Just before nine o'clock, we all started in our car toward Little Jim's house, which was closer than Tom Till's or Shorty Long's. Little Jim came tumbling out his back door, his short legs carrying him fast out to the road. He got in and I was certainly tickled to see him. Mom and Pop and Charlotte Ann were in the front seat, so Charlotte Ann would be closer to our car heater and keep warm, on account of it was a cold morning.

"How is your mother this morning?" my mom asked Little Jim about his mom, and Little Jim piped up in his mouse-like voice and said, "She's better than last night. Pop and I took breakfast to her in bed," which is what my pop does to my mom when she doesn't feel well. In fact, sometimes when Pop gets up extra early before Mom does, he sneaks out into our kitchen quietly and makes coffee and carries a cupful in and surprises Mom even when she is perfectly well, which Pop says is maybe one reason why Mom keeps on liking him so well....

Our car turned north on the road that leads to Tom's house, crossed the snow-covered Sugar Creek bridge, and went on. While we were on the bridge, Little Jim said to me, "Look, there's an oak tree that still has its leaves on, and'll maybe keep 'em on all winter."

Then we came to Tom's weathered, old-looking house, and barn, and Pop pulled up at the side of the road in front of their mail box which said on it, "John Till," and honked the horn for Tom to come out and get in.

There was a new path which maybe Tom had scooped for his mom so she could get the mail. In a minute now, I thought, their side door would open and Little Tom would come zipping out, with his kinda oldish-looking coat on and he would come crunch, crunch, crunch through the snow path to where we were. Tom didn't come right away, though. Pop honked again, so Tom would be sure to hear, then when he still didn't come, and when there wasn't any curtain moving at their window to let us know anybody was home and that Tom would be here in a minute, Mom said to me, "Bill, you better run in and tell him we're here. We have to stop at Long's yet, and we don't want to be late."

Almost in a second I was opening the door and getting out. Little Jim tumbled out right after me, saying, "I'll go with you," and since neither his mom nor his pop were there to tell him not to, both of us went squishing up the snow path toward their side door. There had been a little wind during the night, and some snow had drifted into the path, and I was glad we had on our boots, so our good Sunday shoes wouldn't get wet and spoil their shine.

I knocked at Tom's door, and waited and nobody answered, and Little Jim and I listened to see what we could hear, but all I could hear was somebody moving around inside like whoever it was was in a hurry—like maybe there had been some things on the floor and they were in a hurry to straighten up the room or the house on account of company was coming.

Then I heard a door shutting somewhere in the house, and I knew it was the door between their living-room and kitchen, then I heard footsteps coming toward our door, and I wondered what was wrong. I was sure something was, but didn't know what.

The next thing I knew the door opened in front of me and there stood Little red-haired Tom, with his hair mussed up, and his old clothes on, and his eyes were kinda reddish, and it looked like he had been crying. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't go. Mother's got the flu, and I have to take care of her, and keep the fires going."

"Can't your daddy do that?" Little Jim asked in a disappointed voice, and Little Tom swallowed hard like there was a tear in his throat and said, "Daddy's not home again. He—he's—not home," Tom finished, and I knew what he meant, but he was ashamed to say it, and it probably was that his pop had got drunk again and was maybe right that very minute in the Sugar Creek jail.

"Where's Bob?" Little Jim wanted to know, and Tom stood there in the half-open kitchen door and said, "He got up early and went over to Shorty Long's; they're going to hunt pigeons."

I knew what that meant, 'cause sometimes some of the farmers in our neighborhood had too many pigeons, and the Sugar Creek Gang would go to their different barns and shut all the doors and windows quick and help catch the pigeons for them, and you could get sometimes fifteen cents apiece for them if you sold them.

If Shorty Long and Bob had gone hunting pigeons together, it meant that Shorty Long wouldn't want to go to Sunday School with us when we stopped at their house after awhile to get his mother to take her to church with us. It also meant that Shorty and Bob had maybe decided to like each other, since neither one of them liked the Sugar Creek Gang.

Little Tom didn't know what I'd been thinking, so he piped up and said to Little Jim, "I'm sorry I can't go, but I can't. You tell Teacher I'll try to come next week, and tell her I studied my Sunday School lesson, and—wait a minute!" Tom turned and, leaving the door open, hurried back inside the house, opened the door to their living-room and went in, like he had gone after something. He shut the door after him real quick, like he was trying to keep the cold air in the kitchen from getting into that other room.

In that split minute while the door was open, though, I saw that they had a big double bed in their living-room and that Tom's mother was in it, all covered up, and that there was a small table beside her bed with a glass half full of water, but that the room looked kinda topsyturvy like the housekeeping was being done by a boy instead of a mother.

