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Title: Tinkle, the Trick Pony: His Many Adventures

Author: Richard Barnum

Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers

Release date: April 16, 2020 [eBook #61847]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY: HIS MANY ADVENTURES ***




Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net







[Illustration: He nosed around among all the flags until he found the
one he knew he wanted, and with that in his teeth he trotted over to
Mr. Drake.]




                       _Kneetime Animal Stories_


                                TINKLE
                            THE TRICK PONY

                          HIS MANY ADVENTURES


                                  BY
                            RICHARD BARNUM

           Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Mappo, the
             Merry Monkey,” “Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant,”
                 “Don, a Runaway Dog,” “Flop Ear, the
                          Funny Rabbit,” etc.


                            _ILLUSTRATED BY
                           WALTER S. ROGERS_


                            [Illustration]


                              PUBLISHERS
                            BARSE & HOPKINS
                  NEW YORK, N. Y.      NEWARK, N. J.




                            Copyright, 1917
                                  by
                            BARSE & HOPKINS

                        Tinkle, The Trick Pony


               _Printed in the United States of America_




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                            PAGE
      I  TINKLE IN THE SWAMP           7
     II  TINKLE MAKES TROUBLE         16
    III  TINKLE AND GEORGE            26
     IV  TINKLE’S NEW HOME            36
      V  TINKLE’S FRIENDS             47
     VI  TINKLE MEETS DIDO            55
    VII  TINKLE DOES SOME TRICKS      65
   VIII  TINKLE IS TAKEN AWAY         74
     IX  TINKLE IN THE CIRCUS         85
      X  TINKLE AND TUM TUM           94
     XI  TINKLE IS SAD               103
    XII  TINKLE IS HAPPY             111




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                              PAGE

 He nosed around among all the flags until he found the
    one he knew he wanted, and with that in his teeth he
    trotted over to Mr. Drake                        _Frontispiece_

 And the next time he did jump high enough to go over the
    fence                                                       23

 It was the first time Tinkle had ever had any one on his
    back                                                        45

 “Oh, what a nice pony cart!” cried the boys and girls          59

 It took a little time to make him stand upon his hind
    legs without anything on which to rest his front feet       81

 As Tinkle looked he saw one funny elephant slyly reach
    out his trunk and pull the tail of the elephant in
    front of him                                               101

 George threw his arms around the pony’s neck                  117




TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY




CHAPTER I

TINKLE IN THE SWAMP


Tinkle stopped nibbling the sweet, green grass of the meadow, blew a
long breath from his nose, raised his head and looked around. Then he
blinked his eyes slowly, turned to look first on one side, then on the
other, and to himself he said:

“I’m going to run away!”

He did not say this aloud for fear some of the other ponies or the
horses would hear him. Oh! I forgot to tell you that Tinkle was a
little pony, that lived in the big green meadow; and, being a pony, of
course Tinkle ate grass, and liked it, too.

So, as I said, Tinkle stopped eating the grass and said to himself once
more:

“I’m going to run away!”

The reason Tinkle did not want the other ponies and the horses to know
what he was going to do was because his mother and father were over
in one corner of the meadow, and if they knew he intended to run away,
they would not let him do it; any more than your mother or father would
let you run away.

Of course I know that horses sometimes run away when they are
frightened by something, and I suppose ponies, too, may, once in a
while, trot off when they ought not. But that isn’t saying it is right.

“Yes,” said Tinkle to himself, “I’m going to run away. I’m tired of
staying in this meadow all the while. Why, I’ve been here over a year
now, and there hasn’t a thing happened except a thunder storm now and
then, or a rain shower. I want to see something more than that. I want
to have some fun, and go off to a big city, such as the other horses
tell about.

“Why, there’s Dapple Gray,” went on Tinkle, looking at an old horse who
had come to the green meadow for a long rest. “I’ve heard Dapple tell
stories about drawing a big shiny wagon that spouted fire and smoke
just like the chimney on the house where The Man lives. That was great!
I’d like to pull the kind of wagon Dapple tells about, and hear the
bells ring and see the sparks fly and the water spout out on the fire.
I wonder what kind of wagon it was?”

Of course _you_ have guessed. It was a fire engine that Dapple Gray had
pulled, and he never tired of telling the other horses about it.

Tinkle used often to listen to the stories Dapple Gray and the other
horses told as they gathered in the shade of the clump of trees in the
green meadow after their dinner or their breakfast of sweet, green
grass.

For Tinkle lived on what is called a stock farm, not far from a big
city. The farm was owned by a person whom the horses called “The Man.”
Really his name was John Carter and he raised horses and ponies to sell
to other men.

Mr. Carter liked his horses very much, and was very kind to them, and
he loved his little ponies, of whom Tinkle was one. The ponies and the
horses lived in a warm barn in the Winter, but in the Summer they were
“turned out to grass,” and could walk or run all over the big meadow,
and do almost as they pleased.

Sometimes men would come to the stock farm to buy horses. They might
want one to pull a coal wagon or a wagon from which vegetables were
sold. Some of the horses, like Dapple, were used to haul fire engines,
while others pulled fine carriages in which rode men and women. The
ponies were sold, too, but they were only put to such easy work as
carrying boys and girls around on their backs, or pulling little
carriages in the parks.

“But nothing like that ever happened to me,” said Tinkle as he began
slowly to walk away. “So I’m going to run off, as far as I can go, and
maybe I’ll have some adventures like Dapple Gray.”

Tinkle had eaten plenty of the sweet, green grass, so he was no longer
hungry. He did not need to take anything to eat with him when he ran
away. In the first place ponies have no pockets in which to carry
anything, though, of course, if they are hitched to a wagon, that would
hold corn, hay or oats which ponies like to eat.

But, as for that, all round in the meadow where Tinkle lived was grass
to eat. He had only to stop and nibble some when he was hungry, so he
had no need to carry anything with him.

“There is more here than I could eat all Summer,” thought the little
pony. “And when I get tired of running away I can just rest myself, eat
grass and then run on some more.”

Though Tinkle called it “running away” he was really walking. Just as
some children do when they start to run away, they don’t run at all,
but walk.

One reason why Tinkle did not care to run was that he did not want his
father, mother or the other ponies or the horses to see him. They
might not notice him if he just walked, but if he started to run some
one would be sure to ask:

“Why, where is that Tinkle pony going now?”

And then Tinkle’s mother would look up and say:

“Oh, dear! That silly little pony will get into trouble! I must go and
bring him back.”

Then she would run after Tinkle, and all his fun would be spoiled. Of
course the ponies and horses in the meadow used often to run about,
kick up their heels and roll over and over on their backs in the soft
grass. But this was only because they felt so good and frisky and
lively that they simply could not do anything else.

But when the colts ran that way, they nearly always went around in a
circle, like a merry-go-round, only bigger, and the father and mother
horses thought nothing of that.

“I’m not going to run that way,” said Tinkle to himself. “I’m going far
off.”

By this time he was quite away from the other horses. But, as he looked
back, he saw them all standing in a circle with their noses close
together. Dapple Gray was in the center of the ring, and Tinkle’s
father and mother were among those on the outside.

“Dapple is telling another story about how he drew the funny wagon with
the chimney on,” thought Tinkle. “I don’t want to hear that again.”

Ponies and horses, you know, can talk among themselves and think, just
as we can, only, of course, they can’t think quite as much perhaps,
nor as hard. But if they could not talk among themselves how could the
mother pony tell the little pony what was good to eat and what not? So,
though horses and ponies can’t talk to us in words as we talk to one
another, they do speak among themselves.

You have often heard horses and ponies whinny, I suppose; and perhaps
that is when they are trying to talk to us, though I must say I never
could understand what they were trying to say. Perhaps some day I may.

At any rate Tinkle was thinking to himself, as he slowly wandered
across the meadow. He was thinking what wonderful things might happen
to him――adventures and travels.

On and on he wandered, looking back now and then to make sure neither
his father nor his mother nor any of the others saw him. But they were
listening to Dapple Gray tell of once falling down in the street while
drawing the fire engine and how nearly a trolley car ran over him.

And the other horses liked the story so much that none of them thought
of Tinkle, or looked at him. They listened to Dapple Gray.

The other young ponies, many of whom were about the size of Tinkle,
were down at the far end of the meadow, having a game of what you
would, perhaps, call tag, though what the ponies called it I do
not know. Probably they had some funny name among themselves like
“hoof-jump” or “tail-wiggle,” or something like that.

Anyhow, they were having so much fun among themselves that none of them
paid any attention to Tinkle.

“They won’t see me at all,” thought the little pony. “I’ll run away
where they can never find me.”

Of course Tinkle was not doing this to be bad, but he was just tired of
staying in one place so long, and he wanted to have adventures.

On and on he wandered, and finally he came to a fence. Now the fence
was put around the meadow to keep the horses and the ponies from
getting out. But Tinkle had heard stories of horses jumping fences so
he thought he would try it; for he was not strong enough to push down
the fence, as he had once heard of Bellow, the big black bull, doing.

Standing off a little way from the fence Tinkle ran toward it, gave a
jump up in the air, and then――he did not get over the fence. Instead he
fell against it and hurt himself.

“Ha! that is no fun!” thought Tinkle. “I must jump higher next time.”
And the next time he did jump high enough to go over the fence, coming
down on the other side, kerplunk!

“At last I have really run away,” thought the little pony.

He found himself in another green meadow, but it was not as nice as the
one he had left. The grass was longer, but it was hard and tough, and
hurt Tinkle’s mouth and tongue when he chewed it.

“But I don’t have to eat it,” said the little pony. “I can wait until I
get to where there is better grass. I’m not very hungry.”

So he walked on a little farther, and pretty soon he came to some
trees. In and out among them he wandered, and when he stopped to look
back he found that he could no longer see the meadow in which he had
lived so long with his father, his mother and the other ponies and the
horses.

“And they can’t see me, either,” thought Tinkle. “They won’t know where
I’ve gone, so they can’t find me. I’m going to have a good time all by
myself, and there’ll be nobody to say: ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do that’;
as they always do when I’m in the green meadow.”

On and on went Tinkle and soon he was quite a long distance from what
had been his home. Then he noticed that the ground, instead of being
hard and firm under his hoofs, was getting soft and springy, and that
his feet sank down in it a little way. He saw, too, that when he lifted
his hoofs from the marks they left little pools of water in the holes
they made.

“This is queer,” thought Tinkle. “I must be getting near the lake I
have heard my father tell about. I wonder if I can swim?”

Tinkle looked about, and just ahead he saw a puddle of water. It was
too small for a lake, but there was enough of it for him to splash in,
and, as he was now thirsty, he ran on to get a drink. And then a queer
thing happened.

Just before Tinkle reached the water he felt his legs and hoofs sinking
down in the soft ground. He tried to lift his left front foot, but
could not. And his right hind foot was also stuck fast.

“Oh, dear! What has happened to me?” cried poor Tinkle. “I can’t move!”

And really he could not. Tinkle was caught fast in the sticky mud of a
big swamp!




CHAPTER II

TINKLE MAKES TROUBLE


Dapple Gray had just finished telling the story of his being caught
under the trolley car, the time he was drawing the fire engine.

“And so,” went on the old horse, “men came and pushed the car off my
legs. The firemen loosened my harness and then I could get up.”

“Weren’t you hurt?” asked Mrs. Chestnut, who was called that because
she was colored brown.

“Well, my legs _were_ a bit scratched, and I had some bruises on
my side, but I could still run and pull the engine. You see we
horses couldn’t stop whenever we wanted to. We had to pull the funny
chimney-wagon to where the fire was blazing so the men could squirt
water on it.

“Men are queer,” went on Dapple Gray. “They’ll build a big fire in a
house so the house almost burns up, and then they’ll make us horses run
like mad to draw water to put it out. I never could understand it.”

Of course Dapple Gray did not know that the house caught fire by
accident and that it had to be put out for fear other houses near it
might burn.

“And so you ran on, even if your legs were cut?” asked Tinkle’s father.

“Oh, yes, of course,” replied Dapple Gray. “The cuts hurt me, but when
I got back to the stable the firemen put some cooling salve on the
wounds and bound my legs up with white rags so they felt better.”

“Well, I don’t believe I’d like that,” said Tinkle’s mother. “Life is
too exciting in the city. I like it best in this quiet country meadow,
where you can eat grass whenever you like, or rest in the shade when
you are tired.”

“Look at those ponies having fun down there,” said another horse,
pointing with his nose toward the group that was playing tag. “I
remember when I was young I liked to play that way.”

“Is Tinkle there?” asked the pony’s father. “He is one of the best
taggers I’ve ever seen. When he grows a little bigger he’ll be a fine
racer, I think.”

Tinkle’s mother looked toward where the ponies were running about,
touching one another with their hoofs or noses, or switching at one
another with their frisky tails.

“I don’t see Tinkle,” she said.

“Oh, he _must_ be there,” said Tinkle’s father. “I’ll go and look.”

