"I'm tired of it," said Pony; but when he put his mother off that way he
felt badly, as if he had told her a lie, and he let Trip come with him
and began to train him again the next day.
It was pretty hard work, and Trip looked at him so mournfully when he
drove him back that he could hardly bear to do it; but Jim Leonard said it
was the only way, and he must keep it up. At last Trip got so that he
would not follow Pony to the barn. He would look at him when Pony started
and wag his tail wistfully, and half jump a little, and then when he saw
Pony frown he would let his tail drop and stay still, or walk off to the
woodshed and keep looking around at Pony to see if he were in earnest. It
made Pony's heart ache, for he was truly fond of Trip; but Jim Leonard
said it was the only way, and so Pony had to do it.
They provisioned themselves a good many times, but after they talked a
while they always got hungry, or Jim Leonard did, and then they dug up
their provisions and ate them. Once when he came to spend Saturday
afternoon with Pony he had great news to tell him. One of the boys had
really run off. He was a boy that Pony had never seen, though he had
heard of him. He lived at the other end of the town, below the bridge, and
almost at the Sycamore Grove. He had the name of being a wild fellow; his
father was a preacher, but he could not do anything with him.
Now, Jim Leonard said, Pony must run off right away, and not wait for the
river to rise, or anything. As soon as the river rose, Jim would follow
him on the raft; but Pony must start first, and he must take the pike for
the city, and sleep in fence corners. They must provision him, and not
eat any of the things before he started. He must not take a bundle or
anything, because if he did people would know he was running off, or
maybe they would think he was a runaway slave from Kentucky, he was so
dark-complexioned. At first Pony did not like it, because it seemed to him
that Jim Leonard was backing out; but Jim Leonard said that if two of them
started off at the same time, people would just know they were running
off, and the constable would take them up before they could get across
the corporation line. He said that very likely it would rain in less than
a week, and then he could start after Pony on the raft, and be at the Ohio
River almost as soon as Pony was.
He said, "Why, you ain't afraid, are you, Pony?" And Pony said he was not
afraid; for if there was anything that a Boy's Town boy hated, it was to
be afraid, and Pony hated it the worst of any, because he was sometimes
afraid that he was afraid.
They fixed it that Pony was to sleep the next Friday night in the barn,
and the next morning, before it was light, he was to fill his pockets with
the provisions and run off.
Every afternoon he took out a piece of bread-and-butter with meat between
and hid it in the hay, and Jim Leonard brought some eggs. He said he had
no chance to boil them without his mother seeing, but he asked Pony if he
did not know that raw eggs were first-rate, and when Pony said no, he
said, "Well, they are." They broke one of the eggs when they were hiding
them, and it ran over the bread-and-butter, but they wiped it off with
hay as well as they could, and Jim Leonard said maybe it would help to
keep it, anyway.
[Illustration: "'WHY, YOU AIN'T AFRAID, ARE YOU, PONY?'"]
When he came round to Pony's house the next Friday afternoon from school
he asked him if he had heard the news, and when Pony said no, he said that
the fellow that ran off had been taken up in the city by the watchman. He
was crying on the street, and he said he had nowhere to sleep, and had not
had anything to eat since the night before.
Pony's heart seemed to be standing still. He had always supposed that as
soon as he ran off he should be free from all the things that hindered and
vexed him; and, although he expected to be sorry for his father and
mother, he expected to get along perfectly well without them. He had never
thought about where he should sleep at night after he got to the city, or
how he should get something to eat.
"Now, you see, Pony," said Jim Leonard, "what a good thing it was that I
thought about provisioning you before you started. What makes you look
so?"