“He is beginning to know what we want of him,” said the coachman. “Now he can do two tricks.”
“And soon I can take him around the country and show him off,” cried George, in great delight.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” laughed Patrick. “I guess your father and mother wouldn’t like that. But you can have him do tricks at home here for your friends.”
Tinkle was a smart little pony and in a few days all George had to do was to say “Jump!” and Tinkle would jump over two or even three sticks laid across boxes. And when George said: “Make a bow!” Tinkle would kneel down almost as politely as some dancers I have seen.
“Are there any other tricks you can teach Tinkle?” asked George of the coachman one day.
“Oh, yes, plenty more,” was the answer. “We’ll try to get him to stand on his hind legs and walk around. It is pretty hard but I guess he can do it.”
Tinkle was longer in learning this trick than he had been in learning how to do the other two put together. Patrick and George were kind and patient, however. Patrick, with another man to help him, put Tinkle in front of a board laid across two water pails. They set Tinkle’s front feet on the board and then with Patrick at one end, and the man at the other, they lifted up the board with Tinkle’s feet resting on it and started to walk. And Tinkle walked too, because George stood in front of him with a nice red apple, and as the pony reached for it George kept backing away.
Of course Tinkle wanted the apple, so he kept on walking. Only, as his front feet were resting on the board, the pony could walk on his hind feet only, but he was soon doing this without knowing it. [It took a little time to make him stand up on his hind legs without anything on which to rest his front feet], but after a bit he understood what was wanted of him. Then he remembered how he had seen horses in the green meadow, where he used to live, rear up on their hind legs in play sometimes.
“Why that’s just what I’m doing,” thought Tinkle, and then it came easier for him. He could soon walk half the length of the stable yard on his hind legs, with his forefeet held up in the air.