Swatty by Ellis Parker Butler

After I got out of bed and went back to school I fought Toady Williams a couple of times, but it wasn't much good because he wouldn't fight back. All the good it did was to make Mamie Little tell Lucy I was a mean, bad boy and that she would never speak to me again as long as she lived. Once I almost told her that it was me that got the father fashion plate out of the fire and that Toady Williams didn't do anything but pick it up out of the mud after I had got it for her, but I didn't tell her because then she would have thought I was sweet on her. That _would_ have made me feel cheap.

It made me feel pretty mean, just the same, to see the way Toady Williams was playing with her all the time, when I had picked her out to be my secret girl. He gave her pencils and apples and everything and I guess she liked it. I wished I was grown up, so I could ride up on a bucking bronco and sling a lasso over Toady's head and jerk him into the dust. Then Mamie Little would say, "Hello, Georgie! Can I get up and ride behind you over the wild plains, because I don't want to have anything more to do with a 'fraidy-cat like Toady."