Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

by Ellis Parker Butler

“Somebody has been here!” he said.

The door of the cave was busted in and was off one of its hinges. Our stove was all kicked over and the table we had made was busted down and everything we had was all kicked around. We guessed the Graveyard Gang had found us out, so Swatty and me and Bony went to work and fixed up the door and mended the stove. We didn't know when they would come back.

They came back quick enough. The first we heard was them talking at the top of the bank, and then all of them slid down. I guess they wanted to stop when they got to the cave mouth, but Swatty was in the door of the cave and he had his pockets full of our throwing stones, and he leaned out and let them have them. They yelled and slid right on down to the creek.

Bony began to cry.

Well, there were about twelve of the Graveyard Gang down there in the creek. They got together and talked about how they would get us and then they began throwing stones. I tried to help Swatty stone them, but the door was too narrow, and he told me to stay inside and hand him stones to throw. He threw as fast as he could and sometimes he hit a Graveyard kid and sometimes he missed, but one kid can't hardly throw against twelve, and pretty soon a stone hit Swatty on the forehead just on his eyebrow. He put up his hand to feel the place and another hit him on the crazy bone, and he came inside and lay down on the floor of the cave and hugged his elbow and rocked himself and groaned. I guess it hurt him pretty bad. Bony just stood and bellered: “Oh, I want to go home! I want to go home!”

I went to the door and began to throw stones, but I was so mad I couldn't aim straight. Swatty sat up and rocked himself and hugged his elbow.

“Shut the door!” he howled at me. “Come in and shut the door! Shut the door!”

So I did. I wasn't much afraid of being hit, but I knew the door shut right away, so I shut it. The minute it was shut the stones hit against it like hail. The Graveyard Gang cheered, but it didn't do them any good; the little throwing stones couldn't break the door and they couldn't throw big ones up that far.

In a little while Swatty was just rubbing his elbow and he got up and helped me brace the door shut with the shovel and things. His forehead was swelled up like an egg, but he didn't mind that.

“There!” he said. “This shows it was a good thing we have a cave,” and I guessed he was right. He went over and made Bony stop blubbering. He made him stop by telling him to hurry and build a fire in the stove because maybe we might have to stay there a week or even longer, and we'd have to cook potatoes to live on or else starve to death. So Bony forgot to cry and started to make a fire.