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diff --git a/27426-h/27426-h.htm b/27426-h/27426-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..274e171 --- /dev/null +++ b/27426-h/27426-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3996 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shenanigans at Sugar Creek, by Paul Hutchens + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em;text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em; } + + h1,h2,h3 { text-align: center; clear: both; } + + hr { width: 45%; + margin-top: 4em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; } + + .hr2 { width: 20%; + margin-top:2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + td.pad {text-align: left; padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2em;} + + body { margin-left: 18%; margin-right: 18%; } + + .chapter { margin: auto; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em } + + .pagenum { position: absolute; + left: 10%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + color: #808080; } + + .center {text-align: center;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .blockcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .tnote { border: dashed 1px; + padding: .5em; + margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em; + page-break-after: always; } + + .tnote p { text-indent: 0; + margin-top: .5em; + font-size: 85%;} + + .tnote h3 { text-indent: 0; + text-align: left; + font-size: 110%; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: bold; + padding-top: 0; + letter-spacing: 0;} + + ins.TNsilent {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0; } + + .poem {text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shenanigans at Sugar Creek, by Paul Hutchens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Shenanigans at Sugar Creek + +Author: Paul Hutchens + +Release Date: December 6, 2008 [EBook #27426] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHENANIGANS AT SUGAR CREEK *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, C. St. Charleskindt, Scanned by +Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1><i>Shenanigans at Sugar Creek</i></h1> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/shenanigans_cover.jpg" width="300" height="442" alt="Cover" title="Cover" /> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Shenanigans at Sugar Creek</span><br /> +by <span class="smcap">Paul Hutchens</span></p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Copyright 1947, by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company</i></p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Set up and printed, April, 1947</i><br /><br /><br /><br /> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> + +<hr /> + +<h1> +<i>Shenanigans at Sugar<br /> +Creek</i> +</h1> + +<p class="center"> +<i>By</i><br /> +PAUL HUTCHENS<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY<br /> +</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table summary="Publication Details"> +<tr><td>GRAND RAPIDS</td><td class="pad">1947</td><td>MICHIGAN</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 5 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_1" id="Chapter_1"></a>1</h2> +</div> + + +<p>One tough guy in the Sugar Creek territory was enough to keep us +all on the lookout all the time for different kinds of trouble. +We'd certainly had plenty with Big Bob Till, who, as you maybe +know, was the big brother of Little Tom Till, our newest gang +member.</p> + +<p>But when a new quick-tempered boy whose name was Shorty Long, +moved into the neighborhood and started coming to our school, and +when Shorty and Bob began to chum around together, we never knew +whether we'd get through even one day without something happening +to start a fight, or get one of the gang into trouble with our +teacher. On top of that, we had a <i>new</i> teacher, a <i>man</i> teacher +at that, who didn't exactly know that most of us tried to behave +ourselves most of the time.</p> + +<p>Poetry, who is the barrel-shaped member of our gang, had made up +a poem about our new teacher, whom not a one of us liked very +well, on account of not wanting a <i>new</i> teacher when we'd liked +our pretty lady other teacher so <i>extra</i> well. This is the way +the poem went:</p> + + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"<i>The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>And 'Black' his named was called,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i2"><i>His round, red face had the homeliest of features,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>He was fat and forty and bald.</i>"</span><br /> +</div> + + +<p>Poetry was always writing a new poem or always quoting one +somebody else wrote.</p> + +<p>Maybe it was a library book that was to blame for <i>some</i> of the +trouble we had in this story, though. I'm not quite sure, but the +very minute my pal, Poetry, and I saw the picture in a book +called <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, we both had a very mischievous +idea<!-- Page 6 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> come into our minds, which we couldn't get out no matter +how we tried....</p> + +<p>This is the way it happened.... Poetry and I were in his house, +in fact, I was staying at his house all night one night, and just +before we went to sleep, we sat up in his big bed for awhile, +looking at the picture which was a full-paged glossy picture of a +man school teacher away up on the roof of a country schoolhouse, +and he was holding a wide board across the top of the chimney. +The schoolhouse's only door was open and a gang of tough-looking +boys was tumbling out, along with a lot of smoke.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever read the story?" I said to Poetry, and he said, +"No, have you?" and when I said "No," we both read a part of it. +The story was about a man teacher whose very bad boys in the +school had locked him out of the building, and he had climbed up +on the roof of the school and put a board across the chimney, and +smoked them out just like a boy smokes a skunk out of a woodchuck +den along Sugar Creek.</p> + +<p><i>That</i> put the idea in our heads, and it stayed there until a +week or two after Christmas, before it got us into trouble.... +Then just like a time-bomb exploding, all of a sudden that +innocent idea which an innocent author had written in an innocent +library book, exploded—and—Well, here goes the story.</p> + +<p>It was a swell Saturday afternoon at our house with bright +sunlight on the snow and the weather just right for coasting. I +was standing by our kitchen sink, getting ready to start wiping a +big stack of dishes which my mom had just rinsed with steaming +hot water out of the teakettle. I was just reaching for a drying +towel when Mom said, "Better wash your hands first, Bill," which +I had forgotten to do like I once in a while do. Right away I +washed my hands with soap, in our bathroom, came back and grabbed +the towel off the rack by the range, and started in carefully +wiping the dishes, not exactly wanting to, on account of the +clock on our mantel-shelf said it was one o'clock, and the gang +was supposed to meet on Bumblebee hill right that very minute, +with our sleds, and we were going to have the time of our lives +coasting, and rolling in the snow, and making huge balls and snow +men and everything....</p> + +<p><!-- Page 7 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +You should have seen those dishes fly—that is, they <i>started</i> +to!</p> + +<p>"Be careful," Mom said, and meant it. "Those are my best dinner +plates."</p> + +<p>"I will," I said, and I was for a jiffy, but my mind wasn't +anywhere near those fancy plates Mom was washing and I was +wiping.... In fact, there wasn't any sense in washing them +anyway, 'cause they weren't the ones we had used that day at all. +Why they weren't even dirty! They'd been standing on the shelf in +Mom's cupboard for several months without being used.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why we have to wash them," I said, "when they aren't +even dirty."</p> + +<p>"We're going to have company for dinner tomorrow," Mom explained, +"and we <i>have</i> to wash them."</p> + +<p>"Wash them <i>before</i> we use them?" I said. It didn't make +sense.... Why that very minute the gang would be hollering and +screaming and coasting down the hill and having a wonderful time.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," Mom said. "We want them to sparkle so that when the +table is set and the guests come in they'll see how beautiful +they really are. See? Notice how dull this one is?" Mom held up +one that hadn't been washed yet in her hot sudsy water nor rinsed +in my hot clear water nor wiped and polished with my dry clean +towel, which Mom's tea towels always were anyway, Mom being an +extra clean housekeeper and couldn't help it, on account of her +mother had been that way too,—and being that kind of a +housekeeper is contagious, like catching the measles or smallpox +or the mumps or something boys don't like.</p> + +<p>For some reason I remembered a part of a book I'd read, called +<i>Alice in Wonderland</i>, and it was about a crazy queen who started +to cry and say, "Oh ooooh! My finger's bleeding!"... And when +Alice who was <i>in</i> Wonderland told her to wrap her finger up or +something, the queen said, "Oh no, I haven't pricked it +yet"—meaning it was bleeding <i>before</i> she had stuck a needle +into it—which was a fairy story, and was crazy, so I said to +Mom, "Seems funny to wash dishes <i>before</i> they're dirty—seems +like a fairy story, like having your finger start bleeding before +you stick a needle in it." I<!-- Page 8 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> knew Mom had read <i>Alice in +Wonderland</i> 'cause she'd read it to me herself when I was little.</p> + +<p>But Mom was very smart. She said, with a mischievous grin in her +voice, "That's a splendid idea.... Let's <i>pretend</i> this is <i>Bill +Collins in Wonderland</i>, and get the dishes done right away. Fairy +stories are always interesting, don't you think?" which I didn't, +right then, but there wasn't any use arguing. In fact, Mom said +it wasn't ever polite, so I quit, and said, "Who's coming for +dinner tomorrow?" wondering if it might be some of the gang, and +hoping it would be. I didn't know a one of the gang that would +notice whether the dishes sparkled or not, although most of the +gang's <i>Moms</i> probably would.</p> + +<p>"Oh—a surprise," Mom said.</p> + +<p>"Who?" I said. "My cousin Wally and his new baby sister?" As you +know, if you've read <i>A New Sugar Creek Mystery</i>, I had a homely, +red-haired cousin, named Walford, who lived in the city, who had +a new baby sister. Mom had been to see the baby, and also Pop, +but I hadn't, and didn't want to, and certainly didn't exactly +want to see my red-haired cousin, Wally, but <i>would</i> like to see +his crazy Airedale dog, and if Wally <i>was</i> coming, I hoped he +would bring the wire-haired dog along....</p> + +<p>"It's a surprise," Mom said, and right that minute there was a +whistle outside our house and at our front gate. I looked over +the top of my stack of steaming dishes out through a clear place +in the frosted window, and saw a fat-faced barrel-shaped boy +standing with one hand which had a red mitten on it, holding onto +a sled rope, and he was lifting up the latch on our wide gate +with the other red-mittened hand....</p> + +<p>There was another boy there, who, I could tell without hardly +looking, was Dragonfly, on account of he is spindle-legged and +has large eyes like a dragonfly's eyes are. Dragonfly had on a +brand new cap with ear-muffs on it. As you maybe know, Dragonfly +was always getting the gang into trouble, on account of he always +was doing such crazy things without thinking. He also was +allergic to nearly everything and was always sneezing at the +wrong time, just when we were supposed to be quiet. Also, he was +about the only one in the gang whose mother was +superstitious,—such as thinking it<!-- Page 9 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> is bad luck if a black cat +crosses the road in front of you, or good luck if you find a +horseshoe and hang it above one of the doors in your house.</p> + +<p>Just as Poetry had the latch of the wide gate lifted, I saw +Dragonfly make a quick move, step with one foot on the iron pipe +at the bottom of the gate's frame and give the gate a shove, and +jump on with the other foot and ride on the gate while it was +swinging open, which was something Pop wouldn't let <i>me</i> do, and +which any boy shouldn't do, on account of if he keeps on doing +it, it will make the gate sag, and maybe drag on the ground....</p> + +<p>Well, for a jiffy I forgot there was a window between me and the +out-of-doors, and also that my mom was beside me, and also that +my baby sister, Charlotte Ann, was asleep in Mom's bedroom in her +baby bed, and without thinking I yelled real loud, "Hey, +Dragonfly, you crazy goof! Don't DO that!"</p> + +<p>Right away I remembered Charlotte Ann was in the other room, on +account of mom told me and also on account of Charlotte Ann woke +up and made the kind of a noise a baby always makes when she +wakes up and doesn't want to.</p> + +<p>Just that second, the gate Dragonfly was on was as wide open as +it could go, and Dragonfly who didn't have a very good hold with +his hands—and the gate being icy anyway—slipped off and went +sprawling head over heels into a snowdrift in our yard....</p> + +<p>It was a funny sight, but not very funny 'cause I heard my pop's +great big voice calling from our barn, yelling something that +sounded like he sounds when somebody has done something he +shouldn't and is supposed to quit quick, or I'd be sorry.</p> + +<p>I made a dive for our back door, swung it open, and with one of +my Mom's good plates still in my hands, and without my hat on, I +rushed out on our back board walk and yelled to Poetry and +Dragonfly, and said, "I'll be there in about an hour! I've got to +finish tomorrow's dishes first! Better go on down the hill and +tell the gang I'll be there in maybe an hour or two," which is +what is called sarcasm.</p> + +<p>And Poetry yelled, "We'll come and help you!"</p> + +<p><!-- Page 10 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>But it wasn't a good idea, 'cause the kitchen door was still open +and Mom heard me and also heard Poetry and said to me, "Bill +Collins, come back in here.... The very idea! I can't have those +boys coming in with all that snow. I've just scrubbed the floor!" +which is why they didn't come in, and also why barrel-shaped +Poetry and spindle-legged Dragonfly started building a snow man +right in our front yard, while they waited for me and Mom to +finish playing <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon I was done, though, and grabbed my coat from its hook +in the corner of the kitchen, pulled my hat on my red head, with +the ear-muffs tucked inside, on account of it wasn't a very cold +day, but was warm enough for the snow to pack good and for making +snow balls and snow men and everything. I put on my boots at the +door, said "Good-bye" to Mom and went swishing out through the +snow to Poetry and Dragonfly. I could already hear the rest of +the gang yelling down on Bumblebee hill, so I grabbed my sled +rope which was right beside our back door, and the three of us +went as fast as we could through our gate.</p> + +<p>My pop was there, looking at the gate to see if Dragonfly had +been too heavy for it, and just as we left, he said, "Never ride +on a gate, boys, if you want to live long."</p> + +<p>His voice was kinda fierce, like it sometimes is, and he was +looking at Dragonfly; then he looked at me and winked, and I knew +he wasn't mad but still didn't want any boy to be dumb enough to +ride on our gate again.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir, Mr. Collins," Dragonfly said politely, and grabbed his +sled rope and started on the run across the road to a place in +the rail fence where I always climbed through on my way to the +woods.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute!" Pop said, and we waited.</p> + +<p>His big bushy eyebrows were straight across, so I knew he liked +us all right. "What?" I said, and he said, "You boys know, of +course, that your new teacher, Mr. Black, is going to keep on +teaching the Sugar Creek School—that the board can't ask him to +resign just because the boys in the school liked their other +teacher better, nor because he has had to punish several of them +with old-fashioned beech switches...."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 11 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>Imagine my Pop saying such things, just when we had been thinking +about having a lot of fun....</p> + +<p>"Yes sir," I said to Pop, remembering the beech switches behind +the teacher's desk.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir," Poetry said politely.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir," Dragonfly yelled to him from the rail fence where he +was already half-way through.</p> + +<p>We all hurried through the fence, and yelling and running and +panting, we dragged our sleds through the woods to Bumblebee hill +to where the gang was yelling and having a lot of fun.</p> + +<p>Well, we coasted for a long time, all of us. Even Little Tom +Till, the red-haired, freckled-faced little brother of Big Bob +Till who was Big Jim's worst enemy, was there. Time flew faster +than anything, when all of a sudden Circus who had rolled a big +snowball down the hill, said, "Let's make a snow man—let's make +Mr. Black"—which sounded like more fun, so we all started in, +not knowing that Circus was going to make a <i>comic</i> snow man, the +most ridiculous looking snow man I'd ever seen, and not knowing +something else very exciting which I'm going to tell you about +just as quick as I can get to it in this story.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 12 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_2" id="Chapter_2"></a>2</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was the craziest snow man I had ever seen when we got through. +It didn't have any legs on account of we had to use a very large +snowball for its foundation, but it had another even-larger +snowball for its stomach, on account of our new teacher was +<i>round</i> in the middle, especially in front, and it had a smaller +head. Circus, whose idea it was to make it funny, had dashed home +to our house and gotten some corn silk out of our crib and had +made hair for the man's head, putting it all around the sides of +the top of its head, but not putting any in the middle of the +top, nor in the front, so it looked like an honest-to-goodness +bald-headed man.... Then, while different ones of us were putting +a row of buttons on his coat, which were black walnuts which we +stuck into the snow in his stomach, Circus and Dragonfly +disappeared, leaving only Poetry and Little Jim and Little Tom +Till and me, that being all the rest of the gang that was there, +on account of Big Jim had had to go with his pop that afternoon +to take a load of cattle to the city.</p> + +<p>I was sitting down on my sled which was crosswise on the top of +Little Jim's, which was crosswise on the top of Poetry's, making +my seat just about knee high. Our snow man was at the bottom of +the hill and not very far from us was a beech tree. Little Jim +was standing there under its low-hanging branches, looking up +into it, like he was thinking something very important which he +nearly always is, Little Jim being the best Christian in the gang +and always thinking and sometimes saying something he had learned +in church or that his parents taught him from the Bible. There +were nearly half of the leaves still on the tree in spite of its +being winter and nearly every other tree in the woods was as bare +as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard. It was a beech tree and that +kind of a tree nearly always keeps a lot of its old frost-bitten +brown leaves on nearly all winter,<!-- Page 13 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> and only drops them off in +the spring when the new leaves start to come, and push them off.</p> + +<p>It was the same tree where one summer day, there had been a big +old mother bear and her cub. I, all of a sudden, while I was +sitting there on my stack of sleds was remembering that fight +we'd had with the old fierce old mad old mother bear.</p> + +<p>Anyway right that very minute while I was remembering the whole +story, and I guessed maybe Little Jim was remembering it also, +everything was so quiet, I said to Little Jim, "I bet you're +thinking about how you killed a bear right there."</p> + +<p>Little Jim who had his stick, which he always carried with him, +said, "Nope, something else."</p> + +<p>Poetry spoke up from where he was standing beside Mr. Black's +snow statue, and said, "I'll bet you're thinking about the little +cub which you had for a pet after you killed the bear."</p> + +<p>Little Jim took a swipe with his stick at the trunk of the tree, +and I noticed that his stick went ker-whack right on some +initials on the tree which said, W. J. C., which meant "William +Jasper Collins," which is my full name, only nobody ever calls me +by the <i>middle</i> name except my pop, who calls me that only when +he doesn't like me or when I'm supposed to have done something I +shouldn't. Then Little Jim said to Poetry, just as his stick +ker-whammed the initials, "Nope, something else." Then he whirled +around and started making tracks that looked like rabbit tracks +in the snow with his stick, and Tom Till spoke up and said, "I'll +bet you're thinking about the fight we had that day...."</p> + +<p>It was in that fight that I licked Little red-haired Tom Till, +who with his big brother Bob had belonged to the other gang.... +But now Little Tom's parents lived in our neighborhood and Tom +had joined the gang, and also went to our Sunday School, and was +a swell little guy; and as you maybe know, Bob was still a tough +guy, and hated Big Jim and all of us, and we never knew when he +was going to start some new trouble in the Sugar Creek +territory....</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, to Little Jim who was looking up into the tree +again like he was still thinking something important, "what <i>are</i> +you<!-- Page 14 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> thinking about?" and he said, "I was just thinking about all +the leaves, and wondering why they didn't fall off like the ones +on the maple trees do. Don't they know they're dead?"</p> + +<p>I looked at the tree Little Jim was looking at, and it was the +first time I'd noticed that the beech tree still had nearly every +one of its leaves on it. They were very brown, even browner than +some of the maple and walnut tree leaves had been, when they'd +all fallen off last fall.