Part 6

So then Bony started to go home. He didn't say anything, but he sort of edged off as if he wanted to sneak away and get out of any trouble I was in. Swatty spoke right up.

“You come back here!” he said. “You come back, or I'll show you!”

I was glad to have anybody say anything, even that.

“Aw, I got to go home,” Bony said. But he came back. He knew what Swatty would do to him if he didn't. So then Swatty made a face at the pieces of old stump.

“Garsh!” he said. “Garsh! who'd of thunk anybody cared for that old stump? We didn't know Ladylove cared that much for it, did we? Well, come on!”

“Come on where?” Bony sort of whined.

“Where do you think?” Swatty asked. “What do I care where? Anywhere we can get a tree to plant--that's where. We'll get a big tree, like those maple trees, and we'll fetch it here and plant it; that's what we'll do! I'll tell you what. We'll take the capstan rope and go out to the cow pasture and dig up a big tree and let my cow drag it here. We'll play she's a team of oxen.”

Well, we got to fighting about who would drive the team of oxen and who would ride on the tree, and we forgot all about being ashamed of pulling up the stump. We took a spade and the axe, and went out to the pasture, but when we saw how big a big tree was, we guessed we'd get one that wasn't so big, and then we guessed we'd get one that wasn't as big as that, because Swatty said he didn't want his cow to strain herself pulling it. So the one we got wasn't very big, after all, but it was more of a tree than that old rotten stump was. It was a willow tree. We got a willow tree after we'd tried to dig up the roots of an elm tree. Swatty said that a willow tree didn't need any roots.

The cow didn't like pulling a tree very well, but she got used to it before we got home--only we couldn't ride on such a little tree. We had to take turns being the ox-driver. But we got home all right and dug a hole where the old stump had been, and we planted the tree. She looked bully. She looked almost like a real tree. So then I went into the house to get my grandmother, to show her, so she wouldn't feel so bad about the old stump.

I guess she had forgotten all about it. She was sitting by the window, reading the limber-backed psalm-book, and when I came in she looked up and smiled.

“Come on out in the yard, Ladylove,” I said. “I want to show you what me and Bony and Swatty did.”

She closed the psalm-book with her glasses inside and put the book on her sewing-table and went with me. I took her right to where the tree was.

“There!” I said. “Me and Bony and Swatty planted a new tree for you where that old stump was.”

THE STUMP

My grandmother looked at the tree. Her eyes were full of tears again, but they weren't the kind that worried me. She held out a hand toward the tree and said some more poetry:

“What plant we in this apple tree? Buds, which the breath of summer days Shall lengthen into leafy sprays; Boughs, where the thrush with crimson breast Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest. We plant upon the sunny lea A shadow for the noontide hour, A shelter from the summer shower, When we plant the apple tree.”

Well, it wasn't an apple tree, but I didn't care, and neither did Swatty or Bony. I was just glad because Ladylove was glad, and I guessed she knew it wasn't an apple tree, because when you use poetry you have to use the kind there is, and it don't always fit. But this one fitted close enough to show how happy Ladylove was. She was very happy, and when she had said the verses she laughed and kissed Swatty's hand, and then Bony's and then mine, and took her skirt in two hands and made us a curtsy and went away as happy as anything. I felt pretty good.

So just then my father came home, because it was supper-time. He came into the yard, and he walked across the grass to where we were. He looked sort of sober, the way fathers do when they want to know what their sons have been doing.

“What's that?” he asked, short.

“It's a capstan,” I said. “Me and Bony and Swatty made it.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing.”

“Hm! And what is this tree doing here?”

“Why--” I said, and then I didn't know what to say.

“Why, there was an old stump here,” said Swatty, “and we pulled it up with the capstan, and Ladylove, she came out, and she felt pretty bad--” “She couldn't remember it wasn't a tree #ny more,” said Bony.

“And so we went and got a tree and planted it for her,” I said.

My father looked at me. Then he turned away. “Don't do any damage with that capstan thing,” he said, and that was all.

