XEBENEZER'S RECORD
The old horse Ebenezer had beaten Twinkleheels in the race to the bars. While Johnnie Green slipped their halters on them, and they munched the oats that he gave them, neither of them spoke. Johnnie mounted Ebenezer bareback; and leading Twinkleheels, he turned down the lane.
"You're not as slow as I thought you were," Twinkleheels said to Ebenezer as they drew near the barn. "And somehow I couldn't seem to get to running smoothly. I'd like to race you again. I think I could beat you next time."
"Perhaps you could," said Ebenezer. "I don't often run nowadays. But I did running enough when I was younger. I used to race at the county fair, every fall."
"Did you ever win a race at the fair?" Twinkleheels inquired.
"Yes!" Ebenezer answered. "Yes! I can remember winning a race now and then."
"He never lost a race in his whole life!" cried the Muley Cow, who was walking just ahead of them. Ebenezer used to be known as the fastest horse in these parts. He had a record."
Twinkleheels gasped. "A record!" he exclaimed. "What's that?"
"I don't know, exactly," said the Muley Cow. "I never saw Ebenezer's. But it must have been a fine one, for Farmer Green was always talking about it."
"A horse's record," Ebenezer explained, "is the fastest time he ever makes in a race." Then he added, to Twinkleheels: "You and I will have another race the next time we're in the pasture together."
Twinkleheels gave him an odd look. Somehow Ebenezer did not seem just a poky old farm horse, as Twinkleheels had always regarded him. For the first time Twinkleheels noticed that Ebenezer had many good points. There wasn't a single bunch on his legs. And his muscles showed plainly as they rippled on his lean frame beneath a coat that was both short and fine.
"I don't believe I could beat you if we raced a hundred times," Twinkleheels blurted.
"Of course you couldn't!" the Muley Cow interrupted again.
"Oh, you might," Ebenezer said. "There'd be no harm in trying, anyhow. Racing with me would be good practice for you, even if I did win. If you're going to have a race, don't look for an easy one! Choose a hard one. That's the kind that will make you do your best."
Twinkleheels thanked him.
"It's very kind of Ebenezer to race with you," the Muley Cow bellowed. "You ought to feel honored."
"I do," said Twinkleheels. "But please don't talk so loud! I don't want everybody on the farm laughing at me because I lost a race."
The Muley Cow went into the barn grumbling.
"That pony is a young upstart," she muttered. "The idea of his telling me not to talk so loud! Ebenezer is altogether too pleasant to him."
Old Ebenezer continued to be agreeable to Twinkleheels. They often raced in the pasture, later. And though Twinkleheels never won once, he enjoyed the sport.
And he never called Ebenezer "poky" again.
XIBRIGHT AND BROAD
Farmer Green had a yoke of oxen called Bright and Broad. They were huge, slow-moving fellows, as different from Johnnie Green's pony, Twinkleheels, as any pair could be. They never frisked about in the pasture. They never ran, nor jumped, nor kicked. They seldom even trotted. And when they did move faster than a walk they lurched into a queer, shambling swing.
The first time Twinkleheels saw them travelling at that gait he couldn't help giggling.
"They look as if their legs were goingto knock down all the fence posts on the farm," he exclaimed.
Despite their clumsiness, Bright and Broad did many a day's hard work in an honest fashion for Farmer Green. Of course he never drove them to the village when he was in a hurry. But whenever there was a heavy load to pull he depended on Bright and Broad to help him. If the pair of bays couldn't haul a wagon out of a mud hole Farmer Green would call on Bright and Broad. And when they lunged forward the wagon just had to move—or something broke.
Though Twinkleheels admired their strength, he didn't care much for Bright and Broad's company. They were too sober to suit him. They were more than likely to stand and chew their cuds and look out upon the world with vacant stares and say nothing.
"I used to think Ebenezer was a slow old horse," Twinkleheels remarked to the bays on a winter's day as they stood in the barn. "I thought I could beat him easily until he showed me that I was mistaken. But I can certainly beat Bright and Broad. They're the slowest pair I ever saw."
