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diff --git a/27426.txt b/27426.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15118f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/27426.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3645 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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 + + + + + + + + + +_Shenanigans at Sugar Creek_ + + + + +SHENANIGANS AT SUGAR CREEK + +by PAUL HUTCHENS + + + + +_Copyright 1947, by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company_ + +_Set up and printed, April, 1947_ + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +_Shenanigans at Sugar Creek_ + +_By_ + +PAUL HUTCHENS + +WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY + +GRAND RAPIDS 1947 MICHIGAN + + + + +1 + + +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. + +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 _new_ teacher, a _man_ teacher at that, who didn't +exactly know that most of us tried to behave ourselves most of the +time. + +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 _new_ teacher when we'd liked our pretty lady +other teacher so _extra_ well. This is the way the poem went: + + "_The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers + And 'Black' his named was called, + His round, red face had the homeliest of features, + He was fat and forty and bald._" + +Poetry was always writing a new poem or always quoting one somebody +else wrote. + +Maybe it was a library book that was to blame for _some_ 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 _The +Hoosier Schoolmaster_, we both had a very mischievous idea come into +our minds, which we couldn't get out no matter how we tried.... + +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. + +"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. + +_That_ 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. + +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.... + +You should have seen those dishes fly--that is, they _started_ to! + +"Be careful," Mom said, and meant it. "Those are my best dinner +plates." + +"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. + +"I don't see why we have to wash them," I said, "when they aren't even +dirty." + +"We're going to have company for dinner tomorrow," Mom explained, "and +we _have_ to wash them." + +"Wash them _before_ 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. + +"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. + +For some reason I remembered a part of a book I'd read, called _Alice +in Wonderland_, and it was about a crazy queen who started to cry and +say, "Oh ooooh! My finger's bleeding!"... And when Alice who was _in_ +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 +_before_ 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 _before_ +they're dirty--seems like a fairy story, like having your finger start +bleeding before you stick a needle in it." I knew Mom had read _Alice +in Wonderland_ 'cause she'd read it to me herself when I was little. + +But Mom was very smart. She said, with a mischievous grin in her +voice, "That's a splendid idea.... Let's _pretend_ this is _Bill +Collins in Wonderland_, 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 _Moms_ +probably would. + +"Oh--a surprise," Mom said. + +"Who?" I said. "My cousin Wally and his new baby sister?" As you know, +if you've read _A New Sugar Creek Mystery_, 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 _would_ like to see his crazy Airedale dog, and if +Wally _was_ coming, I hoped he would bring the wire-haired dog +along.... + +"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.... + +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 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. + +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 _me_ 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.... + +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!" + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +And Poetry yelled, "We'll come and help you!" + +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 _Alice in Wonderland_. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"Wait a minute!" Pop said, and we waited. + +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...." + +Imagine my Pop saying such things, just when we had been thinking +about having a lot of fun.... + +"Yes sir," I said to Pop, remembering the beech switches behind the +teacher's desk. + +"Yes sir," Poetry said politely. + +"Yes sir," Dragonfly yelled to him from the rail fence where he was +already half-way through. + +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. + +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 +_comic_ 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. + + + + +2 + + +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 _round_ 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. + +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, and only drops them +off in the spring when the new leaves start to come, and push them +off. + +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. + +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." + +Little Jim who had his stick, which he always carried with him, said, +"Nope, something else." + +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." + +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 _middle_ 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...." + +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.... + +"Well," I said, to Little Jim who was looking up into the tree again +like he was still thinking something important, "what _are_ you +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?" + +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. + +"How could they _know_ they're dead, if they _are_ 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 _his_ 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 _that_ ... and +_that_ ... and _that_...." Dragonfly was making fierce swings with his +switch and grunting every time he swung and every time he said +"that...." + +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.... + +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. + +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 +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. + +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.... + +"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. + +"What?" I said, thinking how perfect it was. + +"You can't tell who it is supposed to be. It needs some extra +identification." + +"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--" + +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. + +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, 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, _The +Hoosier Schoolmaster_. 