“I know you wouldn’t,” Dad replies, then puts a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry about that hill. If I owned it I’d turn it over to the town for a public playground.”
“Picture Mr. Turner doing a thing like that!” I explodes. “He’s not interested in this community. He’s just interested in what he can take out of it.”
Dad nods. “The answer probably is,” he says; thoughtfully, “that Mr. Turner’s never learned how to play.”
And, do you know—Dad’s explanation all of a sudden soaks in! The more I think it over, the sorrier I commence to feel for Mr. Turner for what he’s been missing all his life. And the tough part is that his son’s starting out the same way.
“Maybe we could return good for evil,” it occurs to me. “I’ll have to get the gang together and see what they think about it.”
Talk about a conference! There’s just six of us fellows and each of us has more ideas than we know what to do with ... which means that there’s usually six leaders and no followers. Some don’t want to have anything more to do with the Turners; others claim, if we did try to be nice, it wouldn’t be appreciated; and Tommy Fox asks me what I expect to gain for my trouble.
“Probably nothing,” I rejoins, “except the satisfaction of playing missionary to the heathen on the hill!”
This brings a laugh.
“Okay!” seconds Mack Sleder. “It’s going to be torture for us, but mamma’s boy Ronnie gets invited to join our gang the next time we see him.”