Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

by Ellis Parker Butler

“Aw! Don't you wish you was going to the circus?”

So I said he needn't be so smart, that I was going, because I had a ticket. So then I remembered that I had the twenty cents my mother had given me to buy the ice cream with, only I hadn't spent it because I came away so quick. So I told Swatty he could have the ticket, because I had twenty-five cents to get into the circus with. So Swatty was glad. He said he'd be my Dutch uncle as long as I lived, and that the first dollar he saw rolling uphill he'd pay me back, if he could catch it.

Well, we walked downtown with the parade and saw it, and walked back to the circus grounds with it. Me and Swatty and Bony was the first to go into the tent. We were right up against the rope when the ticket taker let it down. So we hurried right through, because a lot of folks was pushing behind us. The ticket taker yelled something at us, but I didn't hear what it was and we scooted for the menagerie tent.

When we were looking at the ostriches in their cage Swatty got close beside me and said: “Lookee here!”

I looked down, and he had his ticket in his hand yet, because that was why the ticket taker had yelled at us. Swatty had sneaked in without giving his ticket.

“What did you do that for?” I said.

“Because I'm hungry,” he said.

“You can't eat your ticket,” I said.

“You wait and you'll see,” he said, so then we went into the big tent and we climbed up to the top row. When we poked our heads out we could see right down where the ticket taker was taking tickets and all the people were crowding to get in. Right down below us on the ground a bum, or tent man, was asleep on his face with his arm under his head. His coat was beside him. He was breathing hard.

So then Swatty leaned out as far as he could and waved the ticket he had, and called out who wanted to buy a ticket for a quarter. That was just like Swatty anyhow. He was pretty slick. So pretty soon a man said he'd buy the ticket, and he tossed a quarter up to Swatty. With a quarter we could get enough peanuts to keep alive until supper time.