saw it was n't 
 the dead limb that was moving but the ice, and he 
 grabbed my' arm and pointed. And just then the 
 fire-whistle on the waterworks over in town began 
 to blow. 
 
 That was a sure sign the ice was going out. It was 
 to let folks know so they could come down and see 
 286
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 the ice go out because, you bet, it is worth seeing. 
 You can't tell what the ice will do when it starts to 
 go out. 
 
 So then we knew the ice must be going out faster 
 on the Iowa side than on our side. What Bony's 
 father was trying to say and do was to tell us to keep 
 off the ice, and to get off it himself; but he did not 
 have to tell us much because before he got close 
 enough for us to hear him much the ice was making 
 such a noise we could n't hear him at all. And he 
 could n't get off ! The ice began to pile up against the 
 upper side of the bend, shearing itself off and sliding 
 on top of itself and leaving a big open space below 
 the bend. 
 
 Well, I guess Bony cried then ! And he had some- 
 thing to cry about that time. His father came run- 
 ning as near as he could to us, but it was n't very- 
 near, because the ice near shore was cracking up 
 into big pieces. He ran up-stream on the ice, shout- 
 ing to us all the time, but the ice was going down- 
 stream, and at last it floated down so there was an 
 air hole opposite us and he had to stop. I say he had 
 to stop, but he kept going, because the ice carried 
 him on down the river. He looked all around, and 
 then waved his arm at us and started to run toward 
 the Tow Head. 
 
 The Tow Head is a big island in the river but 
 
 nearer Iowa than Illinois, where we were. The wind 
 
 was pushing the ice over that way, and I guess he 
 
 thought maybe he could get off the ice on the Tow 
 
 287
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Head if he could get there before the ice carried 
 him by. 
 
 Bony's father ran around the air hole and kept 
 running up and across, and he ran hard; but by 
 that time the ice was going pretty fast, so me and 
 Swatty and Bony got down to the sand and ran 
 down-stream as fast as we could. Or maybe not as 
 fast as we could; we kept even with Bony's father. 
 He was running up-stream but he was going down- 
 stream all the time. 
 
 Pretty soon the old race track the men had made 
 on the ice went by, and then the end of the wood 
 road went by. It was funny to think that me and 
 Bony and Swatty were running one way and Bony's 
 father the other way, and that we kept right oppo- 
 site each other. But it was n't very funny, because 
 we all thought Bony's father would be drowned. 
 
 Well, the ice went past the Tow Head. It went 
 past before Bony's father was halfway to the Tow 
 Head, and he stopped running and stood still. Then 
 he turned and started to run toward us again. 
 
 On our side of the river the water between the 
 shore and the ice was getting wider and wider, be- 
 cause the river was wider here and because the wind 
 was blowing the ice toward the Iowa shore. If I had 
 been Bony's father I would have run for the Iowa 
 shore because the ice was pushing up against it, but 
 it would have been foolish because the Tow Head 
 was like a knife and split all the ice as it came to it. 
 Nobody could get across from where Bony's father 
 288
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 was to the Iowa shore, but I did not think of that. 
 But Bony's father did. So did Swatty. He said so 
 afterward. He said he would have done just what 
 Bony's father did. 
 
 Bony was crying, of course, and he was running in 
 front, because he wanted to see his father drowned if 
 he was drowned, I guess. I was next, but Swatty was 
 behind because he had stopped to look, and that 
 was the way we were when we came to the mouth of 
 the First Slough. The ice was rubbery, but Bony and 
 me ran across and up the bank and in through the 
 woods you have to, there and kept right on as 
 soon as we came out on the shore. 
 
 Bony's father was getting nearer and nearer, but 
 the stretch of water was getting wider. It was too 
 wide for anybody to swim, of course. I felt kind of 
 sick. I don't know why I guess it was because* I 
 thought, all at once, that I was running like that 
 just to see a man drown in the river, and it made me 
 sick. I shouted to Bony, but he kept on running and 
 then I looked at Bony's father. 
 
