The Flight of Pony Baker Part 11

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

Mr. Bush.e.l.l's partner laughed, and Frank was going away, so as to get through the bridge before it was any darker, but Mr. Bush.e.l.l'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.

Bush.e.l.l had made a mistake, and not given him as much as he thought he had? He hardly breathed while Mr. Bush.e.l.l'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. Bush.e.l.l said," answered the boy, and he could hardly get the words out.

"Well, it's all here," said Mr. Bush.e.l.l'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. Bush.e.l.l'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. Bush.e.l.l'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.

"Why, does the river go past the city?" Pony asked.

"Of course it does," said Jim Leonard, and he laughed at Pony. "It runs into the Ohio there. Where's your geography?"

Pony was ashamed to say that he did not suppose that geography had anything to do with the river at the Boy's Town, for it was not down on the map, like Behring Straits and the Isthmus of Suez. But he saw that Jim Leonard really knew something. He did not see the sense of carrying the raft two miles through the woods when you could get plenty of drift-wood on the river sh.o.r.e to make a raft of. But he did not like to say it for fear Jim Leonard would think he was afraid to be in the woods after dark, and after that he came under him more than ever. Most of the fellows just made fun of Jim Leonard, because they said he was a brag, but Pony began to believe everything he said when he found out that he knew where the river went to; Pony had never even thought.

Jim was always talking about their plan of running off together, now; and he said they must fix everything so that it would not fail this time. If they could only get to the city once, they could go for cabin-boys on a steamboat that was bound for New Orleans; and down the Mississippi they could easily hide on some ship that was starting for the Spanish Main, and then they would be all right. Jim knew about the Spanish Main from a book of pirate stories that he had. He had a great many books and he was always reading them. One was about Indians, and one was about pirates, and one was about dreams and signs, and one was full of curious stories, and one told about magic and how to do jugglers' tricks; the other was a fortune-telling book. Jim Leonard had a paper from the city, with long stories in, and he had read a novel once; he could not tell the boys exactly what a novel was, but that was what it said on the back.

After Pony and he became such friends he told him everything that was in his books, and once, when Pony went to his house, he showed him the books.

Pony was a little afraid of Jim Leonard's mother; she was a widow woman, and took in washing; she lived in a little wood-colored house down by the river-bank, and she smoked a pipe. She was a very good mother to Jim, and let him do whatever he pleased--go in swimming as much as he wanted to, stay out of school, or anything. He had to catch drift-wood for her to burn when the river was high; once she came down to the river herself and caught drift-wood with a long pole that had a nail in the end of it to catch on with.

By the time school took up Pony and Jim Leonard were such great friends that they asked the teacher if they might sit together, and they both had the same desk. When Pony's mother heard that, it seemed as if she were going to do something about it. She said to his father:

"I don't like Pony's going with Jim Leonard so much. He's had n.o.body else with him for two weeks, and now he's sitting with him in school."

Pony's father said, "I don't believe Jim Leonard will hurt Pony. What makes you like him, Pony?"

Pony said, "Oh, nothing," and his father laughed.

"It seems to be a case of pure affection. What do you talk about together?"

"Oh, dreams, and magic, and pirates," said Pony.

His father laughed, but his mother said, "I know h.e.l.l 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." Pony could not always tell when his father was joking, but it seemed to him he must be joking now. "I don't believe Pony will get any harm from sitting with him in school, at any rate."

After that Pony's mother did not say anything, but he knew that she had taken a spite to Jim Leonard, and when he brought him home with him after school he did not bring him into the woodshed as he did with the other boys, but took him out to the barn. That got them to playing in the barn most of the time, and they used to stay in the hay-loft, where Jim Leonard told Pony the stories out of his books. It was good and warm there, and now the days were getting chilly towards evenings.

Once, when they were lying in the hay together, Jim Leonard said, all of a sudden, "I've thought of the very thing, Pony Baker."

Pony asked, "What thing?"

"How to get ready for running off," said Jim Leonard, and at that Pony's heart went down, but he did not like to show it, and Jim Leonard went on: "We've got to provision the raft, you know, for maybe we'll catch on an island and be a week getting to the city. We've got to float with the current, anyway. Well, now, we can make a hole in the hay here and hide the provisions till we're ready to go. I say we'd better begin hiding them right away. Let's see if we can make a place. Get away, Trip."

He was speaking to Pony's dog, that always came out into the barn with him and stayed below in the carriage-room, whining and yelping till they helped him up the ladder into the loft. Then he always lay in one corner, with his tongue out, and looking at them as if he knew what they were saying. He got up when Jim Leonard bade him, and Jim pulled away the hay until he got down to the loft floor.

"Yes, it's the very place. It's all solid, and we can put the things down here and cover them up with hay and n.o.body will notice. Now, to-morrow you bring out a piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter with meat between, and I will, too, and then we will see how it will do."

Pony brought his bread-and-b.u.t.ter the next day. Jim said he intended to bring some hard-boiled eggs, but his mother kept looking, and he had no chance.

"Let's see whether the b.u.t.ter's sweet, because if it ain't the provisions will spoil before we can get off."

He took a bite, and he said, "My, that's nice!" and the first thing he knew he ate the whole piece up. "Well, never mind," he said, "we can begin to-morrow just as well."

The next day Jim Leonard brought a ham-bone, to cook greens with on the raft. He said it would be first-rate; and Pony brought bread-and-b.u.t.ter, with meat between. Then they hid them in the hay, and drove Trip away from the place. The day after that, when they were busy talking, Trip dug the provisions up, and, before they noticed, he ate up Pony's bread-and-b.u.t.ter and was gnawing Jim Leonard's ham-bone. They cuffed his ears, but they could not make him give it up, and Jim Leonard said: