  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. “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 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 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 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 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?” “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:
Published and Distributed Exclusively by SCRIPTURE PRESS Transcriber’s Note: Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation has been retained as it appears in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows:
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