Part 16

He came up the stairs far enough to see into the hayloft, then he stopped and when we saw him he came on up. I said:

“Hello, Toady!”

“Hello!” he said.

“What do you want?” I asked, because he hadn't been playing with us much.

“Oh, I just thought I'd get my dime lib'ry,” he said. “You don't want it any more, do you?”

“No, we don't want it,” I said, and he went to the starch box and got it, and he came over to where we were, and he said: “I guess you have n't set any more barns afire, have you?”

“What barns?” Swatty asked.

“Well, you did set one afire, didn't you?” said Toady. “You and George set Veek's afire, didn't you?”

Swatty stood up then, all right! He stood up and folded his fists.

“Who said we set Veek's barn afire?” he asked, and he was pretty mad. But I wasn't; I was just scared. It's incenderyism, or something like that, if you set a barn afire, and you get sent to reform school for life.

“Who said it? I didn't say it,” said Toady. “You said it. You and George said you did.”

Well, of course I hadn't been lying when I told Toady and Swatty and Bony how I had set Dad Veek's barn afire, but I had just been fooling. So I said:

“Aw! I never said no such thing! I never either said I set it afire. Swatty said he set it afire. I couldn't have set it afire, because I was sitting on my bed when it got afire.”

So Swatty got mad. I guess he wanted to lick somebody, but he didn't know whether to lick me or to lick Toady.

“Aw! I never either said I set it afire!” he said. “If anybody set it afire George did, because I was home, putting arnica on me, when the fire started.”

“Well, you said you did,” I said. “You said so right up in my room. You did so.”

“I did not! You said you did.”

“I did not! I never said anything like it. If anybody said he set Veek's barn afire, Swatty said it.”

“Aw! I did not!” Swatty said. “You said it. You said it. You said you took a torch, and went around to the far side and set the barn afire. I heard you say it. And you said I couldn't have set the barn afire because you had it all afire before I got there. Didn't he say that, Toady?”

Well, I guess Toady knew mighty well that if he was going to get mallered for saying either of us said it he had better say I said it, because Swatty could lick any of us. So he said I did say it.

So I went for him and mallered him as much as I could. I got so mad I cried, and I guess I kicked him. Not Swatty, Toady. So when I got tired I was still mad, and I sat down on a box and cried. Then Toady sneaked over to the stairs and went part way down, and just before he was out of sight he looked back.

“Cry-baby!” he said, and that meant me. Then he said: “All right, you'd better look out! You both said you did it, and you both said you said it, and Dad Veek's got that Red Avengers' notice you fastened on his barn door and Tom Burton knows all about it.”

Gee, we were scared! I was so scared I didn't throw anything at Toady, and Swatty was so scared he just said: “Garsh!” and stood there. Well, me and Swatty we talked it over.

We knew we hadn't set the barn afire, but we knew we had said we had, and we knew old Dad Veek would do 'most anything to keep out of jail, and that my mother and the Ladies' Aid ladies were bestirring. So then we knew why Toady had come up to get us to say again we had done it; he was one of the Red Avengers and unless we said we had set the barn afire ourselves all the Red Avengers would be sent to reform school, and he wanted to get out of it and had gone and told Tom Burton about us and the Red Avengers and that we had set the barn afire.

“Garsh!” said Swatty, “he took the memorandum book you had old Veek's barn wrote down at the top of the list of!”

And he had! So Bony sort of doubled down in his corner and cried, but me and Swatty sat down on a box to think and talk and see what we had better do.

Well, the way Tom Burton had gone to work to help my mother and the Ladies' Aid ladies who were bestirring themselves, was this: He found out that the reason old Dad Veek had so much insurance was because he was a slow worker, and sometimes he had the barn almost full of stuff he was working on, and then it was worth as much as it was insured for. So that helped some. Then old Dad Veek showed him the Red Avengers' warning Swatty had fastened on his barn door, and that was pretty bad, because the time it said the barn would burn down was the time it did burn.

