Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 1-6 Read online

When you’re a boy, I guess nothing feels better than sleeping in a tent. We felt like real campers—or forest rangers! Pretty soon we had on our pajamas and were sitting on the edges of our cots, hating to turn out the light and crawl in. And I was wondering which one of us was going to say his prayers first.

  Maybe Poetry was thinking the same thing, because finally he reached over, got his New Testament, handed it to me, and said, “Let’s read our chapter together tonight.”

  I guess I forgot to tell you that Poetry and I had promised each other we’d read a chapter out of the Bible at least once each day and that we’d pray for each other every night.

  Well, I turned to the book of Acts, which is the fifth book of the New Testament, and read about fifteen verses. It was the story about Paul and Silas having to go to jail for preaching the gospel and how they sang songs at midnight and were so happy because they loved Jesus in spite of being in jail with their feet all fastened tight in wooden clamps. Then there was a big earthquake, and the jailer tried to kill himself with a sword because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But instead, he became a Christian, and he and his whole family were baptized before morning.

  It was a great story, I tell you, and we liked it a lot, especially since Poetry and I kind of liked each other the way Paul and Silas did. We made up our minds that if ever we had to go to jail for being Christians we’d do it, and we’d sing at midnight too, only we wouldn’t exactly want any earthquake.

  Then the two of us got down on our knees together beside Poetry’s bed and said our prayers. This time Poetry didn’t say his little poem prayer at all but just talked to the heavenly Father with his own words. He explained afterward that he was getting too big to just quote a poem to God, so he’d decided to talk to Him right out, knowing that He loved boys and that Jesus had been a boy once Himself.

  Soon the light was out, and we were lying there on our cots, thinking and talking and telling each other stories and looking through the little square hole at the top of the tent entrance, which was open for fresh air.

  I was looking out at the sky with the stars looking down at us as if they were our best friends, when Poetry started to say:

  Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

  How I wonder what you are!

  Up above the world so high,

  Like a diamond in the sky.”

  I always did like that poem, ever since I was little, so I made him quote all of it, liking especially the verse that goes:

  “In the dark blue sky you keep,

  And often through my curtains peep;

  For you never shut your eye,

  Till the sun is in the sky.”

  Then we began to get sleepy, and in a minute we were gone.

  Did you ever wonder where a boy goes when he goes to sleep? Of course, you don’t really go anywhere. When you wake up, you’re still right there in bed.

  At least, I was when I was awakened a little later by the strangest noise coming from the old maple tree somewhere right above our heads. It sounded like somebody crying or else moaning or wailing in a trembly voice.

  As soon as I was fully awake, I knew it was nothing but a screech owl and nothing to be afraid of. I’d seen plenty of them in the daytime. They generally sit all alone in a hole in some old tree, sound asleep, waiting for night to come so they can go mouse hunting or maybe cutworm hunting.

  Dad says screech owls are some of the farmer’s best friends, because it’s at night that cutworms cause the most trouble, cutting off the little corn shoots and beans and things like that. Since the screech owls hunt them at night, killing hundreds of them, boys ought never to kill any screech owls no matter how much they don’t like them.

  Poetry was awake too, and pretty soon he whispered, “Bill!”

  “What?” I whispered back.

  “I’ve got an idea.”

  I was still pretty sleepy, so I just grunted.

  “Remember Old Man Paddler?” Poetry asked.

  That woke me up.

  “Yes,” I said, and then that screech owl let out another long, trembly wail that sent shivers up and down my spine. When you’re home and upstairs in bed listening to an owl out in the woods, it’s a whole lot different from when you’re sleeping in a tent—which is about the same as sleeping out of doors.

  But Poetry didn’t pay any attention. He said, “I asked my dad a lot of questions about Old Man Paddler when I got home tonight—without telling him anything—and he said that he was the kindest old man that ever lived and that he especially liked boys!”

  I didn’t answer, just waiting to see what else Poetry would have to say. I knew he’d thought of something important. I could hear his cot squeaking, as though he was getting up.

