noon
The reason was because the teacher had put Pony back from third reader to the second and made him go into a class of little fellows not more than seven years old . It happened one morning , after a day when Pony had read very badly in the afternoon , and though he had explained that he had read badly because the weather was so hot , the teacher said he might try it in the second reader till the weather changed , at any rate ; and the whole school laughed . The worst of it was that Pony was really a very good reader , and could speak almost the best of any of the boys ; but that afternoon he was lazy , and would not pay attention . At recess , after the teacher had put him back , all the fellows came round and asked him what he was going to do now ; and he just shut his teeth and told them they would see ; and at noon they did see . As soon as school was dismissed , or even before , Pony put all his books together , and his slate , and tied them with his slate-pencil string , and twitched his hat down off the peg , and strutted proudly out of the room , so that not only the boys but the teacher , too , could see that he was leaving school . The teacher looked on and pretended to smile , but Pony did not smile ; he kept his teeth shut , and walked stiffly through the door , and straight home , without speaking to any one . That was the way to do when you left school in the Boy 's Town , for then the boys would know you were in earnest ; and none of them would try to speak to you , either ; they would respect you too much .