“All right!” he said, and he put his hand on my nose and pushed. He
pushed my nose right into my face. I never had anything hurt like that
did. I yelled, it hurt so much. I told him to stop.
“All right,” he said, “if I stop what are you?”
I knew what he meant. He had already got me from being a Republican
to being a Democrat that way once before. I wasn't thinking of Mamie
Little; I was thinking of my nose. So I said:
“I'm an anti-prohibition. Now let me up. You 've busted my nose and some
of my ribs, and I want to put some plantain on my eye before it swells
up.”
We felt of my ribs and couldn't find that any seemed busted, and my nose
stopped hurting and came back into shape, so me and Swatty were
better friends than we had ever been, because we were now both
anti-prohibitions. We went around and made a lot of prohibitions into
anti-prohibitions because Swatty showed me how to push a nose the way he
pushed mine. But it didn't do much good, I guess. The election was over
and, anyway, there were always more anti-prohibitions in Riverbank than
there were prohibitions.
It was almost right away after that that me and Swatty and Bony met
Mamie Little and Lucy one Saturday afternoon. Lucy is my sister, and
they were going down-town. Me and Swatty and Bony were sitting on the
curb telling whoppers; or I guess Swatty and Bony were, I was just
telling some things that had happened to me sometime that I'd forgot
until I happened to think them up just then.
Swatty was telling how he went up to Derlingport and his uncle
introduced him to the man that had the government job of making up new
swear words, when Mamie and Lucy came along. I said:
“Where are you going?”
“Down-town,” Lucy said.
“Did Mother give you a nickel?” I asked, and I was sort of mad, because
Mother owed me a nickel and hadn't paid me, because she said she didn't
have one, and if she gave one to Lucy, why, all right for Mother!
“No, she didn't give me a nickel, Mr. Smarty!” Lucy said. “If you want
to know so much, we're going down to Mr. Schwartz's shop to see if he'll
let Mamie have a father.”
I guess that would sound pretty funny if you didn't know what she meant.
It was paper dolls.
Girls always play paper dolls, I guess; so Mamie and Lucy and all the
girls played them; they got them out of the colored fashion plates in
the magazines--brides and mothers and sons and daughters.
The trouble was that a good family has to have anyway one father in it,
and the magazines didn't have colored fashion plates of fathers. They
didn't have any fathers at all.
Some of the girls drew fathers on paper and painted them, but they
looked pretty sick. I guess all the girls were jealous of Lucy because
she was kind of Swatty's girl, and Swatty sort of borrowed an old
colored tailor fashion plate out of his father's store and gave it to
Lucy. So Lucy had the only real fathers that any of the girls had. She
gave Mamie a couple of fathers out of the fashion plate, but they were
the ones that had been standing partly behind other fathers and had
mostly only one leg, or pieces cut out of their sides or something. They
didn't make Mamie real happy, I guess, so she thought she'd try to
get some good fathers. They were going down to ask Mr. Schwartz for a
fashion plate.
Swatty was frightened right away, because he hadn't asked his father if
he could have the old fashion plate but had just sort of borrowed it. So
he said:
“What are you going to ask my father?”
“I'm going to tell him he gave you one for me,” Lucy said, “and I'm
going to ask him if he'll give me one for Mamie.”
So then Swatty was scared.
“No, don't do it!” he said.
“I will, too, do it!” Lucy answered back. “I guess I know your father,
and I guess my father buys clothes of him, and I guess we take milk of
your mother, and I guess I will, too, ask him if I want to!”
Well, Swatty couldn't answer back because he had Lucy for his secret
girl like I had Mamie Little.
So I got up and stood in front of Lucy and pushed her a little, because
she wasn't my girl but only my sister, and I said:
“You will not do it. You go home!”
“You stop pushing me! I won't go home.”
“Yes, you will, when I say so!” I said.
I was going to tell her that as soon as there were any more old fashion
plates at Swatty's father's, Swatty would swi--would get one for Mamie,
but Lucy got mad because I just took hold of her arm too hard between my
thumb and finger. She said I pinched her, but I did not; I just sort of
took hold of her that way. She ran back a way and stuck out her tongue
at me.
“Now, just for that, Mr. Smarty,” she yelled, “I'm going to tell Mamie
on you!”
“You just dare!” I started for her, but she skipped off.
“Mamie,” she shouted, “you'll be mad when I tell you! Georgie Porgie
is an anti-prohibition!” Mamie just stood and looked at me, because I'd
said I'd always be a prohibition.
“Are you?” she asked.
