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