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Tinkle, the Trick Pony

<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI TINKLE MEETS DIDO</h2> Every morning, as soon as he had eaten his breakfast, George would run out to the stable to see Tinkle. He would rub the soft, velvety nose of his pet pony, or bring him a piece of bread or a lump of sugar. Sometimes Mabel, too, would come out with her brother to look at Tinkle before she went to school. “And when we come back from school we’ll have a ride on your back,” said George, waving his hand to Tinkle. A few days after he had been brought to his new home Tinkle had been taken to a blacksmith’s shop and small iron shoes had been fastened to the pony’s hoofs. At first Tinkle was afraid he was going to be hurt, but he thought of what Dapple Gray and the other horses had told him and made up his mind—if ponies have minds—that he would stand a little pain if he had to. But he did not. The blacksmith was kind and gentle, and though it felt a bit funny at first, when he lifted up one of Tinkle’s legs, the pony soon grew used to it. [56] It felt queer, too, when the iron shoes were nailed on. And when Tinkle stood on his four newly shod feet he hardly knew whether he could step out properly or not. But he soon found that it was all right. “I’m taller with my new shoes on than in my bare hoofs,” said Tinkle to himself, and he was taller—about an inch I guess. The clatter and clang of his iron shoes on the paving stones sounded like music to Tinkle, and he soon found that it was better for him to have iron shoes on than to run over the stones in his hoofs, which would soon have worn down so that his feet would have hurt. “Now Tinkle is ready to give us a ride in the little cart!” cried George when his pony had come home from the blacksmith shop. “Take Patrick with you so as to make sure you know how to drive, and how to handle Tinkle,” said Mrs. Farley, as George and Mabel made ready for their first real drive—outside the yard this time. George and Mabel got into the pony cart, George taking the reins, while Mabel sat beside him. Patrick, the coachman, sat in the back of the cart, ready to help if he were needed. “Gid-dap!” called George, and he headed the pony down the driveway. “Gid-dap, Tinkle,” and Tinkle trotted along. [57] “Don’t they look cute!” exclaimed Mrs. Farley to her husband as they watched the children from the dining room window. “I hope nothing happens to them.” “Oh, they’ll be all right,” said her husband. “Tinkle is a kind and gentle pony. Besides there is Patrick. He’ll know just what to do if anything should happen.” “Well, I hope nothing does,” said Mrs. Farley. “There! they’ve stopped! I wonder what for.” The pony cart had stopped at the driveway gates, and Patrick, with a queer smile on his face, came walking back. “What is it?” asked Mrs. Farley. “Did anything happen—and so soon?” “No’m,” replied the coachman, “but Master George wants to know if you’d like to have him bring anything from the store. He says he’d like to buy something for you.” “Oh!” and Mrs. Farley laughed. “Well, I don’t know that I need any groceries. But I suppose he wants to do an errand in the new cart. So tell him he may get a pound of loaf sugar. He and Mabel can feed the lumps to Tinkle.” “Very well, ma’am, I’ll tell him,” and, touching his hat, Patrick went back to George and Mabel. [58] “Well, I guess everything is all right,” thought Tinkle to himself as he trotted along in front of the pony cart, hauling George, Mabel and Patrick. “It’s a good deal easier than I thought, and my new iron shoes feel fine!” So he trotted along merrily, and George and his sister, sitting in the pony cart, enjoyed their ride very much. George drove Tinkle along the streets, turning him now to the left, by pulling on the left rein, and again to the other side by jerking gently on the right rein. “Am I doing all right, Patrick?” asked the little boy. “Fine, Master George,” answered the coachman. “You drive as well as anybody.” “I’ll let you take a turn soon, Mabel,” said George. “Oh, I don’t want to—just yet,” replied the little girl. “I want to watch and see how you do it. Besides, I’d be afraid to drive where there are so many horses and wagons,” for they were on the main street of the city. “You’ll soon get so you can do as well as Master George,” declared Patrick. “Tinkle is an easy pony to manage.” As George and Mabel traveled on in their pony cart, they met several of their playmates who waved their hands to the Farley children. [59] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_p059.jpg" width-obs="379" height-obs="600" alt="" title="" /> <div class="caption">“Oh, what a nice pony cart!” cried the boys and girls.