Swatty: A Story of Real Boys. Butler Ellis Parker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ought to be there. So Swatty picked up his hat.

      “Come on!” he said. “Let’s go. It ain’t no fun up here in Bony’s 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 wasn’t 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 wasn’t 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 didn’t laugh. He didn’t 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 didn’t 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 I’ll ride on Bony’s 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 can’t learn bicycle riding on his bicycle!”

      We hadn’t thought of that before and right away we forgot about whether Bony was feeling sick or not. We hadn’t stopped to think that a divorce Bony’s 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! that’s so!” he said. “We can’t learn to ride on a bicycle that’s 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 he’s going to be scared to marry Fan, because hat-bills are the things father scolds Fan most about. He’ll ask Fan if she has hat-bills – ”

      “Garsh!” said Swatty again, “we’ve got to stop the divorce,” only he said “diworce,” because that was how he talked.

      I thought so, too. If Bony’s folks got one and Herb heard about it and got scared of marrying Fan, then Swatty wouldn’t have the tricycle and I couldn’t 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 wouldn’t let him travel on the train, and so his mother couldn’t go to his grandmother’s and that would stop it. So I said:

      “Yes, and while he was sick we could use his bicycle all the time. How’s he going to get diphtheria?”

      “Why, as easy as pie,” Swatty said. “They’ve got it down at Markses. All he’s 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 wouldn’t 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 wouldn’t have to wait until he was sick in bed before it stopped. So then I said that, anyway, Bony’s 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.

      “I ain’t going to get diphtheria!” he said.

      Well, that’s the way some fellows are! You go and work your brains all to pieces thinking up things to help them out of their troubles and then they say something like that. We saw it wasn’t any use to coax him. If we wanted to stop the divorce we would have to do it another way. I said:

      “I know the preacher that Bony’s mother goes to the church of.”

      “Well, what’s that got to do with it?” Swatty asked.

      “Well, couldn’t we tell him about it and get him to stop the divorce? When Jim Carter wouldn’t marry our cook my father told the Catholic priest and he made Jim Carter marry her as easy as pie.”

      “That’s no good,” Swatty said. “That was marrying. That’s what priests and preachers are for – marrying folks together – they ain’t for diworcing them apart again. If it was somebody I wanted to have married together of course I’d have thought of a preacher right away. You don’t think I’m so dumb as not to have thought of that, do you? But this ain’t marrying them together, it’s keeping them married together; it’s keeping them from diworcing apart.” Then, all at once he said, “Garsh!”

      “What are you garshing about?” I asked him.

      “Garsh!” he said again. “I guess I am dumb! I guess I ought to let a mule kick me! I ought to have thought of it right off!”

      “Thought of what, Swatty?”

      “Why, the judge! You, talking about preachers and priests and all them and not thinking of the judge! It’s a judge that always diworces people apart, ain’t it? Well, what we’ve got to do is see the judge and tell him not to diworce Bony’s folks apart!”

      “Come on! We’ll go see the judge and tell him not to diworce Bony’s folks apart.”

      Well, I guess we didn’t think when we started how we would do it. We just started.

      When we got down to the court-house, where the judge stays, I didn’t feel so much like doing it and Bony didn’t feel like doing it at all. It was different when we got down there than it was when we were sitting on the grass under my apple tree. All along the front edge of the front porch of the court-house were big pillars and each pillar was as big around as twenty boys standing in a lump would be. So me and Bony we sort of peeked into the hall and went out on the porch again, but Swatty went right inside. So we sort of frowned at Swatty and shouted in a whisper: “Aw! come on, Swatty! Let’s go home.”

      But Swatty spoke right out, as if he wasn’t afraid of the court-house at all.

      “Aw, come on!” he said. “What are you afraid of?”

      I wouldn’t have talked out loud like that for anything. His voice came back in echoes: “Aw-waw-come-um-um-on-non-non!” Like that. Every word he said said itself over and over that way.

      But Swatty, when we didn’t come, went down the hall and when he found an open door he went right in. He asked for the judge. We looked into the hall and we saw Swatty come out of the door he had gone in at and we saw him go up the wide stairs and push open the green door at the head of the stairs and go in. After a while he came out again and came downstairs and out on the porch.

      “Did you see him?” I asked.

СКАЧАТЬ