8
AS much as I hated to leave the red boat and the green tent and the brown burlap bags with the waterjugs in them, and the blue-dressed woman, I was perfectly willing to go on to Big Bob Till’s house—and of course Dragonfly was, for some reason, extraordinarily willing to get as far as possible from anybody who was a woman or a girl. I was all set in my mind for whatever would happen when Big Bob and Big Jim saw each other. What would happen? I wondered.
I certainly was surprised when, just before we reached the Tills’ wooden gate which led to their barnyard, I looked down at my hands and saw that somewhere on the way—I had picked up a three-foot-long stick and was carrying it, clasping it so tight my knuckles were white. My eyebrows were down, my lips were pressed tightly together, and my jaw muscles were tense.
We looked around the barn first and called “Hello,” a few times, with nobody answering. Then we went inside and out again, and through their orchard to the back door of their house. Big Jim and Circus went on to the small roofless porch and knocked—and again nobody answered. “Hello,” Big Jim called, and there wasn’t any answer or any sound from inside the house.
“Hello there,” Big Jim called again, and knocked again. Still nobody answered.
While Big Jim was doing that, I noticed Little Jim had his pencil out and was writing something on the manila envelope. My parents had taught me that it isn’t polite to read over anybody’s shoulder unless he invites you to, so I had a hard time seeing what he was writing, having to stand in front of him and crane my neck to read upside-down. And—would you believe it?—that little guy had written:
Dear Bob,
Here’s the Sunday School lesson quarterly Mother promised your mother. Be sure to study all the questions so in case our teacher asks you any of them you will know the answers. We will stop for you at nine o’clock in the morning.
Your friend,
Little Jim Foote.
I couldn’t have read another line without getting a crick in my neck, but I remembered all of a sudden that it was to Little Jim’s father, the township trustee, that Bob had been paroled.