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.... + +"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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ +to the place where there was the picture of the teacher on the roof, +and laying the book flat open across the two sticks. + +"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. + +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. + +"He ought to have a hat on," Dragonfly said. "He'll catch his death of +cold with his bald head." + +"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 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 +_had_ 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. + + + + +3 + + +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.... + +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." + +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. + +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 dilapidated 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. + +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?" + +"My mother would _like_ 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. + +"Hey, you!" Dragonfly yelled back toward us, "What you trying to +do--kill us?" + +"What on _earth_!" 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. + +I didn't answer them in _words_ at all. I was so mad at Tom's pop and +at beer and whiskey and stuff. + +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. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +We were all so quiet as mice, not a one of us moving or hardly +breathing.... I couldn't hear a word the old man was saying, but he +sounded like he needed help.... I remembered how we'd all saved 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.... + +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.... + +"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. + +"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. + +"Sh! Listen!" Little Jim said, and we shushed and listened. + +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 _on_ 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. + +"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 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...." + +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 heard him mention 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...." + +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. + +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. + +"'Smatter?" Dragonfly said, and Tom said, "I want to go home!" + +"'Smatter?" Circus said, "Are you sick?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"But we wanted to see Old Man Paddler," Dragonfly said, "What's the +use to go home? I want some sassafras tea." + +"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. + +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...." + +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.... + +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 +_anything_." + +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. + +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." + +A jiffy later, we were all inside his cellar, and scrambling up his +cellar steps into his warm cabin. + + + + +4 + + +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. + +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. + +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 darkish 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 of +Bumblebee hill, 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. + +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.... + +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. + +"'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. + +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 +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. + + * * * * * + +"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, "_where_ have you boys been? I've been phoning all +over for you, Leslie"--meaning she had been phoning all over for +Poetry, _Leslie_ 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. + +"'Smatter?" Poetry asked his kinda round-shaped mom, "Didn't I do my +chores, or something?" + +Then Poetry's mother startled us by saying, "We've had company. Mr. +Black was here. He just left a minute ago." + +I had a queer feeling start creeping up my spine. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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?" + +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!" + +"Shining on _who_?" 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. + +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." + +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. +So-and-So, we have it. I'll send _Bill_ 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. + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, and you and Bill take it over +to Mrs. Mansfield." + +I heard Poetry gasp and call back down, "Get WHAT?" + +"_The Hoosier Schoolmaster!_" his mom called up. "It's on the second +shelf in your library--it's a red book with gold lettering 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." + +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. + +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. + +Just that second Poetry called down and said, "Bill and I'll take it +to her." + +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. + +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 _The +Hoosier Schoolmaster_, not wanting her to ask where it was, so he +wouldn't have to tell her. + +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?" + +"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, and I +hurried after him, both of us running fast out through their back yard +in the direction of Bumblebee hill. + +But Poetry's mother called to us from the back door and said, "Where +are you going? Mrs. Mansfield doesn't live in _that_ direction." + +Poetry and I stopped and looked at each other. + +All of a sudden we knew we were caught, so Poetry said to me, "What'll +we tell her?" + +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." + +Poetry scowled, "You tell her," he said, which I did, saying "Mrs. +Thompson, the gang had _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ this afternoon, and +we left him--I mean _it_--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 _exactly_ +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. + +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." + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ 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 brown riding jacket and +boots, on his great big saddle horse, riding up right about the same +minute. + +What if we didn't get there first? I thought. What if we didn't? It +would be awful! Absolutely _terrible_! 