 He was still running, but he had his hand in the 
 air and he was waving a white handkerchief, and 
 then he put it in his pocket and just ran. Pretty soon 
 I looked back for Swatty, and I saw him ! 
 
 He^was n't on the shore. He but that 's what 
 Swatty is like. He was in a skiff, rowing as hard as 
 he could toward the ice ! 
 
 Bony and me had run across the First Slough 
 without thinking of anything but hurrying up, but 
 289
 
 SWATTY 
 
 Swatty, when he came to the Slough, thought, 
 "Well, if anybody has a boat around here they 
 would haul it into the Slough where the river ice 
 would n't sweep it away or crush it." So he just took 
 a look, and there was a skiff. It was hauled up under 
 a tree and padlocked to the tree. It looked as if it 
 was there for good and all, but when Swatty looked 
 at the boat the chain was just stapled into the boat 
 and all he did was pry out the staple with a piece of 
 driftwood. There were no oarlocks, but you can 
 make a thole pin with a piece of wood, and that was 
 what Swatty did. He made thole pins with pieces 
 of driftwood and he pried the skiff down to the 
 ice and slid it to the river, and then he jumped in 
 and began rowing with two pieces of driftwood for 
 oars. 
 
 I shouted to Bony and he stopped, and we turned 
 back and ran. Swatty was n't trying to keep up with 
 the ice, he was trying to get to it any way he could, 
 and he was having a pretty hard time of it. First one 
 thole pin broke and then the other and he had to 
 paddle. I thought he 'd never reach the ice. 
 
 Even Bony stopped crying. 
 
 Well, Swatty got to the ice, but he could n't land 
 on it. He just sort of hugged it with the boat, and 
 Bony and me had to run again to keep even with 
 him. Then Bony's father came to the edge of the ice 
 and tried it carefully with his foot, but it was firm 
 because all the weak ice had been scraped off at the 
 bend. So all he did was to get into the boat. It was 
 290
 
 THE ICE GOES OUT 
 
 easy. Then he took one of the pieces of driftwood 
 and helped Swatty paddle. 
 
 So then everything was all right and Bony's father 
 was n't drowned or had n't shot himself or anything, 
 so Bony began to cry again. 
 
 It took us a long time to get the boat back where it 
 belonged and a longer time to walk back to opposite 
 the town. It was dark when we got there and the ice 
 was still going by, and we knew it might be a week 
 before we could get across the river again ; but all at 
 once we heard a rifle or a shotgun across the river, 
 and then Bony's father fired his, and that let them 
 know he was all right. So then we all worked and 
 built a big driftwood fire and when it was burning 
 we walked in front of it one, two, three, four, and 
 then back again: one, two, three, four. We hoped 
 they could see there were four of us and that we were 
 all right. 
 
 And they did, because right away somebody shot 
 off a pistol one, two, three, four. That meant they 
 knew there were four of us. 
 
 Well, it was two days before we could get across 
 the river again, but we got our meals at a house up 
 on the bluff and slept in their barn, and it was good 
 enough fun. 
 
 When Bony got home his father said: 
 
 "Mother, look at this young hero! If it hadn't 
 been for those boys I would be dead this minute. 
 Now, stop crying over him, and go and make him 
 the biggest lemon meringue pie he ever saw!" 
 291
 
 SWATTY 
 
 So I guess Bony felt all right. But when I got 
 home Mother said: 
 
 "Well, thank goodness you 're back! That child 
 Mamie Little has pestered the life out of me ever 
 since you went away. For mercy's sake, run over and 
 tell her you're home again!" 
 
 That was all right, but the best was that Bony's 
 father was n't mad at us any more and he talked 
 with us about Dad Veek's barn. He was pretty 
 solemn about it, and when we had told him all we 
 wanted to he said it looked serious, but he would 
 help us all he could, and the first thing he did was to 
 go to Judge Hannan's office and see Herb Schwartz. 
 So he found that Herb was already bestirring him- 
 self, but when Bony's father talked to him he said he 
 would bestir himself more than ever.
 
