"Jim Leonard, the mischievous friend of Howells' protagonist, has been correctly described as 'a cross between Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn'; and there is no mistaking the genesis of such chapters as 'How Jim Leonard Planned for Pony Baker to Run Off on a Raft.' But Jim is an anti-hero—a coward and a bully whose escape plans always fail, who leaves Pony in a lurch, and who faces humiliation when he is spanked by his mother. The 'strange thing,' comments the narrator, '…was that he could have such a boy as Pony Baker under him so' (77). Jim's foil, the good Frank Baker, is presented as a role model (166), not as a figure of fun like Tom's brother Sid."
