That was as far as I got to listen right that minute because I heard somebody else choke and gulp, and all of a sudden Tom Till was sniffling. Then that little guy, the greatest little guy who ever had an alcoholic for a father, started to sob aloud as if he was heartbroken and couldn’t help himself.
I got the strangest feeling inside of me, the way I do when anybody cries, and I wanted to help him stop crying and didn’t know what to do.
“’S’matter?” Dragonfly said.
Tom said, “I want to go home!”
“’S’matter?” Circus said. “Are you sick?”
“Yeah, what’s the matter?” Poetry’s ducklike voice squawked.
But Little Jim was a smart little guy, and he said, “He doesn’t feel well. Let’s all take him home.”
“I’ll go b-b-by m-m-myself,” Little Tom said and started back into the cave.
But I knew it was too dark for him to see without a light, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “We’ll all go with you.”
“But we wanted to see Old Man Paddler,” Dragonfly said. “What’s the use to go home? I want some sassafras tea.”
“Keep still,” I said. “Tom’s not feeling well. He ought to go home.” I knew Little Tom was terribly embarrassed and that he’d be like a little scared rabbit if we took him into Old Man Paddler’s cabin now.
We must have made a lot of noise talking, because right that minute I heard Old Man Paddler’s voice calling down to us, “Wait a minute, boys! I’ll be right down.”
Well, it would have been impolite to run away now, so I whispered to Tom, “Little Jim and I are the only ones who heard him praying—and we—we like you anyway.” I gave him a kind of fierce hug around his shoulders, just as I heard Old Man Paddler’s trapdoor in the floor of his house opening and a shaft of light came through the crack in the door right in front of us.
In a jiffy our door would open too, and we’d see that kind, long-whiskered old man with the twinkling gray eyes, and then we’d all climb up the cellar steps and be inside his warm cabin with a fire crackling in his fireplace and the teakettle on the stove for making sassafras tea. And then the old man would be telling us a story about the Sugar Creek of long ago.
All of a sudden one of Little Tom’s arms reached out and gave me a very awkward half a hug real quick, as though he was very bashful but was saying, “You’re my best friend, Bill—I’d lick the stuffings out of the biggest bum in the world for you. In fact I’d do anything.” And I got the strangest warm feeling inside of me. Something just bubbled up in my heart. It was the oddest feeling and made me feel good all over.
Tom’s arm didn’t stay more than just time enough for him to let it fall to his side again. But I knew he liked me a lot, and it was a wonderful feeling.
Right that second I heard the old man lift the bar on the big wooden door and push it open. A bright light came in and shone all over all of us, and the old man said, “Well, well, well, well, the Sugar Creek Gang! Come on in, boys. We’ll have a party.”
Seconds later we were all inside his cellar and scrambling up the steps into his warm cabin.
4
It didn’t take long for all of us to get inside that old-fashioned cabin where there was a crackling fire in the fireplace and another roaring in the kitchen stove and a teakettle singing like everything, meaning that pretty soon we’d have some sassafras tea. In fact, as soon as the trapdoor was down and we were all sitting or standing or half-lying down on his couch and on chairs, the old man put some chips from sassafras tree roots into a pan on the stove, poured hot water on them, and let it start to boil. Almost right away the water began to turn as red as the chips themselves, and Little Jim’s eyes grew very bright as he watched.
One of the first things I noticed when I looked around the room was the old man’s Bible. It was open to the Sunday school lesson, as though maybe he’d been studying, getting ready for church tomorrow. I knew it was tomorrow’s lesson, because at our house we had already studied the same lesson two or three times. Mom and Dad always started to study next week’s lesson a whole week ahead of time so that, as Dad says, “Different ideas will come popping into our heads all week long, even while we’re working or studying or something.” I knew Little Jim’s parents always started studying their lessons the first thing in the week also, and maybe that was why that little guy was always thinking of so many things that were important.
From where I was sitting, I could look through a place in the old man’s kitchen window that didn’t have any frost on it, and I could see the shadow the smoke was making as it came out of the chimney. The long dark shadow was moving up the side of the old man’s woodshed out there and on up the slant of its snow-covered roof, making me think of a big, long darkish worm twisting and squirming and crawling up a stick in the summertime.
