"I'll get it," Mom said, "I'm expecting a call—I say, I'LL GET IT!" Mom raised her voice on account of I was already out of my chair and half way to the living room door.
When Mom came back a minute later, she was smiling like she'd had some wonderful news, and it was, "It was Mrs. Long. Mr. Long won't be home tomorrow, so she can go to church with us. Isn't that wonderful? It's an answer to prayer."
I spoke up then and said, "How about Shorty? Is he going too?"
I don't know what there was in my voice that shouldn't have been, when I asked that question, but Mom said in an astonished tone of voice, "Why, Bill Collins! The very idea! Don't you want him to go to church and Sunday School and learn something about being a Christian? Do you want him to grow up to be a heathen? What's the matter with you?"
I gulped. Mom had read my thoughts like an open school book. "Of course," I said, "he ought to go to church, but—"
"But what?" Mom said.
"He's awful mean to the gang," I said, "He—"
"Perhaps we'd better ask the blessing now," Pop said, in a kind voice, and right away we bowed our heads, while Pop prayed a short prayer, which ended something like this, "... and bless our minister tomorrow. Put into his heart the things he ought to say that will do us all the most good.... Make his sermon like a plow and hoe and rake that will make the gardens of our hearts what they all ought to be.... Bless Shorty Long and his mother and father, and the Till family, all of which we ask in Jesus' name. Amen."
For some reason, when Pop finished, I seemed to feel like maybe I didn't actually hate our new teacher, not very much anyway, and I thought maybe Shorty Long, even if he was a terribly tough boy, would be better if he had somebody pull some of the weeds out of him....
After supper, we all took our regular Saturday night baths and went to bed, and the next thing we knew it was a wonderful morning, with the sun shining on the snow and with sleigh bells jingling on people's horses, on account of some of our neighbors lived on roads where the road-conditioner hadn't been through yet, and couldn't use their cars and so had to use sleds instead. It was going to be a wonderful day all day, I thought, and was glad I was alive.