Well, I guess the nearest Swatty ever came to having a lot of money was
the time Mr. Murphy got it and Swatty didn't. It was a thousand and five
hundred dollars, and if Swatty didn't get it Mamie Little ought to have
had it; and if Mamie Little didn't get it I ought to have had it; but we
didn't any of us get it, because Mr. Murphy got it.
I told you about the time Mamie Little got mad at me because I had been
prohibition and changed over to anti-prohibition because Swatty could
lick me, and about how her father had the prohibition newspaper. Well,
he kept publishing in his newspaper that the saloons ought to be closed;
so one day somebody blew up Mr. Little's house with dynamite--only it
was gunpowder. But they called it dynamite. They called the men that
blew up the house the dynamiters. They blew up two other houses, too,
and that was why Mr. Murphy was in town. He was a detective. He came and
worked in the sawmill, and nobody knew he was a detective until he got
the money me or Swatty or Mamie Little ought to have had.
Me and Swatty and Bony was sitting on the empty manure bin back of our
barn, smoking cornsilk cigarettes, and that reminded us of the time we
were up the river smoking driftwood grapevine cigarettes, when we saw
Slim Finnegan steal the gunpowder, and we got to talking about it.
“Well, if anybody ever finds out Slim Finnegan stole it he won't stab
me!” Swatty said; “because he wouldn't think I told on him, because I
ain't prohibition and I never was; and I guess Slim and everybody knows
it.”
So that made me and Bony feel pretty scared, because everybody knew
Slim Finnegan was a stabber. He'd just as soon stab you as not. I
don't remember whether he ever had stabbed anybody; but I guess he had,
because everybody said so. Anyway, he was always showing us the knife he
stabbed fellers with when he wanted to stab them, and he said he'd stab
any of us for two cents. The knife had a staghorn handle and a six-inch
blade, with a curve in it and a spring in the back that, when you
pressed it, snapped the blade open all ready to stab with.
Once, when he met me when I was alone, he grabbed me by the neck and
backed me against a fence post, and pulled out the knife and opened it.
I bellered and said: “Aw, lemme alone, Slim! I never done nothin' to
you!” And he said he knew mighty well I hadn't and that I'd better not
try to, because he was a stabber, and if I did anything he didn't like
he'd cut my heart out and leave it sticking to the fence post with the
knife in it, to show fellers not to monkey with Slim Finnegan. So I said
I'd never, never do anything he didn't want me to, and please to let me
go. So he said, well, he guessed he'd stab me, anyway, while he had
me; and he put the point of his knife against my stomach and leaned up
against me, so that all he had to do was lean a little harder against
the handle of the knife and I'd be stabbed.
I thought I was going to be killed, sure. I held my breath, and my
bones felt like water; and just then he laughed at me and bumped my head
against the post three times and threw me down on the grass and went
away.
That was before me and Swatty and Bony saw him set the lumber yard afire
too. After we saw him set the lumber yard afire we were all more scared
of him than ever; even Swatty was scared of him, and said so. When we
saw him set the lumber yard afire Slim was in our class at school; but
he was twice as big as anybody in our room, because he only went to
school when he wanted to and he didn't want to very often; and after the
fire he quit going to school. I guess he went bumming for a while.
The first I knew about Slim Finnegan was when I was a little bit of a
kid and not big enough to ride belly buster or knee gut on a sled or
slide down the big hills. I had a high sled and rode on it sitting down,
and rode from the sidewalk into the gutter, and things like that. So my
father got me a new sled on my birthday, a clipper sled with half-round
irons, and it was painted red and was named Dexter. I took it out on the
hill where the big kids were sliding and tried to ride belly buster on
it, which is lying flat on your stomach and steering with both feet,
like knee gut is lying on one knee and steering with the other foot, but
the runners on my sled were so slick that when I put the sled down it
slid away before I could get onto it.
So I was trying that when Slim Finnegan came up. I hadn't ever seen him
before, but he acted nice and said the way I was trying to get onto the
sled wasn't the right way and he would show me how. So he took my sled
and ran away and belly busted onto it. He went down the hill like a
flash. I watched him until I couldn't tell which was Slim and which was
some other feller, away down the hill, and then I couldn't tell any one
from any other, and I waited for him to come back. One feller came up
the hill, and then another and dozens came up, but Slim didn't come back
with my sled; and after a while I began to blubber the way kids do, and
a girl I didn't know took me by the arm and led me home, saying, “Don't
cry, Georgie! Don't cry, Georgie!” all the way.
