He dug his toe into the turf in the court-house yard under the locust-tree, and did not say anything till Jim Leonard asked him if he was afraid to go off and live with the Indians, because if he was going to be a cowardy-calf like that, it was all that Jim Leonard wanted to do with him.

Pony denied that he was afraid, but he said that he did not know how to talk Indian, and he did not see how he was going to get along without.

Jim Leonard laughed and said if that was all, he need not be anxious. "The Indians don't talk at all, hardly, even among each other. They just make signs; didn't you know that? If you want something to eat you point to your mouth and chew; and if you want a drink, you open your mouth and keep swallowing. When you want to go to sleep you shut your eyes and lean your cheek over on your hand, this way. That's all the signs you need to begin with, and you'll soon learn the rest. Now, say, are you going with the Indians, or ain't you going? It's your only chance. Why, Pony, what are you afraid of? Hain't you always wanted to sleep out-doors and not do anything but hunt?"

Pony had to confess that he had, and then Jim Leonard said: "Well, then, that's what you'll do if you go with the Indians. I suppose you'll have to go on the warpath with them when you get out there; and if it's against the whites you won't like it at first; but you've got to remember what the whites have done to the Indians ever since they discovered America, and you'll soon get to feeling like an Indian anyway. One thing is, you've got to get over being afraid."

That made Pony mad, and he said: "I ain't afraid now."

"I know that," said Jim Leonard. "But what I mean is, that if you get hurt you mustn't hollo, or cry, or anything; and even when they're scalping you, you mustn't even make a face, so as to let them know that you feel it."

By this time some of the other fellows began to come around to hear what Jim Leonard was saying to Pony. A good many of the Indians had gone off anyway, for the people had stopped sticking quarters into the ground for them to shoot at, and they could not shoot at nothing. Jim Leonard saw the fellows crowding around, but he went on as if he did not notice them. "You've got to go without eating anything for weeks when the medicine-man tells you to; and when you come back from the warpath, and they have a scalp-dance, you've got to keep dancing till you drop in a fit. When they give a dog feast you must eat dog stew until you can't swallow another mouthful, and you'll be so full that you'll just have to lay around for days without moving. But the great thing is to bear any kind of pain without budging or saying a single word. Maybe you're used to holloing now when you get hurt?"

Pony confessed that he holloed a little; the others tried to look as if they never holloed at all, and Jim Leonard went on:

"Well, you've got to stop that. If an arrow was to go through you and stick out at your back, or anywhere, you must just reach around and pull it out and not speak. When you're having the sun-dance—I think it's the sun-dance, but I ain't really certain—you have to stick a hook through you, right here"—he grabbed Pony by the muscles on his shoulders—"and let them pull you up on a pole and hang there as long as they please. They'll let you practise gradually so that you won't mind hardly anything. Why, I've practised a good deal by myself, and now I've got so that I believe if you was to stick me with—"

All of a sudden something whizzed along the ground and Jim Leonard stooped over and caught one of his feet up in his hand, and began to cry and to hollo: "Oh, oh, oh! Ow, ow, ow! Oh, my foot! Oh, it's broken; I know it is! Oh, run for the doctor, do, Pony Baker! I know I'm going to die! Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear!"

All the boys came crowding around to see what the matter was, and the men came, too, and pretty soon some one found an arrow in the grass, and then they knew that it was a stray arrow that had hit Jim Leonard on the side of the foot, after missing one of the dimes that was stuck in the ground. It was blunt, and it had not hurt him that anybody could see, except rubbed the skin off a little on the ankle-bone. But Jim Leonard began to limp away towards home, and now, as the Indians had all gone back to their boats, and the fellows had nothing else to do, they went along with him.

Archy Hawkins held him up on one side, and Hen Billard on the other, and Archy said, "I tell you, when I heard Jim yell, I thought it was a real Indian," and Hen said:

"I thought it was the scalp-halloo."

Archy said, "The way I came to think it was a real Indian was that a real Indian never makes any noise when he's hurt," and Hen said:

"I thought it was the scalp-halloo, because Jim was stooping over as if he was tearing the scalp off of a white man. He's been practising, you know."

"Well, practice makes perfect. I reckon if Jim hasn't got so far that he would smile when you scalped him, or just laugh if you shot an arrow through him, or would let you stick a hook into him, and pull him up to the top of a pole, it's because he's begun at the other end. I'll bet he could eat himself full of dog stew, and lay around three days without stirring."

Jim Leonard thought the fellows had come along to pity him and help him; but when he heard Archy Hawkins say that, and Hen Billard began to splutter and choke with the laugh he was holding in, he flung them off and began to fight at them with his fists, and strike right and left blindly. He broke out crying, and then the fellows made a ring around him and danced and mocked him.

"Hey, Jim, what'd you do if they pulled your hair out?"

"Jimmy, oh, Jim! Would you hollo much louder if they tomahawked you?"

"Show your uncle how to dance till you drop, Jim."

They kept on till Jim Leonard picked up stones to stone them, and then they all ran away, jumping and jeering till they got out of sight. It was about dinner-time, anyway.

No one was left but Pony Baker. He stooped down over Jim when he sat crying over his foot. "Does it hurt you much, Jimmy?" he asked.

"Yes, it hurts dreadfully, Pony. The skin's all rubbed off. I'm afraid it's broken my leg."

"Well, let me help you home," said Pony. "Your mother can tie it up, then."

He made Jim lean on him, and keep trying his foot, and pretty soon they found he could walk with it nearly the same as the other foot, and before they got to Jim's house they were talking and laughing together.

After that, Pony Baker gave up running off to the Indians. He about gave up running off altogether. He had a splendid Fourth of July. His mother would not let him stay up the whole of the night before, but she let him get up at four o'clock, and fire off both his packs of shooting-crackers; and though she had forbidden him to go down to the river-bank where the men were firing off the cannon, he hardly missed it. He felt sleepy as soon as his crackers were done, and another fellow who was with him came into the parlor, and they both lay down on the carpet and went to sleep there, and slept till breakfast-time. After breakfast he went up to the court-house yard, with some other fellows, and then, after dinner, when they all came round and begged, and the big fellows promised to watch out for Pony, his mother let him go out to the second lock with them, and go in swimming in the canal. He did not know why this should be such a great privilege, but it was. He had never been out to the second lock before. It was outside of the corporation line, and that was a great thing in itself.

After supper, Pony's mother let him fire off his powder-snake, and she even came out and looked at it, with her fingers in her ears. He promised her that it wouldn't make any noise, but she could not believe him; and when the flash came, she gave a little whoop, and ran in-doors. It shamed him before the boys, for fear they would laugh; and she acted even worse when his father wished to let him go up to the court-house yard to see the fireworks.

A lot of the fellows were going, and he was to go with the crowd, but his father was to come a little behind, so as to see that nothing happened to him; and when they were just starting off what should she do but hollo to his father from the door where she was standing, "Do be careful of the child, Henry!" It did not seem as if she could be a good mother when she tried, and she was about the afraidest mother in the Boy's Town.

All the way up to the court-house the boys kept snickering and whispering, "Don't stump your toe, child," and "Be careful of the child, boys," and things like that till Pony had to fight some of them. Then they stopped. They were afraid his father would hear, anyway.

But the fireworks were splendid, and the fellows were very good to Pony, because his father stood in the middle of the crowd and treated them to lemonade, and they did not plague, any more, going home. It was ten o'clock when Pony got home; it was the latest he had ever been up.

The very Fourth of July before that one he had been up pretty nearly as late listening to his cousin, Frank Baker, telling about the fun he had been having at a place called Pawpaw Bottom; and the strange thing that happened there, if it did happen, for nobody could exactly find out. So I think I had better break off again from Pony, and say what it was that Frank told; and after that I can go on with Pony's running off.



VII

HOW FRANK BAKER SPENT THE FOURTH AT PAWPAW BOTTOM, AND SAW THE FOURTH OF JULY BOY

It was the morning of the Fourth, and Frank was so anxious to get through with his wood-sawing, and begin celebrating with the rest of the boys, that he hardly knew what to do. He had a levvy (as the old Spanish real used to be called in southern Ohio) in his pocket, and he was going to buy a pack of shooting-crackers for ten cents, and spend the other two cents for powder. He had no pistol, but he knew a fellow that would lend him his pistol part of the time, and he expected to have about the best Fourth he ever had. He had been up since three o'clock watching the men fire the old six-pounder on the river-bank; and he was going to get his mother to let him go up to the fireworks in the court-house yard after dark.

But now it did not seem as if he could get wood enough sawed. Twice he asked his mother if she thought he had enough, but she said "Not near," and just as Jake Milrace rode up the saw caught in a splinter of the tough oak log Frank was sawing and bumped back against Frank's nose; and he would have cried if it had not been for what Jake began to say.

He said he was going to Pawpaw Bottom to spend the Fourth at a fellow's named Dave Black, and he told Frank he ought to go too; for there were plenty of mulberries on Dave's father's farm, and the early apples were getting ripe enough to eat, if you pounded them on a rock; and you could go in swimming, and everything. Jake said there was the greatest swimming-hole at Pawpaw Bottom you ever saw, and they had a log in the water there that you could have lots of fun with. Frank ran into the house to ask his mother if he might go, and he hardly knew what to do when she asked him if there was wood enough yet to get dinner and supper. But his Aunt Manda was spending the summer with his mother, and she said she reckoned she could pick up chips to do all the cooking they needed, such a hot day; and Frank ran out to the cow-house, where they kept the pony, because the Bakers had no stable, and saddled him, and was off with Jake Milrace in about a minute.