  “Wait’ll I scare that owl away, and I’ll tell you,” he said.

  He fumbled around for his flashlight, turned it on, stepped into his slippers, raised the tent flap, and went out, with me following right behind him—both of us looking like a couple of ghosts in our pajamas. He turned the flashlight up into the tree, and for a moment we saw Mr. Owl with his catlike eyes blinking and looking very fierce and disgusted with us for not appreciating his entertainment. Then he spread his wings and flew like a shadow across the garden toward the barn.

  We were standing there in the moonlight after the owl had flown away, when Poetry said so suddenlike that it startled me, “If Old Man Paddler liked boys and was kind to them, and was even a Christian, as Dad says he was, then that wasn’t him we saw today! Do you know what I think? I think the man we saw today was wearing a wig and false whiskers. I saw his hands, and they weren’t any more an old man’s hands than anything. I’ll bet he’s somebody that’s trying to make people think he’s Old Man Paddler so he can fool Barry Boyland and get the treasure. And I’ll bet Barry knows there’s a map and he knows that when his uncle died he left his money somewhere, and Barry’s come back to get it.”

  “But what about the wig and whiskers you found in the tree?” I asked. I couldn’t figure out what Poetry was driving at.

  “They belonged to the man we saw today. When I found them, he had to get some new ones.”

  That sounded sensible, and I told Poetry so.

  “Also,” Poetry said, just like a real detective explaining things, “as long as Barry Boyland is in the hospital, it’s up to us boys to protect his interests.”

  “Maybe we ought to tell the police,” I said, thinking what my dad would say we ought to do.

  “Not on your life! Think we want to have them spoil our fun?”

  Well, I didn’t want to argue with Poetry. Besides, his ideas were nearly always right.

  We had started to go back into the tent when he stopped so quickly I bumped into him.

  “Listen!” he said.

  I didn’t hear anything, but I did see something that looked like a light in the woods, maybe not far from the sycamore tree.

  Maybe I forgot to tell you that old sycamore tree down along the swamp was nearer to Poetry’s house than it was to any of the rest of the gang’s, being maybe not more than a quarter of a mile away. To get to it from Poetry’s house you just had to go down a hill and through the woods.

  “Get your binoculars—quick!” Poetry commanded under his breath. He handed me his flashlight, and in a jiffy I was in the tent and out again and Poetry was looking through my binoculars down the hill toward where we knew the tree was.

  “Look!” he whispered and handed the binoculars back to me.

  All I could see was a light and a shadow moving about it.

  “We’ve got to do something quick!” Poetry said. “We won’t even have time to dress.” He was in the tent and out again with the disguise he’d found in the old tree day before yesterday.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked, my teeth chattering—and not because I was cold either, for it was a warm night. I noticed that Poetry had put on his shoes, so I put mine on too, real fast.

  “Let’s go, or we’ll be too late!” he said.

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nbsp; Now, I didn’t exactly want to run smack into any ghosts or whatever was down along the swamp, but I didn’t want to seem a coward either. So I followed him as fast as I could. The wind was blowing in our faces, so we knew whoever was there wouldn’t hear us coming unless we made a lot of noise.

  Poetry looked ridiculous in his big, flapping white pajamas, and I guess I looked just as ridiculous running after him. He knew every inch of the woods along the creek here, so we just hurried along. I still thought his idea was crazy—well, dangerous anyway.

  When we got to the bottom of the hill, we stopped to get our breath and to look through the binoculars again. As plain as day, now we could see an old-fashioned lantern and a man digging with a spade right beside the swamp rosebush where we’d been digging that afternoon.

  “We’ll have to hurry!” Poetry said excitedly. “Look what a big hole he’s got already!”

  We stooped down low and crawled along as quietly as we could until we were close, so close that if we’d made any noise he’d hear us, and that would spoil everything. Now we could see it was the same old man we’d seen in the afternoon, with the long white hair and the long beard, and he was working terribly fast.

  Then I looked at Poetry and guessed what he was going to do, for he was putting on the disguise whiskers and the wig.

