Part 17

All of a sudden we heard the shotgun again. It was toward down-river and not near us at all. Bony heard it, too, and he stopped to listen and we caught up with him. I guess he was as good as crazy, because when we got to him he started to run, and he ran right into a grapevine tangle and began pulling and pushing through it, although he could have taken ten steps and have gone around it. I guess he must have liked his father a lot to get so crazy about him. Swatty went right after him. He swore at him in German and told him that the way was to go out on the shore where the sand was, so he could run faster. So Bony went and we went, too, and we all ran.

We didn't say much. Swatty kept telling Bony what kind of a fool he was for thinking his father was going to kill himself, and Bony kept sobbing and running. I guess maybe I cried a little, too. I felt kind of--I don't know--frightened, I guess. So then we got around the bend, and all at once we saw Bony's father.

He was out on the ice. When we saw him first he was about as far out on the ice as two blocks would be, and he had on his rubber boots and his hunting coat, and it looked bulged around the pockets, so me and Swatty knew he had been hunting and had got two rabbits, or maybe three. We guessed that what had happened was that when he got sick of fighting about bills he went hunting, to forget about it, because Swatty's father--when he felt that way--went down to his tailor shop and sewed coats or pants, and when my father felt that way he would go out and split wood or maybe clean out the barn. But I guess Bony's father thought he'd go hunting. I guess maybe he thought he'd like to kill something.

When we saw him out on the ice he was walking fast, or sort of running, going toward the Iowa shore, but that wasn't what scared us. What scared us was that the ice was moving!

We didn't see it at first. Bony was yelling at his father, and his father heard him and turned and looked back, and then started to run toward us. Where we were, at the bend, the ice came close in to the high bank and on the ice there was a limb of a big tree. Somebody had made a fire under it and it was partly burned. Bony ran up and down the bank looking for a good place to climb down, but Swatty was going to slide down right there and let his feet get on that old dead limb. But when Bony's father saw Bony running up and down he shouted to Jim, “Back! Back!” Swatty looked at Bony's father to see why he was shouting that. Then he looked down at the old limb again. It had moved along!

Well, you bet he was frightened for a minute! He wasn't thinking of the ice, he was thinking of that dead branch, and for a dead branch to start and move like that isn't natural. He felt the way you feel when you go to pick up a stick and it is a live snake. For a minute he just stood and held his breath and was scared, and then he saw it wasn't the dead limb that was moving but the ice, and he grabbed my arm and pointed. And just then the fire-whistle on the waterworks over in town began to blow.

That was a sure sign the ice was going out, It was to let folks know so they could come down and see the ice go out because, you bet, it is worth seeing. You can't tell what the ice will do when it starts to go out.

So then we knew the ice must be going out faster on the Iowa side than on our side. What Bony's father was trying to say and do was to tell us to keep off the ice, and to get off it himself; but he did not have to tell us much because before he got close enough for us to hear him much the ice was making such a noise we couldn't hear him at all. And he couldn't get off! The ice began to pile up against the upper side of the bend, shearing itself off and sliding on top of itself and leaving a big open space below the bend.

Well, I guess Bony cried then! And he had something to cry about that time. His father came running as near as he could to us, but it wasn't very near, because the ice near shore was cracking up into big pieces. He ran up-stream on the ice, shouting to us all the time, but the ice was going downstream, and at last it floated down so there was an air hole opposite us and he had to stop. I say he had to stop, but he kept going, because the ice carried him on down the river. He looked all around, and then waved his arm at us and started to run toward the Tow Head.

The Tow Head is a big island in the river but nearer Iowa than Illinois, where we were. The wind was pushing the ice over that way, and I guess he thought maybe he could get off the ice on the Tow Head if he could get there before the ice carried him by.

Bony's father ran around the air hole and kept running up and across, and he ran hard; but by that time the ice was going pretty fast, so me and Swatty and Bony got down to the sand and ran down-stream as fast as we could. Or maybe not as fast as we could; we kept even with Bony's father. He was running up-stream but he was going downstream all the time.

Pretty soon the old race track the men had made on the ice went by, and then the end of the wood road went by. It was funny to think that me and Bony and Swatty were running one way and Bony's father the other way, and that we kept right opposite each other. But it wasn't very funny, because we all thought Bony's father would be drowned.

Well, the ice went past the Tow Head. It went past before Bony's father was halfway to the Tow Head, and he stopped running and stood still. Then he turned and started to run toward us again.