Well, nobody said anything at supper, so after supper I went out and sat on the porch, and Herb Schwartz had come over to talk with Fan awhile and they were there too. So pretty soon my father came out and lighted a cigar and gave Herb one. Then my mother came out and I guessed I would go into the back yard or somewhere, because I knew she would tell my father about what Mrs. Martin had lied about me hurting her crazy boy. So I went and sat on the woodshed step awhile, because if my father was going to lick me he would do it out there anyway.

But he didn't come, so after a while I went around front again. I stopped by the vines at the end of the porch, because my father was talking.

“And I will tell you something else,” he was saying. So he told them about the stump, and how we had pulled it up and then gone and got another tree because Ladylove felt so bad about it. “And Mrs. Martin nor any one else need tell me that a boy that would do that would torment a crippled child,” my father said. “I think I know my son George fairly well. What did George say about it?”

“He said Mrs. Martin--lied,” said my mother. “And she probably did,” said my father. “Unintentionally but none the less wickedly. I am going to see her. I think she is going to apologize.”

So I felt bully about that, and my father went down the walk and mother went into the house. I felt bully because father was right. Only I was n't the one that thought of planting the new tree. That was Swatty. But I guess I'd have thought of it if Swatty hadn't.

I was just going to go up on the porch when Fan said something. What she said was:

“Poor father! The way he lets Georgie behave and then stands up for him!”

“Why, Fan,” Herb said, “you don't think George did anything of the sort Mrs. Martin said, do you?”

“I wouldn't put it beyond him,” Fan said.

“That's not fair! That's unjust!” Herb said.

“Oh! I'm unfair, am I? I'm unjust, am I?” Fan flared up.

“You are if you say such things about George,” Herb said, and he said it out flat, too, as if he meant it.

“Oh!” Fan said. “The last time I was jealous. Now I am unjust! I'm sure I thank you for your opinion of me--”

“And, now, Frances,” said Herb, standing up because Fan was, “you are unfair and unjust to me. Either that or frivolous.”

“Oh!” Fan cried out and she slung something on the porch that bounced and rolled. It came through the vines and to where I was, and I picked it up. It was her engagement ring, but she didn't care where it went, because she went slamming into the house, and Herb went stamping to the gate and out of the yard.

So I stood there and looked at the ring and felt pretty sick, because it was just because Herb thought I wasn't a liar and a mean cripple-torturer that he had stood up for me. And, just because I was n't, his wedding was off again and nobody could tell when me and Swatty would get his tricycle.

V. SCRATCH-CAT

Well, when mother heard that Herb and Fan had had another fight she was so hurt by it she just set down and cried and said, “Fan! Fan! I don't know what is going to become of you with that temper of yours, because Herbert Schwartz is one of the finest young men in the whole world and if you keep on you 'll delineate his affections away from you entirely forever,” or something like that.

And it did look like it. Professor Martin's leg didn't get any better and he had to go over to the hospital at Chicago to have it broke again and fixed and Herb was made a regular professor at our school and principal of it, and every day he used to come into our room and talk awhile with Miss Carter, and walk home with her. I tell you it looked mighty bad for Fan, and I didn't blame Herb, because Miss Carter was nice. She was nice for a teacher, I mean, and sweet and pretty and everything.

Well, I had the engagement ring. I didn't know whether it was mine or whose it was, because Fan had thrown it away and Herb hadn't bothered to pick it up. So it looked as if it was mine, because finders is keepers. So I asked Swatty. So Swatty wanted to look at the ring and when he saw it had a diamond in it he said it was my ring, because Herb and Fan had thrown it away, but that half of it was his, because Herb was as much Swatty's brother as Fan was my sister, and if they had of had the fight on Herb's porch instead of Fan's porch, it would of been Swatty that found the ring. So we had it in pardnership and said we would keep it, because if Herb got engaged again to Fan or to Miss Carter or anybody we could trade it to him for his two-seat tricycle, maybe.

Bony was sitting there all the time, listening to us, so all at once he said:

“Ain't any of the ring going to be mine?”

The reason he said it was because most of the things we have we have sort of in cahoots, the three of us.

