“O Pony, dear!” said his mother, almost crying.
“Well, anyway, mother,” Pony said, to cheer her up, “I didn’t take any of the watermelons to-day, for all Jim said Bunty had got done with them.”
“I’m so glad to think you didn’t! And you must promise, won’t you, never to touch any fruit that doesn’t belong to you?”
“But supposing an apple was to drop over the fence onto the sidewalk, what would you do then?”
“I should throw it right back over the fence again,” said Pony’s mother.
Pony promised his mother never to touch other people’s fruit, but he was glad she did not ask him to throw it back over the fence if it fell outside, for he knew the fellows would laugh.
His father came back from going down-stairs with the doctor, and she told him all that Pony had told her, and it seemed to Pony that his father could hardly keep from laughing. But his mother did not even smile.
“How could Jim Leonard tell them that a man would give up his watermelon patch, and how could they believe such a lie, poor, foolish boys?”
“They wished to believe it,” said Pony’s father, “and so did Jim, I dare say.”
“He might have got some of them killed, if Bunty Williams had fired his gun at them,” said Pony’s mother; and he could see that she was not half-satisfied with what his father said.