“Cowardy-calf yourself, Jim Leonard! You’ve backed out long ago!”
“You’ll see whether I’ve backed out,” said Jim Leonard. “I’m coming round to sleep in the barn with you to-night, and help you to get a good start in the morning. And maybe I’ll start myself to-morrow. I will if I can get anybody to help me make the raft and bring it through the woods. Now let’s go up into the loft and see if the provisions are all safe.”
They dug the provisions up out of the hay and Jim Leonard broke one of the eggs against the wall. It had a small chicken in it, and he threw it away. Another egg smelt so that they could hardly stand it.
“I don’t believe these eggs are very good,” said Jim Leonard. “I got them out of a nest that the hen had left; mother said I might have them all.” He broke them one after another, and every one had a chicken in it, or else it was bad. “Well, never mind,” he said. “Let’s see what the bread-and-butter’s like.” He bit into a piece, but he did not swallow any. “Tastes kind of musty; from the hay, I reckon; and the meat seems kind of old. But they always give the sailors spoilt provisions, and this bread-and-butter will do you first-rate, Pony. You’ll be so hungry you can eat anything. Say, you ain’t afraid now, are you, Pony?”
“No, not now,” said Pony, but he did not fire up this time as he did before at the notion of his being afraid.
Jim Leonard said, “Because, maybe I can’t get mother to let me come here again. If she takes a notion, she won’t. But I’m going to watch out, and as soon as supper’s over, and I’ve got the cow into the lot, and the morning’s wood in, I’m going to try to hook off. If I don’t get here to stay all night with you I’ll be around bright and early in the morning, to wake you and start you. It won’t be light now much before six, anyway.”
XII
HOW JIM LEONARD BACKED OUT, AND PONY HAD TO GIVE IT UP
It all seemed very strange to Pony. First, Jim Leonard was going to run off with him on a raft, and then he was going to have Pony go by land and follow him on the raft; then suddenly he fixed it so that Pony was going alone, and he was going to pass the last night with him in the barn; and here, all at once, he was only coming, maybe, to see him off in the morning. It made Pony feel very forlorn, but he did not like to say anything for fear Jim Leonard would call him cowardy-calf.