The bays glanced at each other.
"You can't always tell by a person's looks what he can do," one of them remarked. "Let Bright and Broad choose the race course and they'd leave you behind."
"Nonsense!" Twinkleheels cried. "They couldn't beat anybody unless it's Timothy Turtle, who lives over in Black Creek."
The bays winked at each other over the low partition that separated their stalls.
"Maybe you'll find out that you'rewrong," they told Twinkleheels. "Maybe you'll learn that Bright and Broad are faster than you think they are. We've known Farmer Green to take them and leave us here in the barn—when he was in a hurry to go somewhere, too."
"Ha! ha!" Twinkleheels laughed. "You're joking. You're trying to fool me."
"Oh, no!" the bays cried. "Ask Bright and Broad themselves."
So Twinkleheels spoke to Bright and Broad the very next day, when he met them in the barnyard. While he told them what the bays had said to him they chewed their cuds and listened with a dreamy look in their great, mild eyes.
Twinkleheels paused and waited for them to speak. But they said nothing. Their jaws moved steadily as they chewed; but they said never a word.
"Can't you answer when you're spoken to?" Twinkleheels cried at last.
"Yes!" they said, speaking as one—for they always did everything together. "Yes! But you haven't asked us a question."
"Is this true—what the bays told me about you?" he snapped.
"We can't deny it," they chanted.
Twinkleheels was never more surprised.
XIINO SCHOOL TO-DAY
And that night it snowed. In the morning, when Johnnie Green crawled from his bed and looked out of the window he could scarcely see the barn. A driving white veil flickered across the farmyard. The wind howled. The blinds rattled. Even the whole house shook now and then as a mighty blast rocked it.
It was just the sort of weather to suit Johnnie Green.
"There won't be any school to-day!" he cried. And he hurried into his clothes much faster than he usually did.
Twinkleheels Talks to the Oxen. (_Page 54_)Twinkleheels Talks to the Oxen. (Page 54)
Though Johnnie Green was eager to get out of doors, most of those that lived in the barn were quite content to stay there during such a storm. The old horse Ebenezer especially looked pleased.
"This will be a fine day to doze," he remarked to the pony, Twinkleheels. "Farmer Green won't make me do any work in this weather. The roads must be blocked with drifts already."
Twinkleheels moved restlessly in his stall.
"I don't want to stand here with nothing to do," he grumbled. "If I could sleep in the daytime, as you do, perhaps I wouldn't mind. And if I were like the Muley Cow maybe I could pass the hours away by chewing a cud. Bright and Broad can do that, too," said Twinkleheels.
"Oh! Farmer Green will have the oxen out as soon as the storm slackens,"old Ebenezer told him. "And no doubt you'll get outside as soon as they do, for Johnnie Green will want you to play with him in the snow or I don't know anything about boys."
"Good!" Twinkleheels exclaimed. "I hope he'll take me out. It would be great fun to toss him into a snowdrift.... But I don't see what Farmer Green wants of Bright and Broad on a day like this. They'll be slower than ever if the roads are choked with snow."
The old horse Ebenezer smiled to himself as he shut his eyes for another cat nap before breakfast. He thought that Twinkleheels would learn a thing or two, a little later.
Johnnie Green was the first one to plough his way out to the barn that morning. He burst into the barn and stamped the snow off his feet. And Twinkleheelsstamped, too, because he wanted something to eat.
Johnnie fed Twinkleheels and Ebenezer and the bays. He was shaking some hay; in front of the Muley Cow (who belonged to him) when his father arrived.
"The worst storm of the winter!" Farmer Green observed. "We'll have work enough after this, breaking the roads out."
"I'll help," Johnnie said. "I'll take Twinkleheels and work hard."
"I suppose," said his father, "we ought to get the road to the schoolhouse cleared first."
"Oh, no!" cried Johnnie. "Let's leave that till the last."
"If we left it for you and Twinkleheels to clear, you wouldn't get back to school before spring," Farmer Green declared.
Twinkleheels had been listening eagerly to all this.
