Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 1-6

by Paul Hutchens

  “Coming!” I said and hurried back down and fed the horses.

  3

  There must have been a hundred boys and girls in the big brown tent that night and hundreds and hundreds of grown-up people. All our gang was there except Dragonfly, whose folks didn’t go to church much.

  We all managed to sit together in the same row, although Mom and Dad had made it plain to me before we left home that I couldn’t sit next to Poetry. You see, they couldn’t trust us together because he was so mischievous and we might get to laughing.

  I wish every boy in the world could have had parents like mine and Little Jim’s. Little Jim’s mom had on a pretty blue dress, and her fingers just flew over the piano keys, up and down and across, making me like the gospel songs better than ever and making everybody want to sing.

  Once I stopped singing and looked at Little Jim, who was sitting beside me. His big blue eyes were shining with pride, and I could see that he thought his mother was better even than an angel.

  Right across the aisle and about three rows back, sat my mom and dad and little Charlotte Ann, my baby sister. Dad saw me looking at them, and his big, bushy, blackish-red eyebrows were straight, so I knew he liked me all right and that I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t.

  I could see Mom’s hair with the silver streaks in it. She had such a pleasant face. I guess maybe I’d seen her face a million times, and I never got tired of looking at it. When little Charlotte Ann was born, Mom’s face looked happier than I’d ever seen it in my whole life.

  Charlotte Ann didn’t cry much anymore, although she nearly always managed to cry a little in church, as most babies do, even when they’re good all the rest of the time.

  There was a band with clarinets and trombones and violins and cellos and cornets. The song leader, who wore a brown coat with white trousers, played a cornet himself.

  Once I looked at Circus, who was sitting on the other side of Little Jim and between Poetry and me. He was watching that shining cornet like a hungry boy looking at a big display window full of good things to eat and knowing he couldn’t have any.

  And I thought—well, I thought about my little New Testament back home, away up in our dark haymow, and I wondered if Someone up in heaven was looking down at it and remembering my prayer and maybe getting ready to answer it tonight. I knew that Circus’s dad was standing outside the tent somewhere listening.

  A row of ministers was sitting on the platform just behind the pulpit, and I couldn’t help but think how kind they looked. It seemed wonderful that those big strong men loved the Savior and had given their whole lives to tell people about Him—even if I was a little afraid of some ministers because of their having such big voices and being so important.

  A little later one of them stood up to pray. He had such a deep voice and used such long words that it made God seem very far away, and his voice had a little growl in it, like a bear’s.

  Just then I thought of Poetry and looked at him. And would you believe it? His mischievous blue eyes looked right straight into mine, and before I could stop myself, I’d snickered out loud. Just that very second I thought of my dad, too, and I looked back at him. He was looking straight at me with his long blackish-red eyebrows down and with a scowl on his forehead.

  Well, I was sorry, but I knew that wouldn’t help because I’d promised to be good in church and not get into mischief.

  But let me tell you about the important thing that happened that night. The meeting kept right on going, band and choir music, solos and quartets, and a very interesting sermon.

  When I’d first started praying for Circus’s dad, I’d sort of expected God to answer my prayer right away, anyway in a week or two. I didn’t realize then that a person had to hear the gospel preached first and that nobody ever gets saved unless somebody tells him about Jesus. Besides, God won’t just come to a man’s heart and batter it open in order to get in. You have to open that door yourself. So I’d decided if I had to wait a long time I would, but I would keep right on praying.

  Anyhow, the minister who preached that night talked about the home. I was sure Circus’s dad was outside somewhere listening, but I certainly didn’t expect him to be much interested in that. That’s why I was so surprised when I got my prayer answered.

  This is the way it happened. Every now and then during the sermon I glanced over at Circus to see how he liked it. But I didn’t need to worry about him not liking it. He was listening for all he was worth. Good old Circus, with his monkey face, his strong athletic body, and his brown hair combed nice and straight. He’d even cleaned his fingernails and washed his neck and ears, which I knew he didn’t like to do.

  There he was, sitting up straight and listening with shining eyes, in spite of knowing that as soon as the meeting was over he’d have to go home to a weathered old house with poor furniture and worn-out rugs on the floor and a swearing, drinking father who didn’t like him.

  I remembered the time about a month ago when Circus’s dad had been drunk on the same night they had a new baby at their house. Circus had stayed all night at my house. He and I were upstairs undressing, and he got tears in his eyes and doubled up his fists and looked terribly fierce because he was so mad at the people who made and sold beer and whiskey.

  That was the night he had said, his voice all trembly, “I wish they’d just once take a picture of my dad when he’s drunk and put that in their old newspapers and magazines! I bet that wouldn’t make anybody want to buy any!”

  Well, pretty soon the sermon was over, and the minister announced that there was going to be a short prayer meeting in a curtained-off corner of the tent, beginning right away. He said he’d like all the Sunday school teachers and superintendents to go into the little room while everybody was singing the last song, which was Big Jim’s favorite: “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me …”

  Then the minister said in his big kind voice, “No doubt there are many here tonight who have felt the Spirit drawing you toward God. You realize that you, like all the rest of us, need Christ as your Savior. Will you come forward too, and let us explain to you from the Bible exactly how to be saved? And if there are any of your friends who wish to come with you, they may feel free to do so.”

  Maybe those aren’t the exact words he used, but it was something like that. I thought it was a nice way to say it, and I just knew somebody would go. A person couldn’t hear a sermon like that and not want to.

  Everybody was standing and singing. And because my dad was a Sunday school teacher, he handed Charlotte Ann over to Mom and started down the grassy aisle toward the little curtained-off corner of the tent, carrying his Bible with him, which he always took to church anyway.

  Pretty soon people were going forward from all around us, while Little Jim’s mom played and the choir and everybody was singing—even the people in the band, because the band never played during what they called the “invitation hymn.”

  Between verses the minister said different things, urging people not to come because he was asking them to, but to obey God’s voice. They could tell whether God was speaking to them, he said. And all the time people were going forward from all over the tent.

  I looked over at Little Jim. He was standing there with tears in his eyes, his hands gripping the back of the seat in front of him. So I leaned over to Little Jim and said, “What’s the matter?”

  He gulped, and his voice choked as he whispered, “C-Circus. I-I want him to be saved tonight.”

  I couldn’t stand to see Little Jim’s tears. It was kind of like our old iron pitcher pump back home when it runs down. You have to pour water in the top. And then, if you pump real hard for a minute, the water’ll come, and you can pump gallons and gallons. It’s called “priming.” Well, Little Jim’s tears primed mine, and before I knew it a tear had tumbled out of one of my eyes and splashed right down on the songbook I was holding.

  I gulped and started singing as hard as I could, looking straight ahead of m
e. And while I looked, it seemed the minister and the choir and the tent faded away and I could see a little leather book tucked away in a crack in a log up in the corner of our haymow.

  Just that minute there was a rustling beside me, and I knew that somebody from our row was trying to get out into the aisle. I looked quick to see who it was, and it was Circus! In a jiffy he was gone, and all that I could see of him was his square shoulders and the top of his brown head as he hurried down the aisle toward the curtained-off room, sort of like a soldier marching in a parade.

  The minister saw him coming and stepped down off the platform to shake hands with him before letting him go into the little room. Then the minister’s kind voice said to all of us, “I think I’d rather see a fine boy like this come to Christ than anybody else in the whole world.”

  Then it happened. It happened so quick I could hardly believe my eyes. Somebody else was hurrying down the aisle right past us—running, in fact, and crying and saying, “That’s my boy! That’s my boy! I want to be saved too!” And it was Circus’s dad. He threw his arms around Circus, and they went into the little room together.