There must have been almost a foot of snow on the roof of that woodshed, I thought, and that reminded me of the snowman at the bottom of Bumblebee Hill. And when I noticed that the shadows of the trees out there were getting very long, I knew that meant it wouldn’t be long till the sun went down. If Poetry and I were to get a good picture of Mr. Black’s snow statue, we’d have to hurry.
Old Man Paddler suddenly said, looking especially at me, “One of you boys want to take the water pail and go down to the spring and get a pail of fresh water?”
I didn’t exactly want to because it was very warm in the cabin and would be very cold out there. But when Little Jim piped up and said, “Sure, I’ll do it,” I all of a sudden said the same thing.
Little Jim and I were soon out of there, with the old man’s empty pail in one of my hands, and were galloping along through the snow toward the spring. It was close to a spreading beech tree, which, like the one at the bottom of Bumblebee Hill, still had most of its old brown leaves on.
We quickly filled the pail with the sparkling, very cold water and hurried back to the cabin. I had started to open the door when Little Jim said, “Wait a minute. I want to see something.”
He whirled around quick and went back down the path toward the spring. Then he turned again and looked up toward the chimney of the old man’s cabin. He squinted his eyes to keep the sun from blinding them and looked and looked. He looked away in the direction of the woodshed, and I wondered what in the world that little guy was thinking.
“’S’matter?” I said.
He said, “Nothing. It’s just that there’s certainly a lot of snow on the roof of that woodshed, and there isn’t any on the old man’s cabin. How come?” Then he socked a stump with his stick and came lickety-sizzle to the door and opened it for me to go in with the pail of water.
Well, as soon as we got through with our sassafras tea, which Little Jim said tasted like a hot lollipop, we all scrambled around getting ready to go home.
If it had been in the summertime, we would have gone home the long way around, following the old wagon trail. We’d have taken a shortcut through the swamp and maybe stopped at the big mulberry tree and climbed up into it and helped ourselves to the biggest, ripest mulberries that grew anywhere along Sugar Creek. But it wasn’t summer, so we took the cave shortcut to the sycamore tree, where most of us separated and went in different directions, all except Poetry and me. We were going to get his camera and take a picture of Mr. Black’s snow statue. His parents had bought a new camera for him at Christmas.
“Well, well,” Poetry’s mother said when we stopped beside their big maple tree and I waited for him to go in the house and get the camera. “Where have you boys been? I’ve been phoning all over for you, Leslie.”
She meant she had been phoning all over for Poetry. “Leslie” was the name his parents used and which he had to use himself when he signed his name in school. But he would rather be called “Poetry.”
“’S’matter?” he asked his kind of round-shaped mom. “Didn’t I do my chores or something?”
Then Poetry’s mother startled us by saying, “We’ve had company. Mr. Black was here.
He just left a minute ago.”
A weird feeling started creeping up my spine.
“What did he want—I mean, where did he go? Where’d you tell him we were?” Poetry and I both asked at the same time, using different words but with probably the same scared feeling inside, thinking, What if she told him we were playing over on Bumblebee Hill and he went there?
“He didn’t seem to want anything in particular. He was out exercising his horse. Such a beautiful big brown saddle horse!” Poetry’s mother said. “And such a very beautiful saddle. He looks very stunning in his brown leather jacket and riding boots.”
“What did he want?” Poetry said again, taking the words right out of my mind.
She said, “Nothing in particular. He said he wanted to get acquainted with the parents of his boys.”
I looked at Poetry, and he looked at me, and he said to his mom, “He’s too heavy for the horse.”
His mother looked at Poetry, who was also heavy, and said, “Too much blackberry pie, I suppose. You boys want a piece?”
Poetry’s face lit up, and he said, “We’ll take a piece apiece,” which we did.
Then I said to him all of a sudden, “The sun’ll be shining on Mr. Black. If we want to get his picture, we’ll have to hurry!”
