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.”