Big Jim looked around at the irregular circle of us and nodded to me and motioned with his thumb for me to follow him up the hill. He stopped all the rest of the gang from following. In a jiffy, I was creeping quietly up that steep incline behind Big Jim, and also Little Jim came along, ’cause right at the last second Big Jim motioned to him that he could, on account of he had a hurt look in his eyes like maybe nobody thought he was important ’cause he was so little.
I had a trembling feeling all inside of me ’cause I just knew there was going to be a surprise at the top of that hill, and maybe a mystery. Also, I felt proud that Big Jim had picked me out to go up with him, on account of he nearly always picks Circus who is next biggest in the gang. I didn’t need to feel proud though, ’cause when I heard a little slithering noise behind me while I was on the way up, I knew why Circus didn’t get invited, and it was ’cause he was already half way up a small sapling which grew near the spring. He was already almost high enough to see what was going on at the top of the hill, Circus doing like he is always doing anyway, which is climbing trees most any time or all the time, he looking like a monkey even when he isn’t up a tree. The only thing that kept him from hanging by his tail like a monkey was that he didn’t have any tail, but he could hang by his legs anyway.
When we had almost reached the top, I felt Little Jim’s small hand take hold of my arm tight, like he was scared, ’cause we could still hear somebody walking around and talking to himself.
Big Jim stopped us, and we all very slowly half-crawled the rest of the way up. My heart was pounding like everything, ’cause I just knew there was going to be excitement at the top, and when you know there is going to be excitement, you can’t wait for it, but get excited right away.
“Listen!” Little Jim whispered to me beside me. “He’s pounding something.”
“Sh!” Big Jim said to us, frowning fiercely, and we kept still. What on earth was going on up there? I wondered, and wished I was a little farther up, but Big Jim had stopped us again, so we could listen.
One, two, three—pound, pound, pound... There were about nine or ten socks with something on something and then the pounding stopped and we heard footsteps going away.
I looked back down the hill at the rest of the gang. Dragonfly’s eyes were large and round, like they are when he is half scared or excited; Poetry had a scowl on his fat face, he being one who has a detective-like mind and was maybe disappointed that Big Jim had made him stay at the bottom of the hill; little red-haired Tom Till’s very freckled face looked very queer. He was stooped over trying to pry a root loose out of the ground, so he’d be ready to throw it at somebody or something, if he got a chance or if he had to, and his face looked like he was ready for some kind of fight, and like he half hoped there might be one. And if I had been down there at the bottom of the incline at the spring, and somebody else had been looking down at me, he would have seen another red-haired freckle-faced boy whose hair was trying to stand up on end under his old straw hat, and who wasn’t much to look at, but who had a fiery temper which had to be watched all the time or it would explode on somebody or something.
Maybe in case you’ve never read anything about the Sugar Creek Gang before, I’d better tell you that I am red-haired and freckle-faced and do have a fiery temper some of the time, and that my name is Bill Collins. I have a swell mom and pop and a baby sister whose name is Little Charlotte Ann, and I’m the only boy in the Collins family. Not having any older sisters, I have to wash or wipe the dishes two or three times a day and help with some of the other girls’ chores around our house, which maybe is good for me, Pop says, on account of when I wash dishes the hot sudsy water helps to keep my hands and fingernails clean.
I whirled around quick from looking down the hill at the rest of the gang and from seeing Circus who was up the elm sapling trying to see over the crest of the hill, but probably couldn’t. Big Jim had his finger up to his pursed lips for all of us to keep on keeping still, which we did.