me, keeping me well and strong and
happy most of the time. But I'm getting lonesome now, getting older
every day, getting so I can't walk without a cane, and I can't stand
the cold weather anymore, and I know it won't be long before I'll have
to move out of this crippled-up old house and come to live with You
in a new place.... I'll be awful glad to see Sarah again, and my
boys.... And that reminds me,--Please bless the boys who live and play
along old Sugar Creek--all of 'em--Big Jim, Little Jim, Circus,
Dragonfly, Poetry, Bill Collins...."

I knew what the kind man was doing all right, 'cause I'd seen and
heard him do it many a time in our little white church, and also I'd
seen him doing it once down on his knees behind the old sycamore tree
all by himself.... When I heard him mention my name, I gulped, and
some crazy tears got into my eyes and into my voice.... I had to
swallow to keep from choking out a word that would have let the gang
know I was about to cry.... Like a flash I thought of something and I
whirled around and grabbed Little Tom Till and shoved his ear down to
the crack in the door and put my own ear just above his so I could
hear too, and this is what the old man was saying up there in the
cabin, "And also bless the new member of the gang, Tom Till, whose
father is an infidel and spends his money on liquor and gambling....
Oh God, how can John Till expect his boys to keep from turning out to
be criminals.... Bless his boy, Bob, whose life has been so bent and
twisted by his father.... And bless the boys' poor mother, who hasn't
had a chance in life.... Lord, you know she'd go to church and be a
Christian if John would let her.... And please...."

That was as far as I got to listen right that minute cause I heard
somebody choke and gulp and all of a sudden Little Tom Till was
sniffling like he had tears in his eyes and in his voice, and then
that little guy who was the grandest little guy who ever had a
drunkard for a father, started to sob out-loud like he was
heart-broken, and couldn't help himself.

I got the strangest feeling inside of me like I do when anybody cries,
and I wanted to help him stop crying and didn't know what to do.

"'Smatter?" Dragonfly said, and Tom said, "I want to go home!"

"'Smatter?" Circus said, "Are you sick?"

"Yeah, what's the matter?" Poetry's duck-like voice squawked, but
Little Jim was a smart little guy and he said, "He doesn't feel well.
Let's all take him h