Butler Ellis Parker - Swatty: A Story of Real Boys стр 10.

Matter? Matter? he shouted. Ill tell you whats the matter! Ill show you whats 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 didnt look. I guess she didnt 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 didnt know what it was for whether it was for a hat or a dress or what. So Bonys 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. Bonys mother had been paring potatoes or something, I guess. She wiped her hands on her apron but she didnt 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 Bonys father said.

Henry! Stop right there! Bonys 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! Bonys father shouted. Rags! You in rags? You dare taunt me with that, when you crowd enough on your back to support a dozen families? Rags? When from years end to years end I do nothing but struggle to pay your eternal bills! Well, maybe I havent got what Bonys 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 Bonys father was walking up and down the room, talking loud and pounding the table every time he passed it, and Bonys mother 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 Bonys father stopped in front of her and said a lot and she didnt 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 didnt know that then. We found it out afterward.

So then, when all the dishes broke, Bonys mother sort of yelled and jumped up. Swatty said:

Garsh! Whats she going to do?

But she didnt do anything like we thought she was going to. She bent down and picked up a dish that wasnt 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 Bonys father and went toward the door into the hall.

Where are you going? Bonys father asked.

Going? she said, or something like that. Im going to see if I cant put a stop to this sort of thing. I have had enough years of it. Im going to see Mr. Rascop.

Well, we knew who he was; he was a lawyer.

Very well, said Bonys father, go! I assure 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. Anyway he was listening now and he heard what they said.

I thought that, said Bonys 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 Bonys 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 theres just been a baby at your house as if we hadnt ought to be there. So Swatty picked up his hat.

Come on! he said. Lets go. It aint no fun up here in Bonys 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 wasnt 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.

Well, we sat down on the grass under the tree and me and Swatty talked pretty loud and fighty because Bony wasnt 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 didnt laugh. He didnt 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 didnt 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 Ill ride on Bonys bicycle when he gets it!

So he pretended he was on a bicycle and he pretended 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 cant learn bicycle riding on his bicycle!

We hadnt thought of that before and right away we forgot about whether Bony was feeling sick or not. We hadnt stopped to think that a divorce Bonys 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! thats so! he said. We cant learn to ride on a bicycle thats in another town.

And, say! I said, frightened, if Herb hears about it, and how married folks fight and get divorces over hat-bills and things hes going to be scared to marry Fan, because hat-bills are the things father scolds Fan most about. Hell ask Fan if she has hat-bills

Garsh! said Swatty again, weve got to stop the divorce, only he said diworce, because that was how he talked.

I thought so, too. If Bonys folks got one and Herb heard about it and got scared of marrying Fan, then Swatty wouldnt have the tricycle and I couldnt 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 wouldnt let him travel on the train, and so his mother couldnt go to his grandmothers and that would stop it. So I said:

Yes, and while he was sick we could use his bicycle all the time. Hows he going to get diphtheria?

Why, as easy as pie, Swatty said. Theyve got it down at Markses. All hes 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!

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 wouldnt 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 wouldnt have to wait until he was sick in bed before it stopped. So then I said that, anyway, Bonys 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.