Part 7

I also noticed that some of the numbers of the calendar had circles around them which somebody had made with a red pencil or with red ink. Without thinking, I said, “That’s a pretty picture on that calendar.”

Mr. Everhard must not have heard me because he looked all around quick and said above the roar of the storm, “The shovel’s gone! She’s gone out to dig again. Let’s go find her, quick!”

As much as I wanted to help him find Mrs. Everhard I was worrying worst about Charlotte Ann. So I said, “What about Charlotte Ann?”

“Look,” he said, “she’s left a note!” He picked up the pad of paper and shined the flashlight on his wife’s pretty handwriting and started in reading, with me looking over his elbow--I knowing it isn’t polite to do it, but doing it anyway because the note might have something in it about Charlotte Ann--and this is what it said:

“Dearest: I had another one of my spells and when I came to myself I was digging over near the rail fence across from the Collins house. I was still very depressed but when I looked up I saw dear little Charlotte Ann toddling out across the road all by herself. The minute I saw her all the clouds in my mind cleared away and I felt immediately happy. The little darling was all alone. I took her back across the road to the house, but there was no one at home. I couldn’t understand why they would go away and leave her all alone, but it was her nap time and I thought maybe Bill might have gone to camp to take us a jug of water, so I brought her back with me to camp. But you were still away so she and I have gone for a little stroll down along the creek. I think we will go across the north road today because I want to see if I can hear the wood thrush again down by the swamp. If we don’t get back soon and you want to follow us, you will know where to look. I have mastered the wood thrush song at last so I will have a new whistle from now on. Besides the turtledove is a little mournful for one who is beginning to be happy.

All my love, Fran.”

It was a very nice letter for a woman to write to her husband, I thought, and when I finished I liked both of them better. In fact, for a jiffy I had a kind of homesick feeling in my heart like I wished there was somebody in the world, besides the gang and my parents, who liked me.

But I didn’t have time to wish anything like that because an even worse worry startled me into some very fast action, for I remembered that the path on the other side of the north road, if you followed it far enough, not only led to the old swamp but went on through it--that being the path the gang always takes to go to Old Man Paddler’s cabin in the hills--and about twenty feet to the left of the path, as it goes through the swamp, is some quicksand. Maybe you remember the dark night when Little Tom Till’s drunkard pop got lost in the swamp and sank down into the mire all the way up to his chin an when our flashlights found him out there, all we could see was his scared face and head and it looked like a man’s head lying in the swamp.

“We’ve really got to hurry now,” I said to Mr. Everhard and told him why. “They probably got to the swamp before the storm struck, but it’s so dark down there in that part of the woods they couldn’t see the path and maybe they will get out into the swamp and--_quick!_” I exclaimed, interrupting myself, “Let’s go!”

I didn’t wait for him to decide to follow me, but swung around, flung open the flopping tent flap and the two of us stormed out into the storm.

To get to the swamp at the quickest possible moment was the first and most important thing in the world.

We stumbled our excited, rain-blinded way toward the Sugar Creek bridge where our path crossed the north road. I led the way myself, being careful to keep out in the open so we wouldn’t run the risk of getting struck by falling trees or branches--also staying away from the tallest trees and especially the tall oak trees, which are the kind of trees lightning strikes more than any other kind.

I won’t even take time to tell you about that wild, worried race. All the way though, I was hoping that we would get there in time to save Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard from getting out into the swamp itself. I was also remembering something Pop had taught me--and was also trying to teach Mom--and it was, “It’s better for your mind to hope something bad _won’t_ happen than it is to worry about how terrible it would be if it _did_”--something like that--so I kept one part of my mind saying to the other part, “Why don’t you quit worrying and hope everything will be all right like I do.”

And do you know what? That crazy part of my mind just kept right on worrying anyway.

Over the north-road fence, across the road, up the incline, around the end post of another fence and along the creek we ran. I didn’t even notice the different kinds of bushes and wild flowers that bordered the path like I generally do, such as the purple vervain and skullcap and the red-flowered bee comb, which honeybees and butterflies and especially humming birds like so well--red being the favorite color of all the humming-birds that live around Sugar Creek.

