p
up the ladder and take the board off. Then I'll climb back down, take
the ladder and drag it around behind the schoolhouse quick, and come
back here.... Then tonight or sometime after Mr. Black goes home, some
of us'll sneak over and bring the ladder home, and everything'll be
all right."

It was a good idea if only it would work, which it had to, or I just
knew that the gentleman I'd made up my mind I was going to try to be,
would get a terrible licking, which any gentleman shouldn't have to
have, or he isn't one, which I wasn't, yet, anyway....

"Let ME do it," Poetry said beside me, puffing hard from the fast run
we'd just had, and Dragonfly said, "The ladder'd break with you on
it," trying to be funny and not being.

Little Jim piped up and said, "All the snow's off the roof right next
to the chimney." I looked at him real quick, and he had a far-away
look in his eyes, like he was not only looking at the dry roof all
around the schoolhouse chimney, but was thinking something very
important, which he'd heard in church that morning, but which I
hadn't....

"Here goes," I said, my heart beating wildly. "You guys stay here, and
watch," and Little Jim piped up and said, "We will--we'll watch
and--and--" I knew what he was going to say even before he said it,
and for some reason it seemed like it was all right for him to say it,
and it didn't sound sissified for him to, either. While I was climbing
over that rail fence and making a dive for the schoolhouse and the
ladder, Little Jim's whole sentence was tumbling around in my mind,
and it was, "We will--we'll watch and--and _pray_."

Little Jim was almost as good a friend of mine, as Tom Till was, I
thought....

A jiffy later I reached my pop's new ladder and started to start up
when I heard somebody running behind me and saying in a husky whisper,
"Hey, Bill! Stop. Wait! Let me hold the ladder."

I looked around quick and it was Poetry behind me, and I knew he was
right. My pop had taught me never to go up a ladder until I was sure
the bottom of it was safely set so it _wouldn't_ slip, or unless
somebody stayed at the bottom to hold it so it _couldn't_.

A jiffy later, I was on my way up, and another steenth of a jiffy I
was at the eaves, and, being a very good climber, I scrambled up the
other little ladder that was made out of nailed-on boards, to the red
brick chimney. I had to be as quiet as I could, though, on account of
not wanting Mr. Black to hear me