“Garsh!” he said, and that was all he said right then. So I began to cry. It would make anybody cry to be there, up in a tree, with the whole Mississippi River rushing along under him, so near he could stick his toes down into it. It's an awful thing to think about. You can sit in a tree and look at a creek run under you and you don't care, but when the Mississippi is on a tear it is different. It's the biggest and strongest thing in the world, and there was all of it rushing along right under us, and the tree sort of waving back and forth. So I cried. “Aw, shut up!” Swatty said. “What are you crying about?” Well, I guess we were in a pretty bad fix--worse than we thought we were. No boat there ever was could get at us where we were. No boat could come at that Tow Head the way we did and last a minute, because it would smash against the trees. And even if anybody knew where we were they couldn't get to us. Even if the strongest men in town tried to row a boat up-stream from below the Tow Head they couldn't get to us, because they couldn't row among the trees on it. So I cried. “Shut up!” Swatty yelled at me. “Ain't it bad enough without you bellering?” So there we were. When Bony saw us go out into the river he sat on his timber with his mouth open, and he couldn't even holler--he was so scared--and then he just paddled for shore and jumped off his timber and ran. He didn't know where he was running--he was just running away from there. He was scared stiff. When he come to, he was halfway home, and blubbering and panting, and then he sat down on a horse block and didn't know what to do. He thought we were drowned, sure. So he thought the best thing to do would be to not say anything about it. He was afraid. First he thought he would go home and act as if he had been at school and just stayed out playing a while, and not do anything else about it and let folks find out anyway they could; and then he thought that Mrs. Schwartz would miss Swatty when it was time to fetch the cow, and that she would come over to his house to see if Swatty was there, and he didn't know what else. So he thought he would go over to Swatty's house first and sort of keep Mrs. Schwartz from doing anything like that. So he went. He forgot he was in his bare feet, or that he had ever had shoes and stockings. When he got to Swatty's house Mrs. Schwartz was on the front terrace in her calico dress and with a birch switch in her hand, looking for Swatty, because Swatty knew what time the cow ought to be fetched home. Bony went up to the steps. “Do you want me to fetch the cow home, Mrs. Schwartz?” he asked. “What for should you fetch the cow home?” said Mrs. Schwartz, as angry as could be. “I thought maybe Swatty was late, and I didn't want to keep you waiting,” he said. “For why should you think he was late?” Mrs. Schwartz asked. She always talked in a funny way, because she was German.