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.... + + + + +5 + + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ 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.... + +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." + +"It'll WHAT?" I said, thinking his idea was crazy. + +"It'll quit hurting, if you stop and stoop down and unbuckle your boot +and then buckle it again." + +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. + +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?" + +"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 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." + +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--?" + +It wasn't any time to be funny, only worried, but Poetry explained to +me that it was the _stooping_ that was what did it. "It's getting your +body bent double, that does it.--Hey! Look! There he is now!" + +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. + +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. + +"You get _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, 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.... _There wasn't any Hoosier Schoolmaster!_ The book +was gone. "It's gone!" I said to Poetry, and it was, and there was a +page of yellow writing paper, instead. + +"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. + +"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: + + "_The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers, + And 'Black' his named was called, + His round red face had the homeliest of features, + He was fat and forty and bald._" + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_. There wasn't a one +of the gang that _could_ 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. + +"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. + +"There's only one other person in the world who knows I wrote that +poem," Poetry said, "and that's Shorty Long." + +"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. + +"How'd he find it out?" I said. + +"Dragonfly told him," and also I remembered right that minute that +Dragonfly and Shorty Long had been kinda chummy last week 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. + +"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." + +"Yeah," I said, "but everybody knows _you_ wrote the poem." + +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. + +"Hey! Look!" I said, "Mr. Black's been here himself!" + +"Mr. _Black_!" 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.... + +"I'll bet Mr. Black took the book, and wrote the poem and put it +here." + +"He wouldn't," I said, but was afraid he might have. + +"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. + +We felt pretty mixed up in our minds, I can tell you. + +"Do you suppose Mr. Black did that?" I said. + +"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." + +"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 +_fun_ 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. + +"What about _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_?" Poetry said to me, as we +dragged our discouraged sleds up Bumblebee hill. "What'll we tell your +mother? And what'll _she_ tell Mrs. Mansfield?" + +"I don't know," Poetry said, and his voice sounded more worried than +I'd heard it in a long time. + +The first thing Mom said to us when we got to our house was, "Mr. +Black was here twice this afternoon." + +"_Twice?_" I said. "What for? What did he want?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Was he actually taking pictures?" Poetry asked with a worried voice. + +"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." + +"What book?" I said, pretending to be surprised. "Did Mrs. Mansfield +want a book?" + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, while Mr. Black was here, but I +knew _your_ mother had one, Poetry, so I told her to call _there_." + +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." + +"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 _where_ he found it? I +mean was it--that is, where did he _find_ it?" + +"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. + +Well, that was that.... Poetry and I sighed to each other, and he +said, "Did you tell my mother?" + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"Do you suppose he really took a picture of himself with that poem on +his stomach?" Poetry asked. "And if he did, _who_ on earth put it +there?" + +"I don't know," I said, "but what would he want with pictures of all +of us and our parents?" + +"I'm sure I don't know--" Poetry said, with a worried voice. + +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. + + + + +6 + + +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 _us_.... 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. + +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. + +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 _well_ as +somebody else, if his mom was going to have the flu. + +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. + +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. + +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 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 _One +Stormy Day at Sugar Creek_, 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, which is +"dreaming." 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. + +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.... + +I had a queer, and also an angry feeling inside me, 'cause I just +_knew_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 to make me wait +for my supper?" + +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.... + +"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 +_fresh_ 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 _don't_ +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 frowning at +Mixy, although I knew he liked her a lot, but didn't like mice very +well. + +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. + +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." + +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." + +"Don't you worry one little tiny bit, Mother," Pop said. "A boy's +heart is like a garden. If you plant good seed in it, and cultivate +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 _weeds_ 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, 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 _little_." + +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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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--" + +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--" + +"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. + +When Mom came back a minute later, she was smiling like she'd had some +wonderful news, and it was, "It was Mrs. Long. _Mr._ Long won't be +home tomorrow, so she can go to church with us. Isn't that wonderful? +It's an answer to prayer." + +I spoke up then and said, "How about Shorty? Is he going too?" + +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 _want_ 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?" + +I gulped. Mom had read my thoughts like an open school book. "Of +course," I said, "he ought to go to church, but--" + +"But _what_?" Mom said. + +"He's awful mean to the gang," I said, "He--" + +"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." + +For some reason, when Pop finished, I seemed to feel like maybe I +didn't actually _hate_ 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.... + +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. + + + + +7 + + +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. + +"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 _my_ pop does to _my_ mom when _she_ 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.... + +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 _oak_ tree that still +has its leaves on, and'll maybe keep 'em on all winter." + +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. + +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, 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +Little Tom frowned and said, "Nope, we can't--Nope, I guess Mom will +get well. She always does." + +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. + +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 Old Hook-nosed John Till. + +"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." + +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." + +"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, "But _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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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 bashful-like, +then he and all of us went on in to where our classes would be +sitting. + +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. + + + + +8 + + +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. + +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 and +confess your sins 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, _right that very minute_," Sylvia's pop said, and it +seemed like a wonderful thing to believe, and made me feel good all +inside of me.... + +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 _The Sugar Creek Gang in School_, +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, + + "_Poetry had a little lamb, + Its fleece a dirty black, + The only place + its wool was white + Was high up on its back_".... + +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. + +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. + +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 _baby_ pigeons?... + +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 _thought_ that was +why some houses didn't have as much snow on their roofs as others, +and why barns always have more snow than houses that people live in. +It was a good sermon." + +"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.... + +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. + +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. + +"About a dozen," Pop told him. "He put them in the pigeon cage out in +the woodshed." + +Right away I spoke up and said, "Were there any _white_ 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. + +"I don't know," Pop said, and I said, "Can I go and look, Tom?" and +Tom said, "Sure, I'll go with you." + +"Let me hold Charlotte Ann," Little Jim said, he liking to hold babies +on his small lap, anyway. + +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. + +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 away it was my +favorite pigeon, old Snow-white herself, who had her nest in the +cupola of our barn. + +"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?" + +"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." + +Little Tom looked, and swallowed and got a very scared expression on +his face, and started to say something, and then stopped. + +"'Smatter?" I said, and he said, "Nothing, only--" + +"Only what?" I asked him. + +"Only--only Bob's got a terrible temper, and he's already mad at me." + +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. + +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.... + +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." + +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 +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 _knew_ 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. + +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." + +I looked where he was looking, and he looked at me, and said surprised +like, "'Smatter, Bill? You got tears in your eyes." + +"Have I?" I said, "I didn't know it." + +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. + +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, you can see the tears fly off in some +direction or other. + +"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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + + * * * * * + +"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. + +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 _didn't_ do, 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. + +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?" + +"Yeah," I yelled back up to him, "Little Jim and I are _both_ 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 _un_done which I should have done. + +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." + +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. + +"It's right there!" I yelled up to Pop, "Right there in the center of +the haymow, going up into the cupola." + +"It IS not!" Pop yelled back down to me, "and I've looked all over the +haymow for it." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"'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. + +"Somebody's stolen our ladder," I said, "a brand new one Pop just +bought last week." + +"_Stolen_ 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." + +I looked all around in a quick circle at the haymow, and I thought +that if Bob Till and Shorty Long _had_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _pie_ +that some boy's dirty boots had walked all over?" Pop asked. That +tickled Little Jim, and he giggled. + +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. + +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. + + + + +9 + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 little spindle-legged Dragonfly was _good_. 