Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

by Ellis Parker Butler

“Nothing. You 'tend your own business, can't you?” he answered back.

But it wasn't scrappy the way he said it; it was whiny.

So I started to say something, but Swatty stopped me.

“Aw! let him be!” he said. “If he wants to be a whine-cat let him be one. What do we care?”

So we let him. He came along to the cave with us and dug; but he didn't seem to have no fun. It wouldn't have taken much to make him blubber. He acted ashamed, that's what!

Well, that was one day, and the next morning he was just as bad. We teased him some that morning, but he took it and never jawed back. Then he went down to the creek to get a drink, and me and Swatty talked about him. Bony's father and mother fought a good deal with their jaws sometimes, like when we thought Bony's father was going across the river to kill himself and we went to keep him from it, and me and Swatty decided there must be a big fight going on at Bony's house, because that always makes a fellow feel cheap and mean. So we said we wouldn't tease him about it. So Bony came back and we dug awhile and went home to dinner.

And the next thing was that Mamie Little came back from Betzville and began playing with Lucy and Toady Williams again, and that made me feel mean. And then Fan came back from Chicago.

So, one day after dinner I had to go for an errand for my mother, and when I came back Swatty and Bony hadn't come yet, but Mamie Little was at our house waiting for my sister. She was on the front terrace braiding the grass where it was long. So I picked some grass and made a ball of it and threw it at her and she said to stop, and I got some more and was going to throw it at her, and I felt pretty good, because she said: “Oh, George! now don't!” but just then my father came out of the house, so I stopped. I had thought he had gone already. I stood and didn't do anything until he went by, and then I happened to think I had left my nigger-shooter on my bureau in my room and I went to get it.

I went into the house and up the stairs on the jump and busted into my room, and then stopped mighty short because my mother was in my room. She was at my bureau and had a drawer pulled out and was taking out some of my clothes. So I grabbed my nigger-shooter off the bureau and was going to go mighty quick, because mothers always think of something for you to do when they see you.

“George,” she said, “you are going over to your Aunt Nell's to stay a week or two. I'll get your clothes all ready, and I want you to be a good boy while you're there and be as little trouble as possible.”