Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 7-12
Page 24
We all bowed our heads, and this is what Mom said: “Dear heavenly Father, we do thank You for Your wonderful love for us all in giving Your Son to die upon the cross for our sins. We do thank You that no matter what happens in life to those of us who love You, ‘God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.’”
My thoughts left Mom’s prayer for a minute and swished into the bedroom to where I had spilled all that water and had broken the pretty bowl and had spoiled the rug and the waxed floor. And in my imagination I was reading the new wall motto that Old Man Paddler had given Mom that day and which had on it the same thing she had just said in her prayer. I thought I knew now why she hadn’t worried too much about what I’d done.
Then, when my thoughts came back again to what Mom was praying, she was saying, “And help us to love You more and more. We know we do not love You enough—none of us do”— so it was God and not me that they had been talking about!—“but we do love You. Bless us all. Bless our son, Bill, and our blessed baby, Charlotte Ann, whom You have given us to take care of, and bless all the boys of the Sugar Creek Gang. Be with Wally, too, and the new baby. And also bless this food for which we thank You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
It was a great prayer, and I knew that everybody in our family liked everybody else.
It had certainly been a stormy day at our house and at school, maybe the stormiest day we’d ever had, with me being the center of most of it, but it was all over at last—that is, all over except my trip to the mailbox, which I’d take soon.
“May I be excused?” I said to Mom and Dad as soon as I’d eaten a lot of supper, and Dad said, “What for?” and I said, “Oh, I just want to go outdoors for a while. I’ll be right back.”
“Certainly,” Mom said, “but come right back because—”
I finished the sentence for her. “Because we want to get the dishes done before you go. Okeydoke,” I said and felt just fine inside.
Out of doors, I made a beeline for the mailbox that had the name “Theodore Collins” on it. Every drop of blood in me was tingling with excitement. And sure enough, right inside that box was an envelope without any stamp on it, and it was addressed to “Mr. William Collins, Sr.”
I’d never seen the handwriting before, and I wondered who had written to me and why. Also I wondered what the “Sr.” was doing on the end of my name. Anyway, just as people do when they get letters, I decided to open it right away, which I did. And what a crazy letter. It had all kinds of misspelled words and absolutely didn’t make sense in some of the things it said.
I started to the house and was reading the letter on the way, when my dad called to me from the porch, “Why don’t you walk in the path, Bill?”
I stopped, surprised. I was out in the middle of our yard, walking in snow deeper than my ankles and getting my pants cuffs all filled with snow.
“I’ve got a letter!” I yelled to him. “A crazy letter from some crazy person.”
The handwriting was almost as crazy as Dragonfly’s had been that morning when he had written that note about our new teacher’s bald head. By the time I had got back onto the path again and had walked in it to our back porch, this is what I had read:
Dear William Collins:
Your son better treat my boy decent or I’ll shake the living daylights out of him. It’s a pity a family cant move into a naborhood without a gang of ruffnecks beating up on his boy. I dont know if you are the ones who took my wife to church last night or not, but somebody did while I was away from home and you cant believe a thing she says about me. You mind your own business and I’ll mind mine. My wife has enuff high and mity ideas without going to some fancy church to get more. If she would obey her husband like the Bible says, it would do her some good to read the Bible, but she don’t. Your boy is the worst ruff-neck in the whole Sugar Creek Gang of ruffnecks, so beware.
The letter wasn’t signed, and it didn’t make sense, because I wasn’t married and didn’t have a “ruffneck” son. I seemed to know it was written by Shorty Long’s dad, but why should he write it to me?
But even before I got to the end of the letter and to the water tank at the same time, where Dad was waiting for me, I guessed the man had intended to write it to my dad, thinking I was William, Jr., and Dad was William, Sr. which is the way some boys and their fathers are named.
Just then Mom opened the door and called, “Telephone, Bill. It’s one of the gang. Hurry up. He says it’s something very important!”
On the way into our house with the letter in my hand, I kept wondering if it was Poetry and what if it was and what if he wanted to tell me something about Shorty Long and the very bad things he had said about us on the pictures he had drawn. Also I was wondering if Poetry still wanted me to stay at his house that night and if my parents would let me.
I was just itching to tell him about the letter, and also I could hardly wait to show it to Dad, thinking it was probably intended for him anyway.
If the letter I had was from Shorty Long’s dad, which I knew it must be, then it explained a little bit why Shorty himself was such a terrible boy, since many boys are bad because their pops don’t train them up in the way they ought to go.
But before I tell you about what Poetry wanted to talk to me about, I’d better get this story finished.