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. + +"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!" + +"Hello!" a voice called. "Anybody at home?" + +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." + +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. + +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 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. + +"It sure was," Poetry said, with the binoculars focused in the +direction Mr. Black had gone. + +"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?" + +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." + +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.... + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, 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 Collins, and maybe all the Sugar +Creek Gang, would get into even more trouble with Mr. Black, and-- + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +I remember that in _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, there had really been +_some_ smoke.... + +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 _all_ our trouble with our new teacher!" + +And would you believe it? Little Jim heard him say that, yelled to us, +and said, "Are you sure?" Imagine him not being sure. + +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. + +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. + +"Come on!" I yelled to the rest of the guys with me, "we can make it, +I think." Away we went. + +"Wait!" Dragonfly yelled from pretty far back. "I'm out of breath. +I--can't--can't run so--fast!" which he couldn't. + +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! He's looking this way!" + +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. + +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. + +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. 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.... + +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.... + +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 _after_ Mr. Black got inside, +and before he could get the fire laid and started.... + +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.... + +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." + +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.... + +"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. + +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.... + +"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 _pray_." + +Little Jim was almost as good a friend of mine, as Tom Till was, I +thought.... + +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." + +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 _wouldn't_ slip, or unless +somebody stayed at the bottom to hold it so it _couldn't_. + +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. + +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 have been on +my way down 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 _new_ 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 _sure_ to look like Bill Collins put it up here. + +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. + +"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." + +And Poetry yelled up to me and said, "There's a pair in the +schoolhouse." + +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 _all_ the smoke to get +out, and the room down there would be filling up with smoke.... + +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!" + +"But it's my pop's ladder, and it's our swing board, out of our walnut +tree swing." + +"I say, let's _run_!" 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.... + +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. + +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. + + + + +10 + + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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 on our side of the schoolhouse 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." + +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 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. + +"I can't go in," Dragonfly said, "I'm allergic to smoke. It'll make me +sneeze." + +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!" + +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: + + "_The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers, + And 'Black' his named was called; + His round, red face had the homeliest of features; + He was fat and forty and bald_"-- + +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. + +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.... + +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.... + + * * * * * + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +I turned around quick to the door, and would you believe it? Little +Jim and Poetry and Dragonfly were already inside and I'd 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. + +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. + +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!" + +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 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. + +"We can't," I said, "the board's still across the chimney and we can't +get it off." + +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. + +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!" + +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 +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. + +Before we could get there, Dragonfly said excitedly, "It's Mr. Black's +diary!" + +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. + +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: + + "_The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers, + And 'Black' his named was called...." + +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. + +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: + +"Things have come to a show down with the boys. I know I'm going to +have to take drastic action soon." + +"What's '_drastic_' 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 +out my hand and laid it down flat on the opened diary, so I wouldn't +read anything else, when Dragonfly said, "Psst! Listen!" + +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. + + + + +11 + + +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 _why_ they +are doing what they're doing--which is what _we_ started to do--that +is we _started_ 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 _is_ +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 and my +freckled face and my rumpled red hair 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?" + +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. + +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 _as_ 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. + +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 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!" + +"Yes, sir," I said, "we did; we wanted to prove to you that we didn't +do it." + +"You WHAT!" + +"We wanted to prove to you that we didn't _do_ it!" Little Jim said. + +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 +_what_?" + +"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. + +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!" + +I stopped stock still, trembling inside of me, wondering what the word +"drastic" was going to mean. + +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 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 "_drastic_" 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 _drastic_, when Mr. +Black barked a question at me, and it was, "Young MAN! _What_ are you +_doing_?" + +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." + +"If the word is _punishment_," Mr. Black said to me angrily, "it's a +_noun_, and it means _beech switches_.... 