William Dean Howells

“ Pony agreed that this would be the best way, but he did not really like the notion of living so long among the Indians that he would not remember his father and mother when he saw them; he would like to stay till he was pretty nearly grown up, and then come back in a chief’s dress, with eagle plumes all down his back and a bow in his hand, and scare them a little when he first came in the house and then protect them from the tribe and tell them who he was, and enjoy their surprise. But he hated to say this to Jim Leonard, because he would think he was afraid to live with the Indians always. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Pretty soon people began to look out of their doors and windows, and Hen Billard’s grandmother kept screaming, “The world’s a-burnin’ up! The river’s on fire!” Then boys came out of their houses; and then men with no hats on; and then women and girls, with their hair half down. The fire-bells began to ring, and in less than five minutes both the fire companies were on the shore, with the men at the brakes and the foremen of the companies holloing through their trumpets.
Then Jim Leonard saw what a good thing it was that he had thought of holloing fire. ”

“ There really was not anything for him to do but to climb up into the loft by the ladder in the corner of the stable, and lie down on the old last year’s fodder. The rich, warm milk made Jim Leonard awfully sleepy, and he dropped off almost as soon as his head touched the corn-stalks. The last thing he remembered was the hoarse roar of the freshet outside, and that was a lulling music in his ears. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His father laughed, but his mother said, “I know hell put mischief in the child’s head,” and then Pony thought how Jim Leonard always wanted him to run off, and he felt ashamed; but he did not think that running off was mischief, or else all the boys would not be wanting to do it, and so he did not say anything.
His father said, “I don’t believe there’s any harm in the fellow. He’s a queer chap.”
“He’s so low down,” said Pony’s mother.
“Well, he has a chance to rise, then,” said Pony’s father. “We may all be hurrahing for him for President some day.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jim Leonard was there, holloing and running up and down the bank, and showing the other boys things away out in the river that nobody else could see; he said he saw a man out there. He had not been to supper, and he had not been to school all day, which might have been the reason why he would rather stay with the men and watch the bridge than go home to supper; his mother would have been waiting for him with a sucker from the pear-tree. He told the boys that while they were gone he went out with one of the men on the bridge as far as the middle pier, and it shook like a leaf ”

“ Maybe he meant to keep the patch all to himself.”
His mother was silent, and Pony asked, “Do you believe that a boy has a right to take anything off a tree or a vine?”
“No; certainly not.”
“Well, that’s what I think, too.”
[Pg 73] “Why, Pony,” said his mother, “is there anybody who thinks such a thing can be right?”
“Well, the boys say it’s not stealing. Stealing is hooking a thing out of a wagon or a store; but if you can knock a thing off a tree, or get it through a fence, when it’s on the ground already, then it’s just like gathering nuts in the woods. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But I think he’s had a worse time, if that’s any comfort, than Pony has. He has suffered the fate of all liars. Sooner or later their lies outwit them and overmaster them, for whenever people believe a liar he is forced to act as if he had spoken the truth. That’s worse than [Pg 76] having a tower fall on you, or pains in the stomach.”
Pony’s mother was silent for a moment as if she could not answer, and then she said, “Well, all I know is, I wish there was no such boy in this town as Jim Leonard.” ”

“ Pony liked to play with his sisters well enough when there were no boys around, but when there were his mother did not act as if she could not see any difference. The girls themselves were not so bad, and they often coaxed their mother to let him go off with the other boys, when she would not have let him without. But even then, if it was going in swimming, or fishing, or skating before the ice was very thick, she would show that she thought he was too little to take care of himself, and would make some big boy promise that he would look after Pony ”

“ He was not a very good father about money, because when Pony went to ask him for a five-cent piece he always wanted to know what it was for, and even when it was for a good thing a fellow did not [Pg 18] always like to tell. If his father did not think it was a good thing he would not let Pony have it, and then Pony would be ashamed to go back to the boys, for they would say his father was stingy, though perhaps none of them had tried to get money from their own fathers.
Every now and then the fellows tried to learn to smoke, and that was a thing that Pony’s father would not let him do. ”

“ He was pretty bad about wanting Pony to weed his mother’s flower-beds and about going regularly to school, and always getting up in time for school. To be sure, if a show or a circus came along, he nearly always [Pg 19] took Pony in, but then he was apt to take the girls, too, and he did not like to have Pony go off with a crowd of boys, which was the only way to go into a show; for if the fellows saw you with your family, all dressed up, and maybe with your shoes on, they would make fun of you the next time they caught you out. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ That’s what the boys say. Do you think it is?”
“I think it’s the worst kind of stealing. I hope my boy doesn’t do such things.”
“Not very often,” answered Pony, thoughtfully. “When there’s a lot of fellows together, you don’t want them to laugh at you.”
“O Pony, dear!” said his mother, almost crying.
“Well, anyway, mother,” Pony said, to cheer her up, “I didn’t take any of the watermelons to-day, for all Jim said Bunty had got done with them.” ”

“ It almost made him think that Jim Leonard was better than the rest because he would not take any of the melons, but stayed off at one side of the patch near the woods, where Pony stood with him.
He did not say much, and Pony noticed that he kept watching the log cabin where Bunty Williams lived on the slope of the hill about half a mile off, and once he heard Jim saying, as if to himself: “No, there isn’t any smoke coming out of the chimbly, and that’s a sign there ain’t anybody there. They’ve all gone to market, I reckon.” ”

“ He hardly dared to ask him what the Indians would do to him if they did not adopt him, but he thought he had better, and Jim said:
“Oh, burn you, maybe. But it ain’t likely but what they’ll adopt you; and if [Pg 79] they do they’ll take you down to the river, and wash you and scrub you, so’s to get all the white man off, and then pull out your hair, a hair at a time, till there’s nothing but the scalp-lock left, so that your enemies can scalp you handy; and then you’re just as good an Indian as anybody, and nobody can pick on you, or anything. The thing is how to find the canal-boat.” ”

“ 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 [Pg 155] 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Almost any of the fellows could whip him, but once he went into an empty house that was haunted, and came and looked out of the garret windows, and dared any of them to come up.
He offered now, if Pony did not want to go home and let his folks find out about the melon patch, to take him to his mother’s log-barn, and get a witch-doctor to come and tend him; but Pony said that he thought they had better keep on, and then Jim trotted and asked him if the jolting did not do him some good. He said he just [Pg 71] wished there was an Indian medicine-man around somewhere. ”

“ 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 [Pg 103] 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. ”

“ The lantern-light was a charm against ghosts, but not against rats, and the first thing Pony knew when he got into the barn a rat ran across his foot. Trip would have kept the rats off. They seemed to just swarm in the loft when Pony got up there, and after he hung the lantern on a nail and [Pg 214] lay down in the hay they did not mind him at all. They played all around, and two of them got up on their hind legs once and fought, or else danced, Pony could not tell which. ”

“ 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 [Pg 147] 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? ”