I guess he might have thought it was some men or something, if it hadn't been for the name of the Red Avengers. It sounded like boys. So Tom Burton found out there was a dime lib'ry named “The Red Avengers,” because one was hanging in Toady Williams's father's store window, and then he knew it was boys. So he asked Toady Williams if he knew anything about it, and Toady went and told him. He told him me and Swatty and Bony was the Red Avengers and that we had set the barn afire.

We found all that out mighty soon, because it wasn't half an hour after Toady went out of the barn before Tom Burton came up. The tattle-tale had gone right to him.

Tom Burton came up and he stood and talked to us. He told us he knew all about the Red Avengers and that he had our memorandum book with Dad Veek's name in it and everything, and that he knew who had written the memorandum book, and the notice that was daggered on Dad Veek's door, and everything, and he asked us which one of us done it. Gee, I was scared! But none of us said anything. Maybe we were too scared to.

So then he said, “All right! it will only be a little while before all will be known, and the one that did it will surely be sent to reform school, so the other two, that didn't do it, had better tell on the one that did do it.”

But none of us said anything. So he talked awhile and then he went away. Me and Bony didn't say anything.

“Garsh!” Swatty said. “It's mighty bad.”

Me and Bony didn't say anything yet. We was too scared. Bony began to blubber.

“You don't need to cry,” Swatty told him. “You ain't going to be sent to reform school. You didn't do it.”

“Well--well,” Bony blubbered. “You and Georgie didn't do it, either.”

“Well, it don't matter whether we did it or didn't do it,” Swatty said. “We wrote down that we were going to do it, and they've got the warning and the memorandum book, and we both said we'd done it ourselves, and we both said the other had done it, and I guess they'll send us to reform school.” Bony kept on blubbering, so we told him he had better go home if he was a cry-baby, and he went. So then Swatty said:

“I guess it ain't much use; but we've got to say, no matter how they ask us, that we ain't the Red Avengers.”

“That'd be a lie,” I said.

“Well, no, it wouldn't,” said Swatty, “because there won't be any Red Avengers, and we'll say, 'No, we ain't!' and that'll be the truth, because we won't be then. We'll bust up the Red Avengers right now.”

So we took a vote and voted that we were not the Red Avengers any more and that we never had been the Red Avengers. So that settled that, but it didn't make us feel much better. We sat and thought awhile and then Swatty said:

“I know! Georgie, you can ask Fan to tell Tom Burton to let us go free.”

“Aw! that won't do any good,” I said.

And I didn't think it would, but Swatty said it was our only chance, so I said I would ask Fan, and I did. I hated to, but I did it.

XIII. THE ICE GOES OUT

First, of course, I made Fan promise she would never tell, hope to die and cross her heart, and she promised, and then I told her all about the Red Avengers and how, if we did set Dad Veek's barn afire we didn't mean to, and she said she would talk to Tom Burton about it, but she said Tom Burton was stubborn and she would have to wait until she had the right chance. She was nicer than she had ever been to me.

“Have you told anybody else?” she asked me.

“No,” I said.

“Did Swatty tell his brother Herbert?” she asked.

“No. Nobody has told anybody,” I said.

Well, me and Swatty felt pretty bad and scared and sick, and one reason was that Bony stopped playing with us. His father found out about the Red Avengers and made him promise he wouldn't play with me and Swatty any more because we were bad boys and would ruin Bony. So we never expected to play with Bony again, but we did, and this was how it happened.

Bony's father and mother used to fight like everybody else, and about bills, because they were having a fight like that when Bony's father took the shotgun and went away from home. I guess it was a hat Bony's mother had bought that was the worst, but Bony wasn't sure. He said they began to fight when the grocery bill came and fought harder and harder the more bills there were, but it wasn't until the hat bill came that Bony's father stopped sassing back, and got solemn and quiet and said that sometimes he felt that it was no use trying to keep up the struggle against poverty and starvation, and that sometimes when these evidences of extravagance came in he felt just like going off somewhere by himself and ending everything. So then Bony's mother said, “Oh! nonsense!” and pretty soon Bony's father got his shotgun and went out of the house.