  “Listen,” he whispered in my ear, “you lie flat on the ground right here, and when I let out a long ghost laugh, you turn the flashlight on me quick, and leave it on until I start moaning and talking crazy, and then you turn it off. When I start laughing again, you turn it on again quick!”

  Poetry stood up and started waving his arms, and then with that squawky voice of his, which sounded more like a ghost than any real ghost could have sounded, he let out a bloodcurdling wail like a screech owl with a bad cold.

  I turned the flashlight on him just as he started that wailing. Honest, if I hadn’t known who it was, I’d have been scared almost to death. He was swinging his arms, and his pajamas were flapping, and it was enough to scare anybody.

  Then Poetry started the most awful moaning you ever heard and saying slowly, “I … am … Old … Man … Paddler’s … GHOST!” He yelled the word ghost in a deep voice like a man’s. Then he let out that terrible laugh and sent the shivers up and down my spine again.

  I kept the flashlight turned on him and watched him, waving his white pajamas and looking even worse than a ghost.

  Well sir, that man dropped his spade and looked around as if he was scared out of his wits. But in a flash he jumped up and dashed lickety-sizzle straight toward Poetry. Both hands were stretched out in front of him as if he was going to grab Poetry and choke him to death.

  And just that second, two shadows darted out from behind some bushes. One of them made a dive for the man’s legs in football style, and a voice—it was Big Jim’s voice—yelled for us to come and help. I tell you I was glad to hear Big Jim. To tell the truth, I was pretty badly scared and not wanting to let Poetry know it.

  It turned out that Big Jim and Circus, who lived right across the road from each other, had decided maybe they’d better stand guard at the rosebush tonight for fear somebody would spoil everything. So they’d hidden in the bushes, having gotten there just a few minutes before we did, coming up the creek from the other direction.

  In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, all four of us—Big Jim, Circus, Poetry, and I—were scrambling all over the man. His white hair and whiskers came off just as Poetry thought they would, and we saw he had black hair, the same color as the radio had said the bank robber was supposed to have.

  The man struck out with his big fists and kicked and swore. One of his fists caught me on the chin and knocked me flat. It didn’t hurt much at the time because I was so mad, and things don’t seem to hurt so much when you’re mad. But I didn’t stay down. In a second I was right in the thick of the fight again. I got there just in time to see Poetry’s big right foot with his heavy shoe kick the man right on the shin, and the man let out a yell of pain. I was glad right that minute that Poetry had big feet.

  I dived in headfirst and got hold of one of the man’s legs, and Circus grabbed the other. We held on like a couple of bulldogs or maybe like a pair of snapping turtles holding onto a boy’s toes. Pretty soon we had the man down on his stomach, with Poetry lying right across his shoulders and head.

  Big Jim knew all the best wrestling tricks and, as I told you before, was terribly strong. Well, he’d gotten that man’s arm behind him in what is called the “arm grapevine hold,” and that’s how it had been so easy for us to get him down and keep him there, in spite of the man’s yelling and kicking and swearing and threatening to kill us.

  When he was locked up in jail the next day, we learned another reason it had been so easy to keep him down. He had one eye swollen almost shut where Big Jim had hit him with his fist. It took Big Jim’s knuckles almost a week to get completely well, he’d hit the man so hard.

  Anyway, that’s where Little Jim’s gunnysack came in handy. We’d left it by the rosebush when we’d been scared away in the afternoon. As I told you, Big Jim knew how to tie twenty-one different kinds of knots. Well, he knew how to make rope too. He took his knife and cut that sack into strips and twisted them together. In almost no time he had that robber’s legs and hands tied so that he couldn’t get away.

  After we got him tied, we didn’t know what to do with him.

  “What’ll we do with him?” Big Jim asked.

  “Let’s bury him,” Circus suggested, not meaning it, of course. “He’s got his grave already dug.”