So the girl told my mother somebody had stolen my sled, and that was the
first I knew it was stolen. When my father came home he asked me what
the boy was like that took my sled and I told him, and he went out and
after a long time he came back and he had my sled. It was all painted
over with fresh drab paint except where my father had scraped the paint
off to show that it was my sled. He said: “That drunken Finnegan's dirty
son stole it!” So that was the first I knew of Slim Finnegan.
When I got old enough to play away from the house I mighty soon knew
that Slim Finnegan was the feller that would sneak up on us little kids
when we were playing marbles and grab up our marbles and steal them and,
if we said anything, twist our arms behind us until we yelled. He was
the one that would sit in the long grass out in the field when we played
ball and, if the ball came near him, grab it up and put it in his pocket
and laugh at us. He was the one that, if he came on us when we were
fishing, would throw our worm can in the Slough and take the fish we had
caught, and then swear at us. He was a sneak and a thief and a tough,
and his father was a tough and a drunkard; and it wasn't safe to send
your washing to Mrs. Finnegan because sometimes she got drunk and didn't
do it for a week, and sometimes it didn't all come back.
Well, Swatty said that Slim Finnegan wouldn't stab him, because he was
anti-prohibition and Slim was too; so Bony thought maybe he'd better
turn anti-prohibition, and he did. And I hoped Slim knew I had turned,
but I was afraid he didn't.
Well, one day that spring--but pretty late--me and Swatty and Bony went
down to the levee and hired a skiff from Higgins like we always did;
and we rowed across the Mississippi to the Illinois shore above the old
ferry landing. I guess maybe we were after turtle eggs; so when we saw
the shore was all mud Swatty said:
“Let's row up to the head of the Slough and row down the Slough.”
“What for?” I asked him.
“Oh, just for cod!” he says. So we did.
We rowed up to the place where the Slough branches off from the river,
and there was a good deal of water in the Slough yet, so we rowed down
the Slough until we came almost to the ferry road, and then we thought
we would stop and get some grapevine driftwood to smoke, and we did.
We rowed to the shore of the Slough and got out and found plenty of
driftwood where it had lodged against the bushes and tree roots, and we
lit up and smoked and sat awhile just doing that.
Then Swatty said: “Come on! Let's go over to that sand by the powder
house and see if there are any turtle eggs there yet.”
That was a good place for turtle eggs, because the sand was hotter there
sooner than anywhere else. It was a sort of cleared place without many
trees or bushes, all soft sand and not very far from the ferry road.
So we walked along down the Slough and pretty soon we came to a skiff
pulled up on the shore. I was nearest, so I jumped into it; but Swatty
didn't. He said:
“Garsh! You'd better get out of that skiff. Some feller has just left
that skiff there, because his footprints on the bow seat ain't dry yet.
If he came back and seen us playing in his skiff he'd like as not give
us good and plenty!”
And that was right, because when a feller rows over from town or
anywhere he don't like kids to fool with his skiff; because if the skiff
got away how could he get back to town? So if they catch you in their
skiffs they bat you a good one. So I got out of the skiff and Swatty
went on ahead, and me and Bony followed; and we come to the sandy place
by the powder house.
A powder house is a little square shack about as big as a closet,
covered with sheet iron and painted red for danger. This was the only
one on the Illinois side, but there were two more on the Iowa side, up
the river from town a good ways; and the reason they were so far from
town was because the wholesale grocers sold powder, but the city didn't
allow them to keep any inside the city limits. When they sold some they
sent over to get it. The powder houses were painted with big letters
to say Danger! and that nobody must shoot at them or build a fire near
them, or they might explode. So that was why this one was in the middle
of the sandy place sand can't burn like grass does.
So we come through the bushes to where we could see the powder house and
we all stopped short right there, for there was Slim Finnegan coming
out of the powder house with a bag over his shoulder, with what anybody
could tell was an iron powder keg in it. As soon as we saw him he saw us
and we dodged back into the bushes and ran. We ran pretty far, and then
we stopped and listened and didn't hear anything; so we hid down behind
a log and waited. We knew that if Slim Finnegan found us he'd stab us or
something. Anyway, we thought he would. Me and Bony did. I guess Swatty
did too.
After we had waited what seemed like a couple of hours--but I guess
it was about half a minute--Swatty put his head up above the log and
looked, and didn't see anything. Then he got up and went round the log
and started to go back to the powder house. Bony didn't say anything,
because he was too scared, but I yelled, “Swatty! Swatty!” in a whisper,
because I wanted him to come back; but he just turned and motioned us to
be still, and he went on. He walked as careful as he could. Pretty soon
he came back and dropped down behind the log again.