The pony was short and fat and lazy, and he had to be whipped to make him keep up with Jake's horse. It was not exactly Jake's horse; it was his sister's husband's horse, and he had let Jake have it because he would not be using it himself on the Fourth of July. It was tall and lean, and it held its head so high up that it was no use to pull on the bridle when it began to jump and turn round and round, which it did every time Frank whipped his pony to keep even with Jake. It would shy and sidle, and dart so far ahead that the pony would get discouraged and would lag back, and have to be whipped up again; and then the whole thing would have to be gone through with the same as at first. The boys did not have much chance to talk, but they had a splendid time riding along, and when they came to a cool, dark place in the woods they pretended there were Indians; and at the same time they kept a sharp eye out for squirrels. If they had seen any, and had a gun with them, they could have shot one easily, for squirrels are not afraid of you when you are on horseback; and, as it was, Jake Milrace came pretty near killing a quail that they saw in the road by a wheat-field. He dropped his bridle and took aim with his forefinger, and pulled back his thumb like a trigger; and if his horse had not jumped, and his finger had been loaded, he would surely have killed the quail, it was so close to him. They could hear the bob-whites whistling all through the stubble and among the shocks of wheat.

Jake did not know just where Dave Black's farm was, but after a while they came to a blacksmith's shop, and the blacksmith told them to take a lane that they would come to on the left, and then go through a piece of woods and across a field till they came to a creek; then ford the creek and keep straight on, and they would be in sight of the house. It did not seem strange to Frank that they should be going to visit a boy without knowing where he lived, but afterwards he was not surprised when Dave Black's folks did not appear to expect them. They kept on, and did as the blacksmith told them, and soon enough they got to a two-story log-cabin, with a man in front of it working at a wheat-fan, for it was nearly time to thresh the wheat. The man said he was Dave Black's father; he did not act as if he was very glad to see them, but he told them to put their horses in the barn, and he said that Dave was out in the pasture hauling rails.

Frank thought that was a queer way of spending the Fourth of July, but he did not say anything, and on their way out to the pasture Jake explained that Dave's father was British, and did not believe much in the Fourth of July, anyway. They found Dave easily enough, and he answered Jake's "Hello!" with another when the boys came up. He had a two-horse wagon, and he was loading it with rails from a big pile; there were two dogs with him, and when they saw the boys they came towards them snarling and ruffling the hair on their backs. Jake said not to mind them—they would not bite; but they snuffed so close to Frank's bare legs that he wished Dave would call them off. They slunk away, though, when they heard him speak to the boys; and then Jake Milrace told Dave Black who Frank was, and they began to feel acquainted, especially when Jake said they had come to spend the Fourth of July with Dave.

He said, "First rate," and he explained that he had his foot tied up the way they saw because he had a stone-bruise which he had got the first day he began to go barefoot in the spring; but now it was better. He said there was a bully swimming-hole in the creek, and he would show them where it was as soon as he had got done hauling his rails. The boys took that for a kind of hint, and they pulled off their roundabouts and set to work with him.

Frank thought it was not exactly like the Fourth, but he did not say anything, and they kept loading up the rails and hauling them to the edge of the field where Dave's father was going to build the fence, and then unloading them, and going back to the pile for more. It seemed to Frank that there were about a thousand rails in that pile, and they were pretty heavy ones—oak and hickory and walnut—and you had to be careful how you handled them, or you would get your hands stuck full of splinters. He wondered what Jake Milrace was thinking, and whether it was the kind of Fourth he had expected to have; but Jake did not say anything, and he hated to ask him. Sometimes it appeared to Frank that sawing wood was nothing to it; but they kept on loading rails, and unloading them in piles about ten feet apart, where they were wanted; and then going back to the big pile for more. They worked away in the blazing sun till the sweat poured off their faces, and Frank kept thinking what a splendid time the fellows were having with pistols and shooting-crackers up in the Boy's Town; but still he did not say anything, and pretty soon he had his reward. When they got half down through the rail-pile they came to a bumblebees' nest, which the dogs thought was a rat-hole at first. One of them poked his nose into it, but he pulled it out quicker than wink and ran off howling and pawing his face and rubbing his head in the ground or against the boys' legs. Even when the dogs found out that it was not rats they did not show any sense. As soon as they rubbed a bee off they would come yelping and howling back for more; and hopping round and barking; and then when they got another bee, or maybe a half-dozen (for the bees did not always fight fair), they would streak off again and jump into the air, and roll on the ground till the boys almost killed themselves laughing.

The boys went into the woods, and got pawpaw branches, and came back and fought the bumblebees till they drove them off. It was just like the battle of Bunker Hill; but Frank did not say so, because Dave's father was British, till Dave said it himself, and then they all pretended the bees were Mexicans; it was just a little while after the Mexican War. When they drove the bees off, they dug their nest out; it was beautifully built in regular cells of gray paper, and there was a little honey in it; about a spoonful for each boy.

Frank was glad that he had not let out his disappointment with the kind of Fourth they were having; and just then the horn sounded from the house for dinner, and the boys all got into the wagon, and rattled off to the barn. They put out the horses and fed them, and as soon as they could wash themselves at the rain-barrel behind the house, they went in and sat down with the family at dinner. It was a farmer's dinner, as it used to be in southern Ohio fifty years ago: a deep dish of fried salt pork swimming in its own fat, plenty of shortened biscuit and warm green-apple sauce, with good butter. The Boy's Town boys did not like the looks of the fat pork, but they were wolf-hungry, and the biscuit were splendid. In the middle of the table there was a big crock of buttermilk, all cold and dripping from the spring-house where it had been standing in the running water; then there was a hot apple-pie right out of the oven; and they made a pretty fair meal, after all.

After dinner they hauled more rails, and when they had hauled all the rails there were, they started for the swimming-hole in the creek. On the way they came to a mulberry-tree in the edge of the woods-pasture, and it was so full of berries and they were so ripe that the grass which the cattle had cropped short was fairly red under the tree. The boys got up into the tree and gorged themselves among the yellow-hammers and woodpeckers; and Frank and Jake kept holloing out to each other how glad they were they had come; but Dave kept quiet, and told them to wait till they came to the swimming-hole.

It was while they were in the tree that something happened which happened four times in all that day, if it really happened: nobody could say afterwards whether it had or not. Frank was reaching out for a place in the tree where the berries seemed thicker than anywhere else, when a strong blaze of light flashed into his eyes, and blinded him.

"Oh, hello, Dave Black!" he holloed. "That's mean! What are you throwin' that light in my face for?"

But he laughed at the joke, and he laughed more when Dave shouted back, "I ain't throwin' no light in your face."

"Yes, you are; you've got a piece of look-in'-glass, and you're flashin' it in my face."

"Wish I may die, if I have," said Dave, so seriously that Frank had to believe him.

"Well, then, Jake Milrace has."

"I hain't, any such thing," said Jake, and then Dave Black roared back, laughing: "Oh, I'll tell you! It's one of the pieces of tin we strung along that line in the corn-field to keep the crows off, corn-plantin' time."

The boys shouted together at the joke on Frank, and Dave parted the branches for a better look at the corn-field.

"Well, well! Heigh there!" he called towards the field. "Oh, he's gone now!" he said to the other boys, craning their necks out to see, too. "But he was doing it, Frank. If I could ketch that feller!"

"Somebody you know? Let's get him to come along," said Jake and Frank, one after the other.

"I couldn't tell," said Dave. "He slipped into the woods when he heard me holler. If it's anybody I know, he'll come out again. Don't seem to notice him; that's the best way."

For a while, though, they stopped to look, now and then; but no more flashes came from the corn-field, and the boys went on cramming themselves with berries; they all said they had got to stop, but they went on till Dave said: "I don't believe it's going to do us any good to go in swimming if we eat too many of these mulberries. I reckon we better quit, now."

The others said they reckoned so, too, and they all got down from the tree, and started for the swimming-hole. They had to go through a piece of woods to get to it, and in the shadow of the trees they did not notice that a storm was coming up till they heard it thunder. By that time they were on the edge of the woods, and there came a flash of lightning and a loud thunder-clap, and the rain began to fall in big drops. The boys saw a barn in the field they had reached, and they ran for it; and they had just got into it when the rain came down with all its might. Suddenly Jake said: "I'll tell you what! Let's take off our clothes and have a shower-bath!" And in less than a minute they had their clothes off, and were out in the full pour, dancing up and down, and yelling like Indians. That made them think of playing Indians, and they pretended the barn was a settler's cabin, and they were stealing up on it through the tall shocks of wheat. They captured it easily, and they said if the lightning would only strike it and set it on fire so it would seem as if the Indians had done it, it would be great; but the storm was going round, and they had to be satisfied with being settlers, turn about, and getting scalped.

It was easy to scalp Frank, because he wore his hair long, as the town boys liked to do in those days, but Jake lived with his sister, and he had to do as she said. She said a boy had no business with long hair; and she had lately cropped his close to his skull. Dave's father cut his hair round the edges of a bowl, which he had put on Dave's head for a pattern; the other boys could get a pretty good grip of it, if they caught it on top, where the scalp-lock belongs; but Dave would duck and dodge so that they could hardly get their hands on it. All at once they heard him call out from around the corner of the barn, where he had gone to steal up on them, when it was their turn to be settlers: "Aw, now, Jake Milrace, that ain't fair! I'm an Indian, now. You let go my hair."

"Who's touchin' your old hair?" Jake shouted back, from the inside of the barn. "You must be crazy. Hurry up, if you're ever goin' to attack us. I want to get out in the rain, myself, awhile."