I wouldn’t have even noticed the tall mullein stalks with their pretty, little, yellow, five-petaled flowers that grew along the path, if I hadn’t run kerplop into one and fallen head over heels, getting my right big toe hurt at the same time.

I was trying to keep my eyes peeled for a little water-colored sunsuit, which would be sop-soaking wet, and I suppose Mr. Everhard was looking for some color or other of a dress or a pair of slacks his wife might be wearing.

After what seemed like a week, but couldn’t have been a half hour, or even a quarter of one, we came to the old hollow sycamore tree, which is at the edge of the swamp, and where the gang had had so many exciting experiences which you maybe already know about, but there wasn’t any sign of Charlotte Ann or Mrs. Everhard. We were still gasping and panting and calling in every direction, but there wasn’t any answer.

Then I saw something that made me almost lose control of all my thoughts--the big oak tree which grew on the other side of the path from the old sycamore, not more than twenty feet distant, had a great big ugly whitish gash running from its roots all the way up to about twenty feet. The rest of the tree had broken off and fallen and its branches lay sprawled across the path to the entrance--right where anybody who might have been in the path at the time, would have been struck and smashed into the ground.

That could mean only one thing: Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard would be on the other side of the fallen tree in the swamp itself, or wandering around on this side somewhere, or else they were under the fallen tree.

“I hope they’re NOT under the tree,” I made myself think, and yelled for them some more, without getting any answer.

Right that second there was what is called a “lull” in the storm, when there wasn’t any thunder, and for a jiffy the drenching rain almost stopped, and I knew that if it was like some of the Sugar Creek storms, it might soon be over.

And then, right in the middle of my worry, I heard the most beautiful music I had ever heard in my life--a flute-like bird call that was so exactly like the song of a wood thrush--or a brown thrasher, as some folks call that sweet-singing bird--that I thought for sure it was one. A second later, when I heard it again, I knew it _wasn’t_ on account of a thrush wouldn’t be very likely to sing its thrilling song in the middle of a summer storm.

I remembered quick what Mrs. Everhard had written to her husband on the note she had left on the rollaway table in the twisted-up tent. Mr. Everhard must have remembered it too, because he cupped his hands to his lips to protect them from the wind and the rain and whistled back a clear, beautiful, quail call: “Bob-white ... Bob-white ... Poor-bob-white!”--and right away there was a cheerful wood-thrush answer, and it seemed like it was saying “Lottle-lee ... Lottle-lee ... Charlotte Ann ... Charlotte Ann.” Boy, oh boy, it sounded so cheerful that all of a sudden my heart was as light as a feather because I was pretty sure if Mrs. Everhard felt happy enough to whistle, Charlotte Ann would be safe and all right.

Just that second also I heard another sound coming from Mr. Everhard beside me and it was something I probably wasn’t supposed to hear, but it seemed even prettier than a quail or a thrush--anyway it must have sounded fine to God on account of it was, “Thank you, Lord, for sparing her! I’ll try to keep my promise.”

Say, I remembered that the Bible says “There is rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner that repents”--and it seemed like Mr. Everhard had just done that. That is how I knew his prayer, coming out of a rainstorm, would sound awful pretty to God and maybe to a whole flock of angels who had heard it. In fact, they might have even been listening for it, hoping to hear it.

The thrush’s song hadn’t come from the direction of the swamp either, where the fallen oak tree was, but from the other side of the old sycamore tree in the direction of the Sugar Creek cave. Say, my heart leaped with the happiest joy I had felt in a long time when I realized that the song might have come from the cave itself, which, as you know, is a short cut to Old Man Paddler’s cabin in the hills. I was remembering that the first room is about twelve feet across, not quite as big as the sitting room at our house. I also remembered that Old Man Paddler keeps a little desk there and a bench and a few candles and the gang sometimes meets there when we are in that part of the woods. We had even stayed almost all night there once--both ends of the night anyway--the middle of it being interrupted by Poetry’s home-made ghost, which scared the living daylights out of most of the gang.