“It's Slim Finnegan, all right,” he said--only he said “orl right,” like
he always does; “and he's stealing a keg of powder”--only he said it
sort of like “kerg of powder.”
“What'd you see, Swatty?” I whispered.
“I seen him shift the bag from one shoulder to the other,” Swatty said,
“and I could see the ridges on the keg, all right! If we wanted to we
could tell the police and they'd put him in jail.”
“Aw, don't, Swatty!” I said. “If you do that he'll wait until he gets
out and then he'll stab all of us. Aw, don't tell the police, Swatty!”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won't,” Swatty said. “I ain't made up my mind
yet what I'll do. I ain't afraid of his old stabbin' knife, I tell you
that! He can't scare me! There ain't any Slim Finnegan that ever lived
could scare me. If he pulled his old frog stabber on me I'd--”
He stopped short and I saw him put out one hand and grab the log, and
his face looked like a dead man's, and then I looked up from the callus
I was fixing on my foot and I saw Slim Finnegan too. He was standing
right in front of us with a pistol in his hand and the pistol was
pointed right at us. He had a mean-looking face, sort of foxy and sort
of sneery, and now it had a sort of grin on it, and it was ugly. It was
the kind of grin he had when he twisted a little kid's arm and made
him scream. He was just like he always was, sort of muddy-haired and
yellowfaced and slouchy in the shoulders, and tobacco juice in the
corners of his mouth. He looked just the way he always looked when he
was going to have some fun hurting somebody.
I felt pretty sick, I felt hot in the stomach, as if a bullet had
already made a hot hole there. I sort of twitched in different places as
each place got to thinking it was the place the bullet was going to hit.
I don't know what Bony did; I had all I wanted to do without thinking of
anybody else. All of a sudden Slim opened his dirty mouth and swore at
us the worst anybody ever heard.
“Get up out of there, you”--something--“rats!” he said in the meanest
voice he had. “Get up!”
So we got up.
“You get along there, now!” he ordered, swearing some more; and he waved
us where to go.
We didn't say a word, not even Swatty. We just went; and instead of
thinking I felt the bullet coming into my stomach I thought I felt it
coming into the joints of my back. I put my hand behind me to sort of
help stop it if it came. That way he sent us through the brush to the
sandy place. He walked us toward the powder house, and then, all at
once, he shouted at us to throw down our grapevine cigarettes. He asked
us if we wanted to blow him to hell. So we threw them down.
Then he came up to me and hit me on the side of the head and knocked me
down in the sand, and threw Bony on top of me, and slapped Swatty so
he staggered; but Swatty didn't fall. He swore back at Slim, and Slim
slapped him again and knocked him down. For a million dollars I would
n't have sworn back at a stabber that had a pistol; but that's how
Swatty is. Anyway, he was the only one of us that could swear good
enough to make it worth while swearing back.
Well, Slim had left the door of the powder house open and when he had
us all knocked down he came over and kicked at us, and I was the one
he kicked. He swore all the time, a steady stream, and it was the
thoroughest swearing I ever heard. It sounded like business. Then he
jerked Swatty up and slung him toward the powder house and slung him
inside, and then he took me and Bony and slung us the same way. He slung
us all into the powder house.
“I'll teach you to go blattin' about me when you see me!” he said.
“Dirty little rats! I'll learn you a lesson! You 'll never come your
sneakin' spy in' on me again! You'll have enough when I get through with
you this time. You want to know what I'm goin' to do with you?”
Well, we did sort of want to know, but we didn't say so.
“I'm goin' to lock you in there,” he said; “and I'm goin' to leave you
in there to starve, like the dirty sneaks you are. I'll teach you to
go tellin' lies about me! You'd go and say I stole that can of powder,
wouldn't you? Well, I didn't steal it--see? I bought it. I bought it
and they sent me over to get it. It's none of your business, anyway. You
sneakin' rats!”
Bony started to cry. Slim told him to shut up, and he did. He scowled at
us.
“No, by”--something--he said, swearing; “starving is too good for
tattle-tellin' rats like you. Somebody might come and let you out. I
know what I'm goin' to do to you. I'm goin' to lock you in and then I'm
goin' to set a fire and blow you to a million pieces. I'll blow you up,
like the sneakin' rats you are!”
