Jerry nodded. “Lord, yes,” he said, “my pop only allowed me to come to see the men take the old wreck away.”
He waved his hand over the embankment. I walked up close and looked down into the river.
“There she goes, Hawkins,” said Jerry. “Say good-bye to her for good.”
Ah, boy! there was all that was left to our poor old houseboat. The little steamer Nancy H. was puffing alongside of our old headquarters, and the men were lashing her fast. Half of the old houseboat was torn out; the windows were gone and the doors too, and there was barely anything left but the hull and the walls.
I stood there watching it and couldn’t say a word. Jerry kept silent too, and lighted his pipe again. Together we stood on the embankment and watched the work, and finally the Nancy H. tooted her whistle and pulled away downstream with her freight.
Jerry puffed hard at his pipe as we stood there watching the little steamer take our good old headquarters downstream. And when it passed out of sight we both turned and began to walk back.
“She was a good ship while we sailed in her,” said Jerry, “even though she stood on four logs and never moved. It’ll be a long time, Hawkins, till any boys will have as good times as we did in that old houseboat.”
But I couldn’t answer. We pushed along up the bank till we struck the main road.
“Jerry,” I said, “meet me tomorrow at the old sycamore tree. We will talk things over.”
“I’ll be there,” Jerry answered.
So the next day after school I called Lew Hunter, and we went down to the woods. Jerry was sitting on a log in front of the old sycamore tree, with a nice campfire burning in front of him. He waved at us.
“Seems like old times,” said Lew Hunter.
We sat around the fire and talked. We talked about everything but what we came for. It was only when Link Lambert came up from the river that we began to talk about our club affairs.
WE TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT WHAT WE CAME FOR
Link sat down by the fire and said, “Is this a new club you are starting, Hawkins?”
I smiled and shook my head. “I don’t know, Link,” I said. “Maybe if we go about it quietly, and don’t get in any more trouble, we might meet again every day.”
Jerry grumbled. “What’s the use?” he said. “They went and took our headquarters away. What good is a club without a place to meet in?”
“What’s the matter with this place?” asked Lew Hunter. “It seems to me Hawkins used to meet all the boys at this old sycamore tree.”
It was true, too. That old sycamore tree overheard more of our private plans than any other tree in the woods. It was here I used to meet the Skinny Guy when he first came to our town. And here Jerry Moore used to meet me whenever we had any kind of a mystery to figure out. The initials of almost every boy in our bunch were carved somewhere on the trunk of that old sycamore.
“Meeting outdoors is all right in summer,” said Jerry, “but when it rains and when it is cold how many of the boys do you think you could keep here?”
“None when it rains,” I answered, “but the cold doesn’t matter, for there’s nothing like a nice campfire.”
“Yes,” said Jerry, “a nice campfire by which you warm yourself in front and let your back freeze. I know that. Nothing doing for me.”
The Skinny Guy jumped up and stood looking at me. “Hawkins,” he began.
“Go on, Link,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”
“The shack,” he says. “We still got the shack!”
“Ah!” We all jumped up at once. “That’s it,” I said. “How could we have overlooked it? Just the place. We will tell the boys to meet there tomorrow.”
“And get yourself in trouble with the judge,” broke in a new voice. We all looked up, and there stood Doc Waters. He laughed and came down to the fire. “You boys are fixing right now to break the rules the judge laid down for you. I bet I am right.”
“Doc,” I said, “you know we will be more careful after this. We will never get into trouble with anybody again. Why don’t you see the judge and get him to let us off just this once? You can do it, and you know you can.”
Doc gazed into the fire and acted like he didn’t hear me. We all kept quiet, waiting for Doc to say something. But when he didn’t I began again:
“You know us boys all our life, Doc,” I said. “You know what we would do for you, if you needed us. We are going to ask you to get the judge to let us hold our meetings quietly in the little house in the hollow.”
Doc looked up and smiled. “House?” he inquired. “You mean shack, don’t you?”
“No,” I said. “After this it is going to be a house. And after a little while it will be a clubhouse. And you won’t know the place back after we fix it up. When Rufus Rogers built it, him and his pals that we mistook for Wild West fellows, it was a pretty good-looking place, and as snug as a nest. It has just been allowed to go to ruin since they left it.”
“Well,” said Doc, “I’ll see what I can do for you. But, mind, no more foolishness. Once more get into trouble like you did with Stoner’s Boy, and I am going to have nothing further to do with any of you.”
He walked away up the bank. But we felt satisfied and happy. We knew that if anybody could get a favor from the judge it would be Doc.
The next day the four of us met at the old sycamore again. We talked and talked, and after awhile who should come walking up the bank but Robby Hood.
“What!” I says. “I didn’t expect to see you back here again, Robby.”
Robby smiled. “No,” he said. “I didn’t intend to come, but I left that big electric lamp in the cave, and it belongs to a man on the Watertown wharfboat, and I promised to bring it back.”
