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Updated: June 29, 2025
He was so startled that he jumped sideways, and Johnnie Green all but lost his seat on Twinkleheels' back. As he lurched in the saddle he brought the fish pole smartly against Twinkleheels' head. "I won't stand this," Twinkleheels decided. "I don't see what Johnnie is thinking of, to beat me over the head. I've certainly done nothing to deserve such treatment."
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."
After supper I'll ride Twinkleheels over the hill and ask the boys to pick currants with me in the morning." Farmer Green and his wife listened to this speech with amazement. "I never heard of a boy that liked to pick currants," said Johnnie's father. "Still, you can try if you want to." "Come home before it gets dark!" said his mother. "Look out for that pony!" Farmer Green exclaimed.
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.
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.
He was so well-behaved that when Johnnie turned him into the pasture, afterward, Johnnie never dreamed that Twinkleheels could be planning any mischief. The next morning Johnnie took Twinkleheels' halter and the four-quart measure with three big handfuls of oats in it. Then he walked up the lane to the pasture, leaned over the bars and whistled.
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.
He was three jumps ahead of Twinkleheels before that surprised pony began to run. "I'll soon catch the old horse," Twinkleheels thought. "He can't last long. I'll pass him before we reach the brook." Before Twinkleheels came to the brook Ebenezer had crossed it in one mighty leap. He was pounding along with a powerful stride over the firm turf of the pasture.
"You have a mealy nose," they explained. "It always looks as if you'd just eaten out of the meal bin." 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.
He knew that Twinkleheels expected fair play, just as much as the boys with whom Johnnie played ball, over the hill. When July brought hot, dry weather and the grass became short in the pasture Johnnie Green no longer turned Twinkleheels out to graze. He kept him in a stall in the barn and fed him oats and hay three times a day.
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