Butler Ellis Parker - Swatty: A Story of Real Boys стр 13.

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:

Say, mister judge!

The judge leaned his hand on the stem of the boat and said:

Yes, my lad, what is it?

Are you the judge that gives diworces?

Im the one that dont give them unless I have to, son, the judge laughed. Looking for one? You dont look as if you had reached that age and state yet.

It aint mine, Swatty said. Its Bonys folkses. Theyre having a fight and theyre going to get a diworce and me and Georgie and Bony dont 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 spectacles and put them on and looked at us. He asked which was Bony and then he knew who Bony was and that he knew Bonys folks. He said he did.

And you dont want any divorces in your family, hey? he said. Why not?

Bony didnt 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 youve mistooken 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 sufficient to sway the court. But you, son, he said to Bony, have got exactly the right idea. Youve swayed this old, bald-headed court right down to the mud hes 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 didnt like buttermilk and the judge said: Caesars ghost! I didnt mean get it for you; I meant get it for us!

So we got it. So Bonys folks didnt get a divorce. Anyway, if they did they didnt separate apart from each other and that was all me and Swatty cared for because Herb Schwartz wouldnt 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 dont 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 didnt. 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 Littles front gate on the tricycle and say, Say! wanta take a ride?

It looked as if it wouldnt be long before Herb and Fan got married, because they hadnt 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 neednt 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 day we thought we would get it finished and begin capstaning things with it, and I wouldnt 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 didnt say I didnt, 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 oclock 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 didnt. 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 didnt 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 arm along the desk back of me, and I felt mighty mean. A boy dont like to be armed around that way, or his hand held like that.