Off he trotted to where the other colts were playing. He looked at them
for a little while, but he did not see Tinkle among them.

“That’s queer,” thought the father pony. “Tinkle likes tag so much, I
wonder why he isn’t here?”

He stood still, looking more closely, to make sure he had not missed
the little pony; but no, Tinkle was not there.

“I’ll ask some of them,” said the father pony to himself. So, giving
a loud whinny, to make himself heard above the noise the tag-playing
ponies were making, the father pony asked:

“Have any of you seen our Tinkle?”

“No, I haven’t,” said a little brown pony.

“Nor I,” added one who was speckled brown and white.

“I saw him a while ago, eating grass,” answered a third.

“He hasn’t been playing tag with us this morning,” added a fourth pony,
who had a very long tail.

“I wonder where Tinkle can be,” murmured his father.

Then up spoke a little pony with a white spot on his back.

“I saw Tinkle going over that way,” he said, and he raised his hoof and
pointed toward a fence on the far side of the field.

“Did you really see him going that way?” asked the father pony.

“I really did,” answered the little pony.

“Oh my! That’s too bad!” thought Tinkle’s father to himself, but he did
not say this to the ponies, for he did not want to frighten them. Well
did the older pony know of the dangerous swamp that was on the other
side of the fence.

“If he is in the sticky bog-mud we’ll have trouble getting him out,”
said the father pony to himself. “I must go back and tell some of the
others. But I don’t want Tinkle’s mother to know. What shall I do?”

The father pony trotted back to where Dapple Gray and the others stood.

“Well, was he there?” asked Tinkle’s mother.

Tinkle’s father shook his head.

“Where is he then?”

“Oh, he probably went off for a little walk by himself. I’ll go and
find him,” and he tried to speak easily.

“But I don’t see him anywhere!” and the mother pony looked anxiously
about the big green meadow. She could see every corner of it, and
Tinkle was not in sight.

“Now you just stay here, and I’ll bring him back,” said Tinkle’s
father quietly. At the same time he nodded his head at Dapple Gray and
one or two of the other men-horses, and two or three of his closest
friends among the men-ponies. They moved away together. Tinkle’s mother
looked at them as if to say:

“I wonder if anything could have happened?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Dapple Gray in a low voice of Tinkle’s
father, speaking in horse-talk, of course.

“I’m not sure, but I’m afraid Tinkle has jumped the fence and has gone
over to the big swampy bog,” was the answer. “If he has, and is stuck
fast, we’ll have to go and get him out. But I don’t want his mother to
know it.”

The men-animals walked over toward the fence. Tinkle’s father looked
down at the ground. He saw little hoof marks.

“Yes, Tinkle has been here,” he said. “I can see where he ran to get a
good start so he could jump over the fence.”

“He is a good jumper to do that,” remarked one of the horses.

“Yes, Tinkle is a good jumper, for a colt,” said his father. “I think
he will be very smart when he grows up. But he should not jump fences
into the swamp. That is not right.”

“How are we going to get over the fence to help him if he is stuck?”
asked Dapple Gray.

“Can’t we jump?” another horse inquired.

“Maybe you can, but I can’t,” returned Dapple Gray. “One of my legs is
stiff, where I was hurt by the trolley car. Once I could easily have
jumped over that fence, but I’m afraid I can’t do it now.”

“I don’t know whether I can either,” observed Tinkle’s father. “I’m
not so young as I once was. But if we all push together I think we can
knock the fence down. Then we can get through to see what has happened
to my pony boy. We want you to come along, Dapple, because you have
been in the big city where all sorts of things happen to horses. You’ll
know what is best to do.”

“Thank you,” whinnied Dapple Gray. “I’ll do my best.”

Together the big horses and the ponies pushed at the fence. Tinkle’s
mother watched them, and when she saw what was being done she became
frightened.

“Something dreadful must have happened to Tinkle,” she said. “I can’t
stay here. I’m going to see what it is.”

So she began to run toward the men-animals. By this time they were
giving a second push to the fence, and, as they were very strong, they
knocked off some boards so they could get through.

“Now we’ll see what has happened to Tinkle,” said his father. “Tinkle!
Tinkle! Where are you?” he called.

But Tinkle did not answer, for he was far away in the swamp, and just
then he was splashing around in the mud and water trying to pull loose
his feet from the sticky place.

“We’ll have to go farther on into the swamp,” said Dapple Gray, when
they had waited a minute to see if Tinkle would answer.

“But we must be careful,” said one horse, slowly picking his steps.
“This is soft ground here. See how deep my hoofs sink.”

“Indeed it _is_ a bad place,” agreed Tinkle’s father. “I hope nothing
happens to us. Be careful, every one.”

Slowly the horses and the ponies walked along, picking out the hardest
and firmest ground they could find on which to step, especially the
horses, for they were, of course, heavier than the most grown-up pony.
Now and then all stopped to listen, and Tinkle’s father would call the
pony’s name. At last one of the horses said:

“Hark! I think I heard something.”

They all listened. Through the trees of the swamp came a call:

“Help me! Help me!”

“That’s Tinkle!” cried his father. “We’re coming, Tinkle. Where are
you?” he asked.

[Illustration: And the next time he did jump high enough to go over the
fence.]

“I’m over here, and I’m stuck in the swamp. I can’t get my feet out of
the mud!”

“I thought so!” exclaimed Dapple Gray. “Just like a foolish little
pony! Now we must get him out.”

So anxious was he to help his little pony that Tinkle’s father galloped
on ahead. Some of the others did the same. They did not listen to
Dapple calling:

“Wait! Be careful! Look out or you’ll be caught in the swamp
yourselves!”

On and on ran Tinkle’s father and the others. They could tell which way
to go by hearing Tinkle’s voice calling to them, just as your dog can
tell where you are, even though he can not see you, when he hears you
whistling to him.

“There he is! I see him!” cried Tinkle’s father as he came in sight of
the pool of water, on the edge of which the pony was stuck in the mud.

“We’re coming! We’re coming, Tinkle!” he cried.

Then something dreadful happened. Tinkle’s father, and four or five of
his friends, became stuck in the swamp mud also. Their feet sank away
down, for they were heavier than Tinkle, and, try as they did, they
could not lift themselves out.

“Oh!” cried Tinkle’s father. “We are caught too!”

Only Dapple Gray had not been caught. He had run slowly, fearing
something like this might happen.

Just see what trouble Tinkle made by running away! For it was really
his fault that the other ponies and the horses became mired, though of
course Tinkle had not meant to do wrong. He had not thought; but often
not thinking makes as much trouble as doing something on purpose.

“Help! Help!” cried Tinkle’s father. “We are caught in the mud too.”

“Oh, dear!” whinnied Tinkle.

Dapple Gray saw what the matter was.

“Keep quiet, all of you!” he said. “The more you flop about, the deeper
you will sink in the mud. I’ll go and get The Man to come with ropes
and pull you out. He and his helpers are the only ones who can save you
now. This is no work for us horses alone. I’ll go for help.”

And, leaving Tinkle and the others stuck in the swamp, back to the
green meadow ran Dapple Gray.




CHAPTER III

TINKLE AND GEORGE


Dapple Gray, running toward the hole which the horses had made by
pushing against the fence, met Tinkle’s mother going into the swamp.

“Oh, my dear lady!” exclaimed the old fire horse, “you must not go in
there! You really must not!”

“Why?” asked Tinkle’s mother. “Oh, I’m sure something dreadful has
happened! Tell me what it is. Is Tinkle――Is Tinkle――” and she could not
ask any more.

“Now, it isn’t as bad as you think,” said Dapple Gray. “Horses and
ponies have been caught in the swamp before. I remember when I was a
young colt I――”

“Oh, is my little Tinkle caught in the bog?” asked his mother.

“Yes, I am sorry to say he is, and so are some of the other ponies and
horses――Tinkle’s father among them,” said Dapple Gray. “But don’t be
worried. All they will have to do will be to stay there until we can
get The Man to come with ropes and pull them out. They won’t be a bit
the worse for the adventure after they wash the mud off. Now please
don’t go in there, my dear lady-horse, or you might get stuck too; and
goodness knows there is trouble enough!”

“Oh, I am so sorry Tinkle made trouble!” exclaimed his mother. “He is
usually such a good little pony――”

“Oh well, boys will be boys!” exclaimed Dapple Gray, or he said
something about like that which meant the same thing. And you all know
how frisky colts are; always kicking up their heels and never knowing
where they are going to land.

“Of course Tinkle didn’t do exactly right in running away and making
this trouble,” said Dapple Gray in a kind voice. “But then it will be a
lesson to him, and he won’t do it again, I’m sure.”

“I should think once _would_ be enough,” sighed his mother. “But are
you sure I can not do anything to help?”

“Not in there,” said Dapple Gray, nodding his head toward the swamp.
“But you can come with me, if you like, and we’ll go to get The Man to
help pull Tinkle and the others out of the swamp.”

“Yes, I’ll do that!” whinnied Tinkle’s mother.

So she and Dapple Gray ran back to the green meadow.

“What is it? What is it?” asked all the other animals that were waiting
by the hole in the fence. These were the horses and the ponies who had
not gone into the swamp.

Dapple Gray quickly told them of the trouble. At the same time he said:

“Don’t any of you go in there. The ground is too soft now and if a lot
of you horses trample on it that will make it so much the softer, and
The Man and his friends will have trouble getting in with their ropes
and boards. So please keep out.”

The horses promised they would, while Dapple Gray and Tinkle’s mother
ran as fast as they could across the meadow. They wanted to get to the
long lane which led to the barn, not far from which was the house where
lived “The Man,” as the horses called Mr. John Carter, the stock dealer.

“How are we going to tell him that Tinkle and the others are in the
mire?” asked the pony’s mother. “We can’t talk man-talk, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Dapple Gray. “But I guess I can find a way to make
him understand. I know what I’ll do,” he said, as he galloped on. “I’ll
pick up a piece of rope in the barn and take it to The Man in my teeth.
He’ll know that means we want him to bring other ropes and get the
horses out of the swamp.”

“I hope he will understand,” said Tinkle’s mother.

“Oh, I think he will,” replied Dapple Gray, hopefully.

As they ran past the barn, the big doors of which were open, the old
fire horse trotted inside. He looked about, and on the floor he saw a
piece of rope. Picking this up in his teeth, Dapple Gray, with Tinkle’s
mother, ran on toward the house. Out in the back yard stood Mr. Carter
talking to some of his hands.

“Look!” suddenly called one of the men. “Some of the horses are out of
the meadow. They’re coming here!”

“So they are!” ejaculated Mr. Carter. “I wonder what that means.”

“And Dapple Gray has a rope in his teeth,” went on the man.

“Why, so he has!” exclaimed Mr. Carter. “I wonder what _that_ means.”

Right up to where the stock breeder and his men stood ran Dapple Gray
and Tinkle’s mother. The old fire horse stretched out his neck and
shook his head up and down, the rope flapping to and fro. He seemed to
be offering it to Mr. Carter.

“Ha! Dapple wants something,” said the stockman. “I wonder what it is.
I wish he could talk.”

And then Dapple Gray did something which was almost as good as talking.
He rubbed the rope that was in his mouth against Mr. Carter’s hand,
and then, dropping it at his feet, took hold of the man’s coat in his
teeth. Then the old fire horse began to pull gently, just as often a
dog, when it finds some one in danger, will try to lead somebody to the
place to help.

“Why!” cried the surprised Mr. Carter. “I believe Dapple wants me to
come with him.”

“That’s what he does!” exclaimed one of the hands.

“But what about the rope?” asked another.

“Maybe he wants me to bring that, too,” observed the stockman. “I
wonder if anything can have happened to the horses?”

“I’ll go and take a look,” offered Mr. Carter’s overseer. He quickly
ran to a place where he could look down into the green meadow.

“What is it?” asked Mr. Carter.

“All the horses seem to be over near a hole in the fence,” the man
reported. “And some seem to be missing. I don’t see that little pony,
Tinkle, anywhere.”

“Whew!” whistled Mr. Carter. “Something certainly has happened. This is
Tinkle’s mother,” he went on, looking at Dapple’s companion.

“Wouldn’t it be queer if Tinkle were in trouble, and she had come to
get you to help him?” asked the overseer.

And of course you and I know that is just what Tinkle’s mother did
want, but the stockman and his helpers did not know that yet.

“I think I see what the trouble is!” suddenly cried Mr. Carter. “Some
of the animals must have broken down the fence and gotten into the
swamp! They’re mired there! We must get ropes and haul them out. Smart
horse, is Dapple to tell me that! I’ll come right away. Come on, men!
Lively now.”

The man ran toward the barn for ropes, led by Mr. Carter. Though Dapple
and Tinkle’s mother could not understand what the men said, they knew
that help would soon be carried to Tinkle and the others held fast
in the mud. They trotted along after the men, who were talking among
themselves.