"Now, I wonder what Farmer Green means by that," he muttered. "I hope he doesn't think I can't get through the drifts as well as anybody. I can certainly make my way through the snow better than those clumsy old oxen, Bright and Broad."
XIIIFUN AND GRUMBLES
It stopped snowing at last and the weather turned clear and crisp. The sun came out. And so did Johnnie Green, riding on Twinkleheels. He did not get far from the barn, however. Where the snow wasn't piled in drifts high above Twinkleheels' head it reached up on his fat sides. He floundered about the farmyard for a time. And, falling once, he dumped Johnnie Green neatly into a drift, head first.
The spill didn't hurt Johnnie in the least. But snow went up the inside of his sleeves, and down his neck, and into his eyes and ears and even his mouth.
He jumped up spluttering. And Twinkleheels jumped at the same time. He tried to run. But he could make little headway in the snow, and Johnnie caught his bridle rein and stopped him.
"You'd better put that pony back in the barn," Farmer Green called from the woodshed door. "After I yoke up Bright and Broad and break out the drive to the road you can ride Twinkleheels again. He might cut himself in this heavy going."
Twinkleheels sniffed as he heard what Farmer Green said.
"This is all nonsense," he grumbled to the old horse Ebenezer as Johnnie led him into his stall. "Farmer Green doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a hundred times sprier than Bright. And I'm a hundred times sprier than Broad. That makes me two hundred times sprierthan both of them. It's silly to put me in my stall and take them out. They won't be able to move. They'll get stuck fast in a drift, and goodness knows how we'll ever haul them out."
"I shouldn't worry about the oxen if I were you," Ebenezer replied. "It seems to me Bright and Broad are old enough and big enough to look out for themselves."
"That's just the trouble!" cried Twinkleheels. "They're too old and they're too big. They're terribly heavy. If they were stuck in a drift I don't believe you and the bays could pull them out—not even if I helped you."
Ebenezer sighed deeply.
"I'm going to sleep now," he told Twinkleheels.
Soon Twinkleheels could hear Farmer Green shouting "Gee!" and "Haw!"
"There!" Twinkleheels called to the two bays. "There's Farmer Green talking to Bright and Broad. I hope they're not helpless already."
The bays snickered.
"Don't laugh!" Twinkleheels begged them. "It's not funny. It would be awful for them to spend the rest of the winter in a snow bank."
"We weren't laughing at Bright and Broad," the bays explained.
Twinkleheels tried to look at them; but old Ebenezer's bony back was in the way.
"I don't know what amuses you, then," he snapped.
"Maybe you'll find out later," the bays told him.
And he did. When Johnnie Green next led him out of the barn Twinkleheels discovered that a broad path had been openedfrom the barn to the highway. And a little distance up the road Farmer Green and Bright and Broad were battling with the drifts.
XIVSTUCK IN A DRIFT
Outside the barn, in the snow-covered farmyard, Johnnie Green mounted Twinkleheels and rode him beyond the gate, where he could watch the fun up the road.
Yoked to a sort of plough, Bright and Broad, the oxen, tore through the piled-up snow and threw it to either side in great ridges.
"I'm going ahead to the crossroads," Johnnie Green told his father.
That plan pleased Twinkleheels. Before Farmer Green could speak he plunged out of the broken road and wallowedin snow up to his neck. He was going to show Bright and Broad that he could get to the crossroads before they did.
"Don't do that!" Farmer Green shouted to Johnnie.
He was too late. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Twinkleheels was reaching desperately for a footing. His toes found nothing firm beneath them—nothing but yielding snow. And his frantic struggles only made him sink the deeper.
Johnnie Green slid off Twinkleheels' back and tried to help him.
He could do nothing. And he turned a somewhat frightened face to his father.
"We're stuck!" he faltered. "I can get out; but Twinkleheels can't. Do you suppose Bright and Broad could pull him out?"
"They could yank twenty of him back on the road," Farmer Green declared. "But we don't need them. I'll dig the pony out."
