Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 1-6

by Paul Hutchens

  As soon as we were far enough away, we turned on our flashlights, and right away we found the lamb. It was tied to a small tree not far from the cave. Poetry had a sheet under his arm, which I hadn’t noticed before, and he started to wrap it around the lamb.

  By that time I was wide awake and ready for the fun, although his idea still wasn’t clear to me. “What are you going to do? How are you going to make a ghost out of an innocent lamb?”

  “Easy,” he whispered, already working to get the nose of the lamb through the hole he’d made for it. “Now,” Poetry puffed, looking something like a ghost himself in his flapping pajamas. “We’ll tie you, Jerry-boy,” he said in a friendly voice to the lamb, “right behind the sycamore, and the rest will be easy.”

  Well, it was easy. We tied the ridiculouslooking lamb to the sycamore tree and crawled back slowly to the cave. At the entrance, we stopped and listened and didn’t hear anything. For a second Poetry turned his flashlight on the lamb.

  I almost jumped out of my green pajamas, the way that lamb looked with its big eyes staring into the light, its absolutely grotesque white clothes, its eyeholes and its nose hole and long white tail, and also the white horns Poetry had made for it.

  I don’t know what Poetry’s plan was for after that, for just that second his innocent lamb let out a mournful bleat, and then another and another, and tried to get loose from itself.

  Behind us in the cave we heard noises, the rest of the gang waking up and talking. I saw flashlights going on, and the fun had started.

  Poetry and I darted behind some bushes and turned our flashlights on the crazy-acting lamb.

  We also watched the gang come crawling and tumbling out of the cave. They certainly looked ridiculous themselves. Big Jim with his purple pajamas on, Little Jim with his half-a-dozen-colored ones, Circus with white pajamas that were so short they came halfway to his knees and almost to his elbows. Dragonfly’s were striped, the stripes running around instead of up and down. And most of them were rubbing their eyes and looking at the lamb as if they were seeing a ghost.

  I tell you there was plenty of excitement around there for a few minutes.

  As soon as the gang found out it was a trick, they were all set to take Poetry and me down to Sugar Creek and duck us, pajamas and all, but the lamb interrupted their plans. With all that noise, it got terribly scared. It bleated pitifully and was so afraid that Big Jim took things in his own hands and said, “That lamb has got to go home to its mother.”

  Then he said, “Get your pants and shoes on, all of you, and follow me—all of you!” he finished his command sternly.

  Well, Poetry took off the lamb’s ridiculous suit, and it didn’t take long for us to get ready to take the lamb home. Big Jim made us do it, saying the little thing would probably be scared half to death if we didn’t.

  Pretty soon we were all walking along toward Poetry’s pasture, where there would be other lambs and sheep. As you know, Poetry lived closer to the old sycamore tree than any of the rest of us.

  I followed right behind Big Jim, holding my flashlight for him to see and noticing the lamb as he carried it on his shoulder the way a farmer does who knows how to carry a lamb. And all the time, I was thinking about the “Ninety and Nine” and looking at the lamb. As we trudged along, I reached out my hand once and put it on the lamb’s withers, and the poor little thing was trembling as though it was cold and terribly afraid.

  I could see Poetry was sorry, for he had a very tender heart for animals and wouldn’t hurt one for anything, that being one reason he had been able to make the lamb a pet in the first place.

  It was when we were on our way back to the cave that the thing happened. We knew it was nearer to go past Bumblebee Hill to get to the cave than any other way. So we decided to go that way, even though the old cemetery was at the top.

  It was still not later than ten o’clock, but it was chilly for that time of night, and the dew was on the grass, making us glad we all had our pajamas covered, or they’d have been wet at the cuffs and we’d have had to sleep with them that way later on. For a minute I remembered Dad’s words about coming home and sleeping in my own nice, warm bed if I wanted to, but I wouldn’t have done it for the world.

  We came to Bumblebee Hill and started to go across it. We were about halfway, right close to the place where I’d once smashed Little Tom’s nose in the fight we’d had there, when all of a sudden, Dragonfly stopped dead still and said, “Psst! Listen,” which we all did, some of us bumping into the ones in front of us who had stopped quicker than we had.

  “See!” Dragonfly hissed. “There goes that lamb, running toward the cemetery.”

  We looked up, and that’s exactly what it did look like, away up there at the top of the hill.

  “How in the world—” Poetry said.

  We had opened the gate at Poetry’s farm and put the lamb inside, yet here it was out and running, not toward us but in a different direction.

  Well, we gave chase. We all started to run toward the top. We tried to turn our flashlights on it, but it had already disappeared through the fence. In a half minute, the six of us were at the top of the hill, going through the fence right at the place where Old Man Paddler had torn his shirt the Sunday before.

  It was Dragonfly who stopped us. “Wait!” he cried, when the rest of us had gone through.

  I turned around, and there he was, in his prison pajamas, standing on the other side. “I-I-I’m scared! There might be a real ghost! Hey! Hey! There is one! Look!” he shouted in a scream that was smothered in fear.

  We looked in every direction and finally saw something white streaking out across the cemetery, past Old Man Paddler’s wife’s grave, moaning and running or flying or something. Then it started beating it toward Sugar Creek and the cave.

  That settled that! That wasn’t any innocent lamb! It was an honest-to-goodness ghost, of which there weren’t any.

  “After him!” Big Jim ordered.

  And we were after him—even Dragonfly, getting up a little bravery from the rest of us. Being brave is contagious, you know. You follow the leader if he is brave, and you aren’t scared unless he is, which Big Jim wasn’t. Or else you can be scared and brave at the same time, which is the way I felt.

  Lickety-sizzle, dodge, plunge, rush, hurry, dash, fall-down-get-up-quick, plunge on—that’s the way we tore through the woods after that white ghost. Our minds were made up to catch whatever it was.

  “Look!” Dragonfly puffed again from somewhere among us. “It’s headed straight for the cave!”

  My flashlight showed the cave right ahead of us. The ghost or whatever it was—we didn’t know—stumbled over a log and down it went kerplop right in front of the entrance.

  Big Jim, who was in the lead, with Circus right behind him and me next, got there almost at the same time. Big Jim made a headfirst tackle as he does in a football game, and then he and the ghost were on the ground together, scrambling and wrestling.

  The ghost was panting and fighting like everything, and then all of a sudden it worked itself loose from Big Jim. There was a ripping and tearing sound as Big Jim held onto some of its clothes, and the next thing we knew, the ghost was gone, and Big Jim stood there, holding in his hands a big white torn shirt.

  “It went inside the cave!” Dragonfly whispered.

  Well, I tell you, we were excited. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It couldn’t be so, I thought. I was merely having a crazy dream because I was trying to sleep in a cave. And yet it wasn’t a dream, because right there in front of my eyes was a torn white shirt in Big Jim’s hands, and—

  All of a sudden Poetry said, “There’s your other cuff link, Dragonfly—in the cuff of that shirt.”

  I knew ghosts didn’t wear shirts with gold cuff links in them.

  While we were all gathering around Big Jim and also watching the cave to see that no ghost came out, I noticed something else about the shirt. I gasped out loud. There, as plain as day, right on the bac
k of the white shirt, was a crooked bit of needlework in the exact spot where my Mom had sewed up the white shirt belonging to Old Man Paddler himself only a few days ago.

  What in the world! I thought again. Why–why, that’s Old Man Paddler’s shirt!

  And that could mean only one thing. The ghost was Old Man Paddler himself.

  “That’s Old Man Paddler’s shirt!” I exclaimed. “See there, Poetry! That’s the same shirt he tore on the barbed wire fence at the graveyard last Sunday afternoon!”

  “Old Man Paddler can’t run that fast!” Big Jim said grimly.

  We all knew that was right. The old man couldn’t run at all—unless maybe he could if he was terribly scared. Yet, whoever it was couldn’t have been a ghost, since ghosts didn’t wear shirts with cuff links or stumble over fallen logs. In fact, if it had been a real ghost, a log wouldn’t even have been in its way. It could go through a log like a radio wave goes through a house and is still a radio wave on the other side.

