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!