The Flight of Pony Baker / A Boy's Town Story

. The boys called it Jim Leonard's log-cabin, but it was really his mother's, and the stable was hers, too. It was a log stab

oldest boys had ever seen it like that, and you had to take Jim Leonard's word for it if you wanted to believe it. The little fellows nearly all did; but everybody said afterwards it was a good thing for Jim Leonard that it was not that

t the old-fashioned roof would have been just like a raft, anyway, and he could have steered it right ac

u do it, with the ki

it if he could have got into the eddy that there was over by the island. If he could h

tore away pieces of orchard, and apple-trees in bloom came sailing along with logs and fence rails and chicken-coops, and pretty soon dead cows and horses. There was a dog chained to a dog-kennel that went by, howling awfully; the boys would have given anything if they could have saved him, but the yellow river whirled him out o

per. After supper some of their mothers let them come back and stay till bedtime, if they would promise to keep a full yard back from the

r, 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

t as soon as the bridge began to go, he was going to run out on it and go with it; and then they would see whether he was a liar or not! They mocked him and danced round h

, and even all the big boys had gone home except Hen Billard, when Pony left Ji

illard said: "Well, going

f their coffee, and that would keep him awake. But perhaps he thought this because he wanted some coffee so badly. He was awfully hungry, for he had not ha

e men saw Jim Leonard hanging about, and asked him what he wanted there, at that time of night; and Jim could not say he wanted

some supper, or get to bed somehow with neither. He climbed softly over the back fence and crept up to the back door, but it was

of it before. The notion brightened him up so that he got the gourd that hung beside the well-curb and took it out to the

ade. But he was in his bare feet and he did not care; if he thought anything, he thought that his mother would not come out to m

n to milk her. She had been milked only a few hours before, and so he got only a gourdful from her. But it was all strippings, and rich as cream, and it was smokin

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 touche

ight, although it was the daylight of early morning; and while he lay looking out of the stable-loft window and trying to make out what it all meant, he felt a wash of cold water along his back, and his bed of fodder melted away under him and around him, and some l

showed him his mother's log-cabin safe on its rise of ground, and at the corner the old cow, that must have escaped through the stable door he

he company of a large gray rat, he set out on the strangest voyage a boy ever made. In a few moments the current swept him out

ir imprisoned in it above the window. But Jim Leonard was not satisfied, and so far from being proud of his adventure, he was frightened worse even than the rat which shared it. As soon as he could get his voice, he began to shout for help to the houses on the empty shores, which seeme

e were safe there on shore he should not be sleeping in bed while somebody was out i

; or Pony Baker, that seemed to like a fellow so much? He began to call for them by name: "Hen Billard

d try to save him; and Jim Leonard began to yell: "O Mr. Baker! Look here, Mr. Baker! It's Jim Leonard, and I'm fl

hed through them. Jim Leonard was glad of anything that would stop the roof, and at first he thought he would get off on the tree. That was what the rat did. Perhaps the rat thought Jim Leonard really was crazy and he had better let him have the roof to himself; but the rat saw that he had made a mistake, and he jumped back again after he had

night-cap on, to see what the matter was. Jim Leonard caught sight of her and he

Hen Billard, and you layin' there sleepin' and not helpin' a bit! Somebody's ou

n bareheaded over to the bank, and when Jim Leonard saw him coming he holloed ten times as

began to yell, too, and to say: "How did you get there? Fire, fire, fire! What are you on? Fire! Are

ouses. The river was almost up to the top of the bank, and it looked a mile wide.

" 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

up his mind to save the rat, too, and pet it, and maybe go around and exhibit it. He would name it Bolivar; it was just the color of the elephant

ow back to land again without ever getting anywhere near him. At the same time, the tree-top where his roof was caught was pulled southward by a sudden rush of the torrent; it opened, and the

tch drift-wood with and drag it ashore. When the people saw Blue Bob with that pole in his hand, they understood what he was up to. He was going to wait till the water brought the roof with Jim Leonard on it down to the bridge, and then catch the hook into the shingles and pull it up to the pier. T

ust shaved his face looked perfectly blue. He knew all about the river and its ways, and if it had been of any use to go out with a boat, he would have gone. That was what al

d's roof slipped by Blue Bob's guard and passed under the bridge,

imes faster, just as it got into an eddy or into the current; once it seeme

ready to make a clutch at the roof, whichever side it took. Jim Leonard saw him there, but although he had been holloing

elt it quiver and stop, and then it gave a loud crack and went to pieces, and flung itself away upon the whirling and dancing flood. At first Jim Leonard thought he had gone with it

many people said there never was any rat on the roof w

eral days; he told Pony Baker that he did

ve been the kind of rat that people see when they have been drinking too much,

earn tha

n a cow

up a regular election cheer, and they would have believed anything Jim Leonard said. They all agreed that Blue Bob had a

the worst. She did not seem to understand exactly, and she kept round getting breakfast, with her old clay pipe in her mouth; but when she got it through he

and trying to make her believe that it was all for the best, when Blue Bob came up through

und there before her. She gave him a look that made him slip round behind Blue Bob, and she

w-barn when he's got a decent bed in the house!"