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.