If Swatty hadn't been right there I would have changed back to a
prohibition again and it would have been all right, but he was there and
I wasn't going to have him think I would change just on account of a
girl. So I said:
“Uh, huh!”
“All right for you, Mr. Georgie! You needn't ever speak to me again as
long as you live!” she said.
I felt pretty cheap. I tried to say something, and I couldn't think of
anything to say, so I made a face at her and she made one at me, and
then we were mad at each other and she went away. She went toward
down-town, and Lucy skipped across the street and ran and went with her.
And that was one reason Mamie was glad that Toady Williams had her for
his girl when he came to town. She guessed I did not like it. And I
didn't.
Mr. Schwartz said Mamie could have the fashion plate as soon as he was
through with it, which would be at the end of the season when he got a
new one. Lucy let me know that, all right! I guess it was on account
of Lucy he promised to let Mamie have the fashion plate, because he was
awful fond of Lucy.
Anyway, Mamie was mighty pleased to know she was going to have a good
father.
When she played paper dolls with Lucy I used to sort of go over where
they were and maybe stand there to see if Mamie was mad at me still.
About all she said was how glad she'd be when she had a good father. I
guess I heard her say it a hundred times, but she never let on she knew
I was there at all. Sometimes I'd sort of drop an apple or something
so it would fall where she could reach it, but she never paid any
attention. The most she would do would be to pick up a one-legged father
and say:
“'Where are you going, Mr. Reginald de Vere?' 'I'm going down-town to
vote a while if you do not need me to take care of the baby.' 'Not at
all, but I do hope you will show folks you are a prohibition.
If I ever heard you were an anti-prohibition I would cut you up into
mincemeat.'”
So then I most generally went away.
I got kind of sick of girls. I made up my mind they were no good anyway,
and that I'd never have another one if I lived to be a million years
old, and when I wrote notes to Mamie in school it wasn't any use
because she always tore them up without reading them. It made me feel
awful to have her so mean. Because she wasn't mean to Toady.
Well, it came to examination time and we began to be examined. Swatty
and Bony and I didn't have to be examined in arithmetic until Thursday
afternoon and neither did Lucy or Mamie, so Swatty and Bony and I
thought we might as well go fishing that morning. We got our poles and
some bait and started, and we went down Third Street and when we came to
the railway track we cut across through Burman's lumber yard toward the
river because that was the quickest way.
Burman's sawmill was the biggest one in Riverbank then. I guess you know
how big those sawmills were. Great big red buildings with gravel roofs
where they sawed the logs that came down the river in rafts, and where
they made shingles, and the row of sheds where they dried the lumber
with steam, and another big one where the planers were. There were
hundreds and hundreds of piles of lumber, each one as tall as a house,
and all the ground was made of sawdust and rattlings, because it was
filled ground.
There were railway sidings here, and there were flat cars and box cars
being loaded.
Burman's sawmill and lumber yards were just under the bluff. Once there
had been a brickyard there, and the bluff was cut down steep where
they had dug clay. Across the street there was still a brickyard, with
hundreds and hundreds of cords of wood, ready to be used to burn brick,
and with the kilns loosely roofed over. Back toward the town was a sash
and door factory, a pretty big building, and then some houses, and
then the stores began. About the fifth store on one side was Swatty's
father's tailor shop. It was a building all by itself, and it was one
story high and frame, and it had a false front above the first story,
with Swatty's father's name on it, and there was one window on the
street.
Well, Swatty and Bony and me went through the lumber yard to the place
where Burman's oil shed was.
The oil shed was right up against the bluff, almost at the railway,
and it was up on stakes, so that it was safer. It was about as big as a
kitchen, and was painted red and the floor and part of the and part of
the stakes were soaked with oil, and the grass underneath was withered
and oily because the oil had dripped and killed it.
Just as we got there we saw Slim Finnegan, who was in our class at
school but ever so much older than we were, and he was under the oil
shed smoking a corncob pipe. His coat was on the grass beside him, and
just as we got there he jumped up and began slamming at the grass with
his coat, for the grass was afire. Before we could guess what happened,
the flames seemed to run up the stakes like live animals, and all at
once the whole bottom of the floor of the oil shed was afire.
Slim Finnegan gave one look at it, and tucked his coat under his arm and
ran. There were piles and piles of lumber right there and he jumped in
among them, and I guess he hid. We didn't see him any more.
Swatty ran for the sawmill. He shouted to the first man he saw before he
was halfway to the sawmill, and the man hollered “Fire!” and ran for a
hose wagon they had under a shed and began jerking it out, and Swatty
ran on, shouting “Fire!”
