above their piano in their house, of the Good Shepherd with a little
lamb in his arms, with the Good Shepherd's hand on the little lamb's
poll, which is the top of its head....

Then in a flash I was seeing Mr. Black again standing with one hand on
his hip and the other holding onto one of the beech switches, he
having laid the other switch down on Sylvia's little sister's desk,
which was beside and behind him.

"And _what_," Mr. Black said to me, "were you doing on the schoolhouse
_roof_?"

Well, I hated to tell him because I thought he wouldn't believe it,
and another reason I hated to tell him was because if I did, it would
mean I'd have to tell him somebody _else_ had put the board ON the
chimney, and that wouldn't be fair to Little Tom Till who was Bob's
brother, and also on account of my mom was trying to get Shorty Long's
mom to be a Christian, and I hated to be a tattletale about Shorty
and Bob, so I just stood there, without answering Mr. Black.

"_Answer_ me!" he demanded. I could see he was getting really angry. I
took one quick look at the door to see if I could dive past him and
get there first and make a wild dash for home. I saw Little Jim's face
and it reminded me again of the Bible picture above his piano, and
that reminded me of a Bible verse I'd memorized, which was, "A soft
answer turneth away wrath," and I thought of Mr. Black's pretty horse
and said, politely, "Your horse is the prettiest horse I ever saw. I
hope he didn't fall and break his leg."

I looked at Poetry and he winked at me, and said to Mr. Black, "It'll
get dark pretty soon and if there's going to be a cold wave tonight,
we'd better help you carry in plenty of wood. We'll help you bank the
fire good."

But it was Little Jim who saved us from trouble, when he said what he
said, and it was, "That was a good sermon this morning, wasn't it, Mr.
Black? All of us are going to try not to be mad at you any more, and
if we've done anything wrong, we're sorry. We hope you won't give us a
licking, but if you do, we won't even get mad."

Mr. Black looked down at that innocent looking little face, and kept
on looking at it, and then he seemed to get a far-away expression in
his eyes like he was thinking about something that wasn't in the
schoolhouse. I noticed his hand that had the switch in it was
trembling, and I knew he was really mad which is the way my hands
sometimes shake when I feel that way.

Then he looked up like he was hear