On our side of the river the water between the shore and the ice was getting wider and wider, because the river was wider here and because the wind was blowing the ice toward the Iowa shore. If I had been Bony's father I would have run for the Iowa shore because the ice was pushing up against it, but it would have been foolish because the Tow Head was like a knife and split all the ice as it came to it. Nobody could get across from where Bony's father was to the Iowa shore, but I did not think of that. But Bony's father did. So did Swatty. He said so afterward. He said he would have done just what Bony's father did.

Bony was crying, of course, and he was running in front, because he wanted to see his father drowned if he was drowned, I guess. I was next, but Swatty was behind because he had stopped to look, and that was the way we were when we came to the mouth of the First Slough. The ice was rubbery, but Bony and me ran across and up the bank and in through the woods--you have to, there--and kept right on as soon as we came out on the shore.

Bony's father was getting nearer and nearer, but the stretch of water was getting wider. It was too wide for anybody to swim, of course. I felt kind of sick. I don't know why--I guess it was because I thought, all at once, that I was running like that just to see a man drown in the river, and it made me sick. I shouted to Bony, but he kept on running and then I looked at Bony's father.

He was still running, but he had his hand in the air and he was waving a white handkerchief, and then he put it in his pocket and just ran. Pretty soon I looked back for Swatty, and I saw him!

He wasn't on the shore. He--but that's what Swatty is like. He was in a skiff, rowing as hard as he could toward the ice!

Bony and me had run across the First Slough without thinking of anything but hurrying up, but Swatty, when he came to the Slough, thought, “Well, if anybody has a boat around here they would haul it into the Slough where the river ice wouldn't sweep it away or crush it.” So he just took a look, and there was a skiff. It was hauled up under a tree and padlocked to the tree. It looked as if it was there for good and all, but when Swatty looked at the boat the chain was just stapled into the boat and all he did was pry out the staple with a piece of driftwood. There were no oarlocks, but you can make a thole pin with a piece of wood, and that was what Swatty did. He made thole pins with pieces of driftwood and he pried the skiff down to the ice and slid it to the river, and then he jumped in and began rowing with two pieces of driftwood for oars.

I shouted to Bony and he stopped, and we turned back and ran. Swatty was n't trying to keep up with the ice, he was trying to get to it any way he could, and he was having a pretty hard time of it. First one thole pin broke and then the other and he had to paddle. I thought he'd never reach the ice.

Even Bony stopped crying.

Well, Swatty got to the ice, but he couldn't land on it. He just sort of hugged it with the boat, and Bony and me had to run again to keep even with him. Then Bony's father came to the edge of the ice and tried it carefully with his foot, but it was firm because all the weak ice had been scraped off at the bend. So all he did was to get into the boat. It was easy. Then he took one of the pieces of driftwood and helped Swatty paddle.

So then everything was all right and Bony's father wasn't drowned or hadn't shot himself or anything, so Bony began to cry again.

It took us a long time to get the boat back where it belonged and a longer time to walk back to opposite the town. It was dark when we got there and the ice was still going by, and we knew it might be a week before we could get across the river again; but all at once we heard a rifle or a shotgun across the river, and then Bony's father fired his, and that let them know he was all right. So then we all worked and built a big driftwood fire and when it was burning we walked in front of it--one, two, three, four, and then back again: one, two, three, four. We hoped they could see there were four of us and that we were all right.

And they did, because right away somebody shot off a pistol--one, two, three, four. That meant they knew there were four of us.

Well, it was two days before we could get across the river again, but we got our meals at a house up on the bluff and slept in their barn, and it was good enough fun.

When Bony got home his father said:

“Mother, look at this young hero! If it hadn't been for those boys I would be dead this minute. Now, stop crying over him, and go and make him the biggest lemon meringue pie he ever saw!”

So I guess Bony felt all right. But when I got home Mother said:

“Well, thank goodness you 're back! That child--Mamie Little--has pestered the life out of me ever since you went away. For mercy's sake, run over and tell her you're home again!”

That was all right, but the best was that Bony's father wasn't mad at us any more and he talked with us about Dad Veek's barn. He was pretty solemn about it, and when we had told him all we wanted to he said it looked serious, but he would help us all he could, and the first thing he did was to go to Judge Hannan's office and see Herb Schwartz. So he found that Herb was already bestirring himself, but when Bony's father talked to him he said he would bestir himself more than ever.