“Garsh, no, Bony,” Swatty said. “We'd like to have you part own it but you ain't got no excuse to. Herb ain't your brother, and Fan ain't your sister, like they are mine and Georgie's, are they? You ain't related to the ring no way. We wish he was, don't we, Georgie? but he ain't.”

Well, Bony was sort of mad at it, but it wasn't our fault. So then Swatty said to me:

“I ain't going to play with your sister any more.”

“Why ain't you?” I asked him.

“Because I ain't,” he said. “If my brother Herb ain't good enough for your sister Fan, then I ain't good enough to play with Lucy. And I won't.” Well, I knew what he meant, even if he didn't say it out in words. He meant that he had been having Lucy for his secret girl, like I wanted to have Mamie Little for mine, and now he wasn't going to have her any more because Fan had been mean to Herb.

“Well, I don't blame you,” I said. “I wouldn't either.”

So none of us said anything for a while. Then all at once Bony said something.

“Say!” he said.

“Say it yourself and see how you like it,” Swatty said.

“Why, say!” Bony said, getting red in the face and digging into the grass with his toe; “if--if you don't want to play with her, can I play with her?”

He meant with Lucy. He meant could he have Lucy for his girl if Swatty didn't want her any more, only he didn't say it right out, of course. So Swatty said he could. He said he didn't want her and Bony could have her.

“Well, then--” Bony said. “Well, then, I'd ought to be part owner of the ring.”

So we talked it over and me and Swatty thought that would be all right, because if Bony wasn't a brother or sister of Herb or Fan he was going to have Lucy for his girl and Lucy was my sister and Fan's. So we told Bony he was third pardner in the ring.

I guess Bony felt pretty set up and proud to have a girl that Swatty had had, when he had never had any girl before. Right away he began to get mad when we said Lucy was his girl, and that's a good sign, because that's the way fellows feel.

But girls don't feel that way when they Have fellows. Right away they begin to wiggle their skirts when they walk, and want their mothers to curl their hair every day, and put fresh hair-bows on them. So they start right in saying how they hate the fellow that's their fellow; but they take slate pencils and apples and things from him when he gives them on the sly, and they begin writing notes to him in school, like “Don't you think you 're smart with your new shoes on,” and things like that. So he feels pretty good after all, and gives her apples when nobody is looking, and pushes her around mean-like when anybody does look.

But she don't mind being pushed around, because that's one way she knows he's her fellow. So, when there is a party, she is the one he drops a pillow before, and if she don't kiss him, all right for her! But mostly she does. She lets on that she hates it, but she don't. She likes it.

Well, I guess one reason Swatty was glad to get rid of Lucy was because Swatty didn't care for kissing games anyway, and it wasn't much fun for him to have a girl, because nobody hardly dared yell at him:

“Swatty! Swatty! Swatty! Lucy she is your girl!”

He was too good a fighter. And half the fun of having a girl is getting mad because they yell it at you. And, anyway, Swatty was sort of rough to have Lucy for his girl, and she didn't like to have him for a fellow very much. As soon as school was out Swatty would begin clod fighting with the Graveyard Gang, or make a bee-line for the baseball lot, or get up a good fight. He never wanted to sort of walk on the edge of the sidewalk when the girls were walking on the middle of it, and cut up funny to make them look and giggle. It was boys he liked to push around, and not girls.

One reason Lucy didn't care much to have him for her fellow was because his father and mother were German, and none of the girls like a Dutchy for a fellow, because lots of Dutchies worked in the sawmills and couldn't talk good English. But Swatty's father didn't work in a sawmill; he was a tailor. But he was a Dutchy just the same, and when the fellows got mad at Swatty sometimes they would yell:

“Dutchy! Dutchy! Stuffed with straw Can't say nothing but 'Yaw! yaw! yaw!'”

Well, when I had time to think it over I thought it was funny that Swatty had let Bony have a third partnership in the engagement ring as easy as he had. And then one day I found out why it was. It shows how slick Swatty was to keep a secret or anything.

