Sugar Creek Gang #3
This story was our favorite yet. Filled with adventure, humor, and budding romances, this third installment to the Sugar Creek Gang series has it all.
Narrator Bill Collins takes us from the tail end of that first summertime into their first winter through thirteen chapters of boyhood highlights. Soon after Little Jim was able to adopt Triangle (the killer bear’s cub), the boys discover one day that someone has maliciously cut his leash. They eventually find the cub at Old Man Paddler’s, but the mystery of whodunnit remains open.
Big Jim and Bill Collins both discover feelings for members of the fairer sex, but Bill’s fancies come to an abrupt halt when he tries to implement his long-held plans to kill a spider for Lucille. We all laughed when his plan went awry so publicly in the schoolyard, and Chapter 7 is well worth a re-read. “Fraidycat!”
What will remain most memorable for me, however is Chapter 8 and the time Bill’s red-haired freckle-faced city cousin, Walford, came to visit for Thanksgiving. What follows—once Fritz the dog and Mixy the cat meet Caesar the turkey—is a scene that’s also worth a re-read every Thanksgiving. The final paragraphs of this five-and-a-half page yarn made me laugh out loud for a the rest of the evening…and I’m not a laugh-out-loud kind of guy.
Other highlights in this story include how Tom Till, the younger of the Till boys, comes to the Gang’s rescue when his older brother Bob Till ruthlessly attacks them. Circus finds his singing voice, and the boys help save an old man’s life with a little Boy Scout ingenuity.
I can tell that Paul Hutchens found his flow at about this time in his writing career, knowing that his recollections of childhood make for some pretty entertaining reading. His plan to follow these boys through their seasonal adventures certainly sets him up for a series that could last for years. I’m so excited that my boy and girl can grow up through the pains and adventures of The Sugar Creek Gang.
©2019 E.T.
Read More from The Sugar Creek Gang:
- #1 The Swamp Robber (1940)
- #2 The Killer Bear (1940)
- #3 The Winter Rescue (1940)
- #4 The Lost Campers (1941)
- #8 The Palm Tree Manhunt (1944)
- #10 The Mystery Thief (1946)
- #12 Screams in the Night (1947)