Seizing a shovel, Johnnie's father slowly dug his way to Twinkleheels, who had stopped struggling and was waiting glumly for help. In a few minutes more he had scrambled out of the ditch and gained the road again, through the path that Farmer Green made for him.
"Now," said Farmer Green, "don't leave the broken road. This pony's too small to handle himself in these drifts. I wouldn't try to put even a full-sized horse through them. It takes oxen in such going. They're slow; but they're strong and sure-footed, too. And they can go where horses couldn't do anything but flounder and probably cut themselves with their own feet. That's why we alwaysuse Bright and Broad to gather sap in the sugar-bush."
"I'll put Twinkleheels in the barn again," said Johnnie. "Then I'll come back on foot and help you."
So he rode Twinkleheels back and hitched him in his stall once more.
Old Ebenezer woke up as Twinkleheels pattered over the barn floor.
"What!" cried the old horse. "Back again so soon? Did you race with Bright and Broad?"
"The snow's too deep for a good race," Twinkleheels told him.
"Bright and Broad don't mind the snow much, do they?" Ebenezer asked.
"Oh, no!" Twinkleheels answered. "They're getting on slowly, up the road. They take their time, of course."
"Couldn't they beat you to the crossroads if you raced with them to-day?"
"Well—yes!" Twinkleheels admitted. And he gave Ebenezer a sharp look. "Who's been talking with you?" he demanded.
"Nobody!" said Ebenezer. "I've been dozing here all the morning."
"Not even a sparrow?" Twinkleheels asked.
"No! Nobody has said a word to me."
"That's strange," Twinkleheels mused. "I was almost sure a little bird had told you something."
XVSTEPPING HIGH
Twinkleheels was feeling quite important. Something that Farmer Green had said to Johnnie in his hearing made him hold his head higher than he usually did—and step higher, too.
"You seem very proud to-day," the old horse Ebenezer said to him. "When Johnnie Green led you back from the watering trough I noticed that you were strutting in quite a lordly fashion. You made me think of Turkey Proudfoot."
"Ah!" Twinkleheels exclaimed. "I've just heard some news. I'm going to the blacksmith's to-day to be shod. Youknow I've never worn any shoes. And I've always wanted some."
Old Ebenezer smiled down at Twinkleheels.
"Well, well!" he said. "I don't blame you for feeling a bit proud. I remember the day I got my first set of shoes. You see, I was young once myself."
The old horse seemed to feel like talking. Twinkleheels was glad of that, for he felt that hemustchatter about the new shoes he was going to have—or burst.
"Of course," said Twinkleheels, "most folks are shod before they're as old as I am. But I've spent a good deal of my time in the pasture and I don't often travel over hard roads.... How old were you when you first visited the blacksmith's shop?"
Ebenezer shut his eyes for a moment or two. And Twinkleheels feared he wasgoing to sleep. But he was only thinking hard.
"I must have been about two months old," Ebenezer declared.
"Goodness!" cried Twinkleheels. "I didn't suppose colts of that age ever wore shoes."
"They don't," Ebenezer replied. "You didn't ask me when I had my first shoes. You asked me when I first visited a smithy. At the age of two months I jogged alongside my mother when she went to be shod. I must have been about three years old when the blacksmith nailed my first shoes to my feet."
Twinkleheels gave Ebenezer an uneasy glance.
"Does it hurt," he asked, "when they drive the nails into your hoofs?"
"Oh, no!" Ebenezer assured him. "To be sure, a careless blacksmith could prickyou. But Farmer Green always takes us to the best one he can find."
"To tell the truth," Twinkleheels confessed, "I'm a bit timid about going to the smithy. I don't know what to do when I get there. I don't know which foot to hold up first."
"Don't worry about that!" said old Ebenezer. "They'll tell you everything. Just pay attention and obey orders and you won't have any trouble."
Twinkleheels thanked Ebenezer.
"It's pleasant," he said, "to have a kind, wise horse like you in the next stall. There are some matters that I shouldn't care to mention to the bays. They're almost sure to laugh at me if I ask them a question."
The old horse Ebenezer nodded his head.