</p> + +<p>"How could they <i>know</i> they're dead, if they <i>are</i> dead?" Poetry +said, and just that second I heard Circus and Dragonfly coming up +from the direction of the bayou, which was down pretty close to +Sugar Creek itself.... Circus had his knife in his hand and was +just finishing trimming a small branch he had in his hand, +Dragonfly had a long fierce-looking switch in one of <i>his</i> hands, +and was swinging it around and saying loud and fierce, "All +right, Bill Collins, you can take a licking for throwing that +snowball.... Take <i>that</i> ... and <i>that</i> ... and <i>that</i>...." +Dragonfly was making fierce swings with his switch and grunting +every time he swung and every time he said "that...."</p> + +<p>I knew what he was thinking about,—the snowball I'd thrown in +our schoolyard that week, which had accidentally hit our new +teacher right in the middle of the top of his bald head....</p> + +<p>Well, in a jiffy, Circus had both those switches stuck into the +snow man, right where his right hand was supposed to be.... Then, +he reached into his pocket, and pulled out an ear of corn, and as +quick as anything began to shell it ... shoving handfulls of the +big yellow kernels into his pocket at the same time, and a jiffy +later, all that was left was a long red corn-cob, which he broke +in half and stuck one of the halves into the snowman's face for a +nose.</p> + +<p>Then also as quick as anything, he took the other half of the red +corn-cob and with his knife made a hole in its side near the +bottom, took a small stick out of his pocket, stuck it into the +cob! "What on earth?" I thought, and said so, but he said, "All +right, everybody, shut your eyes," which we wouldn't, so we +watched him finish what he was doing, which was making a pipe for +the snow man to smoke.... A jiffy later, there it was, sticking +into the snow man's snow face<!-- Page 15 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> right under his nose—a corn-cob +pipe.... It looked very funny, and for a jiffy we all laughed, +all except Little Jim who just giggled a little.</p> + +<p>We all stood back and looked at it, and it was the funniest +looking snow man I'd ever seen.... Brown hair all around his +head, and none in the middle of the top or the front, and a big +red nose, and a corn-cob pipe sticking out at an angle, and black +walnuts for buttons on his coat, and a couple of fierce-looking +switches in his hand. Also there were two thin corn silk eyebrows +that curled up a little....</p> + +<p>"There's only one thing wrong with it," Poetry said, in his +duck-like voice, standing beside me and squinting up at the +ridiculous looking snow man.</p> + +<p>"What?" I said, thinking how perfect it was.</p> + +<p>"You can't tell who it is supposed to be. It needs some extra +identification."</p> + +<p>"It's perfect," I said, and looked at Little Jim to see if he +didn't think the same thing, but he was looking up into the beech +tree again, like he was still thinking about something mysterious +and wasn't interested in an ordinary snow man. I looked toward +Dragonfly and he was listening toward a half dozen little cedar +trees in the direction of the bayou, like he was either seeing or +hearing something, which he thought he was, for right that second +he said, "Psst, gang, quiet! I think I saw something move over +there—sh! Don't look now, or he'll—"</p> + +<p>We all looked, of course, but didn't see anything, although I had +a funny feeling inside of me which was, "What if it's Mr. Black +watching us? What if all of a sudden he should come walking out +from behind those cedar trees and see the snow man we've made of +him, and what if he'd decide to use one or two of the switches on +us?"—not a one of us being sure he didn't like us well enough to +do that to us.</p> + +<p>Poetry spoke up then and said, "I say, it's not quite perfect. +There's one thing wrong with it, and I'm going to fix that right +this very minute." With that remark, he pulled off one of his red +mittens, shoved one of his fat hands inside his coat pocket, +pulled something out,<!-- Page 16 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> and started to shuffle toward Mr. Black's +snow statue. I could hardly believe my eyes at what I saw, but +there it was as plain as day, a red, cloth-bound book with gold +letters on it which said, <i><ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster,'"><a name="THS" id="THS"></a>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</ins></i>. I knew +right away it was the book he and I had seen in his library one +night and had read part of it, that part especially where the +tough gang of boys in the story had caused the teacher a lot of +trouble, and had locked him out of the schoolhouse; and then the +teacher, who had been very smart, had climbed up on top of the +school and put a flat board across the top of the chimney, and +the smoke which couldn't get out of the chimney had poured out of +the stove inside, and all the tough gang of boys had been smoked +out....</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" I said to Poetry, and he said, +"Nothing," and right away was doing it, which was sticking two +sticks in the snow man's stomach side by side and then opening +<i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i> to the place where there was the +picture of the teacher on the roof, and laying the book flat open +across the two sticks.</p> + +<p>"There you are, Sir," Poetry said, talking to the snow man. "The +Hoosier Schoolmaster himself." Then Poetry made a bow as low as +he could, he being so fat he grunted every time he stooped over +very far.</p> + +<p>Well, it was funny, and most of us laughed, Circus scooped up a +snowball and started to throw it at it, but we all stopped him on +account of not wanting to have all our hard work spoiled in a few +minutes. Besides, Poetry all of a sudden, wanted to take a +picture of it, and his camera was at his house which was away +down past the sycamore tree and the cave, where we all wanted to +go for a while to see Old Man Paddler. So we decided to leave Mr. +Black out there by himself at the bottom of Bumblebee hill until +we came back later, which we did.</p> + +<p>"He ought to have a hat on," Dragonfly said. "He'll catch his +death of cold with his bald head."</p> + +<p>"Or he might get stung on the head by a bumblebee," Circus said, +and Little Jim spoke up all of a sudden and said, like he was +almost<!-- Page 17 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> mad at us, "Can anybody help it that he gets bald? My +pop's beginning to lose some of his hair on top...." Then he +grabbed his stick which he had leaned up against the beech tree +for a jiffy, and struck very fiercely at a tall brown mullein +stalk that was standing there in a little open space, and the +seeds scattered in every direction, one of them hitting me hard +right on my freckled face just below my right eye, and stung like +everything; then Little Jim started running as fast as he could +go in the direction of the sycamore tree, like he had been mad at +us for something we'd done wrong. In fact, when he said that, I +felt a kind of a sickish feeling inside of me, like maybe I <i>had</i> +done something wrong. I grabbed my stick and started off on the +run after Little Jim, calling out to the rest of the gang to +hurry up, and saying, "Last one to the sycamore tree is a cow's +tail," and in a jiffy we were running and jumping and diving +around bushes and trees and leaping over snow-covered brushpiles +toward the old sycamore tree and the mouth of the cave, which was +there, and which as you know is a very long cave, and comes out +at the other end in the cellar of Old Man Paddler's cabin.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 18 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_3" id="Chapter_3"></a>3</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Of course everybody knows about Old Man Paddler, the kindest old +long whiskered old man who ever lived, and who was the best +friend the Sugar Creek Gang ever had. He lived up in the hills +above Sugar Creek, and almost every week the gang went up to see +him—sometimes in the summer-time we went nearly every day. We +went in the winter, too, on account of he lived all by himself +and we had to go up to take him things which our moms were always +cooking for him, and also we had to be sure he didn't get sick +'cause there wouldn't be anybody there to take care of him or +call the doctor for him on account of he didn't have any +telephone....</p> + +<p>After a little while we were tired of running so fast, so we +slowed down, it being easier to be a cow's tail than to get all +out of breath. Poetry and I were side by side most of the time +with Little Jim walking along behind us and with Little Tom Till +and Circus and Dragonfly swishing on ahead of us. Once when +Little red-haired Tom and Little Jim were beside each other +behind Poetry and me, I heard Little Jim say to red-haired Tom, +"Mom says for you to be ready a little early tomorrow morning, on +account of the choir has to practice their anthem again before +they sing."</p> + +<p>I knew what Little Jim was talking about 'cause his folks stopped +at Tom's house every Sunday morning about nine o'clock, and +Little Tom got in and rode to Sunday School with them in their +big maroon and grey car. Little Jim's very pretty mom was the +pianist at our church, and had to be always on time. Little Jim's +words came out kinda jerkily like he was doing something that +made him short of breath while he talked. I turned around quick +to see, and sure enough, he was shuffling along, making rabbit +tracks with his stick, and saying his words every punch of his +stick into the snow.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 19 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>Little Tom answered Little Jim by saying, "O de koke," which is +the same as saying, "Okey doke," which means "O.K." which is what +most anybody says when he means "All right," meaning Tom Till +would be ready early, and that when Little Jim's folks came +driving up to their front gate tomorrow, Little Tom, with his +best clothes on, would come running out of their <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'dilipidated'"><a name="dilapidated" id="dilapidated"></a>dilapidated</ins> old +unpainted house, carrying his New Testament, which Old Man +Paddler had bought for him.... Then they'd all swish away +together to Sunday School.</p> + +<p>Then I heard Little Jim ask something else which showed what a +grand little guy he was. "S'pose maybe your mother would like to +go with us, too?"</p> + +<p>"My mother would <i>like</i> to go with us," Tom said to Little Jim, +"but she doesn't have any clothes that're good enough." And +knowing the reason why was because her husband drank up nearly +all the money he made in the Sugar Creek beer taverns, and also +drank whiskey which he bought in the liquor store—knowing that, +I felt my teeth gritting hard and I took a fierce swing with the +stick I was carrying, at a little maple tree beside me.... I +socked that tree so fierce with my stick, that my hands stung so +bad they were almost numb; the stick broke in the middle and one +end of it flew ahead to where Circus and Dragonfly were and +nearly hit them.</p> + +<p>"Hey, you!" Dragonfly yelled back toward us, "What you trying to +do—kill us?"</p> + +<p>"What on <i>earth</i>!" Circus yelled back to me, and I stood looking +at the broken end of the rest of the stick in my hand, then +turned like a flash and whirled around and threw it as hard as I +could straight toward another tree about twenty feet away. That +broken stick hit the tree right in the center of its trunk, with +a loud whack.</p> + +<p>I didn't answer them in <i>words</i> at all. I was so mad at Tom's pop +and at beer and whiskey and stuff.</p> + +<p>But I couldn't waste all my temper on something I couldn't help, +so I kept still and we all went on to the cave, and went in, and +followed its long narrow passageway clear through, until we came +to the big wooden door which opened into Old Man Paddler's +cellar.<!-- Page 20 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> As soon as we got there, Circus, who was always the +leader of our gang when Big Jim wasn't with us, stopped us, and +made us keep still, then he knocked on the door—three knocks, +then two, then three more, then two, which was the code the gang +always used when we came, so Old Man Paddler would know it was +us.</p> + +<p>If he was home, he would call down and say in his quavering old +voice, "Who's there?" and we'd answer, and right away we'd hear +his trap door in the floor of his house open, and hear his steps +coming down his stairway and hear him lift the big wooden latch +that held the door shut, and then when he'd see us, he'd say, +"Well, well, well, well, the Sugar Creek Gang—" then he'd name +every one of us by our nicknames, and say, "Come on in, boys, +we'll have some sassafras tea," which all of us, especially +Little Jim, liked so very much.</p> + +<p>Everything was quiet while Circus knocked ... three times, then +two, then three, and then two again, while we all waited and +listened. There was always something kinda spooky about that +knock, and being in a cave I always felt a little queer until I +heard the old man's voice answer us. In fact, I always felt +creepy until we got inside the cabin and the trap door was down +again.</p> + +<p>We all stood there, outside that big wooden door, waiting for Old +Man Paddler to call down to us, but there wasn't a single sound, +so Circus knocked again: three times, then two, then three, and +then two again, and we all waited. Except for my little pocket +flashlight which my pop had given me for Christmas, we didn't +have any light, and we couldn't waste the battery by keeping it +on all the time, so I turned it off, but it felt so spooky with +it off and nobody answering Circus's knock that I turned it on +again just as Dragonfly who was always hearing things first, +said, "Psst!" which meant "I heard something mysterious! +Everybody keep still a minute," which we did; and then as plain +as day I heard it myself, an old man's voice talking. It was high +pitched and quavering, and kinda sad-like, like he was begging +somebody to do something for him....</p> + +<p>We were all so quiet as mice, not a one of us moving or hardly +breathing.... I couldn't <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'heart a word'"><a name="hearaword" id="hearaword"></a>hear a word</ins> the old man was saying, but +he sounded like he needed help.... I remembered how we'd all +saved<!-- Page 21 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> his life two different times—once when a robber had tied +him up and he'd have starved if we hadn't found him, and another +time when he'd fallen down his cellar steps in the winter-time +and his fire had gone out, and we had started a fire for him with +punk, using the thick lenses of his reading glasses for a +magnifying glass—which any boy can do if he can get some real +dry punk and a magnifying glass.... First you focus the red hot +light which shines from the sun through the magnifying glass, +right on the punk until it makes a little smoking live coal, then +you hold a piece of dry paper against the red glow on the punk, +and blow and blow with your breath until all of a sudden there +will be an honest to goodness flame of fire....</p> + +<p>Say, when I heard Old Man Paddler half talking and half crying up +there in his cabin, I got a very queer feeling inside of me....</p> + +<p>"Quick!" Circus said, "He's in trouble. Let's go in and help +him." Circus gave a shove on the door, turning the latch at the +same time, but the door wouldn't budge.</p> + +<p>"It's barred," Poetry said, and I remembered the heavy bar on the +inside which the old man always dropped into place whenever he +was inside.</p> + +<p>"Sh! Listen!" Little Jim said, and we shushed and listened.</p> + +<p>Say, that little guy had his ear pressed up real close to a crack +in the door, and in the light of my flashlight which I didn't +shine right straight <i>on</i> his face on account of it might blind +him, I could see that his eyes had a very far away look in them, +like he was thinking something important and maybe in his mind's +eyes was seeing something even more important.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I said to him, and he said, "Don't worry, he's all +right. He doesn't need our help—here, listen yourself," which I +did, and right away I knew Little Jim was right.... For this is +what I heard the old man saying in his quavering, high-pitched +voice, "... And please, You're the best friend I ever had, +letting me live all these long years, taking care of me, keeping +me well and strong and happy most of the time. But I'm getting +lonesome now, getting older every day, getting so I can't walk +without a cane, and I can't stand the cold weather anymore, and I +know it won't be long before I'll have to move out of this +crippled-up old house and come to live<!-- Page 22 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> with You in a new +place.... I'll be awful glad to see Sarah again, and my boys.... +And that reminds me,—Please bless the boys who live and play +along old Sugar Creek—all of 'em—Big Jim, Little Jim, Circus, +Dragonfly, Poetry, Bill Collins...."</p> + +<p>I knew what the kind man was doing all right, 'cause I'd seen and +heard him do it many a time in our little white church, and also +I'd seen him doing it once down on his knees behind the old +sycamore tree all by himself.... When I <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'heard his mention'"><a name="heardhim" id="heardhim"></a>heard him mention</ins> my +name, I gulped, and some crazy tears got into my eyes and into my +voice.... I had to swallow to keep from choking out a word that +would have let the gang know I was about to cry.... Like a flash +I thought of something and I whirled around and grabbed Little +Tom Till and shoved his ear down to the crack in the door and put +my own ear just above his so I could hear too, and this is what +the old man was saying up there in the cabin, "And also bless the +new member of the gang, Tom Till, whose father is an infidel and +spends his money on liquor and gambling.... Oh God, how can John +Till expect his boys to keep from turning out to be criminals.... +Bless his boy, Bob, whose life has been so bent and twisted by +his father.... And bless the boys' poor mother, who hasn't had a +chance in life.... Lord, you know she'd go to church and be a +Christian if John would let her.... And please...."</p> + +<p>That was as far as I got to listen right that minute cause I +heard somebody choke and gulp and all of a sudden Little Tom Till +was sniffling like he had tears in his eyes and in his voice, and +then that little guy who was the grandest little guy who ever had +a drunkard for a father, started to sob out-loud like he was +heart-broken, and couldn't help himself.</p> + +<p>I got the strangest feeling inside of me like I do when anybody +cries, and I wanted to help him stop crying and didn't know what +to do.</p> + +<p>"'Smatter?" Dragonfly said, and Tom said, "I want to go home!"</p> + +<p>"'Smatter?" Circus said, "Are you sick?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, what's the matter?" Poetry's duck-like voice squawked, but +Little Jim was a smart little guy and he said, "He doesn't feel +well. Let's all take him home."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 23 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>"I'll go b-b-by m-m-myself," Little Tom said, and started back +into the cave, but I knew it was too dark for him to see, so I +grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "We'll all go with you."</p> + +<p>"But we wanted to see Old Man Paddler," Dragonfly said, "What's +the use to go home? I want some sassafras tea."</p> + +<p>"Keep still," I said, "Tom's sick. He ought to go home." I knew +Little Tom was terribly embarrassed, and that he'd be like a +little scared rabbit if we took him into Old Man Paddler's cabin +now.</p> + +<p>We must have made a lot of noise talking 'cause right that minute +I heard Old Man Paddler's voice up there calling down to us, +"Wait a minute, boys! I'll be right down...."</p> + +<p>Well, it would have been impolite to run away now, and so I +whispered to Tom, "Me and Little Jim are the only ones who heard +him praying and—and we—we like you anyway." I gave Tom a kinda +fierce half a hug around his shoulder, just as I heard Old Man +Paddler's trap door in the floor of his house opening, and a +shaft of light came in through the crack in the door right in +front of us.... In a jiffy our door would open too, and we'd see +that kind old long whiskered old man, with his twinkling grey +eyes, and pretty soon we'd all climb up the cellar steps and be +inside his warm cabin with a fire crackling in his fireplace and +with the teakettle on the stove for making sassafras tea, and the +old man would be telling us a story about the Sugar Creek of long +ago....</p> + +<p>All of a sudden, I got the strangest warm feeling inside of me, +and I felt so good, something just bubbled up in my heart.... It +was the queerest feeling, and made me feel good all over, 'cause +right that second one of Little Tom's arms reached out and gave +me a very awkward half a hug real quick, like he was very bashful +or something, but like he was saying, "You're my best friend, +Bill.... I'd lick the stuffin's out of the biggest bum in the +world for you, in fact I'd do <i>anything</i>."</p> + +<p>But his arm didn't stay more'n just time enough for him to let it +fall to his side again, but I knew he liked me a lot and it was a +wonderful feeling.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 24 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>Right that second, I heard the old man lift the bar on the big +wooden door, and push it open, and real bright light came in and +shone all over all of us, and the old man said, "Well, well, +well, well, the Sugar Creek Gang! Come on in, boys, we'll have a +party."</p> + +<p>A jiffy later, we were all inside his cellar, and scrambling up +his cellar steps into his warm cabin.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 25 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_4" id="Chapter_4"></a>4</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It didn't take more'n several jiffies for all of us to be inside +that old-fashioned cabin, where there was a crackling fire in his +fireplace and another fire roaring in his kitchen stove and where +there was a teakettle singing like everything, meaning that +pretty soon we'd have some sassafras tea. In fact, as soon as the +trap-door was down and we were all sitting or standing or half +lying down on his couch and on chairs, the old man put some +sassafras chips from sassafras tree-roots into a pan on the stove +and poured boiling water on it, and let it start to boil. Almost +right away the water began to turn as red as the chips themselves +and Little Jim's eyes grew very bright as he watched the water +boil.