Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 7-12 Page 6

  For a minute I thought I was going to see John Till bend his rusty knees and actually get right down beside that fireplace and do what the verse in the Bible said for him to do.

  But then he straightened up, shook his head, pulled out of his hip pocket a red bandana, wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and said, “Not tonight. No, I can’t do it! I ain’t goin’ to be a coward while the police are after me. I ain’t goin’ to be weak and turn to religion now.”

  Right that minute, when Old Man Paddler was about to show him another verse, I heard a sound outside. It was a little like a limb falling from a pine tree and a little like something else.

  I wondered if it was eleven o’clock and Little Jim’s dad had come for us.

  John Till must have heard the sound too. He jumped, looked up, and his face had a hunted look. He leaped to his feet and looked all around as if trying to see a place to hide. Then he saw the stairs to the loft and said huskily, “You’ve been kind to my boy. Now be good to me. Let me hide here tonight. And if they come, you tell ’em I’m not here. Tell them you haven’t seen me at all. Tell ’em—”

  There was another sound outside, like men’s voices, out by the spring and coming toward the woodshed and the house.

  John Till shuffled toward the wooden stairs and took two or three steps up.

  I don’t know why on earth I had to sneeze just then or why Jeep had to growl a low, deep, savage growl, but those two things happened.

  “Achoo!” I went.

  “Grrr …” went the picayune.

  John Till stood stock still and looked all around the room. The next thing we knew he had made a dive for the trapdoor to the cellar, had pulled it up, and a second later was down the stairs.

  The heavy oak door down there opened and shut with a bang, and I heard running footsteps going back into the cave toward the old sycamore tree.

  7

  Squeak! Bang! Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. That was the way the exit of old hook-nosed John Till sounded to us.

  It didn’t take us long to get downstairs. When I reached the bottom of the steps, Poetry, Little Jim, and Dragonfly were all there. In fact, Jeep was down there too before I was.

  Old Man Paddler was standing beside the table looking surprised. In his left hand was his black Bible. I think I never saw a man with such a disappointed expression on his face.

  “Well, boys—” he began, then stopped. We looked into his eyes, and all the twinkle was gone out of them. There was a tremble on his lips, which I couldn’t see but which I knew was there by the way his long white whiskers were trembling.

  I don’t know why I’d thought I had heard a sound of voices. We opened the door and looked out and called, but there wasn’t any answer.

  I decided it was my imagination making me think the police were there. I was just remembering what Little Jim’s dad had told him, I thought—that the police were after John Till—and Little Jim had told me that we ought to pray for him. And I had the thing all tangled up in my mind, so that when I heard the sound of falling limbs from the old pine tree outside, I supposed that it was voices. On the other hand, maybe there had been voices. I didn’t know.

  But while we were standing there with Seneth Paddler, shuffling our nervous feet and looking down the cellar steps, knowing that John Till had run away, I got to wondering if he might bump into Little Jim’s dad, who was supposed to come for us any minute. Or maybe the police were on his trail and would be waiting for him there at the door to the cave, and John Till would get caught after all.

  I really felt sorry for him.

  “Well, boys, I guess we’ve made a mistake,” Old Man Paddler’s trembling voice said to us. “We’ll have to pray for Bob Till’s father.” When he said “Bob’s father,” I knew that one important reason he wanted John saved was for his boys’ sake.

  We put the trapdoor down again and sat in chairs around the fireplace. I opened my lunch pail and divided up everything for everybody, and we waited for Little Jim’s dad to come, not knowing which door he would use. All of a sudden while the five of us were sitting there, Little Jim piped up with the question he’d been wanting to ask for a long time.

  “Say, Mr. Paddler, while we were watching the men skin the coon, we got to wondering about the story in the—in the Bible where God made some coats out of the skins of animals and put ’em on Adam and Eve. We wondered why He did that.”