I yelled to Mr. Everhard, saying, “Come on! They’re safe! Hurrah!” and I started on a fast, wet run toward the old sycamore tree, swerved around it and went on toward the mouth of the cave itself. Just as I got there, I noticed that the door, which as you know had been locked for a few weeks, was open, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Mrs. Everhard wearing the Swallow Tail butterfly dress I had liked so well that other afternoon when she had borrowed Charlotte Ann. Charlotte Ann herself was standing in front of Mrs. Everhard with one of her chubby hands clasped in hers.

“Come on in out of the rain! Come on in!” Mrs. Everhard said cheerfully. “Mr. Paddler has invited us to come up through the cave to his cabin for a cup of sassafras tea.”

13

Boy, oh boy, I tell you it was a wonderful feeling, which started to gallop up and down my spine and all through me as we two drowned rats hurried to the cave and went inside where it was so quiet we could hardly hear the storm outside.

“We got here just before the storm broke,” she said to her husband--and probably also to me.

I noticed that the rock-walled room was all lit up with maybe five or six candles and there over in a corner sitting at the desk was Old Man Paddler himself, his long, white whiskers reaching almost down to his belt and his white hair was as white as a summer afternoon cloud in the southwest sky.

I noticed also that there were several new, comfortable chairs like the kind people have in their houses. Over on the east wall, hanging from a wooden peg, which was driven into a crack, was a beautiful wall motto, which said, “_For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God._”

Say, I thought, this is why he has had the cave all closed up for the past few weeks. He had closed it “for repairs” like they do a store in town when they are redecorating it. It was really pretty swell.

“How do you like our reception room?” Mrs. Everhard asked her husband.

He stared at her, and she, knowing he didn’t understand what she meant, said, “Today was my consultation day, you know. Mr. Paddler has been giving me lessons in faith, teaching me how to trust everything to God and--.”

I noticed while she was talking that Charlotte Ann was sorta hiding herself behind Mrs. Everhard’s skirts like she does behind Mom’s sometimes when she feels bashful.

Then Mr. Everhard asked a question and it was, “You mean you have been coming here for _consultations?_”

“Sure every other day for over a week. I had a hard time sneaking away sometimes, but I managed it--while you thought I was at the Collins’ and once when you thought I was taking a nap, but I won’t have to come any more--” Her voice suddenly broke and I could tell that some tears had gotten into it; and maybe not realizing that her husband’s clothes were as wet as a soaked sponge and that she had on her pretty Swallow Tail butterfly dress, she made a dive for him, sobbing and saying, “Oh, John, darling! I see it now! I see it! God _is_ good! God _does_ love me and _I know_ we will see our dear little Elsa again in Heaven! I have learned to trust! There is rest in Heaven like it says on Sarah Paddler’s tombstone!”

It was a sight I maybe wasn’t supposed to see and I noticed that Old Man Paddler himself got out a snow-white handkerchief and brushed away a couple of tears. Then he adjusted his thick-lensed glasses and looked down at the Bible on the desk in front of him.

“Just this afternoon,” Mrs. Everhard said with her face buried against her husband’s neck, “when I saw the clouds rolling and twisting and I knew there was going to be a bad storm, I was so afraid for little Charlotte Ann and I prayed and prayed as I ran, knowing if I could get here, I would be safe. When lightning struck that old tree out there and it came crashing down in the very place where we had been just a moment before, I realized that God himself was looking after us. So I began to thank Him and without knowing I was going to do it I was thanking Him also for dying upon the cross for me that my sins might be forgiven and--and all of a sudden I began to be very happy inside--Oh, John!... Darling....”

Mrs. Everhard stopped talking and just clung to her husband while they both stood with their arms around each other, with little Charlotte Ann standing below them not knowing what was going on at all. Then Charlotte Ann quick looked up at them and, like she does sometimes when Mom and Pop are standing like that and doing that to each other, she kinda beat her little hands on Mrs. Everhard’s knees and said up to them in her cute little baby voice, “I want to be up where the heads are.”

Well, that is the beginning of the end of this story--one of the most wonderful things that ever happened around Sugar Creek.