  I was glad my dad was already in there. I knew that he knew the Bible well enough to show Circus’s dad how to be saved, although the ministers that had been on the platform were all there too.

  Then there was another rustling beside me, and in a moment Little Jim was gone. He scuttled down that aisle like a chipmunk running toward a stump along Sugar Creek.

  Well, I knew Little Jim was already saved, and I knew he’d gone just to be with Circus, because he liked him so well. And then I was gone too, down the beautiful green aisle, past the minister and Little Jim’s mother at the piano, and into the little tent room.

  There were maybe thirty or forty people there, all kneeling. Over in a corner, kneeling by a bench, was my big dad with his arms around Circus’s dad, who was still crying.

  Beside them were Circus and Little Jim, and Little Jim’s arm was around Circus and—well, it was the prettiest sight I ever saw, prettier even than a sunset with red and gold and purple clouds, prettier than the maple and ash and oak trees along Sugar Creek in autumn.

  In a minute I was down beside Little Jim. And before the prayer meeting was over, all the Sugar Creek gang except Dragonfly was there, kneeling in a row. And I got to thinking that if all the boys in the world could do what we were doing, when they grew up there wouldn’t be any thieves or gangsters or drunks or brokenhearted mothers.

  It was great! And right that minute I decided something. When I grew up and became a doctor, I wasn’t only going to be a good doctor, but I was going to be a saved doctor who knew how to lead other people to Jesus the way my dad did.

  When we had gone home and the car was in the garage, I asked Dad for his flashlight.

  “What for?” he asked.

  “Oh … ’cause. I want to go outdoors for a while.”

  He looked at me, started to say no, then changed his mind.

  So, with the flashlight in my hand, I went out across the barnyard to our barn door, opened it, and went inside. There was old Mixy, our black-and-white cat, mewing on a log. And I could hear the crunch, crunch of the horses’ teeth as they ate their hay.

  Then I climbed the wooden ladder into the haymow. I didn’t stay there long, but when I came down again, I had my New Testament in my hip pocket.

  At the foot of the ladder, I scooped up Mixy and hugged her and said, “Mixy, you’re the nicest, prettiest cat in all the world! All the whole wide world!”

  I carried her in my arms all the way across the barnyard to the house. Then I let her down carefully and went in and upstairs to bed.

  I’d forgotten all about the bear, and I didn’t think of her again until the next morning, which seemed to come almost right away.

  4

  I hoed potatoes in our garden all that morning, which was even hotter than it had been the day before. That is, I hoed between doing errands for Mom and Dad. First I hoed potatoes, then I picked a kettle of long green beans for Mom, because we were going to have pork and beans for dinner. You know, hungry boys and hungry bears like pork.

  Then I hoed potatoes and took care of Charlotte Ann, and hoed potatoes and carried a drink of water to Dad, who was out in the field plowing corn. Then I hoed potatoes. About ten o’clock I went over to Poetry’s house to take a note to his mother.

  You see, the women of our church were having some kind of missionary meeting at our house in the afternoon. Poetry’s telephone was out of order, and Mom wanted Mrs. Thompson to bring something for lunch—sandwiches, I think.

  I didn’t feel at all sad about leaving those potatoes, although I knew I’d have to finish them sometime. Still, there’s something fascinating about cutting out the ugly little weeds and loosening the rich, brown soil and pulling it up around the potato plants. I think it was that my mind was on the bear and a lot of other things that made me especially glad when I was asked to go over to Poetry’s house.

  “May I stay and play a while?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom said, “not this morning. I have a lot of errands for you, so hurry right back.” Then she saw how disappointed I was, so she said, “Well, just thirty minutes, no longer.”

  I jumped on my bicycle and pedaled down the road as fast as I could to Poetry’s.

  I had to pass Little Jim’s house on the way, so I stopped for a minute to rest in the shade of a big cottonwood tree near their front gate.

  It was Little Jim’s piano practice time, and I could hear him going over and over a certain hard piece of music. I felt sorry for him having to practice on such a hot day, but I knew he was learning something. And you’ll never be anybody worthwhile in this world unless you stick to a thing and work hard, whether you want to or not.

  Just as I started to go on to Poetry’s house, Little Jim’s mother came to their front door and called, “Good morning, Bill!”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Foote,” I said and tipped my straw hat. A boy would feel like tipping his hat to Little Jim’s mother even if he didn’t know it was the right etiquette to tip his hat whenever a lady speaks to him. She was that kind of a woman.

  Just that minute, Little Jim began to play one of the church hymns, and it was “Just as I Am.”

  Pretty soon I was at Poetry’s. I gave the note to his mother, and she thanked me. And the very first thing she did was to make me sit down and eat a great big piece of warm blackberry pie, which she had just baked. Poetry’s mother wasn’t small and pretty like Little Jim’s mother, and she had big hands and feet, but she had a good mother face, and she liked boys.

  Poetry came in from their blackberry patch in time to eat a piece of pie too. Then I went out with him and helped him until we’d picked a two-gallon pail of luscious blackberries, each one of us eating maybe a half pint of berries while we were picking.

  “Do you know that bears like blackberries?” I asked Poetry, then I let out a low, fierce growl right behind him and grabbed him by the foot and got kicked in the chin as a reward for scaring him. We’d have had a real scuffle if there hadn’t been so many briars around.

  That started us to telling about bears, and I told him what my dad had said about some of our pigs being gone. We just talked and felt scared and brave at the same time, saying what we’d do if a bear came shuffling along right that minute.

  “I’d throw this pailful of berries at him,” Poetry said, “and then I’d run. And he’d stop to eat the berries, ’cause bears like blackberries better than barefoot boys.” He grinned at all the letter b’s he’d used. Then he started to say:

  “Blessings on thee, little man,

  Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan,

  With thy turned-up pantaloons

  And thy merry whistled tunes.”

  “Do you suppose what you found yesterday was from a real bear?” I asked.

  “Naw, it was rabbit’s fur. I was just fooling.”

  Well, it began to look as if the idea of a bear being
in our neighborhood was crazy, so we started talking about something else—although I still believed there might be one, and I made up my mind to find out. Maybe the gang could go down along the swamp that very afternoon, I thought. We’d planned to go swimming at two o’clock if we could.

  And do you know, I forgot all about not staying longer than a half hour. I know that’s no excuse, but I did forget, and I didn’t do it on purpose.

  After we’d given the pail of berries to his mother, we went out to his tent under the big maple tree.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” Poetry said.

  I mentioned before that all of the gang were collecting shells that summer. Well, Circus had maybe the best collection of all of us except Little Jim. Of course, there wasn’t a large variety of shells to be found along Sugar Creek, but we had relatives who lived in different places, and they sent shells to us.

  Poetry had an orange scallop, two and one-half inches high; and a reddish-brown scallop six inches high, which his uncle had sent him from the Atlantic Ocean; and a knobbed whelk, which is shaped like a pear, from Texas; and a little moon shell and a periwinkle and a greenish-brown squaw-foot and a greenish-black washboard.

  I had a lot of washboards myself because there were hundreds of them in the riffles in Sugar Creek, and sometimes there were pearls in them.

  We had to memorize the poem “The Chambered Nautilus” in school last year. The pearly nautilus is a big snail that crawls on the bottom of the ocean in the South Seas, and the “chamber” is its shell.

  “Want to see my new hobby?” Poetry asked. He pulled a big scrapbook out of a desk drawer and began showing me pictures of a lot of important-looking men and women. He had one section of his scrapbook for famous missionaries, another for evangelists, another for pastors, another for Christian writers and evangelistic singers and doctors and nurses. He was just beginning to make the collection, but it certainly looked interesting.

  All of a sudden Poetry’s mother called from the house that dinner was ready. Dinner! And I was supposed to stay only a half hour!