Of course everybody knows about Old Man Paddler, the kindest old long whiskered old man who ever lived, and who was the best friend the Sugar Creek Gang ever had. He lived up in the hills above Sugar Creek, and almost every week the gang went up to see him sometimes in the summer-time we went nearly every day. We went in the winter, too, on account of he lived all by himself and we had to go up to take him things which our moms were always cooking for him, and also we had to be sure he didn’t get sick ’cause there wouldn’t be anybody there to take care of him or call the doctor for him on account of he didn’t have any telephone....

After a little while we were tired of running so fast, so we slowed down, it being easier to be a cow’s tail than to get all out of breath. Poetry and I were side by side most of the time with Little Jim walking along behind us and with Little Tom Till and Circus and Dragonfly swishing on ahead of us. Once when Little red-haired Tom and Little Jim were beside each other behind Poetry and me, I heard Little Jim say to red-haired Tom, “Mom says for you to be ready a little early tomorrow morning, on account of the choir has to practice their anthem again before they sing.”

I knew what Little Jim was talking about ’cause his folks stopped at Tom’s house every Sunday morning about nine o’clock, and Little Tom got in and rode to Sunday School with them in their big maroon and grey car. Little Jim’s very pretty mom was the pianist at our church, and had to be always on time. Little Jim’s words came out kinda jerkily like he was doing something that made him short of breath while he talked. I turned around quick to see, and sure enough, he was shuffling along, making rabbit tracks with his stick, and saying his words every punch of his stick into the snow.

Little Tom answered Little Jim by saying, “O de koke,” which is the same as saying, “Okey doke,” which means “O.K.” which is what most anybody says when he means “All right,” meaning Tom Till would be ready early, and that when Little Jim’s folks came driving up to their front gate tomorrow, Little Tom, with his best clothes on, would come running out of their dilapidated old unpainted house, carrying his New Testament, which Old Man Paddler had bought for him.... Then they’d all swish away together to Sunday School.

Then I heard Little Jim ask something else which showed what a grand little guy he was. “S’pose maybe your mother would like to go with us, too?”

“My mother would like to go with us,” Tom said to Little Jim, “but she doesn’t have any clothes that’re good enough.” And knowing the reason why was because her husband drank up nearly all the money he made in the Sugar Creek beer taverns, and also drank whiskey which he bought in the liquor store knowing that, I felt my teeth gritting hard and I took a fierce swing with the stick I was carrying, at a little maple tree beside me.... I socked that tree so fierce with my stick, that my hands stung so bad they were almost numb; the stick broke in the middle and one end of it flew ahead to where Circus and Dragonfly were and nearly hit them.

“Hey, you!” Dragonfly yelled back toward us, “What you trying to do kill us?”

“What on earth!” Circus yelled back to me, and I stood 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, “Psst!” which meant “I heard something mysterious! Everybody keep still a minute,” which we did; and then as plain as day I heard it myself, an old man’s voice talking. It was high pitched and quavering, and kinda sad-like, like he was begging somebody to do something for him....

We were all so quiet as mice, not a one of us moving or hardly breathing.... I couldn’t hear a word the old man was saying, but he sounded like he needed help.... I remembered how we’d all saved his life two different times once when a robber had tied him up and he’d have starved if we hadn’t found him, and another time when he’d fallen down his cellar steps in the winter-time and his fire had gone out, and we had started a fire for him with punk, using the thick lenses of his reading glasses for a magnifying glass which any boy can do if he can get some real dry punk and a magnifying glass.... First you focus the red hot light which shines from the sun through the magnifying glass, right on the punk until it makes a little smoking live coal, then you hold a piece of dry paper against the red glow on the punk, and blow and blow with your breath until all of a sudden there will be an honest to goodness flame of fire....

Say, when I heard Old Man Paddler half talking and half crying up there in his cabin, I got a very queer feeling inside of me....

“Quick!” Circus said, “He’s in trouble. Let’s go in and help him.” Circus gave a shove on the door, turning the latch at the same time, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“It’s barred,” Poetry said, and I remembered the heavy bar on the inside which the old man always dropped into place whenever he was inside.

“Sh! Listen!” Little Jim said, and we shushed and listened.

Say, that little guy had his ear pressed up real close to a crack in the door, and in the light of my flashlight which I didn’t shine right straight on his face on account of it might blind him, I could see that his eyes had a very far away look in them, like he was thinking something important and maybe in his mind’s eyes was seeing something even more important.

“What is it?” I said to him, and he said, “Don’t worry, he’s all right. He doesn’t need our help here, listen yourself,” which I did, and right away I knew Little Jim was right.... For this is what I heard the old man saying in his quavering, high-pitched voice, “... And please, You’re the best friend I ever had, letting me live all these long years, taking care of 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 home.”

“I’ll go b-b-by m-m-myself,” Little Tom said, and started back into the cave, but I knew it was too dark for him to see, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “We’ll all go with you.”

“But we wanted to see Old Man Paddler,” Dragonfly said, “What’s the use to go home? I want some sassafras tea.”

“Keep still,” I said, “Tom’s sick. He ought to go home.” I knew Little Tom was terribly embarrassed, and that he’d be like a little scared rabbit if we took him into Old Man Paddler’s cabin now.

We must have made a lot of noise talking ’cause right that minute I heard Old Man Paddler’s voice up there calling down to us, “Wait a minute, boys! I’ll be right down....”

Well, it would have been impolite to run away now, and so I whispered to Tom, “Me and Little Jim are the only ones who heard him praying and and we we like you anyway.” I gave Tom a kinda fierce half a hug around his shoulder, just as I heard Old Man Paddler’s trap door in the floor of his house opening, and a shaft of light came in through the crack in the door right in front of us.... In a jiffy our door would open too, and we’d see that kind old long whiskered old man, with his twinkling grey eyes, and pretty soon we’d all climb up the cellar steps and be inside his warm cabin with a fire crackling in his fireplace and with the teakettle on the stove for making sassafras tea, and the old man would be telling us a story about the Sugar Creek of long ago....

All of a sudden, I got the strangest warm feeling inside of me, and I felt so good, something just bubbled up in my heart.... It was the queerest feeling, and made me feel good all over, ’cause right that second one of Little Tom’s arms reached out and gave me a very awkward half a hug real quick, like he was very bashful or something, but like he was saying, “You’re my best friend, Bill.... I’d lick the stuffin’s out of the biggest bum in the world for you, in fact I’d do anything.”

But his arm didn’t stay more’n just time enough for him to let it fall to his side again, but I knew he liked me a lot and it was a wonderful feeling.

Right that second, I heard the old man lift the bar on the big wooden door, and push it open, and real bright light came in and shone all over all of us, and the old man said, “Well, well, well, well, the Sugar Creek Gang! Come on in, boys, we’ll have a party.”

A jiffy later, we were all inside his cellar, and scrambling up his cellar steps into his warm cabin.