As I said, it was the end of a very stormy day, the stormiest one I’d probably ever had. I won’t even have time to tell you anymore about Mr. Black or about the fire in the school-house—which I had planned to tell about—on account of this story being long enough.
And the way that fire got started was the strangest way you ever saw—with Mr. Black inside, and with the windows shut, and with some of us boys on the roof of the school-house, and with our ladder fallen down, and I not being able to get off the roof without falling or jumping and maybe getting hurt …
Well, just as soon as I have a chance, I’ll get going on that next story and tell you all about it and also about a lot of other important things that happened to the Sugar Creek Gang that winter.
The Sugar Creek Gang Series:
1 The Swamp Robber
2 The Killer Bear
3 The Winter Rescue
4 The Lost Campers
5 The Chicago Adventure
6 The Secret Hideout
7 The Mystery Cave
8 Palm Tree Manhunt
9 One Stormy Day
10 The Mystery Thief
11 Teacher Trouble
12 Screams in the Night
13 The Indian Cemetery
14 The Treasure Hunt
15 Thousand Dollar Fish
16 The Haunted House
17 Lost in the Blizzard
18 On the Mexican Border
19 The Green Tent Mystery
20 The Bull Fighter
21 The Timber Wolf
22 Western Adventure
23 The Killer Cat
24 The Colorado Kidnapping
25 The Ghost Dog
26 The White Boat Rescue
27 The Brown Box Mystery
28 The Watermelon Mystery
29 The Trapline Thief
30 The Blue Cow
31 Treehouse Mystery
32 The Cemetery Vandals
33 The Battle of the Bees
34 Locked in the Attic
35 Runaway Rescue
36 The Case of Missing Calf
PAUL HUTCHENS
MOODY PUBLISHERS
CHICAGO
© 1946, 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 Foundatio
n, La Habra, Calif. Used by permission.
Original Title: A New Sugar Creek Mystery
ISBN: 978-0-8024-7014-0
Printed by Bethany Press, Bloomington, MN – Oct., 2009
We hope you enjoy this book from Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:
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Printed in the United States of America
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
I was so angry because of the things I’d read in the crazy letter I had in my hand that, when Mom called me to hurry up and come into the house because one of the gang wanted to talk to me on the phone, I couldn’t even be glad, the way I usually am. Nearly always when Mom yells for me to come to the phone, I am so pleased I just drop whatever I am doing and run like a Sugar Creek cottontail straight to the house, my heart pounding and my mind imagining all kinds of important things I’ll probably hear.
But honestly, that letter was terrible. I took another glance at it and shoved in into my pocket—not that I’d have any trouble remembering it. I wouldn’t. I’d probably never forget it as long as I lived—that is, if I lived very long, for that letter, written in the craziest handwriting I ever saw, said that I was a roughneck and that I was to beware! That means to look out for something or somebody. It also sounded as if whoever wrote it was terribly mad at me for something I had done or was supposed to have done.
It was a crazy time of the day to get a letter too—just before dark. And it hadn’t been brought by our mail carrier either. He came every morning either in his car or sometimes, in the winter, in a sleigh with bells jingling on his horse’s harness. But the letter I held in my pocket had been shoved into our mailbox just a little while ago by some strange-looking man who had sneaked up out of the woods and put it into the box out beside the road, and then had hurried away into the woods again.
“Who is it?” I called to Mom when I reached our kitchen door, ready to dash through to the living room, where I’d make a dive across our nice new rug straight for the phone by the window.
“Wait a minute, Bill Collins!” Mom stopped me with her voice as if I’d been shot. I reached for the broom without even being told to and started sweeping the snow off my boots—I had walked in the deep snow in our yard because I had been reading the crazy letter and hadn’t paid any attention to where I was walking.
“Is it Poetry?” I asked her, taking a last two or three quick swipes with the brown-strawed broom. I hoped it was Poetry, the barrel-shaped member of the Sugar Creek Gang, who knew 101 poems by heart and was always quoting one of them at the wrong time. Whenever I was mad or glad or had a secret, Poetry was the first one of our gang of seven boys I wanted to talk to.
Just as I was about to say “Hello” into the telephone, Mom said, “Not more than one minute, Bill. I’m expecting a long-distance call from Wally’s father.”
I’d forgotten all about my cousin Wally, who lived in the city and had a new baby sister. Mom was going there that night to stay for a few days or a week, and Dad and I were going to “batch it,” which means we’d have to do our own cooking and even wash our own dishes while she was away.
