Butler Ellis Parker - Swatty: A Story of Real Boys стр 12.

Garsh! Swatty said. I was never here before.

Where is it? I asked.

Swatty looked all around.

I dont know, he said. I never heard of a place like this.

Swatty! I said.

What?

Lets 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. Anyway, I thought so.

When Swatty had looked all around and didnt 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, because no matter where we were we wanted to row up-stream. We had gone into the woods below the 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 waterfall or rushed through in a rapids nobody could row up. So Swatty knew we couldnt 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 dont know how far and all at once Bony said:

Look out! youre 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.

Theres something alive in it! Bony sort of shivered.

Swatty looked and I looked.

Mush-rats 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; were floating away from that mush-rat house and it aint floating with us. I never heard of a mush-rat house out in the middle of a lake, with a current floating by, that didnt float with the current!

Are you scared, Swatty? I asked, for if he was scared I didnt know what I would be.

No, I aint scared, he said, but it aint right. It aint possible, thats 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, lets get out of it, then. Lets row!

I said.

You bet Ill row! Swatty said, and we did. We steered off to one side of the mush-rats 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 Swattys 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 aint 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 wasnt moving and we werent 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 didnt move! There we were, out in the middle of that haunted lake, or whatever it was, and no bottom that you could reach with an oar, and we couldnt row up-stream and we didnt float downstream. And over yonder was a mush-rats house just like we were. It sure looked like we were in a haunted lake and I didnt 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 didnt move at all. Or we just moved a foot or two.

It wasnt like when you run up on a snag or a rock. It wasnt stiff like that. We floated all right but we couldnt 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. Thats the way they echo back at you, so they must be over there. And I bet those men splashing in the water are after buffalo with pitchforks. So thats where we want to row. That was pretty fine, wasnt it, when we couldnt row at all? I told Swatty so. I said wed better shout and have the men come and get us. Swatty said theyd just think it was kids shouting for fun; and I guess thats 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 dont know, I said. Do you?

I dont know, either, Swatty said. Maybe I do and maybe I dont, but I know one thing: I aint going to believe in them until I have to. I aint going to believe this boat is witched here until I know it aint stuck here some other way. Im going to find out.

How? I asked.

Well, if were stuck were stuck on something under the water and thats sure, and Im going to skin off my clothes and find out.

So he did. I wouldnt 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.

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. Its a post, he said. Its 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 couldnt wrench loose by rowing. And that was why the mush-rat house did not float downstream; it was caught on another post. So all at once Swatty said:

I know where we are; were in Shebberds 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, Swattys teeth were chattering but he wouldnt 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: