Butler Ellis Parker - Swatty: A Story of Real Boys стр 9.

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 dont want to. I want to go down and play with Mamie Little; were playing paper dolls. Were having lots of fun.

Ho! I said. Paper dolls! Theyre no fun.

They are, too, Lucy said. And weve got to cut out Mamies fathers. Shes got a whole fashion plate full.

Whered she get them? I asked, because I guessed right away what fashion plate it was.

Why, Toady Williams gave them to her, Lucy said. He got them out of the fire or somewhere and gave them to her. Hes helping us cut them out.

Gee! I felt sore!

III. THE DIVORCE

After I got out of bed and went back to school I fought Toady Williams a couple of times, but it wasnt much good because he wouldnt 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 didnt do anything but pick it up out of the mud after I had got it for her, but I didnt tell her because 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 Toadys 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 dont want to have anything more to do with a fraidy-cat like Toady.

But it didnt seem as if anything like that was going to happen. Not for years, anyway.

One day Swatty came over to my yard and he said, Say! so I said, Say what? and he said, Say, you know Herbs tricycle? and I said I did. Herb was Swattys 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 wouldnt ride on it because it made her as conspicuous as a pig on a flagpole. So Herb rode on it alone some, and with some other fellow some, but mostly he kept it chained up in Swattys 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. Thats when I aint taking somebody else.

He didnt 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, cant I, Swatty?

Its my tricycle he started to say.

It aint 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 Herb again and then you wouldnt get it. And, anyway, if Lucy went to ride on it she might fall off and get hurt, so I guess Id 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 shed 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 wasnt going to take much to scare Herb away. I knew that.

Well, I guess grown folks dont care whether they have a divorce or not, because they are always having them and so maybe they get used to having them and dont 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 aint 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 baby come to his house wishes he could sneak into a crack in the sidewalk or die or something.

I guess thats the way it is when you have a divorce at your house. It aint your fault but you feel like it was and you dont 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 Bonys room in Bonys house. It was muddy weather, in June, and I guess we had been wading in the mud or something so we knew Bonys mother wouldnt 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 hed like to know why, if Swattys uncle had that many, he didnt send Swatty one, and Swatty 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 Bonys room when it was winter. So we all looked down into Bonys stovepipe hole to see if it was like he said. And it was.

Just then Bonys father came into the diningroom. He had his hat on but it wasnt time for dinner or anything and he didnt 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 Bonys mother came in from the kitchen. Why, Henry! she said; whats the matter?

Matter? Matter? he shouted. Ill tell you whats the matter! Ill show you whats the matter! Look at this! Look at this, will you!