The Sugar Creek Gang Digs for Treasure

by Paul Hutchens

The main room where the fireplace was, was in the center of the cabin and was so dark you could hardly see anything clearly, but I did see two big colored pictures on the back wall of the porch at the front. I hurried out there, just to get a look at the storm, storms being one of the most interesting sights in the world, and they make a boy feel very queer inside, like maybe he isn’t very important and also make him feel like he needs the One Who made the world in the first place, to sort of look after him, which is the way I felt right that minute.

I noticed that there was a sheer drop of maybe fifteen feet right straight down into the ravine and remembered that if anybody wanted to get out of the cabin by a door, he’d have to use the only one there was which was the one that had been locked when Poetry had tried the knob.

On the front porch where I was, were two or three whiskey bottles, I noticed, and one with the stopper still in it, was half full, standing on a two-by-four ledge running across the front.

I could see better out here, although the terribly dark clouds in the sky, and also the big pine trees all around with their branches shading the cabin, made it almost dark even on the porch, but I did see two big colored pictures on the back wall of the porch advertising whiskey, and with important looking people drinking or getting ready to. Circus was standing with me right then, and I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, remembering how his pop used to be a drunkard before he had become a Christian, but had been saved just by repenting of his sins and trusting the Lord Jesus to save him. Say, Circus was looking fiercely at those pictures, and I noticed he had his fists doubled up, like he wished he could sock somebody or something terribly hard. I was glad right that minute that Little Tom Till wasn’t there, on account of his daddy was still a drunkard and a mean man.

I left Circus standing looking fiercely at those whiskey pictures, and looked out at the lake which was one of the prettiest sights I ever saw, with the waves being whipped into big white caps, and blowing and making a noise which, mixed up with the noise on our roof, was very pretty to my ears.

We didn’t even bother to look around inside the cabin for a while—anyway, I didn’t. Away out on the farther side of the lake there was a patch of sunlight and the water was all different shades of green and yellow. Right away there was a terrific roar, as a blinding flash of lightning lit up the whole porch, and then it did rain, and the wind blew harder and whipped the canvas curtains on the porch; and the pine trees between us and the lake acted like they were going to bend and break. Six white birch trees that grew in a cluster down beside the old outdoor stone stairway that led in the semi-circle from the cabin down to the broken-down dock, swayed and twisted and acted like they were going wild and might be broken off and blown away any minute.

“Hey! Look!” Poetry said. “There are little moving mountains out there on the lake!”

I looked, and sure enough that was what it did look like. The wind had changed its direction and was blowing parallel with the shore, instead of toward it, and other high waves were trying to go at right angles to the ones that were coming toward the shore. It was a terribly pretty sight.

All of a sudden while I was standing there, and feeling a little bit scared on account of the noise and the wind and the rain, I got to thinking about my folks back home, and was lonesome as well as scared; and also I was thinking that my parents had taught me that all the wonderful and terrible things in nature had been made and were being taken care of by the same God that had made growing boys, and that He loved everybody and was kind and had loved people so much that He had sent His only Son into this very pretty world, to die for all of us and to save us from our sins. My parents believed that, and had taught it to me; and nearly every time I thought about God, it was with a kind of friendly feeling in my heart, knowing that He loved not only all the millions of people in the world but also me—all by myself—red-haired, fiery-tempered, freckle-faced Bill Collins, who was always getting into trouble, or a fight, or doing something impulsive and needing somebody to help me to get out of trouble. Without knowing I was thinking outloud, I did what I sometimes do when I’m all by myself and have that very friendly feeling toward God. I said, “Thank You, dear Saviour, for dying for me.... You’re an awful wonderful God to make such a pretty storm.”

I didn’t know Dragonfly was standing there beside me, until he spoke up all of a sudden and said, “You oughtn’t to swear like that. It’s wrong to swear,” which all the gang knew it was, and none of us did it, Little Jim especially not being able to stand to even hear it without getting a hurt heart.