It was even plainer than day what had happened, and that was that Shorty Long and Bob Till had been to our house and barn while we were in church and had stolen Snow-white and some other pigeons and then seeing how nice and light and easy to carry Pop's new ladder was, and remembering the story of The Hoosier Schoolmaster, and both of the boys not liking the Sugar Creek Gang, and Shorty Long especially not liking me terribly much, they had borrowed the ladder and had used it to put the board on the chimney, so Mr. Black would be smoked out when he started the fire, and I, Bill
Collins, and maybe all the Sugar Creek Gang, would get into even more trouble with Mr. Black, and—
I was thinking all those worried thoughts in less than a jiffy while I was looking through those binoculars, and was still standing on the roof of Poetry's pop's chicken house, with Poetry and Little Jim beside me.
I must have let out a very excited gasp, 'cause Poetry said, "'Smatter, Bill?" and Little Jim said in his mouse-like voice which was also excited for a change, "See anything important?"
Dragonfly was on the ground in front of me and he yelled up and said "What's the matter?" then he sneezed, which is what people sometimes do when all of a sudden they look up and the sun gets into their eyes, which it did in Dragonfly's eyes right that second.
"Quick!" I yelled to the gang. "Come on, we've got to get to the schoolhouse before Mr. Black does or the schoolhouse will catch on fire maybe." The ladder was on the side of the schoolhouse where I knew Mr. Black wouldn't see it when he got there. I whirled around, made a leap for the ground, landed in a snow drift, got out of it in a hurry, and raced as fast as I could down Poetry's lane toward the highway.
Poetry and Dragonfly and Little Jim came whizzing along behind me, yelling what was the matter and why was I in such a hurry, and how on earth could the schoolhouse catch on fire, and why did we have to get there first, before Mr. Black did.
I still had Poetry's binoculars in my hand, and was running, panting, dodging drifts, and all the time I could see in my mind's eye Pop's new ladder leaning up against the schoolhouse, and I knew that if Mr. Black ever saw it and found out whose it was, I'd have a hard time explaining it to him that I hadn't done it.
In between pants, I managed to get it into the heads of the rest of the gang what I'd seen, and why I was in a hurry. "We've got to get there first, and get that board off the chimney or the room will be filled with smoke and maybe there will be an explosion."
I remember that in The Hoosier Schoolmaster, there had really been some smoke....