The Flight of Pony Baker | Page 8

the boys liked him and
thought he was pretty smart, and now they did not mind it when he
elbowed the big boys away that were talking to Pony and told them to
shut up.
"You just listen to your uncle, Pony!" he said. "These fellows don't
know anything about running off. I'll tell you how to do it; you mind
your uncle! It's no use trying to get away from the constable, if he's
there, for he'll catch you as quick as lightning, and he won't mind these
fellows any more than fleas. You oughtn't try to start till along about
midnight, for the constable will be in bed by that time, and you won't
have any trouble. You must have somebody to wake you up, and some
of the fellows ought to be outside, to do it. You listen to your
grandfather! You ought to tie a string around your big toe, and let the
string hang out of the window, the way you do Fourth of July eve; and
then just as soon as it strikes twelve, the fellows ought to tug away at
the string till you come hopping to the window, and tell 'em to stop. But
you got to whisper, and the fellows mustn't make any noise, either, or
your father will be out on them in a minute. He'll be watching out,

to-night, anyway, I reckon, because--"
Old Hawkins was walking backward in front of Pony, talking to him,
and showing him how he must hop to the window, and all at once he
struck his heel against a root in the sidewalk, and the first thing he
knew he sat down so hard that it about knocked the breath out of him.
All the fellows laughed, and anybody else would have been mad, but
Old Hawkins was too good-natured; and he got up and brushed himself,
and said: "Say! let's go down to the river and go in, before supper,
anyway."
Nearly all the fellows agreed, and Old Hawkins said: "Come along,
Pony! You got to come, too!"
But Pony stiffly refused, partly because it seemed to him pretty mean to
forget all about his running away, like that, and partly because he had
to ask his mother before he went in swimming. A few of the little
fellows kept with him all the way home, but most of the big boys went
along with Old Hawkins.
One of them stayed with Pony and the little boys, and comforted him
for the way the rest had left him. He was a fellow who was always
telling about Indians, and he said that if Pony could get to the Indians,
anywhere, and they took a fancy to him, they would adopt him into
their tribe, if it was just after some old chief had lost a son in battle.
Maybe they would offer to kill him first, and they would have to hold a
council, but if they did adopt him, it would be the best thing, because
then he would soon turn into an Indian himself, and forget how to
speak English; and if ever the Indians had to give up their prisoners,
and he was brought back, and his father and mother came to pick him
out, they might know him by some mark or other, but he would not
know them, and they would have to let him go back to the Indians
again. He said that was the very best way, and the only way, but the
trouble would be to get to the Indians in the first place. He said he
knew of one reservation in the north part of the State, and he promised
to find out if there were any other Indians living nearer; the reservation
was about a hundred miles off, and it would take Pony a good while to

go to them.
The name of this boy was Jim Leonard. But now, before I go the least
bit further with the story of Pony Baker's running away, I have got to
tell about Jim Leonard, and what kind of boy he was, and the scrape
that he once got Pony and the other boys into, and a hair-breadth escape
he had himself, when he came pretty near being drowned in a freshet;
and I will begin with the hair-breadth escape, because it happened
before the scrape.

III
JIM LEONARD'S HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPE
Jim Leonard's stable used to stand on the flat near the river, and on a
rise of ground above it stood Jim Leonard's log-cabin. The boys called
it Jim Leonard's log-cabin, but it was really his mother's, and the stable
was hers, too. It was a log stable, but up where the gable began the logs
stopped, and it was weather-boarded the rest of