“Look!” I whispered to Poetry, holding onto his arm so tight he said, “Hey, not so tight—I am looking!”
Through one of the windows, we could see a flickering fire in the fireplace. From where we were, we could see past the kitchen window, but couldn’t see into it. Then I felt my hair rising right up under my hat, for there was the shadow of a man just like he’d climbed out that window. Then a flashlight went on and off real quick.
“SH!” Poetry said to me, ’cause I had gasped outloud. “He’s coming this way.” Which he was, but only for a few feet till he got to the corner of the cabin, then he turned and followed the cement walk which led along the side of the house and down the slope to the dock.
I could hardly believe my ears, but I had to, ’cause the man was whistling a tune and it was “Old Black Joe,” which we sometimes sang out of a song book at Sugar Creek school, and also used different words to in our church, which were:
“Once I was lost and way down deep in sin,
Once was a slave to passions fierce within.
Once was afraid to trust a loving God,
But now my sins are washed away in Jesus’ blood.”
Only I knew John Till wouldn’t be thinking of those words when he whistled, but would be thinking of the Old Black Joe ones.
At the corner of the cabin, he came out in the moonlight where we saw as clear as anything. He had a pair of rubber boots on, a fishing pole in one hand and a big stringer of fish, which looked like the very same stringer he had in the sink in the afternoon.