n he got there. I whirled around,
made a leap for the ground, landed in a snow drift, got out of it in a
hurry, and raced as fast as I could down Poetry's lane toward the
highway.

Poetry and Dragonfly and Little Jim came whizzing along behind me,
yelling what was the matter and why was I in such a hurry, and how on
earth could the schoolhouse catch on fire, and why did we have to get
there first, before Mr. Black did.

I still had Poetry's binoculars in my hand, and was running, panting,
dodging drifts, and all the time I could see in my mind's eye Pop's
new ladder leaning up against the schoolhouse, and I knew that if Mr.
Black ever saw it and found out whose it was, I'd have a hard time
explaining it to him that I hadn't done it.

In between pants, I managed to get it into the heads of the rest of
the gang what I'd seen, and why I was in a hurry. "We've got to get
there first, and get that board off the chimney or the room will be
filled with smoke and maybe there will be an explosion."

I remember that in _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, there had really been
_some_ smoke....

Poetry who was my best friend, almost, was as mad as I was, and he
said, behind me between his short breath, "Those dirty bums! They're
the cause of _all_ our trouble with our new teacher!"

And would you believe it? Little Jim heard him say that, yelled to us,
and said, "Are you sure?" Imagine him not being sure.

We took a short cut we knew about, and once when we were on the top of
a little hill in Dragonfly's pop's woods, we stopped and Poetry and I
took a couple of quick looks through his binoculars toward Circus'
house, to see if Mr. Black was still there, and his horse was, so we
guessed he was too.

I saw him out in their back yard and a whole flock of girls was lined
up against their woodshed and he was taking their picture. I didn't
see Circus there anywhere, and I wished he was with us, on account of
he could run faster than any of us and also climb better.

"Come on!" I yelled to the rest of the guys with me, "we can make it,
I think." Away we went.

"Wait!" Dragonfly yelled from pretty far back. "I'm out of breath.
I--can't--can't run so--fast!" which he couldn't.

All of a sudden, Poetry stopped and said, "We're crazy, Bill, we can't
make it. Look! There he goes now, right straight toward the
schoolhouse. Quick! Drop down! He's looking this way!"

He ducked behind a rail fence which is where we were at the time, and
I