“Shining on whom?” Poetry’s mom asked.
Poetry said, “The sun is shining in through the window on my blackberry pie,” and he winked at me.
His mom went into their parlor to answer the phone, which was ringing.
Poetry finished his pie at the same time, slithered out of his chair, and went upstairs to his room to get his camera, just as I heard his mother say into their telephone, “Why, yes, Mrs. Mansfield, we do … Certainly. I’ll send Leslie right over with it right away … Oh, that’s all right … No, he won’t mind, I’m sure.”
It sounded like an ordinary conversation any mother might have with any ordinary neighbor. I’d heard my mom say something like that many a time. The only difference was that she would say, “Why, yes, Mrs. So-and-So, we have it. I’ll send Bill over with it right away … Oh, that’s all right … No, he won’t mind, I’m sure,” which I hardly ever did anymore because my dad wouldn’t let me. I was always running an errand for some neighbor who didn’t have any boys in the family, which is what boys are for.
I was wondering where Poetry had to go, with what, and why, when Poetry’s mom called up the stairs to him and said, “Leslie, will you bring down The Hoosier Schoolmaster, and you and Bill take it over to Mrs. Mansfield?”
Poetry called back down, “Get what?”
“The Hoosier Schoolmaster!” his mom said. “It’s on the second shelf in your library—it’s a red book with gold lettering on it.” Then Mrs. Thompson said to me, “Having a new gentleman teacher in the community has made everybody interested in that very interesting book, so Mrs. Mansfield is going to review it for the Literary Society next Wednesday night.”
Then Poetry’s mom called up to him again and asked, “Find it, Leslie?” which of course he hadn’t and couldn’t, anyway not upstairs, because right that minute it was lying open on two sticks stuck into Mr. Black’s stomach at the bottom of Bumblebee Hill.
For some reason it didn’t seem we wanted to tell Mrs. Thompson where it was, but it looked as though we were in for it. We couldn’t come right out and tell her where the book was, because she was like most of the other parents in Sugar Creek territory. She thought Mr. Black, who rode a fine horse and wore a brown leather jacket and riding boots and who could smile politely and tip his hat whenever he saw a Sugar Creek Gang mother, was a very fine gentleman. She certainly didn’t know what a hard time the gang had been having with him.
Poetry called down and said, “Bill and I’ll take it to her.”
The gang didn’t know Mrs. Mansfield very well, because she was a new person in the Sugar Creek territory and didn’t have any boys. She was more interested in society than any of the gang’s moms and was always reading important books. Maybe it made her feel more important if she knew the names of all the important books and who wrote them.
Poetry came downstairs with his camera, coming in a big hurry and saying to me in a businesslike voice, “Let’s get going, Bill.” He made a dive for the door so that his mom wouldn’t see he didn’t have The Hoosier Schoolmaster, not wanting her to ask where it was, so he wouldn’t have to tell her.
Both Poetry and I were out-of-doors and the door was half shut behind us when Poetry’s mother said, “Hadn’t we better wrap it up, Leslie, just in case you might accidentally drop it?”
“I promise you, I won’t drop it,” Poetry said. “Besides, we want to hurry. I want to take a picture of something before the sun gets too far down. Come on, Bill, hurry up!”
I hurried after him, both of us running fast out through their backyard in the direction of Bumblebee Hill.
But Poetry’s mother called to us again from the back door and said, “Where are you going? Mrs. Mansfield doesn’t live in that direction.”
Poetry and I stopped and looked at each other. We knew we were caught, so Poetry said to me, “What’ll we tell her?”
And remembering something my dad had taught me to do when I was caught in a trap, I said all of a sudden, quoting my dad, “Tell her the truth.”
Poetry scowled. “You tell her,” he said.
I did, saying, “Mrs. Thompson, the gang had The Hoosier Schoolmaster this afternoon, and we left him—I mean it—down on Bumblebee Hill. We have to go there first to get it.”
Suddenly I felt fine inside, and I knew that Dad was right. Poetry’s mom might not like to hear exactly where the book was right that very minute, and it didn’t seem exactly right to tell her. So when she didn’t ask me, I didn’t tell.
