“Around at the far side, away from the road, Chief,” I said.
“Well, then, no wonder!” said Swatty. “That's why I didn't see you doing
it. I set the side toward the road burning. So I guess I was the one
that set the barn afire first, because it would take you a long time to
go around the barn to the other side.”
“Maybe we both set it afire at the same time,” I said.
“All right, maybe we did,” Swatty said. “Because,” I said, “I ain't
going to be cheated out of having set it afire by you or anybody,
Swatty, when I went to all the trouble I did.”
“I know,” said Swatty, “but you can't say I didn't set it afire, either,
because when I was walking down to the creek from the West I turned my
ankle and had to take my skates off and limp home. Ain't that so,
Bony?” Bony said yes, it was. “And Bony thought I had really sprained my
ankle,” said Swatty, “but you know what I was up to. Throw 'em all off
the track! Be alone so I could do the deed!”
“Well, I guess we both did it at the same time,” I said, and Swatty said
he guessed we did, so that settled it. But when Swatty got ready to go
home I whispered to him:
“You didn't really do it, did you?”
“No,” he said, “I just wanted to make Toady and Bony think I did. I was
in my kitchen putting arnica on my ankle. Did you really do it?”
“Of course I didn't!” I said. “I was up here in my bedroom looking at my
raw ankle. But we won't let on.”
“Sure not!” said Swatty.
Well, pretty soon some of the fellows or somebody began saying maybe old
Dad Veek would have to go to jail for setting his own barn afire, like
I told you in the beginning. Then, after while, I heard my mother say
to my father, that some of the Ladies' Aid ladies were bestirring
themselves because they were sure that old Dad Veek wouldn't set his
own barn afire, and they had asked Tom Burton to help them and he was
helping. But one day we were up in my barn--me and Swatty and Bony--and
Toady came up.
He came up the stairs far enough to see into the hayloft, then he
stopped and when we saw him he came on up. I said:
“Hello, Toady!”
“Hello!” he said.
“What do you want?” I asked, because he hadn't been playing with us
much.
“Oh, I just thought I'd get my dime lib'ry,” he said. “You don't want it
any more, do you?”
“No, we don't want it,” I said, and he went to the starch box and got
it, and he came over to where we were, and he said: “I guess you have
n't set any more barns afire, have you?”
“What barns?” Swatty asked.
“Well, you did set one afire, didn't you?” said Toady. “You and George
set Veek's afire, didn't you?”
Swatty stood up then, all right! He stood up and folded his fists.
“Who said we set Veek's barn afire?” he asked, and he was pretty mad.
But I wasn't; I was just scared. It's incenderyism, or something like
that, if you set a barn afire, and you get sent to reform school for
life.
“Who said it? I didn't say it,” said Toady. “You said it. You and George
said you did.”
Well, of course I hadn't been lying when I told Toady and Swatty and
Bony how I had set Dad Veek's barn afire, but I had just been fooling.
So I said:
“Aw! I never said no such thing! I never either said I set it afire.
Swatty said he set it afire. I couldn't have set it afire, because I was
sitting on my bed when it got afire.”
So Swatty got mad. I guess he wanted to lick somebody, but he didn't
know whether to lick me or to lick Toady.
“Aw! I never either said I set it afire!” he said. “If anybody set it
afire George did, because I was home, putting arnica on me, when the
fire started.”
“Well, you said you did,” I said. “You said so right up in my room. You
did so.”
“I did not! You said you did.”
“I did not! I never said anything like it. If anybody said he set Veek's
barn afire, Swatty said it.”
“Aw! I did not!” Swatty said. “You said it. You said it. You said you
took a torch, and went around to the far side and set the barn afire.
I heard you say it. And you said I couldn't have set the barn afire
because you had it all afire before I got there. Didn't he say that,
Toady?”
Well, I guess Toady knew mighty well that if he was going to get
mallered for saying either of us said it he had better say I said it,
because Swatty could lick any of us. So he said I did say it.
So I went for him and mallered him as much as I could. I got so mad I
cried, and I guess I kicked him. Not Swatty, Toady. So when I got tired
I was still mad, and I sat down on a box and cried. Then Toady sneaked
over to the stairs and went part way down, and just before he was out of
sight he looked back.