We all looked at one another, but nobody spoke to Robby.
“I thought,” he continued, “some of you boys might go back to the cave just once more, to help me get it out.”
I shook my head. “It’s against orders, Robby,” I said. “We are not allowed to go there anymore.”
Robby bit his lip and backed away. “I can’t blame you,” he said. “It’s my fault that the lamp got there; I have to go after it myself.”
He turned away toward the cliff path.
A few minutes later Doc Waters came down. “Who was that boy talking a little while ago?” he asked.
We told him. “He is going to the cliff cave,” I said.
Doc jumped. “Good Lord!” he said, “I told you boys not to go there. I must try to head him off.”
Doc started running for the cliff. We stood there like dummies.
“What’s up?” asked Jerry.
“I’m going to see,” said Link, and off he went, following Doc Waters.
Lew Hunter took hold of my arm. “Don’t you think we had better go, too?” he asked. “It was mean of us not to offer to help Robby Hood.”
That settled it. We didn’t stop to think about anything else. I guess we all were ashamed of not going along with Robby. But we flew now. I think we felt that now that Doc Waters was there we were safe. Anyway we flew along up the path and into the cave.
We didn’t need our flashlights. The big electric lamp was shining, and the place was light as day. We could hear Doc Waters shouting, “Where are you, boy, where are you?”
But we couldn’t see Doc. I went direct to the little hole in Stoner’s hiding place and crawled in.
“Who’s that?” came a voice.
A flashlight was shoved in my face. “It’s me, Robby,” I said. “I thought you only wanted the big lamp; what are you doing here?”
He laughed. “Look at all these things up here,” he said, flashing his lamp up into the chees hole of Stoner’s Boy.
“Ah, I knew he had it; you remember this, Hawkins, don’t you?”
He pulled out a long stick with a spear on the end of it.
“Sure,” I said, “how did Stoner ever get that?”
“Bless me if I know,” said Robby, “but I got it ba
ck, and now I’m going.”
“Doc Waters is in here somewhere,” I said. “He’s looking for you.”
“Well, he needn’t bother,” said Robby.
We squeezed through the little hole. As we came out, we could see Doc Waters and Skinny Link and Jerry and Lew Hunter, crouching under the shadow of the big lamp.
As we came into the bright light, Doc Waters shouted: “Watch out, there it is, right over your heads.”
Ah boy! how he frightened us. Robby bumped into me, and together we fell, not three feet from the big pit. At the same time a big dark shadow swooped over our heads.
“It’s the bat,” I whispered to Robby. “Oh, Lord, it’s the big bat.”
But Robby was on his feet in a minute. I saw him back up to the wall of the cave and glance up into the dark spaces above the bright ray of light. I saw the big dark shadow coming again. I saw Robby raise his arm, and I saw a flash through the bright ray of light as he sent his spear full force at the ugly flying thing. There came a loud squealing sound, the awfullest sound I ever heard, and Doc Waters shouted!
The next minute something fell with a loud thud at the feet of Doc Waters and the boys who stood there by him. It was the big, ugly black bat, with the sharp spear shoved clean through it. And it was even bigger than I thought!
“Thank heaven,” said Doc Waters. “Boy, you have killed it.”
We got the judge’s consent. Yep. Robby did it for us. The judge always was a nut about odd birds and animals. When Doc Waters took the South American bat to him, he asked all about it, and how it came to be killed. And when Doc told him, he smiled and said, “Those boys are able to take care of themselves, Doctor; suppose you see their fathers about a clubhouse for them. It really would be too bad to take all the pleasure out of their young lives.”
And so Doc came back and told us. We are going to fix up the shack in the hollow so that we will have a better clubhouse to meet in than we ever had.
I wrote to Harold tonight and told him we would all stick together. I guess that will please him.
When Judge Granbery gave orders to have our houseboat removed from the riverbank, so that we could not meet there again, Doc Waters had seen to it that all of our belongings were taken to a storage house and kept until called for. Now that the judge had given his consent to allow us to meet in our little shanty in the hollow, the first thing I did was to get Jerry Moore’s daddy to come with his horse and wagon and bring down the table and chairs, and the pictures and other things we had in the old houseboat.
DOC WATERS
Lew Hunter did not care what else we were bringing into the new headquarters, but he did take an awful lot of pains to see that his old organ was hauled down to the hollow and given a good place in the little house. I know that some of the boys were wishing that the old organ would not be brought, because they knew that Lew would continue the singing practice, and there were times when the boys would rather be out playing than practicing songs.
It took Doc Waters a long time to get permission from my dad and the fathers of some of the other boys to let us continue our regular meetings in the shack in the hollow. But he finally succeeded, and we started in to fit up the place so that Rufus Rogers himself, who built the thing, would never have known it again.
Doc Waters had three carpenters to come down and make the shack look like a respectable clubhouse. When I told Doc that it was not right for him to spend money on us, he smiled and said, “Don’t worry; you boys will pay me back some way, somehow.”