A second later Tom was out again, shutting the door behind him, and coming right straight to Little Jim and me, and holding out his hand and saying, "Here—here's my offering." He handed me a small offering envelope like the ones we used in our church, and without trying to, I noticed it had two very small coins in it, and I guessed they were dimes, which maybe Tom himself had saved from catching pigeons.

Just that second, Tom's mother coughed, a kinda saddish, sickish cough, that sounded like maybe she was a lot sicker than she ought to be, and I knew that if my mom was as sick as that Pop would have a doctor out to see her right away, so I said, "Has the doctor been here?"

Little Tom frowned and said, "Nope, we can't—Nope, I guess Mom will get well. She always does."

Just that second our car honked, and I knew the folks were wondering what on earth was keeping us so long. There didn't seem to be anything we could do, but I knew somebody ought to do something for Tom's mom, 'cause that cough sounded dangerous. Why, she might even get pneumonia, I thought; she might even have it now.

As quick as Little Jim and I reached the car, and had climbed into the back seat, we told Mom and Pop. While I was excitedly telling them, I noticed that the muscles in Pop's jaws were working and I knew he was thinking, and also was half angry inside because anybody had to have such a mean husband as Old Hook-nosed John Till.

"He's a slave," Pop said, thinking of Tom's pop, and Mom said, with a very determined voice, "Theodore, you take the boys on to Sunday School. Be sure to stop for Mrs. Long. Here, Bill, you hold Charlotte Ann. If Mrs. Till has the flu, I can't keep Charlotte Ann here with me."

Pop started to say something, but Mom had already made up her mind, and it was too late. Mom was already half way out of the car when she said, "You can come on back and get me in time for church,—no, wait a minute. I want Tom to go to Sunday School too—I'll send him right out." Mom was out of the car and going up the snow path toward the oldish house, when Little Jim piped up and said, "The doctor's going to stop at our house at ten o'clock to see Mother. I'll bet he'd stop to see Tom's mother too if anybody asked him to."

"They can't afford a doctor," I said, remembering what Tom had tried to say a few minutes ago, but I hadn't any more than got the words out of my mouth than Pop spoke up almost fiercely, like he was angry at somebody or something, and this is what he said, "But I can. If Tom's mother needs a doctor, she's going to have one," and with that Pop shoved open the car door at his left side, saying, "You boys wait here a minute. I'll be right back." He slammed the door and circled the car and went swishing with very determined steps through that snow path to Tom's side door, and disappeared inside, leaving Little Jim and Charlotte Ann and me in the car. The motor was running and the heater fan was circulating warm air all over the car, so we wouldn't get cold.

I still had Little Tom's offering envelope in my hand, and it reminded me of how maybe Tom had earned the money, and so I said to Little Jim, "I hope Shorty Long and Bob don't stop at our barn, 'cause we don't have too many pigeons. And besides, there's a nest up in our cupola, with some baby pigeons in it, and if they catch the mother and father the babies will freeze or maybe starve to death."

A jiffy later, Pop came out to the car, bringing Tom with him, and all of us except Mom drove on toward Shorty Long's house to get Shorty's mother.

Pretty soon, fifteen minutes later, maybe, we all pulled up in our car in front of the little white church on top of the hill right across from a two-room brick schoolhouse where the Sugar Creek Literary Society met once a month on Wednesday nights. All of us except Pop got out to go inside the church, Shorty Long's mother carrying Charlotte Ann and was going to take care of her until Pop got back.

"I'm going to the parsonage to call the doctor to stop at your house," Pop said to Tom, "and I'm taking a radio to your mother, so if she feels able, she can listen to a Gospel program."

I looked quick at Little Tom, knowing he might feel ashamed to be reminded that his folks couldn't afford a doctor, and also that they didn't have any radio, and knowing it was on account of his pop; but Tom was looking in another direction, and was swallowing hard like he had taken too big a bite of something and hadn't chewed it long enough but was trying to swallow it. Then he whirled around real quick, and hurried up the cement steps to the church's door, with Little Jim and me right after him.

Just inside the vestibule, fastened to the wall, was what is called "The Minister's Question Box," with a little slit in the top for people to put in Bible questions they wanted explained, or also for any extra offering people wanted the minister to have.... Right that second I saw Little Jim pull one of his small hands out of his pocket and slip a folded piece of paper into the box, kinda bashful-like, then he and all of us went on in to where our classes would be sitting.

As soon as Sunday School was over and church started, I noticed Mr. Black come in. I was surprised to see him come to church, but I knew our minister would preach a good sermon like he always does, and it wouldn't hurt even a school teacher to hear a good sermon maybe once a week.

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