It wasn't a second before all the men began piling out of the sawmill
and came running from the lumber yards, and the mill whistle began
blowing as hard as it could. It almost made you deaf when you were that
close. Right away the whole place seemed to fill up with men, and they
all had axes or hooks or whatever they ought to have had.
The mill whistle kept blowing without stopping, and in a minute the
whistle on the sash and door factory joined in, and then the regular
fire whistle on the waterworks started up. The oil house was just one
big red flame that went up in the air and turned into the blackest kind
of smoke. We saw the men with the mill's hose trying to throw water on
the oil house, and every one was shouting at the tops of their voices.
We saw men on top of the nearest lumber piles, but almost as soon as we
saw them we saw them dodge away and climb down as quick as they could,
and the next minute those lumber piles were afire on one side. They were
red flames, and they climbed right up the sides of the piles and waved
at the top.
Me and Swatty and Bony kept backing down the railway track as the fire
got too hot for us. There were hundreds of people, but there were more
than that in other parts of the neighborhood. Almost everybody in town
came to the fire, because by this time dozens of lumber piles were
afire, and the sawmill had set fire to the dry-sheds and the planer. You
couldn't see the bluff at all, because there was just one big wall of
flame in front of it. Whole boards went sailing right up into the air,
burning as they went, and the blue smoke that blew over the town was
full of pine cinders and burning pieces of wood. There never was such a
fire in Riverbank. The ground seemed to burn, too, and it did, because it
was sawdust and rattlings.
The brickyard burned--everything that could burn--and the bluff of yellow
clay, there and beside the sawmill, was burned red, like brick--and the
flat cars and the box cars all burned. It was an awful fire! Wet lumber
in the newest piles burned as if it was dry. The railway bridge and two
other bridges burned. At noon it was like evening, because the smoke hid
the sun.
Me and Swatty and Bony kept backing away as the fire came toward us.
Sometimes we would turn, and run. We backed away as far as ten city
blocks would be, I guess, before we were where we did not have to back
away any more. We forgot all about school, and about fishing, and about
everything. It was the kind of fire where nobody thinks of going home
until it is all over.
It was about two o'clock when the people in front and the firemen in
front of them gave a sort of roar, as if they were a lot of animals, and
everybody crowded back. The firemen on top of the sash and door factory
ran from one edge of the roof to the other, looking down. Two of them
jumped off. They were killed, but the others got down the ladders,
and the next minute the factory and its oil house were all afire at
once--just sort of spouted fire from all the windows as if the fire had
been all fixed to break out that way.
Before you could turn around and then look back, the sash and door
factory was one big, hot flame, and then the houses began to go. First
one and then another caught fire.
We got crowded back until we were in the street right opposite to
Swatty's father's tailor shop, and Swatty's father was on the front step
of it shaking his hands in the air and shouting like a crazy man, but
nobody paid any attention to him. He was a little man and he had gray
hair, but he was mostly bald. He didn't have a hat on and he looked
pretty crazy standing there and shouting.
Well, we didn't know until afterward what he was shouting about, but I
know now, so I might as well tell it. There was a cellar under his shop
and it was full of barrels of whiskey. When prohibition was elected the
saloons thought they would have to stop for a while and that then they
could go ahead again, so they hunted for some place to hide the whiskey
they owned, where it would be safe for a while, and Mr. Schwartz's
cellar was one of the places they hid it in. What Swatty's father was
trying to shout was that if his shop caught fire all the whiskey in the
cellar might explode and the people standing around might be killed and
the whole town burn up. I don't wonder he was sort of crazy about it. I
guess Swatty felt sort of ashamed that his father was acting so crazy.
So then the house next to Swatty's father's shop caught fire, and the
next minute the side of Swatty's father's shop began to smoke.
The policemen were sort of crowding us back all the time, but we would
n't go back much, and all at once Mamie Little started out of the crowd
and began to run toward Swatty's father's shop. But when she was halfway
there the fire marshal just caught her by the arm and gave her a sort of
twist and slung her back, and then the policeman nearest us caught her
and jammed her back against me and Swatty. She was crying all the time;
she kept moaning, “My father! My father!”
So just then Swatty's father ran out and grabbed the fire marshal by the
arm and talked to him in German, because they were both German, and the
fire marshal ran toward his firemen and shouted through his trumpet, and
all the firemen up the street came running back, dragging all their hose
and all shouting.