  Just then Poetry gasped and said, “Look, everybody! There’s a pencil clipped into the pocket of the shirt—an indelible pencil!”

  And there was.

  Well, we had to do something. We couldn’t just stand around at a time like that. We decided to go inside the cave. Maybe. If we weren’t too scared.

  Big Jim asked, “Anybody want to go home?” He looked around at Dragonfly and all of us.

  And Dragonfly said with a stutter, “I-I want to, but I w-w-won’t!”

  And I say we all wanted to but wouldn’t.

  “All right, everybody!” Big Jim gave the word. “When he comes out, grab him! And look out for smashed noses!”

  I couldn’t believe it. We were going to go right into the enemy’s mouth. We were going to go inside that cave!

  13

  First Big Jim hollered into the cave, and his voice sounded very fierce. “Come out of there, whoever you are! We’ll give you until we count ten, and then we’re coming in!”

  All we heard in reply was a weird echo, which came floating back like a screech owl’s voice across the hills. “Count ten,” the echo said.

  We all had left most of our clothes in that cave, and some of us had watches and knives and other things of value there, so we had to go in. And I certainly wasn’t going to go home and go in our unlocked back door and sleep in any old nice, warm, safe bed.

  Then Big Jim started to count, very loud: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN!”

  We waited, and no ghost came out, and there wasn’t any answer.

  So Big Jim gave the order: “Follow Circus and me!” With that, he and Circus, with two flashlights making a white path for them, stooped low, shot the lights inside, and looked in, while the rest of us waited, all holding our breath and also holding some sticks and clubs, which we’d found close by.

  “It’s empty.” Big Jim turned to us, and so did Circus.

  In we all went, and, sure enough, there wasn’t a thing inside except the rock walls, and our sleeping bags and clothes and things, and the two lonely candles looking like a couple of stalagmites standing on their shelves, with no stalactites reaching down from above.

  And now what to do! The ghost or whoever or whatever was gone, so we either had to give up and go to sleep or just go to sleep. We looked funny and felt crazy and scared and disappointed. If we hadn’t had the shirt, maybe we wouldn’t have believed it, but we had the shirt, and it was absolutely Old Man Paddler’s.

  Big Jim called us to order then and said, “I may as well tell you, to relieve your minds, that it wasn’t a ghost!”

  “It was too,” I said. “It went in this cave, didn’t it?”

  “Anybody see it come in here except Dragonfly?” Circus asked.

  “I did,” I said, “with my own eyes—I think.”

  “Well, it isn’t here now. Anybody know who it was?” Big Jim said again. “If not, we’ll let it go and get some sleep.”

  “I s-saw it come in here headfirst,” Dragonfly said fiercely. “I knew there was going to be a ghost because a black cat—”

  “Order!” Big Jim demanded again, and there was.

  “Listen! What was that!” Dragonfly exclaimed.

  We’d all heard it. It was the sound of somebody coming!

  As plain as day and even plainer, we heard footsteps coming toward us from somewhere. It sounded as if something was coming from behind the cave walls, or else something was already inside and walking around unseen right among us—or maybe even walking on the ceiling upside down. If it was a ghost, or if there was any such thing as a ghost, it could do that.

  I looked at Big Jim, and I saw for the first time that he was afraid, so I let myself be afraid too, without being ashamed of it.

  Nearer and nearer, louder and louder came those footsteps—from somewhere behind the walls?—and then they stopped, so close beside me and behind me and in front of me, that I thought I could have reached out and touched whoever or whatever it was. I wished I’d hurry and wake up, because this was the craziest dream I’d ever had.

  And then all of a sudden, there in front of us, crawling into the mouth of the cave, was an old man with white hair and long white whiskers. He had a cane and a yardstick in one hand and a long flashlight in the other, and it was Old Man Paddler himself.

  It couldn’t be, and yet it was.

  “Good evening, everybody! May I come into your house?”

  The minute I heard his voice, I knew it was actually him and that I wasn’t in a dream.

  “I’m sorry to disturb your night’s rest this way, but it’s a long way home around the old wagon trail, so I decided to take a shortcut. I guess I’d better rest a bit first. I’m pretty tired. Had a little business to do in town, stopped a while in the old cemetery there at my wife’s grave. I guess I must have gone to sleep there. Anyway, something woke me up.”

  While he was talking and his whiskers were bobbing up and down in the light of the candles, which we’d already lit, I was looking at his gray shirt, which he certainly had on, and I knew the ghost hadn’t been Old Man Paddler.

  He shivered then and said, “It’s cold in here. Ah …” He stopped, and I could see from his eyes that he had an idea and was going to spring it on us.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’ve something very important to talk to you boys about. If you’ll gather up your sleeping bags and clothes and follow me …”

  With that, he sidled over to a corner of the cave where there was a rocky ledge and gave it a little push. And, wow! The rock moved! And there, as plain as candlelight could make it, was a hole leading back into the hill somewhere.

  “What’s that?” different ones of us cried in absolute astonishment.

  The old man turned around to us. “There used to be a little underground stream coming through here and flowing out into Sugar Creek. The other end, I just discovered this week, is in my own cellar. Follow me, and I’ll show you. Bring your stuff along, and you can sleep in my cabin. I’ll make you some sassafras tea to warm you up a bit. You’re all shivering with the cold,” he finished, which we were.

  Well, things were beginning to make sense —all except that white torn shirt.

  Suddenly Big Jim said, “Look, Mr. Paddler! Is this your shirt?” He held out the shirt, all torn to shreds, toward the old man.

  Mr. Paddler started as if somebody had stuck him with a pin. “Where did you get that?”

  “I just tore it off Bob Till ten minutes ago,” Big Jim said, and that made me start and all the rest of us also.

  For a minute there was silence, that is, until we heard a door slam faraway somewhere. Poetry looked at me quick and I at him, and all of a sudden we knew that we had known something a long time. There was a door in the cellar of Old Man Paddler’s cabin at the other end of the tunnel into whose jaws we were looking right that very minute.

  And that was the beginning of the end of this story, which is almost too long now, about the secret hideout inside the hill.

  �
�Bob Till,” Old Man Paddler said, “has been staying at my cabin this week, while I’ve been trying to make arrangements to have the law give him still another chance. I keep thinking, what if it was my William or one of my other sons, who is dead now. I think if I can teach him a few things which his father should have taught him a long time ago, we can make a decent citizen of him, and maybe he will become a Christian. A boy has to hear the gospel, you know, before he can be saved.”

  There was more that Old Man Paddler said, but that is enough for you to know right now.

  Well, we gathered up our clothes, putting most of them on. Then, carrying blankets and sleeping bags, we went into that dark hole in the side of the hill. We followed Old Man Paddler back and back, winding and winding, stooping here and there, and passing little piles of dirt and rock, which he and Bob had made when they had had to dig through places that were too small for a man or boy to go through.

  Pretty soon we came to a new door. And then we were in Old Man Paddler’s cellar. And then we were up in his fine, neat old cabin. We’d saved ourselves a mile of walking.

  “Boy, that will save him a lot of walking when he has to go to town, won’t it?” Poetry said to me, puffing hard and always glad for anything that would save walking or working.

  “It’ll be especially good next winter,” the old man said, having heard what Poetry said, and he busied himself lighting the fire in his stove to make some sassafras tea to get the shivers out of us.

  At that minute, I heard somebody in Old Man Paddler’s upstairs coughing a little as though he had a cold, and it sounded like a boy’s cough.

  “That’s Bob Till,” Old Man Paddler said. “I’ve been taking care of him. Poor fellow, he hasn’t even had enough clothes of his own, so I’ve been letting him wear some of mine. I suppose that’s where that white shirt came from. He’d been in the cemetery doing a little cleaning up around my sons’ graves. He was afraid of being seen in the daytime, so I let him go at night. He’s still got a sense of shame, you know, like most boys have if you can dig deep enough to find it—or maybe if Almighty God can get a chance to put it into him.”