I can't make it sound the way it sounded to us, because I can't swear
the way he did. He swore, to show he meant it, and then he slammed the
iron-covered door and we heard the iron bar scrape as he put it across
the door, and we heard the padlock click into the staple. We were in the
dark, darker dark than I was ever in before. Bony began to cry sort of
funny, like a sick animal with a voice that was too weak to cry very
good. All I can remember was that I put out my hands and felt Swatty and
hung onto his coat with both hands.
I hung on and held my breath and waited for the explosion to come. We
heard Slim cracking sticks across his knee; we could hear the sticks
snap. Then we heard him piling the sticks against the outside of the
powder house, and pretty soon we heard scratch! scratch!--like a match
on a box. It was the hardest waiting for anything I ever did. Waiting to
be blown up is always like that, I guess.
The place where he was piling the sticks was one of the front corners
of the powder house, and there wasn't so very much powder in the house,
and what there was was in different piles, for the different kinds
and sizes of kegs. All of a sudden Swatty pushed my hands off him and
stooped down and began feeling on the floor in the corner where the fire
was going to be. There were four or five little kegs of powder in that
corner and Swatty began picking them up and putting them on one of the
other piles that was not so near the corner. I guess nobody but Swatty
would have thought of doing that; but when he started I started, too,
and we moved the powder as fast as we could. Then the door opened.
Slim had taken off the padlock and the iron bar so quietly we hadn't
heard him, and when he opened the door he caught us shifting the kegs.
“Come out of there!” he said. “Now you know what I'll do to you if you
go telling about me. If I ever hear you have mentioned my name, or if
you ever say it to each other, I'll get you and bring you over here and
finish this job right!”
Well, we guessed he'd do it.
“I'd have done it now,” he said, “only I don't want to blow up powder
that don't belong to me. And here's the keg I had,” he said, throwing
one into the powder house. “Now, you get! And if you ever say a word you
'll know what 'll happen to you. Get!”
We ran. We ran like scared deer, and all I wanted to do was to get as
far away as I could. We ran a long way up the Slough and then Swatty
stopped, and I stopped because he stopped, but Bony kept on running.
“Come on!” I said to Swatty. “What you stopping for?”
“Hide in there,” he said, pointing to some bushes. “I'll come back.”
He crouched Indian fashion and went toward the Slough and out of sight.
It was quite awhile before he came back.
“Garsh, he's a liar!” he said when he came back. “That keg of powder he
stole wasn't the one he put back. He's got that one in his skiff yet.
It was another one he put back.”
“Swatty, you ain't goin' to tell on him, are you?” I asked.
“You bet I ain't!” he said. “I just wanted to know. You bet I ain't
going to tell; if I did he'd stab us in a minute.”
Well, I guess we waited round an hour before we went home, and then we
were mighty glad there was any of us left to go home, because we had all
thought we were going to be blown into such little pieces nobody would
ever find any of us again.
Now about the dynamiters: After I had marched in the prohibition
parade because Mamie Little's father was a prohibition man--there was
prohibition in Iowa, all over, and for a while Riverbank didn't have any
saloons because it was against the law. So Slim Finnegan's father got a
shanty boat and started a saloon on it across the river, where there
wasn't prohibition; and Slim helped tend bar, and then other bumboats
started, and pretty soon I guess folks got tired of that and the saloons
started up again in Riverbank, so people could get drunk without having
to hire a skiff and go across the river.
So three or four or five men made up their minds they would stop the
saloons again, and they started in to do it. Mamie Little's father was
one of them, because he printed the newspaper that wanted the saloons
closed; so one night three or four of the men's houses were blown up
with gunpowder, but the fuse went out on the other keg, so it didn't
blow up its house. But three of them were blown up. That was about three
months after me and Swatty and Bony saw Slim Finnegan steal the keg of
powder; and right away we thought of that and that Slim Finnegan was one
of the men that blew up the houses.
Gee! We was scared! All we could think of was that now Slim Finnegan
would come round and stab us, so we wouldn't tell on him. One whole
afternoon we hid in the old box stall in my barn and didn't dare talk
above a whisper; and we had my target rifle, because if Slim came we
were going to sell our lives dearly.
But that was afterward. We went to see the blown-up houses first--right
after breakfast the morning after the night they were blown up--and they
were all pretty bad. Everybody said it was a miracle nobody was killed,
and how Mamie Little and her folks walked across the bare rafters
and got out, and everything like that. So then the mayor offered five
hundred dollars reward and the governor offered a thousand dollars more;
and there was a big meeting downtown one night and everybody gave money
to hire detectives to catch the dynamiters.
