We crouched low, hardly daring to breathe, knowing that somebody was coming for sure, and wondering who it was, and what did he want, and was it Bob Till or maybe Old hook-nosed John Till himself, or who?
Right that second, I saw something white lying where my feet had been a jiffy before. It looked like a folded white handkerchief or something, so I stooped down, reached out my hand to touch it, and it was an envelope of some kind.
“Little Tom’s mom’s letter,” I thought. “Bob dropped it, and is coming back to look for it.”
Poetry and I kept even quieter than we had been, he not knowing of course, what I’d just found and had tucked into my pajama pocket—he and I not taking time to dress but were in our pajamas—I in my green and white striped ones and Poetry in his purple ones.
It was a queer feeling we had, right that second. For some reason we decided to get ourselves out of there, which we did, sneaking back maybe fifteen feet before we decided to stop and wait to see who it was and what he was looking for and why, if we could.
In only a few excited jiffies, whoever it was was right where we ourselves had been, and was flashing his flashlight on and off, all around, right where a little while before I’d picked up the envelope. I could see he wasn’t very tall—not as tall as Big John Till, so I decided it might be Bob again. Poetry had hold of my arm so tight it actually hurt, which showed, even though he was usually calm in a time of excitement, while I was the one that always got all nervous inside, this time he was pretty tense himself.
I certainly didn’t know what to do, and would have been afraid to do it even if I had. Besides I wouldn’t have had time to do much of anything, for right that jiffy whoever it was, stopped looking for whatever he was looking for, which was maybe the envelope I had in my striped pajama pocket, and I heard his footsteps going on past, and in the direction of Santa’s dock, which was several hundred yards farther on.
For a worried jiffy, I remembered the envelope in my pocket and thought that it wasn’t mine, which it wasn’t, and thought I ought to call out to whoever it was, and say, “Hey, there, mister, whatever you’re looking for, I’ve got it, whatever it is!” but I didn’t. A little later, Poetry and I were alone with ourselves, and the only sound there was, was the friendly lapping of the waves against the dock posts and the washing of other waves against the sandy shore. Away out on the lake there was a great big shimmering silver spot of moonlight which was very pretty. Still farther was the shadow of the trees on the little island on the other side of which we had caught our walleye that afternoon and where Wally had lost his life, and right that minute was maybe half digested in the stomach of a great big ugly-snouted northern pike.
I could feel my heart beating with excitement, but there was something else I was feeling too, and it was the envelope I had in my pocket, which I quick took out, and whispered for Poetry to turn on his light, which he did, and this is what we saw on the envelope written in pencil, that was kinda smeared like pencil marks on a letter are when a boy has carried it around in his pocket or in his hands awhile. We saw written in a big awkward scrawl, the name Bob Till, but there wasn’t anything else, not even an address—and no postage stamp.
Quick as anything, not stopping to think that that letter was private property and he had no right to open it, Poetry had the inside out of the outside and was unfolding it, and I was holding his trembling flashlight on it to see what it said, and—would you believe it?—it was a sheet of white typewriter paper and there wasn’t a thing on it, not even a pencil mark.