Interrogative sentences were galloping round and round in my mind. Then my thoughts made a dive for my left hip pocket. My face must have had a question-mark on it, ’cause she said, “Don’t you remember? You were going to make us a copy of the one you showed me. We wanted each of our girls to make her own map, using yours as a model, so that if any of them should get lost while they were here, they could easily find their way back to camp.”
Before I could answer—not knowing what to say anyway—she said with a laugh that was like the water in the Sugar Creek riffle above the spring, “I hardly recognized you, at first, with your hair cut, and I see you’ve washed your face since yesterday, too. You certainly remind me of my little brother. His first name was Tom, too.”
Say, you could have knocked me over with a haircut, I was so surprised. All of a brain-whirling sudden, I knew who the watermelon thief was, and my mystery was practically solved. Little Tom Till and I had red hair and freckles, and each of us wore a striped shirt and blue denim western-style jeans! The lady thought I was Little Tom Till!
Just then I heard somebody calling from the direction of our farm and it was Pop’s thundery voice saying loud enough to be heard a quarter of a mile away, “Bill! Hurry up! It’s time to start the chores!”
What little presence of mind I had, told me not to answer because it seemed like I ought to let the smiling-faced lady think I was Little Tom Till—for just a little while anyway—so I said to her, “That’s Theodore Collins. He’s probably calling his son to come and help him with the chores.”
“You know the Collins family?” the voice that was still like the Sugar Creek riffle, asked.
When I swallowed again and answered “Yes,” she surprised me by saying, “I met your mother in town this afternoon. She seemed like a very nice person. You must be very proud of her.”
“Uh—my mother? Which one?... I mean—you did?”
“She and Mrs. Collins were together shopping. They invited our troupe to church tomorrow. You go to Sunday school, I suppose?”
I swallowed a “Yes, Ma’am,” which she managed to hear, and before Theodore Collins called his son again about the undone chores, I said, “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll run over and see if I can stop him from having to call again. I think I know where his boy is.”