Frank was outside, pretending to be at work in the field, and waiting for the Indians to creep on him, and when Jake shouted for Dave to hurry, he looked over his shoulder and saw a white figure, naked like his own, flit round the left-hand corner of the barn. Then he had to stoop over, so that Dave could tomahawk him easily, and he did not see anything more, but Jake yelled from the barn: "Oh, you got that fellow with you, have you? Then he's got to be settler next time. Come on, now. Oh, do hurry up!"

Frank raised his head to see the other boy, but there was only Dave Black, coming round the right-hand corner of the barn.

"You're crazy yourself, Jake. There ain't nobody here but me and Frank."

"There is, too!" Jake retorted. "Or there was, half a second ago."

But Dave was busy stealing on Frank, who was bending over, pretending to hoe, and after he had tomahawked Frank, he gave the scalp-halloo, and Jake came running out of the barn, and had to be chased round it twice, so that he could fall breathless on his own threshold, and be scalped in full sight of his family. Then Dave pretended to be a war-party of Wyandots, and he gathered up sticks, and pretended to set the barn on fire. By this time Frank and Jake had come to life, and were Wyandots, too, and they all joined hands and danced in front of the barn.

"There! There he is again!" shouted Jake. "Who's crazy now, I should like to know?"

"Where? Where?" yelled both the other boys.

"There! Right in the barn door. Or he was, quarter of a second ago," said Jake, and they all dropped one another's hands, and rushed into the barn and began to search it.

They could not find anybody, and Dave Black said: "Well, he's the quickest feller! Must 'a' got up into the mow, and jumped out of the window, and broke for the woods while we was lookin' down here. But if I get my hands onto him, oncet!"

They all talked and shouted and quarrelled and laughed at once; but they had to give the other fellow up; he had got away for that time, and they ran out into the rain again to let it wash off the dust and chaff, which they had got all over them in their search. The rain felt so good and cool that they stood still and took it without playing any more, and talked quietly. Dave decided that the fellow who had given them the slip was a new boy whose folks had come into the neighborhood since school had let out in the spring, so that he had not got acquainted yet; but Dave allowed that he would teach him a few tricks as good as his own when he got at him.

The storm left a solid bank of clouds in the east for a while after it was all blue in the western half of the sky, and a rainbow came out against the clouds. It looked so firm and thick that Dave said you could cut it with a scythe. It seemed to come solidly down to the ground in the woods in front of the hay-mow window, and the boys said it would be easy to get the crock of gold at the end of it if they were only in the woods. "I'll bet that feller's helpin' himself," said Dave, and they began to wonder how many dollars a crock of gold was worth, anyhow; they decided about a million. Then they wondered how much of a crock full of gold a boy could get into his pockets; and they all laughed when Jake said he reckoned it would depend upon the size of the crock. "I don't believe that fellow could carry much of it away if he hain't got more on than he had in front of the barn." That put Frank in mind of the puzzle about the three men that found a treasure in the road when they were travelling together: the blind man saw it, and the man without arms picked it up, and the naked man put it in his pocket. It was the first time Dave had heard the puzzle, and he asked, "Well, what's the answer?" But before Frank could tell him, Jake started up and pointed to the end of the rainbow, where it seemed to go into the ground against the woods.

"Oh! look! look!" he panted out, and they all looked, but no one could see anything except Jake. It made him mad. "Why, you must be blind!" he shouted, and he kept pointing. "Don't you see him? There, there! Oh, now, the rainbow's going out, and you can't see him any more. He's gone into the woods again. Well, I don't know what your eyes are good for, anyway."

He tried to tell them what he had seen; he could only make out that it must be the same boy, but now he had his clothes on: white linen pantaloons and roundabout, like what you had on May day, or the Fourth if you were going to the Sunday-school picnic. Dave wanted him to tell what he looked like, but Jake could not say anything except that he was very smiling-looking, and seemed as if he would like to be with him; Jake said he was just going to hollo for him to come over when the rainbow began to go out; and then the fellow slipped back into the woods; it was more like melting into the woods.

"And how far off do you think you could see a boy smile?" Dave asked, scornfully.

"How far off can you say a rainbow is?" Jake retorted.

"I can say how far off that piece of woods is," said Dave, with a laugh. He got to his feet, and began to pull at the other boys, to make them get up. "Come along, if you're ever goin' to the swimmin'-hole."



The sun was bright and hot, and the boys left the barn, and took across the field to the creek. The storm must have been very heavy, for the creek was rushing along bank-full, and there was no sign left of Dave's swimming-hole. But they had had such a glorious shower-bath that they did not want to go in swimming, anyway, and they stood and watched the yellow water pouring over the edge of a mill-dam that was there, till Dave happened to think of building a raft and going out on the dam. Jake said, "First rate!" and they all rushed up to a place where there were some boards on the bank; and they got pieces of old rope at the mill, and tied the boards together, till they had a good raft, big enough to hold them, and then they pushed it into the water and got on it. They said they were on the Ohio River, and going from Cincinnati to Louisville. Dave had a long pole to push with, like the boatmen on the keel-boats in the early times, and Jake had a board to steer with; Frank had another board to paddle with, on the other side of the raft from Dave; and so they set on their journey.

The dam was a wide, smooth sheet of water, with trees growing round the edge, and some of them hanging so low over it that they almost touched it. The boys made trips back and forth across the dam, and to and from the edge of the fall, till they got tired of it, and they were wanting something to happen, when Dave stuck his pole deep into the muddy bottom, and set his shoulder hard against the top of the pole, with a "Here she goes, boys, over the Falls of the Ohio!" and he ran along the edge of the raft from one end to the other.

Frank and Dave had both straightened up to watch him. At the stern of the raft Dave tried to pull up his pole for another good push, but it stuck fast in the mud at the bottom of the dam, and before Dave knew what he was about, the raft shot from under his feet, and he went overboard with his pole in his hand, as if he were taking a flying leap with it. The next minute he dropped into the water heels first, and went down out of sight. He came up blowing water from his mouth, and holloing and laughing, and took after the raft, where the other fellows were jumping up and down, and bending back and forth, and screaming and yelling at the way he looked hurrying after his pole, and then dangling in the air, and now showing his black head in the water like a musk-rat swimming for its hole. They were having such a good time mocking him that they did not notice how his push had sent the raft swiftly in under the trees by the shore, and the first thing they knew, one of the low branches caught them, and scraped them both off the raft into the water, almost on top of Dave. Then it was Dave's turn to laugh, and he began: "What's the matter, boys? Want to help find the other end of that pole?"

Jake was not under the water any longer than Dave had been, but Frank did not come up so soon. They looked among the brush by the shore, to see if he was hiding there and fooling them, but they could not find him. "He's stuck in some snag at the bottom," said Dave; "we got to dive for him"; but just then Frank came up, and swam feebly for the shore. He crawled out of the water, and after he got his breath, he said, "I got caught, down there, in the top of an old tree."

"Didn't I tell you so?" Dave shouted into Jake's ear.

"Why, Jake was there till I got loose," said Frank, looking stupidly at him.

"No, I wasn't," said Jake. "I was up long ago, and I was just goin' to dive for you; so was Dave."

"Then it was that other fellow," said Frank. "I thought it didn't look overmuch like Jake, anyway."

"Oh, pshaw!" Dave jeered. "How could you tell, in that muddy water?"

"I don't know," Frank answered. "It was all light round him. Looked like he had a piece of the rainbow on him, or foxfire."

"I reckon if I find him," said Dave, "I'll take his piece of rainbow off'n him pretty quick. That's the fourth time that feller's fooled us to-day. Where d'you s'pose he came up? Oh, I know! He got out on the other side under them trees, while we was huntin' for Frank, and not noticin'. How'd he look, anyway?"

"I don't know; I just saw him half a second. Kind of smiling, and like he wanted to play."

"Well, I know him," said Dave. "It's the new boy, and the next time I see him—Oh, hello! There goes our raft!"

It was drifting slowly down towards the edge of the dam, and the boys all three plunged into the water again, and swam out to it, and climbed up on it.

They had the greatest kind of a time, and when they had played castaway sailors, Frank and Jake wanted to send the raft over the edge of the dam; but Dave said it might get into the head-race of the mill and tangle itself up in the wheel, and spoil the wheel.

So they took the raft apart and carried the boards on shore, and then tried to think what they would do next. The first thing was to take off their clothes and see about drying them. But they had no patience for that; and so they wrung them out as dry as they could and put them on again; they had left their roundabouts at Dave's house, anyway, and so had nothing on but a shirt and trousers apiece. The sun was out hot after the rain, and their clothes were almost dry by the time they got to Dave's house. They went with him to the woods-pasture on the way, and helped him drive home the cows, and they wanted him to get his mother to make his father let him go up to the Boy's Town with them and see the fireworks; but he said it would be no use; and then they understood that if a man was British, of course he would not want his boy to celebrate the Fourth of July by going to the fireworks. They felt sorry for Dave, but they both told him that they had had more fun than they ever had in their lives before, and they were coming the next Fourth and going to bring their guns with them. Then they could shoot quails or squirrels, if they saw any, and the firing would celebrate the Fourth at the same time, and his father could not find any fault.

It seemed to Frank that it was awful to have a father that was British; but when they got to Dave's house, and his father asked them how they had spent the afternoon, he did not seem to be so very bad. He asked them whether they had got caught in the storm, and if that was what made their clothes wet, and when they told him what had happened, he sat down on the wood-pile and laughed till he shook all over.