We hardly ever had a long-distance phone call at our house, so whenever we did, it seemed very important. Just the same, I didn’t like to hear her say for me not to talk too long. Mom and Dad were always saying that whenever one of the gang called me up or I called one of them, which means that we maybe did sometimes talk too long.
Anyway, I grabbed up the phone and said, “Hello!”
Sure enough, it was Poetry, my very best pal, and his ducklike voice on the other end of the line made me feel good all over.
“Hi, there, Bill!” the ducklike voice said. “This is Poetry. I’ve just made up a poem about our new teacher. Want to hear it?”
I did, and I didn’t. As you maybe know, we got a new teacher in our one-room school right after Christmas vacation. His name was Mr. Black, and he was maybe forty years old and had some of his hair gone from the middle of the top of his head. We had all been pretty disappointed when we lost our pretty woman teacher, and none of us felt very glad about a change.
In fact, some of us hadn’t behaved ourselves very well that first day, and I especially had had trouble. On top of that, Dad and I’d had an interesting experience in our woodshed when I got home from school. So I had already made up my mind to be respectful to Mr. Black, the way any decent boy ought to be to his teacher.
I wanted to hear Poetry’s poem, of course, but mostly I wanted to tell him about the letter I had in my pocket, which called the Sugar Creek Gang a bunch of roughnecks, which none of us boys was trying to be.
“What’s the matter?” Poetry squawked. “Don’t you want to hear my poem? What are you so quiet for?”
“I was just thinking,” I said.
“About what?”
“Oh, just something,” I told him.
“Not too long,” Mom said behind me.
“I won’t,” I said to her.
“Won’t what?” Poetry said.
“Won’t talk very long. We’re getting a long-distance call in a minute, so we can’t talk too long.”
“Want to hear my new poem?”
“Sure,” I said, “but hurry up, because I have something very important to tell you.”
I could just imagine how Poetry would gasp when he heard the crazy letter I had in my pocket.
If I hadn’t had that experience with Dad in our woodshed, I think I would have laughed at Poetry’s poem about our new teacher, which went like this:
“The Sugar Creek Gang had the
strangest of teachers
And ‘Black’ his name was called;
His round red face had the homeliest
features—
He was fat and forty and bald.
“The very first day …”
“Can’t you hurry?” Mom said behind me. “We’re expecting the call right this minute!”
“I’ve got to hurry,” I interrupted Poetry. “We’re expecting a long-distance call. My cousin Wally has got a new baby sister and—”
“Oh, all right then,” Poetry said, “if you don’t think my poem is important—”
“But it is,” I said. “It’s—why, it’s even funny. But I have something even more important to quick tell you. It’s about a letter which somebody just shoved into our—into our—” I suddenly sneezed because of the smell of the sulfur that was in the room after Mom had lit a match. I always sneezed when somebody lit a match near me.
“I hope you don’t have a cold,” Poetry said, “because you’re supposed to come over to my house and sleep tonight. That’s why I called you up. Mother says for you to sta
y at our house while your mother is away at your cousin Wally’s house.”
Well, that sounded good. So in spite of the fact that I wanted to tell Poetry about the letter in my pocket and also Poetry wanted to finish his poem about our new teacher, Mr. Black, and also mainly because Mom wanted me to stop talking, I turned and asked her, “Can I stay at Poetry’s house tonight?”
“Certainly,” she said. “I’ve already planned that for you. Now, will you hang up?”
“I’ve got to hang up,” I said to Poetry, “but I’ll be over just as soon as I can. Mom says I can.”
“Bring the letter with you,” he said, “and bring your father’s big long flashlight. There’s something very important we have to do tonight.”
Boy, oh, boy, when Poetry said to bring Dad’s flashlight and that there was something very important we had to do, my imagination started to fly in every direction. Poetry and I had had some of the most exciting experiences at night when I had my dad’s long flashlight with me. Once we’d caught a bank robber who was digging for treasure down by the old sycamore tree not far from Poetry’s house.
“Sure I’ll bring the flashlight,” I said, “and the letter too. It’s the craziest letter I ever read. It says I’m a roughneck and that all the Sugar Creek Gang are roughnecks and—”
“Hey—” Poetry cut in, saying real saucily to somebody, “Hang up! This line is busy!”
Maybe I’d better explain to you that we had what is called a “party line,” and about a half dozen families all used it but had different rings. Anybody who wanted to could listen to anybody he wanted to, just by lifting up his own telephone receiver. But that is called eavesdropping and is considered very impolite and a breach of etiquette and everything.
I knew what Poetry meant, for I’d heard the sound myself. Somebody somewhere had lifted a telephone receiver and was listening to us.