That was not like Eunice, and she did not mean to hurt Cricket’s feelings. It was only that her own pony looked so fresh and dear to her. But Cricket fired up at once.
“You’re my own Mopsie,” she cried, hugging her black pony again, “and no other pony could be half so cunning and smart. Charcoal isn’t a bit smart, Eunice, you know he isn’t.”
A quarrel seemed close at hand, right over those dear ponies, which stood rubbing noses in the friendliest way. But Eunice was too generous to hurt Cricket’s feelings knowingly, and she said, quickly,
“Mopsie does look awfully bright, Cricket, and I think that’s a good name for him. I wonder what his name really was?”
But Mike did not know, so Mopsie was christened thus on the spot, and Mopsie he remained to the end of the chapter.
“When can I ride him, do you think, Mike?” asked Cricket, eagerly, as she fed him sugar.
“Shure, Miss Scricket, an’ I’m thinkin’ it’ll be next week ye’ll be afther ridin’ him, if he kapes on a’mendin’.”
After this, Cricket hated any mention of the fact that Mopsie was, or had been, a circus-pony, though she stoutly insisted that it “didn’t make a bit of difference, so long as he circused as well as he could.”
Mike took the best of care of him, and a month made a wonderful difference with the little fellow. Constant and careful grooming made his rough hair smoother, and with the vaseline and other things that Mike knew of, his uneven coat began to lose the marks of scars and “splarsters.”