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."