Then Frank and Jake thought they had better be going home, but Dave's mother would not let them start without something to eat; and she cut them each a slice of bread the whole width and length of the loaf, and spread the slices with butter, and then apple-butter, and then brown sugar. The boys thought they were not hungry, but when they began to eat they found out that they were, and before they knew it they had eaten the slices all up. Dave's mother said they must come and see Dave again some time, and she acted real clever; she was an American, anyway.

They got their horses and started home. It was almost sundown now, and they heard the turtle-doves cooing in the woods, and the bob-whites whistling from the stubble, and there were so many squirrels among the trees in the woods-pastures, and on the fences, that Frank could hardly get Jake along; and if it had not been for Jake's horse, that ran whenever Frank whipped up his pony, they would not have got home till dark. They smelt ham frying in some of the houses they passed, and that made them awfully hungry; one place there was coffee, too.

When they reached Frank's house he found that his mother had kept supper hot for him, and she came out and said Jake must come in with him, if his family would not be uneasy about him; and Jake said he did not believe they would. He tied his horse to the outside of the cow-house, and he came in, and Frank's mother gave them as much baked chicken as they could hold, with hot bread to sop in the gravy; and she had kept some coffee hot for Frank, so that they made another good meal. They told her what a bully time they had had, and how they had fallen into the dam; but she did not seem to think it was funny; she said it was a good thing they were not all drowned, and she believed they had taken their deaths of cold, anyway. Frank was afraid she was going to make him go up stairs and change his clothes, when he heard the boys begin to sound their call of "Ee-o-wee" at the front door, and he and Jake snatched their hats and ran out. There was a lot of boys at the gate; Hen Billard was there, and Archy Hawkins and Jim Leonard; there were some little fellows, and Frank's cousin Pony was there; he said his mother had said he might stay till his father came for him.

Hen Billard had his thumb tied up from firing too big a load out of his brass pistol. The pistol burst, and the barrel was all curled back like a dandelion stem in water; he had it in his pocket to show. Archy Hawkins's face was full of little blue specks from pouring powder on a coal and getting it flashed up into his face when he was blowing the coal; some of his eye-winkers were singed off. Jim Leonard had a rag round his hand, and he said a whole pack of shooting-crackers had gone off in it before he could throw them away, and burned the skin off; the fellows dared him to let them see it, but he would not; and then they mocked him. They all said there had never been such a Fourth of July in the Boy's Town before; and Frank and Jake let them brag as much as they wanted to, and when the fellows got tired, and asked them what they had done at Pawpaw Bottom, and they said, "Oh, nothing much; just helped Dave Black haul rails," they set up a jeer that you could hear a mile.

Then Jake said, as if he just happened to think of it, "And fought bumblebees."

And Frank put in, "And took a shower-bath in the thunder-storm."

And Jake said, "And eat mulberries."

And Frank put in again, "And built a raft."

And Jake said, "And Dave got pulled into the mill-dam."

And Frank wound up, "And Jake and I got swept overboard."

By that time the fellows began to feel pretty small, and they crowded round and wanted to hear every word about it. Then Jake and Frank tantalized them, and said of course it was no Fourth at all, it was only just fun, till the fellows could not stand it any longer, and then Frank jumped up from where he was sitting on his front steps, and holloed out, "I'll show you how Dave looked when his pole pulled him in," and he acted it all out about Dave's pole pulling him into the water.

Jake waited till he was done, and then he jumped up and said, "I'll show you how Frank and me looked when we got swept overboard," and he acted it out about the limb of the tree scraping them off the raft while they were laughing at Dave and not noticing.

As soon as they got the boys to yelling, Jake and Frank both showed how they fought the bumblebees, and how the dogs got stung, and ran round trying to rub the bees off against the ground, and your legs, and everything, till the boys fell down and rolled over, it made them laugh so. Jake and Frank showed how they ran out into the rain from the barn, and stood in it, and told how good and cool it felt; and they told about sitting up in the mulberry-tree, and how twenty boys could not have made the least hole in the berries. They told about the quails and the squirrels; and they showed how Frank had to keep whipping up his pony, and how Jake's horse kept wheeling and running away; and some of the fellows said they were going with them the next Fourth.

Hen Billard tried to turn it off, and said: "Pshaw! You can have that kind of a Fourth any day in the country. Who's going up to the court-house yard to see the fireworks?"

He and Archy Hawkins and the big boys ran off, whooping, and the little fellows felt awfully, because their mothers had said they must not go. Just then, Pony Baker's father came for him, and he said he guessed they could see the fireworks from Frank's front steps; and Jake stayed with Frank, and Frank's father came out, and his aunt and mother leaned out of the window, and watched, while the Roman candles shot up, and the rockets climbed among the stars.

They were all so much taken up in watching that they did not notice one of the neighbor women who had come over from her house and joined them, till Mrs. Baker happened to see her, and called out: "Why, Mrs. Fogle, where did you spring from? Do come in here with Manda and me. I didn't see you, in your black dress."

"No, I'm going right back," said Mrs. Fogle. "I just come over a minute to see the fireworks—for Wilford; you can't see them from my side."

"Oh," said Mrs. Baker, softly. "Well, I'm real glad you came. You ought to have heard the boys, here, telling about the kind of Fourth they had at Pawpaw Bottom. I don't know when I've laughed so much."

"Well, I reckon it's just as well I wasn't here. I couldn't have helped in the laughing much. It seems pretty hard my Wilford couldn't been having a good time with the rest to-day. He was always such a Fourth-of-July boy."

"But he's happy where he is, Mrs. Fogle," said Mrs. Baker, gently.

"Well, I know he'd give anything to been here with the boys to-day—I don't care where he is. And he's been here, too; I just know he has; I've felt him, all day long, teasing at me to let him go off with your Frank and Jake, here; he just fairly loved to be with them, and he never done any harm. Oh, my, my! I don't see how I used to deny him."

She put up her apron to her face, and ran sobbing across the street again to her own house; they heard the door close after her in the dark.

"I declare," said Mrs. Baker, "I've got half a mind to go over to her."

"Better not," said Pony Baker's father.

"Well, I reckon you're right, Henry," Mrs. Baker assented.

They did not talk gayly any more; when the last rocket had climbed the sky, Jake Milrace rose and said in a whisper he must be going.

After he was gone, Frank told, as if he had just thought of it, about the boy that had fooled them so, at Pawpaw Bottom; and he was surprised at the way his mother and his Uncle Henry questioned him up about it.

"Well, now," she said, "I'm glad poor Mrs. Fogle wasn't here, or—" She stopped, and her brother-in-law rose, with the hand of his sleepy little son in his own.

"I think Pony had better say good-night now, while he can. Frank, you've had a remarkable Fourth. Good-night, all. I wish I had spent the day at Pawpaw Bottom myself."

Before they slept that night, Pony's mother said: "Well, I'd just as soon you'd kept that story to yourself till morning, Henry. I shall keep thinking about it, and not sleep a wink. How in the world do you account for it?"

"I don't account for it," said Pony's father.

"Now, that won't do! What do you think?"

"Well, if it was one boy that saw the fourth boy it might be a simple case of lying."

"Frank Baker never told a lie in his life. He couldn't."

"Perhaps Jake could, or Dave. But as they all three saw the boy at different times, why, it's—"

"What?"

"It's another thing."

"Now, you can't get out of it that way, Henry. Do you believe that the child longed so to be back here that—"

"Ah, who knows? There's something very strange about all that. But we can't find our way out, except by the short-cut of supposing that nothing of the kind happened."

"You can't suppose that, though, if all three of the boys say it did."

"I can suppose that they think it happened, or made each other think so."

Pony's mother drew a long sigh. "Well, I know what I shall always think," she said.



VIII

HOW PONY BAKER CAME PRETTY NEAR RUNNING OFF WITH A CIRCUS

Just before the circus came, about the end of July, something happened that made Pony mean to run off more than anything that ever was. His father and mother were coming home from a walk, in the evening; it was so hot nobody could stay in the house, and just as they were coming to the front steps Pony stole up behind them and tossed a snowball which he had got out of the garden at his mother, just for fun. The flower struck her very softly on her hair, for she had no bonnet on, and she gave a jump and a hollo that made Pony laugh; and then she caught him by the arm and boxed his ears.

"Oh, my goodness! It was you, was it, you good-for-nothing boy? I thought it was a bat!" she said, and she broke out crying and ran into the house, and would not mind his father, who was calling after her, "Lucy, Lucy, my dear child!"

Pony was crying, too, for he did not intend to frighten his mother, and when she took his fun as if he had done something wicked he did not know what to think. He stole off to bed and he lay there crying in the dark and expecting that she would come to him, as she always did, to have him say that he was sorry when he had been wicked, or to tell him that she was sorry, when she thought she had not been quite fair with him. But she did not come, and after a good while his father came and said: "Are you awake, Pony? I am sorry your mother misunderstood your fun. But you mustn't mind it, dear boy. She's not well, and she's very nervous."

"I don't care!" Pony sobbed out. "She won't have a chance to touch me again!" For he had made up his mind to run off with the circus which was coming the next Tuesday.

He turned his face away, sobbing, and his father, after standing by his bed a moment, went away without saying anything but, "Don't forget your prayers, Pony. You'll feel differently in the morning, I hope."

Pony fell asleep thinking how he would come back to the Boy's Town with the circus when he was grown up, and when he came out in the ring riding three horses bareback he would see his father and mother and sisters in one of the lower seats. They would not know him, but he would know them, and he would send for them to come to the dressing-room, and would be very good to them, all but his mother; he would be very cold and stiff with her, though he would know that she was prouder of him than all the rest put together, and she would go away almost crying.