</p> + +<p>One of the first things I noticed when I looked around the room a +little was the old man's Bible which was open to the Sunday +School lesson, like maybe he'd been studying, getting ready for +church tomorrow. I knew it was tomorrow's lesson 'cause at our +house we had already studied the same lesson two or three times, +on account of Mom and Pop always started to study next week's +lesson a whole week ahead of time, so, as Pop says, "different +ideas will come popping into our heads all week long even while +we're working or studying or something." I knew Little Jim's +parents always started studying their lessons the first thing in +the week, also, and maybe that was why that little guy was always +thinking of so many things that were important.</p> + +<p>From where I was sitting, I could look through a clear place in +the old man's kitchen window which didn't have any frost on it, +and I could see the shadow the smoke was making which was coming +out of the chimney, and the longish darkish shadow was moving up +the side of the old man's woodshed out there, and on up the slant +of the snow-covered roof, making me think of a great big long +dark<!-- Page 26 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>ish worm twisting and squirming and crawling up a stick in +the summer-time.... There must have been almost a foot of snow on +the roof of that woodshed, I thought, and that reminded me of the +snow man at the bottom <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'Bumblee hill'"><a name="Bumble" id="Bumble"></a>of +Bumblebee hill</ins>, and when I noticed that +the shadows of the trees out there were getting very long it +meant that it wouldn't be long till the sun went down, and if +Poetry and I were to get a good picture of Mr. Black's snow +statue, we'd have to hurry.</p> + +<p>Old Man Paddler all of a sudden spoke up and said to us, looking +especially at me, "One of you boys want to take the water pail +and go down to the spring and get a pail of fresh water?" which I +didn't exactly want to do, on account of it was very warm in the +cabin and would be very cold out there, but when Little Jim piped +up and said, "Sure, I'll do it," I all of a sudden said the same +thing, and Little Jim and I were out there in less than a jiffy, +with the old man's empty pail in one of my hands, and were +galloping along through the snow toward the spring, which was +right close to a big spreading beech tree, which, like the one at +the bottom of Bumblebee hill, still had most of its old brown +leaves on it....</p> + +<p>We filled the pail real quick with the sparkling, very cold +water, and hurried back to the cabin. I started to open the door, +when Little Jim said, "Wait a minute, I want to see something," +and he swished around quick and went back down the path toward +the spring, and turned around again and looked up toward the +chimney of the old man's cabin. He squinted his eyes to keep the +sun from blinding them and looked and looked, then he looked away +in the direction of the woodshed, and I wondered what in the +world that little guy was thinking.</p> + +<p>"'Smatter?" I said, and he said, "Nothing,—there's certainly a +lot of snow on the roof of that woodshed, and there isn't any on +the old man's cabin. How come?" Then he socked a stump with his +stick, and came lickety-sizzle to the door, opened it for me to +go in with the pail of water, which I did.</p> + +<p>Well, as soon as we got through with our sassafras tea, which +Little Jim said tasted like a very sweet hot lolly pop, we all +scrambled<!-- Page 27 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> around in the old man's cabin getting ready to go +home. If it had been in the summer-time, we would have gone home +the long way round, following the old wagon trail, and then we'd +have taken a short cut through the swamp, and if it had been +summer-time maybe stopped at the big mulberry tree and climbed up +into it and helped ourselves to the biggest, ripest mulberries +that grew anywhere along Sugar Creek. But it wasn't summer, so we +took the short cut, going through the cave to the sycamore tree, +where most of us separated and went in different directions to +our different homes, all except Poetry and me, who, as you know, +were going to get his camera and take a picture of Mr. Black's +snow statue, his parents having bought a new camera for him at +Christmas.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>"Well, well," Poetry's mother said to us when we stopped beside +their big maple tree, and I waited a jiffy for him to go in the +house and get the camera, "<i>where</i> have you boys been? I've been +phoning all over for you, Leslie"—meaning she had been phoning +all over for Poetry, <i>Leslie</i> being the name which his parents +used and which he had to use himself when he signed his name in +school ... but he would rather be called Poetry.</p> + +<p>"'Smatter?" Poetry asked his kinda round-shaped mom, "Didn't I do +my chores, or something?"</p> + +<p>Then Poetry's mother startled us by saying, "We've had company. +Mr. Black was here. He just left a minute ago."</p> + +<p>I had a queer feeling start creeping up my spine.</p> + +<p>"What did he want—I mean, where did he go? Where'd you tell him +we were?" Poetry and I both said at the same time only in +different words, but with probably the same scared feeling +inside, and thinking, "What if she told him we were playing over +on Bumblebee hill and he had gone there?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't seem to want anything in particular. He was out +exercising his horse. Such a beautiful big brown saddle horse!" +Poetry's mother said. "And such a very beautiful saddle. He looks +very stunning in his brown leather jacket and riding boots."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 28 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>"What did he want?" Poetry said again, taking the words right out +of my mind, and Poetry's mom said, "Nothing in particular. He +said he wanted to get acquainted with the parents of his boys."</p> + +<p>I looked at Poetry and he looked at me, and he said to his mom, +"He's too heavy for the horse," and his mother looked at Poetry +who was also heavy and said, "Too much blackberry pie, I suppose. +You boys want a piece?"</p> + +<p>Poetry's face lit up, and he said, "We'll take a piece apiece," +which we did, and then I said to him all of a sudden, "The sun'll +still be shining on Mr. Black. If we want to get his picture, +we'll have to hurry!"</p> + +<p>"Shining on <i>who</i>?" Poetry's mom said, and Poetry said, "The sun +is shining in through the window on my blackberry pie," and +winked at me, and his mom went into their parlor to answer the +phone which was ringing.</p> + +<p>Poetry finished his pie at the same time, slithered out of his +chair and went up stairs to his room to get his camera, just as I +heard his mother say into their telephone, "Why yes, Mrs. +Mansfield, we do—certainly, I'll send Leslie right over with it +right away—oh, that's all right—no, he won't mind, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>It sounded like an ordinary conversation any mother might have +with any ordinary neighbor. I'd heard my mom say something like +that many a time, the only difference being she would say, "Why +yes, Mrs. <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'So-ond-So'"><a name="SoSo" id="SoSo"></a>So-and-So</ins>, we have it. I'll send <i>Bill</i> over with it +right away—oh, that's all right—no, he won't mind, I'm sure," +which I hardly ever did anymore on account of my pop wouldn't let +me. I was always running an errand for some neighbor who didn't +have any boys in the family, which is what boys are for.</p> + +<p>I was wondering where Poetry had to go, with what, and why, when +Poetry's mom called up the stairs to him and said, "Leslie, will +you bring down <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, and you and Bill take +it over to Mrs. Mansfield."</p> + +<p>I heard Poetry gasp and call back down, "Get WHAT?"</p> + +<p>"<i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster!</i>" his mom called up. "It's on the +second shelf in your library—it's a red book with gold +lettering<!-- Page 29 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> on it;" then Mrs. Thompson said to me, "Having a new +gentleman teacher in the community has made everybody interested +in that very interesting book, so Mrs. Mansfield is going to +review it for the Literary Society next Wednesday night."</p> + +<p>Then Poetry's mom called up to him and asked, "Find it, Leslie?" +which of course he hadn't and couldn't, anyway, not upstairs, +'cause right that minute it was lying open on two sticks stuck +into Mr. Black's stomach at the bottom of Bumblebee hill. For +some reason it didn't seem as if we wanted to tell Mrs. Thompson +where it was, but it looked like we were in for it.</p> + +<p>We couldn't come right out and tell her where the book was, +'cause she was like most of the other parents in Sugar Creek +territory—she thought Mr. Black, who rode a fine horse and wore +a brown leather jacket and riding boots and who could smile +politely and tip his hat whenever he saw a Sugar Creek Gang +mother, was a very fine gentleman, and certainly didn't know what +a hard time the gang had been having with him.</p> + +<p>Just that second Poetry called down and said, "Bill and I'll take +it to her."</p> + +<p>The gang didn't know Mrs. Mansfield very well, on account of she +was a new person in the Sugar Creek territory and didn't have any +boys, and was more interested in society than any of the gang's +moms and was always reading important books on account of it +maybe made her seem more important if she knew the names of all +the important books and who wrote them.</p> + +<p>Poetry came downstairs with his camera, coming down in a big +hurry and saying to me in a business-like voice, "Let's get +going, Bill," and made a dive for the door so his mom wouldn't +see he didn't have <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, not wanting her to +ask where it was, so he wouldn't have to tell her.</p> + +<p>Both Poetry and I were out of doors in a jiffy and the door was +half shut behind us when Poetry's mother said, "Hadn't we better +wrap it up, Leslie,—just in case you might accidentally drop +it?"</p> + +<p>"I promise you, I won't drop it," Poetry said, "besides we want +to hurry. I want to take a picture of something before the sun +gets too far down. Come on, Bill, hurry up!" Poetry squawked to +me,<!-- Page 30 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and I hurried after him, both of us running fast out through +their back yard in the direction of Bumblebee hill.</p> + +<p>But Poetry's mother called to us from the back door and said, +"Where are you going? Mrs. Mansfield doesn't live in <i>that</i> +direction."</p> + +<p>Poetry and I stopped and looked at each other.</p> + +<p>All of a sudden we knew we were caught, so Poetry said to me, +"What'll we tell her?"</p> + +<p>And remembering something my pop had taught me to do when I was +caught in a trap, I said all of a sudden, quoting my pop, "Tell +her the truth."</p> + +<p>Poetry scowled, "You tell her," he said, which I did, saying +"Mrs. Thompson, the gang had <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i> this +afternoon, and we left him—I mean <i>it</i>—down on Bumblebee hill. +We have to go there first to get it," and all of a sudden I felt +fine inside, and know that Pop was right. Poetry's mom might not +like to hear <i>exactly</i> where the book was, right that very +minute, and it didn't seem exactly right to tell her, so when she +didn't ask me, I didn't tell her.</p> + +<p>Poetry's mother must have understood her very mischievous boy, +though, and didn't want to get him into a corner, for she said, +"Thank you for telling me. Now I can phone Mrs. Mansfield it will +take a little longer for you to get there with the book—and, by +the way, if you see Mr. Black tell him about next Wednesday +night—you probably will see him. I told him you boys were over +on Bumblebee hill, and how to get there. He seemed to want to see +you."</p> + +<p>Poetry and I both yelled back to her, saying, "You told him +WHAT!" and without another word or waiting to hear what she said, +we started like lightning as fast as we could go, straight for +Sugar Creek and Bumblebee hill, wondering if by taking a short +cut we could get there before Mr. Black did; and in my mind's +eye, I could see Poetry, IF we got there first, making a dive for +<i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i> on the snow man; and I could see +myself, making a leap for the man's head, and knocking it +completely off, I could see it go rolling the rest of the way +down the hill with its cornsilk hair getting covered with +snow—also I could see Mr. Black in his<!-- Page 31 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> brown riding jacket and +boots, on his great big saddle horse, riding up right about the +same minute.</p> + +<p>What if we didn't get there first? I thought. What if we didn't? +It would be awful! Absolutely <i>terrible</i>! And Poetry must have +been thinking the same thing, 'cause for once in his life, in +spite of his being barrel-shaped and very heavy, and never could +run very fast, I had a hard time keeping up with him....</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 32 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_5" id="Chapter_5"></a>5</h2> +</div> + + +<p>All the time while Poetry and I were running through the snowy +woods, squishety-sizzle, zip-zip-zip, crunch, crunch, crunch, I +could see in my mind's eye our new teacher's big beautiful brown +saddle horse, prancing along in the snow toward Bumblebee hill, +carrying his heavy load just as easy as if it wasn't anything. +Right that very minute, maybe, the horse would be standing and +pawing the ground and in a hurry to get started somewhere, while +maybe its rider was standing with <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i> in +his hand, looking at the picture of the schoolhouse, and then +maybe looking at the ridiculous-looking snow man we'd made of +him....</p> + +<p>In a few minutes Poetry and I were so out of wind that we had to +stop and walk awhile, especially because I had a pain in my right +side which I sometimes got when I ran too fast too long. "My side +hurts," I said to Poetry, and he said, "Better stop and stoop +down and unbuckle your boot, and buckle it again, and it'll quit +hurting."</p> + +<p>"It'll WHAT?" I said, thinking his idea was crazy.</p> + +<p>"It'll quit hurting, if you stop and stoop down and unbuckle your +boot and then buckle it again."</p> + +<p>Well, I couldn't run anymore with the sharp pain in my side, so +even though I thought Poetry's idea was crazy, I stopped and +stooped over, biting off my mittens with my teeth, and laying +them down on the snow for a jiffy and unbuckling one of my boots +and buckling it again while I was still stooped over; then I +straightened up, and would you believe it? That crazy ache in my +side was actually gone! There wasn't even a sign of it.</p> + +<p>I panted a minute longer to get my wind, then we started on the +run again. "It's crazy," I said, "but it worked. How come?"</p> + +<p>"Poetry Thompson's father told me," he said, puffing along ahead +of me, "only it won't work in the summer-time. In the summer-time +you have to stop running, and stop and stoop down and pick up<!-- Page 33 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> a +rock, and spit on it and turn it over and lay it down again very +carefully upside down, and your side will quit hurting."</p> + +<p>Right then, I stumbled over a log and fell down on my face, and +scrambled to my feet and we hurried on, and I said to Poetry, +"What do you do when you get a sore toe from stumping it on a +log—stoop over and scrape the snow off the log and kiss it, and +turn it over, and then—?"</p> + +<p>It wasn't any time to be funny, only worried, but Poetry +explained to me that it was the <i>stooping</i> that was what did it. +"It's getting your body bent double, that does it.—Hey! Look! +There he is now!"</p> + +<p>I looked in the direction of our house, since we were getting +pretty close to Bumblebee hill, and sure enough, there was our +teacher sitting on his great big beautiful brown horse which was +standing and prancing right beside the old iron pitcher pump not +more than twenty feet from our back door. Mom was standing there +with her sweater on and a scarf on her head talking to him or +maybe listening to him, then I saw Mr. Black tip his hat like an +honest-to-goodness gentleman, and bow, and his pretty horse +whirled about and went in a horse hurry to our front gate which +was open, and being held open by my pop, and he went on, +galloping up the road, his horse galloping in the shadow which +they made on the snowy road ahead of them.</p> + +<p>Well, that was that, I thought, and Poetry and I who were at the +top of Bumblebee hill hurried down to where he and I had left our +sleds, the rest of the gang having taken theirs with them when +we'd gone to the cave. At the bottom of the hill, we saw the +great big tall snow man. The sun was still shining right straight +on it, but wouldn't be, pretty soon, but would go down. So Poetry +and I stopped close to it, and he got his camera ready.</p> + +<p>"You get <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, Bill, and turn it around and +stand it up against the Hoosier schoolmaster's stomach." Poetry +ordered, "so I can get a good picture of it," which I started to +do, and then gasped.... <i>There wasn't any Hoosier Schoolmaster!</i> +The book was gone. "It's gone!" I said to Poetry, and it was, and +there was a page of yellow writing paper, instead.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 34 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>"Hey!" I said, "There's something printed on it!" Sure enough, +there was. The piece of yellow writing tablet was standing up on +the two sticks, leaning against the snow man's stomach, and was +fastened so the wind wouldn't blow it away, by another stick +stuck through the paper and into the snow man's stomach.</p> + +<p>"It's your poem, Poetry," I said, remembering the poem which +Poetry had written about our teacher. "How'd it get here?" Right +away I was reading the poem again, which was almost funny, only I +didn't feel like laughing on account of wondering who had stolen +the book and had put the poem here in its place. The poem was +written exactly right:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"<i>The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>And 'Black' his named was called,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i2"><i>His round red face had the homeliest of features,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>He was fat and forty and bald.</i>"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>It had been funny the first time I had read it, which was not +more than a week ago, but for some reason right that minute it +was anything in the world else. I was gritting my teeth and +wondering who had done it, and who had stolen <i>The Hoosier +Schoolmaster</i>. There wasn't a one of the gang that <i>could</i> have +done it, 'cause we had all been together all afternoon; and at +the cave all the rest of the gang had gone to their different +homes.</p> + +<p>"Who in the world wrote it and put it there?" I said, noticing +that the printing was very large and had been put on with black +crayola, the kind we used in school.</p> + +<p>"There's only one other person in the world who knows I wrote +that poem," Poetry said, "and that's Shorty Long."</p> + +<p>"Shorty Long!" I said, remembering the newest boy who had moved +into our neighborhood and was almost as fat as Poetry and who had +been the cause of most of our trouble with our new teacher and +had had two or three fights with me and had licked the stuffins +out of me once, and I had licked the stuffins out of him once +also, even worse than he had me, almost.</p> + +<p>"How'd he find it out?" I said.</p> + +<p>"Dragonfly told him," and also I remembered right that minute +that Dragonfly and Shorty Long had been kinda chummy last week<!-- Page 35 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +and we had all worried for fear there was maybe going to be +trouble in our own gang which there'd never been before, and all +on account of the new fat guy who had moved into our neighborhood +and had started coming to our school.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to take a picture of it?" I said to Poetry, and he +said, "I certainly am; I'm going to have the evidence and then I +can prove to anybody that doesn't believe it, that somebody +actually put it here."</p> + +<p>"Yeah," I said, "but everybody knows <i>you</i> wrote the poem."</p> + +<p>Poetry lowered his camera, and just that minute I saw something +else that made me stare and in fact startled me so that for a +jiffy I was almost as much excited as I had been when the fierce +old mad old mother bear had been trying to kill Little Jim right +at that very place where we were about a year and a half ago.</p> + +<p>"Hey! Look!" I said, "Mr. Black's been here himself!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. <i>Black</i>!" Poetry said in almost a half scream.... And right +away both of us were looking down in the snow around the beech +tree, and around the snow man, and sure enough there were horse's +tracks, the kind of tracks that showed that the horse had shoes +on. And even while I was scared and wondering "What on earth!" +there popped into my red head the crazy superstition that if you +found a horseshoe and put it up over the door of your house or +one of the rooms of your house, you would have good luck....</p> + +<p>"I'll bet Mr. Black took the book, and wrote the poem and put it +here."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't," I said, but was afraid he might have.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take a picture anyway," Poetry said, and stepped +back and took one, and then real quick, took another, and then he +took the yellow sheet of paper with the poem on it and folded it +up and put it in his coat pocket, and with our faces and minds +worried we started in fiercely knocking the living daylights out +of that snow man. The first thing we did was to pull off the red +nose, and pull out the corn-cob pipe, and knock the round head +off and watch it go ker-swish onto the ground and break in +pieces, then we pulled the sticks out of his stomach, kicked him +in the same place, and in a jiffy had him looking like nothing.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 36 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>We felt pretty mixed up in our minds, I can tell you.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose Mr. Black did that?" I said.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't," Poetry said, "but if he rode his horse down here +and saw it, he'll certainly think we're a bunch of heathen."