There were other sounds than flying feet and the husky rusty rustle of the cornblades. There was an angry mannish-sounding voice, shouting exclamatory sentences and saying, “Stop you little rascal! Come back here with that! Do you hear me! I’ll whip the daylights out of you if I ever catch you!”
There was also a smallish, half-scared-half-to-death voice yelling “Help! Help! HELP!”
My muddled mind told me the small frightened voice was Little Tom Till’s and the angry voice was his big brother Bob’s—’cause it sounded just like his—and that Bob was chasing his brother and if he caught up to him he would give him a licking within an inch of his life.
Even as I glimpsed Little Tom flying ahead of whoever was behind him, I noticed again that he was dressed the same way I was. Being dressed like that made us look like twins, although, of course, he looked more like me than I did him, which means he was a better-looking boy than I would have been if I had looked like him.
For some reason when I realized that Tom was crying and running to get away from having to take a licking, in spite of the fact that I thought he was a watermelon thief, it seemed like I ought to do something to save him.
Closer and closer, and faster and faster, those flying feet came storming toward me. Then without warning Tom swerved to the left and dashed down a corn row and at the same time part of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address came to life in my mind and I knew I was really going to do something quick to help save Tom.
The thought was lightning fast in my mind: I was dressed exactly like Tom; my hair was red like his, and we were the same height, and would look so much alike from behind that whoever was chasing him wouldn’t know the difference. So I waited only a second until I felt sure Bob had seen me, then like a young deer I started on a fast gallop down the same corn row. I was sure I could run faster than Tom ’cause I had beaten him in a few races, and it would be quite a while before Bob could catch up with me. When he did catch up, he’d stop stock-still and stare, and Tom would be safe—for awhile anyway.
A second later the chase was on, and I was scooting down the row like a cottontail, running and panting and grinning to myself to think what a clever trick I was playing.
But say, that big lummox of a boy whom I hadn’t seen yet but had only heard, seemed to be gaining on me. Within a few minutes he would have me, if I didn’t run faster.