He began being cold and stiff with her the very next morning, although she was better than ever to him, and gave him waffles for breakfast with unsalted butter, and tried to pet him up. That whole day she kept trying to do things for him, but he would scarcely speak to her; and at night she came to him and said, "What makes you act so strangely, Pony? Are you offended with your mother?"

"Yes, I am!" said Pony, haughtily, and he twitched away from where she was sitting on the side of his bed, leaning over him.

"On account of last night, Pony?" she asked, softly.

"I reckon you know well enough," said Pony, and he tried to be disgusted with her for her being such a hypocrite, but he had to set his teeth hard, hard, or he would have broken down crying.

"If it's for that, you mustn't, Pony, dear. You don't know how you frightened me. When your snowball hit me, I felt sure it was a bat, and I'm so afraid of bats, you know. I didn't mean to hurt my poor boy's feelings so, and you mustn't mind it any more, Pony."



She stooped down and kissed him on the forehead, but he did not move or say anything; only, after that he felt more forgiving towards his mother. He made up his mind to be good to her along with the rest when he came back with the circus. But still he meant to run off with the circus. He did not see how he could do anything else, for he had told all the boys that day that he was going to do it; and when they just laughed, and said: "Oh yes. Think you can fool your grandmother! It'll be like running off with the Indians," Pony wagged his head, and said they would see whether it would or not, and offered to bet them what they dared.

The morning of the circus day all the fellows went out to the corporation line to meet the circus procession. There were ladies and knights, the first thing, riding on spotted horses; and then a band chariot, all made up of swans and dragons. There were about twenty baggage wagons; but before you got to them there was the greatest thing of all. It was a chariot drawn by twelve Shetland ponies, and it was shaped like a big shell, and around in the bottom of the shell there were little circus actors, boys and girls, dressed in their circus clothes, and they all looked exactly like fairies. They scarce seemed to see the fellows, as they ran alongside of their chariot, but Hen Billard and Archy Hawkins, who were always cutting up, got close enough to throw some peanuts to the circus boys, and some of the little circus girls laughed, and the driver looked around and cracked his whip at the fellows, and they all had to get out of the way then.

Jim Leonard said that the circus boys and girls were all stolen, and nobody was allowed to come close to them for fear they would try to send word to their friends. Some of the fellows did not believe it, and wanted to know how he knew it; and he said he read it in a paper; after that nobody could deny it. But he said that if you went with the circus men of your own free will they would treat you first-rate; only they would give you burnt brandy to keep you little; nothing else but burnt brandy would do it, but that would do it, sure.

Pony was scared at first when he heard that most of the circus fellows were stolen, but he thought if he went of his own accord he would be all right. Still, he did not feel so much like running off with the circus as he did before the circus came. He asked Jim Leonard whether the circus men made all the children drink burnt brandy; and Archy Hawkins and Hen Billard heard him ask, and began to mock him. They took him up between them, one by his arms and the other by the legs, and ran along with him, and kept saying, "Does it want to be a great big circus actor? Then it shall, so it shall," and, "We'll tell the circus men to be very careful of you, Pony dear!" till Pony wriggled himself loose and began to stone them.

After that they had to let him alone, for when a fellow began to stone you in the Boy's Town you had to let him alone, unless you were going to whip him, and the fellows only wanted to have a little fun with Pony. But what they did made him all the more resolved to run away with the circus, just to show them.

He helped to carry water for the circus men's horses, along with the boys who earned their admission that way. He had no need to do it, because his father was going to take him in, anyway; but Jim Leonard said it was the only way to get acquainted with the circus men. Still Pony was afraid to speak to them, and he would not have said a word to any of them if it had not been for one of them speaking to him first, when he saw him come lugging a great pail of water, and bending far over on the right to balance it.

"That's right," the circus man said to Pony. "If you ever fell into that bucket you'd drown, sure."

He was a big fellow, with funny eyes, and he had a white bulldog at his heels; and all the fellows said he was the one who guarded the outside of the tent when the circus began, and kept the boys from hooking in under the curtain.

Even then Pony would not have had the courage to say anything, but Jim Leonard was just behind him with another bucket of water, and he spoke up for him. "He wants to go with the circus."

They both set down their buckets, and Pony felt himself turning pale when the circus man came towards them. "Wants to go with the circus, heigh? Let's have a look at you." He took Pony by the shoulders and turned him slowly round, and looked at his nice clothes, and took him by the chin. "Orphan?" he asked.

Pony did not know what to say, but Jim Leonard nodded; perhaps he did not know what to say, either; but Pony felt as if they had both told a lie.

"Parents living?" The circus man looked at Pony, and Pony had to say that they were.

He gasped out, "Yes," so that you could scarcely hear him, and the circus man said:

"Well, that's right. When we take an orphan, we want to have his parents living, so that we can go and ask them what sort of a boy he is."

He looked at Pony in such a friendly, smiling way that Pony took courage to ask him whether they would want him to drink burnt brandy.

"What for?"

"To keep me little."

"Oh, I see." The circus man took off his hat and rubbed his forehead with a silk handkerchief, which he threw into the top of his hat before he put it on again. "No, I don't know as we will. We're rather short of giants just now. How would you like to drink a glass of elephant milk every morning and grow into an eight-footer?"

Pony said he didn't know whether he would like to be quite so big; and then the circus man said perhaps he would rather go for an India-rubber man; that was what they called the contortionists in those days.

"Let's feel of you again." The circus man took hold of Pony and felt his joints. "You're put together pretty tight; but I reckon we could make you do if you'd let us take you apart with a screw-driver and limber up the pieces with rattlesnake oil. Wouldn't like it, heigh? Well, let me see!" The circus man thought a moment, and then he said: "How would double-somersaults on four horses bareback do?"

Pony said that would do, and then the circus man said: "Well, then, we've just hit it, because our double-somersault, four-horse bareback is just going to leave us, and we want a new one right away. Now, there's more than one way of joining a circus, but the best way is to wait on your front steps with your things all packed up, and the procession comes along at about one o'clock in the morning and picks you up. Which'd you rather do?"

Pony pushed his toe into the turf, as he always did when he was ashamed, but he made out to say he would rather wait out on the front steps.

"Well, then, that's all settled," said the circus man. "We'll be along," and he was going away with his dog, but Jim Leonard called after him:

"You hain't asked him whereabouts he lives."

The circus man kept on, and he said, without looking around, "Oh, that's all right. We've got somebody that looks after that."

"It's the magician," Jim Leonard whispered to Pony, and they walked away.



IX

HOW PONY DID NOT QUITE GET OFF WITH THE CIRCUS

A crowd of the fellows had been waiting to know what the boys had been talking about to the circus man; but Jim Leonard said: "Don't you tell, Pony Baker!" and he started to run, and that made Pony run, too, and they both ran till they got away from the fellows.

"You have got to keep it a secret; for if a lot of fellows find it out the constable'll get to know it, and he'll be watching out around the corner of your house, and when the procession comes along and he sees you're really going he'll take you up, and keep you in jail till your father comes and bails you out. Now, you mind!"

Pony said, "Oh, I won't tell anybody," and when Jim Leonard said that if a circus man was to feel him over, that way, and act so kind of pleasant and friendly, he would be too proud to speak to anybody, Pony confessed that he knew it was a great thing all the time.

"The way'll be," said Jim Leonard, "to keep in with him, and he'll keep the others from picking on you; they'll be afraid to, on account of his dog. You'll see, he'll be the one to come for you to-night; and if the constable is there the dog won't let him touch you. I never thought of that."

Perhaps on account of thinking of it now Jim Leonard felt free to tell the other fellows how Pony was going to run off, for when a crowd of them came along he told them. They said it was splendid, and they said that if they could make their mothers let them, or if they could get out of the house without their mothers knowing it, they were going to sit up with Pony and watch out for the procession, and bid him good-bye.

At dinner-time he found out that his father was going to take him and all his sisters to the circus, and his father and mother were so nice to him, asking him about the procession and everything, that his heart ached at the thought of running away from home and leaving them. But now he had to do it; the circus man was coming for him, and he could not back out; he did not know what would happen if he did. It seemed to him as if his mother had done everything she could to make it harder for him. She had stewed chicken for dinner, with plenty of gravy, and hot biscuits to sop in, and peach preserves afterwards; and she kept helping him to more, because she said boys that followed the circus around got dreadfully hungry. The eating seemed to keep his heart down; it was trying to get into his throat all the time; and he knew that she was being good to him, but if he had not known it he would have believed his mother was just doing it to mock him.

Pony had to go to the circus with his father and sisters, and to get on his shoes and a clean collar. But a crowd of the fellows were there at the tent door to watch out whether the circus man would say anything to him when he went in; and Jim Leonard rubbed up against him, when the man passed with his dog and did not even look at Pony, and said: "He's just pretending. He don't want your father to know. He'll be round for you, sure. I saw him kind of smile to one of the other circus men."

It was a splendid circus, and there were more things than Pony ever saw in a circus before. But instead of hating to have it over, it seemed to him that it would never come to an end. He kept thinking and thinking, and wondering whether he would like to be a circus actor; and when the one came out who rode four horses bareback and stood on his head on the last horse, and drove with the reins in his teeth, Pony thought that he never could learn to do it; and if he could not learn he did not know what the circus men would say to him. It seemed to him that it was very strange he had not told that circus man that he didn't know whether he could do it or not; but he had not, and now it was too late.

A boy came around calling lemonade, and Pony's father bought some for each of the children, but Pony could hardly taste his.