"They're young and somewhat flighty,"he admitted. "You know, they even ran away last summer. You'll be better off! if you don't seek their advice about things."
"I wish you were going to the blacksmith's shop with me," Twinkleheels told Ebenezer wistfully. "Somehow I'd feel better about being shod if you were there."
"I shouldn't be surprised if I went along with you," Ebenezer told him. "I cast a shoe yesterday. And the three that I have left are well worn."
And sure enough! Inside a half hour Farmer Green harnessed Ebenezer to an open buggy. Johnnie Green brought Twinkleheels out of the barn by his halter, led him up behind the buggy, and jumped in and sat beside his father.
Then they started off.
"We're going to the village to get somenew shoes," Twinkleheels called to old dog Spot. "Why don't you come, too?"
"I would," Spot barked, "but I always follow right behind the buggy; and you've gone and taken my place."
XVITHE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP
Twinkleheels trotted proudly behind the buggy in which the old horse Ebenezer was pulling Johnnie Green and his father towards the village. Once Twinkleheels would have chafed at having to suit his pace to Ebenezer's. He would have thought Ebenezer's gait too slow. But ever since Ebenezer won a race with him in the pasture Twinkleheels had thought more highly of his elderly friend. He knew that if Ebenezer chose to take his time it wasn't because he couldn't have hurried had he cared to.
They reached the blacksmith shop atlast, where Ebenezer and Twinkleheels were to get new shoes. Having been there many a time before, Ebenezer was quite calm. Twinkleheels, however, was somewhat uneasy. He had never visited a smithy. And he looked with wide, staring eyes at the low, dingy building. On the threshold he drew back, as he sniffed odors that were strange to him.
Johnnie Green spoke to him and urged him forward.
"I'll wait for Ebenezer," Twinkleheels decided. And he wouldn't budge until Farmer Green led the old horse into the smithy. Then Twinkleheels followed.
"Goodness!" he cried to Ebenezer a moment later. "This place is afire. Let's get outside at once!" He had caught sight of a sort of flaming table against one of the walls.
"Don't be alarmed!" Ebenezer said."That's only the forge. That's where the blacksmith heats the shoes red hot, so he can pound them into the proper shape to fit the feet."
Twinkleheels had trembled with fear. And now he had scarcely recovered from his fright when a terrible clanging clatter startled him. He snorted and pulled back. He would have run out of the smithy had not Johnnie Green tied his halter rope to a ring in the wall.
"Don't do that!" the old horse Ebenezer called to him. "There's no danger. That noise is nothing to be afraid of. It's only the smith pounding a horseshoe on his anvil."
Twinkleheels looked relieved—and just a bit sheepish.
"I'm glad you came with me," he said, "I'd have been frightened if you—." A queer hiss made Twinkleheels forget whathe was saying. "What's that?" he cried. "Is there a goose hidden somewhere in the smithy?"
"No! The smith put the hot shoe into a tub of water, to cool," Ebenezer explained. He couldn't help smiling a bit.
A scrubby looking white mare who was being shod turned her head and stared at Ebenezer and his small companion.
"It's easy to see," she exclaimed, "that that colt has never been in a smithy before. In my opinion he ought to be at home with his mother. This is no place for children."
Before Ebenezer could answer her, Twinkleheels himself spoke up sharply.
"I don't know who you are, madam," he snapped. "But I'd like you to understand that I'm no colt. I'm a pony. And I must say that I think you owe me an apology."
XVIIA WHITE VIXEN
The white mare that the blacksmith was shoeing looked much surprised when Twinkleheels told her he was not a colt.
"Well, well!" she cried. "A pony, eh? Who'd have thought it? Anyhow, you've never been shod in your life. I can tell that by the way you act." And she cackled in a most unpleasant fashion.
"What shall I say to her?" Twinkleheels asked Ebenezer. "She hasn't apologized to me."
"Pay no attention to her," the old horse advised him in an undertone. "She's a low bred person. I've often met her onthe road and she always wants to stop and talk. But I hurry past her."
"What are you saying?" the white mare asked in a sour tone. "Are you gossiping about me?" She laid her ears back and showed her yellow teeth.
