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.