ness girl who wasn't afraid of mice or spiders, and
sometimes I carried her dinner pail to school. I knew Dragonfly was
trying to tease me, so I said, "Here, let me see."

A jiffy later I was looking at Mr. Black stopping his big horse at
Circus's house. Just that second, Dragonfly shoved his hands against
my knees behind me, and both my knees buckled, and I swung around a
little, and when I looked again toward Circus's house, the binoculars
were focused, not on his house, but on our red brick schoolhouse
farther across the field, and all of a sudden I let out a gasp and a
yell, and felt a queer feeling inside of me, for right there on the
north side of the schoolhouse was a ladder leaning up against the
eaves and--yes, I could see it as plain as day, there was something
that looked like a flat board lying right across the top of the
schoolhouse chimney....

It was even plainer than day what had happened, and that was that
Shorty Long and Bob Till had been to our house and barn while we were
in church and had stolen Snow-white and some other pigeons and then
seeing how nice and light and easy to carry Pop's new ladder was, and
remembering the story of _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, and both of the
boys not liking the Sugar Creek Gang, and Shorty Long especially not
liking me terribly much, they had borrowed the ladder and had used it
to put the board on the chimney, so Mr. Black would be smoked out when
he started the fire, and I, Bill Collins, and maybe all the Sugar
Creek Gang, would get into even more trouble with Mr. Black, and--

I was thinking all those worried thoughts in less than a jiffy while I
was looking through those binoculars, and was still standing on the
roof of Poetry's pop's chicken house, with Poetry and Little Jim
beside me.

I must have let out a very excited gasp, 'cause Poetry said,
"'Smatter, Bill?" and Little Jim said in his mouse-like voice which
was also excited for a change, "See anything important?"

Dragonfly was on the ground in front of me and he yelled up and said
"What's the matter?" then he sneezed, which is what people sometimes
do when all of a sudden they look up and the sun gets into their eyes,
which it did in Dragonfly's eyes right that second.

"Quick!" I yelled to the gang. "Come on, we've got to get to the
schoolhouse before Mr. Black does or the schoolhouse will catch on
fire maybe." The ladder was on the side of the schoolhouse where I
knew Mr. Black wouldn't see it whe