First, of course, I made Fan promise she would never tell, hope to die
and cross her heart, and she promised, and then I told her all about the
Red Avengers and how, if we did set Dad Veek's barn afire we didn't mean
to, and she said she would talk to Tom Burton about it, but she said Tom
Burton was stubborn and she would have to wait until she had the right
chance. She was nicer than she had ever been to me.
“Have you told anybody else?” she asked me.
“No,” I said.
“Did Swatty tell his brother Herbert?” she asked.
“No. Nobody has told anybody,” I said.
Well, me and Swatty felt pretty bad and scared and sick, and one reason
was that Bony stopped playing with us. His father found out about the
Red Avengers and made him promise he wouldn't play with me and Swatty
any more because we were bad boys and would ruin Bony. So we never
expected to play with Bony again, but we did, and this was how it
happened.
Bony's father and mother used to fight like everybody else, and about
bills, because they were having a fight like that when Bony's father
took the shotgun and went away from home. I guess it was a hat Bony's
mother had bought that was the worst, but Bony wasn't sure. He said
they began to fight when the grocery bill came and fought harder and
harder the more bills there were, but it wasn't until the hat bill came
that Bony's father stopped sassing back, and got solemn and quiet and
said that sometimes he felt that it was no use trying to keep up the
struggle against poverty and starvation, and that sometimes when these
evidences of extravagance came in he felt just like going off somewhere
by himself and ending everything. So then Bony's mother said, “Oh!
nonsense!” and pretty soon Bony's father got his shotgun and went out of
the house.
So Bony just sat there in the room expecting every minute to hear the
shotgun and to run out and see his father dead in the stable. He sat
there and pretended to be studying his geography lesson for Monday, but
all he was doing was listening to hear the shot. It was a mighty mean
job, I guess, sitting there listening like that, and waiting to hear his
father kill himself; but he didn't hear anything.
So pretty soon he shut up his hook and sort of tiptoed out of the house,
but he did not dare go near the stable. He didn't know what to do. He
went out on the front steps and stood there, and pretty soon he saw me
and Swatty at the corner, and he waved to us and came running, and we
waited for him.
It was January, but it wasn't cold because we were having a thaw. It was
good snow to make snowballs of, so when Bony started to come toward us
we made a few snowballs and just threw them at him. I guess we hit him
five or six times, but he didn't beller for us to stop, like he usually
does; he put his arm in front of his face and came right on. When he got
too close for us to throw at him any more we stopped and then we saw he
was crying.
“Aw, shut up and don't be a baby!” Swatty said; “we didn't hurt you.”
But Bony kept right on bawling. He didn't bawl the way a cowardy-calf
bawls when he gets hurt, he bawled like--well, I guess he bawled like
a fellow bawls when his father has gone off with a shotgun to shoot
himself. So then we didn't tell him to shut up any more. Swatty said:
“What's the matter, Bony?”
So then Bony put his arm up against a tree and cried into it, and after
he had cried awhile he said:
“My--my fath-father's out in the barn sh-shooting himself with his
shotgun!”
“He ain't neither!” Swatty said, and I said it too.
“He is, too, killing himself!” Bony said, and he blubbered at the same
time. “You needn't think, just because your fath-fathers don't kill
themselves, nobody else's father never kik-kills himself! My fa-father
said he'd kik-kill himself, and if he said so he w-will!”
“Aw! He ain't neither killing himself in the barn!” Swatty said, and I
guess that made Bony mad, because it was like saying Bony's father was
a liar, or that Bony was, anyway. Mostly Bony wouldn't fight, no matter
what you said, because he's a cow-ardy-calf; but I guess when a fellow's
father is killing himself in a barn or anywhere he don't care what
happens to him, so Bony was so mad he forgot how easy Swatty could lick
him, and he sort of howled like a cat when you step on its tail and
he pitched into Swatty with both fists. So Swatty had to lick him. He
licked him good. So when Swatty had him down and was sitting on him,
Swatty said:
“Now is your father killing himself in the barn?”
“Yes, he is!” Bony blubbered, and then we knew that Bony's father was
really going to kill himself, because if Bony hadn't been pretty sure
he would have said he wasn't, because he knew how Swatty can push a
fellow's nose into his face with the bottom of his hand when he has got
him down and he don't say what Swatty wants him to say. So we knew it
must be pretty serious. So Swatty didn't push Bony's nose, but he said:
“Well, your father ain't killing himself in the barn, because he went by
here a little while ago with his shotgun. How do you know he's going to
kill himself?”
“I know it because him and Mother was fighting over bills, and he said
he would,” Bony said.