"What is the matter with you, Pony? Are you sick?" his father asked.

"No. I don't care for any; that's all. I'm well," said Pony; but he felt very miserable.

After supper Jim Leonard came round and went up to Pony's room with him to help him pack, and he was so gay about it and said he only wished he was going, that Pony cheered up a little. Jim had brought a large square of checked gingham that he said he did not believe his mother would ever want, and that he would tell her he had taken if she asked for it. He said it would be the very thing for Pony to carry his clothes in, for it was light and strong and would hold a lot. He helped Pony to choose his things out of his bureau drawers: a pair of stockings and a pair of white pantaloons and a blue roundabout, and a collar, and two handkerchiefs. That was all he said Pony would need, because he would have his circus clothes right away, and there was no use taking things that he would never wear.

Jim did these up in the square of gingham, and he tied it across cater-cornered twice, in double knots, and showed Pony how he could put his hand through and carry it just as easy. He hid it under the bed for him, and he told Pony that if he was in Pony's place he should go to bed right away or pretty soon, so that nobody would think anything, and maybe he could get some sleep before he got up and went down to wait on the front steps for the circus to come along. He promised to be there with the other boys and keep them from fooling or making a noise, or doing anything to wake his father up, or make the constable come. "You see, Pony," he said, "if you can run off this year, and come back with the circus next year, then a whole lot of fellows can run off. Don't you see that?"

Pony said he saw that, but he said he wished some of the other fellows were going now, because he did not know any of the circus boys and he was afraid he might feel kind of lonesome. But Jim Leonard said he would soon get acquainted, and, anyway, a year would go before he knew it, and then if the other fellows could get off he would have plenty of company.

As soon as Jim Leonard was gone Pony undressed and got into bed. He was not sleepy, but he thought maybe it would be just as well to rest a little while before the circus procession came along for him; and, anyway, he could not bear to go down-stairs and be with the family when he was going to leave them so soon, and not come back for a whole year.

After a good while, or about the time he usually came in from playing, he heard his mother saying: "Where in the world is Pony? Has he come in yet? Have you seen him, girls? Pony! Pony!" she called.

But somehow Pony could not get his voice up out of his throat; he wanted to answer her, but he could not speak. He heard her say, "Go out to the front steps, girls, and see if you can see him," and then he heard her coming up the stairs; and she came into his room, and when she saw him lying there in bed she said: "Why, I believe in my heart the child's asleep! Pony! Are you awake?"

Pony made out to say no, and his mother said: "My! what a fright you gave me! Why didn't you answer me? Are you sick, Pony? Your father said you didn't seem well at the circus; and you didn't eat any supper, hardly."

Pony said he was first-rate, but he spoke very low, and his mother came up and sat down on the side of his bed.

"What is the matter, child?" She bent over and felt his forehead. "No, you haven't got a bit of fever," she said, and she kissed him, and began to tumble his short black hair in the way she had, and she got one of his hands between her two, and kept rubbing it. "But you've had a long, tiresome day, and that's why you've gone to bed, I suppose. But if you feel the least sick, Pony, I'll send for the doctor."

Pony said he was not sick at all; just tired; and that was true; he felt as if he never wanted to get up again.

His mother put her arm under his neck, and pressed her face close down to his, and said very low: "Pony, dear, you don't feel hard towards your mother for what she did the other night?"

He knew she meant boxing his ears, when he was not to blame, and he said: "Oh no," and then he threw his arms round her neck and cried; and she told him not to cry, and that she would never do such a thing again; but she was really so frightened she did not know what she was doing.

When he quieted down she said: "Now say your prayers, Pony, 'Our Father,'" and she said "Our Father" all through with him, and after that, "Now I lay me," just as when he was a very little fellow. After they had finished she stooped over and kissed him again, and when he turned his face into his pillow she kept smoothing his hair with her hand for about a minute. Then she went away.

Pony could hear them stirring about for a good while down-stairs. His father came in from up-town at last and asked:

"Has Pony come in?" and his mother said:

"Yes, he's up in bed. I wouldn't disturb him, Henry. He's asleep by this time."

His father said: "I don't know what to make of the boy. If he keeps on acting so strangely I shall have the doctor see him in the morning."

Pony felt dreadfully to think how far away from them he should be in the morning, and he would have given anything if he could have gone down to his father and mother and told them what he was going to do. But it did not seem as if he could.

By-and-by he began to be sleepy, and then he dozed off, but he thought it was hardly a minute before he heard the circus band, and knew that the procession was coming for him. He jumped out of bed and put on his things as fast as he could; but his roundabout had only one sleeve to it, somehow, and he had to button the lower buttons of his trousers to keep it on. He got his bundle and stole down to the front door without seeming to touch his feet to anything, and when he got out on the front steps he saw the circus magician coming along. By that time the music had stopped and Pony could not see any procession. The magician had on a tall, peaked hat, like a witch. He took up the whole street, he was so wide in the black glazed gown that hung from his arms when he stretched them out, for he seemed to be groping along that way, with his wand in one hand, like a blind man.

He kept saying in a kind of deep, shaking voice: "It's all glory; it's all glory," and the sound of those words froze Pony's blood. He tried to get back into the house again, so that the magician should not find him, but when he felt for the door-knob there was no door there anywhere; nothing but a smooth wall. Then he sat down on the steps and tried to shrink up so little that the magician would miss him; but he saw his wide goggles getting nearer and nearer; and then his father and the doctor were standing by him looking down at him, and the doctor said:

"He has been walking in his sleep; he must be bled," and he got out his lancet, when Pony heard his mother calling: "Pony, Pony! What's the matter? Have you got the nightmare?" and he woke up, and found it was just morning.

The sun was shining in at his window, and it made him so glad to think that by this time the circus was far away and he was not with it, that he hardly knew what to do.

He was not very well for two or three days afterwards, and his mother let him stay out of school to see whether he was really going to be sick or not. When he went back most of the fellows had forgotten that he had been going to run off with the circus. Some of them that happened to think of it plagued him a little and asked how he liked being a circus actor.

Hen Billard was the worst; he said he reckoned the circus magician got scared when he saw what a whaler Pony was, and told the circus men that they would have to get a new tent to hold him; and that was the reason why they didn't take him. Archy Hawkins said: "How long did you have to wait on the front steps, Pony, dear?" But after that he was pretty good to him, and said he reckoned they had better not any of them pretend that Pony had not tried to run off if they had not been up to see.

Pony himself could never be exactly sure whether he had waited on the front steps and seen the circus magician or not. Sometimes it seemed all of it like a dream, and sometimes only part of it. Jim Leonard tried to help him make it out, but they could not. He said it was a pity he had overslept himself, for if he had come to bid Pony good-bye, the way he said, then he could have told just how much of it was a dream and how much was not.



X

THE ADVENTURES THAT PONY'S COUSIN, FRANK BAKER, HAD WITH A POCKETFUL OF MONEY

Very likely Pony Baker would not have tried to run off any more if it had not been for Jim Leonard. He was so glad he had not got off with the circus that he did not mind any of the things at home that used to vex him; and it really seemed as if his father and mother were trying to act better. They were a good deal taken up with each other, and sometimes he thought they let him do things they would not have let him do if they had noticed what he asked. His mother was fonder of him than ever, and if she had not kissed him so much before the fellows he would not have cared, for when they were alone he liked to have her pet him. But one thing was, he could never get her to like Jim Leonard, or to believe that Jim was not leading him into mischief whenever they were off together. She was always wanting him to go with his cousin Frank, and he would have liked to ask Frank about running off, and whether a fellow had better do it; but he was ashamed, and especially after he heard his father tell how splendidly Frank had behaved with two thousand dollars he was bringing from the city to the Boy's Town; Pony was afraid that Frank would despise him, and he did not hardly feel fit to go with Frank, anyway.

Frank Baker was one of those fellows that every mother would feel her boy was safe with. She would be sure that no crowd he was in was going to do any harm or come to any, for he would have an anxious eye out for everybody, and he would stand between the crowd and the mischief that a crowd of boys nearly always wants to do. His own mother felt easy about the younger children when they were with Frank; and in a place where there were more chances for a boy to get sucked under mill-wheels, and break through ice, and fall from bridges, or have his fingers taken off by machinery than any other place I ever heard of, she no more expected anything to happen to them, if he had them in charge, than if she had them in charge herself.



As there were a good many other children in the family, and Mrs. Baker did her own work, like nearly every mother in the Boy's Town, Frank almost always had some of them in charge. When he went hunting, or fishing, or walnutting, or berrying, or in swimming, he usually had one or two younger brothers with him; if he had only one, he thought he was having the greatest kind of a time.

He did not mind carrying his brother on his back when he got tired, although it was not exactly the way to steal on game, and the gun was a heavy enough load, anyway; but if he had not got many walnuts, or any at all—as sometimes happened—it was not a great hardship to haul his brother home in the wagon. To be sure, when he wanted to swim out with the other big boys it was pretty trying to have to keep an eye on his brother, and see that he did not fall into the water from the bank where he left him.

He was a good deal more anxious about other boys than he was about himself, and once he came near getting drowned through his carelessness. It was in winter, and the canal basin had been frozen over; then most of the water was let out from under the ice, and afterwards partly let in again. This lifted the ice-sheet, but not back to its old level, and the ice that clung to the shores shelved steeply down to the new level. Frank stepped on this shore ice to get a shinny-ball, and slipped down to the edge of the ice-sheet, which he would be sure to go under into the water. He holloed with all his might, and by good luck some people came and reached him a stick, by which he pulled himself out.

