Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

by Ellis Parker Butler

So every time Swatty said anything he shoved her again, and pretty soon he had her pushed clear back against the fence of her yard, and he left her there and came back. We went on playing. But every once in a while we thought of her, and when we looked she was standing just where Swatty had left her.

Well, we found out her name was Dell Brown, because my father went to speak to her father about the way she scratched my sister. Her father's name was Reverend Brown; but he had adopted her because her folks died, and she was a sore trial, but no doubt willed by the Almighty. The Reverend Brown was a sort of preacher, and had an old white horse and drove around the country and preached wherever he thought they needed preaching. Mrs. Brown was a sort of invalid and old, like Reverend Brown was, and he was almost too old to adopt Dell Brown for his daughter. He had ought to have adopted her for his granddaughter when he was adopting.

So he said he would pray about it, and Mrs. Brown said she couldn't understand Dell Brown, hardly, why she had the fighting streak in her, because at home she was all love and affection to Mrs. Brown, and a word made the child weep. I guess Dell Brown had just so much fight in her and had to get it fought out. I guess she thought it was better to go out and fight than to fight Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Maybe she was sort of fond of them because they were funny and old and had adopted her. I guess she was like George Washington: she was good and nice, but she liked to fight.

Well, after while school started again. I kind of hated to go, because I always hate to, but more because I thought Dell Brown would go to school. So she did, and the first time she got me alone she took me by the hair and walloped me good. I hadn't done nothing to her, except maybe yell “Scratch-Cat!” at her sometimes when I was far enough away. So after that I didn't go to school very early, but kind of hung around until Dell Brown went in, and then I went in. I never told on her. If she says I did she tells what ain't so. It was Toady Williams.

Me and Swatty was kept in that day, like we 'most always were, and Bony was waiting outside. So Miss Murphy thought it wasn't any use talking to Dell Brown any more; it was time to rawhide her. She got the rawhide out of the closet, and told Dell Brown to come to the back of the room, and Dell Brown went. Miss Murphy put one hand on Dell Brown's shoulder, and lifted up the whip to switch her across the legs, and the next thing she did was to let out a scream, and you couldn't have believed her dress could be tom so in just a second if you hadn't seen it. Her hands were beginning to get red in streaks where Dell Brown had scratched them. So Dell Brown just threw Miss Murphy's hair switch on a desk, and stood there with her chest swelling in and out under her red and black checked dress, and Miss Murphy backed away and began winding her switch on her head again.

When Miss Murphy got her hair on, she went out and locked the door and got Professor Martin, the principal, who is her beau. He came in, and he was pretty mad. He grabbed Dell Brown and gave her a shake, and she flew at him like a cat and scratched him across the face. He slung her around, and she hit a desk and fell on the floor. It made her cry, and Professor Martin was scared of what he had done and went to pick her up. But when he stooped she clawed at him and scratched his other cheek, and he left her alone and told her to get up and go home, because she was expelled from school.

So Dell Brown got up, and held her hand to her side, and went and got her books and went home. But there was only one rib broke, and I guess it healed all right, because she was young and tough. But nobody whipped any more girls in school. I guess they thought it was safer to whip boys. They are more used to it, and their ribs ain't so brittle. Or maybe the school board stopped it. Professor Martin almost got fired because he had broken a rib for Scratch-Cat and he would of been fired only Scratch-Cat was such a ruffian, everybody said.

Well, of course the expelling didn't take, and Dell Brown came back after while, when Miss Murphy went away and Miss Carter came. She didn't fight much, because her rib was brittle yet, but she was cross all the time. It looked like she hated everybody and everybody hated her.

But one day Miss Carter was walking down the aisle and she had some flowers pinned on, and one dropped in the aisle, and Dell Brown picked it up and put it in a book. She used to open the book and look at the flower. She used to sit and look at Miss Carter, and you couldn't tell whether she was mad at her or not, because her face was so dark and her bangs so long that she always looked scowly. But I guess she wasn't mad, I guess she wanted Miss Carter to like her, but didn't know how to make her.

None of the girls played with Scratch-Cat because she scratched; and none of the boys played with her either, because they were afraid of her. As soon as school was out she would go home and play in her own yard. I guess she was pretty lonely.