“Cry-baby!” he said, and that meant me. Then he said: “All right, you'd
better look out! You both said you did it, and you both said you said
it, and Dad Veek's got that Red Avengers' notice you fastened on his
barn door and Tom Burton knows all about it.”
Gee, we were scared! I was so scared I didn't throw anything at Toady,
and Swatty was so scared he just said: “Garsh!” and stood there. Well,
me and Swatty we talked it over.
We knew we hadn't set the barn afire, but we knew we had said we had,
and we knew old Dad Veek would do 'most anything to keep out of jail,
and that my mother and the Ladies' Aid ladies were bestirring. So then
we knew why Toady had come up to get us to say again we had done it; he
was one of the Red Avengers and unless we said we had set the barn afire
ourselves all the Red Avengers would be sent to reform school, and he
wanted to get out of it and had gone and told Tom Burton about us and
the Red Avengers and that we had set the barn afire.
“Garsh!” said Swatty, “he took the memorandum book you had old Veek's
barn wrote down at the top of the list of!”
And he had! So Bony sort of doubled down in his corner and cried, but
me and Swatty sat down on a box to think and talk and see what we had
better do.
Well, the way Tom Burton had gone to work to help my mother and the
Ladies' Aid ladies who were bestirring themselves, was this: He found
out that the reason old Dad Veek had so much insurance was because he
was a slow worker, and sometimes he had the barn almost full of stuff he
was working on, and then it was worth as much as it was insured for. So
that helped some. Then old Dad Veek showed him the Red Avengers' warning
Swatty had fastened on his barn door, and that was pretty bad, because
the time it said the barn would burn down was the time it did burn.
I guess he might have thought it was some men or something, if it hadn't
been for the name of the Red Avengers. It sounded like boys. So Tom
Burton found out there was a dime lib'ry named “The Red Avengers,”
because one was hanging in Toady Williams's father's store window, and
then he knew it was boys. So he asked Toady Williams if he knew anything
about it, and Toady went and told him. He told him me and Swatty and
Bony was the Red Avengers and that we had set the barn afire.
We found all that out mighty soon, because it wasn't half an hour after
Toady went out of the barn before Tom Burton came up. The tattle-tale
had gone right to him.
Tom Burton came up and he stood and talked to us. He told us he knew
all about the Red Avengers and that he had our memorandum book with Dad
Veek's name in it and everything, and that he knew who had written the
memorandum book, and the notice that was daggered on Dad Veek's door,
and everything, and he asked us which one of us done it. Gee, I was
scared! But none of us said anything. Maybe we were too scared to.
So then he said, “All right! it will only be a little while before all
will be known, and the one that did it will surely be sent to reform
school, so the other two, that didn't do it, had better tell on the one
that did do it.”
But none of us said anything. So he talked awhile and then he went away.
Me and Bony didn't say anything.
“Garsh!” Swatty said. “It's mighty bad.”
Me and Bony didn't say anything yet. We was too scared. Bony began to
blubber.
“You don't need to cry,” Swatty told him. “You ain't going to be sent to
reform school. You didn't do it.”
“Well--well,” Bony blubbered. “You and Georgie didn't do it, either.”
“Well, it don't matter whether we did it or didn't do it,” Swatty said.
“We wrote down that we were going to do it, and they've got the warning
and the memorandum book, and we both said we'd done it ourselves, and we
both said the other had done it, and I guess they'll send us to reform
school.” Bony kept on blubbering, so we told him he had better go home
if he was a cry-baby, and he went. So then Swatty said:
“I guess it ain't much use; but we've got to say, no matter how they ask
us, that we ain't the Red Avengers.”
“That'd be a lie,” I said.
“Well, no, it wouldn't,” said Swatty, “because there won't be any Red
Avengers, and we'll say, 'No, we ain't!' and that'll be the truth,
because we won't be then. We'll bust up the Red Avengers right now.”
So we took a vote and voted that we were not the Red Avengers any more
and that we never had been the Red Avengers. So that settled that, but
it didn't make us feel much better. We sat and thought awhile and then
Swatty said:
“I know! Georgie, you can ask Fan to tell Tom Burton to let us go free.”
“Aw! that won't do any good,” I said.
And I didn't think it would, but Swatty said it was our only chance, so
I said I would ask Fan, and I did. I hated to, but I did it.