Poetry’s mother must have understood her very mischievous boy, though, and didn’t want to get him into a corner, for she said, “Thank you for telling me. Now I can phone Mrs. Mansfield that it will take a little longer for you to get there with the book. And by the way, if you see Mr. Black tell him about next Wednesday night. You probably will see him. I told him you boys were over on Bumblebee Hill and how to get there. He seemed to want to see you.”
Poetry and I both yelled back, “You told him what!” Without another word or waiting to hear what she said, we started like lightning straight for Sugar Creek and Bumblebee Hill, wondering if by taking a shortcut we could get there before Mr. Black did.
In my mind’s eye, I could see Poetry, if we got there first, making a dive for The Hoosier Schoolmaster on the snowman. And I could see myself making a leap and knocking the head completely off. I could see it go rolling the rest of the way down the hill with its corn-silk hair getting covered with snow. Also I could see Mr. Black in his brown riding jacket and boots, on his great big saddle horse, riding up right about the same minute.
What if we don’t get there first? I thought. What if we don’t? It will be awful! Absolutely terrible!
And Poetry must have been thinking the same thing because, for once in his life, in spite of his being barrel-shaped and very heavy and never able to run very fast, I had a hard time keeping up with him.
5
All the time Poetry and I were running through the snowy woods, squishety-sizzle, zip-zip-zip, crunch, crunch, crunch, I could see in my mind’s eye our new teacher’s big beautiful brown saddle horse prancing along in the snow toward Bumblebee Hill, carrying his heavy load just as easily as if it wasn’t anything. Right that very minute maybe the horse was standing and pawing the ground and in a hurry to get started somewhere, while maybe its rider was standing with The Hoosier Schoolmaster in his hand, looking at the picture of the schoolhouse and then maybe looking at the ridiculous-looking snowman we’d made.
In a few minutes Poetry and I were so out of wind that we had to stop and walk awhile, especially because I had a pain in my right side, which I sometimes get when I run too fast too long. “My side hurts,” I said.
He said, “Better stop and stoop d
own and unbuckle your boot and buckle it again, and it’ll quit hurting.”
“Do what?” I said, thinking his idea was crazy.
“It’ll quit hurting if you stop and stoop down and unbuckle your boot and then buckle it again.”
Well, I couldn’t run anymore with the sharp pain in my side, so even though I thought Poetry’s idea was crazy, I stooped over, bit off my mittens with my teeth, and laid them down on the snow for a minute. Then I unbuckled one boot and buckled it again while I was still stooped over. Then I straightened up and—would you believe it?—the ache in my side was gone! There wasn’t even a sign of it.
I panted a minute longer to get my breath, and then we started on the run again. “It’s crazy,” I said, “but it worked. How come?”
“Poetry Thompson’s father told me,” he said, puffing along ahead of me, “only it won’t work in the summertime. In the summertime you have to stop running and stoop down and pick up a rock and spit on it and turn it over and lay it down again very carefully upside down, and your side will quit hurting.”
Right then I stumbled over a log and fell on my face. I scrambled to my feet, and we hurried on. I said to Poetry, “What do you do when you get a sore toe from stumping it on a log? Stoop over and scrape the snow off the log and kiss it and turn it over and then—”
It wasn’t the time to be funny, only worried.
But Poetry explained that it was the stooping that did it. “It’s getting your body bent double that does it. Oh no! Look! There he is now!”
I looked in the direction of our house, since we were getting pretty close to Bumblebee Hill, and there was our teacher sitting on his big beautiful brown horse, which was standing and prancing right beside the old iron pitcher pump not more than twenty feet from our back door.
Mom was standing there with her sweater on, talking to him or maybe listening to him. Then I saw Mr. Black tip his hat like an honest-to-goodness gentleman and bow, and his pretty horse whirled about and went in a hurry to our front gate, which was being held open by my dad, and he went galloping up the road. The horse was galloping in the shadow that they both made on the snowy road ahead of them.
Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 7-12 Page 35