There were lots of detectives came to Riverbank; I guess maybe there
were a thousand. Everybody said it would be just a little while before
the dynamiters were all caught and sent to prison; but pretty soon
everybody began saying the detectives were no good, and that Mr. Murphy,
who was the one the committee had hired, was just pretending it was
worth while to detect, and that he would never get the dynamiters,
and that all he was staying in Riverbank for was to get the money the
committee paid him every week. All he found out, I guess, was that the
dynamite was gunpowder and that some of it was stole from the powder
house across the river and some from the powder houses up the river. But
me and Swatty and Bony knew who stole it. That's why we were scared.
And you bet we were mighty scared! We made a fort in the hayloft of my
barn, with loopholes to shoot my target rifle through, so we could flee
to it if Slim Finnegan came round, and pop him from behind the fort
before he could stab us. Swatty got us to do that. He was going to
show us how to fix the barn stairs with each step on a hinge so when we
pulled a rope the steps would drop and make a slide, so that whenever
Slim tried to come up the steps he would get just part way and then
slide down again; but when we tried to pry the treads of the steps loose
the nails were rusted and the treads split; so we thought we'd better
not.
We got up a signal word--only it was Swatty thought of it--so that when
any of us saw Slim we could say it, and we'd know we had to run for
shelter to our fort. The word was Vamoose! But it was too long, so
Swatty shortened it. He made it Vam!
We did everything we could to get ready not to be stabbed. We made
daggers out of some kitchen knives I got in my kitchen, and Swatty
showed us how to do it while me and Bony turned the grindstone. We
sharpened them on both edges and made points on them and tied string
round the handles in loops, so we could hang them on our suspender
buttons and let them hang down inside our pants. Swatty showed me how to
carry my target rifle stuck down one pants leg, too, so it wouldn't be
visible. It made me walk stiff-legged, like I was lame, but Swatty
said that was a good thing--it would throw Slim Finnegan off his guard.
Swatty showed us how to stand back to back when Slim Finnegan attacked
us, so we would have a dagger in each direction and he couldn't stab us
in the backs.
Whenever we could we got together and Swatty told us new ways to
keep from being stabbed, because he said he knew a feller in
Derlingport--where he had visited once--who was fixed just like we were,
with a big feller after him; and Swatty remembered other things he had
done. He didn't remember them all at once, but every day he remembered a
new one. When he remembered them we did them. One of them was to rub
our knee joints with sewing-machine oil, so they would be limber and we
could run like a deer when Slim Finnegan took after us. Before he got
through Swatty remembered a lot of things like that. We did them.
Well, after a while I guess we sort of forgot about Slim Finnegan,
because he didn't come round to stab us. Maybe it was because Swatty
couldn't remember any more of the things the feller in Derlingport had
done, and maybe it was because school began again. We sort of turned
the fort in my hayloft into a dressing room for a circus. Swatty was
ringmaster. So then Bony's birthday started to come and his mother
thought she'd have a party for him, because they had a new parlor carpet
and had had the dining-room papered. So she had it.
At first Bony said he wasn't going to his party, because there would be
girls there and they would want to play kissing games; but Swatty said,
Aw! he wasn't afraid to kiss all the girls there were in the world! and
that if Bony would go to the party he would go too. So I said if Bony
and Swatty would go I would go. I said, Aw! I bet I wasn't afraid to
kiss all the girls in the world, either! only I bet I wouldn't kiss
Mamie Little if she asked me a million times, because she was mad at me.
So we went to Bony's party.
It was a pretty good party. Right at first it wasn't much because the
girls sat on one side of the room and tried to keep their white dresses
from getting wrinkled, and the boys sat on the other side. It wouldn't
have been any fun at all, that first part, only Swatty had brought some
beans in his pocket and we had some fun shooting them at the girls with
our thumbs. Every once in a while Bony's mother would come in from the
kitchen and clap her hands and say:
“Come, now! We must all have a good time! All you boys and girls think
of a game and play it. Bony”--only she called him Harold--“I'm surprised
you don't start a game!”
So then Bony wished he hadn't come to his party. So after a while Bony's
mother said to the cook:
“Well, Maggie, we'd better give them the refreshments now, instead of
later; they won't liven up until they are fed.”
We went into the dining-room and all sat round the big table, and we
began to have a good time. Us kids would get up and sneak round and
steal a girl's cake or something, and she would holler and be mad;
and then we started in to pull their hair-bows, and maybe their hair a
little, and they would slap at us and scold and giggle. They pretended
they didn't like it; but they did. So pretty soon some of them got up
and chased us round the table, and after the ice cream it turned out we
were playing tag; and Bony's mother said:
“Heaven save the furniture! But, anyway, I'm glad they've waked up!”