The scare of it haunted him for long after, but not so much for himself. Whenever he was away from home in the winter he would see one of his younger brothers slipping down the shore ice and going under the ice-sheet, and he would break into a cold sweat at the idea. This shows just the worrying kind of boy Frank was; and it shows how used he was to having care put upon him, and how he would even borrow trouble when he had none.

It generally happens with any one who makes himself useful that other people make him useful, too, and all the neighbors put as much trust in Frank as his mother, and got him to do a good many things that they would not have got other boys to do. They could not look into his face, a little more careworn than it ought to be at his age, without putting perfect faith in him, and trying to get something out of him. That was how he came to do so many errands for mothers who had plenty of boys of their own; and he seemed to be called on in any sort of trouble or danger, when the fathers were up-town, and was always chasing pigs or cows out of other people's gardens, and breaking up their hens from setting, or going up trees with hives to catch their bees when they swarmed.

I suppose this was how he came to be trusted with that pocketful of money, and why he had a young brother along to double his care at the time.

The money was given him in the city, as the Boy's Town boys always called the large place about twenty miles away, where Frank went once with his mother when he was eleven years old. She was going to take passage there on a steamboat and go up the Ohio River to visit his grandmother with his sisters, while Frank was to go back the same day to the Boy's Town with one of his young brothers.

They all drove down to the city together in the carriage which one of his uncles had got from the livery stable, with a driver who was to take Frank and his brother home. This uncle had been visiting Frank's father and mother, and it was his boat that she was going on. It lay among a hundred other boats, which had their prows tight together along the landing for half a mile up and down the sloping shore. It was one of the largest boats of all, and it ran every week from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and did not take any longer for the round trip than an ocean steamer takes now for the voyage from New York to Liverpool.

The children all had dinner on board, such a dinner as there never was in any house: roast beef and roast chicken; beefsteak and ham in chafing-dishes with lamps burning under them to keep them hot; pound-cake with frosting on, and pies and pickles, corn-bread and hot biscuit; jelly that kept shaking in moulds; ice-cream and Spanish pudding; coffee and tea, and I do not know what all.

When the children had eaten all they could hold, and made their uncle laugh till he almost cried, to see them trying to eat everything, their mother went ashore with them, and walked up the landing towards the hotel where the carriage was left, so as to be with Frank and his little brother as long as she could before they started home. She was about one of the best mothers in the Boy's Town, and Frank hated to have her go away even on a visit.

She kept giving him charges about all the things at home, and how he must take good care of his little brothers, and see that the garden gate was fastened so that the cows could not get in, and feed the chickens regularly, and put the cat out every night, and not let the dog sleep under his bed; and they were so busy talking and feeling sorry that they got to the hotel before they knew it.

There, whom should they see but one of the Boy's Town merchants, who was in the city on business, and who seemed as glad to meet them as if they were his own relations. They were glad, too, for it made them feel as if they had got back to the Boy's Town when he came up and spoke to Mrs. Baker. They had started from home after a very early breakfast, and she said it seemed as if they had been gone a year already. The merchant told her that he had been looking everywhere for somebody he knew who was going to the Boy's Town; and then he told Mrs. Baker that he had two thousand dollars which he wanted to send home to his partner, and he asked her if she could take it for him when she went back.

"Well, indeed, indeed, I'm thankful I'm not going, Mr. Bushell!" Mrs. Baker said. "And I wouldn't have supposed I could be, I'm so homesick. I'm going up the river on a visit to mother; but if I was going straight back, I wouldn't take your two thousand dollars for the half of it. I would be afraid of losing it, or getting robbed and murdered. I don't know what wouldn't happen. I would be happy to oblige you, but indeed, indeed I couldn't!"

The merchant said he was sorry, but if she was not going home he supposed he would have to find some one who was. It was before the days of sending money by express, or telegraphing it, and the merchant told her he was afraid to trust the money in the mail. He asked her who was going to take her carriage home, and she told him the name of the driver from the livery stable in the Boy's Town, who had come to the city with them.

Mr. Bushell seemed dreadfully disappointed, but when she went on to say how anxious she was that the driver should get Frank and his brother home before dark, he brightened up all of a sudden, and he asked, "Is Frank going back?" and he looked down into Frank's face and smiled, as most people did when they looked into Frank's face, and he asked, "What's the reason Frank couldn't take it?"

Mrs. Baker put her arm across Frank's breast and pulled him away, and said, "Indeed, indeed, the child just sha'n't, and that's all about it!"

But Mr. Bushell took the boy by the arm and laughed. "Let's feel how deep your pants' pocket is," he said; and he put his hand into the pocket of Frank's nankeen trousers and felt; and then, before Mrs. Baker could stop him, he drew a roll of bank-notes out of his own pocket and pushed it into Frank's. "There, it's just a fit! Do you think you'd lose it?"

"No, he wouldn't lose it," said his mother, "and that's just it! He'd worry about it every minute, and I would worry about him!"

She tried to make the merchant take the money back, but he kept joking; and then he turned serious, and told her that the money had to be put in the bank to pay a note, and he did not know any way to get it to his partner if she would not let Frank take it; that he was at his wits' end. He said he would as lief trust it with Frank as with any man he knew; that nobody would think the boy had any money with him; and he fairly begged her to let Frank take it for him.

He talked to her so much that she began to give way a little. She felt proud of his being willing to trust Frank, and at last she consented. Mr. Bushell explained that he wished his partner to have the money that evening, and she had to agree to let Frank carry it to him as soon as he got home.

The Boy's Town was built on two sides of a river. Mr. Bushell's store was across the river from where the Bakers lived, and she said she did not want the child to have to go through the bridge after dark. Perhaps it was her anxiety about this that began the whole trouble; for when the driver came with the carriage, she could not help asking him if he was sure to get home before sundown. That made him drive faster than he might have done, perhaps; at any rate, he set off at a quick trot after Mr. Bushell had helped put the two boys in. Mrs. Baker gathered her little girls together and went back to the boat with her heart in her mouth, as she afterwards said.

The driver got out of the city without trouble, but when he came to the smooth turnpike road, it seemed to Frank that the horses kept going faster and faster, till they were fairly flying over the ground. The driver pulled and pulled at the reins, and people began to hollo, "Look out where you're going!" when they met them or passed them, and all at once Frank began to think the horses were running away. He had not much chance to think about it, though, he was so busy keeping his little brother from bouncing off the seat and out of the carriage, and in feeling if Mr. Bushell's money was safe; and he was not certain that they were running away till he saw people stopping and staring, and then starting after the carriage.

The horses tore along for two or three miles; they thundered through the covered bridge on Mill's Creek, and passed the Four-Mile House. By the time they reached the little village beyond it they had the turnpike to themselves; every team coming and going drove into the gutter.

At the village a large, fat butcher, who was sitting tilted back in a chair at the door of his shop, saw the carriage coming in a whirlwind of dust, and he knew what the matter was. There was a horse standing at the hitching rail, and the butcher just had time to untie him and jump into the saddle when the runaways flew by. He took after them as fast as his horse could go, and overhauled them at the end of the next bridge and brought them to a stand.

It had really been nothing but a race against time. No one was hurt; the horses were pretty badly blown, that was all; but the carriage was so much shaken up that it had to be left at a wagon-shop, where it could not be mended till morning. The two boys were taken back to Four-Mile House, where they would have to pass the night.

Frank worried about his father, who would be expecting them home that evening; but he was glad his mother did not know what had happened. He was thankful enough when he felt his brother all over and found him safe and sound, and then put his hand on his pocket and found that Mr. Bushell's money was still there. He did not eat very much supper, and he went to bed early, after he had put his brother in bed and seen him fall asleep almost before he got through his prayers.

Frank was very tired, and pretty sore from the jouncing in the carriage; but he was too worried to be sleepy. He began to think, What if some one should get Mr. Bushell's money away from him in the night, while he was asleep? And then he was glad that he did not feel like sleeping. He got up and put on his clothes and sat down by the window, listening to his brother's breathing and looking out into the dark at the heat-lightning in the west. The day had been very hot and the night was close, without a breath of wind. By-and-by all the noises about the house died away, and he knew everybody had gone to bed. The lantern under the tavern porch threw a dim light out into the road; some dogs barked away off. There was no other sound, and the stillness was awful. He kept his hand on the pocket that had the money in it.

After a while Frank began to feel very drowsy, and he thought he would lie down again, but he promised himself he would not sleep, and he did not undress; for if he took his pantaloons off, he did not know how he could make sure every minute that the money was safe, unless he put it under his pillow. He was afraid if he did that he might forget it in the morning, and leave it when he got up.

He stretched himself on the bed beside his brother, and it seemed to him that it was hardly a second before he heard a loud crash that shook the whole house; and the room looked full of fire. Another crash came, and then another, with a loud, stony kind of rolling noise that seemed to go round the world. Then he knew that he had been asleep, and that this dreadful noise was the swift coming of a thunder-storm.

It was the worst storm that was ever known in Mill Creek Valley, so the people said afterwards, but as yet it was only beginning. The thunder was deafening, and it never stopped a moment. The lightning hardly stopped, either; it filled the room with a quivering blaze; at times, when it died down, the night turned black as ink, and then a flash came that lit up the fields outside, and showed every stick and stone as bright as the brightest day.

Frank was dazed at first by the glare and the noise; then he jumped out of bed, and tried for two things: whether the money was still safe in his pocket, and whether his brother was alive. He never could tell which he found out first; as soon as he knew, he felt a little bit better, but still his cheerfulness was not anything to brag of.

