I imagined the grown people trying to keep the children from laughing at this queer way of taking a pony to a stable, then I forgot them all in my interest in my dear young master.
CHAPTER VII PRIZE PIGS AND THEIR DOG FRIENDS
He was sobbing his young soul out on a heap of straw.
"Oh! Pony, Pony, what a fool I am—my head was going round and round. What did I say?—What an awful day. I wish I were dead."
I had heard boys say this before, so I rubbed his shoulder consolingly with my soft lips. He was my own little master even if he did lie, but for his own sake I hoped he would learn to tell the truth at all times.
Suddenly he sprang up. "I've got to go back, I've got to face them—it's worse than the wolf. Where's my handkerchief? I've lost it," and he sniffed and snuffled and dried his face on my mane and with his coat sleeve. Then he started on a funeral march to the house.
Knowing that I was supposed to be tied up, I kept at a discreet distance from him, and skulked behind shrubs until I reached my old hiding-place under the lilacs.
Dinner was over now, and the pets were having their good time. The four fat young robins stood demurely round a plate of food on the lawn stuffing themselves and looking thankfully up toward the blue sky while their feathery vests swelled out more and more.