</p> + +<p>"We aren't, though—are we?" I said to Poetry, and for some +reason I was remembering that Little Jim had acted like maybe we +ought not make <i>fun</i> of our teacher just 'cause he had hair only +all around his head and not on top, and couldn't help it. For +some reason, it didn't seem very funny, right that minute, and it +seemed like Little Jim was right.</p> + +<p>"What about <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>?" Poetry said to me, as we +dragged our discouraged sleds up Bumblebee hill. "What'll we tell +your mother? And what'll <i>she</i> tell Mrs. Mansfield?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Poetry said, and his voice sounded more worried +than I'd heard it in a long time.</p> + +<p>The first thing Mom said to us when we got to our house was, "Mr. +Black was here twice this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"<i>Twice?</i>" I said. "What for? What did he want?"</p> + +<p>"Oh he was just visiting around, getting acquainted with the +parents of the boys. Such a beautiful brown saddle horse," Mom +said. "And he was so polite."</p> + +<p>"The horse?" Poetry said, and maybe shouldn't have, but Mom +ignored his remark and said, "He took a picture of our house and +barn and tried to get one of Mixy cat, but Mixy was scared of the +horse, I guess, and ran like a frightened rabbit."</p> + +<p>"Was he actually taking pictures?" Poetry asked with a worried +voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he wanted to get one of you boys playing on Bumblebee +hill.... But you were all gone, he said, but he found the book +you left there, so he brought it back—you know, the one Mrs. +Mansfield wanted."</p> + +<p>"What book?" I said, pretending to be surprised. "Did Mrs. +Mansfield want a book?"</p> + +<p>And Mom who was standing at our back door bareheaded, and +shouldn't have been, on account of she might catch cold, said, +"Yes, she phoned here for <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, while Mr. +Black was here,<!-- Page 37 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> but I knew <i>your</i> mother had one, Poetry, so I +told her to call <i>there</i>."</p> + +<p>Poetry and I were looking at each other, wondering "What on +earth?" Then Mom said, "Mr. Black thought maybe you boys had been +reading it or something and had forgotten it when you left."</p> + +<p>"D-d-d-did he—did he—?" Poetry began, but stuttered so much he +had to stop and start again, and said, "Did he say <i>where</i> he +found it? I mean was it—that is, where did he <i>find</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't say," Mom said, "but he said since he was going on +over to Mrs. Mansfield's anyway, he'd take it over for me, so you +won't have to take it over, Bill," Mom finished.</p> + +<p>Well, that was that.... Poetry and I sighed to each other, and he +said, "Did you tell my mother?"</p> + +<p>"I've just called her," Mom said, "and you're to come on home +right away to get the chores done early.... It's early to bed for +all of us on Saturday night, you know."</p> + +<p>Poetry must have felt pretty bad, just like I did, but he managed +to say to Mom politely, "Thank you, Mrs. Collins. I'll hurry +right on home."</p> + +<p>I walked out to the gate with him, and for a jiffy we just stood +and looked at each other, both of us with worried looks on our +faces.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose he really took a picture of himself with that +poem on his stomach?" Poetry asked. "And if he did, <i>who</i> on +earth put it there?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I said, "but what would he want with pictures of +all of us and our parents?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know—" Poetry said, with a worried voice.</p> + +<p>Just that minute Pop called from the barn and said, "BILL, HURRY +UP AND GATHER THE EGGS! IT'LL BE TOO DARK TO SEE IN THE BARN AS +SOON AS THE SUN GOES DOWN! POETRY, BE SURE TO COME AGAIN SOME +TIME," which was Pop's way of telling Poetry to step on the gas +and get going home right now, which Poetry did, and I went back +to the house and got the egg basket to start to gather the eggs, +wondering what would happen next.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 38 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_6" id="Chapter_6"></a>6</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Just as I started to open our kitchen door and go out to the +barn, Mom came from the other room where she'd been talking on +the phone and said, "Little Jim's mother is coming down with the +flu, and won't be able to go to church tomorrow, so we're to pick +up Little Jim and also stop for Tom Till and take him to church +with <i>us</i>.... We'll have to get up a little earlier tomorrow +morning, so you get the chores done quick so we can get supper +over and to bed nice and early," which I thought was a good idea. +I was already tired all of a sudden, almost too tired to gather +the eggs.</p> + +<p>Tomorrow, though, would be a fine day. It'd be fun stopping at +Little Jim's and Tom Till's houses and take them to church with +us.</p> + +<p>Little Jim had something on his mind that was bothering him, +though, and I wondered what it was. Also, I wondered who was +coming to our house for dinner tomorrow. Maybe it would be Little +Jim, as <i>well</i> as somebody else, if his mom was going to have the +flu.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon I was up in our haymow all by myself carrying the egg +basket around to the different places where different ones of our +old hens laid their eggs. Old Bent-comb still laid her daily egg +up in a corner of the mow so I climbed away up over a big stack +of sweet-smelling hay to where I knew the nest was. I wasn't +feeling very good inside on account of things hadn't gone right +during the day, and yet I couldn't tell what was wrong, except +maybe it was just me. When I got to old Bent-comb's nest, sure +enough there were two eggs in it—one was the pretty white egg +Bent-comb herself had laid that day and the other was an +artificial glass egg which we kept in the nest all the time just +to encourage any hen that might see it, to stop and lay an egg +there herself, just as if maybe there had been another hen who +had thought it was a good place to lay an egg. It was easy to +fool old Bent-comb, I thought.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 39 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>While I was getting ready to go back to the ladder and go down it +to the main floor of the barn, my eyes climbed up Pop's brand new +ladder which goes up to the cupola at the very peak of the roof +of our very high barn. It certainly was a very nice light ladder, +and next summer it would be easy for me to carry it to one cherry +tree after another in our orchard when I helped pick cherries for +Mom. It was such a light ladder, even Little Jim could carry +it.... While I was standing looking up and thinking about wishing +spring would hurry up and come, I all of a sudden wanted to climb +up the ladder and look out the windows of the cupola and see what +I could see in the different directions around the Sugar Creek +territory. Also, I wondered if Snow-white, my favorite pigeon, +and her husband had decided to have their nest in the cupola +again this year, and if there were maybe any eggs or maybe a +couple of baby pigeons, although parent pigeons hardly ever +decided to raise any baby pigeons in the winter-time. If there +was anything I liked to look at more than anything else, it was +baby birds in a nest. Their fuzz always reminded me of Big Jim's +fuzzy mustache, he being the only one of the Sugar Creek Gang to +begin to have any.</p> + +<p>In a jiffy I was on my way and in another jiffy I was there, +standing on the second from the top rung of the ladder. It was +nice and light up there with the sun still shining in, although +pretty soon it would go down. In one direction I could see +Poetry's house, and their big maple tree right close beside it in +the back yard, under which in the summer-time he always pitched +his tent and sometimes he would invite me to stay all night with +him; in another direction, and far away across our cornfield, was +Dragonfly's house which had an orchard right close by it, where +in the fall of the year we could all have all the apples we +wanted, if we wanted them; Big Jim and Circus lived right across +the road from each other, but I couldn't see either one of their +houses, or Little Tom's on account of Little Tom lived across the +bridge on the other side of Sugar Creek.... I could see our red +brick schoolhouse, away on past Dragonfly's house, though. But +when I looked at it, instead of feeling kinda happy inside like I +nearly always did when we had our pretty lady other teacher for a +teacher, I felt kinda saddish. There was the big maple<!-- Page 40 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> tree +which I knew was right close beside a tall iron pump, near which +we had built a snow fort; and behind that was the woodshed where +we'd been locked in by our new man teacher and which you know +about if you've read <i>One Stormy Day at Sugar Creek</i>, and behind +the woodshed was the great big schoolyard where we played +baseball and blindman's buff and other games in the fall and +spring, and where we play fox-and-goose in the winter. For a few +minutes I forgot I was supposed to be gathering eggs, and was +doing what Pop is always accusing me of doing, <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original has period outside of quotes."><a name="dreaming" id="dreaming"></a>which is "dreaming."</ins> +I was thinking about what had happened that +afternoon, such as the trip we'd taken through the cave to Old +Man Paddler's cabin, and the prayer he'd made for all of us, and +especially for Old Hook-nosed John Till, which Little Tom had +heard, and it had made him cry and want to go home. Poor Little +Tom, I thought. What if I had had a pop like his, instead of the +kinda wonderful pop I had, who made it easy for Mom to be happy, +which is why maybe Mom was always singing around our kitchen, +even when she was tired, and also why, whenever Pop came into our +house after being gone awhile, Mom would look up quick from +whatever she was doing and give him a nice look, and sometimes +they'd be awful glad to see each other, and Pop would give her a +great big hug like pops are supposed to do to moms. Poor Little +Tom's mom, I thought.</p> + +<p>Well, while I was still not thinking about finishing gathering +the eggs, I looked in the last direction I hadn't looked yet, +which was toward our house and over the top of the spreading +branches of the plum tree and over the top of our gate which +Dragonfly had had his ride on, and on down toward Bumblebee hill +where we'd coasted and had fun and made the snow man of Mr. +Black, but say! right that second, I saw something moving—in +fact, it was somebody's cap moving along just below the crest of +the hill, but all I could see was the bobbing-up-and-down cap, +and right away I knew whose cap it was—it was the bright red cap +of the new tough guy in our neighborhood whose name was Shorty +Long, and right away I knew who it was that had written Poetry's +poetry and put it on the sticks into Mr. Black's stomach....</p> + +<p><!-- Page 41 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>I had a queer, and also an angry feeling inside me, 'cause I just +<i>knew</i> Mr. Black had seen the poem, and since it had been signed +"The Sugar Creek Gang," we would all be in for still more trouble +Monday morning in school.</p> + +<p>While I was up there in that cupola, I made up my mind to one +thing, and that was that no matter how much we didn't like our +teacher, and no matter what ideas Poetry and I had once had in +our minds to find out whether a board on the top of the +schoolhouse chimney would smoke out a teacher, I, Bill Collins +wasn't going to vote "Yes" if the gang put it to a vote to decide +whether to do it or not.... No sir, not me.</p> + +<p>Right that second, I heard my pop calling me from away down on +the main floor of the barn, "Better come on down and finish your +chores, Bill," which I had, and which I started to do, climbing +backwards down the new ladder very carefully to the haymow floor +and then down the other ladder to the main floor of the barn.</p> + +<p>Pop had just finished milking our one milk cow, and the big +three-gallon milk pail was full clear to the top and there was +inch-high creamy-yellow foam above the top of the pail. Mixy, our +old black and white cat, was mewing and mewing and walking all +around Pop's legs and looking up and mewing and rubbing her sides +against his boots and also running over toward the little milk +pan over by a corner of the barn floor, as if to say to Pop, "For +goodness sake, I may be a mere cat, but does that give you any +right <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'to make we wait'"><a name="mesupper" id="mesupper"></a>to make me wait</ins> for my supper?"</p> + +<p>Anyway I was reminded that I was hungry myself, and pretty soon +we'd all be in our house, sitting around our table eating +raw-fried potatoes and reddish slices of fried ham, and other +things....</p> + +<p>"I'll take the milk on up to the house, Bill," Pop said, and also +said, "You follow me up to the back porch, Mixy—you can't have +<i>fresh</i> milk tonight—and also, only a little raw meat, because +there are absolutely too many mice around this barn. Any ordinary +hungry cat ought to catch at least one mouse a day, Mixy, and if +you <i>don't</i> catch them, we'll have to make you hungry, so you +will. Understand?" I looked at Pop's big reddish-blackish +eyebrows and he was<!-- Page 42 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> frowning at Mixy, although I knew he liked +her a lot, but didn't like mice very well.</p> + +<p>I finished gathering the eggs that were in the barn and then went +to the hen house where I knew there would be some more eggs, and +then took my basket of maybe four dozen eggs toward the house.</p> + +<p>Mixy was there on the back porch, I noticed, lapping away at her +milk like a house afire. I wiped off my boots carefully like I'd +been trained to do whether I was at home or in somebody else's +house, pushed open the door to our kitchen and went in, expecting +to see Mom, or Pop, or both of them there, but there wasn't +anybody there, so I sat the egg basket down on Mom's work table, +and started into the front room, where I thought they'd maybe be. +All of a sudden I heard Mom saying something in a tearful voice, +and I stopped cold—wondering what I'd maybe done and shouldn't +have, and if Mom was telling Pop about it, so I started to +listen—and then was half afraid to, so I started to open the +door and go out when I heard Pop say something in a low voice, +and it was, "No, Mother, whatever it is, I know one thing—our +Bill will tell the truth. He'd tell the truth right now if I +asked him, but I'm not going to. I'm going to wait and see what +happens, and see if he'll tell me himself."</p> + +<p>I strained my ears hard to hear what Mom would answer, and this +is what she said, "All right, Theodore, I'll be patient; but just +the same, I'm worried."</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry one little tiny bit, Mother," Pop said. "A boy's +heart is like a garden. If you <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original has duplicate 'and'"><a name="plantgood" id="plantgood"></a>plant good seed in it, and +cultivate</ins> and plow it and water it with love, he'll come out all +right," which made me like my pop a lot, only I didn't have time +to think about it 'cause right that very second almost, I heard +Mom say in a worried voice, "Yes, dear, but <i>weeds</i> grow in a +garden without anyone's planting them," which made me feel all +saddish inside, and for some reason I could see our own garden +which every spring and summer had all kinds of weeds—ragweeds, +smartweeds, and big ugly Jimson-weeds, and lots of other kinds. +Right that second, I remembered something my pop had said to me +once last summer which was, "Say, Bill, do you know how to keep +the big weeds out of our garden,<!-- Page 43 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> without having to pull up or +cut out even one of them?" and when I said, "No, how, Pop?" he +said, "Just kill all of them while they are <i>little</i>."</p> + +<p>Well, I didn't want Mom or Pop to know I'd heard them talking +about me, so I sneaked out the back door very carefully and +started to talking in a friendly voice to Mixy, saying to her, +"Listen, Mixy, do you know how to keep all the great big mice out +of our barn? You just catch all the mice while they're +little—it's as easy as pie."</p> + +<p>Mixy looked up from her empty milk pan and mewed and looked down +at her pan again, and looked up at me again and mewed again, and +then walked over to me and rubbed her sides against my boots like +she liked me a lot. For some reason, I thought Mixy was a very +nice cat right that minute, so I said to her, "I'm awful glad you +like me, Mixy, even if nobody else around this place does."</p> + +<p>Pretty soon, Pop and I were out doing the rest of the chores +while Mom was getting supper. Almost right away, it began to get +dark, and we went in to supper. "Wash your hands and go get +Charlotte Ann," Mom said to me. "I think she's awake now."</p> + +<p>Charlotte Ann, you know, is my baby sister, and even though she +is a girl, is a pretty swell baby; in fact, she's wonderful.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes Pop and Mom and Charlotte Ann and I were all +sitting around our kitchen table in the lamp light. We had two +kerosene lamps lit, one of them behind me on the high +mantel-shelf above my head, and the other on another mantel-shelf +above the water pail in the corner.</p> + +<p>We always bowed our heads at our house before every meal, +different ones of us asking the blessing, whichever one of us Pop +called on. When I was little I'd said a little poem prayer, but +didn't do it any more on account of Pop thought I was too big, +and since I was an actual Christian, in spite of having +Jimson-weeds in my heart, I always prayed whenever Pop told me +to, only I hoped that he wouldn't ask me to tonight. Pop looked +around the table at all of us, and Mom helped Charlotte Ann fold +her hands, which she didn't want to do, but kept wiggling and +squirming and reaching for things on the table, which were too +far away, "Well, let's see—whom shall we ask to pray, tonight? +ah—"</p> + +<p><!-- Page 44 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>Pop's "ah—" was cut short by the telephone ringing our ring, +which meant that one of us had to answer the phone. "I'll get +it," I said, "maybe it's one of the gang—"</p> + +<p>"I'll get it," Mom said, "I'm expecting a call—I say, I'LL GET +IT!" Mom raised her voice on account of I was already out of my +chair and half way to the living room door.</p> + +<p>When Mom came back a minute later, she was smiling like she'd had +some wonderful news, and it was, "It was Mrs. Long. <i>Mr.</i> Long +won't be home tomorrow, so she can go to church with us. Isn't +that wonderful? It's an answer to prayer."</p> + +<p>I spoke up then and said, "How about Shorty? Is he going too?"</p> + +<p>I don't know what there was in my voice that shouldn't have been, +when I asked that question, but Mom said in an astonished tone of +voice, "Why, Bill Collins! The very idea! Don't you <i>want</i> him to +go to church and Sunday School and learn something about being a +Christian? Do you want him to grow up to be a heathen? What's the +matter with you?"</p> + +<p>I gulped. Mom had read my thoughts like an open school book. "Of +course," I said, "he ought to go to church, but—"</p> + +<p>"But <i>what</i>?" Mom said.</p> + +<p>"He's awful mean to the gang," I said, "He—"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we'd better ask the blessing now," Pop said, in a kind +voice, and right away we bowed our heads, while Pop prayed a +short prayer, which ended something like this, "... and bless our +minister tomorrow. Put into his heart the things he ought to say +that will do us all the most good.... Make his sermon like a plow +and hoe and rake that will make the gardens of our hearts what +they all ought to be.... Bless Shorty Long and his mother and +father, and the Till family, all of which we ask in Jesus' name. +Amen."</p> + +<p>For some reason, when Pop finished, I seemed to feel like maybe I +didn't actually <i>hate</i> our new teacher, not very much anyway, and +I thought maybe Shorty Long, even if he was a terribly tough boy, +would be better if he had somebody pull some of the weeds out of +him....</p> + +<p><!-- Page 45 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>After supper, we all took our regular Saturday night baths and +went to bed, and the next thing we knew it was a wonderful +morning, with the sun shining on the snow and with sleigh bells +jingling on people's horses, on account of some of our neighbors +lived on roads where the road-conditioner hadn't been through +yet, and couldn't use their cars and so had to use sleds instead. +It was going to be a wonderful day all day, I thought, and was +glad I was alive.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 46 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_7" id="Chapter_7"></a>7</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Just before nine o'clock, we all started in our car toward Little +Jim's house, which was closer than Tom Till's or Shorty Long's. +Little Jim came tumbling out his back door, his short legs +carrying him fast out to the road. He got in and I was certainly +tickled to see him. Mom and Pop and Charlotte Ann were in the +front seat, so Charlotte Ann would be closer to our car heater +and keep warm, on account of it was a cold morning.</p> + +<p>"How is your mother this morning?" my mom asked Little Jim about +his mom, and Little Jim piped up in his mouse-like voice and +said, "She's better than last night. Pop and I took breakfast to +her in bed," which is what <i>my</i> pop does to <i>my</i> mom when <i>she</i> +doesn't feel well. In fact, sometimes when Pop gets up extra +early before Mom does, he sneaks out into our kitchen quietly and +makes coffee and carries a cupful in and surprises Mom even when +she is perfectly well, which Pop says is maybe one reason why Mom +keeps on liking him so well....</p> + +<p>Our car turned north on the road that leads to Tom's house, +crossed the snow-covered Sugar Creek bridge, and went on. While +we were on the bridge, Little Jim said to me, "Look, there's an +<i>oak</i> tree that still has its leaves on, and'll maybe keep 'em on +all winter."</p> + +<p>Then we came to Tom's weathered, old-looking house, and barn, and +Pop pulled up at the side of the road in front of their mail box +which said on it, "John Till," and honked the horn for Tom to +come out and get in.</p> + +<p>There was a new path which maybe Tom had scooped for his mom so +she could get the mail. In a minute now, I thought, their side +door would open and Little Tom would come zipping out, with his +kinda oldish-looking coat on and he would come crunch, crunch,<!