Part 1 (1/2)

Shenanigans at Sugar Creek.

by Paul Hutchens.

1

One tough guy in the Sugar Creek territory was enough to keep us all on the lookout all the time for different kinds of trouble. We'd certainly had plenty with Big Bob Till, who, as you maybe know, was the big brother of Little Tom Till, our newest gang member.

But when a new quick-tempered boy whose name was Shorty Long, moved into the neighborhood and started coming to our school, and when Shorty and Bob began to chum around together, we never knew whether we'd get through even one day without something happening to start a fight, or get one of the gang into trouble with our teacher. On top of that, we had a _new_ teacher, a _man_ teacher at that, who didn't exactly know that most of us tried to behave ourselves most of the time.

Poetry, who is the barrel-shaped member of our gang, had made up a poem about our new teacher, whom not a one of us liked very well, on account of not wanting a _new_ teacher when we'd liked our pretty lady other teacher so _extra_ well. This is the way the poem went:

”_The Sugar Creek Gang had the worst of teachers And 'Black' his named was called, His round, red face had the homeliest of features, He was fat and forty and bald._”

Poetry was always writing a new poem or always quoting one somebody else wrote.

Maybe it was a library book that was to blame for _some_ of the trouble we had in this story, though. I'm not quite sure, but the very minute my pal, Poetry, and I saw the picture in a book called _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, we both had a very mischievous idea come into our minds, which we couldn't get out no matter how we tried....

This is the way it happened.... Poetry and I were in his house, in fact, I was staying at his house all night one night, and just before we went to sleep, we sat up in his big bed for awhile, looking at the picture which was a full-paged glossy picture of a man school teacher away up on the roof of a country schoolhouse, and he was holding a wide board across the top of the chimney. The schoolhouse's only door was open and a gang of tough-looking boys was tumbling out, along with a lot of smoke.

”Have you ever read the story?” I said to Poetry, and he said, ”No, have you?” and when I said ”No,” we both read a part of it. The story was about a man teacher whose very bad boys in the school had locked him out of the building, and he had climbed up on the roof of the school and put a board across the chimney, and smoked them out just like a boy smokes a skunk out of a woodchuck den along Sugar Creek.

_That_ put the idea in our heads, and it stayed there until a week or two after Christmas, before it got us into trouble.... Then just like a time-bomb exploding, all of a sudden that innocent idea which an innocent author had written in an innocent library book, exploded--and--Well, here goes the story.

It was a swell Sat.u.r.day afternoon at our house with bright sunlight on the snow and the weather just right for coasting. I was standing by our kitchen sink, getting ready to start wiping a big stack of dishes which my mom had just rinsed with steaming hot water out of the teakettle. I was just reaching for a drying towel when Mom said, ”Better wash your hands first, Bill,” which I had forgotten to do like I once in a while do. Right away I washed my hands with soap, in our bathroom, came back and grabbed the towel off the rack by the range, and started in carefully wiping the dishes, not exactly wanting to, on account of the clock on our mantel-shelf said it was one o'clock, and the gang was supposed to meet on b.u.mblebee hill right that very minute, with our sleds, and we were going to have the time of our lives coasting, and rolling in the snow, and making huge b.a.l.l.s and snow men and everything....

You should have seen those dishes fly--that is, they _started_ to!

”Be careful,” Mom said, and meant it. ”Those are my best dinner plates.”

”I will,” I said, and I was for a jiffy, but my mind wasn't anywhere near those fancy plates Mom was was.h.i.+ng and I was wiping.... In fact, there wasn't any sense in was.h.i.+ng them anyway, 'cause they weren't the ones we had used that day at all. Why they weren't even dirty! They'd been standing on the shelf in Mom's cupboard for several months without being used.

”I don't see why we have to wash them,” I said, ”when they aren't even dirty.”

”We're going to have company for dinner tomorrow,” Mom explained, ”and we _have_ to wash them.”

”Wash them _before_ we use them?” I said. It didn't make sense.... Why that very minute the gang would be hollering and screaming and coasting down the hill and having a wonderful time.

”Certainly,” Mom said. ”We want them to sparkle so that when the table is set and the guests come in they'll see how beautiful they really are. See? Notice how dull this one is?” Mom held up one that hadn't been washed yet in her hot sudsy water nor rinsed in my hot clear water nor wiped and polished with my dry clean towel, which Mom's tea towels always were anyway, Mom being an extra clean housekeeper and couldn't help it, on account of her mother had been that way too,--and being that kind of a housekeeper is contagious, like catching the measles or smallpox or the mumps or something boys don't like.

For some reason I remembered a part of a book I'd read, called _Alice in Wonderland_, and it was about a crazy queen who started to cry and say, ”Oh ooooh! My finger's bleeding!”... And when Alice who was _in_ Wonderland told her to wrap her finger up or something, the queen said, ”Oh no, I haven't p.r.i.c.ked it yet”--meaning it was bleeding _before_ she had stuck a needle into it--which was a fairy story, and was crazy, so I said to Mom, ”Seems funny to wash dishes _before_ they're dirty--seems like a fairy story, like having your finger start bleeding before you stick a needle in it.” I knew Mom had read _Alice in Wonderland_ 'cause she'd read it to me herself when I was little.

But Mom was very smart. She said, with a mischievous grin in her voice, ”That's a splendid idea.... Let's _pretend_ this is _Bill Collins in Wonderland_, and get the dishes done right away. Fairy stories are always interesting, don't you think?” which I didn't, right then, but there wasn't any use arguing. In fact, Mom said it wasn't ever polite, so I quit, and said, ”Who's coming for dinner tomorrow?” wondering if it might be some of the gang, and hoping it would be. I didn't know a one of the gang that would notice whether the dishes sparkled or not, although most of the gang's _Moms_ probably would.

”Oh--a surprise,” Mom said.

”Who?” I said. ”My cousin Wally and his new baby sister?” As you know, if you've read _A New Sugar Creek Mystery_, I had a homely, red-haired cousin, named Walford, who lived in the city, who had a new baby sister. Mom had been to see the baby, and also Pop, but I hadn't, and didn't want to, and certainly didn't exactly want to see my red-haired cousin, Wally, but _would_ like to see his crazy Airedale dog, and if Wally _was_ coming, I hoped he would bring the wire-haired dog along....