Of course horses and ponies understand some man-talk, else how would
they know they are to stop when a man says “Whoa!” or to start when
they hear “Gid-dap!” or to back when told to do so. But it takes a
little time for a horse to get to know these words, just as it does
your dog to know you want him to run toward you when you say: “Come
here!” or go back when you point toward home, and tell him to go there.

“Things will be all right now,” said Dapple Gray to Tinkle’s mother,
using horse-talk, of course. “The Man will soon have all the horses and
ponies out of the bog.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you thought of a way to tell him,” said Tinkle’s
mother.

Taking some ropes and planks out of the barn, Mr. Carter and his men
ran on toward the green meadow. It did not take them long to reach the
broken fence.

“Here’s where the rascals got through to the swamp!” cried Mr. Carter.
“I must make the fence much stronger.”

Of course he did not know that Tinkle had made all the trouble by first
jumping over the fence. The others had only broken it down to go to
help the boy-pony.

“Come on!” cried the stockman. “That bog is a bad place. If they sink
down too far we’ll never be able to get them up again. Come on, I say!”

On ran the men with the planks and the ropes. They soon came to the
place where the horses and ponies were mired, as it is called.

“Tinkle is in deeper than any of them,” said Mr. Carter. “We must get
him out first.”

The men laid down the wide planks. The pieces of wood were so broad
that they did not sink down in the soft mud, any more than wide snow
shoes will sink down when an Indian, or any man, walks on them.

Then, standing on the planks, the men put ropes about Tinkle and began
to pull on them. They also laid down planks near him so that when he
got one foot out of the mire he could put it on a plank and it would
not sink down again.

After some hard work and much pulling on the ropes, which hurt the
little pony, Tinkle was pulled out of the swamp, and led to firm, dry
ground, back in the meadow.

“And now you’d better stay there,” said Mr. Carter. “Don’t try a thing
like this again.”

“No indeed, you must never do it again!” said Tinkle’s mother, for she
could tell by Mr. Carter’s voice that he was, in a way, scolding the
pony. “See what a lot of trouble you made your father and me, as well
as Dapple Gray and our other friends,” said Tinkle’s mother.

“I――I’m sorry,” said the little pony. “I’m never going to run away
again.”

“And see how muddy and dirty you are,” went on his mother. “You had
better go to the brook and wash yourself.”

“Oh, let me stay and watch them get my father and the others out of the
swamp,” begged Tinkle, so his mother let him stay.

It was not quite so hard to get the others out as it had been to save
Tinkle, for they were not so deep in the mud. But it took Mr. Carter
and his men quite a while. Finally, however, the ponies and the horses
were all saved from the swamp.

“And I hope they never get caught that way again,” said the stockman,
while Tinkle and the ponies and the horses hoped the same thing.

After the mud was washed off them, the animals were not much worse off
for what had happened. Tinkle was sorry and ashamed for all the trouble
he had caused, and he told the other ponies and his horse-friends so.

For some time after this Tinkle lived with his father, mother and
friends in the green meadow. He played with the other children-ponies,
but he did not try to run away again. He did want to have some
adventures, though, and he was soon to have some very strange ones.

One day, about a year later, a rich man called at the stock farm to buy
a horse for his carriage. With the man, who was a Mr. Farley, was his
son George, about nine years old.

“Yes, I have some good carriage horses,” said Mr. Carter to Mr. Farley.
“Suppose you come down to the meadow and pick out the one you like
best.”

“May I come too?” asked George.

“Yes, I think so,” answered his father. “The horses won’t kick; will
they?” he questioned.

“Oh, not at all,” answered Mr. Carter. “They are all gentle.”

So George went with his father to look at the horses. But no sooner had
the little boy caught sight of the ponies than he cried:

“Oh, see the little horses. I want one of them. Please, Daddy, buy me a
pony!”

“Eh? What’s that? Buy you a pony!” cried his father, half teasing. “Why
you couldn’t ride a pony.”

“Oh, yes I could!” said the little boy. “Anyhow I could drive him
hitched to a pony cart.”

“But we haven’t a pony cart.”

“Well, couldn’t you get one? Oh, please get me a pony, Daddy!”

“Ah, um! Well, which one would you want, if you could have one?” asked
Mr. Farley, half in fun.

George looked over the ponies who were cropping grass not far away. The
boy’s eyes rested longest on Tinkle, for Tinkle was a pretty pony, with
four white feet and a white star right in the middle of his head.

“This is the pony I want!” cried George, and, before his father could
stop him the boy ran straight to Tinkle and put his arms around the
pony’s neck.




CHAPTER IV

TINKLE’S NEW HOME


“George! George! Come away!” cried his father. “That pony may kick or
bite you!”

“Oh, no, Tinkle won’t do that,” said Mr. Carter. “Tinkle is a gentle
pony, which is more than I can say of some I have. A few of them are
quite wild. But the only bad thing Tinkle ever did was, one day, to
leave the meadow and get mired in a swamp. But I got him out.”

“He wasn’t really bad, was he?” asked George, who was standing near the
pony, patting him.

“Well, no, I guess you wouldn’t call it exactly bad,” said the stockman
with a smile. “Tinkle just didn’t know any better. He wanted to have
some fun, perhaps; but I guess he won’t do that again.”

“I won’t let him run away when I have him,” said George.

“Oh, ho!” cried Mr. Farley with a laugh. “So you think you are going to
have Tinkle for your own, do you?”

“Won’t you get him for me?” begged the little boy. “Mabel and I could
have _such_ fun riding and driving him.” Mabel was George’s sister. She
was a year younger than he.

“Do you think it would be safe for a little boy like mine to have a
pony?” asked Mr. Farley of the stockman.

“Why, yes, after Tinkle is trained a bit,” said Mr. Carter. “He has
never been ridden or driven, but I could soon get him trained so he
would be safe to use both ways. Do you think you want to buy him?”

“Well, I might,” said Mr. Farley slowly. He was thinking whether it
would be best or not. He did not want either of his little children to
be hurt by a pony that might run away.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said the owner of the stock farm. “I’ll
sell you a horse for yourself, and then I’ll start at once to teach
Tinkle what it means to have some one on his back, and also how he must
act when he is hitched to a pony cart. I am going to train some of
the other ponies, and I’ll train him also. He is old enough now to be
trained. Then you and your little boy come back in about two weeks and
we’ll see how George likes Tinkle then,” finished Mr. Carter.

“Oh, I’ll love him all the more!” cried George. “I love him now, and
I want him for my very own! He is a fine pony!” and once more George
patted the little creature.

“You couldn’t do that to some of the ponies,” said Mr. Carter, as he
and George’s father walked back toward the house. “They would be too
wild, and would not stand still. But Tinkle is a smart little chap.”

“Good-by!” called George to Tinkle as the small boy walked away with
his father. “I’ll come back to see you soon,” and he waved his hand at
Tinkle and Tinkle waved his tail at George. At least George thought so,
though I imagine that Tinkle was only brushing off a tickling fly.

But one thing I do know, and that was that Tinkle really liked the
little boy who patted him so nicely.

“He has very nice, soft hands,” said Tinkle to Curley Mane, another
pony, as they cropped the sweet grass together. “I’m sure he would be
good to me.”

“Are you going to live with him?” asked Curley Mane.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tinkle answered. “But I’ve always noticed that
whenever any strange men or boys come to the farm here, in a few days
afterward some of the horses or ponies go away, and I guess the men and
boys take them.”

“Yes, that is right,” said old Dapple Gray walking up beside the two
ponies. “You’ve guessed it, Tinkle. The Man, here, raises us horses to
sell. I’ve been sold more than once.”

“Is it nice to be sold?” asked Tinkle.

“Well, it all depends,” was the answer. “The first place I was sold to
was not nice. I had to draw a grocery wagon through the streets, and
the boy who sat on the seat used to strike me with a whip.”

“What did you do?” asked Curley Mane.

“Well, I’m sorry to say I ran away. It wasn’t the right thing to do,
only I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stand being beaten. The boy fell
off the seat of the wagon, I ran so fast, and he bumped his nose. Then
the wagon was smashed and I was cut and bruised and I had a terrible
time,” said Dapple Gray.

“Then the grocery man brought me back here, saying he didn’t want me,
and after that I was sold to some men that made me draw the big shiny
wagon that had a chimney spouting flames and smoke. I was treated well
there. I had a nice stall with plenty of hay to eat and clean straw
to sleep on. Sometimes I had oats, and I got so I could run very fast
indeed.

“But it was hard work, and I soon grew tired. So they brought me back
here again. That’s what being sold means. You never can tell where
you’re going.”

“Do you think some of the horses here were sold to that man and little
boy?” asked Tinkle.

“We can tell pretty soon,” answered Dapple Gray, “by watching to see if
any horses or ponies are taken away.”

And, surely enough, the next day one of the men on the stock farm
took away one of the horses. He was called Hobble by the other horses
because, when he was a colt, he hurt his foot on a sharp stone and had
to hobble for a week or two. But he soon got over that. And Hobble was
the horse George’s father had bought for himself, though Mr. Carter
named the horse Prince.

“Good-by!” called Hobble, or as we must call him, Prince, to his
friends as he was led away from the stock farm. “Maybe I’ll see some of
you again before long.”

“I don’t believe so,” called back Dapple Gray. But neither he nor any
one else knew what was going to happen to Tinkle.

When Prince had been driven to a big city, a few miles away from the
stock farm, he was taken into a nice clean stable where there were one
or two other horses.

“Ah, so that’s the new horse I bought, is it?” asked a voice, and
looking behind him, from where he was tied in his stall, Prince saw Mr.
Farley. Of course Prince did not know the man’s name but he knew he
was the same one who had been at the stock farm.

“I wonder,” thought Prince, “where the little boy is that was patting
Tinkle.”

He did not have to wonder long for he soon heard another voice calling:

“Oh, Daddy! Did the new horse come?”

“Yes, he’s in his stall,” said Mr. Farley.

“And did he bring Tinkle?” asked George.

“No, not yet. Tinkle won’t be ready for a week or so. And I am not sure
I am going to get him for you.”

“Oh, yes you are, Daddy! I know you are when you smile that way!” cried
Mabel, who, with her little brother, had come out to the stable. “Won’t
we have fun, George,” she cried gaily, “when we have a pony of our own?”

“We surely will!” said George.

“Don’t be _too_ sure,” returned Mr. Farley, but he could not keep his
eyes from laughing, even if his lips did not smile.

Prince soon made friends with the other horses in Mr. Farley’s stable,
and they rubbed noses and talked among themselves in a way that all
horses have.

And now I must go back to the stock farm to see how Tinkle is getting
on, for this story is mostly about him.

“Well,” said Mr. Carter to one of his men a day or two after Prince had
been sold and taken to Mr. Farley, “I think it is time we started to
train Tinkle, if that little boy George is to have him. We want to get
the pony used to having a saddle on his back, and also teach him how to
draw a pony cart.”

So Tinkle began to have his first lessons, for animals like horses
and dogs, as well as trained animals in a circus, have to be taught
lessons, just as you are taught lessons in school. Only, of course, the
lessons are different.

Tinkle was driven into the stable yard and while one of the men was
patting him and giving him some oats to eat――which Tinkle liked very
much――another man slipped some leather straps over the pony’s head.
Tinkle did not like this, for never, in all his life, had he felt
anything tied on his head before. He tried to run away and shake it
off, but he found himself held tightly by a long strap, which was fast
to the other straps on his head.

“I wonder what in the world this is?” thought Tinkle, when he found
he could not shake off the straps. Afterward he learned it was a
halter, which is the rope, or strap, that is used to keep a horse or
pony tied in his stall. Sometimes the straps, or ropes, are called a
“head-stall.”

So this is what Tinkle was held fast by, and when he found that no
amount of pulling or shaking would get it off his head he stood quietly.

“Maybe if I am good they’ll take it off anyhow,” he thought.

But Tinkle had many more lessons to learn. I will not tell you all
about them here, because I know lessons aren’t any too much fun, though
we all have to learn them.

So I’ll just say that after Tinkle had become used to the halter he was
given a bridle. This was not so nice, as there was an iron thing fast
to it, called a “bit,” and this had to go in Tinkle’s mouth so he could
be driven.

“Oh, I don’t like this at all!” cried Tinkle as he tried to get the bit
out from between his teeth. But it was held fast by straps, and a man
pulled first on one strap, and then on the other, hauling Tinkle’s head
to the left or right. Soon the pony found that when his bit was pulled
to the left it meant he was to walk or run that way, and so, also, when
the other strap, or rein, was pulled, he must go to the right. After a
while he did not mind the bit at all.

Next Tinkle had to learn to have a saddle fastened to his back. First
a blanket was strapped on him, and Tinkle tried to get this off by
rolling over and over. But the blanket stayed on, for it was fastened
by straps, and soon the little pony did not mind that. Then when the
saddle was put on he thought it was only another kind of blanket at
first, and when he came to know (for his mother told him) that all
horses and ponies had to wear saddles part of the time Tinkle did not
mind that.

