A BOY'S TOWN ADVENTURES: The Flight of Pony Baker, Boy Life, A Boy's Town & Years of My Youth. William Dean Howells
before he would get a single armload of wood.
When his mother praised him he was ashamed to look at her, and so he looked round, and he saw the lantern hanging by the mantel-piece. When he saw that lantern he almost wished that he had not seen it, for now he knew that his last excuse was gone, and he would really have to run off. If it had not been for the lantern he could have told Jim Leonard that he was afraid to go out to the barn on account of ghosts, for anybody would be afraid of ghosts; Jim Leonard said he was afraid of them himself. But now Pony could easily get the lantern and take it out to the barn with him, and if it was not dark the ghosts would not dare to touch you.
He tried to think back to the beginning of the time when he first intended to run off, and find out if there was not some way of not doing it; but he could not, and if Jim Leonard was to come to the barn the next morning to help him start, and should not find him there, Pony did not know what he would do. Jim Leonard would tell all the fellows, and Pony would never hear the last of it. That was the way it seemed to him, but his mind felt all fuzzy, and he could not think very clearly about it.
When his mother finished up her work in the kitchen he took the lantern from the nail and slipped up the back stairs to his little room, and then, after he heard his sisters going to bed and his father and mother talking together quietly, he lit the lantern and stole out to the barn with it. Nobody noticed him, and he got safely inside the barn. He used to like to carry the lantern very much, because it made the shadows of his legs, when he walked, go like scissors-blades, and that was fun; but that night it did not cheer him up, and it seemed as if nothing could cheer him up again. When Trip first saw him come out into the woodshed with the lantern he jumped up and pawed Pony and licked the lantern, he was so glad, but when Pony went towards the barn Trip stopped following him and went back into the wood-house very sadly. Pony would have given almost anything to have Trip come with him, only, as Jim Leonard said, Trip would whine or bark, or something, and then Pony would be found out and kept from running off.
The more he wanted to be kept from running off the more he knew he must not try to be, and he let Trip go back when he would have so gladly helped him up into the hay-loft and slept with him there. He would not have been afraid with Trip, and now he found that he was dreadfully afraid. The lantern-light was a charm against ghosts, but not against rats, and the first thing Pony knew when he got into the barn a rat ran across his foot. Trip would have kept the rats off. They seemed to just swarm in the loft when Pony got up there, and after he hung the lantern on a nail and lay down in the hay they did not mind him at all. They played all around, and two of them got up on their hind legs once and fought, or else danced, Pony could not tell which. He could not sleep, and after a while he felt the tears coming and he began to cry, and he kept sobbing, and could not stop himself.
When Pony’s mother was ready to go to bed she said to Pony’s father: “Did Pony say good-night to you?” and when he said no, she said, “But he must have gone to bed,” and she ran up the stairs to see. She came down again in about half a second and she said, “He doesn’t seem to be there,” and she raced all through the house hunting for him. In the kitchen she saw that the lantern was gone and then she said: “I might have known he was up to some mischief, he was so quiet. This is some more of Jim Leonard’s work. Henry, I want you to go right out and look for Pony. It’s half-past nine.”
Then Pony’s father knew that it would be no use to talk and he started out. But the whole street was quiet, and all the houses were dark as if the people had gone to bed. He went up town and to all the places where the big boys were apt to play at night, and he found Hen Billard and Archy Hawkins, but neither of them had seen Pony since school. They were both sitting on Hen Billard’s front steps, because Archy Hawkins was going to stay all night with him, and they were telling stories. When Pony’s father asked about Pony and seemed anxious they tried to comfort him, but they could not think where Pony could be. They said perhaps Jim Leonard would know.
Then Pony’s father went home, and the minute he opened the front door Pony’s mother called out: “Have you found him?”
His father said: “No. Hasn’t he come in yet?” and he told her how he had been looking everywhere, and she burst out crying.
“I know he’s fallen into the canal and got drowned, or something,” and she wrung her hands together; and then he said that Hen Billard and Archy Hawkins thought Jim Leonard would know, and he had only stopped to see whether Pony had happened to come in, and he was going straight to Jim Leonard’s mother’s house; and Pony’s mother said: “Oh, go, go, go!” and fairly pushed him out of the house.
By this time it was ten o’clock and going on eleven, and all the town was as still as death, except the dogs. Pony’s father kept on until he got down to the river-bank, where Jim Leonard’s mother lived, and he had to knock and knock before he could make anybody hear. At last Jim Leonard’s mother poked her head out of the window and asked who was there, and Pony’s father told her.
He said: “Is Jim at home, Mrs. Leonard?” and she said:
“Yes, and fast asleep three hours ago. What makes you ask?”
Then he had to tell her. “We can’t find Pony, and some of the boys thought Jim might know where he is. I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Leonard. Good-night,” and he went back home.
When he got there he found Pony’s mother about crazy. He said now they must search the house thoroughly; and they went down into the cellar first, because she said she knew Pony had fallen down the stairs and killed himself. But he was not there, and then they hunted through all the rooms and looked under the tables and beds and into the cupboards and closets, and he was not there. Then they went into the wood-house and looked there, and up into the wood-house loft among the old stoves and broken furniture, and he was not there. Trip was there, and he made them think so of Pony that Pony’s mother took on worse than she had yet.
“Now I’m going out to look in the barn,” said Pony’s father. “You stay quietly in the house, Lucy.”
Trip started to go with Pony’s father, but when he saw that he was going to the barn he was afraid to follow him, Pony had trained him so; and Pony’s father went alone. He shaded the candle that he was carrying with his hand, and when he got into the barn he put it down and stood and looked and tried to think how he should do. It was dangerous to go around among the hay with the candle, and the lantern was gone.
Almost from the first Pony’s father thought that he heard a strange noise like some one sobbing, and then it seemed to him that there was a light up in the loft. He holloed out: “Who’s there?” and then the noise stopped, but the light kept on. Pony’s father holloed out again: “Pony! Is that you, Pony?” and then Pony answered, “Yes,” and he began sobbing again.
In less than half a second Pony’s father was up in the loft, and then down again and out of the barn and into the yard with Pony.
His mother was standing at the back door, for she could not bear to stay in the house, and Pony’s father holloed to her: “Here he is, Lucy, safe and sound!” and Pony’s mother holloed back:
“Well, don’t touch him, Henry! Don’t scold the child! Don’t say a word to him! Oh, I could just fall on my knees!”
Pony’s father came along, bringing Pony and the lantern. Pony’s hair and clothes were all stuck full of pieces of hay, and his face was smeared with hay-dust which he had rubbed into it when he was crying. He had got some of Jim Leonard’s mother’s hen’s eggs on him, and he did not smell very well. But his mother did not care how he looked or how he smelled. She caught him up into her arms and just fairly hugged him into the house, and there she sat down with him in her arms, and kissed his dirty face, and his hair all full of hay-sticks and spider-webs, and cried till it seemed as if she was never going to stop.
She would not let his father say anything to him, but after a while she washed him, and when she got him clean she made him up a bed on the lounge and put him to sleep there where she could see him. She said she was not going to sleep herself that night, but just stay up and realize that they had got Pony safe again.
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