The stove that had been put in the place by Rufus Rogers and his pals, during the time they were college runaways, was still like new, and the pictures and college pennants they had left there were taken down and cleaned, and then the walls were covered with some very good-looking stuff that was painted light blue, and we thought that we now had a very fine clubhouse, indeed, considering that boys of our age don’t usually have things as good as that.
We held our first meeting on Wednesday afternoon, after school. The boys looked happy. The judge was there, and so was Doc Waters and Squire Hornaby and the sheriff.
Doc came up to me while I was talking to our captain, Dick Ferris. “Hawkins,” he says, “the judge has shown a great interest in you boys, and wants to see how you boys hold your meetings. If I were you, I would go right ahead as if nobody else were here, and I suggest that you tell your captain to ask the judge to make a speech.”
“Sure,” I said. “Dick, we will go right ahead and hold our meeting. When we are finished, you get up and ask the judge for a speech.”
So we went right ahead. We took our regular places around the table, and Dick sat at the head and hit the table with his wooden hammer and called the meeting to order. I called the roll; everybody answered “Here” except Clarence Wilks and Oscar Koven, who left town. I explained to the boys that Clarence’s father had moved to Watertown, and that Oscar went to a boy’s school down South.
Then Dick asked for motions; but nobody had anything to say. So I got up and said, “I make a motion we give three cheers for Judge Granbery and Doc Waters for fixing up this fine clubhouse for us.”
The words were hardly out of my mouth before the boys were all on their feet, cheering wildly. I made a motion for three cheers. They gave thirty before the noise ended.
The judge smiled during all the noise, and nodded his head, and Doc Waters sat still and grinned, twiddling his fat thumbs and looking very much pleased.
“The meeting will now be given a speech by Judge Granbery,” said our captain.
The judge stopped smiling, and looked supprised. He hesitated a moment, but then a smile broke over his features again, and he walked up to the head of the table.
“Boys,” he said, “I can’t make a very good speech, but I am glad to get a chance to talk to you. You are regular boys, and as boys you have given us older folks a lot of worry at times, but you always made good, and on the whole you have been a help to everybody in town. It pleases me to see you in such a nice clubhouse, and to see that you all have enough sense to stick together as you do. Really, that is a fine thing. Very few towns can boast of their boys holding together as you do, and we are all proud of you for it. The reason I have helped to keep you together now is that I believe you will be even more useful to us than you have been. You boys know that we must have no trouble at any time, and I am going to expect you to see to it always that there is no trouble. I know you don’t get into trouble willingly, but the thing to do is to always try to keep out of it. Sometimes even that is hard to do, because it is not always your fault when you get in trouble; other folks make trouble for you. But you are going to be my junior police, and I am always going to expect you to see that trouble is kept away from this town.”
“BOYS,” HE SAID, “I CAN’T MAKE A VERY GOOD SPEECH.”
We all cheered the judge again, and he shook hands with us and said good-bye, and he went out with the other men. Our captain called order right away, and I collected the dues, and we closed the meeting, feeling very happy over the way things turned out.
We boys often thought proudly of the judge’s speech in our new clubhouse that day when he made us his junior police. We figured there might be times we could use that to our benefit if we ever had any more adventures.
Which we did.
SECKATARY HAWKINS
Acknowledgments
My thanks to:
Seckatary himself, Grandpa, for instilling in me the fair & square principles and values that guided his life and seasoned his stories.
Thanks to Harper Lee who steadily encouraged me to reprint Grandpa’s stories that she loved as a child; and for including Seckatary Hawkins’s principles in her book.
My best friend, my wife, Bonnie G., for putting up with thirty-five years of constant and ubiquitous chips of aged brown newspaper trails, all the while encouraging me on in this quest that seemed so quixotic at times.
Diane Schneider for permanent museum exhibits and for introducing the University
of Kentucky to Seckatary Hawkins.
George Beatty, volunteer typist, who made mixed manuscripts and scans into professional quality books.
Dan Kindle for edits and corrections and for finding anything missing.
And so many who have read and will now begin to read these motivating mystery stories.
The entire Fair and Square Club for supporting The Seckatary Book Project year after year.
Yours Fair & Square
Randy Schulkers
Contributors
Randy Schulkers is the grandson of the author, captain of the Seckatary Hawkins Fair & Square Club, and an international businessman for forty years. Having grown up at his grandfather’s knee, as they lived together throughout his childhood years, Randy is grateful to share with new readers the wonderful stories he loved hearing first-hand.
Diane Schneider, J.D., Ph.D., is Robert F. Schulkers’s great-niece. After ten years as a theology professor and writer, she headed a Mayo Clinic study on the healing effects of harp vibrations, and produced the “Harp of Hope” series of therapeutic harp CDs. Diane is co-captain of the Seckatary Hawkins Club, and greatly enjoys being a medical harpist and living close to the Kentucky riverbanks that inspired her great-uncle’s stories.
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