I was sitting on the edge of our porch waiting for Swatty and Bony. I was tying a piece of salt pork on the bottom of my foot to keep from getting the “lockjaw, because I had stepped on a rusty nail, and I thought maybe I had better scrape some of the sand out of the nail hole before I put the pork on, so it would heal quicker, and I was scraping it out with my barlow knife. That's how I happened to be sitting on the edge of the porch; but Bony's mother and my mother were at the other end of the porch. So then Bony's mother said:
“No, I have never used a switch on my son. I have never struck him with my hand, nor has his father. We don't believe in it. We use moral suasion.” That means they jaw Bony. They corner him up somewhere and jaw him until he blubbers, the way the teachers jaw the girls when they get too big to paddle, and then Bony's mother blubbers and makes Bony kiss her and say that now he will be a better and truer boy and keep the Ten Commandments and not smoke com silk any more. Or whatever it is.
So my mother didn't say anything because when she thinks I need it she wales me good. Anyway, I'd rather be waled ten times a day than be moral-suasioned like Bony, and so would Swatty, and so would all the kids, and so would Bony. But my mother didn't say anything because Bony's mother was a caller and you don't fight with callers until after they've got you so perfectly exasperated you just have to speak your mind.
So Bony's mother said:
“Yes, indeed!” and she said it the way women say things when they 're being stylish. “Yes, indeed! the rod implants fear in the child, and we should rule by love. My child shall never know fear. The normal child never knows fear.”
Well, that's when I almost laughed out loud. Such a smarty, sitting there and letting on she knew anything about boys! Say, I guess she never was a boy! “Normal boys never know fear!” She must have thought she was in heaven, talking about kid angels and not about boys!
Boys are always afraid of something. Even Swatty used to be afraid of that old witch, Mrs. Groogs. We other boys used to go across the street from where she lived and holler:
“Old Mother Groogsy, oh!
Lost her needle and couldn't sew!
Old Mother Groogsy, oh!
Lost her nee-dul and could-dent sew!
Old Mu-uth-er Gur-roog-sy, oh!
Lu-ost her nee-eedul and ku-uld-dent sew!”
And then we'd throw clods at her shanty until she came out with a stick or broom—mostly it was the cane she used to walk with—and then we'd all throw clods at her at once and run. It made her pretty mad. But Swatty made her maddest. He knew a German rhyme he could say pretty fast, and he'd say it and she would get so mad she would shake all over.
Well, one day when we were all sort of teasing her like that, and Swatty was with us, she came out with a sword. It was a horse soldier's sword, a saber, and it was so big she could hardly lift it, but she could with both hands, and she came right at us across the street, swinging it around her head. If it had hit us it would have killed us, but we ran. So after that whenever she came out she would have the sword, but we weren't afraid of her when we were together. It was when one of us alone had to go anywhere near her shanty. We wouldn't do it. We'd go 'round.