ound at the mess, when
he piped up and said in a voice that sounded like he was the leader of
the gang, "Hey, you guys! Let's DO something, before he gets back.
Let's straighten things up, and maybe when he comes he'll believe that
we didn't do it!"

Then Dragonfly whirled around from his window, and said, "They're
clear down to Circus's house already, and the horse just turned in to
their barnyard," which made me want to make a dive for the window to
look too, but I didn't 'cause all of a sudden Little Jim said
something else which was, "Let's start the fire for him real quick,
and that'll show him we like him," and that started my mind to
working.

"We can't," I said, "the board's still across the chimney and we can't
get it off."

That started Poetry to thinking and he made a heavy dive for the long
shelf along the back wall, and right there where they had been, only
there was some stove pipe wire beside them, were the pliers. In a
jiffy, Poetry and I were back outside, and with him holding the ladder
and with me all trembling inside, but not too nervous to climb, I went
up that ladder, hand over hand, and in less than a half-dozen worried
jiffies, had our swing board off the chimney and tossed it out into a
snow drift. When I was down again, Poetry and I whisked the ladder
back behind the schoolhouse, and with our feet, covered it with snow,
and also the swing board, and when we got back inside the schoolhouse,
Little Jim and Dragonfly had used their hands and had taken the little
fire shovel and scooped out as much of the snow out of the stove as
they could and had laid the fire again, like we all knew how to do,
from having seen our parents do it. Poetry shoved his hand in his
pocket for his water-proof match box, and in a little while we had a
roaring fire in the big round iron stove. Then all of us started in to
cleaning up the schoolhouse as fast as we could.

Poetry grabbed an eraser and as quick and as fierce as a cat jumping
on a mouse, leaped toward the blackboard and swished his poetry into
nothing; Little Jim found a dust cloth and went up one row of seats
and down another, carefully dusting each one just like I imagine he'd
been taught at home--not swishing the cloth around too fast which
would make more dust. I began to try to untangle the Christmas tree
from the popcorn strings and paper chains, thinking how nice the tree
would look standing up in the corner again, when all of a sudden
Dragonfly