-- Page 47 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +crunch through the snow path to where we were. Tom didn't come +right away, though. Pop honked again, so Tom would be sure to +hear, then when he still didn't come, and when there wasn't any +curtain moving at their window to let us know anybody was home +and that Tom would be here in a minute, Mom said to me, "Bill, +you better run in and tell him we're here. We have to stop at +Long's yet, and we don't want to be late."</p> + +<p>Almost in a second I was opening the door and getting out. Little +Jim tumbled out right after me, saying, "I'll go with you," and +since neither his mom nor his pop were there to tell him not to, +both of us went squishing up the snow path toward their side +door. There had been a little wind during the night, and some +snow had drifted into the path, and I was glad we had on our +boots, so our good Sunday shoes wouldn't get wet and spoil their +shine.</p> + +<p>I knocked at Tom's door, and waited and nobody answered, and +Little Jim and I listened to see what we could hear, but all I +could hear was somebody moving around inside like whoever it was +was in a hurry—like maybe there had been some things on the +floor and they were in a hurry to straighten up the room or the +house on account of company was coming.</p> + +<p>Then I heard a door shutting somewhere in the house, and I knew +it was the door between their living-room and kitchen, then I +heard footsteps coming toward our door, and I wondered what was +wrong. I was sure something was, but didn't know what.</p> + +<p>The next thing I knew the door opened in front of me and there +stood Little red-haired Tom, with his hair mussed up, and his old +clothes on, and his eyes were kinda reddish, and it looked like +he had been crying. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't go. +Mother's got the flu, and I have to take care of her, and keep +the fires going."</p> + +<p>"Can't your daddy do that?" Little Jim asked in a disappointed +voice, and Little Tom swallowed hard like there was a tear in his +throat and said, "Daddy's not home again. He—he's—not home," +Tom finished, and I knew what he meant, but he was ashamed to say +it, and it probably was that his pop had got drunk again and was +maybe right that very minute in the Sugar Creek jail.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 48 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>"Where's Bob?" Little Jim wanted to know, and Tom stood there in +the half-open kitchen door and said, "He got up early and went +over to Shorty Long's; they're going to hunt pigeons."</p> + +<p>I knew what that meant, 'cause sometimes some of the farmers in +our neighborhood had too many pigeons, and the Sugar Creek Gang +would go to their different barns and shut all the doors and +windows quick and help catch the pigeons for them, and you could +get sometimes fifteen cents apiece for them if you sold them.</p> + +<p>If Shorty Long and Bob had gone hunting pigeons together, it +meant that Shorty Long wouldn't want to go to Sunday School with +us when we stopped at their house after awhile to get his mother +to take her to church with us. It also meant that Shorty and Bob +had maybe decided to like each other, since neither one of them +liked the Sugar Creek Gang.</p> + +<p>Little Tom didn't know what I'd been thinking, so he piped up and +said to Little Jim, "I'm sorry I can't go, but I can't. You tell +Teacher I'll try to come next week, and tell her I studied my +Sunday School lesson, and—wait a minute!" Tom turned and, +leaving the door open, hurried back inside the house, opened the +door to their living-room and went in, like he had gone after +something. He shut the door after him real quick, like he was +trying to keep the cold air in the kitchen from getting into that +other room.</p> + +<p>In that split minute while the door was open, though, I saw that +they had a big double bed in their living-room and that Tom's +mother was in it, all covered up, and that there was a small +table beside her bed with a glass half full of water, but that +the room looked kinda topsyturvy like the housekeeping was being +done by a boy instead of a mother.</p> + +<p>A second later Tom was out again, shutting the door behind him, +and coming right straight to Little Jim and me, and holding out +his hand and saying, "Here—here's my offering." He handed me a +small offering envelope like the ones we used in our church, and +without trying to, I noticed it had two very small coins in it, +and I guessed they were dimes, which maybe Tom himself had saved +from catching pigeons.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 49 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>Just that second, Tom's mother coughed, a kinda saddish, sickish +cough, that sounded like maybe she was a lot sicker than she +ought to be, and I knew that if my mom was as sick as that Pop +would have a doctor out to see her right away, so I said, "Has +the doctor been here?"</p> + +<p>Little Tom frowned and said, "Nope, we can't—Nope, I guess Mom +will get well. She always does."</p> + +<p>Just that second our car honked, and I knew the folks were +wondering what on earth was keeping us so long. There didn't seem +to be anything we could do, but I knew somebody ought to do +something for Tom's mom, 'cause that cough sounded dangerous. +Why, she might even get pneumonia, I thought; she might even have +it now.</p> + +<p>As quick as Little Jim and I reached the car, and had climbed +into the back seat, we told Mom and Pop. While I was excitedly +telling them, I noticed that the muscles in Pop's jaws were +working and I knew he was thinking, and also was half angry +inside because anybody had to have such a mean husband as <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'old Hook-nose'"><a name="OldHook" id="OldHook"></a>Old Hook-nosed</ins> John Till.</p> + +<p>"He's a slave," Pop said, thinking of Tom's pop, and Mom said, +with a very determined voice, "Theodore, you take the boys on to +Sunday School. Be sure to stop for Mrs. Long. Here, Bill, you +hold Charlotte Ann. If Mrs. Till has the flu, I can't keep +Charlotte Ann here with me."</p> + +<p>Pop started to say something, but Mom had already made up her +mind, and it was too late. Mom was already half way out of the +car when she said, "You can come on back and get me in time for +church,—no, wait a minute. I want Tom to go to Sunday School +too—I'll send him right out." Mom was out of the car and going +up the snow path toward the oldish house, when Little Jim piped +up and said, "The doctor's going to stop at our house at ten +o'clock to see Mother. I'll bet he'd stop to see Tom's mother too +if anybody asked him to."</p> + +<p>"They can't afford a doctor," I said, remembering what Tom had +tried to say a few minutes ago, but I hadn't any more than got +the words out of my mouth than Pop spoke up almost fiercely, like +he was angry at somebody or something, and this is what he said,<!-- Page 50 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +"But <i>I</i> can. If Tom's mother needs a doctor, she's going to have +one," and with that Pop shoved open the car door at his left +side, saying, "You boys wait here a minute. I'll be right back." +He slammed the door and circled the car and went swishing with +very determined steps through that snow path to Tom's side door, +and disappeared inside, leaving Little Jim and Charlotte Ann and +me in the car. The motor was running and the heater fan was +circulating warm air all over the car, so we wouldn't get cold.</p> + +<p>I still had Little Tom's offering envelope in my hand, and it +reminded me of how maybe Tom had earned the money, and so I said +to Little Jim, "I hope Shorty Long and Bob don't stop at our +barn, 'cause we don't have too many pigeons. And besides, there's +a nest up in our cupola, with some baby pigeons in it, and if +they catch the mother and father the babies will freeze or maybe +starve to death."</p> + +<p>A jiffy later, Pop came out to the car, bringing Tom with him, +and all of us except Mom drove on toward Shorty Long's house to +get Shorty's mother.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon, fifteen minutes later, maybe, we all pulled up in +our car in front of the little white church on top of the hill +right across from a two-room brick schoolhouse where the Sugar +Creek Literary Society met once a month on Wednesday nights. All +of us except Pop got out to go inside the church, Shorty Long's +mother carrying Charlotte Ann and was going to take care of her +until Pop got back.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to the parsonage to call the doctor to stop at your +house," Pop said to Tom, "and I'm taking a radio to your mother, +so if she feels able, she can listen to a Gospel program."</p> + +<p>I looked quick at Little Tom, knowing he might feel ashamed to be +reminded that his folks couldn't afford a doctor, and also that +they didn't have any radio, and knowing it was on account of his +pop; but Tom was looking in another direction, and was swallowing +hard like he had taken too big a bite of something and hadn't +chewed it long enough but was trying to swallow it. Then he +whirled around real quick, and hurried up the cement steps to the +church's door, with Little Jim and me right after him.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 51 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>Just inside the vestibule, fastened to the wall, was what is +called "The Minister's Question Box," with a little slit in the +top for people to put in Bible questions they wanted explained, +or also for any extra offering people wanted the minister to +have.... Right that second I saw Little Jim pull one of his small +hands out of his pocket and slip a folded piece of paper into the +box, kinda <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'bashful like'"><a name="bashful" id="bashful"></a>bashful-like</ins>, then he and all of us went on in to +where our classes would be sitting.</p> + +<p>As soon as Sunday School was over and church started, I noticed +Mr. Black come in. I was surprised to see him come to church, but +I knew our minister would preach a good sermon like he always +does, and it wouldn't hurt even a school teacher to hear a good +sermon maybe once a week.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 52 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_8" id="Chapter_8"></a>8</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Two or three times while our minister was preaching a very +interesting sermon which a boy could understand, my thoughts flew +away like they were birds with wings, and for quite a while I +didn't even know I was in church on account of I was far away in +my thoughts. As you maybe know, our minister was Sylvia's father, +and Sylvia was a very polite, kinda pretty girl with a good +singing voice and always had her hair looking very neat and +pretty with a ribbon or something on it like girls wear in their +hair, and she was Big Jim's favorite girl. I was sitting beside +Big Jim, and Dragonfly was beside me, with the rest of the Sugar +Creek Gang in different places in the church, our parents not +letting us all sit together if they could help it, on account of +the minister got more attention himself if we sat in different +places—not that any of us tried to be mischievous in church—in +fact, we always had to try not to be.</p> + +<p>Right that second Sylvia's kind-voiced pop was talking about how +wonderful it was, when you knew you had done something wrong, and +were sorry for it, you could pray right straight to the Lord +Himself <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'and confess you sins'"><a name="yoursins" id="yoursins"></a>and confess your sins</ins> right straight to Him, and He would +make your heart clean.... "The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of +God, will cleanse you from all sin, <i>right that very minute</i>," +Sylvia's pop said, and it seemed like a wonderful thing to +believe, and made me feel good all inside of me....</p> + +<p>And then almost right away, he went on to say, quoting another +verse from the Bible, "Come now, let us reason together, saith +the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white +as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." +I had learned that verse by heart once in a summer Bible school. +And all of a sudden, my thoughts were flying away, and I was +remembering Poetry's pet lamb, which you know about if you've +read <i>The Sugar Creek Gang in School</i>,<!-- Page 53 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> whose wool was NOT white +one morning when the lamb fell down in a mud puddle, and I was +remembering Poetry's funny poetry which was,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"<i>Poetry had a little lamb,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i2"><i>Its fleece a dirty black,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i2"><i>The only place its wool was white</i></span><br /> +<span class="i2"><i>Was high up on its back</i>"....</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Also I was at that very minute reminded of another poem which I +had seen yesterday, which was written on yellow paper and which +had been pinned with a brown stick on the white stomach of a snow +man.... That poem still didn't seem funny, and for some reason I +decided I was going to try to be what is called a gentleman, and +try to act like one in school, even if I didn't like my teacher.</p> + +<p>I didn't hear any more of Sylvia's pop's sermon for a while, on +account of I happened to look out the church window which didn't +have stained glass like some of the churches in town did, and I +saw somebody's barn just on the other side of the little +cemetery, and there were a lot of pigeons flying around over the +barn, and in the sky, right away I was remembering Shorty Long +and Big Bob Till, and wondering where they were, and what they +were doing.</p> + +<p>I had a heavy feeling inside of me that they would maybe visit +all of the barns of the Sugar Creek Gang's pops, and catch a lot +of pigeons, and maybe they'd catch and kill the pretty brown and +white pair of pigeons which had their nest in the cupola of our +barn, and then what would happen to the <i>baby</i> pigeons?...</p> + +<p>Pop didn't come in to church at all on account of deciding to +stay with Mom, but he was there in the car right afterward, and +all of us including Little Jim and Tom Till and Mrs. Long and +Charlotte Ann, shook hands with a lot of people and climbed into +our car and drove away. Pop and all of us were talking and +listening as our car went purring down the road. We were just +stopping at Shorty Long's house to let Mrs. Long out when Little +Jim said to me in a half whisper, "Sylvia's pop certainly +preached a good sermon. I <i>thought</i> that was why some houses +didn't have as much snow on their roofs<!-- Page 54 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> as others, and why barns +always have more snow than houses that people live in. It was a +good sermon."</p> + +<p>"What?" I said to Little Jim, not remembering anything in the +sermon about snow on people's houses or barns. Sylvia's pop must +have said that when I was thinking about snowy white wool on +Poetry's lamb—or else about a snow man standing at the bottom of +Bumblebee hill....</p> + +<p>Pretty soon we came to Tom Till's house. Pop had already told us +the doctor had been there, and Mrs. Till didn't have pneumonia, +only a bad chest cold.</p> + +<p>Pop had gone to our house to get one of our battery radios so +Mrs. Till could hear a good Christian program, and she was +feeling a lot better. Pop also had told us that Bob had come home +while Mom was taking care of Mrs. Till but he had gone away +again. "Did he have any pigeons?" Little red-haired Tom asked, +when Pop started to get out and go in with Tom and get Mom.</p> + +<p>"About a dozen," Pop told him. "He put them in the pigeon cage +out in the woodshed."</p> + +<p>Right away I spoke up and said, "Were there any <i>white</i> ones?" +remembering the beautiful white pigeon with pink eyes which had +her nest up in the cupola of our barn, and whose big beautiful +brown husband was so proud of her and always was cooing to her +when they were on the roof of our barn and was always strutting +around so very proud, with his neck all puffed out like he was +very important.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Pop said, and I said, "Can I go and look, Tom?" +and Tom said, "Sure, I'll go with you."</p> + +<p>"Let me hold Charlotte Ann," Little Jim said, he liking to hold +babies on his small lap, anyway.</p> + +<p>Pop went in to get Mom, and Tom and I went into their woodshed to +look through the chicken-yard wire cage at about fifteen very +pretty pigeons.</p> + +<p>All of a sudden, while I was looking, I got a hot feeling all +inside of me, 'cause right there in front of my eyes with the +other different colored pigeons, was a beautiful albino one—the +prettiest snow white one I ever saw with pretty pink eyes, and I +knew right<!-- Page 55 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> away it was my favorite pigeon, old Snow-white +herself, who had her nest in the cupola of our barn.</p> + +<p>"There's my pigeon!" I cried to Little Tom, and when he asked me +which one and I told him, he said, "Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"I'm positive," I said. "See that little brown spot just below +the left pink eye. I'm going to get her out, and take her home."</p> + +<p>Little Tom looked, and swallowed and got a very scared expression +on his face, and started to say something, and then stopped.</p> + +<p>"'Smatter?" I said, and he said, "Nothing, only--"</p> + +<p>"Only what?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>"Only—only Bob's got a terrible temper, and he's already mad at +me."</p> + +<p>Say, when I saw the scared expression on that little guy's face, +I realized that if I let Snow-white out of that cage, Tom would +maybe get a terrible beating-up-on from his big brother, and it'd +be my fault. Just that minute, Pop and Mom came out of the side +door of Tom's house, and it was time for us to go home. Mom was +going to hurry with our own dinner, which had nearly all been +cooked yesterday, and we were going to bring some nice chicken +soup back in the car for Tom's mom's dinner, and also some +chicken for Tom, himself.</p> + +<p>I still didn't know who was coming to our house for dinner, and +whoever did come would have to wait awhile, on account of Mom +would have to finish preparing it. "Who's coming to our house for +dinner?" I asked, and Mom said, as we all started down the road +toward Little Jim's house, "A certain very fine gentleman named +Little Jim Foote, of the Sugar Creek Gang,"—and was I ever glad? +But as the car glided down the white road, I kept thinking of my +pretty Snow-white in Bob Till's cage, and I knew that Bob would +maybe kill her along with all the other pigeons and sell them at +the Sugar Creek Poultry Shop....</p> + +<p>Just that second, just as we were getting close to Little Jim +Foote's house, Little Jim said, "Hey, Bill! Look! There goes a +white pigeon, flying all by itself."</p> + +<p>I looked out the car window, and sure enough there was, a snow white pigeon, with its white wings flapping, and it was diving +along<!-- Page 56 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> through the Sugar Creek sky right past our car and +straight for Sugar Creek and in the direction of our house on the +other side of the woods. All of a sudden I got a choked-up +feeling in my throat, 'cause I just <i>knew</i> that was my very own +Snow-white, and that Tom Till liked me so well he was going to +run the risk of getting a terrible beating-up-on by his brother +Bob, by opening their pigeon cage and letting Snow-white out so +she could fly home.</p> + +<p>For some reason all of a sudden, I liked Little red-haired Tom +Till so well that I wished I could do something very wonderful +for him and his sick mother. I just kept my eyes strained on the +sky above Sugar Creek and the woods where I'd seen Snow-white +disappear, when I heard Little Jim say to me beside me, "Nearly +all the snow's melted off our house now."</p> + +<p>I looked where he was looking, and he looked at me, and said +surprised like, "'Smatter, Bill? You got tears in your eyes."</p> + +<p>"Have I?" I said, "I didn't know it."</p> + +<p>Tom Till really was a great little guy, I thought; one of my very +best friends, and I remembered that before he had started coming +to our Sunday School and had become a Christian, he had been one +of the meanest boys I ever saw.</p> + +<p>I shook my head, to knock the tears out of my eyes, like Little +Jim does when for some reason or other he gets tears in his, and +doesn't want anybody to know it, so instead of using his +handkerchief to wipe them out, he just gives his head a quick +little jerk or two, and if you happen to be looking at him, <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'you can see the ears fly'"><a name="tears" id="tears"></a>you can see the tears fly</ins> off in some direction or other.</p> + +<p>"Well, here we are!" Pop said, stopping at Little Jim's house for +a minute. "You'll probably want your sled. You and Bill'll want +to coast on Bumblebee hill after dinner," which we would, and +which, after dinner, we did.</p> + +<p>One of the first things we did, though, even before we ate +dinner, was to go upstairs to my room and both of us put on some +old clothes to play in, Little Jim's mother having made him take +some old clothes with him when we'd stopped at their house a +little while ago.</p> + +<p>Right away, we were down stairs again, and were on the way +through the kitchen to the back door to dash out to the barn to +see<!-- Page 57 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> if Bob Till and Shorty Long had been there for sure, and +also to see if Snow-white had come back and was on her nest up in +the cupola, and also find out if her babies were cold or had +frozen or something, on account of they didn't have enough +feathers on them to keep them warm.</p> + +<p>Mom stopped me at the door, though, saying, "Bill, if you like, +you may wash your hands and finish setting the table—put the +bread on, and pour a glass of water for everyone, and milk for +you and Jim."</p> + +<p>I was surprised at Mom calling Little Jim just Jim, but I sorta +felt it was because she thought it made Little Jim sound bigger +than he was, and Mom knew it would make him feel good, Mom being +a very smart person and knew how to make boys like her.</p> + +<p>"Anything I can do?" Little Jim asked Mom politely. Mom let him +pour the water into the glasses for me, and when we finished +helping her, she said we could go out to the barn if we wanted +to, but to be ready to come running as soon as she called us, +which we probably would be on account of the oven was open right +that minute and I could smell the baked chicken and knew that it +was going to be a wonderful dinner.