Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

by Ellis Parker Butler

Well, while my mother and the Ladies' Aid were bestirring themselves me and Bony and Swatty and Toady Williams were out in our barn, and I felt pretty bad, because it was tough to have my mother bestirring herself about that barn fire when the chances were that I would be one she would bestir into jail if she kept old Dad Veek out. Now you know that much, you can see why we felt pretty sick out there in my barn.

It was winter when old Dad Veek's barn burned down, and it was about nine o'clock at night. I was going to bed because I had been skating all day. I wore boots to skate in, like all the fellows, and my boots kind of wrinkled around the ankles and they rubbed my ankles until they were raw. So about eight o'clock I said, “Aw, come on, Swatty! Let's go home!” but he wouldn't.

“Well, if you won't go home with me I'm going up to the Nest and I'll wait for you up there,” I said.

So then Toady came up, and he asked where I was going and I told him I was going to the Nest, and he said he was going to skate some more, but Swatty and Bony said, “All right, we'll go up with you awhile.” They didn't take off their skates. They walked up the hill to the barn on their skates and we sat awhile in the Nest under old Dad Veek's barn and smoked some com-silk cigarettes. Then Swatty and Bony wanted to skate some more, and they did and after a while I went home. Gee! but there was a raw spot on my ankle when I got my boot off! I was sitting on the edge of my bed looking at it, about nine o'clock, when the fire-house bell rang. Right away my mother came into my room and said:

“George, there is a fire across the Square, and I think it is Mr. Veek's barn. You can go if you want to.”

I hid my raw ankle, because if my mother knew it was so bad she would n't let me skate any more until it got well, and I pulled on my boot and went to the fire.

There was a pretty big crowd there already and the barn was burning bully. I found Swatty first and then we found Bony, and we watched until the fire burned out, and then we went home.

The next day was Sunday, and when I got up I told my mother I had a headache, like I always told her Sunday mornings; but I had to go to Sunday school just the same. After dinner I went over to the ruins, and Swatty and Bony and Toady and a lot of folks were there. It was good to see and smell. When we got tired we went back to my yard, and it was too cold to go into the barn, so we went up to my room. As soon as the door was shut Swatty sat down on the edge of my bed and said:

“Well, men, the Red Avengers have been true to their oath! The enemy's property lies in ruins!” You see it was like this: Me and Swatty and Toady and Bony were the Red Avengers. Maybe you never read the book—“The Red Avengers, or The Boy Heroes of the Trail”—but it is a bully book. It's a dime lib'ry, and if it hadn't been for Toady we would never have had it. There was one thing about Toady that was pretty good—he had lots of books. Dime lib'ry books. He got the new ones as fast as they were printed, and he read them behind his geography at school, and it was because he had them that we got to read “The Red Avengers.” The Chief of the Red Avengers was a boy named Dick, and when he was a young and tender nursling his fond parents took him out West and they started a ranch that covered almost a whole state. They had millions of cattle, but a lot of Mexicans came and burned the ranch and Dick's parents were burned to death and Dick only escaped by creeping into the chaparral and hiding until he grew up into a sturdy youthhood. So then the Mexicans had divided up the ranch and had built houses and barns and things, and when Dick asked for the ranch back they laughed at him. So he got together a lot of true and faithful youths and started the Red Avengers of the Trail and whenever they came to one of the Mexican houses or bams they burned it down. Whenever anybody did anything mean to anybody in the band of the Red Avengers, Dick wrote a note saying the mean person's house would be burned at a certain minute, and the note would appear mysteriously on the door of the house. And the house burned down just as the Red Avengers said it would, and right on the minute.

So me and Swatty and Bony we started a Red Avengers band. We swore a solemn oath never to divulge the secrets of the band or to tell what any of us did, and to follow the orders of the Chief, whate'er might betide. We had an election for Chief, and me and Swatty and Bony each got one vote, so we made Swatty the Chief. Swatty made us make him. So I was elected Secretary and Bony was elected Treasurer. The Secretary had to write the vengeance warnings and keep track of them in a memorandum book, so we wouldn't forget who we were going to be revenged on. The Treasurer didn't have anything to do. It was an easy job.