“Do you think she liked them?” I asked Mom.
I was getting awful lonesome for my mom. And I tell you, it wasn’t going to be easy to let Charlotte Ann have all the attention around the house. My dad was just crazy about that little thing! Watching him, if you didn’t happen to notice how big he was or see his mustache, you couldn’t tell him from Circus, for he’d almost stand on his head in front of Charlotte Ann just to get her to smile at him. And he’d make the funniest faces! It was almost disgusting to see him make over her like that. That is, it was until one day I caught myself doing the same thing, and then it didn’t seem so bad. But that’s getting pretty far ahead of my story, because little Charlotte Ann didn’t even know enough to smile until she was several weeks old.
I kept waiting for Dragonfly to come, wondering why he was so late. But finally I saw him running up the road just as fast as he could. He opened our gate quick and hurried up to the house. I ran out to meet him.
After taking a long walk, we had a drink at the spring, and then we took turns looking at different things with my binoculars.
Pretty soon Dragonfly whispered, “Psst! Come here, Bill! Let’s watch this spider eat her dinner!”
“I don’t see any spider,” I said, peeping into a hollow stump, both of us standing so our shadows wouldn’t fall across it. I did see a nice new spider web stretched across one corner.
“Just wait,” he said, and he showed me a fly he’d caught and was holding by its wings. He dropped the fly right into the middle of that sticky web, where it began to kick and squirm and get all tangled up. All spider webs are sticky, you know. That web bounced around and shook almost as much as Poetry’s bed does when he turns over in his sleep.
“Psst!” Dragonfly said again.
Coming out of her hiding place was a little black spider, hurrying toward that fly.
“She’s coming backwards!” I said, and sure enough she was. We couldn’t see very well because we couldn’t get close enough to look at her without scaring her away, and the binoculars wouldn’t help. She was one of the smallest black spiders I’d ever seen, with kind of longish legs, yet not very long either.
Suddenly Dragonfly let out a gasp and jumped back so quick he bumped into me and almost knocked me down.
“What’s the matter?” I said, not seeing anything to be so excited about.
“I—I saw it!” he exclaimed. “That reddish mark on her underneath side! She’s a—a black widow spider!”
I tell you, Dragonfly was excited, and getting excited is contagious. I got excited too, and for a minute I was almost scared, although I knew we couldn’t be bitten unless we were closer than we were.
You see, the black widow is a tiny black spider with a reddish mark on its stomach, shaped like an hourglass or else like a couple of triangles. It’s about the most dangerous spider in the world, but there aren’t very many of them, so boys don’t need to be afraid of finding one every day. Of course, it’s a good thing to kill any unknown spider you see around the house or cellar or anywhere, especially black ones.
Well, we got a couple of sticks and sneaked back to watch. And already that fly was fastened so tight in the web it could never have gotten away. Black widow spiders, you know, give off some kind of fluid that dries almost as quickly as rubber cement, and no fly or bug could get away even if it tried terribly hard.
In a flash the spider ran up to the fly as though she was terribly mad at it, and she must have bitten it for it started kicking and shaking harder than ever.
“It’s dying!” Dragonfly said. “She’s killing it!”
And sure enough, in a minute the fly was quiet, and Mrs. Spider was busy sucking on it as if she was sucking water through a straw.
“What’ll we do?” Dragonfly said. “If it’s a real black widow, it ought to be killed.”
“It’s the first one I ever saw,” I said.
“And maybe the last one, although sometimes there are several together—especially if she’s laid any eggs, and they’ve hatched.”
We knew we would have been silly to poke around in that stump with our sticks trying to kill that spider. We might have gotten bitten ourselves.
My dad says if anybody gets bitten by a black widow, it might not even hurt at all at first, but pretty soon it will. And after a while you get sick to your stomach, and all your muscles down below your stomach get tight and hard, and you start sweating all over and maybe having a chill, and your skin starts to burn.
But if you do get bitten by one, you ought to put iodine on the bite real quick and have somebody get you to a doctor as soon as you can—awful soon, in fact. And be sure to tell him exactly what happened, so he’ll know what to do for you.
Well, while we were standing there trying to decide what to do, we heard somebody coming. I looked up just in time to see a man dodging behind a tree, as though he was afraid that somebody would see him.
Dragonfly and I darted in back of some bushes and dropped down in the grass, wondering if it was one of the gang trying to sneak up on us.
Dragonfly had my binoculars. “I’ll bet it’s the robber!” he whispered, trying to be calm like Big Jim and to think what to do. “He must have gotten out of jail somehow and is running away,” he said. “Maybe he’s trying to hide down along the swamp again.”
I guess my red hair must have stood right up on end when he told me. “Let’s run!” I said.
We took off as fast as we could go, and we didn’t stop until we had climbed clear up on top of the big hill where our gang meets sometimes. There we lay down behind the big rocks to get our wind, thinking maybe we’d better go on home quick and telephone for the sheriff again.
About that time, though, we thought we heard a car on the road not far from my house. Maybe the sheriff and his posse were already there. I took my binoculars and looked quick but didn’t see anybody. And then I looked down toward the spring just in time to see a man come from behind a tree and go straight toward that old stump where we’d been not more than ten minutes ago.
He stopped at the stump, and Dragonfly nudged me and said, “What do you suppose he’s doing there?”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking, What if he reaches inside?
Just that minute, the man stood up quick with his head showing above the top of the stump, as though he was looking for something. But he seemed to be having a hard time finding what he wanted, and all the time I was scared he’d get bitten by that spider. We couldn’t see very well, but it looked like the man had a gun. Now he climbed on top of the stump and was looking inside!
All of a sudden Dragonfly couldn’t keep still any longer, for even if it was the robber, we didn’t want him to get bitten. So Dragonfly screamed as though he was scared himself.
His scream was so loud and frightening that the man looked up. And then his foot slipped, and he fell inside the big stump.
I tell you I felt creepy all over, for I realized what might happen to him if that was a sure enough black widow spider in there. I thought the man had a gun and knew he was a desperate criminal and might shoot anybody he thought was after him. But as much as I wanted him to be caught, and knowing how wicked he was, I felt sorry for him. I kept thinking about what Little Jim would say and how he would feel if the man got bitten and had to die without letting Jesus into his heart.
“Let’s go home quick!” I said to Dragonfly.
“Why?”
“I’m going to telephone for a doctor!”
“A doctor! What for?”
“Why, if he gets bit by that spider, and we don’t get a doctor for him, he’ll die!”
And then I was running as fast as I could toward our house, with Dragonfly right at my heels.
I didn’t even take time to open our front gate, which opens hard anyway. I climbed over and ran up the walk, burst open the front door, and grabbed the telephone. Half a minute later I was talking to Dr. Gordon, our family doctor, with Mom and the nurse looking at me as though they thought I was cra
zy and telling me to keep still or I’d wake up Charlotte Ann.
“Quick, doctor!” I said into the telephone. “This is Bill Collins! Come out here quick and bring some iodine and whatever you need for a man who’s been bit by a black widow spider!”
Then I hung up.
16
In about twenty minutes the doctor came, bringing another doctor with him. My dad had come home in the meantime, and we all went down through the woods toward the old hollow stump, and there we found the man lying on the grass.
He was all doubled up and sweating and trying to vomit. Just above his left eye was a swollen place about twice as big as a mosquito bite with two little red spots on it. And I guess I never was so surprised in my life when I saw who it was.
It wasn’t the bank robber at all. It was Circus’s father! And lying right beside him were three big whiskey bottles and his gun.
“Why, it’s Dan Browne!” my dad cried. “I just took him home about an hour ago!”
Circus’s dad rolled over and groaned. His arms and shoulders twitched. Then he saw my dad and looked scared. Between groans he said, “Honest, Mr. Collins! I wasn’t going to … drink … it! I … had these bottles hid … here … and … and I came down to get them … I was goin’ to put ’em up … on the stump and … and shoot ’em.” Then he rolled over and groaned, staying all doubled up as if he had terrible cramps. “Spider!” he cried, pointing toward the stump. “Don’t let the boys g-get b-bit!”
It didn’t take the doctors long to put iodine on those little red spots to keep him from getting what they call “secondary infection.” For just a minute they stood there talking, while Dragonfly and I watched and listened. And we heard a lot of long words that I didn’t understand at the time but which I’ve since learned how to spell and pronounce because maybe someday I’m going to be a doctor myself.
The doctors decided to use a hypodermic and inject something right into one of his veins. Then they took Circus’s father to the hospital as quick as they could, and my dad went with them.
Along about five o’clock in the afternoon, Dad came home, and I ran out to the car to meet him. He said they’d been careful to keep Mr. Browne as quiet as possible on the way, and in the hospital they gave him another shot in the muscles of his arm. “Convalescent serum,” I think he said it was—which is made from the blood of somebody who’s been bitten by a black widow spider and got well.
And then my dad just sat there behind the steering wheel for a while, not saying anything, so I climbed in beside him, Dragonfly having gone home about a half hour before.
He put his arm over the back of the car seat and let it touch my shoulder, as if he was not only my dad and I was his boy but we were real good friends. It felt good to have him do that. I just sat there thinking and wondering whether Circus’s dad was going to live or not and also wanting to tell Dad I now knew for sure that I was saved.
“Well, Bill,” Dad said, “Your quick action and presence of mind saved a life this afternoon.”
That made me feel better. I felt proud to have him say that, but it didn’t seem as important as something else just then, so I said, “Is—is Circus’s dad saved yet?”
Dad looked at me quick to see if I really wanted to know, and I could feel his fingers tighten a little around my shoulder as if he liked me even better.
“No,” he said. “I talked to him a long time at the jail, and he promised to be kind to his family and not get drunk anymore, but he would not accept Jesus into his heart.”
“It’ll be hard for him to be good without Jesus helping him, won’t it?” I asked.
“Too hard,” Dad said, “but he’ll be in the hospital maybe a week, and he’ll have time to think and read the Bible.”
After a while, when Dad and I were doing the chores and I was in the haymow throwing down hay for the cows and horses, I climbed way up into the corner again. I took out my little New Testament and turned to one of the verses my mom had had me learn when I was little. I read it again just to be sure it really said what I thought it said and just to be certain I could know for sure I was saved.
This is what the verse said: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
And then I knew I was saved, because God says if I believe in Jesus (meaning with all my heart, of course) then I have everlasting life, and I wouldn’t have to wait till I died to be sure I was going to heaven. I guess there isn’t anything more wonderful than that, is there?
Then I got down on my knees and shut my eyes and said, “Dear Lord Jesus, I thank You for saving me. And for giving me such a nice little baby sister. And please help me to act like a Christian so other people will want to be saved too. And please help Circus’s dad to see how much he needs You. And bless Little Jim and Poetry and Big Jim and Circus and Dragonfly and—and all the boys in the world.”
I got up from my knees and put my New Testament back in the crack in the log, and I started whistling and throwing down more hay. I decided to leave my Bible there until Circus’s dad was saved.
The next day some men came out from town and poured kerosene over that old hollow stump and set fire to it, so if there were any other black widow spiders there, or any eggs, they’d all be burned up. And do you know, we never did find any more of them in our neighborhood, even though we watched carefully for years.
But here I am, getting to the end of my story, and I haven’t even told you about the time, about a month later, when Little Jim killed a black bear and maybe saved all of us from getting hurt. But that would make this story too long. Maybe if I have time, I’ll tell you about it someday and a lot of other interesting things about the Sugar Creek gang and Old Man Paddler, and how Circus got his cornet, and how little Charlotte Ann grew and everything.
Anyway, the gang was all there while the men were burning that old stump. We lay in the tall grass not far from the creek, talking and laughing and having a good time watching the big yellow flames eat up that stump just like a hungry boy eating a big plateful of fried potatoes.
Even Circus seemed happy, because he knew his dad was going to get well. Pretty soon he jumped up and started climbing a little tree right behind us. He perched up there on a limb like a monkey, grinning and looking like the same old Circus again.
And while the flames leaped higher and higher and the blue and purple smoke rolled up in little cloud waves toward the sky, Poetry started quoting “America the Beautiful.”
“Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain …”
Just then an old shitepoke went flying up the creek with its long, ugly neck sticking out in front of it like the long tongue on my green coaster wagon. I got out my binoculars and watched until it disappeared.
Finally we thought we’d watched the fire long enough, so we all jumped up and went down to the creek and went in swimming.
Paul Hutchens
MOODY PUBLISHERS
CHICAGO
©1940, 1997 by
PAULINE HUTCHENS WILSON
Revised Edition, 1997
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, and 1994 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. Used by permission.
Cover Design: Ragont Design
Cover Illustration: Don Stewart
Original title: We Killed a Bear
ISBN: 978-0-8024-7006-5
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To my five brothers,
Leo, Forest, Haven, Lester, and Carl,
the best pals a boy ever had
and who lived and played with me
along and in the real Sugar Creek
PREFACE
Hi—from a member of the Sugar Creek Gang!
It’s just that I don’t know which one I am. When I was good, I was Little Jim. When I did bad things—well, sometimes I was Bill Collins or even mischievous Poetry.
You see, I am the daughter of Paul Hutchens, and I spent many an hour listening to him read his manuscript as far as he had written it that particular day. I went along to the north woods of Minnesota, to Colorado, and to the various other places he would go to find something different for the Gang to do.
Now the years have passed—more than fifty, actually. My father is in heaven, but the Gang goes on. All thirty-six books are still in print and now are being updated for today’s readers with input from my five children, who also span the decades from the ’50s to the ’70s.
The real Sugar Creek is in Indiana, and my father and his six brothers were the original Gang. But the idea of the books and their ministry were and are the Lord’s. It is He who keeps the Gang going.
PAULINE HUTCHENS WILSON
1
It was Dragonfly who first saw the bear—a big, hairy, black thing that looked more like one of my dad’s hogs than anything else.
None of us boys had ever seen an honest-to-goodness wild bear, although we’d all been to the zoo and the circus and had watched bears juggling rope balls and doing different kinds of acrobatic stunts. Naturally we had read a lot of bear stories, having borrowed books from our school and public libraries. But we had never dreamed that a bear story would happen to us, the kind of story that would make any boy’s hair stand right up on end.
Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 1-6 Page 9