 XIV 
 HERB BESTIRS 
 
 WELL, the first thing Herb Schwartz did was to ask 
 me and Swatty to go down to Judge Hannan's office 
 after school one day and we went. Bony did n't go 
 because Herb did n't want him to, and when we 
 went in the office Herb was sitting at a desk and he 
 turned around in his chair and told us to sit down. 
 So we did. We thought maybe the first thing he 
 would tell us was that we were doomed and plumb 
 goners, and how many years we'd have to be in 
 reform school, but he did n't. He looked at me and 
 said: 
 
 "Well, George, how is your sister Frances?" 
 
 "She's pretty good, I guess," I told him. 
 
 "That's nice," he said. "And how do you like 
 having that Burton fellow of hers bestirring himself 
 around to put you in reform school." 
 
 "I don't know," I said. "I guess I don't like it 
 very well." 
 
 "I should n't think you would," he said. "But I 
 suppose your sister Frances likes it." 
 
 "She does not!" I said. 
 
 "That's strange," he said. "She thinks you are 
 
 a totally depraved young reprobate, don't she? It 
 
 seems to me that the last conversation I had with 
 
 her she said that, or words to that effect. I supposed 
 
 293
 
 SWATTY 
 
 she was the one that set that Burton fellow on 
 you." 
 
 "No, she did n't!" I said. "My mother did." 
 
 "Oh! your mother did, did she?" Herb asked, but 
 he grinned. 
 
 "No, she did n't either," I said. "All she did was 
 to get Tom Burton to bestir himself, so Dad Veek 
 would n't go to jail or anything. She did n't know 
 he was going to bestir himself against me and 
 Swatty. My mother don't want me to go to reform 
 school. And Fan don't." 
 
 So then Herb asked Swatty if, for goodness' sake ! 
 he could n't sit still without knocking his heels 
 against his chair. Then he said to me: 
 
 "Is it possible that your sister believes you are 
 capable of regeneration?" 
 
 "I don't know what it is," I told him, "but I 
 guess so." 
 
 "I mean," Herb said, "she thinks there may be 
 some good in you after all, does she?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," I said. 
 
 So then he laughed and shook his head as if it was 
 funny. I guess I knew why. I guess it was because 
 the reason Fan had thrown his ring at him was be- 
 cause he said I was some good and she said I was n't, 
 and now she thought the way he thought. 
 
 Then Herb sobered up and asked about the fire 
 
 and we told him everything, even about the Red 
 
 Avengers. He asked questions and we answered 
 
 them, and he seemed to know almost more about it 
 
 294
 
 HERB BESTIRS 
 
 than we did. He knew about what we told Toady 
 Williams when we were just bragging and that we 
 had bragged that we had set the barn afire. 
 
 "But that was just pretend," I said. 
 
 " A mighty bad kind of pretend," Herb said, and 
 he asked us some more questions. He would look at 
 some papers on his desk and then ask some more 
 questions. When he got through asking he said: 
 
 "Well, if the case has to go into court Mr. Rascop 
 will defend you two young rascals, and if the case 
 comes before Judge Hannan I think you'll have 
 every chance that can be hoped for, but I don't like 
 the looks of things. Judge Hannan knows what boys 
 are, but if the case goes before some old stiff it is 
 going to be hard to make him think your brag to 
 Toady Williams was just pure brag. At the best it 
 looks as if one of you two must have dropped a corn- 
 silk cigarette stub in the shavings. You two had 
 better walk straight and keep out of trouble from 
 now on. I'll do what I can for you." 
 
 So we went out and we were pretty scared. We 
 did n't say much. We just walked along for a while. 
 Then Swatty said : 
 
 "Say! I know who wrote all those questions Herb 
 asked us." 
 
 "Who did?" I asked him. 
 