After the storm was over and the clouds had cleared away and the friendly sun was shining again on a terribly wet world that had just had a good rain-water bath, we said “goodbye” to Old Man Paddler, not accepting his kind invitation to go through the cave to his cabin for a cup of sassafras tea, on account of I knew that I had better get back home with Charlotte Ann before my parents got there so that when they did get there I would just be finishing my job of two hours of baby-sitting. I maybe ought to close the windows too, and if there was any rain water on the floor anywhere I had better get it mopped up quick before Pop or Mom or both of them at the same time saw it and started mopping up on me.

We were all the way to the Sugar Creek bridge before Mr. Everhard stopped to say, “Where’s the shovel you took with you when you left the tent?”

She laughed a very musical laugh and answered, “I gave it to Mr. Paddler. He needs a new one for his flower garden up in the hills. Besides, I don’t think I’ll ever need it again--will I, darling?” she said to Charlotte Ann whom she was carrying.

But Charlotte Ann didn’t seem to understand what it was all about. “I’m hungry,” she said.

Just that second there was a rippling bird voice from somewhere in the woods and it sounded like it was saying, “O Lottle-lee ... Lottle-lee,” and it was an honest-to-goodness wood thrush, which now that the storm was over, probably felt extra happy about something.

* * * * *

When we got to the green tent, Mrs. Everhard just stood looking at all the damage the storm had done, none of us saying anything for a minute, not even Charlotte Ann. I was sort of expecting her to make some kind of a woman’s exclamation, and feel terribly bad, but instead she said quietly, “Well, that’s that. It was God’s storm, so we’ll have to accept what it did to our property,”--and I thought what a wonderful teacher Old Man Paddler had been.

Then she seemed to forget that Charlotte Ann and I were there, ’cause she said, “It’s been a wonderful vacation, John, _wonderful!_ I’ll never be able to thank God enough for such a thoughtful husband, and for that dear old man in the cave.”

Well, I can’t take time now to tell you any more about what happened that day, except that I did get home with Charlotte Ann at just about the same time my folks drove up to Theodore Collins on our mailbox. Mom was so thankful that we were all right that she didn’t say much about the rain water on the kitchen floor, and my wet clothes. Besides, the Everhards were there with me, and it seems like Mom thinks I am a better boy when we have company than when we don’t. Also, besides, Mr. Everhard was all wet too, and it might not seem right for a boy to get a scolding for something it was all right for a grown-up person to do.

The Everhards couldn’t stay in the tent that night, so Little Jim’s mom kept them at their house, they having one of the best spare rooms in all the Sugar Creek territory. Tomorrow the bobwhite and his wood thrush wife could move back into the tent again--after it had been dried out and pitched in a new and better location.

* * * * *

Big Jim himself picked out the best camp site in the woods, for the Everhards, and with some of our pops helping a little, we moved the tent and all their equipment--the best place being about fifty feet from the linden tree. Then we called a special meeting of the gang to talk over all the exciting things that had happened, especially to Charlotte Ann and the turtledove--who had turned into a wood thrush--and her bobwhite husband. We spent maybe an hour walking around through the woods to see how many trees had been blown down or uprooted, and some of our favorite trees had, which made us feel kinda sad, but it was good to be together even though we couldn’t go in swimming on account of Sugar Creek’s ordinarily nice, clear, friendly water was an angry-looking brown and was running almost as fast all along its course as it does all the time just in the riffles. Both ends of the bayou were so full they came together in the middle to make one big, long pond, and I thought about how sad the cute, little barred pickerel must feel to have their playground all spoiled for them. It certainly wouldn’t be much fun for them to have to look at everything through muddy water. Besides, who wants to have muddy water in his eyes all the time, which the barred pickerel would have to have?

There wasn’t very much we could do that was exciting enough for a gang of boys and we couldn’t even lie down and roll in the grass--it was still so wet.

“We can all go home and help our folks--maybe offer to hoe potatoes or something,” Poetry said with a heavy sigh, and Circus answered, “It’s too wet to work the ground today--don’t you know that?”

“Sure I know that,” Poetry answered with a grin. “That’s why I said it.”