Tinkle was frightened when one of the boys on the stock farm got in the
saddle on the pony’s back to have a ride. It was the first time Tinkle
had ever had any one on his back and he really was quite frightened.
But he soon grew used to that also, and trotted around, walking and
running as the boy told him to.

“Well, Tinkle is learning quickly!” said Mr. Carter one day. “As soon
as he learns to draw a pony cart he will be ready for that boy George
to drive.”

Being hitched to a cart, with harness straps all over him, did not feel
comfortable to Tinkle at first.

“I don’t like this at all!” he thought. “It isn’t any fun!” But
he found he could not get away from the cart, which followed him
everywhere because he was hitched fast to it. Then he was driven about,
made to turn around, and to the left and to the right by a boy who rode
in the pony cart.

[Illustration: It was the first time Tinkle had ever had any one on his
back.]

“Well, I might as well make up my mind to it,” said Tinkle, telling the
other ponies what had happened to him.

“Yes, indeed,” remarked Dapple Gray. “That is what you ponies and we
horses are for――to give people rides, or to pull their wagons. That is
our life and if you are good you will be treated kindly.”

“Then I am going to be good,” said Tinkle.

In another week the pony could be ridden or driven very easily, and Mr.
Carter sent word to Mr. Farley to come and bring George with him to the
stock farm.

“Oh, what a fine pony he is!” cried the little boy as he saw how easily
Tinkle was ridden and driven. “Do get him for me, Daddy!”

“Yes, I think I’ll buy him,” said Mr. Farley, so he paid Mr. Carter
for the pony. Tinkle was taken to his new home, George and his father
riding in the pony cart. Mr. Farley drove, but let George hold the
reins part of the time.

“For you must learn to drive if you are going to have a real live
pony,” said George’s father.

So Tinkle left the stock farm, and went to live in his new home, a big
city stable.




CHAPTER V

TINKLE’S FRIENDS


“Well, I never expected to see you here!” exclaimed a whinnying voice
as Tinkle was led into his stall. The little pony looked up in surprise
and saw a big horse.

“Oh! Why, hello, Hobble!” cried Tinkle, as he saw the horse that used
to live on the stock farm with him.

“My name isn’t Hobble any more――it’s Prince.”

“Oh, well. Hello, then, Prince!” called Tinkle in a cordial, off-hand
manner, for he now felt quite grown up. Had he not been hitched up, and
had he not carried a boy on his back? “I didn’t know you were here.”

“And I didn’t know _you_ were coming,” observed Prince. “How is
everything back on the farm?”

“Oh, there’s not much change. I was sorry to come away and leave my
father and mother.”

“Well, that’s the way things happen in this world,” said Prince. “We
are colts for a little while, and then some of us grow to be big
horses or grown-up ponies and have to go away from our friends. It’s
just the same with men and women, I’ve heard. But you’ll like it here.”

“Is it nice?” asked Tinkle.

“Nice? I should say it is! Of course, I miss being out in the big,
green, grassy meadow. But I get plenty to eat here, and every day a man
scratches my back――”

“Scratches your back?” cried Tinkle. “I don’t believe I should like
that!”

“Oh, yes you will,” said Prince. “You can’t imagine how your back
begins to itch and ache when you’ve been in the harness all day. And
when a man uses a brush and comb on you――”

“A brush and comb!” cried Tinkle. “Come, you’re joking! I know men and
women, as well as boys and girls, use brushes and combs, but ponies or
horses――”

“Yes, we really have our own brushes and combs, though they are
different from those which humans use,” said Prince. “The brush is a
big one, more like a broom, and the comb is made of iron and is called
a currycomb. But they make your skin nice and clean and shiny. You’ll
like them.”

“Maybe,” said Tinkle. “Is anything else different here from what it was
on the farm?”

“Oh, lots and lots of things. You have to have shoes on your feet.”

“Oh, now I’m _sure_ you’re fooling me!” cried Tinkle in horse-talk.
“Who ever heard of ponies having shoes!”

“Well, of course they’re not _leather_ shoes, such as boys and girls
wear,” went on Prince. “They are made of iron, and they are nailed on
your hoofs.”

“Nailed on!” cried Tinkle. “Oh, doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not a bit when a good blacksmith does it,” explained Prince. “You see
our hoofs are just like the finger nails of boys and girls. It doesn’t
hurt to cut their finger nails, if they don’t cut them down too close,
and it doesn’t hurt to fasten the iron shoes on our hoofs with sharp
nails. Don’t you remember how Dapple Gray used to tell about his iron
shoes making sparks on the paving stones in the city when he ran and
pulled that funny shiny wagon with the chimney?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Tinkle; “I do remember. Well, I suppose I’ll have
to be shod then.”

“Of course,” returned Prince. “If you don’t have the iron shoes on your
hoofs they would get sore when you ran around on the stony streets. A
city is not like our green meadow. There are very few soft dirt roads
here. That is one thing I don’t like about a city. Still there is
always something going on here, and lots to see and do, and that makes
up for it, I guess.”

“I wonder how I shall like it,” thought Tinkle. “But first I must see
what my new home is like.”

He looked around the stable. It was a large one, and there were a
number of stalls in it. In each one was a horse, like Prince, munching
his oats or chewing hay. Tinkle saw that his stall was different from
the others. It was like a big box, and, in fact, was called a “box
stall.” Tinkle did not have to be tied fast with a rope or a strap to
the manger, which is the place where the feed for the ponies and horses
is put. There was a manger in Tinkle’s stall and he could walk up to it
whenever he felt hungry.

Tinkle did not remember much about the stable at home on the farm, as
he was hardly ever in it. Night and day, during the warm Summer, he
stayed out in the green meadow, sleeping near his mother under a tree.

Tinkle was kicking the straw around in his stall, making a nice soft
bed on which he could lie down and go to sleep, when George, who had
gone into the house to get something to eat after driving with his
father from the stock farm, came running out to the stable again.

“How’s my pony?” cried George. “How’s my Tinkle?”

Tinkle made a sort of laughing sound――whinnying――for he now knew
George’s voice and he liked the little boy.

“Here’s something nice for you!” cried George.

“Oh, what are you going to give him?” asked Mabel, who had come home
from school and who had also hurried out to see Tinkle.

“I’m going to give him some sugar,” answered George. “I took some lumps
from the bowl on the table. Mother said I might.”

“Are you going to let him eat them out of your hand?” asked the little
girl.

“Of course,” answered George.

“Won’t he bite you?”

“Not if you hold out your hand flat, like a board,” said George. “The
man at the farm showed me. Put the sugar on the palm of your hand,
open it out flat and a horse can pick up a lump of sugar, or an apple
without biting you a teeny weeny bit. Look!”

George opened the top half of the door to the box stall where Tinkle
had his home and held out on his hand the lump of sugar. Tinkle came
over, smelled of the lump to make sure it was good for him to eat, and
then he gently took it in his soft lips, and began to chew the sweet
stuff.

“Oh, isn’t that cute!” cried Mabel. “Let me feed Tinkle some sugar.”

Her brother gave her a lump, and she held it out on her hand. Tinkle,
having eaten the first lump, which he liked very much, was quite ready
for the second. He took it from Mabel’s hand as gently as he had taken
it from George’s.

“Oh, he is a lovely pony!” cried the little girl. “How soon can we have
a ride on him?”

“Well, you can ride him around the yard now,” said her father, who
had come out to the stable. “But before he is driven around the city
streets he must be shod. I’ll send him to a blacksmith. But for a while
now you and George may take turns riding him. I’ll have Patrick saddle
him for you.”

Patrick was Mr. Farley’s coachman, and knew a great deal about horses
and ponies. The pony cart which Mr. Farley had bought from the
stockman, together with a harness and saddle for Tinkle, had been put
away. Patrick now brought out the saddle, and, after putting a blanket
on the pony, fastened on the saddle with straps.

“Now who’s to ride first?” asked the coachman.

“Let Mabel,” said George, politely. “Ladies always go first.”

“I’d rather you’d go first so I can see how you do it,” said the little
girl, and George was glad, for he did want very much to get on Tinkle’s
back again. He had ridden a little at the stock farm and, oh! it was
such fun!

Patrick helped George into the saddle, and then led Tinkle about the
yard, for Mr. Farley wanted to make sure the pony would be safe for his
little boy to ride.

“I’ll be very careful,” said Tinkle to himself. “George and his sister
are going to be kind to me, I’m sure. I’ll not run away.”

Tinkle remembered what his father and mother had told him about
behaving when he was in the harness, or had a saddle on.

“And if I’m good,” thought the pony, “maybe I’ll get more lumps of
sugar.”

“Let him go now and see if I can drive him,” said George to Patrick. So
the coachman stepped aside and George held the reins in his own hands.

“Gid-dap, Tinkle!” cried George, and the pony knew this meant to go a
little faster. So he began to trot on the soft, green grass of the big
yard about the Farley home.

“Oh, how nice!” cried Mabel, clapping her hands.

“Yes, it’s lots of fun!” laughed George. “Go on, Tinkle.”

When George had ridden twice around the yard it was Mabel’s turn. At
first she was a little afraid, but her father held her in the saddle,
and she could soon sit on alone and guide Tinkle, who did not go as
fast with her as he had gone with George.

“For she might fall off, and I wouldn’t want that to happen,” thought
Tinkle. “They might say it was my fault, and give me no more lumps of
sugar.”

While Mabel was riding, another boy and a girl came into the yard. They
were Tommie and Nellie Hall, who lived next door.

“Oh, what a lovely pony!” they cried. “Where did you get him?”

“My father bought him for Mabel and me,” explained George. “See how
soft his hair is,” and he patted Tinkle. Tommie and Nellie also patted
the pony and called him all sorts of nice names.

“My! I think I am going to like it here,” thought Tinkle. “I have four
new, good, little friends. I will try to make them love me.”




CHAPTER VI

TINKLE MEETS DIDO


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.

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.

“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.

“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.

[Illustration: “Oh, what a nice pony cart!” cried the boys and girls.]

“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 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 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 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.

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.”




CHAPTER VII

TINKLE DOES SOME TRICKS


For a few seconds Tinkle stood looking at Dido, the dancing bear, not
knowing what to do or say. Some ponies would have been afraid of a
bear. They would have snorted, stood on their hind legs, and maybe have
run away. But Tinkle had never seen a bear before, no one had ever
told him about them, and he really did not know enough to be afraid.
Besides, Dido seemed such a funny, good-natured and happy bear that I
believe no one would have been afraid of him.

“So you are Dido, the dancing bear, are you?” asked Tinkle. “And you
say you are in a book. What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you,” went on Dido, while his master, the man who blew such
jolly tunes on the brass horn, was picking up some apples that had
fallen from a roadside tree. He let Dido walk on ahead, without even a
string tied to him, for he knew that Dido would not run away.

“You see, it’s this way,” went on the dancing bear. “Years ago I used
to live in the woods with my father and mother, sisters and brothers.”

“I never lived in the woods,” said Tinkle, “but I lived in a big, green
field.”

“That was nice,” murmured Dido. “I have been in the fields, too. Well,
one day I was caught by a man, who took me away. At first I did not
like it, but the man was good to me and taught me to do tricks.”

“What are tricks?” asked the pony, for he could speak all animal
languages as well as understand them.

“Tricks are――well, I’ll show you in a minute,” went on Dido. “The man
was good to me, as I said, and taught me tricks. Then I was sold to a
circus and I had lots of good times with Tum Tum, the jolly elephant
and Mappo the merry monkey. They are in books, too.”

“What are books?” asked Tinkle. “Are they good, like sugar; and do you
eat them?”

“Oh, no!” laughed Dido. “Books are funny things, like blocks of wood;
only you can open them, like a door, you know, and inside are funny
black marks on paper that is white, like the snow. Boys and girls, and
men and women, open these funny things called books and look at them
for ever and ever so long.”

“Why do they do that?” asked Tinkle.

“Well, I don’t really know,” said Dido. “But after they have looked
at the books, turning over the white things with the black marks on,
called leaves, the boys and girls laugh.”

“Why?” Tinkle demanded.

“Because of the funny things printed on them,” answered Dido. “You see
in my book are set down all the things I did. And the things Mappo did
and the things Tum Tum did are in their books. Some of the things were
funny, and that is what makes the boys and girls laugh. Tum Tum’s book
is enough to make any one laugh. He is a very jolly elephant.”

“Is it fashionable to be in a book?” asked Tinkle. “I have quite a
stylish pony cart here, as you can see, so if being in a book is――”

“Of _course_ it’s fashionable to be in a book!” exclaimed Dido. “You
should see the funny pictures of _me_ in _my_ book.”

And I might say, right here, that the books that Dido spoke of really
exist, besides others about different animals. And this book is about
Tinkle, as you can see for yourself. Maybe the little pony will be
quite surprised when he finds what has been set down about him.

“Toot! Toot! Toot!” blew the horn again, and the man who owned Dido,
having picked up all the apples he wanted, came walking along the road.
Dido had been in a circus for some time, but now he was out again,
traveling around the country doing tricks.

