Shenanigans at Sugar Creek

and won't be able to go to church tomorrow, so we're to pick up Little Jim and also stop for Tom Till and take him to church with us.... We'll have to get up a little earlier tomorrow morning,

be fun stopping at Little Jim's and Tom Ti

hat it was. Also, I wondered who was coming to our house for dinner tomorrow. Maybe i

est was. I wasn't feeling very good inside on account of things hadn't gone right during the day, and yet I couldn't tell what was wrong, except maybe it was just me. When I got to old Bent-comb's nest, sure enough there were two eggs in it-one was the pretty white egg Bent-comb herself had laid that da

light ladder, even Little Jim could carry it.... While I was standing looking up and thinking about wishing spring would hurry up and come, I all of a sudden wanted to climb up the ladder and look out the windows of the cupola and see what I could see in the different directions around the Sugar Creek territory. Also, I wondered if Snow-white, my favorite pigeon, and her husband had decided to have their nes

side of Sugar Creek.... I could see our red brick schoolhouse, away on past Dragonfly's house, though. But when I looked at it, instead of feeling kinda happy inside like I nearly always did when we had our pretty lady other teacher for a teacher, I felt kinda saddish. There was the big maple tree which I knew was right close beside a tall iron pump, near which we had built a snow fort; and behind that was the woodshed where we'd been locked in by our new man teacher and which you know about if you've read One Stormy Day at Sugar Creek, and behind the woodshed was the great big schoolyard where we played baseball and blindman's buff and other games in the fall and spring, and where we play fox-and-goose in the winter. For a few minutes I forgot I was supposed to be gathering eggs, and was doing what Pop is always accusing me of doing, w

de on, and on down toward Bumblebee hill where we'd coasted and had fun and made the snow man of Mr. Black, but say! right that second, I saw something moving-in fact, it was somebody's cap moving along just below the crest of the hill, but all I could see was the bobbin

. Black had seen the poem, and since it had been signed "The Sugar Creek

no matter what ideas Poetry and I had once had in our minds to find out whether a board on the top of the schoolhouse chimney would smoke

down and finish your chores, Bill," which I had, and which I started to do, climbing backwards down the n

y, our old black and white cat, was mewing and mewing and walking all around Pop's legs and looking up and mewing and rubbing her sides against his boots and also running over toward

we'd all be in our house, sitting around our table eating raw-fr

because there are absolutely too many mice around this barn. Any ordinary hungry cat ought to catch at least one mouse a day, Mixy, and if you don't catch them, we'll have to make

t to the hen house where I knew there would be some more eggs, a

re, so I sat the egg basket down on Mom's work table, and started into the front room, where I thought they'd maybe be. All of a sudden I heard Mom saying something in a tearful voice, and I stopped cold-wondering what I'd maybe done and shouldn't have, and if Mom was telling Pop about it, so I started to listen-and then was hal

er, and this is what she said, "All right, Theodore

heard Mom say in a worried voice, "Yes, dear, but weeds grow in a garden without anyone's planting them," which made me feel all saddish inside, and for some reason I could see our own garden which every spring and summer had all kinds of weeds-ragweeds, smartweeds, and big ugly Jimson-weeds, and lots of other

efully and started to talking in a friendly voice to Mixy, saying to her, "Listen, Mixy, do you know how to kee

d then walked over to me and rubbed her sides against my boots like she liked me a lot. For some reason, I thought Mixy was a ve

g supper. Almost right away, it began to get dark, and we went in to supper. "Was

r, and even though she is a girl, is a pr

e in the lamp light. We had two kerosene lamps lit, one of them behind me on the high mantel-

ought I was too big, and since I was an actual Christian, in spite of having Jimson-weeds in my heart, I always prayed whenever Pop told me to, only I hoped that he wouldn't ask me to tonight. Pop looked around the table at all of

ring, which meant that one of us had to answer the phon

LL GET IT!" Mom raised her voice on account of I was alr

ful news, and it was, "It was Mrs. Long. Mr. Long won't be home tomorrow, so

said, "How about Sho

stonished tone of voice, "Why, Bill Collins! The very idea! Don't you want him to go to church and Sunday School a

e an open school book. "Of course," I

at?" Mo

an to the gang

"... and bless our minister tomorrow. Put into his heart the things he ought to say that will do us all the most good.... Make his sermon like a plow and hoe and rake that

r new teacher, not very much anyway, and I thought maybe Shorty Long, even if he was a te

n the snow and with sleigh bells jingling on people's horses, on account of some of our neighbors lived on roads where the road-conditioner hadn't been t