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?”