</div> </div> [60] “Oh, what a nice pony cart!” cried the boys and girls. “I’ll give you a ride, some day,” promised George. He and Mabel were soon at the store, and, going in, they bought the loaf sugar. Patrick stayed out in the pony cart, and Tinkle stood still next to the curb. Near him was a horse hitched to a wagon full of coal. “Hello, my little pony!” called the coal-horse. “You have a fine rig there.” “Yes, it is pretty nice,” said Tinkle, and he was sure he must look very gorgeous, for Mabel had tied a blue ribbon in his mane that morning. “You’re quite stylish,” went on the coal-horse. “Well, I s’pose you might call it that,” admitted Tinkle. “It’s much more fun to be pulling a light, little cart like that around the city streets, than to haul a great big heavy coal wagon, such as I am hitched to,” went on the big horse. “Yes, but see how strong you are!” observed Tinkle. “I never could pull such a heavy load as you haul.” “No, I guess you couldn’t,” said the coal horse. “Especially up some of the hills we have. It is almost more than I can do, and there is one hill[61] that I have to take a rest on, half way up, but my driver is good to me, and never whips me, which is more than I can say of some drivers I have known. So I guess, after all, it is better for you to draw the pony cart and for me to stick to the coal wagon.” “Indeed it is,” said a horse that was hitched to one of the grocery wagons. “You’d look funny, coal-horse, trying to fit between the shafts of that pony cart.” “I suppose I would,” admitted the other, laughing, in a way horses have among themselves. When George and Mabel came out of the store, with the bag of sugar lumps, they saw the two horses—one hitched to a coal wagon and the other to a grocery cart—rubbing noses with Tinkle. “They’re kissing each other,” laughed the little girl. But the horses and the pony were really talking among themselves, and even Patrick, much as he knew about animals, did not understand horse-talk. “Let’s give Tinkle some sugar now,” said Mabel. “All right,” answered George, so they gave the pony two lumps. “My, that sugar certainly smells good!” exclaimed[62] the horse that was hitched to the coal wagon. “It certainly does,” said the other horse, sniffing hard through his nose, for the air was filled with the sweet smell of the sugar lumps Tinkle was eating. “You might think,” went on the grocery horse, “that, working for a store, as I do, I’d get a lump of sugar once in a while.” “Don’t you?” asked Tinkle, reaching out for another sweet lump George offered him. “Never a bit!” said the grocery-horse, “and I just love it!” “So do I,” said the coal-horse. “I’m sorry I didn’t offer you some,” apologized Tinkle. “But it’s too late now. I’ve swallowed it.” Just then Mabel thought of something nice. “Oh, George!” she cried. “Let’s give the two horses some of Tinkle’s sugar. I guess horses like sweet stuff the same as ponies. Don’t they, Patrick?” she asked the coachman. “Sure they do, Miss Mabel,” he answered. “Sure they do!” “Then give them some, George,” she begged. “We have more than enough for Tinkle.” “All right,” said the little boy. So he held out two lumps of sugar to the coal horse, and two to the grocery horse, and I just wish you could have seen how glad those horses were to get the[63] sweet stuff. If they could have talked man language they would have thanked George and Mabel, but as it was they could only say to one another and to Tinkle: “Well, you certainly have a good home with such nice children in it.” “I’m glad you think so,” whinnied Tinkle to them, and he felt very happy. George and Mabel drove home in their pony cart, carrying what was left of the bag of sugar. When they were near their home, and on a quiet street, George let his sister take the reins so she would learn how to handle them. Patrick watched the little girl carefully and told her how and when to pull, so Tinkle would go to the right or to the left, and also around the corners. “Oh, Mother! now I know how to drive!” cried Mabel as she ran into the house to tell her father and Mrs. Farley about their first trip downtown in the new pony cart. After that George and Mabel had many rides behind Tinkle, even in the Winter, when they hitched him to a little sled. The little pony grew to like his little boy and girl friends very much indeed, and they loved him dearly. They would hug him and pat him whenever they went out to the stable where he was, and feed him lumps of sugar. When Spring came they took long rides in the country. [64] One day a funny thing happened to Tinkle. He had been hitched to the pony cart which was tied to a post in front of the house, waiting for George and Mabel to come out. And then, from somewhere down the street sounded the tooting of a horn, and a queer odor, which made him tremble, came to the pony’s nostrils. “I wonder what that is?” said Tinkle to himself. Very soon he found out. Along came a man wearing a red cap, and every once in a while he would put a brass horn to his mouth and blow a tooting tune. But this was not what surprised Tinkle most. What did, was a big shaggy animal, that the man was leading by a chain. And when Tinkle saw the shaggy creature he was afraid. But the other animal, rising up on its hind legs said: “Don’t be afraid of me, little pony. I won’t hurt you!” “Who are you?” asked Tinkle, wonderingly. “I am Dido, the dancing bear,” was the answer, “and I have had many adventures that have been put into a book.” <hr class="chap" /> [65] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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