It was all wild and sort of crazy, and suddenly the fire marshal ran
back to where the firemen were tugging at the heavy hose and shouting,
and four firemen who were holding on to a nozzle pointed the stream into
the air. It was worse than any rain you ever saw. It was just “whoosh!”
and we were all soaked. So all the crowd hollered and screamed, and we
all turned and ran, and all I knew was that I had hold of Mamie Little's
hand and was helping her run. I was awful sorry for her because she was
crying and her father was going to burn.
So Swatty said: “What's she crying for? Why don't she shut up?”
He meant Mamie Little. So I said:
“She can cry if she wants to! I'd like to see you try to stop her! She's
crying because your father gave her his fashion plate and it's going to
be burned up, and if you say much I'll lick you!”
So Swatty said: “If that's all she's crying for, come on. We'll get her
old fashion plate for her.” So I said to Mamie Little: “Stop being a
baby and shut up, and we'll get your old fashion plate for you.”
Swatty just cut in through the crowd, and me and Bony followed after
him. He went up the side street, and we climbed over the fence into
the yard of the corner house and cut across that yard and over another
fence. That way we got to the back of Swatty's father's shop without any
one stopping us. Bony kind of kept behind us.
It was mighty hot, because the house next door was all afire, but the
firemen were keeping all their hose on the side of Swatty's father's
shop, trying to keep it from burning. We crouched down and kept our
backs to the fire so the heat wouldn't shrivel us, and we got to
the back door and it wasn't locked. We went in. It was hot--like an
oven--inside, and the noise of all the water on the side of the house
was like thunder, only louder. The inside of the shop was like under
a waterfall. You wouldn't think anything so wet could burn, but it did.
Before we were halfway to the front window the fire began to eat into
the shop along the floor. The water on that side just turned to steam
and dried as fast as it ran down.
Bony began to cry, but we hadn't any time to stop. Swatty took him _by_
the hand and jerked him along, and we got to the window and I grabbed
the fashion plate. Then we couldn't go back because the shop was mostly
afire and we would have been burned up. So then Bony got real scared and
ran to the front door and threw it open, and a stream from a hose
caught him and sent him head over heels back into the shop where it was
burning; he was knocked unconscious because his head hit a table leg.
So I didn't know what to do. I guess I began to cry. I crouched down
in the window because I couldn't get out at the door on account of the
stream of water that was coming in there a hundred miles a minute, and
I couldn't go back because the back of the shop was all afire now. But
Swatty crawled on his hands and knees under the table where Bony was,
where the fire was beginning to burn harder, and he grabbed Bony and
yanked him along the floor back to the window. I guess I helped him jerk
Bony onto the window shelf, but just then another stream of water busted
the window in. The glass fell all around us and one piece cut Swatty on
the hand, but he only said, “Jump! Jump!”
Maybe we would have jumped, but we didn't. The firemen had got to the
back of the building and had turned the hose in at the back window, and
just when Swatty said, “Jump!” the stream of water hit us like a board.
It took us as if we were pieces of paper and slammed us out of the
broken window and halfway across the street, and threw us head over
heels in the mud, and the fashion plate, with Mamie Little's father,
came flying with us.
[Illustration: 66]
So I crawled over to where the fashion plate was and took hold of it and
began to drag it to where Mamie Little was. A policeman came and took me
by the shoulder and lifted me up, but I couldn't stand, and that was the
first I knew my ankle was sprained. But Swatty got up himself and sassed
the policeman that came to get him. He told him he had a right to go
into his father's own shop if he wanted to, and that if the policeman
said much more he would go back again.
I guess the whiskey exploded all right. Three more houses burned before
they stopped the fire, but we didn't see that because Bony ran all the
way home, and somebody carried me to a wagon, and drove home with me,
and Swatty's father got him and took him up the main street and waled
him on the hotel corner with a half-burned shingle that had blown from
the lumber fire.
The next day my ankle hurt pretty bad and I stayed in bed with linament
on it and after school Lucy came up to see me. “Come on up in my room
and play,” I told her.
“No,” she said, “I don't want to. I want to go down and play with Mamie
Little; we're playing paper dolls. We're having lots of fun.”
“Ho!” I said. “Paper dolls! They're no fun.”
“They are, too,” Lucy said. “And we've got to cut out Mamie's fathers.
She's got a whole fashion plate full.”
“Where'd she get them?” I asked, because I guessed right away what
fashion plate it was.
“Why, Toady Williams gave them to her,” Lucy said. “He got them out of
the fire or somewhere and gave them to her. He's helping us cut them
out.”
Gee! I felt sore!