The young man turned and looked at her. It seemed as if the tears were very near his eyes as he walked away.
Presently he returned leading a little shaggy pony which he declared he could recommend as being gentle and perfectly safe. "I would not wish to sell to Zula's friend a pony not good," he said earnestly. "Is it for the little girl here?"
"Yes, for her!" grandpa told him.
"He is one year older than the other, but he is perhaps no worse for that, for he is easy in harness and very gentle to ride. If you like him I sell him for one hundred and twenty dollars."
Mr. Dallas asked many questions, got out of the carriage, and examined the docile little creature very carefully, and finally offered one hundred dollars for the pony. "I will do this," said the young man. "We are here for three or four days. I will bring you the pony this evening, and you can keep him long enough to try him all you want, and if he does not prove all I say you can return him, but if he does I will sell him for one hundred and ten dollars."
This seemed so fair an offer that Mr. Dallas, at last accepted it, and that evening the little pony arrived to remain as Eleanor's very own, for he proved to be as tractable and good a little creature as could be desired.
CHAPTER XII
A May Party
After the little pony was fairly established in his new home, Grandma Dallas declared that she was not to be outdone by grandpa, and to make the present quite complete she would add a pony-cart; and then three merrier children could not be found than Eleanor, Florence, and Rock as they drove out, the pony scampering unweariedly over many a mile. It seemed no distance now to Mr. Snyder's and many a call did the good butterman and his wife receive from the children.
But as the first of May approached an event was promised which threatened to cast all other interests in the shade. Florence and Eleanor had started to one school after Easter, and Rock to another. Eleanor was welcomed back with open arms by most of the girls, but Olive and Janet still held aloof, and did not join her special company of friends. "She's so stuck up, now that she has a pony, that she can hardly see," Eleanor heard Janet say one day, for Eleanor was not above giving her head a little toss and looking supreme contempt at the speaker whenever they met. "And it isn't because I've a pony," she told Florence, "but I just despise her anyhow."