me and she told him what Pony had been eating, without
telling all that he had been doing, the doctor gave him something to make
him feel better. As soon as he said he felt better she began to talk very
seriously to him, and to tell him how anxious she had been ever since she
had seen him going off in the morning with Jim Leonard at the head of that
crowd of boys.

"Didn't you know he couldn't be telling the truth when he said the man had
left his watermelon patch? Didn't any of the boys?"

"No," said Pony, thoughtfully.

"But when he pretended that he shouldn't know the right patch, and wanted
to turn back?"

"We didn't think anything. We thought he just wanted to get out of going.
Ought they let him turn back? Maybe he meant to keep the patch all to
himself."

His mother was silent, and Pony asked, "Do you believe that a boy has a
right to take anything off a tree or a vine?"

"No; certainly not."

"Well, that's what I think, too."

"Why, Pony," said his mother, "is there anybody who thinks such a thing
can be right?"

"Well, the boys say it's not stealing. Stealing is hooking a thing out of
a wagon or a store; but if you can knock a thing off a tree, or get it
through a fence, when it's on the ground already, then it's just like
gathering nuts in the woods. That's what the boys say. Do you think it
is?"

"I think it's the worst kind of stealing. I hope my boy doesn't do such
things."

"Not very often," answered Pony, thoughtfully. "When there's a lot of
fellows together, you don't want them to laugh at you."

"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