Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

by Ellis Parker Butler

I guess Bony thought the same thing, for he got white and started to run down the railway bank toward our skiff. So I started after him. But Swatty he started to run the other way, down the bank to the cornfield, towards where the woman was screaming. He rolled under the bob-wire fence and started down between the com rows as hard as he could go. Me and Bony stopped and looked, and then we went after him, only slower. When we got deep into the com we got more scared. We didn't like to be so far from where Swatty was, with a woman screaming like that and being murdered. So I hurried up, and Bony came along, blubbering. I told him to shut up.

We came to the edge of the cornfield and stopped. It was Miss Carter, our teacher, and a tramp had her by the throat, trying to make her stop her yelling. And just then Swatty jumped on the tramp. He had a rock, and he lammed at the tramp with it and hit him on the arm. So then Miss Carter went limp and stopped yelling, and fell in a pile on the road, because the tramp let go of her and she fainted.

The road was all tramped up and covered with walked-on flowers Miss Carter had been getting; but the tramp reached around and grabbed Swatty and got him by the neck and began to pound his head. Me and Bony crouched down and looked between the boards of the cornfield fence, because we was too scared to run away.

Swatty done the best he could, but it wasn't much use. He was getting killed, I guess. But all at once Scratch-Cat came a-sailing out of the cornfield and lit on the tramp with both hands.

When her eight claws came raking down his face he let loose of Swatty and grabbed for Scratch-Cat; but she wasn't where he grabbed. She was standing away, with her hands clawed and her head sort of pointed at him, ready to jump again. So Swatty picked up the rock and slung it, and caught him in the back of the neck. He hollered like a bull and turned, and Scratch-Cat went at him and raked him on the side of his face. He lammed at her, and I guess he caught her on her brittle rib, because she hollered.

She didn't care what happened, I guess, when he hit her brittle rib, so she went right at him, and Swatty made a dive for his legs and got a hold on them. The tramp fought good and hard. He went down, but he kept on fighting; and Swatty hollered for me to get a rock and whack the tramp on the head with it. Maybe I would have. I don't know. Just then a top buggy came around the bend of the road, and the tramp showed all he was worth and beat off Swatty and Scratch-Cat and cut into the woods. We heard him cracking the brush as he scooted, and that was all we knew about him.

Well, the man in the top buggy was Herb Schwartz. So he got out and picked up Miss Carter and fetched her to, and Swatty told him what had happened. So Herb went to where Scratch-Cat was sitting on the side of the road, with her hand where her brittle rib had busted. So Swatty went over there too.

“Garsh! I'd of been killed if you hadn't come!” he said. But she stood up and looked at him.

'"What'd you come swimming at me when I was naked for?” she said, and she was as mad as hops. I guess her rib hurt her and made her sort of crazy mad, and Swatty was the first one that came near her, so she picked on him. “Why'd you dare?” she screeched at him. “I'll show you not to!”—or something like that.

So she went for him. She didn't scratch, either; she used her fists. She fought like crazy, and got her leg back of his, and threw him and piled on top of him. He had to fight as hard as he knew how to, and it was all right, because she wasn't a girl—she was something crazy mad. It was a quick fight and a good one, and then Herb Schwartz grabbed Scratch-Cat by the shoulder and pulled her off Swatty; but that didn't matter, because the fight was over anyhow. Swatty had said: “Enough! I won't do it again!”