You see, all of the members of the Sugar Creek Gang were almost as interested in Little Jim’s new hobby as he was. For about a week he’d been getting all the old empty whiskey bottles he could find, and he—being an honest-to-goodness Christian boy who hated whiskey on account of it was a terrible enemy of mankind and made so many people in the world so sad and caused so much murder and stuff—had been putting what is called “a gospel tract” in them and a little note which he scribbled in his own handwriting. A gospel tract, just in case you might never have heard what one is, is a little folder with a printed message on it telling whoever reads it, something important out of the Bible, especially how to be saved and become a Christian. The kinda awkward scribble which Little Jim always tucked into each bottle along with the tract, always said the same thing, which was: “Whoever finds this, please believe that God loves you, and if you’re not saved, remember Jesus died on the cross for you, and hurry up and pray to Him and thank Him for doing it, and give your heart to Him quick. If you don’t know how to do it, send me your name and address and I’ll send you a free book telling you how.” Then Little Jim would sign his name which was Jim Foote, and he also gave his Sugar Creek address.
Then he’d cork up the bottle good and tight and toss it out into the lake for somebody to find and read. We’d all been having fun helping him, and we could hardly wait till we got back home to Sugar Creek to see if Little Jim had any mail from anybody who had found one of his notes.
You see, Little Jim had his mind made up that some time maybe when he was grown-up, he was going to be a missionary, but he couldn’t wait that long to be one so he was trying to be one now. He being that kind of a swell little guy and also being one of my best friends, I had decided I wasn’t going to wait till I was any grown-upper than I was, before doing it, too.
In a jiffy our boat was gliding slowly up alongside the bobbing bottle, and Circus, who was closer to it than Little Jim, reached out his hand and caught hold of it and started to hand it over to Little Jim. Then he let out a yell and said, “Hey, it’s got something tied to it!”
And sure enough, it had. I could see there was a piece of heavy fishing line, tied around the bottle’s neck, and that something was fastened to the other end away down in the water somewhere.
3
SAY, the very second I realized there was something tied to the other end of that fishing line I was afraid it might be some heavy object, and at the rate our boat was traveling, if Circus held onto the bottle, the line might break, so I yelled to him, “Hey, let go! The line might break!” At the same time, I quick shut off the gas to almost nothing and swung the boat around in a half circle, so, in case Circus didn’t let go, the line wouldn’t have too much strain on it and break, ’cause I was wondering what on earth might be on the other end.
My motor made a couple of smoky coughs right that minute and stopped, which was maybe a good thing on account of we might have broken the line, if it hadn’t.
You could have knocked me over with a pine needle when we found out what kind of a message was in that bottle. There wasn’t anything on the other end of the very strong fishing line except a great big old-fashioned horseshoe. It was covered with weeds and lake bottom dirt, which meant it had been used as a weight so the waves wouldn’t wash the bottle away.