 "Fan did," he said, "because I saw what Herb 
 was reading from, and I saw the last page and it 
 said, 'Yours humbly, Frances.'" 
 
 So that was how Herb knew so much about it, 
 295
 
 SWATTY 
 
 because I had told Fan and she had told Herb in the 
 letter. At first I was pretty mad that she should be a 
 tattle-tale but then I guessed that was how she was 
 bestirring herself, because it did n't do any good to 
 bestir with Tom Burton. 
 
 When I got home it was almost supper time but 
 Fan came to the front porch when she heard me and 
 asked me if I had seen Herb, and all about it, and I 
 told her. 
 
 5 "Well, Georgie," she said, "I'll stick by you 
 through thick and thin," and then she began to cry 
 and ran into the house, and I went in and mother 
 stopped me in the hall. 
 
 " George," she said, "this is a terrible affair and I 
 don't know what will be the end of it, but if I could 
 give my life to keep you from harm I would gladly 
 do so. And, whatever comes of it, you must be tender 
 to Fan, because she quarreled with Herb because of 
 you and now she has quarreled with Tom, and she 
 loves you very much," or something like that. 
 
 So I felt pretty mean, because a boy don't like 
 that kind of talk, and when I went upstairs and 
 Lucy was coming down I gave her a push. She said: 
 
 "You stop that! Are you and Swatty going to 
 reform school?" 
 
 "None of your business," I told her. 
 
 "Oh! you don't need to think I'd ask you, 
 smarty!" she said. "I don't care. I only asked you 
 because Mamie Little asked me to ask you." 
 
 So then I felt how awful it would be to go to re- 
 296
 
 HERB BESTIRS 
 
 form school and everything and I went up to my 
 room and cried on my bed. I was up there, but 
 mostly done crying, when my father came up. He 
 put his hand on me and said: 
 
 "Here, now! None of this, old sport. Buck up! 
 We'll get you out of this all right, some way. Come 
 on down to supper." 
 
 So then he kissed me. He had n't kissed me for a 
 long time before that, because men don't, but it was 
 all right this time. I went down to supper like he 
 said. 
 
 Well, Herb and my father and Swatty and me had 
 a meeting nearly every night in our dining-room and 
 talked about how we were getting along, but we 
 were n't getting along very much. The only thing 
 that got along was Fan, and she was making up to 
 Herb again. She would come into the dining-room 
 and sit and talk to Herb and father, but she could n't 
 fool me. She was making up to Herb all right. I 
 could see that. 
 
 Well, one day Tom Burton came over to our house 
 and Fan and Tom Burton had a regular row. It was 
 a dandy. And that settled Tom, I guess. He never 
 came to our house again. 
 
 Me and Swatty had to go to school just the same 
 as ever. I wished, if they were going to send us to 
 reform school they would go ahead and do it, because 
 Miss Carter began to get mean to us. Professor Mar- 
 tin was back and nearly every day Miss Carter kept 
 us in school and Professor Martin came in and 
 
 297
 
 SWATTY 
 
 talked to her while she kept us in. Mostly they 
 walked home together, because me and Swatty saw 
 them. 
 
 Well, me and Swatty had been sort of mad at 
 Bony, like I told you, but you can't keep mad al- 
 ways, and we started to letting him be with us again. 
 So one day me and Swatty and Bony got out of 
 school late, because Miss Carter had kept us in, and 
 Scratch-Cat had been kept in, too. We all came out 
 of the schoolhouse together. It was almost spring 
 again and Bony had some marbles he had bought, 
 so we said : 
 
 "Let's play marbles." 
 
 Scratch-Cat did n't want to. 
 
 "Well, you don't have to," Swatty told her. 
 "You're a girl, anyway. What do you want to 
 play?" 
 
 "I don't want to play anything," she said. "I've 
 got a better game than a play-game, and you can be 
 in it if you want to." 
 
 "What is it, then?" Swatty asked. 
 
