ood looking at
the broken end of the rest of the stick in my hand, then turned like a
flash and whirled around and threw it as hard as I could straight
toward another tree about twenty feet away. That broken stick hit the
tree right in the center of its trunk, with a loud whack.

I didn't answer them in _words_ at all. I was so mad at Tom's pop and
at beer and whiskey and stuff.

But I couldn't waste all my temper on something I couldn't help, so I
kept still and we all went on to the cave, and went in, and followed
its long narrow passageway clear through, until we came to the big
wooden door which opened into Old Man Paddler's cellar. As soon as we
got there, Circus, who was always the leader of our gang when Big Jim
wasn't with us, stopped us, and made us keep still, then he knocked on
the door--three knocks, then two, then three more, then two, which was
the code the gang always used when we came, so Old Man Paddler would
know it was us.

If he was home, he would call down and say in his quavering old voice,
"Who's there?" and we'd answer, and right away we'd hear his trap door
in the floor of his house open, and hear his steps coming down his
stairway and hear him lift the big wooden latch that held the door
shut, and then when he'd see us, he'd say, "Well, well, well, well,
the Sugar Creek Gang--" then he'd name every one of us by our
nicknames, and say, "Come on in, boys, we'll have some sassafras tea,"
which all of us, especially Little Jim, liked so very much.

Everything was quiet while Circus knocked ... three times, then two,
then three, and then two again, while we all waited and listened.
There was always something kinda spooky about that knock, and being in
a cave I always felt a little queer until I heard the old man's voice
answer us. In fact, I always felt creepy until we got inside the cabin
and the trap door was down again.

We all stood there, outside that big wooden door, waiting for Old Man
Paddler to call down to us, but there wasn't a single sound, so Circus
knocked again: three times, then two, then three, and then two again,
and we all waited. Except for my little pocket flashlight which my pop
had given me for Christmas, we didn't have any light, and we couldn't
waste the battery by keeping it on all the time, so I turned it off,
but it felt so spooky with it off and nobody answering Circus's knock
that I turned it on again just as Dragonfly who was always hearing
things first, said, "P