The vacation before the time I'm telling about--which was almost vacation time again--there was a new girl came to Riverbank. She lived in a little house across Main Street that had a picket fence and a yard that ran mostly down the gully toward Front Street, and the first I knew about her was one day when I had to go down town on an errand and went past her house.

I had on some new shoes, so I knew everybody would see them and be thinking of them, and I felt pretty mean; and when I went by the little house the girl was behind the picket fence, looking out. So I made a face at her, because it was none of her business if I did have on new shoes.

It was summer, of course, and hot; but the girl had on a woolen dress--red and black checks--and it fitted her pretty tight all over, and was too short and little, so that it was tight like skin, and her wrists stuck out too far. She was barefoot, too, and that was funny, because girls don't go barefoot. It was as funny to see her barefoot as to see me with shoes on.

I was going to yell something at her, but I didn't, I only made a face at her. But she didn't make one back at me. She just looked.

She wasn't like any girl in Riverbank that I ever saw. She was brown--almost like an Indian--but she had reddish cheeks, and her hair was as black as tar and cut short, like a boy's, only it was banged in front, and her bangs were so long they came down to her eyes, and were cut as straight as a string.

She stood behind the picket fence and just looked at me, and I didn't like it. Her eyes were like big black marbles and her mouth like a painted red. So I whistled and looked the other way and the first thing I knew she was out of the gate and after me. I tried to run, but she cornered me and took me by the hair and jerked me back and forth. I thought she was going to jerk my head off. So I pulled loose and ran, because no girl can jerk me around by the hair like that. So all she got for her smarty business was just a handful of hair or two. And who cares for a handful of hair?

Well, you bet I got even with her, all right! I never went past her house alone after that.

So that's the way she was. She stayed in her yard, and when a boy came along she would jump out and grab him by the hair, or slap him, and chase him away from in front of her house. She was a tartar, all right. She was like a spider that is always waiting and comes out and grabs flies; only what she grabbed wasn't flies--it was boys. So we all got afraid of her, and we didn't dast go past her house unless we were two or three together. And then we generally went round some other way. Except Swatty.

Because one day Swatty he went past her house, and she come out and was going to pull his hair, like she did the rest of us; and when she came at him he backed up against the fence, and when she reached out for his hair he hit her hand away with one hand and slapped her on the face good and plenty. He slapped her two or three times and dared her to touch him. So she didn't say anything, and Swatty didn't say anything, and they just stood there.

And pretty soon Swatty went on downtown. So she just stood there.

Well, me and Bony used to play with girls sometimes because they let us be the husbands and fathers, and boss them around and whip the children. So when we did Swatty used to come along. Mostly he would sit and whittle until me and Bony got through, but sometimes he would be the policeman to arrest the husbands when they got drunk, or a pirate, or an Indian lurking to scalp the wives, or a 'rangatang to carry the children off.

I guess the girls wished he wouldn't come, because a 'rangatang is such an interruption to plain housekeeping, and pirates and policemen are an awful nuisance to mothers who want to bring up a peaceful family and don't want their husbands taken to jail just when the mud pies are cooked and dinner is ready. But they couldn't help it, because if they didn't let him me and Bony would go where Swatty went.

Well, one time when teacher kept Swatty in school to have the principal lick him, she went out to get the principal and locked Swatty in the room, and he climbed out of the window onto a maple tree branch and got away. So the principal licked him the next day. Anyway, the trees darkened the room all up, so they had the janitor cut down the two trees and they fell down the bank back of the schoolhouse.

So that day the leaves were only beginning to wither, and the branches of the trees made a bully place to play in. So Mamie Little and my sister and me and Bony went right out there after dinner and played house; and when Swatty had been licked, or whatever he had been kept in for, he came there too. We made houses among the branches and leaves, and were fathers and mothers; and Swatty had a lair and was a 'rangatang, and hung by his knees and swang from branch to branch.