 "Secret society," Scratch-Cat said. "I thought it 
 all up in school to-day and it 's Gypsies. Swatty will 
 be the king and I' 11 be the queen, and Georgie and 
 Bony can be princes, and we'll take an oath to be 
 mean to Miss Carter or anybody that keeps us in 
 school or anything. We'll think up things to do to 
 them, and when Miss Carter and Professor Martin 
 are married we'll steal their children and raise them 
 to be gypsies " 
 
 298
 
 HERB BESTIRS 
 
 "Aw!" I said, "they ain't going to be married." 
 
 "Yes, they are!" l cratch-Cat said. "Because I 
 saw him kiss her. He kissed her in the cloak room 
 almost before I was out of it, just now." 
 
 "Well, we ain't going to be secret gypsies or any 
 secret society," Bony said, "because me and Swatty 
 and Bony have one already." 
 
 "No, we have n't," Swatty said. 
 
 "We have, too!" Bony said. "We've got the Red 
 Aven " 
 
 He stopped pretty short, you bet. 
 
 "No, we have n't," Swatty said again. "We never 
 had. We had a meeting and voted that there would 
 n't be any Red Avengers any more and that there 
 never had been." 
 
 "But but you could n't," Bony said. 
 
 "Yes, we could," Swatty said. "We started it and 
 I guess we had a right to stop it. Me and Georgie we 
 voted on it. There never was any Red Avengers. 
 And I '11 lick anybody that says there was." 
 
 "But but don't we have to be true to the oath 
 any more?" Bony asked. 
 
 "Pooh, no!" Swatty said. "When there ain't any 
 Red Avengers there ain't any Red Avengers' oath, or 
 nothing." 
 
 "And can't anybody put me in state's prison for 
 saying what the oath says I must n't tell about any 
 Red Avenger?" asked Bony. 
 
 " No, sir ! " said Swatty. "That oath is a dead oath 
 and don't count no more." 
 299
 
 SWATTY 
 
 "Well, then," Bony said. "Toady did it!" 
 
 "Did what?" Swatty asked. 
 
 "Toady set the barn afire," Bony said, still pretty 
 scared. "I could n't tell, because I took oath not to 
 tell on any Red Avenger, but if there ain't any oath 
 Toady did it. I saw him. He had a pack of real cigar- 
 ettes and he did n't dare smoke while he was skating 
 because Miss Carter was skating on the creek, too. 
 
 "So I guess Toady thought he would go up to the 
 Nest to have a smoke," Bony went on, "and I was 
 going home. So when we got up to the Nest he asked 
 me if I wanted to smoke a real cigarette, and I said 
 I did n't. So Toady lit one and threw down the 
 match, and it set the shavings afire. So he tried to 
 stamp the fire out, but it spread too fast, and so he 
 ran, and I ran, and when we looked back the barn 
 was all afire. So he said that if I ever told he would 
 have me sent to state's prison for breaking the Red 
 Avengers' oath and telling on a fellow comrade. But 
 he did it, and I saw him do it." 
 
 Well, Swatty got up and gave a yell and he had to 
 hit some one, so he hit Scratch-Cat, and she went 
 for him and they had a good fight, but Swatty was 
 laughing all the time, and he did n't fight as hard as 
 he mostly did. When they got through fighting they 
 shook hands, and we all went down to Herb's and 
 he listened to what we had to tell him. 
 
 That ended it, except that he sent the engagement 
 ring back to Fan in a letter and she kept it, and Mr. 
 Williams, who was Toady's father, moved out of 
 300
 
 HERB BESTIRS 
 
 town mighty quick and took Toady with him, be- 
 cause Herb telephoned him right away and I guess 
 he thought he had better do it. 
 
 So that 's all. Me and Swatty did n't go to reform 
 school. We didn't go anywhere. The only others 
 that went anywhere were Herb and Fan. They went 
 on a marriage trip, or whatever you call it. 
 
 THE END
 
 Cbe 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A
 
 000 034 542 ,