boat and take Pony to the reservation."

The fellows liked this notion so much that they almost hurrahed, and they
could hardly wait till school was out and they could go and find Piccolo
and ask him whether he would do it. They found him up at the canal basin,
where he was fishing off the stern of his father's boat. He was a pretty
big boy, though he was not so very old, and he had a lazy, funny face and
white hair; and the fellows called him Piccolo because he was learning to
play the piccolo flute, and talked about it when he talked at all, but
that was not often. He was one of those boys who do not tan or freckle in
the sun, but peel, and he always had some loose pieces of fine skin
hanging to his nose.

All the fellows came up and began holloing at once, and telling him what
they wanted him to do, and he thought it was a first-rate notion, but he
kept on fishing, without getting the least bit excited; and he did not say
whether he would do it or not, and when the fellows got tired of talking
they left him and began to look round the boat. There was a little cabin
at one end, and all the rest of the boat was open, and it had been
raining, or else the boat had leaked, and it was pretty full of water; and
the fellows got down on some loose planks that were floating there, and
had fun pushing them up and down, and almost forgot what they had come
for. They found a long pump leaning against the side of the boat, with its
spout out over the gunwale, and they asked Piccolo if they might pump, and
he said they might, and they pumped nearly all the water out after they
had got done having fun on the planks.

Some of them went into the cabin and found a little stove there, where
Pony could cook his meals, and a bunk where he could sleep, or keep in out
of the rain, and they said they wished they were going to run off, too.
They took more interest than he did, but they paid him a good deal of
attention, and he felt that it was great to be going to run off, and he
tried not to be homesick, when he thought of being down there alone at
night, and nobody near but Piccolo out on the towpath driving the horse.

The fellows talked it all over, and how they would do. They said that
Piccolo ought to hook the boat some Friday night, and the sooner the
better, and get a good start before Saturday morning. They were going to
start with Pony, and perhaps travel all night with him, and then get off
and sleep in the woods, to rest themsel