“Ah, you have met a friend, I see, Dido!” remarked the man, who had
little gold rings in his ears. “A little pony, eh? Well, where there is
a pony there must be children, and I think they will like to see your
tricks, Dido. Come, we’ll get ready for them.”

The man blew another merry tune on his horn, and just then George and
Mabel came running out of the house, ready to go driving in the pony
cart.

“Oh, see the bear!” cried Mabel.

“And look at what he is doing!” added George. For, just then the man
told Dido to turn a somersault, and this the bear did.

“That’s one of my tricks,” said Dido to Tinkle, though of course George
and Mabel did not know the two animals were speaking to one another,
for they talked in a low whisper.

“Oh, so that’s a trick, is it?” asked Tinkle in surprise.

“Yes, and I can do others. Wait, I’m going to do some more,” went on
Dido.

“Come now, Dido! Show the little boy and girl how you play soldier!”
called the man and he tossed a stick to the bear. Dido clasped it in
his paws, held it over one shoulder just as though it were a gun and
marched around in a ring standing up stiff and straight like a soldier
on parade.

“Oh, that’s great!” cried George.

“Is he a trained bear, Mister?” asked Mabel.

“Oh, yes he is a good trained bear,” answered the man. “I have taught
him to do many tricks. Now stand on your head, Dido,” and Dido stood on
his head without so much as blinking his eye. Only he could not stand
that way very long because he was quite a fat and heavy bear now. But
he did very well.

“Can he do any more tricks?” asked George, and by this time Patrick,
the coachman, Mary the cook, and Mrs. Farley had come out to watch Dido.

“I will have him climb a pole,” said the man, pointing to a telegraph
pole in front of the Farley home. “Up you go, Dido!” he called, and the
bear walked slowly over to the smooth pole. He stuck his sharp claws
into the soft wood, and up and up he climbed until he was nearly at the
top. Then he climbed down again while Mabel and George clapped their
hands and laughed.

“He is a fine bear,” said George. “I wonder if he would eat sugar as
Tinkle, my pony, does?”

“Try him and see,” answered the man, with a laugh.

“Won’t he bite?” asked Mabel, as George took some lumps of sugar from
his pocket.

“Oh, no. Dido never bites,” answered his master. “He is a very gentle
bear.”

George held a lump of sugar on his hand. Up Dido walked to the little
boy.

“Don’t dare bite him!” said Tinkle to Dido, speaking in animal talk, of
course.

“Oh, no fear!” exclaimed Dido. “I wouldn’t bite him for the world. Just
watch!” Then Dido put out his big red tongue to which the lump of sugar
stuck, just like a postage stamp, and, in another second, it had slid
down Dido’s red throat.

“Oh, wasn’t that cute?” cried Mabel.

Then Dido did more tricks, and after Mrs. Farley had given the man some
money he and Dido walked on down the road.

“Good-by, children!” called the man.

“Good-by,” answered George and Mabel, waving their hands.

“Good-by, Tinkle!” called Dido. “Perhaps some day I may see you again.”

“I hope so,” called back the pony. “I want to hear more about being in
a book and about Tum Tum and Mappo.”

“They are in the circus now, I think,” said Dido. “If you ever go to
the circus you may meet them.”

“I don’t believe I ever shall,” said Tinkle. But you just wait and see
what happens.

“Well, go for your drive now, children,” said Mrs. Farley. “And don’t
let Tinkle run away with you.”

“We won’t,” answered George, laughingly. And as he and Mabel drove
away, Patrick not going with them this time, George said: “I wish I
could teach Tinkle some tricks.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be great!” exclaimed Mabel. “I once saw a trick pony
in a show. He could bow and tell how old he was by pawing on the ground
with his hoof.”

“Then I’m going to teach Tinkle some tricks,” said George. “And when he
learns them we’ll take him around the country and show him off and earn
money.”

“Oh, how nice!” cried Mabel, clapping her hands.

When George and Mabel got back from their drive George spoke to his
father about teaching Tinkle to do some tricks.

“I hardly think you can,” said Mr. Farley. “But you may try. Better ask
Patrick about it, though. He knows a lot about horses and ponies.”

“Teach Tinkle tricks, is it?” asked Patrick when George spoke to the
coachman about it. “Well, maybe you can. He’s young yet. You can’t
teach an old pony tricks any more than you can teach an old dog. We’ll
try some day.”

A few days after this Patrick called George out to the stable yard
where Tinkle was standing.

“What are you going to do?” asked George.

“Teach Tinkle his first trick,” was the answer. “He is going to learn
how to jump over a stick.” Patrick put two boxes, about two feet high,
on the ground and laid a stick across them. He led the pony close to
the stick and stood there beside him.

“Now, Master George, you stand on the other side of the stick, and hold
out these lumps of sugar,” said Patrick. “We will see what Tinkle will
do.”

George held out the sugar a few feet away from Tinkle’s nose. Tinkle
could smell it, and he wanted it very much.

“Go get it!” called Patrick, letting loose the halter strap he had been
holding. “Go get the sugar, Tinkle.”

Instead of jumping across the stick, as they wanted him to do, Tinkle
walked right against it and knocked it off the boxes.

“That won’t do!” cried Patrick. “Don’t give him the sugar, Master
George, until he jumps over the stick.”

So George held the sugar behind his back, and Tinkle was quite
disappointed at not getting it.

“I wonder what they want me to do, and why they put that stick in front
of me?” thought the little pony. Patrick placed the stick back on the
boxes, and this time he nailed it fast so the pony could not easily
knock it off. Then the coachman held the pony as before and George put
the lumps of sugar out on his hand again.

Once more Tinkle walked forward to get them, but this time he could not
knock the stick down with his legs. He shoved the boxes aside, though,
and again Patrick led him back.

“Jump over the stick, Tinkle! Jump over the stick and I’ll give you the
sugar!” called George. And then, after two or three more times, Tinkle
understood. He found that stick always in his way when he wanted to get
the sweet sugar, and finally he thought of the fence he had once jumped
over.

“I guess that’s what they want me to do now!” he said. And with a jump,
over the stick he went. Tinkle had done his first trick!




CHAPTER VIII

TINKLE IS TAKEN AWAY


“That’s fine!” cried George, as Tinkle, after having jumped over the
stick, came trotting up to get the sugar. “Soon you’ll be as good as
Dido, the dancing bear.”

“Well, I guess I did pretty well for a beginner,” thought Tinkle to
himself, as he crunched the sugar in his strong white teeth. “Now I
hope they will let me alone, or else drive me hitched to the cart or
ride on my back.”

But George and the coachman were not yet through with Tinkle. They
wanted to be sure he understood how to do the trick. So they set up the
stick again, and George held out more sugar. This time the pony knew
what to do at once, and, with a bound, over the stick he went.

“Oh, I want Mabel to see this!” cried George. “Come on out!” he called
to his sister. “Come on out and see Tinkle do a trick!”

Mabel was as much pleased as was her brother. She, too, held out the
sugar and Tinkle came to her as he had to George, leaping over the
stick. Tinkle would do almost anything for lumps of sugar.

“Well, this is enough for the first day,” said the coachman to the
children. “We don’t want Tinkle to get tired. Go take him for a drive
now, and to-morrow we can teach him other tricks.”

Off in the pony cart rode the two children. Half-way down the street
they met Tommie and Nellie Hall, and invited them to have a drive.

“Did you see the trained bear?” asked Tommie of George. “A man was
leading him past our house. He did a lot of tricks.”

“We’re going to teach our pony to do tricks like those,” cried Mabel.

“No! Really?” exclaimed Nellie, in surprise.

“Yes, we are,” added George. “He can do one trick already――jump over a
stick,” and he told how Tinkle had been taught.

“I’d like to see him do that,” said Tommie. “But there’s one trick Dido
the bear did that your pony can never do.”

“What is that?” Mabel asked.

“Climb a telegraph pole!” said Tommie with a laugh.

“That’s right,” admitted George. “Tinkle never could do that. But I
don’t want him to. To-morrow we are going to teach him a new trick.”

The next day George went out to the stable to ask Patrick what trick it
would be best next to teach the pony.

“Let us see if he has forgotten his first trick,” said the coachman.
Once more the stick was laid across the boxes and, standing on the
other side of it, George held out the sugar. Tinkle jumped over at
once, higher than he had ever before gone, for, now that he knew
jumping was what his little master wanted, the pony made up his mind to
do his very best.

“Yes, he hasn’t forgotten that trick,” said Patrick. “Now we’ll teach
him to make a bow.”

“How do you do that?” asked George.

“I’ll show you,” Patrick answered.

He put some soft straw on the ground in front of the pony. Then the
coachman tied a rope around Tinkle’s left foreleg. Standing off a
little way, behind, and to one side of Tinkle, Patrick pulled gently on
the rope, at the same time saying:

“Make a bow, Tinkle! Make a bow!”

Of course Tinkle did not know then what the words meant, but when he
felt the pull on his leg from the rope it seemed as though his leg was
being pulled from under him. And that is what Patrick was doing, only
so gently that it did not hurt.

Then the coachman said again:

“Make a bow, Tinkle!”

The pony suddenly felt his leg slipping and as it bent he came down on
one knee on the soft straw.

“Oh, he did make a bow!” cried George; and that is just what it looked
like.

“Give him a lump of sugar!” said Patrick. “Then he’ll know he is to get
a lump when he makes another bow.”

The coachman loosed his hold of the rope and Tinkle quickly scrambled
to his feet. He was not in the least hurt, but he was a little puzzled.

“I wonder what they are trying to do to me?” he asked himself. But he
was glad when he found George had another lump of sugar for him. “This
part of it is all right, anyhow,” thought the pony.

Once again he heard Patrick call:

“Make a bow, Tinkle. Make a bow!” Again came that tug on the rope which
pulled Tinkle’s leg from under him, so that he had to bend down and bow.

“That’s the way to do it!” cried Patrick. “More sugar for the pony,
Master George!”

“Now I begin to understand!” said Tinkle to himself. “This is just like
jumping over the stick――only different. Ah, I have it! These are the
tricks Dido was telling me about. Now I know what they are doing it
for. I am to be a trick pony! And maybe I’ll be in the circus with Tum
Tum and Mappo.”

But you will have to wait a little while to find out if that part came
true.

“Now we’ll try it again,” said the coachman as Tinkle got up and stood
on the soft straw. “Make another bow, Tinkle!” he called.

The pony heard the word “bow,” he felt the gentle pull on the rope that
was tied to his leg. This time he did not wait for his leg to be pulled
from beneath him, but he bowed of his own accord, and then George gave
him the sugar.

“He is beginning to know what we want of him,” said the coachman. “Now
he can do two tricks.”

“And soon I can take him around the country and show him off,” cried
George, in great delight.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” laughed Patrick. “I guess your father
and mother wouldn’t like that. But you can have him do tricks at home
here for your friends.”

Tinkle was a smart little pony and in a few days all George had to do
was to say “Jump!” and Tinkle would jump over two or even three sticks
laid across boxes. And when George said: “Make a bow!” Tinkle would
kneel down almost as politely as some dancers I have seen.

“Are there any other tricks you can teach Tinkle?” asked George of the
coachman one day.

“Oh, yes, plenty more,” was the answer. “We’ll try to get him to stand
on his hind legs and walk around. It is pretty hard but I guess he can
do it.”

Tinkle was longer in learning this trick than he had been in learning
how to do the other two put together. Patrick and George were kind and
patient, however. Patrick, with another man to help him, put Tinkle in
front of a board laid across two water pails. They set Tinkle’s front
feet on the board and then with Patrick at one end, and the man at the
other, they lifted up the board with Tinkle’s feet resting on it and
started to walk. And Tinkle walked too, because George stood in front
of him with a nice red apple, and as the pony reached for it George
kept backing away.

Of course Tinkle wanted the apple, so he kept on walking. Only, as his
front feet were resting on the board, the pony could walk on his hind
feet only, but he was soon doing this without knowing it. It took a
little time to make him stand up on his hind legs without anything on
which to rest his front feet, but after a bit he understood what was
wanted of him. Then he remembered how he had seen horses in the green
meadow, where he used to live, rear up on their hind legs in play
sometimes.

“Why that’s just what I’m doing,” thought Tinkle, and then it came
easier for him. He could soon walk half the length of the stable yard
on his hind legs, with his forefeet held up in the air.

“That’s three tricks Tinkle can do,” said George in delight as the
pony pranced around on his hind legs. “He will soon be able to join a
circus.”

“But you won’t let him, will you?” asked Mabel. “You won’t let Tinkle
go away, George, I like him too much.”

“And so do I,” answered her brother. “Indeed I won’t let Tinkle go
away.”

But one day something sad happened to Tinkle. Mr. and Mrs. Farley with
George and Mabel went on a visit to the country, to be gone three days.
They did not take Tinkle with them as they had to travel on the train.