So Bony just sat there in the room expecting every minute to hear the shotgun and to run out and see his father dead in the stable. He sat there and pretended to be studying his geography lesson for Monday, but all he was doing was listening to hear the shot. It was a mighty mean job, I guess, sitting there listening like that, and waiting to hear his father kill himself; but he didn't hear anything.

So pretty soon he shut up his hook and sort of tiptoed out of the house, but he did not dare go near the stable. He didn't know what to do. He went out on the front steps and stood there, and pretty soon he saw me and Swatty at the corner, and he waved to us and came running, and we waited for him.

It was January, but it wasn't cold because we were having a thaw. It was good snow to make snowballs of, so when Bony started to come toward us we made a few snowballs and just threw them at him. I guess we hit him five or six times, but he didn't beller for us to stop, like he usually does; he put his arm in front of his face and came right on. When he got too close for us to throw at him any more we stopped and then we saw he was crying.

“Aw, shut up and don't be a baby!” Swatty said; “we didn't hurt you.” But Bony kept right on bawling. He didn't bawl the way a cowardy-calf bawls when he gets hurt, he bawled like--well, I guess he bawled like a fellow bawls when his father has gone off with a shotgun to shoot himself. So then we didn't tell him to shut up any more. Swatty said:

“What's the matter, Bony?”

So then Bony put his arm up against a tree and cried into it, and after he had cried awhile he said:

“My--my fath-father's out in the barn sh-shooting himself with his shotgun!”

“He ain't neither!” Swatty said, and I said it too.

“He is, too, killing himself!” Bony said, and he blubbered at the same time. “You needn't think, just because your fath-fathers don't kill themselves, nobody else's father never kik-kills himself! My fa-father said he'd kik-kill himself, and if he said so he w-will!”

“Aw! He ain't neither killing himself in the barn!” Swatty said, and I guess that made Bony mad, because it was like saying Bony's father was a liar, or that Bony was, anyway. Mostly Bony wouldn't fight, no matter what you said, because he's a cow-ardy-calf; but I guess when a fellow's father is killing himself in a barn or anywhere he don't care what happens to him, so Bony was so mad he forgot how easy Swatty could lick him, and he sort of howled like a cat when you step on its tail and he pitched into Swatty with both fists. So Swatty had to lick him. He licked him good. So when Swatty had him down and was sitting on him, Swatty said:

“Now is your father killing himself in the barn?”

“Yes, he is!” Bony blubbered, and then we knew that Bony's father was really going to kill himself, because if Bony hadn't been pretty sure he would have said he wasn't, because he knew how Swatty can push a fellow's nose into his face with the bottom of his hand when he has got him down and he don't say what Swatty wants him to say. So we knew it must be pretty serious. So Swatty didn't push Bony's nose, but he said:

“Well, your father ain't killing himself in the barn, because he went by here a little while ago with his shotgun. How do you know he's going to kill himself?”

“I know it because him and Mother was fighting over bills, and he said he would,” Bony said.

So then Swatty said, aw! he didn't believe anybody would kill himself because he was fighting over bills. He said he didn't believe any grown-up man would fight over a little thing like bills; so that made me mad, and I said, aw! any man would fight over bills, and that my father did, and that my father was a better man than Swatty's father any day in the week and could lick Swatty's father any time they wanted to try it. And that was true, and Swatty knew it, because my father was bigger than his father and not so old. So Swatty said, aw! well, his oldest brother could lick my father, anyway. So I said he'd better try it if he wanted to find out, and Swatty said, Aw! And I guess that's all we said about that.

Anyway, it didn't seem to make Bony feel any better that his father had taken his shotgun and had gone off somewhere else to kill himself instead of killing himself right at home in the barn. He kept right on with a kind of whine-blubber, even when Swatty and me were jawing, so Swatty said:

“Aw! what you bellerin' about?”

“I'll--I'll beller if I want to,” Bony said. “I guess you'd beller if your father was going to kill himself, you would.”

