f a schoolhouse.... Leslie, you get
that ladder I saw you boys carry behind the schoolhouse awhile ago,
and set it up again--here, Bill, hold my Bible a minute." He thrust
the beautiful new brown-bound Bible in my hands and started around the
schoolhouse with Poetry to where we'd buried the ladder.

"What on _earth_!" I thought, and decided he must have looked toward
the schoolhouse once and seen us putting it there, while he was down
the road between the schoolhouse and Circus's house.

Without hardly knowing I was going to, I quick opened the Bible to the
first blank page and what I saw was, "To my dear son, Sam Black, from
your Mother." And right below it were printed, very carefully, the
words:

"_This Book will keep you from sin,

or

Sin will keep you from this Book._"

In a jiffy the ladder was set up, with Little Jim and me holding it,
and Mr. Black on his way up. Poetry who knew how to take pictures
better than any of the rest of us was standing away out away from the
schoolhouse, and snapped the picture, himself.

While Mr. Black was still up on the roof, he called down to all of us
in a cheerful voice and said, "That was a very clever poem you boys
composed--you know, the one you had on the snow man yesterday, and on
the blackboard this afternoon. I think I got a very good picture of
both of them for next Wednesday night--the people of Sugar Creek will
think it very clever. When I first got the idea of illustrating the
book review for Mrs. Mansfield, I didn't know how much cooperation you
boys were going to give me."

Things still didn't make sense--I couldn't understand it.

On the way home, though, with Poetry and me carrying Pop's new light
ladder and with Little Jim carrying our swing board, all of a sudden
Dragonfly let out a yell and made a dive for something shining in the
road, swooped down on it and picked it up, and exclaimed, "_Good
luck!_ No wonder we had good luck! here's a brand new horseshoe! No
wonder we didn't get a lickin' from Mr. Black."

And it was! I knew it must have come off Prince when he was running
down this very same road about an hour ago with half a gate swinging
on his bridle rein.

Dragonfly hung the new horseshoe on his arm and said excitedly, "Will
my mother ever be tickled! She'll hang it above our kitchen door.
We've got three there now I found _last_ year, and this is my first
one _this year_. Boy oh boy, it's going to be a lucky year fo