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>"Hi, Mixy!" Little Jim said to our black and white cat which was +lying in a cozy nest of her own at the bottom of the ladder which +went up to our haymow. Little Jim stooped down to pet her, and +she lifted her head without standing up and rubbed the sides of +her pretty black and white face against his small hand, and mewed +lazily, with half-closed blinking eyes.</p> + +<p>I could hardly wait till we got up in the haymow and could climb +up Pop's new ladder to the cupola to see if Snow-white was home +again, so I started to go up the first ladder first, noticing +that there was dirt on the ladder that might have been made by +somebody with boots or shoes on that had dirty snow on them, and +I knew Bob Till and Shorty Long had been there. How many pigeons +had they caught? I wondered, and felt an angry feeling inside of +me, 'cause if there was anything the boys of the Sugar Creek Gang +<i>didn't</i> do,<!-- Page 58 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> it was we didn't go into anybody's barn and catch +pigeons without the farmer asking us to, or without us first +asking the farmer if we could.</p> + +<p>Right that minute, while Little Jim was stroking Mixy, and I had +my hand and one foot on the ladder ready to start up, I heard +Pop's voice calling from somewhere up in the haymow, and saying +to us. "Bill! Are you down there?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah," I yelled back up to him, "Little Jim and I are <i>both</i> +here. We're coming up!" Pop's voice had a worried sound in it, +and also sounded like maybe I had done something I shouldn't +have, or else had maybe left something <i>un</i>done which I should +have done.</p> + +<p>Then Pop's voice called down to us, and this time it sounded even +more like I thought it had, when Pop said, "Where'd you put my +new ladder? I can't find it anywhere."</p> + +<p>New ladder! I thought, and wondered, What on earth! Why just +yesterday I'd used it to climb up to Snow-white's nest and had +left it right there, with the top of it resting on the beam on +the south side of the cupola.</p> + +<p>"It's right there!" I yelled up to Pop, "Right there in the +center of the haymow, going up into the cupola."</p> + +<p>"It IS not!" Pop yelled back down to me, "and I've looked all +over the haymow for it."</p> + +<p>I looked at Little Jim, and he was still stooped over stroking +Mixy who was standing up now and stretching herself and reaching +up with her front claws and doing some kind of monkey-business +with Little Jim's trousers, taking hold, and letting go, and +taking hold, and letting go, and acting very contented.</p> + +<p>Then I went lickety-sizzle up the ladder to the haymow and sure +enough Pop was right! The pretty new ladder which Pop had bought +and which I'd left right where I'd told Pop I'd left it, was +gone.</p> + +<p>"I left it right here," I said to Pop, and then I had a queer +feeling inside of me, as I thought about two boys whose names you +already know and wondered if they had stolen it. There wasn't a +sign of the ladder anywhere in the whole haymow, and I was +looking in every direction.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 59 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>"'Smatter?" Little Jim asked, when his head appeared at the top +of the ladder beside where I was standing, and he looked up at my +and Pop's astonished faces.</p> + +<p>"Somebody's stolen our ladder," I said, "a brand new one Pop just +bought last week."</p> + +<p>"<i>Stolen</i> it?" Little Jim asked, and he had a puzzled expression +on his face, and I knew what he was going to say before he said +it, and it was, "Are you sure?" You know, Little Jim always had a +hard time believing anybody was bad, or would do anything wrong, +on account of he hardly ever did anything wrong himself, and, +also, 'cause he liked everybody. So when he said, "Are you sure?" +Pop said, "No, we're not sure, till Bill has tried first to +remember if maybe he moved it somewhere else."</p> + +<p>I looked all around in a quick circle at the haymow, and I +thought that if Bob Till and Shorty Long <i>had</i> been there, they +might have hidden it under some hay just for meanness, so I got a +pitch fork and started to jab it into the hay all around in +different places in the haymow, and Pop looked in a tunnel under +a long beam, and also we all looked down stairs and all around. +Once I looked up into the cupola, and had a half-glad feeling in +my heart when I saw Snow-white's white head peeking out over the +edge of the beam she had her nest on, like she had just come +back, and was wondering "What on earth" anybody wanted with a +ladder anyway, she not needing any herself.</p> + +<p>Just then we heard Mom calling for dinner, and we had to go, all +of us being very hungry. I knew Pop was having a hard time +believing me, that I hadn't moved the ladder, on account of many +a time Pop had missed something around the farm and later he or I +or somebody had found it where I'd been using it or playing with +it, in some place I'd forgotten all about.</p> + +<p>But there wasn't any use to look for it. It was gone, and not a +one of us knew where—only I was absolutely sure that Bob Till +and Shorty Long had hidden it somewhere. I told Mom and Pop what +I thought had happened, and we all talked it over pretty +excitedly at the dinner table.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 60 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>After dinner we all looked again, looking all around the barn, +inside and out, and also jabbing forks and shovels in the biggest +piles of snow around the barn, to see if maybe it had been +covered up with snow, and still we couldn't find it. Pop was +pretty mad, also, on account of about six of our pigeons were +missing, and it looked like there had been somebody jumping and +running all over the alfalfa hay which we fed to our cows. "How +would YOU like to eat a piece of <i>pie</i> that some boy's dirty +boots had walked all over?" Pop asked. That tickled Little Jim, +and he giggled.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon Mom and Pop said Little Jim and I could go over to +Poetry's house if we wanted to, and we could play in Poetry's +nice new basement.</p> + +<p>It was while we were at Poetry's house that we saw the ladder, +and you'd never guess in the world where it was, and most +certainly you'd never guess in the world all the excitement we +were going to get mixed up in before the afternoon was over.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 61 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_9" id="Chapter_9"></a>9</h2> +</div> + + +<p>We'd been having a wonderful time, playing pingpong and checkers, +and Little Jim was playing the organ in Poetry's basement while +Poetry and I made a lot of boy noise playing a tie-off game of +pingpong, when we heard a door open at the head of the stairway +leading down into the basement, and somebody sneezed, and we knew +it was Dragonfly who had come over to play with Poetry. Poetry's +parents had gone visiting somewhere, calling on some sick people +in the Sugar Creek hospital, so we could make more noise and it +wouldn't disturb any grown-up people's nerves, and would also be +good for ours, it being almost as hard on a boy's nerves to be +quiet, as it is on a grown-up person's nerves when a boy is +noisy.</p> + +<p>Poetry and I stopped our game and yelled up to Dragonfly to come +on down and "play the winner," which meant either Poetry or me.</p> + +<p>Dragonfly sneezed twice on his way down, he maybe being allergic +to something he'd smelled when he came in, or else it was the +change from the cold outside air to the warm inside air.</p> + +<p>Poetry won that last game, and it meant he was the champion, so +he and Dragonfly started in like a house-afire batting that +pingpong ball back and forth, back and forth, bang, sock, whizz, +sizzle, ping-ping-ping-ping, pong-pong-pong-pong, sock, sock, +sock.... Say, that <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'little Spindle-legged Dragonfly'"><a name="spindle" id="spindle"></a>little spindle-legged Dragonfly</ins> was <i>good</i>. He +won the first game right off the bat. He really was a good +athlete for such a thin little guy. "Hey, you guys!" he said, +pretending to be very proud of himself, "Isn't there a window +somewhere we can open? I want to throw out my chest," which was +an old joke, but sounded funny for Dragonfly to say it, his chest +being very flat.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 62 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>"Sure," Poetry said, "but we can get air quicker by opening the +door at the top of the stairs," and with that he shuffled up the +stairs and opened the door, and just as he did so, I heard a +horse sneeze and a man's voice saying, "Whoa, there, Prince! +Stand still!" and I knew it was our new teacher, Mr. Black. Just +that second, Dragonfly sneezed again, and said to Poetry, "I'm +allergic to horses. Shut that door!"</p> + +<p>"Hello!" a voice called. "Anybody at home?"</p> + +<p>Well, I can't tell you all that happened for the next fifteen +minutes, on account of I have to hurry with the rest of this +story, but Mr. Black was very kind to us boys. He came down into +the basement, and took a flashlight picture of us with our +pingpong balls and paddles and with Little Jim at the organ, and +didn't say a word about the snow man we knew he'd seen yesterday, +or the book, or anything. He was very nice, and a little later +when he rode away on his great big beautiful prancing saddle +horse, I thought maybe he was going to be a good teacher after +all. The last thing he said to us just before he swung prancing +Prince around and jogged up Poetry's lane to the house, was, +"Well, I'll see you boys in the morning at school.... I'm going +to ride over now and get the fire started. I let it go out over +Saturday to save fuel.... But the weather report is for a cold +wave tonight, so I think I'll get the fire going good, and it'll +be cozy as a bug in a rug tomorrow morning when everybody comes."</p> + +<p>It certainly was a pretty horse, and he certainly knew how to +ride him; and the big beautiful brown saddle and Mr. Black's +riding habit made me wish I had a big brown horse and a riding +outfit and could go galloping around all over Sugar Creek +territory.</p> + +<p>Almost right away, we all decided to play outdoors awhile, 'cause +if there was going to be a real cold wave tonight, it meant that +tomorrow we'd all have to stay inside the school most of the +time, 'cause sometimes a cold wave in Sugar Creek territory meant +twenty degrees below zero.... Poetry went in the house and got +his binoculars and we all climbed up on their chicken house which +didn't have any snow on its roof, and started to look around +Sugar Creek at different things. Little Jim grinned when he +noticed there wasn't any<!-- Page 63 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> snow on the roof of the chicken house, +and said, "That certainly was a good sermon this morning," then +he grunted and sat down astride the chicken house roof, right +close to a little tin chimney out of which white smoke was +coming, there being a kerosene heater inside the chicken house.</p> + +<p>"It sure was," Poetry said, with the binoculars focused in the +direction Mr. Black had gone.</p> + +<p>"Here, Bill, look at him, will you.... He's stopping at Circus's +house. Suppose maybe he's going to take a picture of one of +Circus's sisters?"</p> + +<p>Dragonfly giggled when Poetry said that, and I felt hot inside, +on account of Circus had a lot of sisters, and one of them was a +real honest-to-goodness girl who wasn't afraid of mice or +spiders, and sometimes I carried her dinner pail to school. I +knew Dragonfly was trying to tease me, so I said, "Here, let me +see."</p> + +<p>A jiffy later I was looking at Mr. Black stopping his big horse +at Circus's house. Just that second, Dragonfly shoved his hands +against my knees behind me, and both my knees buckled, and I +swung around a little, and when I looked again toward Circus's +house, the binoculars were focused, not on his house, but on our +red brick schoolhouse farther across the field, and all of a +sudden I let out a gasp and a yell, and felt a queer feeling +inside of me, for right there on the north side of the +schoolhouse was a ladder leaning up against the eaves and—yes, I +could see it as plain as day, there was something that looked +like a flat board lying right across the top of the schoolhouse +chimney....</p> + +<p>It was even plainer than day what had happened, and that was that +Shorty Long and Bob Till had been to our house and barn while we +were in church and had stolen Snow-white and some other pigeons +and then seeing how nice and light and easy to carry Pop's new +ladder was, and remembering the story of <i>The Hoosier +Schoolmaster</i>, and both of the boys not liking the Sugar Creek +Gang, and Shorty Long especially not liking me terribly much, +they had borrowed the ladder and had used it to put the board on +the chimney, so Mr. Black would be smoked out when he started the +fire, and I, Bill<!-- Page 64 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Collins, and maybe all the Sugar Creek Gang, +would get into even more trouble with Mr. Black, and—</p> + +<p>I was thinking all those worried thoughts in less than a jiffy +while I was looking through those binoculars, and was still +standing on the roof of Poetry's pop's chicken house, with Poetry +and Little Jim beside me.</p> + +<p>I must have let out a very excited gasp, 'cause Poetry said, +"'Smatter, Bill?" and Little Jim said in his mouse-like voice +which was also excited for a change, "See anything important?"</p> + +<p>Dragonfly was on the ground in front of me and he yelled up and +said "What's the matter?" then he sneezed, which is what people +sometimes do when all of a sudden they look up and the sun gets +into their eyes, which it did in Dragonfly's eyes right that +second.</p> + +<p>"Quick!" I yelled to the gang. "Come on, we've got to get to the +schoolhouse before Mr. Black does or the schoolhouse will catch +on fire maybe." The ladder was on the side of the schoolhouse +where I knew Mr. Black wouldn't see it when he got there. I +whirled around, made a leap for the ground, landed in a snow +drift, got out of it in a hurry, and raced as fast as I could +down Poetry's lane toward the highway.</p> + +<p>Poetry and Dragonfly and Little Jim came whizzing along behind +me, yelling what was the matter and why was I in such a hurry, +and how on earth could the schoolhouse catch on fire, and why did +we have to get there first, before Mr. Black did.</p> + +<p>I still had Poetry's binoculars in my hand, and was running, +panting, dodging drifts, and all the time I could see in my +mind's eye Pop's new ladder leaning up against the schoolhouse, +and I knew that if Mr. Black ever saw it and found out whose it +was, I'd have a hard time explaining it to him that I hadn't done +it.</p> + +<p>In between pants, I managed to get it into the heads of the rest +of the gang what I'd seen, and why I was in a hurry. "We've got +to get there first, and get that board off the chimney or the +room will be filled with smoke and maybe there will be an +explosion."</p> + +<p>I remember that in <i>The Hoosier Schoolmaster</i>, there had really +been <i>some</i> smoke....</p> + +<p><!-- Page 65 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Poetry who was my best friend, almost, was as mad as I was, and +he said, behind me between his short breath, "Those dirty bums! +They're the cause of <i>all</i> our trouble with our new teacher!"</p> + +<p>And would you believe it? Little Jim heard him say that, yelled +to us, and said, "Are you sure?" Imagine him not being sure.</p> + +<p>We took a short cut we knew about, and once when we were on the +top of a little hill in Dragonfly's pop's woods, we stopped and +Poetry and I took a couple of quick looks through his binoculars +toward Circus' house, to see if Mr. Black was still there, and +his horse was, so we guessed he was too.</p> + +<p>I saw him out in their back yard and a whole flock of girls was +lined up against their woodshed and he was taking their picture. +I didn't see Circus there anywhere, and I wished he was with us, +on account of he could run faster than any of us and also climb +better.</p> + +<p>"Come on!" I yelled to the rest of the guys with me, "we can make +it, I think." Away we went.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" Dragonfly yelled from pretty far back. "I'm out of +breath. I—can't—can't run so—fast!" which he couldn't.</p> + +<p>All of a sudden, Poetry stopped and said, "We're crazy, Bill, we +can't make it. Look! There he goes now, right straight toward the +schoolhouse. Quick! Drop down! <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original lacked exclamation point"><a name="thisway" id="thisway"></a>He's looking this way!</ins>"</p> + +<p>He ducked behind a rail fence which is where we were at the time, +and I dropped down beside him. Dragonfly was still coming along +not more than fifty feet behind us, with little Jim staying back +with him.</p> + +<p>I hated to stop, and I hated to have to realize what was +happening, but it was, and that was that Mr. Black was going to +get to the schoolhouse first and he'd start the fire in the +schoolhouse stove first, on account of he wouldn't see the ladder +first, 'cause it was on the opposite side of the school from the +woodshed where he kept his kindling wood.</p> + +<p>I'd seen Mr. Black start fires in the Poetry-shaped iron stove +before, and this is the way he always did it.... He'd go straight +to the corner of the schoolhouse under the long shelf where we +all kept our dinner pails, and pick up a tin can of kerosene +which he kept in the corner, and in which he kept some neat +little sticks standing.<!-- Page 66 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> Those little sticks would be all soaked +with kerosene from having stood there all night or longer, and +he'd take them to the stove and lay them in carefully, along with +other small pieces of wood and a few larger pieces, and then he +would very carefully light a match and touch the flame to the +kerosene-soaked sticks, and right away there would be a nice +fire....</p> + +<p>I knew it would take Mr. Black only a little while to lay the +fire, and in a few minutes the fire in the stove would be roaring +away. But with the board on the chimney, the smoke couldn't get +out, and it'd have to come out of the stove somewhere, which it +would, and the schoolhouse would be filled with smoke in a jiffy; +also I remembered the Christmas tree which we'd left up since +Christmas, wasn't more than fifteen feet from the stove, and its +needles were dry enough to burn....</p> + +<p>Something had to be done in a hurry, and yet there was Mr. Black +getting closer and closer to the schoolhouse.... In fact, it was +already too late to get there before he went inside, without +being seen. I knew that if I got there in time to hurry up that +ladder and take off the board, I'd have to do it <i>after</i> Mr. +Black got inside, and before he could get the fire laid and +started....</p> + +<p>The rail fence behind which we were hiding right that minute was +on the same side of the school the ladder was, and about as far +from the school as our barn is from our house....</p> + +<p>All of us were squatted down behind the fence now, and I took +charge of the gang and said, "You guys stay here. The very minute +he gets in, I'll dive out of here and make a bee-line for the +schoolhouse, and zip up the ladder and take the board off. Then +I'll climb back down, take the ladder and drag it around behind +the schoolhouse quick, and come back here.... Then tonight or +sometime after Mr. Black goes home, some of us'll sneak over and +bring the ladder home, and everything'll be all right."</p> + +<p>It was a good idea if only it would work, which it had to, or I +just knew that the gentleman I'd made up my mind I was going to +try to be, would get a terrible licking, which any gentleman +shouldn't have to have, or he isn't one, which I wasn't, yet, +anyway....</p> + +<p><!-- Page 67 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>"Let ME do it," Poetry said beside me, puffing hard from the fast +run we'd just had, and Dragonfly said, "The ladder'd break with +you on it," trying to be funny and not being.</p> + +<p>Little Jim piped up and said, "All the snow's off the roof right +next to the chimney." I looked at him real quick, and he had a +far-away look in his eyes, like he was not only looking at the +dry roof all around the schoolhouse chimney, but was thinking +something very important, which he'd heard in church that +morning, but which I hadn't....</p> + +<p>"Here goes," I said, my heart beating wildly. "You guys stay +here, and watch," and Little Jim piped up and said, "We +will—we'll watch and—and—" I knew what he was going to say +even before he said it, and for some reason it seemed like it was +all right for him to say it, and it didn't sound sissified for +him to, either. While I was climbing over that rail fence and +making a dive for the schoolhouse and the ladder, Little Jim's +whole sentence was tumbling around in my mind, and it was, "We +will—we'll watch and—and <i>pray</i>."</p> + +<p>Little Jim was almost as good a friend of mine, as Tom Till was, +I thought....</p> + +<p>A jiffy later I reached my pop's new ladder and started to start +up when I heard somebody running behind me and saying in a husky +whisper, "Hey, Bill! Stop. Wait! Let me hold the ladder."</p> + +<p>I looked around quick and it was Poetry behind me, and I knew he +was right. My pop had taught me never to go up a ladder until I +was sure the bottom of it was safely set so it <i>wouldn't</i> slip, +or unless somebody stayed at the bottom to hold it so it +<i>couldn't</i>.</p> + +<p>A jiffy later, I was on my way up, and another steenth of a jiffy +I was at the eaves, and, being a very good climber, I scrambled +up the other little ladder that was made out of nailed-on boards, +to the red brick chimney. I had to be as quiet as I could, +though, on account of not wanting Mr. Black to hear me on the +roof. I also was going to have to be careful when I took the +board off so the sound of it sliding off wouldn't go down the +chimney through the stove.</p> + +<p>In another jiffy I'd have had the board off, and have given it a +toss far out where it wouldn't have hit Poetry, and then I'd +<!-- Page 68 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'have been on my day down'"><a name="waydown" id="waydown"></a>have been on my way down</ins> again, but when I took hold of the +wide, flat board, I couldn't any more get it off than anything. I +gasped out-loud when I saw why I couldn't get it off, and that +was that there was a nail driven into each end of it, and a piece +of stove pipe wire was wrapped around the head of each nail and +then the wire was twisted around and around the brick chimney, +down where it was smaller, and that crazy old board wouldn't +budge—an almost <i>new</i> board, rather, and as soon as I saw it, I +knew it was the board out of the swing which we have in the +walnut tree at our house.... Why, the dirty crooks! I thought. +They wanted it to be <i>sure</i> to look like Bill Collins put it up +here.