If his brother was alive, it seemed to be more than any one else in the house was besides himself. He could not hear a soul stirring, although in that uproar there might have been a full-dress parade of the Butler Guards in the tavern, firing off their guns, and he could not have heard them. He looked out in the entry, but it was all dark there except when he let the flashes of his room into it. He thought he would light his candle, for company, and so that the lightning would not be so awfully bright. He found his candlestick easily enough—he could have found a pin in that glare—but there were no matches.

So he decided to get along without the candle. Every now and then he put his hand in his pocket, or on the bulge outside, to make sure of the money; and whenever a very bright flash came, he would listen for his brother's breathing, to tell whether he had been struck by lightning or not. But it kept thundering so that sometimes he could not hear. Then Frank would shake him till the boy gave a sort of snort, and that proved that he was still alive; or he would put his ear to his brother's breast, and listen whether his heart was beating.

It always was, and by-and-by the rain began to fall. It fell in perfect sheets, and the noise it made could be heard through the thunder. But Frank had always heard that after it began to rain, a thunder-storm was not so dangerous, and the air got fresher. Still, it blazed and bellowed away, he could never tell how long, and it seemed to him that he must have felt a thousand times for Mr. Bushell's money, and tried a thousand times to find whether his brother had been struck by lightning or not. Once or twice he thought he would call for help; but he did not think he could make anybody hear, and he was too much ashamed to do it, anyway.

Between the times of feeling for the money and seeing whether his brother was alive, he thought about his mother: how frightened she would be if she knew what had happened to him and his brother, after they left her. And he thought of his father: how troubled he must be at their not getting home. It seemed to him that he must be to blame, somehow, but he could not understand how, exactly; and he could not think of any way to help it.

He wondered if the storm was as bad on the river and in the Boy's Town, and whether the lightning would strike the boat or the house; the house had a lightning-rod, but the boat could not have one, of course. He felt pretty safe about his father and the older-younger brother who had been left at home with him; but he was not sure about his mother and sisters, and he tried to imagine what people did on a steamboat in a thunder-storm.

After a long time had passed, and he thought it must be getting near morning, he lay down again beside his brother, and fell into such a heavy sleep that he did not wake till it was broad day, and the sun was making as much blaze in the curtainless tavern-room as the lightning had made. The storm was over, and everything was as peaceful as if there had never been any such thing as a storm in the world. The first thing he did was to make a grab for his pocket. The money was still there, and his brother sleeping as soundly as ever.

After breakfast, the livery-stable man came with the carriage, which he had got mended, and Frank started home with his brother once more. But they had sixteen miles to go before they would reach the Boy's Town, and the carriage had been so badly shattered, or else the driver was so much afraid of the horses, that he would not let them go at more than a walk. Frank was anxious to get home on his father's account; still he would rather get home safe, and he did not try to hurry the driver, for fear they might not get home at all.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they stopped at his father's house. His older-younger brother, and the hired girl, whom his mother had got to keep house while she was gone on her visit, came out and took his little brother in; and the girl told Frank his father had just been there to see whether he had got back. Then he knew that his father must have been as anxious as he had been afraid he was. He did not wait to go inside; he only kicked off the shoes he wore to the city and started off for his father's office as fast as his bare feet could carry him.

He found his father at the door. He did not say very much, but Frank could see by his face that he had been worrying; and afterwards he said that he was just going round to the livery stable the next minute to get another team, and go down towards the city to see what had become of them all. Frank told him what had happened, and his father put his arms round him, but still did not say much. He did not say anything at all about Mr. Bushell's money or seem to think about it till Frank asked:

"I'd better take it right straight over to his store, hadn't I, father?"

His father said he reckoned he had, and Frank started away on the run again. He wanted to get rid of that money so badly, for it was all he had to worry about, after he had got rid of his brother, that he was out of breath, almost, by the time he reached Mr. Bushell's store. But even then he could not get rid of the money. Mr. Bushell had told him to give it to his partner, but his partner had gone out into the country, and was not to be back till after supper.

Frank did not know what to do. He did not dare to give it to any one else in the store, and it seemed to him that the danger of having it got worse every minute. He hung about a good while, and kept going in and out of the store, but at last he thought the best thing would be to go home and ask his father; and that was what he did.

By this time his father had gone home to supper, and he found him there with his two younger brothers, feeling rather lonesome, with Frank's mother and his sisters all away. But they cheered up together, and his father said he had done right not to leave the money, and he would just step over, after supper, and give it himself to Mr. Bushell's partner. He took the roll of bills from Frank and put it into his own pocket, and went on eating his supper, but when they were done he gave the bills back to the boy.

"After all, Frank, I believe I'll let you take that money to Mr. Bushell's partner. He trusted it to you, and you ought to have the glory; you've had the care. Do you think you'll be afraid to come home through the bridge after sunset?"

The bridge was one of those old-fashioned, wooden ones, roofed in and sided up, and it stretched from shore to shore, like a tunnel, on its piers. It was rather dim, even in the middle of the brightest day, and none of the boys liked to be caught in it after sunset.

Frank said he did not believe he should be afraid, for it seemed to him that if he had got through a runaway, and such a thunder-storm as that was the night before, without harm, he could surely get through the bridge safely. There was not likely to be anybody in it, at the worst, but Indian Jim, or Solomon Whistler, the crazy man, and he believed he could run by them if they offered to do anything to him. He meant to walk as slowly as he could, until he reached the bridge, and then just streak through it.

That was what he did, and it was still quite light when he reached Mr. Bushell's store. His partner was there, sure enough, this time, and Frank gave him the money, and told him how he had been so long bringing it. The merchant thanked him, and said he was rather young to be trusted with so much money, but he reckoned Mr. Bushell knew what he was about.

"Did he count it when he gave it to you?" he asked.

"No, he didn't," said Frank.

"Did you?"

"I didn't have a chance. He put it right into my pocket, and I was afraid to take it out."

Mr. Bushell's partner laughed, and Frank was going away, so as to get through the bridge before it was any darker, but Mr. Bushell's partner said, "Just hold on a minute, won't you, Frank, till I count this," and he felt as if his heart had jumped into his throat.

What if he had lost some of the money? What if somebody had got it out of his pocket, while he was so dead asleep, and taken part of it? What if Mr. Bushell had made a mistake, and not given him as much as he thought he had? He hardly breathed while Mr. Bushell's partner slowly counted the bank-notes. It took him a long time, and he had to wet his finger a good many times, and push the notes to keep them from sticking together. At last he finished, and he looked at Frank over the top of his spectacles. "Two thousand?" he asked.

"That's what Mr. Bushell said," answered the boy, and he could hardly get the words out.

"Well, it's all here," said Mr. Bushell's partner, and he put the money in his pocket, and Frank turned and went out of the store.

He felt light, light as cotton, and gladder than he almost ever was in his life before. He was so glad that he forgot to be afraid in the bridge. The fellows who were the most afraid always ran through the bridge, and those who tried not to be afraid walked fast and whistled. Frank did not even think to whistle.

His father was sitting out on the front porch when he reached home, and he asked Frank if he had got rid of his money, and what Mr. Bushell's partner had said. Frank told him all about it, and after a while his father asked, "Well, Frank, do you like to have the care of money?"

"I don't believe I do, father."

"Which was the greater anxiety to you last night, Mr. Bushell's money, or your brother?"

Frank had to think awhile. "Well, I suppose it was the money, father. You see, it wasn't my own money."

"And if it had been your own money, you wouldn't have been anxious about it? You wouldn't have cared if you had lost it, or somebody had stolen it from you?"

Frank thought again, and then he said he did not believe he had thought about that.

"Well, think about it now."

Frank tried to think, and at last he said. "I reckon I should have cared."

"And if it had been your own money, would you have been more anxious about it than about your brother?"

This time Frank was more puzzled than ever; he really did not know what to say.

His father said: "The trouble with money is, that people who have a great deal of it seem to be more anxious about it than they are about their brothers, and they think that the things it can buy are more precious than the things which all the money in the world cannot buy." His father stood up. "Better go to bed, Frank. You must be tired. There won't be any thunder-storm to-night, and you haven't got a pocketful of money to keep you awake."



XI

HOW JIM LEONARD PLANNED FOR PONY BAKER TO RUN OFF ON A RAFT

Now we have got to go back to Pony Baker again. The summer went along till it got to be September, and the fellows were beginning to talk about when school would take up. It was almost too cold to go in swimming; that is, the air made you shiver when you came out, and before you got your clothes on; but if you stood in the water up to your chin, it seemed warmer than it did on the hottest days of summer. Only now you did not want to go in more than once a day, instead of four or five times. The fellows were gathering chinquapin acorns most of the time, and some of them were getting ready to make wagons to gather walnuts in. Once they went out to the woods for pawpaws, and found about a bushel; they put them in cornmeal to grow, but they were so green that they only got rotten. The boys found an old shanty in the woods where the farmer made sugar in the spring, and some of the big fellows said they were coming out to sleep in it, the first night they got.

It was this that put Jim Leonard in mind of Pony's running off again. All the way home he kept talking to Pony about it, and Pony said he was going to do it yet, some time, but when Jim Leonard wanted him to tell the time, he would only say, "You'll see," and wag his head.

Then Jim Leonard mocked him and dared him to tell, and asked him if he would take a dare. After that he made up with him, and said if Pony would run off he would run off, too; and that the way for them to do would be to take the boards of that shanty in the woods and build a raft. They could do it easily, because the boards were just leaned up against the ridge-pole, and they could tie them together with pawpaw switches, they were so tough, and then some night carry the raft to the river, after the water got high in the fall, and float down on it to the city.