.

It always seemed to Pony that she begrudged his going with the boys, and
she said how nice he used to keep his clothes before, and had such pretty
manners, and now he was such a sloven, and was so rude and fierce that she
was almost afraid of him. He knew that she was making fun about being
afraid of him; and if she did hate to have him go with some of the worst
boys, still she was willing to help in lots of ways. She gave him yarn to
make a ball with, and she covered it for him with leather. Sometimes she
seemed to do things for him that she would not do for his sisters, and she
often made them give up to him when they had a dispute.

She made a distinction between boys and girls, and did not make him help
with the housework. Of course he had to bring in wood, but all the fellows
had to do that, and they did not count it; what they hated was having to
churn, or wipe dishes after company. Pony's mother never made him do
anything like that; she said it was girls' work; and she would not let him
learn to milk, either, for she said that milking was women's work, and all
that Pony had to do with the cow was to bring her home from the pasture in
the evening.

Sometimes when there was company she would let him bring in a boy to the
second table, and she gave them all the preserves and cake that they could
eat. The kind of company she had was what nearly all the mothers had in
the Boy's Town; they asked a whole lot of other mothers to supper, and had
stewed chicken and hot biscuit, and tea and coffee, and quince and peach
preserves, and sweet tomato pickles, and cake with jelly in between, and
pound-cake with frosting on, and buttered toast, and maybe fried eggs and
ham. The fathers never seemed to come; or, if the father that belonged in
the house came, he did not go and sit in the parlor with the mothers after
supper, but went up-town, to the post-office, or to some of the lawyers'
offices, or else a store, and talked politics.

Pony never thought his mother was good looking, or, rather, he did not
think anything about that, and it always seemed to him that she must be a
pretty old woman; but once when she had company, and she came in from the
kitchen with the last dish, and put it on the table, one of the nicest of
the other mothers came up, and put her arm around Pony's mother, and said:

"How pretty you do look, Mrs. Baker! I just want to kiss you on those red
cheeks. I should say you were a girl, instead of having