The Flight of Pony Baker is a novel for children, one of the many stories written by William Dean Howells. It was published by Harper and Brothers in 1902 in New York, New York. It tells the story of a young boy named Pony Baker who, throughout the book, attempts to run away from his home where he lives with his mother, father, and five sisters. The setting of the story is "fifty years ago" in the Boy's Town of Ohio, the state where Howells was born and raised.
Plot summary
The story begins with Frank Baker, who is known as "Pony" after one of the boys in Boy's Town calls him by that name, so that he could be distinguished from his cousin Frank Baker. Pony lives in the Boy's Town with his mother, father, and five sisters, whom his mother always wants him to play with. Pony's mother is very overprotective of Pony, which makes her a bad mother when it comes to having fun.
Pony's father has done some things that have given Pony the right to run away as well, but it seems to Pony that they were mostly things that his mother had put his father up to, and that his father would not have been half as bad if his mother had not influenced him. One day however, Pony almost loses all his patience after the way his father reacts to Pony being pushed down from third reader to second reader at school. That morning, Pony is asked by his teacher to read to the class, but because it is hot and because Pony was being lazy, he read very poorly despite the fact that Pony is actually a very good reader. His performance causes the teacher to push him down to the second reader. Before class is dismissed, Pony gathers his books and walks out of school towards home. His father advises him to go back to school that afternoon, which continues to upset Pony. Pony heads back to school that afternoon with a plan to run off as soon as school is over. At recess the boys hear word of Pony's plan to run away that very night. After school, the boys tell Pony how he must run away and how they will help him. An older boy named Jim Leonard suggests that Pony go with the Indians and that the Indians would like him and then adopt him into their tribe. Jim offers to find out if there are any Indians living nearer that the reservation that is about 100 miles away from the Boy's Town.
Jim Leonard's Hair-Breadth Escape
Jim Leonard lives with his mother on a rise of ground near the river in a log cabin while his stable sits on the flat by the water. One year in the spring, a freshet comes about that is the worse anyone can remember. Jim spends all day on the bank with the men watching the bridge. Jim plans to stay up all night with the old men, but realizes there is nothing for him to do, so he goes home. When Jim gets home, he is concerned with whether or not his mother will be awake to whip him for being gone all day and missing supper. He decides to go to the stable-loft and falls asleep. Jim wakes up to the daylight and realizes that the flood has torn the stable apart and left him floating on the roof in the water. The current quickly pulls Jim, the roof, and a rat that is on the roof out into the middle of the river where he begins to yell for help at the houses on the shore. At that moment, the bridge begins to rush towards him. Jim continues to yell for help until both fire companies arrive. At this point, Jim decides to name the rat Bolivar, and that he will save it and keep it as a pet. Fireman Blue Bob is able to grab the roof when it breaks apart and saves Jim Leonard, but the rat falls into the water. Blue Bob says that he never saw a rat on the roof with Jim and many other people say that there never was a rat on the roof with Jim, and that he made it up.