"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 nobody will notice. Now, to-morrow you
bring out a piece of bread-and-butter with meat between, and I will, too,
and then we will see how it will do."
Pony brought his bread-and-butter 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 butter'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-butter,
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-butter
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:
"Well, let him have it. It's all spoilt now, anyway. But I'll tell you
what, Pony--we've got to do something with that dog. He's found out where
we keep our provisions, and now he'll always eat them. I don't know but
what we'll have to kill him."
"Oh no!" said Pony. "I couldn't kill Trip!"
"Well, I didn't mean kill him, exactly; but do something. I'll tell you
what--train him not to follow you to the barn when he sees you going."
Pony thought that would be a good plan, and he began the next day at noon.
Trip tried to follow him to the barn, and Pony kicked at him, and motioned
to stone him, and said: "Go home, sir! Home with you! Home, I say!" till
his mother came to the back door.
"Why, what in the world makes you so cross with poor Trip, Pony?" she
asked.
"I'll teach him not to tag me round everywhere," said Pony.