for
fear Jim Leonard would think he was afraid to be in the woods after dark,
and after that he came under him more than ever. Most of the fellows just
made fun of Jim Leonard, because they said he was a brag, but Pony began
to believe everything he said when he found out that he knew where the
river went to; Pony had never even thought.

Jim was always talking about their plan of running off together, now; and
he said they must fix everything so that it would not fail this time. If
they could only get to the city once, they could go for cabin-boys on a
steamboat that was bound for New Orleans; and down the Mississippi they
could easily hide on some ship that was starting for the Spanish Main, and
then they would be all right. Jim knew about the Spanish Main from a book
of pirate stories that he had. He had a great many books and he was always
reading them. One was about Indians, and one was about pirates, and one
was about dreams and signs, and one was full of curious stories, and one
told about magic and how to do jugglers' tricks; the other was a
fortune-telling book. Jim Leonard had a paper from the city, with long
stories in, and he had read a novel once; he could not tell the boys
exactly what a novel was, but that was what it said on the back.

After Pony and he became such friends he told him everything that was in
his books, and once, when Pony went to his house, he showed him the books.
Pony was a little afraid of Jim Leonard's mother; she was a widow woman,
and took in washing; she lived in a little wood-colored house down by the
river-bank, and she smoked a pipe. She was a very good mother to Jim, and
let him do whatever he pleased--go in swimming as much as he wanted to,
stay out of school, or anything. He had to catch drift-wood for her to
burn when the river was high; once she came down to the river herself and
caught drift-wood with a long pole that had a nail in the end of it to
catch on with.

By the time school took up Pony and Jim Leonard were such great friends
that they asked the teacher if they might sit together, and they both had
the same desk. When Pony's mother heard that, it seemed as if she were
going to do something about it. She said to his father:

"I don't like Pony's going with Jim Leonard so much. He's had nobody else
with him for two weeks, and now he's sitting with him in school."

Pony's father said, "I don't believe Jim Leonard will hurt Pony. What
makes you like him, Pony?"