XIV. HERB BESTIRS

Well, the first thing Herb Schwartz did was to ask me and Swatty to go down to Judge Hannan's office after school one day and we went. Bony didn't go because Herb didn't want him to, and when we went in the office Herb was sitting at a desk and he turned around in his chair and told us to sit down. So we did. We thought maybe the first thing he would tell us was that we were doomed and plumb goners, and how many years we'd have to be in reform school, but he didn't. He looked at me and said:

“Well, George, how is your sister Frances?”

“She's pretty good, I guess,” I told him.

“That's nice,” he said. “And how do you like having that Burton fellow of hers bestirring himself around to put you in reform school.”

“I don't know,” I said. “I guess I don't like it very well.”

“I shouldn't think you would,” he said. “But I suppose your sister Frances likes it.”

“She does not!” I said.

“That's strange,” he said. “She thinks you are a totally depraved young reprobate, don't she? It seems to me that the last conversation I had with her she said that, or words to that effect. I supposed she was the one that set that Burton fellow on you.”

“No, she didn't!” I said. “My mother did.”

“Oh! your mother did, did she?” Herb asked, but he grinned.

“No, she didn't either,” I said. “All she did was to get Tom Burton to bestir himself, so Dad Veek wouldn't go to jail or anything. She didn't know he was going to bestir himself against me and Swatty. My mother don't want me to go to reform school. And Fan don't.”

So then Herb asked Swatty if, for goodness' sake! he couldn't sit still without knocking his heels against his chair. Then he said to me:

“Is it possible that your sister believes you are capable of regeneration?”

“I don't know what it is,” I told him, “but I guess so.”

“I mean,” Herb said, “she thinks there may be some good in you after all, does she?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

So then he laughed and shook his head as if it was funny. I guess I knew why. I guess it was because the reason Fan had thrown his ring at him was because he said I was some good and she said I wasn't, and now she thought the way he thought.

Then Herb sobered up and asked about the fire and we told him everything, even about the Red Avengers. He asked questions and we answered them, and he seemed to know almost more about it than we did. He knew about what we told Toady Williams when we were just bragging and that we had bragged that we had set the barn afire.

“But that was just pretend,” I said.

“A mighty bad kind of pretend,” Herb said, and he asked us some more questions. He would look at some papers on his desk and then ask some more questions. When he got through asking he said: “Well, if the case has to go into court Mr. Rascop will defend you two young rascals, and if the case comes before Judge Hannan I think you'll have every chance that can be hoped for, but I don't like the looks of things. Judge Hannan knows what boys are, but if the case goes before some old stiff it is going to be hard to make him think your brag to Toady Williams was just pure brag. At the best it looks as if one of you two must have dropped a com-silk cigarette stub in the shavings. You two had better walk straight and keep out of trouble from now on. I'll do what I can for you.”

So we went out and we were pretty scared. We didn't say much. We just walked along for a while. Then Swatty said:

“Say! I know who wrote all those questions Herb asked us.”

“Who did?” I asked him.

“Fan did,” he said, “because I saw what Herb was reading from, and I saw the last page and it said, 'Yours humbly, Frances.'”

So that was how Herb knew so much about it, because I had told Fan and she had told Herb in the letter. At first I was pretty mad that she should be a tattle-tale but then I guessed that was how she was bestirring herself, because it didn't do any good to bestir with Tom Burton.

When I got home it was almost supper time but Fan came to the front porch when she heard me and asked me if I had seen Herb, and all about it, and I told her.

“Well, Georgie,” she said, “I'll stick by you through thick and thin,” and then she began to cry and ran into the house, and I went in and mother stopped me in the hall.

“George,” she said, “this is a terrible affair and I don't know what will be the end of it, but if I could give my life to keep you from harm I would gladly do so. And, whatever comes of it, you must be tender to Fan, because she quarreled with Herb because of you and now she has quarreled with Tom, and she loves you very much,” or something like that.

So I felt pretty mean, because a boy don't like that kind of talk, and when I went upstairs and Lucy was coming down I gave her a push. She said: “You stop that! Are you and Swatty going to reform school?”

“None of your business,” I told her.

“Oh! you don't need to think I'd ask you, smarty!” she said. “I don't care. I only asked you because Mamie Little asked me to ask you.”

So then I felt how awful it would be to go to reform school and everything and I went up to my room and cried on my bed. I was up there, but mostly done crying, when my father came up. He put his hand on me and said:

“Here, now! None of this, old sport. Buck up! We'll get you out of this all right, some way. Come on down to supper.”

So then he kissed me. He hadn't kissed me for a long time before that, because men don't, but it was all right this time. I went down to supper like he said.

Well, Herb and my father and Swatty and me had a meeting nearly every night in our dining-room and talked about how we were getting along, but we weren't getting along very much. The only thing that got along was Fan, and she was making up to Herb again. She would come into the dining-room and sit and talk to Herb and father, but she couldn't fool me. She was making up to Herb all right. I could see that.

Well, one day Tom Burton came over to our house and Fan and Tom Burton had a regular row. It was a dandy. And that settled Tom, I guess. He never came to our house again.

Me and Swatty had to go to school just the same as ever. I wished, if they were going to send us to reform school they would go ahead and do it, because Miss Carter began to get mean to us. Professor Martin was back and nearly every day Miss Carter kept us in school and Professor Martin came in and talked to her while she kept us in. Mostly they walked home together, because me and Swatty saw them.

Well, me and Swatty had been sort of mad at Bony, like I told you, but you can't keep mad always, and we started to letting him be with us again. So one day me and Swatty and Bony got out of school late, because Miss Carter had kept us in, and Scratch-Cat had been kept in, too. We all came out of the schoolhouse together. It was almost spring again and Bony had some marbles he had bought, so we said:

“Let's play marbles.”

Scratch-Cat didn't want to.

“Well, you don't have to,” Swatty told her. “You're a girl, anyway. What do you want to play?”

“I don't want to play anything,” she said. “I've got a better game than a play-game, and you can be in it if you want to.”

“What is it, then?” Swatty asked.

“Secret society,” Scratch-Cat said. “I thought it all up in school to-day and it's Gypsies. Swatty will be the king and I'll be the queen, and Georgie and Bony can be princes, and we 'll take an oath to be mean to Miss Carter or anybody that keeps us in school or anything. We'll think up things to do to them, and when Miss Carter and Professor Martin are married we'll steal their children and raise them to be gypsies--”

“Aw!” I said, “they ain't going to be married.”

“Yes, they are!” Scratch-Cat said. “Because I saw him kiss her. He kissed her in the cloak room almost before I was out of it, just now.”

“Well, we ain't going to be secret gypsies or any secret society,” Bony said, “because me and Swatty and Bony have one already.”

“No, we haven't,” Swatty said.

“We have, too!” Bony said. “We've got the Red Aven--”

He stopped pretty short, you bet.

“No, we haven't,” Swatty said again. “We never had. We had a meeting and voted that there wouldn't be any Red Avengers any more and that there never had been.”

“But--but you couldn't,” Bony said.

“Yes, we could,” Swatty said. “We started it and I guess we had a right to stop it. Me and Georgie we voted on it. There never was any Red Avengers. And I'll lick anybody that says there was.”

“But--but don't we have to be true to the oath any more?” Bony asked.

“Pooh, no!” Swatty said. “When there ain't any Red Avengers there ain't any Red Avengers' oath, or nothing.”

“And can't anybody put me in state's prison for saying what the oath says I mustn't tell about any Red Avenger?” asked Bony.

“No, sir!” said Swatty. “That oath is a dead oath and don't count no more.”

“Well, then,” Bony said. “Toady did it!”

“Did what?” Swatty asked.

“Toady set the barn afire,” Bony said, still pretty scared. “I couldn't tell, because I took oath not to tell on any Red Avenger, but if there ain't any oath Toady did it. I saw him. He had a pack of real cigarettes and he didn't dare smoke while he was skating because Miss Carter was skating on the creek, too.

“So I guess Toady thought he would go up to the Nest to have a smoke,” Bony went on, “and I was going home. So when we got up to the Nest he asked me if I wanted to smoke a real cigarette, and I said I didn't. So Toady lit one and threw down the match, and it set the shavings afire. So he tried to stamp the fire out, but it spread too fast, and so he ran, and I ran, and when we looked back the barn was all afire. So he said that if I ever told he would have me sent to state's prison for breaking the Red Avengers' oath and telling on a fellow comrade. But he did it, and I saw him do it.”

Well, Swatty got up and gave a yell and he had to hit some one, so he hit Scratch-Cat, and she went for him and they had a good fight, but Swatty was laughing all the time, and he didn't fight as hard as he mostly did. When they got through fighting they shook hands, and we all went down to Herb's and he listened to what we had to tell him.

That ended it, except that he sent the engagement ring back to Fan in a letter and she kept it, and Mr. Williams, who was Toady's father, moved out of town mighty quick and took Toady with him, because Herb telephoned him right away and I guess he thought he had better do it.

So that's all. Me and Swatty didn't go to reform school. We didn't go anywhere. The only others that went anywhere were Herb and Fan. They went on a marriage trip, or whatever you call it.

THE END