"You see why I don't care to have anything to do with her," Ebenezer muttered to Twinkleheels.
"I'd kick you if I could reach you—and that pony too," the white mare squealed. "I'm a lady—I am. And you'd better be careful what you say about me."
Because she was angry and couldn't kick either Twinkleheels or Ebenezer she felt that she must kick somebody. So she let fly at the blacksmith, who had just stepped up beside her.
Strangely enough, instead of jumping away from her, the blacksmith crowded asclose to her as he could get. He knew what he was about. He hadn't shod horses for twenty years without learning something about them. He stood so near the white mare that her kick hadn't room to get going well. And the blacksmith wasn't hurt. He was merely disgusted.
"I declare," he said to Farmer Green, "this mare is the meanest critter that comes into my shop. She doesn't know anything except how to kick and bite. That old horse of yours is worth a dozen like her. I'd give more for his tail than I would for her."
Ebenezer tried to look unconcerned. The blacksmith had a hearty voice. Nobody in the shop could help hearing what he said. And Twinkleheels made up his mind that the blacksmith shouldn't have any reason to speak of him as he had of the silly white mare.
Twinkleheels watched sharply as the blacksmith captured a hind foot of the white mare's and held it between his knees. Then he began to nail on the shoe.
One thing puzzled Twinkleheels. Every time the blacksmith struck a blow with his hammer he gave a funny grunt. Twinkleheels nudged Ebenezer with his nose.
"Do you hear that?" he asked. "Is he related to Grunty Pig—a sort of cousin, perhaps?"
The old horse Ebenezer gasped.
"Bless you, no!" he exclaimed.
"Then why does he grunt?"
"Oh, that's just a way he has," said Ebenezer. "Some blacksmiths think it's stylish to grunt like that."
By this time the white mare seemed to be in a pleasanter frame of mind. At least, she let the blacksmith nail a shoeon each of her feet without making any objection—except to switch her tail now and then. And just as the blacksmith finished with her a man came and led her away.
"Now," said the blacksmith, "I'm ready to shoe the pony. And if he's as clever as he looks I shan't have a bit of trouble with him."
When he heard that, Twinkleheels made up his mind that he would behave his best, no matter what happened.
XVIIINEW SHOES
The blacksmith patted Twinkleheels and picked up one of his forefeet. Then the blacksmith took a chisel and began to pare away at the horny hoof. Twinkleheels looked over the blacksmith's shoulder. And what he saw gave him a start.
"Great green grass!" he cried to Ebenezer. "Is he going to cut my foot off?"
"No, indeed!" Ebenezer answered. "The blacksmith always pares my feet a bit when he fits new shoes. He may have to trim yours a good deal, because you've never worn shoes and your feet have never been pared."
In spite of his resolve to be on his best behavior, Twinkleheels had been tempted to pull his foot from between the blacksmith's knees. And if Ebenezer hadn't explained that he was in no danger of losing a foot there's no knowing what might have happened. Twinkleheels breathed a sigh of relief; and he made not the slightest trouble for the blacksmith, but waited patiently while his little shoes were being hammered into shape.
When the blacksmith took the first one that he made and held it by a pair of pincers against Twinkleheels' hoof there was a quick sizzling. And a horrid smoke arose. Twinkleheels snorted with fear.
"Easy! Easy, boy!" the blacksmith said to him. And old Ebenezer made haste to explain that there was no danger.
"Won't my foot be burned?" Twinkleheels faltered.
"Not enough to do any harm," said Ebenezer. "You don't feel any pain, do you?"
"No!"
"The shoe's not very hot; and the blacksmith wouldn't hold it against your hoof long enough to harm you," Ebenezer assured him.
Twinkleheels wriggled his nose.
"I must say I don't care for this smoke," he remarked.
"It's no pleasanter for the blacksmith than for you," Ebenezer reminded him. "If I were you I shouldn't complain. Just see what pretty shoes the blacksmith has made for you!"
