Shenanigans at Sugar Creek

h, crunch, crunch, I could see in my mind's eye our new teacher's big beautiful brown saddle horse, pranci

ted somewhere, while maybe its rider was standing with The Hoosier Schoolmaster in his hand, looking at the

a pain in my right side which I sometimes got when I ran too fast too long. "My side hurts," I said to Poetry,

said, thinking h

and stoop down and unbuckle you

g off my mittens with my teeth, and laying them down on the snow for a jiffy and unbuckling one of my boots and buckling it again while I was st

then we started on the run again. "It's c

-time. In the summer-time you have to stop running, and stop and stoop down and pick up a rock, and spit

hurried on, and I said to Poetry, "What do you do when you get a sore toe from stumping it o

to me that it was the stooping that was what did it. "It's gettin

r pump not more than twenty feet from our back door. Mom was standing there with her sweater on and a scarf on her head talking to him or maybe listening to him, then I saw Mr. Black tip his hat like an honest-to-goodness gentleman, and bow, an

of the gang having taken theirs with them when we'd gone to the cave. At the bottom of the hill, we saw the great big tall snow man. The sun was st

try ordered, "so I can get a good picture of it," which I started to do, and then gasped.... There wasn't any Hoosier School

ablet was standing up on the two sticks, leaning against the snow man's stomach, and was fastened so th

here?" Right away I was reading the poem again, which was almost funny, only I didn't feel like laughing on accou

Gang had the wo

his named

ce had the homel

and forty

world else. I was gritting my teeth and wondering who had done it, and who had stolen The Hoosier Schoolmaster. There wasn't a one of the gang th

noticing that the printing was very large and had been

world who knows I wrote that poem,"

nd who had been the cause of most of our trouble with our new teacher and had had two or three fights with me and had l

find it ou

st week and we had all worried for fear there was maybe going to be trouble in our own gang which there'd never been

"I certainly am; I'm going to have the evidence and then I can prove t

t everybody knows y

led me so that for a jiffy I was almost as much excited as I had been when the fierce old mad old mother

id, "Mr. Black's

ugh there were horse's tracks, the kind of tracks that showed that the horse had shoes on. And even while I was scared and wondering "What on earth!" there popped into m

k the book, and wrote t

said, but was afr

is coat pocket, and with our faces and minds worried we started in fiercely knocking the living daylights out of that snow man. The first thing we did was to pull off the red nose, and pull out the corn-cob pipe,

xed up in our min

e Mr. Black di

de his horse down here and saw it, he'll

aybe we ought not make fun of our teacher just 'cause he had hair only all around his head and not on top, and could

we dragged our discouraged sleds up Bumblebee hill. "What'l

his voice sounded more worried

n we got to our house was, "Mr. Bl

. "What for? Wh

with the parents of the boys. Such a beautiful bro

nd said, "He took a picture of our house and barn and tried to get one of Mixy c

pictures?" Poetry aske

.... But you were all gone, he said, but he found the book you left

ding to be surprised. "Did

of she might catch cold, said, "Yes, she phoned here for The Hoosier Schoolmaster, while

rth?" Then Mom said, "Mr. Black thought maybe you boys had bee

he had to stop and start again, and said, "Did he say wher

on over to Mrs. Mansfield's anyway, he'd take it over for

nd I sighed to each other, and h

n home right away to get the chores done early.... It's

id, but he managed to say to Mom politely, "Tha

jiffy we just stood and looked at each othe

self with that poem on his stomach?" Poetry ask

hat would he want with picture

now-" Poetry said,

E SUN GOES DOWN! POETRY, BE SURE TO COME AGAIN SOME TIME," which was Pop's way of telling Poetry to step on the gas and get going home righ