  That started our prisoner to swearing as I’d never heard any man swear in my life. I was glad Little Jim wasn’t there, because he just naturally loved Jesus so much that when anybody used His name like that it made Little Jim feel terribly bad.

  The man began to kick and squirm and try to get loose, not knowing that Big Jim was an expert at tying knots.

  Then all of a sudden Circus let out a yell and picked up something shiny that had been lying right there on the ground by the man’s lantern. At first I could hardly believe my eyes, but there it was in Circus’s hand as plain as day—a real honest-to-goodness revolver!

  I guess our faces were pretty sober right then, for we realized how serious things were, and how maybe one of us might have been shot.

  I didn’t tell any of the boys at the time, although I did tell Poetry later, but I just shut my eyes for a moment and whispered a thank-you prayer. “Dear God,” I said, “thank You for not letting any of us boys get killed.” And I was thankful too, I can tell you.

  Big Jim took the gun, opened it, and saw that it was loaded. Then he said grimly in a voice that sounded awful fierce, “And now, Mr. Whoever-you-are, I’ve got your gun pointing right straight toward you! You lie still while we get the sheriff!”

  Poetry was delegated to run home for his dad, which he did. His father phoned the sheriff and then came down himself to help us guard the robber until the police got there.

  That black-haired man must have thought Poetry was a real ghost, or else that Old Man Paddler had come to life again, or he wouldn’t have been so upset. Anyway that’s what I was thinking that night while we were going back to Poetry’s tent.

  We’d gotten to the rosebush just in time too, I thought, for right down in the hole where the robber had been digging we’d found a rusty steel box, which must have been buried by Old Man Paddler himself.

  Of course, as Poetry’s dad said while we were all still waiting there in the lantern light for the sheriff to come, taking turns holding that steel box on our laps, “Barry Boyland will have to prove he is really and truly the old man’s nephew before his treasure, or whatever it is, will be given to him.”

  Well, at last Poetry and I were on our cots again with the same stars looking down at us through the opening in the tent and with the same wind sighing through the leaves in the maple overhead. Of course, we weren’t going to get to sleep right away, because we were pretty excited a
nd so pleased with ourselves that we didn’t know what to do. But then I got sleepier and sleepier, and the next thing I knew, it was morning.

  10

  Maybe I never told you that if it hadn’t been for the gang, I’d have been really lonesome. You see, I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. And when you’re the only child in the house, you keep wishing and wishing you weren’t. I guess I wanted a little brother as much as I wanted anything in the world.

  Anyway, when I told Poetry good-bye that morning, I couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have just one brother, even if he was littler than I was.

  I was still feeling that way when I came up to the back door of our house, carrying my suitcase. Just then Dad came hurrying in from the barn with his teeth shining under his mustache and with the happiest smile on his face you ever saw. First he picked me up in his big strong arms and whirled me around in a circle, crying, “Hurrah! Hurrah! Bill Collins!” as if he was extra happy to see me.

  I thought maybe he’d heard about us catching the robber, and I could hardly wait until we got in the house so I could tell him and Mom all about it. But then all of a sudden I heard a baby crying, and something inside of me just kind of bubbled up as it does when I want to tell Jesus I love Him, and I knew that a new baby had come to live with us.

  “The grandest surprise for you!” Dad said. “The grandest brand new baby in the world!”

  And I could see myself having a little brother to play with and not being so lonesome anymore when I was at home.

  “A brother?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t a girl. In fact, I’d made up my mind to be mad if it was a girl, because I wanted a brother so badly.

  “It’s a girl!” Dad said. “The prettiest, blue-eyed, curly-haired little sister a boy ever had given to him!” He was so pleased he couldn’t keep still. He picked up my suitcase and said, “Come on, Bill Collins, and see our little Charlotte Ann!”

  Now why in the world I didn’t like the name Charlotte Ann I didn’t know. But then, I didn’t want a baby sister either. So I hung back, not wanting to go into the house. Besides, I was disappointed because I wanted them to be excited over our catching the robber—supposing, of course, they’d heard about it. But instead, they were making a big fuss over the new baby.