Spot Tells Twinkleheels He is Slow. (_Page 90_)Spot Tells Twinkleheels He is Slow. (Page 90)
"They're the nicest I've ever seen," Twinkleheels said. "After I wear them a while and they get shiny on the bottoms, how they will twinkle in the sunlight when I'm trotting along the road!"
In a few minutes more the blacksmith had nailed all of Twinkleheels' four shoes to his feet. It seemed to Twinkleheels that he could never wait until Ebenezer was shod. He was in a great hurry to get out on the street and show his new shoes to the people in the village.
At last Ebenezer too was fitted out with new shoes. As Farmer Green led him out of the shop, and Johnnie Green led Twinkleheels, a queer look came over Twinkleheels' face.
"My goodness!" he cried. "My feet feel very strange."
"What's the matter?" Ebenezer asked him. "Surely your new shoes don't hurt you!"
"No! They don't hurt, exactly," Twinkleheels replied. "But my feet feel terribly heavy. These iron shoes aren't as comfortable to wear as I had expected."
"You'll soon get used to them," said Ebenezer. "In a short time you won't know you're wearing shoes—unless you happen to lose one."
Twinkleheels had supposed that when they reached Farmer Green's place everybody that he met would speak about his new shoes. But nobody paid any attention to them. Everybody seemed to stare at Johnnie Green as soon as he jumped out of the buggy.
"Why are folks looking at Johnnie?" Twinkleheels asked old dog Spot, who had come running up to meet him.
"Haven't you noticed?" Spot cried. "Didn't youhearanything when Johnnie began to walk on the barn floor?"
"No!"
"Well, you're slow to-day," said Spot. "Johnnie Green's wearing some newshoes that his father bought for him in the village. It's queer that you didn't notice them.... Aren't they nice and squeaky?"
XIXTHRASHING TIME
The pair of bays were feeling grumpy. Thrashing time had come. And they knew that they would have to spend long hours in the tread mill out in the field, where the oats were stacked. They grumbled a good deal, as they stood in their stalls.
"I don't see why you object to turning the tread mill for Farmer Green," Twinkleheels said to them. "I'd like to try my hand at it—or my feet, I should say. I should think it would be great fun. Yesterday I saw Johnnie Green and some other boys walking on the tread mill and making it go. They seemed to find it a lark."
"Huh!" said one of the bays. "They'dhateit if they had to walk up hill hour after hour and never get anywhere. The noise of the tread mill and the thrashing machine is most unpleasant."
"It wouldn't be so bad," said his mate, "if Farmer Green would let us eat all we wanted of the oats that we help thrash. But he doesn't give us even an extra measure."
"We'd run away," remarked the bay that had spoken first, "except that running away wouldn't do us any good. All our running would only make the mill turn faster."
"We can't even stand still if we want to," his mate muttered. "There's a bar that crosses the top of the tread mill, right in front of us. Farmer Green ties us to it. There we are! When he unlocks the tread mill we have to start walking orwe'd slide down backwards; and unless our halters broke, our necks would get a terrible stretching."
The old horse Ebenezer, who stood between Twinkleheels and the bays and couldn't miss hearing what was said, looked scornfully at the two grumblers.
"Think of the oats Farmer Green gives you every day!" he exclaimed. "I should suppose you'd be glad to earn some of them."
"The trouble is—" said the bay nearest him—"the trouble is, we have to earn not only the oats that we eat, but those that Farmer Green feeds to you and that pony."
"I've helped thrash many a time," Ebenezer declared.
"Well—I dare say you have," the bay admitted. "But what about that pony? I never saw him do any work. I ventureto say that he's never done a day's work in his life."
Twinkleheels couldn't help feeling uncomfortable.
"I'd be glad to help with the thrashing," he said. "But what can I do if Farmer Green won'tletme?"
The bays talked to each other in an undertone. Then one of them said: "You might refuse to eat any more oats."
Somehow Twinkleheels did not care for that suggestion; and he said as much.
"What's the matter with hay?" the other bay asked him. "If you have plenty of hay you ought to be satisfied."