“I would not so!” Swatty said. “What's the use of bellerin' when you can't do nothing about it? If he's going to kill himself, he's going to, and you can't help it. If my father was going to do what you said your father was going to do I'd let him do it, and I wouldn't spoil everybody's fun by bawling about it. I'd just go ahead and play like nothing was going to happen, until I had to go in and dress for the funeral.”

Well, I guess that wasn't a very good thing for Swatty to say, because it made Bony blubber more than ever. So then Swatty got sore and disgusted and he said:

“Aw! shut up, then, and we'll go and find your father and take the shotgun away from him, if you 're going to be a baby about it!”

That's the way Swatty always is; me or Bony would never think of going and taking a shotgun away from a father that wanted to kill himself, and if we did think of it we would never dare to do it; but Swatty wouldn't care who he took a shotgun away from if he got mad because somebody bellered about nothing. So we knew he'd do it if we went along. So we went along.

When we saw Bony's father go by with the shotgun he was going toward downtown, so me and Bony and Swatty started toward downtown, and we talked about where Bony's father would probably go to kill himself if he didn't want to kill himself in his barn, and none of us thought he would go downtown to do it because somebody might see him start to do it and stop him. So we talked about it and we made up our minds we would go over into the Illinois bottom, across the Mississippi, because a man once went over there to kill himself, and did it and nobody bothered him while he was doing it or knew about it until afterward.

Of course the ferry wasn't running, but it was easy enough for Bony's father to get across the river because the ice was frozen and the river was closed and he could go over on the ice.

We went down to the river. There was a good deal of water on the ice in some places, and the snow was mushy everywhere on it and it was pretty bad walking. I guess you know what the river is like when it is closed. There is a lot of snow on it because nobody shovels it off, and they couldn't if they tried, because the river is three quarters of a mile wide there, and there's no place to shovel the snow to, and it's just as good right where it is as it would be anywhere else.

But before the thaw comes the snow blows off some of the smooth places and banks up against the rough places on the ice in drifts. The river don't freeze over all at once--the ice floats down and jams and stops and the bare places between freeze over; but when the ice jams, it crumples up on the edges and makes ridges, and it is where the ridges are that the snow banks up into drifts. Sometimes the drifts are all around a smooth sheet of ice, and then when the snow begins to melt, the smooth ice turns into a sort of pond, and maybe the water on top of the ice is an inch deep and maybe it is more.

Here and there there are air holes, because I guess a river has to breathe like anybody else and the air holes are where it breathes. They are different sizes.

Well, the road across the river on the ice is always crooked. The farmers over in Illinois make the road to bring over cordwood and hay and stuff, because they can bring it over on the ice free and it costs twenty-five cents a load when the ferry is running.

So the first farmer that dares drive across on the ice starts out from the Illinois shore, and he starts straight, but pretty soon he has to curve around a drift, and then he has to curve around an air hole, and then he has to go around a piece of ice that looks thin, and by the time he has got to town he has made a crooked road; and the next farmer drives in the same path, because the first farmer's horses' shoes have roughed it up a little and made it easier to travel.

So that is how the road gets made, and before very long it gets to be quite a road. It gets dark and dirty from the horses and the dirt off the cordwood and maybe some coal the farmers take home, and there are wisps of hay all along, rubbed off loads when they passed other teams.

By the time the thaw comes, a good deal of the river in front of town gets so you know how it looks, just like the town itself. The wood road goes zigzagging across, and maybe--if it is a cold winter--the trotting-horse men have a speed track on the ice that is different from the wood road and marked off to show a mile. Wagon loads of waste stuff get dumped on the ice in piles and maybe a dozen or two dozen dead horses. You get so you know how it looks, and you get to feeling as if the river had always been frozen over and had always looked like that. Maybe you have names for things, so anybody like Swatty or Bony knows what you mean when you say: “You know, where the wood road comes nearest to the horseshoe air hole.”

Well, it was pretty mushy when we started across the river. It was warm, too, warm enough to make us sweat; but there was a good breeze blowing from the Illinois shore and it wasn't as warm as it might have been. But, anyway, it was warm. Swatty showed us where to go. He went first and we went behind him, and pretty soon we were far off the wood road because wherever there was a drier place he went that way.

