Pony was sick for about a week after that. When he got better his father
had a very solemn talk with him, and asked why he ever dreamed of running
away from his home, where they all loved him so. Pony could not tell. All
the things that he used to be so mad about were like nothing to him now,
and he was ashamed of them. His father did not try hard to make him tell.
He explained to him what a miserable boy he would have been if he had
really got away, and said he hoped his night's experience in the barn
would be a lesson to him.
That was what it turned out to be. But it seemed to be a lesson to his
father and mother, too. They let him do more things, and his mother did
not baby him so much before the boys. He thought she was trying to be a
better mother to him, and, perhaps, she did not baby him so much because
now he had a little brother for her to baby instead, that was born about
a week after Pony tried to run off.