So then Swatty said, aw! he didn't believe anybody would kill himself
because he was fighting over bills. He said he didn't believe any
grown-up man would fight over a little thing like bills; so that made me
mad, and I said, aw! any man would fight over bills, and that my father
did, and that my father was a better man than Swatty's father any day in
the week and could lick Swatty's father any time they wanted to try it.
And that was true, and Swatty knew it, because my father was bigger than
his father and not so old. So Swatty said, aw! well, his oldest brother
could lick my father, anyway. So I said he'd better try it if he wanted
to find out, and Swatty said, Aw! And I guess that's all we said about
that.
Anyway, it didn't seem to make Bony feel any better that his father
had taken his shotgun and had gone off somewhere else to kill himself
instead of killing himself right at home in the barn. He kept right on
with a kind of whine-blubber, even when Swatty and me were jawing, so
Swatty said:
“Aw! what you bellerin' about?”
“I'll--I'll beller if I want to,” Bony said. “I guess you'd beller if
your father was going to kill himself, you would.”
“I would not so!” Swatty said. “What's the use of bellerin' when you
can't do nothing about it? If he's going to kill himself, he's going to,
and you can't help it. If my father was going to do what you said
your father was going to do I'd let him do it, and I wouldn't spoil
everybody's fun by bawling about it. I'd just go ahead and play like
nothing was going to happen, until I had to go in and dress for the
funeral.”
Well, I guess that wasn't a very good thing for Swatty to say, because
it made Bony blubber more than ever. So then Swatty got sore and
disgusted and he said:
“Aw! shut up, then, and we'll go and find your father and take the
shotgun away from him, if you 're going to be a baby about it!”
That's the way Swatty always is; me or Bony would never think of going
and taking a shotgun away from a father that wanted to kill himself, and
if we did think of it we would never dare to do it; but Swatty wouldn't
care who he took a shotgun away from if he got mad because somebody
bellered about nothing. So we knew he'd do it if we went along. So we
went along.
When we saw Bony's father go by with the shotgun he was going toward
downtown, so me and Bony and Swatty started toward downtown, and we
talked about where Bony's father would probably go to kill himself if he
didn't want to kill himself in his barn, and none of us thought he would
go downtown to do it because somebody might see him start to do it and
stop him. So we talked about it and we made up our minds we would go
over into the Illinois bottom, across the Mississippi, because a man
once went over there to kill himself, and did it and nobody bothered him
while he was doing it or knew about it until afterward.
Of course the ferry wasn't running, but it was easy enough for Bony's
father to get across the river because the ice was frozen and the river
was closed and he could go over on the ice.
We went down to the river. There was a good deal of water on the ice in
some places, and the snow was mushy everywhere on it and it was pretty
bad walking. I guess you know what the river is like when it is closed.
There is a lot of snow on it because nobody shovels it off, and they
couldn't if they tried, because the river is three quarters of a mile
wide there, and there's no place to shovel the snow to, and it's just as
good right where it is as it would be anywhere else.
But before the thaw comes the snow blows off some of the smooth places
and banks up against the rough places on the ice in drifts. The river
don't freeze over all at once--the ice floats down and jams and stops
and the bare places between freeze over; but when the ice jams, it
crumples up on the edges and makes ridges, and it is where the ridges
are that the snow banks up into drifts. Sometimes the drifts are all
around a smooth sheet of ice, and then when the snow begins to melt, the
smooth ice turns into a sort of pond, and maybe the water on top of the
ice is an inch deep and maybe it is more.
Here and there there are air holes, because I guess a river has to
breathe like anybody else and the air holes are where it breathes. They
are different sizes.
Well, the road across the river on the ice is always crooked. The
farmers over in Illinois make the road to bring over cordwood and hay
and stuff, because they can bring it over on the ice free and it costs
twenty-five cents a load when the ferry is running.
So the first farmer that dares drive across on the ice starts out from
the Illinois shore, and he starts straight, but pretty soon he has to
curve around a drift, and then he has to curve around an air hole, and
then he has to go around a piece of ice that looks thin, and by the
time he has got to town he has made a crooked road; and the next farmer
drives in the same path, because the first farmer's horses' shoes have
roughed it up a little and made it easier to travel.
So that is how the road gets made, and before very long it gets to be
quite a road. It gets dark and dirty from the horses and the dirt off
the cordwood and maybe some coal the farmers take home, and there are
wisps of hay all along, rubbed off loads when they passed other teams.
By the time the thaw comes, a good deal of the river in front of town
gets so you know how it looks, just like the town itself. The wood
road goes zigzagging across, and maybe--if it is a cold winter--the
trotting-horse men have a speed track on the ice that is different from
the wood road and marked off to show a mile. Wagon loads of waste stuff
get dumped on the ice in piles and maybe a dozen or two dozen dead
horses. You get so you know how it looks, and you get to feeling as if
the river had always been frozen over and had always looked like that.
Maybe you have names for things, so anybody like Swatty or Bony knows
what you mean when you say: “You know, where the wood road comes nearest
to the horseshoe air hole.”
Well, it was pretty mushy when we started across the river. It was warm,
too, warm enough to make us sweat; but there was a good breeze blowing
from the Illinois shore and it wasn't as warm as it might have been.
But, anyway, it was warm. Swatty showed us where to go. He went first
and we went behind him, and pretty soon we were far off the wood road
because wherever there was a drier place he went that way.
When we got out toward the middle of the river, away from the town dirt,
I wished we hadn't come. Out there the ice hadn't been cut up by being
skated on, and there were whole big places where the ice was perfectly
smooth and green and clear, and with the snow water on top of it we
couldn't tell whether it was ice or air hole. We had to walk on the snow
close to the ridges, because there we knew there was ice under us, even
if we did wade through slush up to our knees. It was scary enough for
anybody and Bony began to cry.
I guess we would have gone back if it hadn't been for Swatty, and even
Swatty didn't tell Bony to shut up and stop crying. I guess Swatty felt
pretty scared himself. You couldn't see anybody on the ice anywhere; we
were the only ones. I guess everybody was afraid to go on the ice, it
was getting so rotten. That's what I thought then, but it wasn't the
reason; Swatty knew the real reason, but he didn't tell us then because
he was afraid we would be more scared than we were. Nobody was on the
ice because they were afraid it might go out any minute.
So all Swatty did was to say, “Hurry up!” because he was afraid if we
didn't hurry up maybe the ice would go out before we got across, and
nobody likes to get drowned in ice water.
So pretty soon we came to a place where there wasn't any snow and where
there were no ridges--nothing but clear ice with water on it, and the
wind making little ripples. Bony cried, and I said, “Aw! let's go back,
Swatty!” because you couldn't tell whether it was ice under that water
or air hole. Swatty looked all around, but he couldn't see any way to
get to Illinois but to cross right over. Neither could any of us. So
Swatty said:
“All right for you! You and Bony can let his father kill himself if you
want to; but I won't, and when I get back I'll lick you both.”
Well, we didn't care if he did lick us. We'd rather be licked than be
drowned. So Swatty said:
“Aw! Come on! I wouldn't have come if I thought you were a couple of
cry-baby cowardy-calves. I'll dare you to come!”
But we didn't. So Swatty said:
“I double tribble dare you, and whoever don't take the dare is a
sooner!”
Well, a sooner was the worst thing anybody could call you; even Bony
would fight if you called him a sooner, but we didn't care what he
called us; but just then we heard a gun go off over in the woods, and
before either of us could stop him Bony started. He ran right out on the
wet ice, crying and blubbering, and he fell down in the water and got
up again and ran on. Every little while he would fall down, but he would
get right up and run again. The water was almost up to his knees, but
he didn't care. I guess he kind of liked his father and wanted to get to
him.
Swatty shouted and told him to stop and come back, or anyway to wait for
us, but Bony ran right on. Swatty shouted:
“Hey, Bony! come back, I was only fooling! Your father ain't going to
kill himself.”
Because Swatty knew Bony's father wasn't going to kill himself, but he
was afraid Bony would be drowned. He just wanted us to cross the river
because nobody had ever crossed it when the ice was so rotten and we
would be the first that ever did it, and he knew we wouldn't do it
unless we thought we were going to save Bony's father, or something. So
all we could do was to go after Bony, and we did. We waded through the
water after Bony, and I was glad Bony had gone first because we were
sure there was no air hole where Bony had been ahead of us.
But I made Swatty give me his hand anyway. I didn't like it much. I
didn't like it any.
Well, we got across, and before we got across Bony had reached the shore
ice. It was pretty rotten and it rubbered down under him, and if he
hadn't been running so fast I guess he would have broken through. Then
he stopped and looked, because between him and the shore was a wide open
space--no ice, nothing but water. He just stopped and looked, and then
looked back at us and then he ran to the edge of the ice, and it broke
under him and he was in water up to his arms. It was because there was a
long sandbar reached out from the shore there; if not he would have been
drowned. So he walked through the water about half a block and me and
Swatty went after him. Gee, it was cold!
When we got ashore Bony was up in the woods and we could hear him
shouting, “Papa! Papa!” and crying, too. It was kind of a sick shout,
part cry and part shout. It sounded like “Pwaw-pwa! Uh-uh! Pwaw-pa!” and
then “_Pwaw_-pwa! _Pwaw_-pwa!” and then “Uh-uh-uh!” like a little kid
cries when it has lost a penny it meant to get candy with and has cried
all the way home.
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.
[Illustration: 316]
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.