</p> + +<p>I was holding onto the chimney, in fact I was sort of behind it, +so I wouldn't slide down.... I could hear sounds down in the +schoolhouse of somebody doing something to the stove, which must +have been Mr. Black finishing laying the fire, 'cause right that +second I heard a sound like an iron door closing on the big round +iron Poetry-shaped stove, and almost a second later, a puff of +bluish smoke came bursting out through a crack where the board +didn't quite cover the chimney on one side, and I knew that the +fire was started. I knew that in a few jiffies that one-room +school would be filled with smoke, and a mad teacher would come +storming out to see what on earth was the matter with the +chimney, and I'd be in for it.</p> + +<p>"Hey!" I hissed down to Poetry, shielding my voice with my hand +so the sound would go toward Poetry instead of down the chimney. +Poetry heard me and dived out far enough from the schoolhouse to +see me, and I hissed to him, "It's too late. The fire's already +started. What'll I do. I can't get it off. They've wired it on. +If I had a pair of pliers, I could cut the wire."</p> + +<p>And Poetry yelled up to me and said, "There's a pair in the +schoolhouse."</p> + +<p>The awfulest sounds came up the chimney from down inside the +schoolhouse, and I could just imagine what Mr. Black was +thinking, and maybe was saying too. Smoke was pouring out of the +chimney beside my face, but I knew the crack was too small for +<i>all</i> the smoke to get out, and the room down there would be +filling up with smoke....</p> + +<p><!-- Page 69 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>What on earth to do, was screaming at me in my mind.... Then +Poetry had an idea and it was, "Come on down quick, and let's +run. Let's leave the ladder and everything!"</p> + +<p>"But it's my pop's ladder, and it's our swing board, out of our +walnut tree swing."</p> + +<p>"I say, let's <i>run</i>!" Poetry half yelled and half hissed up to +me, and for some reason, knowing I couldn't get the board off the +chimney, and guessing what might happen if I got caught, it +seemed like Poetry's idea was as good as any, and so I turned and +started to scoot my way down the board ladder on the roof to the +ladder Poetry would be holding for me, and then—well, I don't +know how it happened, but my boot slipped before I could get my feet on pop's ladder, and I felt all of me slipping toward the +edge of the roof—slipping, slipping, slipping, and I knew I +wouldn't be able to stop myself. In a jiffy, I'd be going +slippety-sizzle over the edge of the eaves and land with a wham +at Poetry's feet. I might even land on him and hurt him; and even +while I was sliding, I heard a sickening sound in the schoolhouse +somewhere, like a stove was falling down, or a chair was falling +over or something, and then my feet were over the edge, and I was +grasping and grasping with my bare hands at the slippery roof, +and they couldn't find anything to hold onto, and then I heard +another sound that was even more sickening than the one I'd heard +in the schoolhouse and it was a ripping and tearing sound, and +then felt a long sharp pain on me somewhere and I knew my +trousers had caught on a nail or something....</p> + +<p>R-r-r-r-r-r-ip!... R-r-r-r-r-r-ip! Tear-r-r-r-r-! And I knew that +when I would hit the ground in a few half jiffies, there would be +a big hole in my trousers which I'd have to explain to Mom when I +got home, as well as a lot of other things to both Mom and Pop.</p> + +<p>The next thing I knew I was off the edge and falling and the very +next thing I learned awful quick, was I had landed ker-wham-thud +in a snow drift at the foot of the ladder.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 70 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_10" id="Chapter_10"></a>10</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Even while I was falling and scared and feeling the long sharp +pain running up and down my hip where I'd probably been scratched +by a nail, I was wondering what would happen next—what Mr. Black +would do, and what would happen when I got home, and also I was +wondering how bad I would be hurt when I fell—and then I lit +ker-fluffety-sizzle in that big snowdrift....</p> + +<p>And there I was, Bill Collins, the one member of the Sugar Creek +Gang who had made up his mind he wasn't going to have anything to +do with smoking a teacher out of his schoolhouse, the one who was +going to be what is called a gentleman, now lying upside down in +a scrambled-up heap, with one of my trouser legs ripped maybe +half way down, and myself all covered with snow and with my mind +all tangled up and everything.</p> + +<p>The fall didn't hurt much though, on account of the snowdrift +being pretty deep, but we had to do something and do it quick.</p> + +<p>Just that minute, I heard the schoolhouse door open around in +front and while I was trying to scramble to my feet, I looked +toward the front of the school and right that second Mr. Black +came swishing around <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'on our side of the school house'"><a name="schoolhouse" id="schoolhouse"></a>on our side of the schoolhouse</ins> with a big +pail in his hand and swooped with it down onto a snowdrift, +scooped up a pailful of snow and without even looking in our +direction dived back around the corner of the schoolhouse like he +was half scared to death, and right that second Poetry yelled to +Dragonfly and Little Jim who were still hiding behind the rail +fence to "Hurry up! I think the schoolhouse is on fire inside! +Let's go help Mr. Black put it out."</p> + +<p>And so I, Bill Collins, an imaginary gentleman, but not looking +like even a half a one, staggered out of my snowdrift, and the +four of us made a dive for the front of the schoolhouse and +around to the<!-- Page 71 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> open door, which had smoke pouring out of it, to +see if we could help Mr. Black put out the fire, if there was +one.</p> + +<p>"I can't go in," Dragonfly said, "I'm allergic to smoke. It'll +make me sneeze."</p> + +<p>Just that second we heard Mr. Black's horse, which was tied at +the front gate, snort and make crazy horse noises, and even +before I could imagine what was going to happen, it had happened. +There was a noise like a leather strap straining, and then a +cracking and splintering sound. I looked just in time to see the +little wooden gate to which the horse had been tied, break in two +or maybe three, and part of it go galloping down the road being +dragged by a scared wild-eyed brown saddle horse, and at the same +time I saw a half-wild-looking man come running out of the +smoking schoolhouse and make a wild dash through the place where +the gate had been and go racing after the horse, not even seeing +us boys, or if he saw us, not paying any attention to us, but +yelling to Prince in a commanding voice to "WHOA ... W-H-O-A!"</p> + +<p>It certainly was an exciting minute, and in spite of the way I +knew I must have looked myself, with snow all over me and with a +ripped trouser leg and everything, Mr. Black looked even worse as +he went racing down that road after his horse, yelling for the +horse to stop.... The very minute he went swishing past us, I +noticed that his hands were black with soot, as also was his +face, and he really looked like a wild man, and for some reason +even while everything else was all topsy turvy in my mind, I +couldn't help but remember Poetry's poetry which went:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"<i>The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>And 'Black' his named was called;</i></span><br /> +<span class="i2"><i>His round red face had the homeliest of features;</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>He was fat and forty and bald</i>"--</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>only his face was black as well as his name, and I knew if he +hadn't been bald, his hair would certainly have been all mussed +up like mine is most of the time when my hat is off, only Mr. +Black's fur hat was still on.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 72 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>Say, Prince certainly wasn't in any horse mood to stop, on +account of being scared, I suppose, what with the smoke pouring +out of the schoolhouse, and all the noise which the stove had +made, and with the gang making a noise and running excitedly, and +everything. That horse with a gate tied to its bridle rein +probably was as scared as a dog or a cat is when a boy that ought +to know better ties a tin can to its tail and shouldn't and it +gets scared and runs, and keeps on running....</p> + +<p>Prince kept running and the piece of gate kept swinging in +different directions. Every time the horse turned his head this +way or that, the gate would swing around and sock him in the side +and scare him maybe even worse. I thought how terrible it would +be if Prince would get his feet all tangled up in part of the +gate, and fall, and maybe break one of his legs and have to be +killed, which is what nearly always has to be done to a horse +when it breaks one of its legs, on account of you can't get a +horse to be quiet for weeks and months long enough for its leg to +heal. I certainly wouldn't want such a pretty horse to have to be +killed....</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>Ho hum—say, if I don't get going faster, telling you this story, +it'll be too long to get it into one book and I'll have to finish +it some other time, so here goes just as fast as I can, till I +get to the end....</p> + +<p>There we were—the four of us, innocent-faced Little Jim, +dragonfly-eyed Dragonfly, barrel-shaped Poetry, and me, +red-haired, freckle-faced Bill Collins—and there was Mr. Black +and his horse getting farther and farther up the road which was +the road that leads past Circus' and Big Jim's houses, which as +you know are on the other side of the road from each other.</p> + +<p>But we couldn't stand there and just watch a runaway horse with a +man chasing it, when a schoolhouse was on fire, or was supposed +to be. I'd been so excited about the runaway horse that I'd +almost forgotten the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>I turned around quick to the door, and would you believe it? +Little Jim and Poetry and Dragonfly were already inside and I'd<!-- Page 73 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +been standing out there by what used to be a gate, watching Mr. +Black and his horse all by myself! Even Dragonfly was inside +although he had opened one of the windows and was standing +leaning half way out and breathing fresh air so he wouldn't +sneeze, he, as you know, being allergic to smoke. That +schoolhouse certainly looked funny with the sunlight which came +in from the windows, shining through the bluish smoke, so that +things at first weren't very clear to my eyes, but when about a +half-jiffy later, my eyes were accustomed to the dark light, I +saw a really crazy looking schoolhouse. There on the teacher's +desk, upside down, was the teacher's great big swivel chair; and +the brooms and the mop were piled on top of that, and on the +blackboard written in great big letters with chalk, was Poetry's +poem about a teacher not having any hair. The old Christmas tree +which had been standing so pretty and straight in a corner of the +platform was lying on the floor, and the popcorn and paper chains +which the Sugar Creek pupils had made were in a tangled up mess +all over the tree and the floor. The stove door was open and the +fire box was half-filled with snow, which maybe Mr. Black had +scooped in to put out the fire he'd started awhile ago.</p> + +<p>All that mess, with the turned-over tree and Poetry's poem and +the topsyturvy desk and chair, meant that two boys you know about +had not only put the board across the chimney but had crawled +into the schoolhouse through one of the windows maybe and upset +things, then had printed the poem there for our teacher to see +and—well, you can guess I wasn't feeling very much like a +gentleman. I knew that if Shorty Long and Bob Till were right +there right that minute I'd probably prove to them that I wasn't +one yet.</p> + +<p>It was Little Jim who woke us all up that something had to be +done. We were all sort of standing helpless, looking around at +the mess, when he piped up and said in a voice that sounded like +he was the leader of the gang, "Hey, you guys! Let's DO +something, before he gets back. Let's straighten things up, and +maybe when he comes he'll believe that we didn't do it!"</p> + +<p>Then Dragonfly whirled around from his window, and said, "They're +clear down to Circus's house already, and the horse just turned +in to their barnyard," which made me want to make a dive<!-- Page 74 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> for the +window to look too, but I didn't 'cause all of a sudden Little +Jim said something else which was, "Let's start the fire for him +real quick, and that'll show him we like him," and that started +my mind to working.</p> + +<p>"We can't," I said, "the board's still across the chimney and we +can't get it off."</p> + +<p>That started Poetry to thinking and he made a heavy dive for the +long shelf along the back wall, and right there where they had +been, only there was some stove pipe wire beside them, were the +pliers. In a jiffy, Poetry and I were back outside, and with him +holding the ladder and with me all trembling inside, but not too +nervous to climb, I went up that ladder, hand over hand, and in +less than a half-dozen worried jiffies, had our swing board off +the chimney and tossed it out into a snow drift. When I was down +again, Poetry and I whisked the ladder back behind the +schoolhouse, and with our feet, covered it with snow, and also +the swing board, and when we got back inside the schoolhouse, +Little Jim and Dragonfly had used their hands and had taken the +little fire shovel and scooped out as much of the snow out of the +stove as they could and had laid the fire again, like we all knew +how to do, from having seen our parents do it. Poetry shoved his +hand in his pocket for his water-proof match box, and in a little +while we had a roaring fire in the big round iron stove. Then all +of us started in to cleaning up the schoolhouse as fast as we +could.</p> + +<p>Poetry grabbed an eraser and as quick and as fierce as a cat +jumping on a mouse, leaped toward the blackboard and swished his +poetry into nothing; Little Jim found a dust cloth and went up +one row of seats and down another, carefully dusting each one +just like I imagine he'd been taught at home—not swishing the +cloth around too fast which would make more dust. I began to try +to untangle the Christmas tree from the popcorn strings and paper +chains, thinking how nice the tree would look standing up in the +corner again, when all of a sudden Dragonfly hissed and said, +"Hey! Everybody! Come here, quick! See what I found!"</p> + +<p>Dragonfly had been standing by a wide open window on account of +there was still too much smoke in the room for him to breathe without <!-- Page 75 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +sneezing. The Sugar Creek School's great big unabridged +dictionary was wide open on a shelf which was fastened to the +wall by the window.</p> + +<p>Before we could get there, Dragonfly said excitedly, "It's Mr. +Black's diary!"</p> + +<p>Well, if there is anything a person wants to read, and shouldn't +and mustn't, it's somebody's diary, unless that person tells him +to. My parents had told me that when I was little, and Pop had +licked me once for reading his, and so I knew Dragonfly shouldn't +have read Mr. Black's diary, so when I got to where he was and +saw him looking at a pretty leather bound notebook lying flat +open on the big open dictionary I said, "Stop reading that! It's +not good etiquette," which is, "not good manners," or something.</p> + +<p>I certainly wasn't going to turn any pages of the diary and read +them, I said to myself, remembering what my parents had told me, +and also the half hard licking my pop had given me for reading +his, when he told me not to, but when I got to where Dragonfly +was and looked to see if it really was Mr. Black's diary, without +even trying to I saw on the page that was half open, written in +printed letters, these words:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"<i>The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i3"><i>And 'Black' his named was called</i>...."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>For some reason it didn't look very funny. In fact, it seemed +like anybody who had first thought up such a poem must have been +crazy in the head.</p> + +<p>I knew I shouldn't have been reading, and I decided to quit +quick, which I did, only I saw one other thing just as my eyes +were leaving the page, and it was:</p> + +<p>"Things have come to a show down with the boys. I know I'm going +to have to take drastic action soon."</p> + +<p>"What's '<i>drastic</i>' mean?" Dragonfly wanted to know, just as I +turned away, and I knew he'd read what I'd read, so I said, "I +don't know, but whatever it is, I'll bet it'll hurt like +everything." I reached<!-- Page 76 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> out my hand and laid it down flat on the +opened diary, so I wouldn't read anything else, when Dragonfly +said, "Psst! Listen!"</p> + +<p>We all listened for a half jiffy and things were so quiet in that +still-half-smokey room we could hear only the crackling of the +fire in the stove, when all of a sudden there was a step on the +schoolhouse porch, and the door was thrust open and there stood +Mr. Black himself, looking right straight at us.</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<!-- Page 77 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +<h2><a name="Chapter_11" id="Chapter_11"></a>11</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Well, when four boys get caught doing something they're not sure +they're supposed to be doing, they don't know what to do or what +to say, and sometimes they start talking right away to explain +<i>why</i> they are doing what they're doing—which is what <i>we</i> +started to do—that is we <i>started</i> to, but all of us talking at +once didn't make sense, so we stopped. This is what we all said +though: Dragonfly said, "Good morning, Mr. Black!" which is what +you say to a teacher when it <i>is</i> morning and you are trying to +be polite; Poetry said, "Somebody wrote a crazy poem about you on +the black, Mr. Blackboard, and I erased it"; Little Jim said, +"That certainly was a good sermon this morning, Mr. Black"; and +I, William Jasper Collins, with my torn trousers <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'and my freckled-face'"><a name="freckled" id="freckled"></a>and my freckled face and my rumpled red hair</ins> and my mussed-up mind said, "I hope +you don't have to shoot him if he broke his leg. He didn't break +it, did he?"</p> + +<p>All of us said most of these things at the same time, while we +were standing in a semi-circle around the unabridged dictionary +with the open notebook on it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Black was puffing and panting, he being Poetry-shaped as well +as the stove, but he all of a sudden said, "Wait, boys, don't +move! I want to get your pictures, right where you are, and <i>as</i> +you are." Before we could decide to move or not to move, he +whirled around, hurried over toward the shelf where we always set +our dinner pails on school days, and came back with his camera +which we hadn't noticed had been there. It was a very pretty +camera and was the kind people used when they took a flashlight +picture.</p> + +<p>What on earth he wanted a picture of us for, I didn't know, +unless it was so he could prove to anybody who didn't believe it, +that we were a bunch of roughnecks. Quick as a blinding flash he +had our<!-- Page 78 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> picture taken, and then he whirled around like he wanted +to take some more pictures, and stopped and stared at the +Christmas tree which I had stood back up in the corner, with the +popcorn and paper chains tangled up on it, and at the erased +blackboard and at his desk which didn't have any chairs upside +down on it, and he said, "Who straightened up this room! Did you +boys do that!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," I said, "we did; we wanted to prove to you that we +didn't do it."</p> + +<p>"You WHAT!"</p> + +<p>"We wanted to prove to you that we didn't <i>do</i> it!" Little Jim +said.</p> + +<p>Mr. Black looked at Little Jim and at all of us like he thought +we were even crazier than we felt, and he said, "Prove you didn't +do <i>what</i>?"</p> + +<p>"That we didn't put the board across the—OUCH!" Dragonfly +started to talk, but stopped his sentence with an OUCH when I +quick kicked him on the shin.</p> + +<p>Mr. Black's eyes opened wide. Then for the first time he seemed +to notice that the fire was going again and that the stove wasn't +smoking so he scratched his head above his left ear, hurried over +to the stove with the camera in his hand, set his camera on his +big desk, opened the stove's door and shut it again, and just +stood there, looking first at the stove and then at us, and I +wished I knew what he was thinking; then I noticed that his eyes +glanced off in the direction of the blackboard and to the beech +switches which were lying on a ledge at the top. I could just see +myself and all of us getting a licking in about seven jiffies. I +started to edge toward the door, but he must have guessed what I +was thinking, 'cause he barked a command to me which was "William +Collins! Stop where you are!"</p> + +<p>I stopped stock still, trembling inside of me, wondering what the +word "drastic" was going to mean.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Black barked to me, "Go to the blackboard and get me +those beech switches!" There was a tone of voice in his words +which made me start toward the blackboard instead of toward the +only door the schoolhouse had. I had to pass Dragonfly's open +window which was still open, on account of there was still some +smoke in the room. It would have been easy for me to make a dive +out of that<!-- Page 79 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> window but I didn't want to leave the gang alone +there with an angry teacher. I also had to pass close to the +unabridged dictionary, and I all of a quick sudden decided if I +knew what the word "<i>drastic</i>" meant, it might give me an idea +what to do next, so I stopped, and quick turned the pages to the +letter "D" and was trying to find <i>drastic</i>, when Mr. Black +barked a question at me, and it was, "Young MAN! <i>What</i> are you +<i>doing</i>?"