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." + +"What on _earth_?" I thought, and looked at Little Jim's face and then +at Mr. Black's. + +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 _earth_?" +himself. + +Then he looked at me, and his face was hard again. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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.... + +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. + +"And _what_," Mr. Black said to me, "were you doing on the schoolhouse +_roof_?" + +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 _else_ 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 about Shorty +and Bob, so I just stood there, without answering Mr. Black. + +"_Answer_ me!" he demanded. I could see he was getting really angry. 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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 heavily.... +I didn't look, but I guessed he was still standing and looking out +into the late afternoon sunlight on the snow. + +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.... + +"What on earth!" I thought. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Dragonfly grabbed his nose with the red handkerchief and stopped most +of the next sneeze, so only a little tail of it exploded. + +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, +although I could tell the way he was staring at the page that he maybe +wasn't reading but only thinking. + +It was as quiet, in fact ten times as quiet, as if we were having +school. + +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?" + +"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?" + +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. + +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 _think_ 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." + +"_What_ 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. + +"Oh, something," Little Jim said, and wouldn't tell me, but he +certainly had a cheerful expression on his face. + +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 _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ 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 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. + +"What on _earth_!" 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. + +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: + + "_This Book will keep you from sin, + + or + + Sin will keep you from this Book._" + +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. + +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." + +Things still didn't make sense--I couldn't understand it. + +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, "_Good +luck!_ No wonder we had good luck! here's a brand new horseshoe! No +wonder we didn't get a lickin' from Mr. Black." + +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. + +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 _last_ year, and this is my first +one _this year_. Boy oh boy, it's going to be a lucky year for the +Sugar Creek Gang!" + +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." + +"About _what_?" I asked him, Little Jim being the only one of the gang +that it was easy to talk about sermons with, except maybe Poetry. + +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." + +Just that second Poetry who had the other end of the ladder, yelled +back to me and said, "Quit walking so jerkily, Bill Collins!" + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"Sure," Little Jim said. + +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 _does_ have a lucky year, don't you?" + +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 _really_ became a +Christian this morning while Sylvia's pop was preaching--or maybe he +is just _going_ to let Jesus into his heart, real soon?" + +"I don't know," I said. + +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!" + +And Little Jim piped up and said, "Are you _sure_? Maybe Mr. Black did +it, so he could get a picture of it for next Wednesday night." + +Dragonfly heard that and said, "But who piled the chairs up on his +desk and knocked the Christmas tree over and everything?" + +"Yeah, that's right," Little Jim said, "I guess maybe they did do it, +but I'm not very mad at 'em." + +"I'm not either," I said, "not _very_ 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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Hurry up!" all of us yelled to all of us. "We've got to get home +quick." + +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. + + +THE END + + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. | + | copyright on this publication was renewed. | + | | + | Ellipses in this text have been standardized. | + | | + | 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. | | + | | + | Typographical errors and inconsistencies that have been changed | + | are listed below: | + | | + | Page 16: Changed comma to period (which said, _The Hoosier | + | Schoolmaster_.) | + | | + | Page 19: Changed "dilipidated" to "dilapidated" (their | + | dilapidated old unpainted house). | + | | + | Page 20: Changed "heart" to "hear" (I couldn't hear a word). | + | | + | Page 22: Changed "his" to "him" (I heard him mention my name). | + | | + | Page 26: Changed "Bumblee" to "Bumblebee" (at the bottom of | + | Bumblebee hill). | + | | + | Page 28: Changed "So-ond-So" to "So-and-So" (Why yes, Mrs. | + | So-and-So). | + | | + | Page 40: Moved punctuation inside quote marks to match style of | + | text (accusing me of doing, which is "dreaming."). | + | | + | Page 41: Changed "we" to "me" (to make me wait for my supper). | + | | + | Page 42: Removed duplicate word "and" (plant good seed in it, | + | and cultivate). | + | | + | Page 49: Changed "old Hook-nose" to "Old Hook-nosed" (such a | + | mean husband as Old Hook-nosed John Till). | + | | + | Page 51: Changed "bashful like" to "bashful-like" (into the box, | + | kinda bashful-like). | + | | + | Page 52: Changed "you" to "your" (and confess your sins). | + | | + | Page 56: Changed "ears" to "tears" (you can see the tears fly). | + | | + | Page 61: Changed "Spindle-legged" to "spindle-legged" (little | + | spindle-legged Dragonfly). | + | | + | Page 65: Added missing end punctuation (He's looking this way!). | + | | + | Page 68: Changed "day" to "way" (have been on my way down). | + | | + | Page 70: Changed "school house" to "schoolhouse" (on our side of | + | the schoolhouse). | + | | + | Page 75: Added alignment spaces to poem for consistency. | + | | + | Page 77: Changed "freckled-face" to "freckled face" (and my | + | freckled face and my rumpled red hair). | + | | + | Page 81: Changed comma to period (he was getting really angry.) | + | | + +------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +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.txt or 27426.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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