WHILE we were still looking into that part of the tent that was still standing, it seemed good not to have any rain beating down on my face and bare head. In the quick look-around I had, I noticed, even in the half dark, the interesting camp equipment such as a three-burner camp stove, a metal rollaway bed and a rollaway table, on which was a pad of writing paper with a flashlight lying beside it. Also on the table was a kerosene lantern which was probably the same one Mrs. Everhard had been using the night we had first seen her digging in the old cemetery, beside Sarah Paddler’s tombstone. Hanging from one of the leaning tent poles was a religious calendar with a picture of the Good Samaritan on it, showing the man who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and had fallen among thieves, who had robbed him and left him half dead. The man was getting his wounds bound up by the Good Samaritan.

For just a second it seemed like I myself was trying to be a Good Samaritan and couldn’t be on account of the person I was trying to be a Good Samaritan to was lost and I couldn’t find her.

I hoped that when we did find Charlotte Ann and Mrs. Everhard they wouldn’t be half dead like the man in the Bible story was.

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.”