Butler Ellis Parker - Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

Ellis Parker Butler

Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

I. THE BIG RIVER

I guess if teachers always knew how lickings were going to turn out they wouldnt 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 Murphys room. Shes a good-looker, but shes a tartar, too, when it comes to licking.

The way of it was this: My sister Fan was mushy over Swattys brother Herb and she didnt 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 wedding, but she didnt know what shed do with me. She thought maybe shed lock me in the cellar, she said, but she didnt mean it. She was always codding me and Swatty. Shed cod us that way, and then shed 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 wouldnt 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 didnt. So right away Herb began to get thick with Miss Murphy, but that didnt make any difference to me. As soon as a fellow hasnt got one girl he has another one, anyway, and I didnt 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. Shed 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, didnt he, because his brother was Miss Murphys beau, and Miss Muiphy wouldnt lick him when his brother was her beau. I didnt mean anything, I just said it, but Swatty hauled off and hit me one and dared me to say that again. So I said it again, and all the fellows got around and yelled Fight! Fight! and I had to fight him. It would have been a pretty good fight if Miss Murphy hadnt come along. She jumped right at us and grabbed us both.

Who started this fight? she asked, hopping mad.

He did, I said.

Didnt neither! said Swatty. He did.

Who struck the first blow? says Miss Muiphy.

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. Youve been getting entirely too uppish of late, young man. You think you can take advantage of of circumstances; but Ill 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 Swattys desk he whispered, She thinks shes going to lick me, but she aint.

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.

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 couldnt get Swatty to even pretend he might holler. He said no teacher in the world could make him holler. We all said it. Or, I dont know whether the Bony Highlander said it or not. Hed never been licked in school. He wasnt 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 thats how Herb got to know Fan. But the Bony Highlander was just a kid that moved into the neighborhood.

His name wasnt 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 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 didnt 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.

Id rather have been licked to-day and then Id be done with it, I said, but Swatty didnt say so.

If youve got a licking, he said, youve got it, and you cant ever un-get it, but I aint ever going to get this one. Ill run away first.

Ah, I bet you get it to-morrow, I said, and the Bony Highlander said so too.

Bet I dont! said Swatty. So we made a bet. I bet him my clay pipe against a nigger-shooter rubber he had.

So the next day was when wed 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 wouldnt hurt so much, and I guessed I would win the bet. But he couldnt fix the oilcloth so it would do any good and let him sit down. He thought Miss Murphy would be onto it if he couldnt 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 didnt.