The Flight of Pony Baker | Page 3

to find out if Pony
was with them; and they all had to get into the water up to their necks
before they could bear to answer her, they were so ashamed; and Pony
had to put on his clothes and go home with her. He could see that she
had been crying, and that made him a little sorry, but not so very; and
the most that he was afraid of was that she would tell his father. But if
she did he never knew it, and that night she came to him after he went
to bed, and begged him so not to stay in swimming the whole day any
more, and told him how frightened she had been, that he had to promise;
and then that made him feel worse than ever, for he did not see how he
could break his promise.
She was not exactly a bad mother, and she was not exactly a good
mother. If she had been really a good mother she would have let him do
whatever he wanted, and never made any trouble, and if she had been a
bad mother she would not have let him do anything; and then he could
have done it without her letting him. In some ways she was good
enough; she would let him take out things to the boys in the back yard
from the table, and she put apple-butter or molasses on when it was hot
biscuit that he took out. Once she let him have a birthday party, and had
cake and candy-pulling and lemonade, and nobody but boys, because
he said that boys hated girls; even his own sisters did not come.
Sometimes she would give him money for ice-cream, and if she could
have got over being particular about his going in swimming before he
could swim, and pistols and powder and such things, she would have
done very well.
She was first-rate when he was sick, and nobody could take care of him

like her, cooling his pillow and making the bed easy, and keeping
everybody quiet; and when he began to get well she would cook things
that tasted better than anything you ever knew: stewed chicken, and
toast with gravy on, and things like that. Even when he was well, and
just lonesome, she would sit by his bed if he asked her, till he went to
sleep, or got quieted down; and if he was trying to make anything she
would help him all she could, but if it was something that you had to
use a knife with she was not much help.
It always seemed to Pony that she begrudged his going with the boys,
and she said how nice he used to keep his clothes before, and had such
pretty manners, and now he was such a sloven, and was so rude and
fierce that she was almost afraid of him. He knew that she was making
fun about being afraid of him; and if she did hate to have him go with
some of the worst boys, still she was willing to help in lots of ways.
She gave him yarn to make a ball with, and she covered it for him with
leather. Sometimes she seemed to do things for him that she would not
do for his sisters, and she often made them give up to him when they
had a dispute.
She made a distinction between boys and girls, and did not make him
help with the housework. Of course he had to bring in wood, but all the
fellows had to do that, and they did not count it; what they hated was
having to churn, or wipe dishes after company. Pony's mother never
made him do anything like that; she said it was girls' work; and she
would not let him learn to milk, either, for she said that milking was
women's work, and all that Pony had to do with the cow was to bring
her home from the pasture in the evening.
Sometimes when there was company she would let him bring in a boy
to the second table, and she gave them all the preserves and cake that
they could eat. The kind of company she had was what nearly all the
mothers had in the Boy's Town; they asked a whole lot of other
mothers to supper, and had stewed chicken and hot biscuit, and tea and
coffee, and quince and peach preserves, and sweet tomato pickles, and
cake with jelly in between, and pound-cake with frosting on, and
buttered toast, and maybe fried eggs and ham. The fathers never

seemed to come; or, if the father that belonged in the house came, he
did not go and sit in the parlor with