Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

Three boys, one river, and a whole summer of trouble. Set along the Mississippi in 1870s Iowa, Swatty follows nine-year-old 'Swatty' Schwarz, his steady friend Georgie, and the timid kid they call Bony as they navigate the risks and rewards of boyhood. Swatty is a born leader, always conjuring schemes for excitement or profit, dragging his friends into fishing expeditions, swimming contests, and elaborate reenactments of dime novels. Their plots include orchestrating a romance between Swatty's older brother and Georgie's older sister, outwitting the town bully, and dodging their nasty schoolteacher's paddle. When the Mississippi swells with spring rain, the boys skip school to explore the rising waters and find themselves in genuine danger, bringing the whole town to their rescue. These connected stories, originally published in magazines between 1915 and 1918, are based on Butler's own childhood in the river port of Muscatine, and they capture something true about American boyhood at the end of the nineteenth century: its freedom, its fears, and its fierce loyalties.