Chapter 24 - Page 2

from a run to a canter, from a canter to a trot, from a trot to a walk; and finally stood still.

Then Johnnie turned him around and rode slowly back to the barn. He jumped down, unbuckled the girth, and drew off Twinkleheels' saddle.

"What's the matter?" his father asked him. "You haven't given up going fishing--have you?"

"No!" Johnnie answered. "I'm going to harness Twinkleheels to the buggy. And I'll cut a pole at the creek."

His father said nothing more. But he smiled a little to himself when Johnnie wasn't looking his way.

"Boys will be boys," Farmer Green remarked after Johnnie had gone.

"Yes!" the hired man agreed. "And ponies will be ponies."

They may have been talking in riddles.

Anyhow, they seemed to understand each other.

THE END.

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