e 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 st