  Well, Old Man Paddler listened to that little fellow ask that question, and I could see right away that he wanted to tell us the correct answer. Nothing made him more happy than for a boy to be interested in things like that. So he smiled—I could tell he was smiling, because the twinkles were in his eyes again—as he sat there on his chair beside the table. He opened his Bible and turned to the first part of it, the book of Genesis, at the right place.

  He began to read to us the whole story and to explain as he went along that Adam and Eve were the very first people there were in the world and that all of us are descended from them.

  Dragonfly said, “I thought the cavemen were the first people there were in the world.”

  The old man looked at him over the top of his glasses and said, “Boys, remember one thing as long as you live. The first man in the world was Adam. As far as cavemen are concerned, there are people in some parts of the world who live in caves today. I know, because on my trip around the world I saw some of them. And there are people in some parts of the world who still live in trees, right in this very world in which all of us live.” I knew that was even in one of my schoolbooks.

  Then the kind old voice went on explaining to us. “Maybe I’ll never have a chance to tell you boys this again, but I want you to remember it as long as you live. You all know the story of the cross and of the One who was the Son of God, who hung there one day out on a hill called Calvary. You know how His blood flowed out of His veins. The Bible says, ‘The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.’”

  While Old Man Paddler was telling us that story, I listened carefully, and it seemed for a minute that I was standing way back there outside Jerusalem at the foot of the hill in front of the cross, looking up toward the blue sky. I could see the face of the Man he was talking about, bloody under the hot, thirsty sun. I could see the two thieves, one on either side of Jesus. I could see the heat waves trembling above the top of the crosses the way they do on a sweltering day over the cornfields along Sugar Creek. I could see the people standing there in their different colored clothes.

  In my mind I could see the blood flowing from the wounds in Jesus’ hands and feet where the spikes had been driven through into the wooden cross. And all of a sudden I began to love Him very much, because I knew the Bible says that while He was hanging there He was dying for the sins of the whole world. And that meant He had done it for me and for all the rest of the Sugar Creek Gang. He had also done it for John Till.

  Well, the old man’s story went on. Everything was very quiet there in the cabin. All we could hear inside, besides his friendly voice, was the crackling of the fire in the fireplace and the sizzle-sizzle of the teakettle. We could hear the wind sighing in the pine trees outside.

  My thoughts rambled around a little, getting all mixed up with the sound of the fire and the wind in the trees and the teakettle. It seemed I could still hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of John Till’s shoes as they hurried away down the cave. Then for a minute it seemed I could hear the footsteps of one of Jesus’ disciples, a man whose name was Judas. When he realized how he had betrayed Jesus, he ran away to hang himself. I could sort of hear his footsteps also, going crunch, crunch, crunch as he hurried out of the city. Crunch, crunch, crunch … until their sound disappeared.

  Then the story the old man was telling made my mind swing back across thousands of years to the first two people there were in the world, and I was standing in a beautiful park-like garden.

  I didn’t expect Little Jim to interrupt him right then. He did it so quickly that I was surprised when he asked, “Did He
make the coats of skins for Adam and Eve so they’d have a cover for their—for their sins, maybe?”

  The old man, who had been talking with his glasses on so he could read when he wanted to, looked up at all of us and took off his glasses so he could see us better. Then, maybe guessing which one of us had asked the question, he said, “That’s right, Little Jim, until someday His only Son came to take them away.”

  It was the easiest thing in the world to listen to that story, though it was a little too long for me to tell all of it here for you. But somehow I was glad a man like John Till (or even Bill Collins) had Someone on his trail, tracking him everywhere he went—not to hurt him or kill him but to save him.

  And I was glad all those people back then had had an object lesson so it would be easy for them to understand that someday there would be a real Savior.

  Well, it was a great story—though, as I said, a little too long and hard for me to remember all that the friendly, white-whiskered old man said. But we listened to it, and we understood. And I wished John Till had heard it. I wished all the people in the world could hear and understand it.

  Suddenly Little Jim said, “What are all those colored pins over there on the map for?”

  Old Man Paddler stood up, then sat down, and began to talk about the map of the world. “Well, boys,” he began, “it’s a little secret which I haven’t told anybody about. I wanted all the Sugar Creek Gang to be here at the same time to hear about it, but I can tell you tonight, anyway.”

  Do you know what the pins on that map were for? He had a pin on it for every missionary he was praying for—a yellow pin for missionaries in China, the black-headed ones for those who were missionaries to Africans, the brown for those who were missionaries to people who were brown-skinned, such as many who lived in Mexico and South America and Palm Tree Island.

  And all of a sudden I remembered what I was supposed to tell Old Man Paddler, so I said, “My dad said for me to remember to tell you that he was coming up to see you tomorrow to talk to you about Palm Tree Island.”

  The old man sighed, smiled, stood up, and walked over to the map like a teacher in a schoolroom. He pointed with one of his long, bony fingers at caterpillar-shaped Palm Tree Island, and he said, “Boys, I want you to keep your eyes on that place, look it up in your geography and history books and encyclopedias, and be ready for action. I’ll have a surprise for you one of these days.”

  That’s all he said, but there was a mysterious something in his voice that made me feel good.

  “What kind of surprise?” Little Jim wanted to know.

  “What kind of surprise?” barrel-shaped Poetry beside me asked courteously. Poetry had a very serious look on his face because at home he had a scrapbook in which he kept pictures of missionaries and maps and things telling about them. His parents were especially glad he wasn’t making a scrapbook of movie stars and things like that. For all his mischievousness, Poetry had a good mind that could think serious things, even though you couldn’t always tell it.

  “Well …” Again there was a mysterious something in the trembling old voice. He said, “Boys, how would you like to go down there one of these days?”

  I felt my heart leap and start off on a fast race as if it was going somewhere all by itself. I remembered that the old man had sent us on a camping trip up north, paying all of our expenses just because he liked boys so well and because he wanted us to learn a lot of things about first aid and about camp life and about the New Testament, which his nephew Barry Boyland taught us on that trip. I knew that Old Man Paddler had spent some of his money to send the whole Sugar Creek Gang to Chicago, where we’d had a wonderful time. And I knew also that he had a lot of money that he wasn’t wasting on himself but that he was willing to spend on different people.

  So do you know what I got to thinking? I got to thinking that maybe that generous-hearted old man was planning for the Sugar Creek Gang to someday go down the east coast of Florida and maybe get on a boat or a plane and go away over almost one hundred miles of ocean to that beautiful little place called Palm Tree Island. Poetry once told me Columbus thought it was the most beautiful island in the world.

  I wished it, and I wished it, and I wished it.

  Pretty soon it was eleven o’clock and time for Little Jim’s dad to come for us. Then I heard a sound of steps on the twigs outside and a knock on the front door, and it was the one I thought it was.

  Little Jim’s dad, as you know, was the township trustee and had to look after boys who played truant from school and such things as that. He was a fine person, whom all of us liked very much. He was the one who was especially kind to Big Bob Till, John’s oldest boy, and he was the one to whom the government had paroled Bob. He came in, and we all got ready to go home.

  Old Man Paddler let us go through his cellar to take the shortcut to the sycamore tree, which saved a lot of walking, although eight o’clock in the morning would come just as quick, no matter how long it took us to get home.

  We opened the solid oak door in the cellar. With our flashlights and with Jeep, the picayune, we started to walk through to the tree at the mouth of the cave. It looked as if our fun for the whole evening was over, so we started telling Little Jim’s dad about John Till and all the different things that had happened.

  “We caught a possum all by ourselves,” Dragonfly said. “Jeep treed him, and Circus climbed the tree and—”

  “Jeep got onto a sidetrack,” Poetry said, going on with the story from where he had made Dragonfly leave off. “And there happened to be a possum close by, which looked like it wouldn’t hurt a picayune, so he ran away from the coon and chased the helpless possum up a persimmon tree.”

  That was the way everybody felt—happy and cheerful. All except Bill Collins, who wondered how many teeth would have to be filled and who wished he had drunk more milk the past year or two and not had so much candy, so that his teeth would have been better.

  We came to the canvas at the mouth of the cave, pushed it aside, and stepped out into the world again. And there we were by the side of the lightning-gashed sycamore tree. We hadn’t any sooner gotten outside than Jeep, the picayune, pricked up his weird-looking ears and acted as if he was hearing something. Then he sniffed the air and acted as if he was smelling something. Then he swung his head around and looked straight ahead of where his nose was pointing, away out into the dark, as if he was seeing something. The rough brown and light-brown curly hair on his back started to move and stand up a little.

  He began to growl first, then to bark in his throat. Then like a shot he swished out through the woods as fast as he could go toward the path that leads through the swamp. Away out there somewhere he started to bark fiercely as if he had something treed or there was a rabbit in a brush pile.

  Dragonfly, standing next to me, raised his excited voice and yelled, “Come back here, Jeep. You crazy picayune! Leave that rabbit alone!”

  But that little Airedale had a strange sound in his nervous voice. He didn’t seem to be barking at a rabbit but maybe at something he’d never seen before, something very important!

  “Jeep!” Dragonfly cried again, but his voice was swallowed up by Jeep’s yelping and barking, as if that dog was begging us to come and see what he had caught or was about to catch.

  So out we went, Little Jim’s dad leading the way at first. Then, because I knew the swamp better than he did, he let me lead, and the rest followed me. I had a long flashlight in my hand. I knew just where to walk and not get off the trail into the slime and ooze.

  Just then the flashlight showed me where Jeep was—behind a wild rosebush, and he was barking more excitedly than ever. In a few steps we were all there.

  Then I let out a scream, which I certainly didn’t intend to do but couldn’t help because I saw something!

  Something, I tell you. “Look!” I cried, and every nerve was trembling so much I dropped the flashlight. Then, of course, nobody could see till I’d picked it up again. I was so scared by now that I
couldn’t even yell. I held the flashlight out toward the place again, past the barking, panting dog, and saw it again.

  “Look, everybody. Look! There’s a—there’s a man’s head lying out there all by itself!”

  8

  I had never seen anything like that before in all my life—a man’s head lying out in the middle of the swamp. My flashlight was focused straight on it, and I could see the eyes blinking and the lips moving. And then I heard a voice call, loud and frightened, “Help! Help!”

  Well, what would you do if you saw somebody’s head lying out in a swamp and you heard a voice calling, “H-e-e-e-lp,” and the voice sounded worse than Old Bawler’s long, sad high voice trembling across the woods?

  “Help … help!”

  The dog was barking. Poetry was yelling. Little Jim’s dad was talking. When Dragonfly saw the head, he was more excited than ever. He cried, “It’s John Till! He’s got off the path that leads through the swamp and has stepped off into the quagmire, and he’s going down. We’ve got to save him!”

  It looked like we had to do something and we ought to do it mighty quick! I looked at that little barking Airedale, who looked up and back at us with a worried expression on his face. At the same time he seemed to be saying, “I told you I wasn’t any picayune! I told you I wasn’t an insignificant person or thing!”

  Well, not only did we see John Till’s head lying out there in the swamp—that’s what it had looked like at first—but I knew he had done what Dragonfly said. He had stepped aside from the path, and now there he was, floundering around in the quicksand. The quicksand had slipped from under his feet, and he had gone down, down, down until he was in all the way to his neck. Then I saw his hands, and he was holding them out the way my baby sister, Charlotte Ann, holds out her hands to my mom when she is in her crib and wants to get out and can’t and feels terribly unhappy. She reaches up to Mom to put down her nice kind arms and pull her out and up.