"No!" Twinkleheels told him. "I can't get along on hay alone. Johnnie Green expects me to be spry and playful. And you know very well that a horse or a pony can't be spirited without plenty of oats."
Once more the bays muttered to eachother in a low tone. And at last they told Twinkleheels that he was greedy.
"You don't need any oats," they said. "You have more to eat than we do, all the time."
Twinkleheels was astonished.
"I don't know what you mean," he cried. "Johnnie Green feeds me only oats and hay; and that's no more than you have."
"We don't agree with you," the bays retorted. "You have meal. And you must eat a lot of it, too."
"Never!" Twinkleheels declared. "Why do you say that?"
"You have a mealy nose," they explained. "It always looks as if you'd just eaten out of the meal bin."
XXA MEALY NOSE
It was true, as the bays had said, that Twinkleheels had a mealy nose. So perhaps it was only natural that they should think he had meal to eat when they didn't. And he hastened to explain matters to them.
"My mealy nose," he said, "doesn't mean that I've been eating meal. My nose happens to be the color of meal. All the brushing in the world wouldn't change it."
The bay pair snorted. It was plain that they didn't believe what Twinkleheels told them.
"You can ask Ebenezer," Twinkleheels advised them. "He'll tell you that what I say is true."
"We don't want to ask him," said the bays. "Ask him yourself."
"Don't be rude to this pony!" the old horse Ebenezer chided them. "If you had spent more of your time off the farm, and seen more horses, you'd know that mealy noses like his are not uncommon. In my younger days, when I went to the county fair every fall, I used to meet a great many horses. And I learned then that mealy noses are by no means rare."
The bays stamped impatiently.
"We don't care to argue about this pony's nose," said the one whose stall was next to Ebenezer's. "His nose is a small matter. We do insist, however, that he help with the thrashing. Maybe you've done your share of the thrashing in timespast. But this pony's a loafer. We want to see him work."
Poor Twinkleheels felt most unhappy. "Haven't I said I'd like to walk on the tread mill?" Twinkleheels cried. "But Farmer Green would never allow me to."
"We don't care to argue with you," said the bay who stood beside Ebenezer. "You are altogether too small for us to bother with any longer."
"If I'm so small, then I shouldn't think what few oats I eat would annoy you," said Twinkleheels.
"Oh, your appetite's big enough!" cried the other bay. "You're always eating something. Yesterday we saw Johnnie Green ride you up to the kitchen window where Mrs. Green was peeling potatoes. And she gave you a potato. And you ate it."
"People are always feeding you," echoed the bay's bay mate.
"How can I help that?" Twinkleheels asked them.
"You could decline with thanks," they explained.
Twinkleheels shook his head.
"It wouldn't be polite," he said. "Besides, I like potatoes and apples and carrots even more than oats and hay."
Just then Farmer Green came into the barn and backed the bays out of their stalls. They both sighed.
"We're in for it now," they told Ebenezer. "He's going to take us out and make us walk on the tread mill."
A little later Johnnie Green saddled Twinkleheels and followed his father and the bays to the field where the thrashing machine stood beside several stacks of oats.
Before Johnnie and Twinkleheels arrived on the scene a great clatter warned them that thrashing had already begun. Hurrying up, they found the bays toiling up the endless path that slid always downward beneath them.
The bays were a glum appearing pair. Twinkleheels tried to speak to them, but the thrashing machine made such a racket that they couldn't hear him whinny; and he couldn't catch their eyes. They wouldn't look at him.
A stream of oats was pouring out of the grain spout. Johnnie Green dismounted. Picking up a handful of the newly thrashed oats, he fed Twinkleheels.
The bays looked at Twinkleheels then. They looked at him with envy.
"That pony has begun to eat up the new oats already," said one of the bays to his mate. "I hoped he'd have the decency todecline them when Johnnie Green offered him a taste."
"Not he!" groaned his mate. "That pony even hinted to Johnnie Green that he'd like some oats. I saw him hint, out of the corner of my eye."
"Ah!" cried the other bay. "Twinkleheels not only has a mealy nose. He's mealy-mouthed as well!"