CHAPTER VIII.WHAT MOPSIE DID.
It was a proud day for Cricket when the saddle was first put on the back of her very own pony, and Mike mounted her. Not that she needed to be mounted, as a rule, for she was quite equal to grasping the shaggy mane, and scrambling up into the saddle herself, but this was such an important occasion that ordinary methods would not do.
Mike was quite as proud as Cricket was, of the black pony. To think that but for his kindness and devoted care poor little Mopsie’s bones would now be whitening in some field! And not only that, but to think his favourite Miss “Scricket” now had a pony of her own, all owing to him. He had polished up Mopsie to the last degree, and now that the pony had its pretty little saddle on, just like Charcoal’s, the two did not make a bad pair.
All the younger fry gathered to watch this first mounting. Dr. Ward was there, also, forhe did not know whether Mopsie had ever carried a little girl before, and he wanted to make sure that everything was right. The children cantered up and down the avenue to the gates and back, and even Charcoal seemed to think that two ponies were much more fun than one. Mopsie was a bit stiff at first, but he soon grew more limber, and at last papa said that they might ride down the road, outside the gates.
“Hurrah! get up, Mopsie!” cried Cricket, bringing the whip lightly down on Mopsie’s black flank, and tightening the rein a little. To her great surprise Mopsie began to rise on his hind legs, till his front feet waved in the air, and then he gravely stalked away on the two legs, with Cricket wildly clutching his mane.
“Get down, Mopsie,” she shrieked. “Why, I’m falling off. Get down this minute.”
Papa and Mike both ran to the rescue, but knowing little Mopsie seemed to feel that, after all, this was not what was expected of him, so he slowly lowered his front feet, and stood quietly waiting for further orders.
Mike was full of apologies for his pet.
“It’s the way ye drew the line, Miss Scricket,” he said, anxiously. “It’s only wanof thim cirkis-tricks. See! he don’t mane no harm, at all, at all.”
“Oh, it’s lots of fun,” cried Cricket, excitedly, when she discovered that Mopsie evidently thought he was only doing his duty. “I wish I could make him do it again.” But just what pull of the rein was necessary to tell him to rear she could not find out, though she jerked the patient pony’s head this way and that.
“But I’m afraid to have you go out of the yard, my little girl,” said papa, “for Mopsie might rear like that any time and throw you.”
“Oh, no, papa, really,” pleaded Cricket, “for he goes up so slowly, that now that I know what’s coming, I’m not a bit afraid, and he comes right straight down.”
However, papa would not consent to Cricket’s making a circus-rider of herself till she understood Mopsie a little better, so there were two or three weeks of riding within the grounds. At last there came a day when papa said that he thought Mopsie was now enough accustomed to a little girl’s riding him to go straight along the road.
It was the day after Fourth of July when thechildren took their first ride out into the country. Dr. Ward, mounted on his big gray horse, went with them for some distance, and then gave them permission to ride along the lake-road and so home, while he rode further on, on some business.
It was lovely riding along by the lake-road, where it was all cool and shady, on that hot morning. The edge of the road sloped rather steeply to the lake, but most of the way there was an old fence along there. In some places it was broken down. Now and then a fire-cracker in the distance made both ponies jump a little. Charcoal, especially, was very nervous about fire-crackers, for once some one had fired off a whole package right under his nose, and he had been dreadfully frightened.
Presently the little girls came to a place where some lovely, rare flowers were growing by the lake side, and Cricket jumped off her pony to get them. It was one of the places where the fence was broken down, so she slipped down the bank to pick the flowers, leaving Mopsie cropping a tuft of grass above.
As she did so, three small boys, who were in hiding in the bushes, suddenly jumped up andfired off a whole pack of crackers, flash! bang! right under Charcoal’s sensitive nose.
There was a scream from Eunice, Charcoal jumped sideways, and in a moment Charcoal, Mopsie and Eunice rolled down the steep bank, and were struggling in the water, while Cricket stood horrified on the bank. The water was very deep there, even close to the shore, and the force of the fall carried all three some distance out. Cricket and the very frightened small boys set up shriek after shriek, but the road was very lonely, and no houses were near. No one was in sight to render aid.
Charcoal was nearest the shore, and swam to the bank; he scrambled up like a dog, and stood shivering on the brink, much too frightened to do anything but stand still.
Here, in this strait, Mopsie’s circus-training came to the front. As he and Eunice both rose to the surface, she struggling and screaming, the knowing little pony caught her dress in his teeth, and began to swim slowly towards the shore with his burden. Fortunate, now, that he had learned to carry heavy things in his teeth like a dog. It was only a short distance he had to swim, and in a few minuteshe was near enough for Cricket, steadying herself by an overhanging branch, to reach forward and help draw Eunice in. Mopsie scrambled up as Charcoal had done, and stood quietly shaking himself, like a big Newfoundland dog.
For a few minutes the children could do nothing but hug each other and cry. Then Cricket exclaimed, “Oh, you dear, darling old Mopsie! you saved my Eunice’s life,” and hugged her brave little pony tightly around its wet neck. Then Eunice put her dripping arms around it, too.
“You dearest Mopsie,” she half-sobbed, “I’m so glad you were a circus-pony, for just a plain horse mightn’t have been able to hold my dress so, and I’m going to love you just as much as I do Charcoal.”
Two very funny-looking children rode into the yard a little later. Great was the excitement when the story was told, and Mopsie had enough petting and praise and sugar to turn an ordinary horse’s head. Doctor Ward said that, without doubt, Eunice would have drowned but for Mopsie’s training to catch and hold things in his teeth, and besides that, he saidthat the little fellow’s circus life had probably done for him what education does for people generally—made him readier and quicker.
After that Cricket had the best of it when anybody teased her about riding a circus-pony, for she would exclaim, “I don’t care if he was. He saved Eunice’s life, for papa said so. And a plain horse wouldn’t have known how.”
And Eunice would add: “We love him all the better for it, because he had to learn how to be an every-day pony, and he’s learned it so well.”