THE GRAND SWING
(MY WAY)

Jamie and I had had little to say to each other, since we'd started on
our Grand Swing, together. To be honest, I was still rather angry with
the boy. After all, he had disobeyed me and taken the steeper, more
winding road, into town, and ended up crashing the wagon, and injuring
a horse, so severely that it had to be destroyed. When we'd returned
to the house, I had just told him to be ready to go on a trip that was
going to last about three or four days. At first he'd assumed that I
was sending him away, but as I had only just completed the adoption
process, and he was now, officially, my son, that wasn't really an
option. Mind you, there had been times, over the years, when I had
been tempted to send away each of my three other sons, but it had
never been a serious threat. No matter how bad they'd been, they were
still my boys and we'd weathered whatever storm we'd encountered.
Adam, Hoss and Joe were now past the age to give me such headaches,
although I still worried about them, and knew I always would. It came
with the territory of being a father, but at least I didn't have to
discipline them, any more.

And that brought me to what I should do with Jamie. The boy had hardly
eaten any of his meal, which we'd stopped to have, about an hour
earlier. I know my cooking is not of the best, but it was tasty
enough, if you didn't have the worry of what was going to happen to
you, hanging over your head. Jamie had now been living with us, for
around eighteen months, and in all that time, I hadn't physically
punished him. For quite a while, after he'd moved in, he'd tiptoed
around, obviously scared to put a foot wrong, and had behaved more
like a guest, than a member of the family. To be honest, he'd never
been in that much trouble, except for, on a couple of occasions. And
although I'd felt that a tanning was called for, I had held off, for
some reason. If it had been any of my other sons, at that age,
standing in front of me, I would not have hesitated in warming their
seats, but somehow I felt unsure of doing so, to Jamie. I know that,
at the time, the other boys had commented on my reluctance, and I'd
made the excuse that I didn't feel it was my place to punish him, in
that way. In other words, I was reinforcing the idea that he was only
a guest, not a permanent member of the family.

When it was decided that he was going to stay, I began the inquiries
that eventually led to me being able to make him my legal son. His
maternal grandfather made an appearance, and very nearly put a stop to
the adoption, but, at the last minute, he had a change of heart, and
realised that Jamie was happy living with us.

So now he was really my son, and it was suddenly clear to me, what I
had to do. I had spent a lot of time making speeches about how,
although I had become his father, in a slightly different way to how I
had acquired my other sons, I was not going to treat him any
differently. I meant in the way that I loved him, and that I would
include him in all of the family occasions, but I had also meant in
the way that I dealt with his transgressions. To truly be a member of
the Cartwright family, and to feel secure that, no matter what, I
would always love him; the boy needed a tanning.
After all, I knew that it would have been my course of action, had
Adam, Hoss or Joe disobeyed me, in the way that Jamie had; I wouldn't
have thought twice about it.

I recalled other times I had made this swing with one of my boys, and
it was nearly always after they had taken a trip out to the barn with
me. With Adam, I knew it was when he'd been foolish enough to get
mixed up with the Bonner brothers and almost ended up going to jail.
With Hoss it had been during the time when he was suffering a lot from
name calling, because of his size. In order to try and fit in, he'd
made the mistake of trying to join a gang of boys, whom he would never
have wanted to hang out with, under normal circumstances. There was
several initiation tests to pass, to join the gang, and Hoss had
agreed to do them, knowing it was wrong, as they involved vandalism
and theft. When I'd found out about his involvement, I had tanned his
backside for him, because although I knew he'd been pressured into
participating, I also knew that he was quite capable of distinguishing
right from wrong, and there was no justification for what he'd done.
With Joe, well, where did I start? He'd made this trip more times than
the other two, put together, as that boy was always managing to find
himself in hot water. There was the time when he'd invited some
friends over, when the house was empty. They'd got drunk, on my
vintage wine, and then decided to do some target practice, succeeding
in breaking a pane of glass on the back door. And the time that I'd
come home to find the house infested with skunks, and the time, well,
you get the picture, don't you? Anyway, the point I am making is that
each of these offences was rewarded with a trip to the barn and then
the offender had taken a swing round the ranch with me. It gave us
both a chance to spend time together, to make amends, and to make sure
that the lesson was really learnt.

I knew that time had come for Jamie, and so I mentioned that he seemed
awfully quiet.

"Guess I'm just waiting," he said.

"What for? To find out what your punishment is going to be?"

"Yes sir, I guess," he replied.

"And what do you think it should be?" I said.

He shifted, slightly, on the rock he was sitting on and said, "Well,
some of the guys at school, get a belt used on `em, when they mess up,
but that's just for kid's stuff. What I did was much worse."

"Jamie, did you deliberately wreck that wagon?"

"No, sir, of course not, it was an accident."

"Oh, so what we are dealing with, then, is your disobedience. Is that so?"

"Yes sir, it sure is," said the boy.

"Well, in that case, now you are a Cartwright, I propose to deal with
that disobedience, in exactly the same way I would have done, had it
been Adam, Hoss, or Little Joe, at the age of fifteen, disobeying me.
I am going to use that belt on you, in the hope that you will soon
learn that the three things I won't tolerate from my sons, are lying,
disrespect and disobedience."

With that, I pulled the boy to his feet, led him to a convenient rock,
and had him bend over it. I removed my belt, and gave his backside
half a dozen licks with it, with firm, measured strokes.
Once it was done, I replaced my belt, and helped him to his feet.
There were tears running down his face, but he hadn't uttered a sound.

"We will stay here, all day tomorrow, to give you the chance to
recover, and continue with our trip, the following day," I said. "Now
that you have been punished, the incident is closed and we will say no
more about it."

"Sorry, Pa," he said, sniffing and wiping his tears away, with the
back of his hand. "I sure won't do anything as foolish again, I promise."

I smiled and gave him a hug.

"I'm sure you will, son, as that is the nature of being young, making
mistakes and then regretting it, until the next time. But, don't you
worry about it, too much. I've lived through three sons growing up, so
I'm sure I will survive a fourth."

We spent quite a pleasant day at our campsite, fishing and talking
about the ranch and the plans for the future, as well as Jamie's
plans, for when he grew up. Somehow, that tanning was a turning point
in our relationship, almost like an initiation ceremony, or a tribal
blood letting ritual; it brought us closer, and made him feel that he
really was accepted, as one of the family.

"I can now join in when Adam, Hoss, and Joe start talking about the
tannings they've received off you, and which of them got the worst
one," and the thought brought a smile to his face.

The next day we continued with our swing, and I think that Jamie
learned a lot from that trip. I also let him carve his name on the
witness tree, alongside Adam's, Hoss' and Joe's, and that simple act
really confirmed his position in the family, along with his sore seat.

THE END
Little Joe forever
Lynne
June 3rd 2005

Author's note: I have taken liberties with the order in which the
episodes were shown, as The Grand Swing was actually before A Home for
Jamie, in which he was adopted. And I also used a bit of the plot and
dialogue from Grand Swing, but slightly changed the words, to fit my
story. Oh, and I added Adam's name to the witness tree, as it really
upset me that it wasn't there.

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