“But I guess he’ll be all right until we come home,” said George as he
went out to the stable to bid his pet good-by.

“I’ll be here to watch him,” said Patrick.

Two days after the Farley family had gone away Patrick, who slept in
rooms over the stable, had to go to the store for some salve for one of
the horses that had got a nail in his foot.

[Illustration: It took a little time to make him stand upon his hind
legs without anything on which to rest his front feet.]

Patrick thought he would be gone only a few minutes, so he left Tinkle
outside in the stable yard.

“I guess he will be all right until I come back,” said the coachman.

But it took longer to put up the salve than he had supposed, so he was
nearly half an hour away from the barn. And there was no one in the
house, for the cook and maid had also gone away on visits when the
family left.

And in that half hour something happened. Two men drove a big, empty
moving van down the street past the Farley house. In the side-yard was
an old-fashioned pump and, seeing it, one of the men said:

“Let’s stop off and get a drink. It’s a hot day and I’m thirsty.”

“I am too,” said the other man.

They stopped the van in a side street near the stable yard, and pumped
some water for themselves. Tinkle walked over near the fence and looked
at the men, for he was a bit lonesome.

“That’s a fine pony,” said one of the men, wiping off the drops of
water from his mustache.

“He sure is,” agreed the other. “Look at him making a bow; would you!”

For just then Tinkle took it into his head to do one of his tricks. He
had not done any in two days because George was away.

“Say, he’s smart!” exclaimed the biggest man, who had red hair.

“He is that. Look at him jump!” for Tinkle did his second trick then.
He was showing off, you see.

The two men talked together in low voices. They looked toward the house
and saw that it was closed. No one was about. Patrick was down at the
drugstore and no one was near the stable.

“We could easily put him in the moving van,” said the red-haired man.
“He isn’t heavy.”

“But what would we do with him after we took him?” asked the shorter of
the two men.

“Why, a trick pony like him is worth money. We could sell him for a
hundred dollars, maybe. Let’s take him. No one will see us.”

Of course it was not right for the men to plan to take Tinkle away, but
they did, just the same.

“Come here, pony!” called one of the men, and he whistled. Tinkle came
closer, for George had taught him to come at the sound of a whistle to
get a lump of sugar.

But the men had no sugar for Tinkle. Instead they opened the gate to
the stable yard, and led Tinkle out by his mane. The pony went along
willingly enough, for he was not afraid of men. None of them had ever
hurt him, so he had no reason to be afraid.

“Lead him right out to the van,” said the red-haired man, “and we’ll
toss him in. No one will see him in there.”

Before Tinkle knew what was happening he was led out of the yard, to
the side street, and suddenly the two men lifted him up and tossed him
right inside the big empty moving van, which could easily have held
two or three big horses, to say nothing of several ponies as small as
Tinkle.

Tinkle was not much bigger than a very big dog, and the men, being
strong (for they could lift a piano) had no trouble in lifting the pony
from the ground. Into the van they tossed him, and he fell down, but,
as it happened, there was a pile of soft bags there so he was not hurt.

But he was much frightened when the men banged shut the big end doors.
Then Tinkle felt himself being taken away. He was shut up inside the
dark wagon and could see nothing.

Poor Tinkle!




CHAPTER IX

TINKLE IN THE CIRCUS


“What does all this mean?” thought Tinkle to himself as he got up off
the pile of bags in the moving van, and tried to stand. But he found
that the motion of the big wagon, as it was rapidly driven away,
toppled him about so that it was easier to lie down than to stay on his
feet.

So Tinkle stretched out on the bags and tried to think what it all
meant. His eyes were getting used to the dark now, and he could see,
dimly, that he was in some place like his box stall. Only it was not as
nice, and Tinkle could not smell any sweet hay or oats.

“I wonder if they can be taking me where George is?” thought Tinkle,
for he had greatly missed the little boy and his sister who were
accustomed to ride him or drive him about.

On and on went the moving van with Tinkle locked inside. The horses
pulling the big wagon of course did not know they were taking a little
pony away from his home. Even if they had known there was nothing they
could have done. Poor Tinkle felt very sad and lonely. It was the
first time anything like this had ever happened to him.

Up on the seat the two men were talking.

“Well, we got that trick pony all right,” said the red-haired one.

“Yes, but if the folks who own him find out we have him they’ll have us
arrested,” said the short man.

“Oh, they’ll never find out. No one saw us take him, nobody but us
knows he’s in this van and we’ll soon be far enough away. We can make
money on this pony.”

On and on the moving van rumbled, farther and farther away, and pretty
soon Tinkle, locked inside, began to feel hungry. He got up, intending
to go about looking for something to eat. But the van tossed and tilted
about so on the rough road that Tinkle was thrown against the side and
bruised.

“I guess I had better stay lying down,” he said. “But I am very
thirsty!”

It was hot, shut up inside the big wagon, and Tinkle thought longingly
of the trough of cool drinking water in the stable yard and wished he
were back there.

The men who had taken Tinkle away made the horses drawing the van hurry
along, so they were soon out of the city where the Farleys lived. They
drove along a country road and, just as night was coming on, they came
to another city where they had their stable, and where they kept the
van.

“Well, let’s see how the pony stood the trip,” said the red-haired man
as he opened the big end doors.

“He seems to be all right,” replied the other. He held up a lantern and
looked inside. Tinkle got up from his bed on the old bags. He saw the
open doors and he smelled hay and oats, though the smell was not as
good as that which came from his stable at home.

“Lift him out, and we’ll put him in one of the stalls,” said the
red-haired man.

But Tinkle did not wait to be lifted out. He knew how to jump, and,
giving a leap, he was quickly on the ground. Then, as he did not like
the place where he was, nor the men who had taken him from his nice
home, Tinkle tried to run away.

But the men were too quick for him. One of them caught him by the mane
and the other by the nose, pinching so that it hurt Tinkle.

“Look out! He’s a lively chap!” cried the short man. “He wants to get
away.”

“Yes. We must put a halter on him and tie him in the stall,” said the
other.

Tinkle again tried hard to get away, but could not. If he had been a
big, strong horse he might have broken loose from the men. But, as I
have said, he was not much bigger than a large Newfoundland dog. The
men easily held him and led him into the barn.

This stable was not at all like the nice place in which Tinkle had
lived when he was the pet of George. The straw on the floor was not
clean, and when Tinkle was given a pail of water, after he had been
tied in the stall, the water was not clean, either. Still Tinkle was so
thirsty that he drank it. Then he felt a little better. But oh! how he
did want his own, nice, clean box stall.

For now he found himself in an ordinary stall, such as the other horses
had. The manger was too high for him to eat from, but one of the men
brought a low box and put some hay in it.

“There! he can eat out of that I guess,” said the man. “We’ll likely
sell him in a couple of days if we can find some one to buy him. He
ought to bring in some money if he can do tricks.”

Poor Tinkle did not understand or pay much attention to this talk. He
was too hungry, and, though the hay was not so sweet as that he got
at home, still he munched it. Suddenly he heard a voice speaking in a
language he understood.

“Hello in there!” was called to him. “Are you a new horse?”

“I’m a pony,” was the answer Tinkle made. “Who are you, if you please?”

“Ha! You’re polite, anyhow, which is more than I can say of some of the
horses in this stable,” went on the voice. “Where did you come from,
anyhow?”

“I belong to a boy named George,” answered Tinkle. “To George and his
sister Mabel. I don’t know where I am, nor why I was brought here. I
didn’t want to come. I’d rather be back in my own home.”

“Oh, ho!” exclaimed the voice, and by the light of a lantern hanging in
the stable Tinkle could see that it was a horse in the next stall that
was speaking to him. “Oh, ho! If you stay here long you’ll find there
are lots of things you don’t want to do. I don’t want to pull a heavy
moving van about the streets all day, but I have to,” said the horse,
and he gave something like a groan.

“Do all the horses here do that?” asked Tinkle, who felt very sad.

“Most of us,” answered his new friend. “Some horses haul big wagons
loaded with hay and feed, and the men don’t give us any too much to
eat, either. Sometimes, when I’m drawing a load of hay, I’m so hungry I
could just eat nearly all that is piled on the wagon. You won’t like
it here a bit.”

“Oh, what’s the use of making trouble?” asked a horse in the stall on
the other side of Tinkle. “He’s here, and he’ll have to stay.”

“Yes, I guess he will,” agreed the first horse. “But I don’t see what
kind of work he can do. He isn’t big enough to be hitched up with any
of us, and, if he was, he couldn’t pull the smallest moving van the men
have.”

“I can pull a pony cart!” said Tinkle who did not like the other horses
to think he was of no use in the world.

“Ha! Pony cart!” exclaimed one horse whose hide was covered with mud.
“You’ll find no pony carts around _here_! _Dump_ carts, more likely.
I’ve been hauling dirt in dump carts all day long, until I’m so tired I
can hardly stand. And there’s a big sore on my back, too!”

“I’m sorry for that,” said Tinkle kindly. “If Patrick were here he’d
put something on it to make it better.”

“Who’s Patrick?” asked the dirt-cart horse. “Is he one of us?”

“Patrick is the coachman who taught me to do tricks for George, the
little boy,” answered Tinkle, and he felt rather proud as he said this.

“Tricks, is it?” laughed the horse who had first spoken. “You’ll have
no time for tricks here. You must belong in a circus. Tricks indeed!”

“I wish I could go to a circus!” said Tinkle eagerly. “I’ve heard about
Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. He is in the circus.”

“Well, eat your supper and be thankful for what you have,” said the
dump-cart horse. “I hope they don’t work me so hard to-morrow. If they
do I’ll try to run away, though that isn’t much use,” and the horse
kept on with his supper of hay.

Tinkle was very sad and lonesome. It was not at all nice in the stable
where he was tied. It was dirty, and did not smell good. The horses
around him, though kindly, were poor, hard-working animals, and were
not like the sleek Prince and other horses in Mr. Farley’s stable. The
men who owned the work horses seldom took the time to use the currycomb
or brush on them. If a horse fell down in the dirt, as they often did
from pulling too heavy loads, the dirt stayed on until it dried and
blew off.

For several days Tinkle was kept tied in the stable. The men could not
use him on any of their heavy wagons and there was no time for him to
do his tricks, and no pony cart for him to ride children about in. Poor
Tinkle felt very bad, and many, many times he wished himself back in
his old home.

As best he could, in his stall, Tinkle practiced the tricks he had
learned from George and Patrick. He bowed and he did a little jumping,
but not much, as his stall was too small. And one day, when Tinkle was
practicing his bowing trick, the red-haired man suddenly happened to
come into the stable.

“Oh, ho!” he cried. “I forgot about that pony doing tricks! We must try
to sell him and get the money. I wonder who would buy him?”

“I know,” said the other man, coming into the stable just then.

“Who would?” asked the red-haired man.

“The circus people,” was the answer. “The big circus which came to the
city to-day. I have been down on the circus lot just now with a load
of hay for the elephants. I saw some little ponies there, and I asked
one of the circus men if they ever bought extra ones. He said they did
sometimes, and he said they needed a new trick pony just now as one of
theirs is sick.”

“That may be just the chance we’re looking for!” cried the red-haired
man.

“Good,” said the other. “We’ll take this pony to the circus and sell
him.”

Through the city streets one of the men led Tinkle and before long the
pony heard music playing. He looked up and saw the big white tents and
the gay fluttering flags.

“Oh, this must be the circus Dido, the dancing bear, told me about,”
Tinkle said to himself. “I wonder if I shall meet Tum Tum, the jolly
elephant?”

“Here’s the trick pony my partner was telling you about,” announced the
red-haired man to a man who came out of a tent where many ponies and
horses were eating their dinners.

“Can he do any tricks?” asked the circus man.

“Well, I’ve seen him make bows and jump. I don’t know what else he can
do.”

“I’ll soon find out,” stated the circus man. “He looks like a good
pony. I’ll buy him of you.”

So after some talk, the money was paid over and then Tinkle belonged to
the circus.

“I wonder what will happen to me now,” thought Tinkle, and very many
strange things were to happen. I am going to tell you about them.




CHAPTER X

TINKLE AND TUM TUM


“Well, come along now, pony. I’ll see how many tricks you know and how
many I can teach you.”

It was the circus man who had bought Tinkle who was speaking, but
Tinkle was so taken up with looking about him, at the strange sights
all round that he did not at first listen.

“Come along!” called the man again, and then Tinkle heard a whistle.
This time he turned around quickly. For a moment he thought his dear
little master George had come for him, but he saw only the circus man,
and other strange men and animals all about.

“It must have been the man who whistled to me,” said Tinkle to himself.
“I guess, though, he wants me to come with him, as George used to want
me to go with him when he whistled. I’ll go.”

So Tinkle followed the man, which was just what the man wanted. He led
Tinkle along by the rope made fast to his halter.

“Well, you know something, to start with,” said the circus man,
smiling at Tinkle. The pony, of course, did not know what a smile
meant, but he did know that the man spoke in kind tones and not sharp
and cross as had the moving men, sometimes. Besides the circus man
talked _to_ the pony, and the other men had not.

