way through the crowd like he’d been shot out of a cannon. It was the sheriff. He had his hat in his hand, wringing it the way you would a wash-cloth.
He jumped at Booger and Otis like he wanted to kiss ‘em both. “Pearl says you got him!” he yells. “Says you caught him with the goods.”
“You bet we did,” Booger says. He pushed the people back and opened the car door. “Look!”
The bundle of dirty clothes had been pushed off, and the top of the cardboard box was open. You could see the four fruit jars.
“Glory, glory, glory!” the sheriff yelled.
“Praise the Lord!” There was tears in his eyes and he was grinning from one ear to the other. Words just come spouting out of him.
“How did you do it, boys? How did you ever manage to catch him? We been a-tryin’ for ten years! Hey, stand back, everybody! Make room for the photographer. Get the photographer down here. Get witnesses.”
Witnesses, I thought. There must have been two thousand people jammed around us in the street and on the sidewalk and the courthouse lawn.
He went right on, half-way between laughing and crying. “Get a picture of it in the car, and then another with me holding it behind the car, so the license plate will show. Boys, how on earth did you do it? We can confiscate the car, of course. Two whole gallons of evidence—oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. We’ll put it in the safe. No, by God, I’ll put it in the vault in the bank and pay the storage charges on it myself. But how in the world did you manage to outfox him?” He ran down at last.
Booger and Otis was laughing again. Booger wiped the tears out of his own eyes. “He says it’s tannery solution. Honest to God, sheriff, that’s what he told us!” He broke down and howled some more. Then he got a grip on his-self and went on, “He outsmarted hisself this time. You know what the old wart hog done?”
The sheriff began to jump up and down. “No,” he yells. “Of course I don’t know what he done. That’s what I keep asking you. What did he do?”
Booger and Otis both started talking at once. “Well, he set fire to an old stump down there in the bottom, see? That was to draw us down there out of the way, so he could sneak out without us getting a look at his car. But we got wise as soon as we seen it was just a stump, and rushed back, and sure enough, that was what he was up to. But—but—”
They both leaned against the car, roaring fit to bust.
“But what, dammit?” the sheriff yelled.
“But the car broke down!” Booger whoops. “So there he was, sitting there like a crippled duck, with two gallons of it on him right in broad daylight! So he tells us it’s tannery solution!”
The sheriff just shook his head with the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Boys,” he says, “this here is the proudest day of my life. I won’t never forget this.”
Uncle Sagamore mopped the sweat off his face. “Shurf,” he says, T don’t know what all this hooraw’s about, but if your men ain’t got nothin’ better to do than go around pickin’ on honest citizens that’s trying to scratch a livin’ tanning a little leather—”
The sheriff bristled up to him like a little banty rooster. He shook a finger in his face. “You shut up, Sagamore Noonan,” he says. “Try to outsmart my boys, will you? Well, we got you this time.”
The photographer took pictures of the four jars and the box and then pictures of the car. A lot of people in the crowd was hollering to have their bets paid. “There’s the evidence, ain’t it?” they says.
“No, sir,” others were saying. “Bets ain’t settled till we see ‘em close the cell door on him. That’s Sagamore Noonan, you fool. You just wait.” These ones seemed to be kind of losing heart, though. The baseball cap was still talking loud, but it was like he wasn’t so sure any more.
Booger picked up the box and started towards the courthouse. “Come on, Sagamore Noonan,” the sheriff says. Then he looked at Pop. “How about this one?”
“He admitted it was his car,” Otis says.
The sheriff let out a yell. “Glory hallelujah! Two Noonans in one haul. Come on, men.”
It looked like everybody had forgot about me. I began to be scared.