</p> + +<p>I jumped like I had been shot, but made myself say as calmly as I +could, over my shoulder, "I just wanted to look up an important +word first. I'll get the switches in just a minute."</p> + +<p>"If the word is <i>punishment</i>," Mr. Black said to me angrily, +"it's a <i>noun</i>, and it means <i>beech switches</i>.... You bring them +to me!" And I knew I had to do it. I stopped looking in the +dictionary, and feeling simply terrible inside of me, on account +of not having done anything wrong on purpose, but knowing Mr. +Black wouldn't believe us even if we told him, I got the switches +and took them toward him, but was so nervous I dropped one of +them.... Say, Little Jim who is very quick when he makes up his +mind to do something, made a dive for the floor, picked up the +switch I'd dropped and quick took the other one out of my hand, +and handed them both to Mr. Black and said to him very politely, +"Here you are, sir, with all the old brown dead leaves +gone—every one of them."</p> + +<p>"What on <i>earth</i>?" I thought, and looked at Little Jim's face and +then at Mr. Black's.</p> + +<p>Say our teacher's face had all of a sudden the queerest +expression on it, and he looked at Little Jim like he wondered +"What on <i>earth</i>?" himself.</p> + +<p>Then he looked at me, and his face was hard again.</p> + +<p>Right that second I remembered my torn trousers, and the place +where they were torn clear through to the skin. The scratch was +still hurting, so I said, "If you're—if you're going to lick me, +d-don't hit me on my scratched thigh!" I turned sidewise to him, +stooped over part way, and showed him my torn trousers and the +reddish scratch on my thigh, which for some reason didn't look +half as bad as I wished it did, right that minute.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 80 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>Mr. Black frowned, and asked fast, "Where'd you get that +scratch!" and Dragonfly said, "When he was up on the—OUCH!" I +stopped Dragonfly with a kick on his shin again.</p> + +<p>"What's that? Where'd you say he got it?" Mr. Black barked his +question to Dragonfly, and before any of us could stop him, +Dragonfly had said, "On the schoolhouse roof."</p> + +<p>I just couldn't believe Dragonfly was that dumb—that he didn't +know he oughtn't to tell where I'd gotten that scratch. I +remembered with a mad thought that we'd had trouble with +Dragonfly once before, on account of he had been friends with +Shorty Long.</p> + +<p>There wasn't any time to think or to remember anything else +Dragonfly had done, but it certainly didn't feel good to have one +of our own gang be what is called a "tattletale." Why he was +supposed to be one of my very best friends!</p> + +<p>I looked at Little Jim and Poetry to see what they thought and to +see if they could think of anything that might help us from +getting a licking with those leaveless beech switches. Poetry had +a pucker on his forehead like he was thinking, or maybe trying +to, and Little Jim had that innocent lamb-like look on his small +face which when he looks like that, always reminds me of the +picture his mom has on the wall above their piano in their house, +of the Good Shepherd with a little lamb in his arms, with the +Good Shepherd's hand on the little lamb's poll, which is the top +of its head....</p> + +<p>Then in a flash I was seeing Mr. Black again standing with one +hand on his hip and the other holding onto one of the beech +switches, he having laid the other switch down on Sylvia's little +sister's desk, which was beside and behind him.</p> + +<p>"And <i>what</i>," Mr. Black said to me, "were you doing on the +schoolhouse <i>roof</i>?"</p> + +<p>Well, I hated to tell him because I thought he wouldn't believe +it, and another reason I hated to tell him was because if I did, +it would mean I'd have to tell him somebody <i>else</i> had put the +board ON the chimney, and that wouldn't be fair to Little Tom +Till who was Bob's brother, and also on account of my mom was +trying to get Shorty Long's mom to be a Christian, and I hated to +be a tattletale<!-- Page 81 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> about Shorty and Bob, so I just stood there, +without answering Mr. Black.</p> + +<p>"<i>Answer</i> me!" he demanded. I could see <ins class="TNsilent" title="Transcriber's note: original has comma at end of sentence"><a name="reallyangry" id="reallyangry"></a>he was getting really angry.</ins> +I took one quick look at the door to see if I could dive +past him and get there first and make a wild dash for home. I saw +Little Jim's face and it reminded me again of the Bible picture +above his piano, and that reminded me of a Bible verse I'd +memorized, which was, "A soft answer turneth away wrath," and I +thought of Mr. Black's pretty horse and said, politely, "Your +horse is the prettiest horse I ever saw. I hope he didn't fall +and break his leg."</p> + +<p>I looked at Poetry and he winked at me, and said to Mr. Black, +"It'll get dark pretty soon and if there's going to be a cold +wave tonight, we'd better help you carry in plenty of wood. We'll +help you bank the fire good."</p> + +<p>But it was Little Jim who saved us from trouble, when he said +what he said, and it was, "That was a good sermon this morning, +wasn't it, Mr. Black? All of us are going to try not to be mad at +you any more, and if we've done anything wrong, we're sorry. We +hope you won't give us a licking, but if you do, we won't even +get mad."</p> + +<p>Mr. Black looked down at that innocent looking little face, and +kept on looking at it, and then he seemed to get a far-away +expression in his eyes like he was thinking about something that +wasn't in the schoolhouse. I noticed his hand that had the switch +in it was trembling, and I knew he was really mad which is the +way my hands sometimes shake when I feel that way.</p> + +<p>Then he looked up like he was hearing something outside, and +without saying anything turned and with the switches in his +hands, walked with heavy steps over to the window and looked out, +with his back to us. I could hear him breathing heavily like he +had been running, and there was a terrible feeling inside of me, +which is the way a boy feels when he knows some grown-up person +is awful angry.</p> + +<p>The four of us stood by the stove and looked at different things, +not any of us moving, and not a one of us looking at each other, +except I glanced at different ones of us out of the corner of my +eye, and then looked away again. I could still hear Mr. Black +breathing<!-- Page 82 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> heavily.... I didn't look, but I guessed he was still +standing and looking out into the late afternoon sunlight on the +snow.</p> + +<p>Then I heard him cough a little and clear his throat, and heard +him walking. I looked and he was going to the blackboard, where, +very carefully, like he was afraid he'd drop one of them, he laid +the beech switches on the shelf, then he turned and sat down in +his chair at his desk, and picked up a book that was lying there, +opened it and leafed through it slowly....</p> + +<p>"What on earth!" I thought.</p> + +<p>You could have knocked me over with a turkey feather, when I saw +the kind of book he was leafing through. I'd never seen it there +on that desk before, and I wondered where it had come from, but +there it was as plain as day, an honest-to-goodness great big +beautiful brown-bound Bible.</p> + +<p>All of us were so quiet, and I had such a tense feeling inside of +me that I couldn't say a word, and didn't want to anyway. The +fingers of one of Mr. Black's hands were sort of drumming on the +desk, and he was looking at something in the very front of the +Bible in the place where people nearly always write their names, +to show whose Bible it is.</p> + +<p>Then real slow-like, he began to turn the pages not looking up at +any of us, but like he was thinking about something that wasn't +in the schoolroom. I could hear the crackling of the fire in the +stove, and hear us all breathing. I caught a corner of Poetry's +eye with a corner of one of mine, but couldn't tell what he was +thinking. Little Jim had his small hands stretched out in front +of him warming them at the stove, and Dragonfly was trying to get +his father's big red bandanna handkerchief out of his pocket +before he would sneeze about something, but didn't get it out +quick enough and the sneeze showered itself on the hot stove and +made a sizzling sound.</p> + +<p>Dragonfly grabbed his nose with the red handkerchief and stopped +most of the next sneeze, so only a little tail of it exploded.</p> + +<p>The fingers of both Mr. Black's hands were drumming on the desk +on each side of his open Bible, and he had his eyes glued to the<!-- Page 83 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +page, although I could tell the way he was staring at the page +that he maybe wasn't reading but only thinking.</p> + +<p>It was as quiet, in fact ten times as quiet, as if we were having +school.</p> + +<p>A jiffy later, I heard Mr. Black clear his throat and say to us, +"It's been a very exciting afternoon, boys, and I don't feel any +too well. I think I ran too hard to catch Prince." He took a very +deep breath, and sighed, and yawned and leaned back in his chair, +without looking straight at us but just in our direction, just as +Little Jim piped up and said, "Did you catch him? Was he hurt?"</p> + +<p>"Circus stopped him," Mr. Black said, "and we put him up in their +barn till he calms down and quits trembling.... You boys want to +bring in a couple of armloads of wood?"</p> + +<p>Well, in a few jiffies all of us boys were carrying in wood and +stacking it in the back of the schoolroom where we would have +plenty to keep the schoolhouse nice and warm tomorrow.</p> + +<p>I just couldn't figure it out—our not getting any licking, and +Mr. Black reading the Bible and all of a sudden acting very kind. +Why, when we carried in our loads of wood, he acted like he was +our very best friend, and that we not only hadn't done anything +wrong, but that he didn't even <i>think</i> we had. I couldn't +understand it, but all the time Little Jim had a happy grin on +his face, while we worked, and he kept saying, "I thought it +would work.... I was pretty sure it would, and it did."</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> worked!" I said to him, just as he opened the door for me +and I went in with an armload of wood, and he shut the door after +me. Dragonfly and Poetry were out in the woodshed getting another +load.</p> + +<p>"Oh, something," Little Jim said, and wouldn't tell me, but he +certainly had a cheerful expression on his face.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon when we were all done and were getting ready to go +home, Mr. Black stopped us and said, "Wait a minute, boys, I need +one more picture.... You know, next Wednesday night Mrs. +Mansfield is going to give a book review of <i>The Hoosier +Schoolmaster</i> at the Literary Society and I've promised to +illustrate the story on the screen with some modern pictures from +real life. I ought to have<!-- Page 84 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> one of a teacher putting a board on +the chimney of a schoolhouse.... Leslie, you get that ladder I +saw you boys carry behind the schoolhouse awhile ago, and set it +up again—here, Bill, hold my Bible a minute." He thrust the +beautiful new brown-bound Bible in my hands and started around +the schoolhouse with Poetry to where we'd buried the ladder.</p> + +<p>"What on <i>earth</i>!" I thought, and decided he must have looked +toward the schoolhouse once and seen us putting it there, while +he was down the road between the schoolhouse and Circus's house.</p> + +<p>Without hardly knowing I was going to, I quick opened the Bible +to the first blank page and what I saw was, "To my dear son, Sam +Black, from your Mother." And right below it were printed, very +carefully, the words:</p> + +<div class="blockcenter"> +"<i>This Book will keep you from sin,<br /> +<br /> +or<br /> +<br /> +Sin will keep you from this Book.</i>" +</div> + +<p>In a jiffy the ladder was set up, with Little Jim and me holding +it, and Mr. Black on his way up. Poetry who knew how to take +pictures better than any of the rest of us was standing away out +away from the schoolhouse, and snapped the picture, himself.</p> + +<p>While Mr. Black was still up on the roof, he called down to all +of us in a cheerful voice and said, "That was a very clever poem +you boys composed—you know, the one you had on the snow man +yesterday, and on the blackboard this afternoon. I think I got a +very good picture of both of them for next Wednesday night—the +people of Sugar Creek will think it very clever. When I first got +the idea of illustrating the book review for Mrs. Mansfield, I +didn't know how much cooperation you boys were going to give me."</p> + +<p>Things still didn't make sense—I couldn't understand it.</p> + +<p>On the way home, though, with Poetry and me carrying Pop's new +light ladder and with Little Jim carrying our swing board, all of +a sudden Dragonfly let out a yell and made a dive for something +shining in the road, swooped down on it and picked it up, and +exclaimed, "<i>Good luck!</i> No wonder we had good luck! here's a +brand new horseshoe! No wonder we didn't get a lickin' from Mr. +Black."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 85 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>And it was! I knew it must have come off Prince when he was +running down this very same road about an hour ago with half a +gate swinging on his bridle rein.</p> + +<p>Dragonfly hung the new horseshoe on his arm and said excitedly, +"Will my mother ever be tickled! She'll hang it above our kitchen +door. We've got three there now I found <i>last</i> year, and this is +my first one <i>this year</i>. Boy oh boy, it's going to be a lucky +year for the Sugar Creek Gang!"</p> + +<p>Little Jim who had been shuffling along, ahead of the rest of us, +with the swing board under one arm and with his stick in his +other hand, stopped all of a sudden and looked back over our +heads toward where the sun had just gone behind a cloud in the +southwest, and he had a far-away expression in his eyes. He +didn't pay any attention to what Dragonfly had said, but dropped +back beside me and said, "That certainly was a swell sermon +yesterday. I knew maybe Sylvia's pop was going to preach about +that, and sure enough he did."</p> + +<p>"About <i>what</i>?" I asked him, Little Jim being the only one of the +gang that it was easy to talk about sermons with, except maybe +Poetry.</p> + +<p>Little Jim socked at a brown mullein stalk with his stick, and +scattered brown seeds in different directions, then he answered +me with his back still turned, "Oh, about when you get Jesus in +your heart, you don't get mad so easy, and when you do, you +behave yourself anyway—just like a fire in a house melts the +snow off the roof, or like when spring comes, the new leaves will +push all of the old dead leaves off that've hung on all winter."</p> + +<p>Just that second Poetry who had the other end of the ladder, +yelled back to me and said, "Quit walking so jerkily, Bill +Collins!"</p> + +<p>Then I remembered that our teacher had been in church that +morning, and of course he had heard the part of the sermon I +hadn't heard, on account of I had been thinking about Poetry's +pet lamb and Snow-white, our white pigeon.</p> + +<p>Then Little Jim said, "When I put that question in 'The +Minister's Question Box,' just inside the church door this +morning, I hoped Sylvia's pop would answer it in his very first +sermon, and he did."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 86 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>So that was it! It was as plain as day to me now. Dragonfly spoke +up then and said, "Was that what you were thinking about +yesterday afternoon, when you were looking up in the beech tree +at the bottom of Bumblebee hill, and when you kept talking about +snow on people's houses?" and that was the first time I even +guessed that that little spindle-legged guy knew what we were +talking about.</p> + +<p>"Sure," Little Jim said.</p> + +<p>Dragonfly tossed his new horseshoe up in the air and caught it +when it came down, and said, "It's a pretty horseshoe, +anyway—besides, I bet the gang <i>does</i> have a lucky year, don't +you?"</p> + +<p>Little Jim whispered to me something that was a real secret, and +it made me like him awful well, to know he wasn't afraid to talk +to me about it, and it was, "Do you suppose Mr. Black <i>really</i> +became a Christian this morning while Sylvia's pop was +preaching—or maybe he is just <i>going</i> to let Jesus into his +heart, real soon?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I said.</p> + +<p>Poetry who didn't know what we were all talking about, on account +of he was up at the other end of the kinda longish ladder, said +back to us, "We shouldn't have carried this ladder home. We +should have made Shorty Long and Bob Till do it. They took it +there, in the first place!"</p> + +<p>And Little Jim piped up and said, "Are you <i>sure</i>? Maybe Mr. +Black did it, so he could get a picture of it for next Wednesday +night."</p> + +<p>Dragonfly heard that and said, "But who piled the chairs up on +his desk and knocked the Christmas tree over and everything?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, that's right," Little Jim said, "I guess maybe they did do +it, but I'm not very mad at 'em."</p> + +<p>"I'm not either," I said, "not <i>very</i> much, anyway," and I +wasn't,—only I knew that as long as they lived in the +neighborhood we could expect most anything to happen.</p> + +<p>Then Little Jim said to all of us. "As soon as the new cold wave +is over, I'll bet it'll start to get warm, and pretty soon +spring'll be here, and all the beech switches all along Sugar +Creek will have new green leaves on 'em."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 87 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>Then Little Jim whisked on ahead of us, every now and then +stopping to make rabbit tracks in the snow with his pretty +striped ash stick.</p> + +<p>Boy oh boy, I wished it was already spring, 'cause when spring +came we could all go barefoot again and as soon as Sugar Creek's +face was thawed out, we'd go swimming in the old swimming hole +and maybe have some very exciting brand new adventures, like we +always do every spring and summer. The first thing I wanted to do +when spring came, was to go fishing.</p> + +<p>I was thinking what fun it'd be when spring came, when all of a +sudden, I heard a roaring sound coming from the direction of +Dragonfly's pop's woods, like a terrible wind was beginning to +blow through the bare trees. I looked up quick, and noticed that +the sky in that direction was darkish looking and kinda brownish, +like there was a lot of dust blowing in from some far-away +prairie. Then I felt a gust of cold wind hit me hard in the face.</p> + +<p>In almost a half a jiffy all of us were in a whirling snowstorm, +and I knew the new cold wave had already come, and that before +spring got to Sugar Creek we'd have a lot more winter—in fact +there might even be a blizzard.</p> + +<p>"Hurry up!" all of us yelled to all of us. "We've got to get home +quick."</p> + +<p>But that's the beginning of another Sugar Creek Gang story, which +I hope I'll get a chance to write for you real soon.</p> + +<p class="center"><br />THE END</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3> + +<p> Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> + +<p>Ellipses in this text have been standardized.</p> + +<p>Punctuation in the verse, the use of upper or lower case for +"mom" and "pop", and occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation and/or +compound words where there existed no clear regular form (e.g., +"snow ball" and "snowball", "living-room" and "living room") +have been retained to match the original text.</p> + +<p>Typographical errors and inconsistencies that have been changed are +listed below.</p> + +<p>Page 16: Changed comma to period (<a href="#THS">The Hoosier +Schoolmaster.</a>)</p> + +<p>Page 19: Changed "dilipidated" to "dilapidated" (<a href="#dilapidated">their +dilapidated old unpainted house</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 20: Changed "heart" to "hear" (<a href="#hearaword">I couldn't hear a word</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 22: Changed "his" to "him" (<a href="#heardhim">I heard him mention my name</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 26: Changed "Bumblee" to "Bumblebee" (<a href="#Bumble">at the bottom of +Bumblebee hill</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 28: Changed "So-ond-So" to "So-and-So" (<a href="#SoSo">Why yes, Mrs. +So-and-So</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 40: Moved punctuation inside quote marks to match style of +text (<a href="#dreaming">accusing me of doing, which is "dreaming."</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 41: Changed "we" to "me" (<a href="#mesupper">to make me wait for my supper</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 42: Removed duplicate word "and" (<a href="#plantgood">plant good seed in it, and +cultivate</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 49: Changed "old Hook-nose" to "<a href="#OldHook">Old Hook-nosed</a>" (such a mean +husband as Old Hook-nosed John Till).</p> + +<p>Page 51: Changed "bashful like" to "bashful-like" (<a href="#bashful">kinda bashful-like</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 52: Changed "you" to "your" (<a href="#yoursins">and confess your sins</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 56: Changed "ears" to "tears" (<a href="#tears">you can see the tears fly</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 61: Changed "Spindle-legged" to "spindle-legged" (<a href="#spindle">little +spindle-legged Dragonfly</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 65: Added missing end punctuation (<a href="#thisway">He's looking this way!</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 68: Changed "day" to "way" (<a href="#waydown">have been on my way down</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 70: Changed "school house" to "schoolhouse" (<a href="#schoolhouse">on our side of +the schoolhouse</a>).</p> + +<p><a href="#Page_75">Page 75</a>: Added alignment spaces to poem for consistency.</p> + +<p>Page 77: Changed "freckled-face" to "freckled face" (<a href="#freckled">and my +freckled face and my rumpled red hair</a>).</p> + +<p>Page 81: Changed comma to period (<a href="#reallyangry">he was getting really angry.</a>)</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Shenanigans at Sugar Creek, by Paul Hutchens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHENANIGANS AT SUGAR CREEK *** + +***** This file should be named 27426-h.htm or 27426-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/4/2/27426/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, C. 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