So Tinkle knew by the voice that the man was kind, and he followed him
to a little tent where there were many other ponies. In a tent next
door were big horses, and they were all either eating hay or oats, or
lying down on the straw, for it was not yet time for the circus to
begin.

“Here is a new pony I have bought, Tom,” said the first man to one who
had charge of the ponies. “He can do a few tricks and I am going to
teach him more. Look after him, and clean him off. He doesn’t seem to
have been well taken care of.”

“That’s right, Mr. Drake; he doesn’t,” answered Tom. “I’ll take good
care of him, though.”

Poor Tinkle’s hairy coat was in a sad state. It was dirty and bits of
hay and straw clung to it. Also his mane and tail were tangled. Tinkle
had been kept very clean by Patrick and George, but the moving men
spent no time on the pony they had stolen.

“First to clean you up,” said Tom, talking to himself, but also, in a
way, speaking to Tinkle. “Then we’ll see about your tricks. Mr. Drake
is a good pony teacher.”

Though Tinkle could understand very little of this talk, yet, somehow,
he felt happier than he had in a long while――in fact since he had been
taken away from George.

With a brush, a currycomb, and a cloth Tom cleaned Tinkle’s hairy coat
until it began to shine and glisten almost as it had when he lived in
the nice Farley stable.

“That will do for a while,” said Tom. “Now I’ll get you something to
eat. Come along, pony,” and he whistled just as George used to do.
Tinkle liked to hear a clear, cheerful whistle.

Tinkle was tied in the tent with the other ponies. His stall was just a
place between two ropes, and his manger made of canvas, for the tent,
and everything in it, had to be moved from place to place as the circus
traveled, and wooden stalls, such as are in barns, would never do. In
the manger were some hay and oats. Tinkle began to eat hungrily. It was
almost as good as being home again.

“Well, where in the world did you come from?” asked a pony on Tinkle’s
left side.

“Yes, tell us about yourself,” added another on the right side. “You
are a stranger. I never saw you in the circus before.”

“I just came to-day,” said Tinkle, after he had swallowed some of the
hay and oats. “I never was with a circus before. Is it nice?”

“Oh, it’s lots of fun,” said the pony on the left, whose name was Tiny
Tim. “It’s jolly!”

“We have great times doing tricks,” said the pony on Tinkle’s right,
and his name was Prancer. “We do lots of tricks. Can you do any,
Tinkle?” for the new pony had told his name.

“I can make a bow, jump over a rope and walk on my hind legs.”

“Those are all good tricks,” said Tiny Tim, “but you will have to learn
many more if you are to stay with this circus.”

“I guess the man they call Mr. Drake will teach Tinkle tricks,”
remarked Prancer. “He taught me all I know. Why, would you believe,” he
went on, “when first I joined the circus I couldn’t do a single thing!”

“Can you do many tricks now?” asked Tinkle.

“I should say he could!” cried Tiny Tim, with a laughing whinny. “He is
the best trick pony in the circus!”

“Oh, not the _best_,” protested Prancer modestly. “I can do a _few_
tricks, it is true, but――”

“Now you let me tell!” interrupted Tiny Tim, laughing. “You can jump
over a barrel, stand up on a platform on your hind legs and turn
around, you can pick up different colored flags, count, add up numbers
on a blackboard and take letters from the post-office.

“Well, yes, I can do those things,” said Prancer.

“My! What a lot of tricks!” cried Tinkle. “I wonder if I shall ever be
able to do even half that many?”

“Of course you will,” said Prancer kindly. “You wait; Mr. Drake will
teach you as he taught me.”

All this while many things were going on about the circus grounds. The
big tents had been put up, the animal cages wheeled in, the clowns were
painting their faces in such funny ways to make the boys and girls
laugh, and the big, golden wagons were being made ready for the parade.
A band was playing, the pretty flags were blowing in the wind, and,
altogether, the circus was such a nice place that, for the first time
in a long while, Tinkle felt happy. But when he thought of George and
the nice home he had been taken from he felt sad.

“Still, this is much better than being kept in the dirty stable,”
thought the trick pony. “Maybe I’ll see George some day.”

Tom, the man who had cleaned and fed Tinkle, came running into the
ponies’ tent.

“Come on now!” he cried. “Lively everybody!”

All at once some other men began taking down, off pegs in the tent
poles, red blankets, strings of bells, gaily colored plumes and harness.

“What is going on?” asked Tinkle.

“Oh, they are going to dress us up, and hitch us to a little golden
wagon to go in the parade,” said Prancer.

“Do you think I am to go?” asked Tinkle.

“I think not this time,” answered Tiny Tim. “You see you don’t know
much about a circus yet, and you might be frightened by the big crowds
and the noise. Then, too, you wouldn’t know how to pull the golden
chariot in which a lady rides, dressed up like a fairy princess.”

“Oh, that must be fine!” cried Tinkle.

“It is. But you’ll be in it soon, so don’t worry,” put in Prancer.
“We’ll be back by noon.”

The men hitched up the ponies and led them out of the tent to where the
golden chariot stood.

“This new pony is a very pretty one,” said the man Tom to one of his
helpers. “When he is trained he’ll go in the parade too.”

Tinkle felt a little sad when his pony friends left him alone in the
big tent, but still he had plenty to eat and a clean place to stay, and
he knew they would come back soon. Tinkle saw a boy coming toward him
with a pail of water, and, for a moment, the pony thought the boy might
be George. But he was not.

“I wonder if I shall ever see George, Mabel and nice Patrick again?”
thought Tinkle. “I would just love to be in my nice home once more,
even though I like the circus.”

Suddenly Tinkle heard some one call:

“Look out! Here come the elephants!” and the ground seemed to rumble
and shake as it did when there was a heavy thunder storm.

“Elephants? Elephants?” said Tinkle to himself. “Where have I heard
that word before?” Then he remembered. “Oh, now I know,” he said.
“Dido, the dancing bear, told me about them.”

Tinkle looked from his tent. Near him, just outside, were ten big
elephants with gay silk blankets on their backs. And, as Tinkle looked,
he saw one funny elephant slyly reach out his trunk and pull the tail
of the elephant in front of him. Then the funny elephant looked the
other way and seemed to be hunting on the ground for a peanut.

[Illustration: As Tinkle looked he saw one funny elephant slyly reach
out his trunk and pull the tail of the elephant in front of him.]

All at once it flashed into Tinkle’s head.

“That must be Tum Tum the jolly elephant Dido was telling me about.
I’ll ask him.” So he called, in animal talk: “How do you do, Tum Tum?”

“Ha! What’s that? Some one must know me,” answered Tum Tum, for it was
he. “Oh,” he went on, “it’s a little pony. But, though I know most of
the ponies in this circus, I don’t know you,” and Tum Tum walked a
little closer to Tinkle’s tent.

“I heard about you from Dido, the dancing bear,” said Tinkle, as he
told his own name. “I never thought I should meet you in this circus,
though.”

“Why, how strange!” cried Tum Tum. “Fancy meeting Dido! You must tell
me all about him. He and I are very good friends. I was sorry when he
went away from the circus. Tell me about him when I come back. I have
to go in the parade now,” and Tum Tum, with a jolly laugh and a wink
of his eye at Tinkle, marched slowly off with a man seated on his big
head.




CHAPTER XI

TINKLE IS SAD


“Now, Tinkle, we can have a nice talk,” said Tum Tum, a little later,
when he came back from the parade. “Tell me about yourself, how you
came to join the circus and, most of all, I want to hear about my old
friend Dido.”

So Tinkle told all he could remember; telling first of the beautiful
green meadow in which he had once lived, and of George who had taught
him a few tricks, and of having been taken away by two men in the big
moving van.

Then Tinkle told of having met Dido, of what the dancing bear had said,
and of what he had told Tinkle about Tum Tum and Mappo, the merry
monkey.

“Is Mappo in this circus?” asked Tinkle, as he finished his little
story.

“Yes, and you’ll probably see him in a day or so,” answered Tum Tum.

That afternoon, when the performance was over, Mr. Drake, the man who
had bought Tinkle from the man who had stolen him, came to where the
pony was lying down in the tent and said:

“Now we’ll see what you know and how much I have to teach you. We will
begin with some easy tricks.”

Then began a busy time for Tinkle, not only that day but for a number
of days. When the circus was not traveling from one city to another or
when a performance was not being held in the tents, Mr. Drake taught
Tinkle tricks. Tinkle, the first time it occurred, did not know what
was going to happen when, instead of being allowed to go to sleep after
the show, he and the other ponies and animals were put in the big
railroad cars and the whole train was hauled away by an engine.

Tinkle did not know what was happening but the other ponies told him it
was all right, that he would not be hurt, that they were only going to
another city to give a show there and that this happened nearly every
day or night. Tinkle soon became used to travel, and rather liked it.

It would take too long to tell you how Tinkle was taught to do many
different tricks. It was not so easy as at first he had thought it
would be, and many times he could not understand what Mr. Drake wanted
him to do.

In time he learned how to go to a box, in which were a number of flags
or handkerchiefs, of different colors――red, white and blue.

“Bring me a blue flag,” Mr. Drake would say; and though at first Tinkle
could not tell one color from another, he soon learned to do so. And he
could tell, by hearing the word “blue,” that it was not the _red_ or
the _white_ flag the trainer wanted, but the other. So, though Tinkle
had no word in his own language for blue, he knew what that sound
meant, and for which flag it stood.

“Now, Tinkle, bring me the _red_ flag,” Mr. Drake would say, when the
blue one had been dropped at his feet from the pony’s teeth. And Tinkle
would pick out the right color. In time he could pick out of the box,
and bring to the trainer, any of the three colors, no matter which one
was asked for first. Tinkle hardly ever made a mistake.

“Well, now that you know red, white and blue,” said Mr. Drake one day,
“suppose we put all three together, and this is what we get, Tinkle,”
and he held up the beautiful United States flag, with its stripes of
red and white and the white stars on the blue field. “Now, Tinkle when
I ask you what flag you love best I want you to bring me from the box
this red, white and blue one,” said the trainer, shaking the flag in
front of the pony.

It was several days before Tinkle learned to do this trick, but, after
a while, he could go to the box, pick out the red, white and blue
flags, and then, at the last when the trainer asked the question about
loving the flag, Tinkle would trot over to him carrying in his teeth
the stars and stripes. Then Mr. Drake petted him and gave him two lumps
of sugar, for he had done the trick well.

Nor were these all the tricks Tinkle learned. Mr. Drake taught him
how to add and subtract simple numbers that the trainer wrote on a
blackboard with chalk. Tinkle could not _really_ add the numbers in his
head, but when the trainer wrote down say a 3 and a 4 and said: “Tell
me how much that is, Tinkle,” Tinkle would nod his head seven times.
He knew Mr. Drake wanted him to nod seven times by the way the trainer
spoke and by the words he used. If the sum were eight, on ten or some
other number, the trainer would ask the question in a different way. So
that Tinkle got to know numbers by listening to the different ways his
trainer spoke the words to him, and it really seemed as though the pony
could do sums in arithmetic.

Another trick Tinkle learned to do was to get letters from the
“post-office.” Mr. Drake had a box made with partitions in it so that
it looked like part of a post-office. Into the little squares, into
which the big box was divided, the trainer would put cards with the
names of different persons written on them――such as “John Jones,” or
“Peter Smith” or “Mary Black.”

Each card was always put in the same place, and Mr. Drake taught
Tinkle to trot up to the make-believe post-office. Then when asked:
“Is there a letter for John Jones,” the pony would take out the right
card. Tinkle learned to do this by listening to the different _sounds_
of Mr. Drake’s voice just as happened when the numbers were called. A
pony knows the different sounds of words, else how could he know enough
to stop when “whoa!” is called, or that he should go when told to
“gid-dap!”

“Well, now you know so many tricks, I think I’ll show you off before
the people in the big circus tent,” said Mr. Drake one day. And that
afternoon Tinkle was led out all alone. A new white bridle was put on
him, and around him was put a red strap, on top of which, in the middle
of the pony’s back, was fastened a gay, red, white and blue plume.

Tinkle had looked in, but had never been in the big circus tent before,
where all the people were seated, and where the band was playing jolly
tunes, with funnily painted clowns jumping here and there making the
boys and girls laugh. And at first Tinkle was a bit frightened. But he
looked over to where Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, was turning a hand
organ with his trunk, and Tum Tum called in his pleasant voice:

“Steady there, Tinkle. Don’t be afraid. You’ll do all right.”

Then Tinkle felt better, and Mr. Drake patted him and gave him a lump
of sugar before Tinkle had done even one trick.

“We’ll begin with the easy one――make a bow,” said the trainer.

Tinkle bowed his prettiest, and some boys and girls in the front row of
seats clapped their hands and laughed. This made Tinkle feel glad, and
he looked around, thinking he might see George or Mabel. But neither
was in the tent.