Well, I didn't pull Mamie Little's hair, or anything. I guess I wanted
to, but I sort of didn't dare. All she did was to make a face at me once
across the table, and when I threw a little piece of cake at her she
brushed it off her dress and said:
“I consider that very rude!”
So then we went into the parlor again and got to playing kissing
games--Copenhagen and post-office, and games like that. So then we
played pillow. I guess the girls like it because there isn't so much
game and there is more kissing, and I guess the boys don't care because
by the time you get to playing pillow they're used to it. You take a
sofa pillow and drop it in front of the girl you want to kiss and drop
on your knees, and she drops on her knees and then she kisses you. Then
she takes the pillow and drops it in front of the fellow she wants to
kiss next, and she kneels on it, and she kisses him. So I guess Kate
White dropped the pillow in front of me and kissed me; and then I took
the pillow and looked round the row of chairs.
I saw Mamie Little and she looked as if she was trying to look as if she
didn't want me to drop the pillow in front of her, but really did want
me to. I didn't know what to do. Toady Williams was in the next chair to
Mamie Little. I guess maybe I wanted Mamie Little to kiss me, but I was
sort of scared to put the pillow in front of her. I got sort of hot. So,
all of a sudden, I dropped the pillow right in front of her and plumped
down on my knees. Everybody laughed and clapped their hands, except
Toady Williams.
But Mamie Little didn't plump down on her knees in front of me. She
stuck her chin in the air and said:
“No; thank you.”
I guess I got hotter than I ever was in my life. I was burning hot. And
I guess I was pretty mad. I got up and held the pillow by one corner.
“All right for you, then!” I said; and all I thought of was to make her
sorry for making me look silly before the whole crowd. “All right for
you! I know who dynamited your house, and now I won't tell!”
Well, right away she got down on her knees. She took the pillow from me
and got down on her knees on it. So I kneeled down on it, too, and she
let me kiss her on the cheek. It was the softest cheek I ever kissed,
I guess. So then she got up, and took the pillow and looked around the
circle for a boy to drop it in front of, and when she didn't drop it in
front of Toady Williams the very first thing, I felt fine. Swatty leaned
over to me and said:
“Garsh! Now you done it!”
“Well,” I said back, “I got a right to tell if I want to, haven't I?”
“No, you hain't,” Swatty said. “If you tell then Slim Finnegan will stab
the whole three of us.”
“Well, let him stab!” I said, because that was how I felt just then,
because Mamie Little had not put the pillow down in front of Toady
Williams but in front of Bony, and that didn't mean much, because it
only meant that she wanted Bony to have it next, because he would give
it to Lucy. So, when he went to kiss Mamie she turned her head and he
hardly got any kiss at all, and she had let me kiss her fair and solid.
So I felt pretty good. I felt as if she was going to be my girl again.
And I guess she was, because when somebody put the pillow in front of
her again, she came right to me with it, and that time it was a good
kiss too. I felt great!
When us boys was getting our hats, when the party was over, Swatty came
up to me.
“If you tell her I'm going to lick you,” he said.
“All right--lick!” I said. “I ain't afraid of your lickings. Lick all
you want to. I told her I'd tell and you nor nobody else can't make me a
liar!”
So Mamie Little waited for me at the front door, and when I came out I
knew she had waited so I could walk home with her, and I did.
“Well, I'm glad we aren't mad any more,” she said when we were walking
along.
“Ah! who was mad? I wasn't mad,” I said. “Well, I ain't mad now,” she
said. “Who was it blew up our house?”
“Oh, somebody!” I said.
We walked a little way and then she said:
“Who blew up our house?”
“Slim Finnegan,” I said.
“How do you know he did?” she said.
“Because me and Swatty and Bony saw him steal the powder to do it with,”
I told her, “We was over in Illinois and we saw him steal it from the
powder house that's over there.”
So we talked about that and when we got home to her house she told me to
come up on the porch, and I did; and then she opened the door and called
for her father, and he came to the door.
“Papa, this is Georgie,” she said; “and he knows who blew up our house.”
Well, he took me inside the house and asked me to tell all about it, and
I told him, and Mamie sat in a chair and listened to me tell it. When
he had asked me everything he could think of he went to the door with me
and said:
“George, you are a fine boy!”