It was pretty good fun, even if it was playing with girls, because it was a jungle, and me and Bony hunted the wild 'rangatang between meals; and we were playing along all right when I saw my sister standing and looking. I guess you know how a girl stands and looks--the way a cow does--when she don't like something. So I looked, and out in the street was the girl in the red and black check woolen dress. She was just standing and looking back at my sister. It made my sister mighty mad. I guess girls can look the things boys generally holler at each other. So my sister said:

“Bony, I don't want that girl to look at me!”

So Bony looked, and when he saw who was looking he said:

“Aw! let her look! Let her look, if she wants to. She ain't hurting anybody!”

So then my sister got awful mad. She stamped her foot.

“I _won't_ let her look at me that way.”

So she started on a run for the girl. She didn't get quite up to her. Before she got quite to her, the girl sort of flashed up to my sister. That was about all I could see. The next I saw, she was standing just where she had always been, and my sister was flopped down on the ground with her arms over her head, yelling bloody murder. So I jumped out of the tree and ran up to my sister. Her face was all scratched up. There were four long scratches on each side of her face where the girl had raked her with her claws. So Mamie Little came running too, and helped my sister up.

“If I was a boy,” she said, “I wouldn't let anybody do that to my sister unless I was a 'fraid-cat.”

“Aw! who's a 'fraid-cat?” I said. I wasn't no more 'fraid-cat than she was, but I guess J knew that girl.

So Mamie Little took my sister by the arm. “Come on,” she said. “I guess everybody around here is a 'fraid-cat. You and me will be mad at them and stay mad for ever and ever!”

So I had to go. I wasn't going to hit the girl. I just thought I'd sort of push her away--only maybe a little rough--until I pushed her inside her gate, so I could show a smarty like Mamie Little who was a 'fraid-cat and who wasn't. I walked over to where the girl was, and she waited for me. All I had time to see was the girl's eyes turning to something like prickly black fire, and something plumped against me like a bag of flour shot out of a sling. It was as if her body hit against me everywhere at once. And then something grabbed my hair and yanked me, and I felt scratches burning on my face, and, somehow, I was on the ground, yelling and holding my arms above my head. The girl was standing where she had always been. I heard Mamie Little and my sister yelling:

“Scratch-Cat! Scratch-Cat!”

Swatty came on the run. He was pretty mad, because him and me was chums, and I was his cow-cousin and his double Dutch uncle, and he ran right past me and up to the girl. He gave her a push with his hand, and it sort of pushed her around; but she straightened up again and just looked at him.

“You scratch-cat!” he said, as mean as he knew how. “Who are you scratching around here, I'd like to know?”

I thought she'd jump on him and claw him, like she did me; but she didn't.

“I ain't going to hurt you,” she said.

“You bet you ain't!” Swatty said. “'Cause why? 'Cause you darsent, that's why!” Only he said, “'Cors why?” like he always does.

She didn't say she did dare, and she didn't say she didn't dare. She said:

“Come over in my yard and play with me. Don't you play with them. I can play good.”

So Swatty pushed her again, and she stepped back a step.

“Don't you play with girls!” she said. “You come and play with me.”

“Aw! you're a girl too,” Swatty said. “Go awrn home and play with yourself.”

So he gave her another push. She looked as if she hadn't ever thought that she was a girl before. She said:

“I can beat you running. I can beat you jumping. I can beat you climbing trees. I can beat you skinning the cat. I can chin myself ten times more than you can. I can stand on my head longer than you can.”

“Go awrn home!” Swatty said, and gave her another shove.

She stepped back again.

“Come on and play in my yard,” she said again. “I can throw you any hold you want. I can fight you and lick you.”

“Becors you're a scratch-cat,” Swatty said, and pushed her again.

“I can lick you without scratching,” the girl said. “Well, then, do it!” said Swatty. “Go on and do it, why don't you? I want to see you do it!”

So each time he said it he gave her a push.

“I won't!” she said. “I ain't going to fight you.”

“You darsent!”

“I ain't going to!”

“You don't dare!”

“I ain't going to!”

So every time Swatty said anything he shoved her again, and pretty soon he had her pushed clear back against the fence of her yard, and he left her there and came back. We went on playing. But every once in a while we thought of her, and when we looked she was standing just where Swatty had left her.