When we got out toward the middle of the river, away from the town dirt, I wished we hadn't come. Out there the ice hadn't been cut up by being skated on, and there were whole big places where the ice was perfectly smooth and green and clear, and with the snow water on top of it we couldn't tell whether it was ice or air hole. We had to walk on the snow close to the ridges, because there we knew there was ice under us, even if we did wade through slush up to our knees. It was scary enough for anybody and Bony began to cry.

I guess we would have gone back if it hadn't been for Swatty, and even Swatty didn't tell Bony to shut up and stop crying. I guess Swatty felt pretty scared himself. You couldn't see anybody on the ice anywhere; we were the only ones. I guess everybody was afraid to go on the ice, it was getting so rotten. That's what I thought then, but it wasn't the reason; Swatty knew the real reason, but he didn't tell us then because he was afraid we would be more scared than we were. Nobody was on the ice because they were afraid it might go out any minute.

So all Swatty did was to say, “Hurry up!” because he was afraid if we didn't hurry up maybe the ice would go out before we got across, and nobody likes to get drowned in ice water.

So pretty soon we came to a place where there wasn't any snow and where there were no ridges--nothing but clear ice with water on it, and the wind making little ripples. Bony cried, and I said, “Aw! let's go back, Swatty!” because you couldn't tell whether it was ice under that water or air hole. Swatty looked all around, but he couldn't see any way to get to Illinois but to cross right over. Neither could any of us. So Swatty said:

“All right for you! You and Bony can let his father kill himself if you want to; but I won't, and when I get back I'll lick you both.”

Well, we didn't care if he did lick us. We'd rather be licked than be drowned. So Swatty said:

“Aw! Come on! I wouldn't have come if I thought you were a couple of cry-baby cowardy-calves. I'll dare you to come!”

But we didn't. So Swatty said:

“I double tribble dare you, and whoever don't take the dare is a sooner!”

Well, a sooner was the worst thing anybody could call you; even Bony would fight if you called him a sooner, but we didn't care what he called us; but just then we heard a gun go off over in the woods, and before either of us could stop him Bony started. He ran right out on the wet ice, crying and blubbering, and he fell down in the water and got up again and ran on. Every little while he would fall down, but he would get right up and run again. The water was almost up to his knees, but he didn't care. I guess he kind of liked his father and wanted to get to him.

Swatty shouted and told him to stop and come back, or anyway to wait for us, but Bony ran right on. Swatty shouted:

“Hey, Bony! come back, I was only fooling! Your father ain't going to kill himself.”

Because Swatty knew Bony's father wasn't going to kill himself, but he was afraid Bony would be drowned. He just wanted us to cross the river because nobody had ever crossed it when the ice was so rotten and we would be the first that ever did it, and he knew we wouldn't do it unless we thought we were going to save Bony's father, or something. So all we could do was to go after Bony, and we did. We waded through the water after Bony, and I was glad Bony had gone first because we were sure there was no air hole where Bony had been ahead of us.

But I made Swatty give me his hand anyway. I didn't like it much. I didn't like it any.

Well, we got across, and before we got across Bony had reached the shore ice. It was pretty rotten and it rubbered down under him, and if he hadn't been running so fast I guess he would have broken through. Then he stopped and looked, because between him and the shore was a wide open space--no ice, nothing but water. He just stopped and looked, and then looked back at us and then he ran to the edge of the ice, and it broke under him and he was in water up to his arms. It was because there was a long sandbar reached out from the shore there; if not he would have been drowned. So he walked through the water about half a block and me and Swatty went after him. Gee, it was cold!

When we got ashore Bony was up in the woods and we could hear him shouting, “Papa! Papa!” and crying, too. It was kind of a sick shout, part cry and part shout. It sounded like “Pwaw-pwa! Uh-uh! Pwaw-pa!” and then “_Pwaw_-pwa! _Pwaw_-pwa!” and then “Uh-uh-uh!” like a little kid cries when it has lost a penny it meant to get candy with and has cried all the way home.