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

t what happened, though his clothes were dry enough, and he might have got off without her noticing anything, if it had not been for his hat) that he would n

ght as well move them out West, where there were more Indians, there were such a very few of them on the reservation; and so it loaded them on three canal-boats and brought

n blankets, with

ws and arrows, warriors, squaws, papooses, and everything, they almost went crazy, and when a good many of the Indians came ashore and went over to the court-house yard and began to shoot at quarters and half-dollars that the people stuck into the ground for them to shoot at, the fellows could hardly believe their eyes. They yelled and cheered and tried to get acquainted with the Indian boys, and ran and got their arrows for them, and everything; and if th

ere so much taken up with the Indians that none of them minded him, and so he got a good chance at Pony alone

out with them where they're going and hunt buffaloes. It's the greatest chance there ever was. They'll adopt you into the tribe, maybe, as soon as the canal-boa

had pretty nearly given up the notion of running off for the present

lf so many things as she used to do, and lately his father had got to being very good to him: let him lie in bed in the morning, and did not seem to notice when he stayed out with the boys

have one of the boys to spend the night with him once, and she gave them waffles for breakfast. She showed herself something like a mother, and she had told him that if he would be very, very good she would get his fath

u? You're all the little boy we've got,

o off and not make the least noise. But she said she did not want to see it; only he must be careful; and she kissed him again and let him go, and when he got away he could see her wiping her eyes. It seemed to him that she was crying a good deal in those days, and he could not understand what it was about. She was scared at a

hing till Jim Leonard asked him if he was afraid to go off and live with the Indians, because if

t he did not know how to talk Indian, and he di

mouth and chew; and if you want a drink, you open your mouth and keep swallowing. When you want to go to sleep you shut your eyes and lean your cheek over on your hand, this way. That's all the signs you need to begin with,

e warpath with them when you get out there; and if it's against the whites you won't like it at first; but you've got to remember what the whites have done

, and he said: "I

you mustn't hollo, or cry, or anything; and even when they're scalping yo

lows crowding around, but he went on as if he did not notice them. "You've got to go without eating anything for weeks when the medicine-man tells you to; and when you come back from the warpath, and they have a scalp-dance, you've got to keep dancing till you drop in a fit. When they give a dog

the others tried to look as if they never

ink it's the sun-dance, but I ain't really certain-you have to stick a hook through you, right here"-he grabbed Pony by the muscles on his shoulders-"and let them pull you up on a pole and hang there as

t up in his hand, and began to cry and to hollo: "Oh, oh, oh! Ow, ow, ow! Oh, my foot! Oh, it's broken; I

it Jim Leonard on the side of the foot, after missing one of the dimes that was stuck in the ground. It was blunt, and it had not hurt him that anybody could see, except rubbed the skin off a li

on the other, and Archy said, "I tell you, when I heard

t was the sc

a real Indian was that a real Indian never m

as stooping over as if he was tearing the scalp o

f you shot an arrow through him, or would let you stick a hook into him, and pull him up to the top of a pole, it's becaus

lard began to splutter and choke with the laugh he was holding in, he flung them off and began to fight at them with his fists

you do if they pul

you hollo much louder i

how to dance ti

hem, and then they all ran away, jumping and jeering till

own over Jim when he sat crying over his foo

y. The skin's all rubbed off.

me," said Pony. "Your mot

y found he could walk with it nearly the same as the other foot, and b

men were firing off the cannon, he hardly missed it. He felt sleepy as soon as his crackers were done, and another fellow who was with him came into the parlor, and they both lay down on the carpet and went to sleep there, and slept till breakfast-time. After breakfast he went up to the court-house yard, with some other fellows, and then, after dinner, when they

that it wouldn't make any noise, but she could not believe him; and when the flash came, she gave a little whoop, and ran in-doors. It shamed him bef

d to him; and when they were just starting off what should she do but hollo to his father from the door where she was standing, "Do be careful

our toe, child," and "Be careful of the child, boys," and things like that till Pony had

tood in the middle of the crowd and treated them to lemonade, and they did not plague, any mo

ad been having at a place called Pawpaw Bottom; and the strange thing that happened there, if it did happen, for nobody could exactly find ou