“What _can_ we do?” Dragonfly asked in a discouraged, whining voice.

It was Little Tom Till who thought of something that sounded interesting. “Let’s all go down to the cave and see the way Old Man Paddler has fixed it up.”

“Yeah,” Little Jim chimed in, “and let’s all go through it up to his cabin and see if maybe he will offer to make us some sassafras tea.”

From the old linden tree, where we were at the time, we rambled along toward the bridge following the shore above the creek, which certainly didn’t look friendly today, even with the cheerful afternoon sun shining down on it. I wished it would hurry up and get back to normal because if there is anything in the world that gives a person a sad feeling, it is to have his favorite swimming hole spoiled by a heavy rain.

“Ho hum,” I sighed as I was climbing over the rail fence at the north road.

“Ho hum, yourself,” Poetry sighed back at me.

Only Little Jim seemed happy. He was standing on the flat surface of the top rail of the fence when he answered Poetry’s and my “ho hum’s,” saying, “What you guys so sad for?”

“Sad?” I answered. “Who’s sad?”

“Yeah, who is?” even Big Jim said sadly.

“What are you grinning like a simpish ’possum for?” Dragonfly asked Little Jim, who quick scooted himself down on the other side of the fence, saying over his shoulder as he ran across the gravel road, “Because next winter I get to go to the Everhard’s new resort at Squaw Lake and go ice fishing and I can take two of the gang along with me, whichever two of you wants to go. They just bought a resort up there last week and are going to move there this fall,”--Little Jim having found out about it while the Everhards were at his house last night. He was halfway up the fence on the other side of the road when he finished telling us about it.

Well, this has got to be the last part of this story because I have to get started as quick as I can on the next one--a long and happy and also exciting story about how _all_ the gang got to go to the Everhard’s resort up in the wilds of the North for a few days’ ice-fishing--up where there were a lot of wild animals living all around in the forest. Talk about a different kind of fun, and also a different kind of adventure! Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

I also have to tell you something else that happened that very afternoon when we got to the cave--what we found in an envelope tacked to the door.

“Hurry up,” Little Jim called to us--and for some reason his cheerful voice made me begin to feel wonderful as all the rest of us swished across the road, up the embankment on the other side and started on a helter-skelter gallop toward the cave.

THE END

There’s not only a green tent in this Sugar Creek Gang story, but some mysterious digging at night and what is almost another kidnapping. Here’s another lively adventure book in this very popular series by Paul Hutchens, the happy friend of young America.

_Be sure to read all the books in the SCRIPTURE PRESS series_:

THE SUGAR CREEK GANG GOES NORTH ADVENTURES IN AN INDIAN CEMETERY THE SUGAR CREEK GANG DIGS FOR TREASURE NORTH WOODS MANHUNT LOST IN A SUGAR CREEK BLIZZARD SUGAR CREEK GANG ON THE MEXICAN BORDER GREEN TENT MYSTERY AT SUGAR CREEK 10,000 MINUTES AT SUGAR CREEK BLUE COW AT SUGAR CREEK OLD STRANGER’S SECRET AT SUGAR CREEK THE SUGAR CREEK GANG AT SNOW GOOSE LODGE THE SUGAR CREEK GANG GOES WESTERN WE KILLED A WILDCAT AT SUGAR CREEK THE HAUNTED HOUSE AT SUGAR CREEK TRAP LINE THIEF AT SUGAR CREEK WATERMELON MYSTERY AT SUGAR CREEK DOWN A SUGAR CREEK CHIMNEY WILD HORSE CANYON MYSTERY

Other thrilling stories about the Sugar Creek Gang may be ordered from your Christian bookstore.

_Published and Distributed Exclusively by_

SCRIPTURE PRESS SCRIPTURE PRESS PUBLICATIONS, INC. 1825 College Avenue · Wheaton, Illinois

Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation has been retained as it appears in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows:

Page 57 readly to start wiping them _changed to_ ready to start wiping them

Page 90 O lottle-lee ... Lottle-lee _changed to_ O Lottle-lee ... Lottle-lee