Then the pony went through all his tricks――he added and subtracted
numbers, he brought letters from the post-office and then he picked out
the differently colored flags or handkerchiefs that Mr. Drake called
for.

“Now, Tinkle,” said the trainer, after the pony had done some jumping,
“tell the people which flag you love the best.”

Tinkle trotted over to the box where a number of flags of different
countries had been put. The United States banner was at the bottom, but
Tinkle knew that. He nosed around among all the flags until he found
the one he knew he wanted, and with that in his teeth he trotted over
to Mr. Drake, while the band played “The Star Spangled Banner.”

My! I wish you could have heard the people clap then. And how the boys
and girls shouted with joy! They thought Tinkle was just the finest
pony they had ever seen. And Mr. Drake patted him and gave him an extra
large lump of sugar for behaving so nicely when he first did his tricks
in public.

“I told you he’d make a good trick pony,” said Mr. Drake, as Tom led
the little animal back to the tent.

“Yes, he’s a dandy!” replied the man. “I’ll give him a good feed of
oats for this.”

And when Tinkle was back in his stall Prancer and Tiny Tim talked to
him and told him how glad they were that he had done his tricks so
well. Tinkle felt happy, for a while.

As the days went on, and the circus traveled from place to place,
Tinkle gave many exhibitions of his smartness. He learned new tricks
and he could do the old ones much more easily the oftener he practiced
them, just as you can with your music lesson.

But though he liked it very much in the circus, Tinkle was sad. His
animal friends could tell that by looking at him, and the pony did not
eat as well as he had at first.

“Come now, Tinkle, tell me what the matter is,” came a voice behind him
one day, and, turning, the pony saw a funny monkey seated in the straw
on the ground.

“I am Mappo, the merry chap Tum Tum and Dido told you about,” went on
the monkey. “I haven’t had time to come to see you before. I’ve been
kept so busy in this circus.”

“Oh, yes, I remember Dido and Tum Tum speaking about you,” said Tinkle.
“Thank you for coming to see me.”

“Well, you don’t look very happy over it,” said Mappo. “Come, what is
the trouble? Why are you sad? Look at me, I’m merry enough for any
one,” and Mappo turned a somersault that made Tinkle laugh in his pony
way.

“Come! That’s better,” said Mappo. “Be jolly like Tum Tum. What is the
matter, anyhow?”

“Oh, I feel sad when I think of the nice home I was taken from,” said
Tinkle. “I miss George and Mabel, and I’d like to be with them again,
to let them ride on my back or pull them about in the pony cart. That
is why I am sad.”




CHAPTER XII

TINKLE IS HAPPY


Mappo, the merry monkey, picked up a long, clean straw and put it in
his mouth, almost as a man might do with a toothpick. Mappo sat chewing
on the straw and looking at Tinkle.

“Tell me about that nice home where you used to live, little pony,”
said Mappo. “Maybe it will make you feel better to talk about it.”

“I think it will,” sighed Tinkle. “Oh, I just _love_ to talk about
George and Mabel, they were so good and kind to me! And so was Patrick,
the coachman.”

So Tinkle told Mappo the story of his home and of his having been taken
away in the moving van.

“Those were queer adventures,” said Mappo. “Almost as queer as those I
had.”

“Did you have adventures, too?” asked Tinkle.

“Indeed I did,” answered the merry monkey, and he told his story of
having once lived in the jungle-forest and of how he had been caught
and put in the circus.

“I had so many adventures,” said Mappo, “that a man put them in a book,
as he did those of Tum Tum, Dido and some other animals. Maybe you’ll
be put in a book, too, Tinkle.”

“Oh, nothing like that will ever happen to _me_!” said the trick pony.
But that only goes to show we never can tell what is going to happen
in this world, doesn’t it? For Tinkle _is_ in this very book you are
reading. And how surprised he was when he heard about it and saw his
pictures!

But now we will leave him talking to Mappo, if you please, and go back
to where George and Mabel live. You will remember that Patrick, the
coachman, had gone to the store for salve for one of the horses, and
that George and Mabel, with their father and mother, were visiting in
the country.

When Patrick came back with the salve the first thing he noticed was
that Tinkle was not in his stall.

Patrick searched all around for Tinkle, but, of course, could not find
him. He asked the people living in neighboring houses, but none of them
had seen Tinkle go away, because the men shut him up inside the moving
van, you see. Some persons had seen the big wagon near the stable but
none had seen Tinkle put into it.

Patrick even got a policeman and a fireman, whom he knew, to look for
Tinkle, but they could not find him. And when, a day or so later, Mr.
and Mrs. Farley came back from the country, with George and Mabel, the
two children cried when told that Tinkle was gone.

“I think I must cheer them up a bit,” said Mr. Farley to his wife one
afternoon. “They are thinking too much about Tinkle. I must take their
minds off him.”

“How will you do it?” asked Mrs. Farley.

“A circus is coming to town to-morrow,” said her husband. “I’ll take
the children to see that, and when they watch the funny monkeys, the
queer clowns and the big elephants they will forget about Tinkle.”

So, when the big show with the white tents came to the city where the
Farleys lived, George and Mabel were taken with their father to see the
wonderful sight.

“Do you think there’ll be any ponies in the circus?” asked George.

“Why, yes, maybe,” answered Mr. Farley. “Why?”

“I’m not going to look at them,” said Mabel.

“Nor I,” added George. “They’d make me think too much of our Tinkle.”

On the way to the circus with their father, Mabel and George passed
through a part of the city where there were not many houses, and in
what few homes there were poor people lived.

Many of them owned goats, some for the milk they gave, for the milk of
goats is almost as good as that of cows.

“Oh, see that big goat!” cried George as they passed a small house,
on the rocks behind which a goat was jumping about. “Look how easy he
jumps!”

“You may well say that!” exclaimed a pleasant-faced Irish woman at the
front gate. “Sure, Lightfoot is the most illigint goat that ever was.”

“Is Lightfoot his name?” asked Mr. Farley.

“Sure an’ it is, for it fits him well. He’s that light on his feet
you’d never know he was jumpin’ at all. Ah, he’s a fine goat.”

“I had a fine pony once,” said George, “but somebody took him away.”

“That’s too bad,” said the Irish woman, whose name was Mrs. Malony.
“Sure but I’d like to see any one, not a friend, try to take Lightfoot
away. He’d butt ’em with his horns.”

“Isn’t it too bad Tinkle didn’t have horns?” sighed Mabel, as she
walked on.

“A pony with horns would be a funny one,” said her brother.

I wish I had time to tell you all that George and Mabel did at the
circus and the many things they saw, from Tum Tum the jolly elephant to
Mappo the merry monkey. They laughed at the clowns, ate popcorn and
peanuts, giving some to the elephants, feeding a whole bag of peanuts
to Tum Tum, though they did not know his name. But they were sure he
was nice because he looked at them in such a funny, jolly way.

“Oh, look at the ponies!” cried Mabel, as the little horses trotted
into the middle ring. There was Prancer and Tiny Tim, as well as
others, and they were going to do their tricks.

“They are nice ponies,” said George, glancing at them, even though he
and Mabel had said they would not look. “But not one of them is as nice
as Tinkle.”

The ponies went through their tricks, doing their very best, and then,
when the time came, Tinkle himself was led in to do his tricks alone,
as of late he always did. Mabel and George were looking the other way
just then, watching a man turn a somersault over the backs of Tum Tum
and some other elephants, and at first they did not see Tinkle. But as
George turned in time to watch the trick pony take the United States
flag out of the box, and bring it to Mr. Drake the little boy cried:

“Oh, Mabel! See that pony!”

“Which one?” asked the little girl.

“There,” and George pointed. “Doesn’t he look just like Tinkle? He has
four white feet and a white star on his head. Mabel, see, isn’t he
just like our pony? Why――why!” cried George, standing up in his seat,
and very much excited, “it _is_ Tinkle! Oh, Mabel, it _is_ Tinkle!”

“I――I believe it is,” said the little girl slowly.

Persons sitting near the children looked at them, and then at the pony.
Mr. Farley, too, was staring at the little trick horse.

“I wonder if it could be Tinkle?” he asked himself.

George was sure he was right――so sure that he jumped from his seat and
rushed into the ring where the pony had just finished his tricks.

“Tinkle! Tinkle!” said George. “It _is_ you, isn’t it? And you know me,
don’t you?”

Tinkle knew his little master at once though it was several months
since he had seen him. The pony trotted across the ring, and while the
trainer, the circus folk, and the people in their seats looked on in
wonder, George threw his arms around the pony’s neck.

Tinkle whinnied. That was the only way he could talk our language, but
it meant he was glad to see George again――very glad indeed.

“Oh, Tinkle, Tinkle!” cried the happy little boy. “I’ve found you
again! I’ve found our Tinkle!”

[Illustration: George threw his arms around the pony’s neck.]

“What does this mean?” asked Mr. Drake. “Do you say this is your pony?
I bought him for the circus.”

“Yes, Tinkle is my pony,” cried George. “Mine and Mabel’s. I taught him
some tricks, too. Make a bow, Tinkle.” And Tinkle did.

“Well, this is very strange,” said the trainer. “He minds you and does
tricks for you. But I bought him of a man, and――”

“Perhaps I can explain,” said Mr. Farley, coming into the ring with
Mabel, who not only put her arms around Tinkle’s neck but kissed him on
his white star. And Tinkle rubbed his soft nose against her soft cheek.
“This looks very much like my little boy’s pony, that was stolen from
our stable some time ago,” went on Mr. Farley, and he told of having
bought Tinkle at the stock farm.

“Well, I guess you’re right, and it is your little boy’s pet,” said the
circus man, after Tinkle’s story had been told by Mr. Farley. “I didn’t
like the looks of the man from whom I bought the pony, but I never
thought he had stolen Tinkle.”

There was no doubt that Tinkle belonged to George. You could tell that
by watching how glad the pony was to see his master again. The people
in the audience thought it was all part of the circus, and laughed as
Tinkle followed George about the ring.

The circus man was sorry to lose Tinkle but, as he said he had no right
to him, he agreed to let George and Mabel have the pony back.

“And may we take him now?” asked George eagerly.

“Yes, I guess so,” said Mr. Drake. “There is an old pony cart in one of
the tents. You can drive Tinkle home in that and send the cart back by
your coachman. But you may keep Tinkle.”

“And we’ll never let him go away again,” said George.

“Never!” cried his sister. “We’ll keep him forever.”

A man took Tinkle away to harness him to the pony cart. Tinkle had a
chance to say good-by to Mappo and Tum Tum.

“So you are going back to your old home,” observed the monkey. “I am
glad, for you never would have been happy here in the circus, though it
just suits me.”

“And me, also,” added Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “If you see Dido,
the dancing bear,” he went on, “tell him to hurry back. We are lonesome
without him.”

“I will!” cried Tinkle, who was so excited he could hardly wait to be
harnessed. He was very eager to be with George and Mabel again.

The circus men patted the pony, for they liked him. Tinkle called
good-by to Tum Tum, Mappo and all his animal friends, and then, the
pony cart being ready, he trotted home with Mr. Farley, George and
Mabel.

“There is that funny goat, Lightfoot, again,” said George as they
passed the home of Mrs. Malony.

“Yes,” said Mabel. “I like him. I wonder if we will ever see him again?”

And they did, several times; and you may read about it in the book to
come after this, which will be called: “Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat:
His Many Adventures.”

You may well imagine how surprised Mrs. Farley and Patrick were to see
the children come driving home with the long-lost Tinkle.

“We found him in the circus!” cried George.

“And he can do ever so many more tricks,” said Mabel, laughing.

“You ought to see him find the flag!” added her brother, and they began
to make Tinkle do some of his new circus tricks. So while the children
are doing that, and telling their mother how they found Tinkle again,
this will be a good chance for us to say good-by to the trick pony.


                                THE END




GOOD STORIES FOR CHILDREN

(From four to nine years old)

THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

By RICHARD BARNUM


[Illustration]

In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and
the reason is obvious, for nothing entertains a child more than the
antics of an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as
children adore, and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to
a child’s imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met
all of their favorites――Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, and the rest.

   1 Squinty, the Comical Pig.
   2 Slicko, the Jumping Squirrel.
   3 Mappo, the Merry Monkey.
   4 Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant.
   5 Don, a Runaway Dog.
   6 Dido, the Dancing Bear.
   7 Blackie, a Lost Cat.
   8 Flop Ear, the Funny Rabbit.
   9 Tinkle, the Trick Pony.
  10 Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat.
  11 Chunky, the Happy Hippo.
  12 Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox.
  13 Nero, the Circus Lion.
  14 Tamba, the Tame Tiger.
  15 Toto, the Rustling Beaver.
  16 Shaggo, the Mighty Buffalo.
  17 Winkie, the Wily Woodchuck.

_Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated._


 BARSE & HOPKINS
 Publishers
 Newark, N. J.      New York, N. Y.


       *       *       *       *       *


 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently
   corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

 ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.





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