You have often heard horses and ponies whinny, I suppose; and perhaps that is when they are trying to talk to us, though I must say I never could understand what they were trying to say. Perhaps some day I may.
At any rate Tinkle was thinking to himself, as he slowly wandered across the meadow. He was thinking what wonderful things might happen to him—adventures and travels.
On and on he wandered, looking back now and then to make sure neither his father nor his mother nor any of the others saw him. But they were listening to Dapple Gray tell of once falling down in the street while drawing the fire engine and how nearly a trolley car ran over him.
And the other horses liked the story so much that none of them thought of Tinkle, or looked at him. They listened to Dapple Gray.
The other young ponies, many of whom were about the size of Tinkle, were down at the far end of the meadow, having a game of what you would, perhaps, call tag, though what the ponies called it I do not know. Probably they had some funny name among themselves like “hoof-jump” or “tail-wiggle,” or something like that.
Anyhow, they were having so much fun among themselves that none of them paid any attention to Tinkle.
“They won’t see me at all,” thought the little pony. “I’ll run away where they can never find me.”
Of course Tinkle was not doing this to be bad, but he was just tired of staying in one place so long, and he wanted to have adventures.
On and on he wandered, and finally he came to a fence. Now the fence was put around the meadow to keep the horses and the ponies from getting out. But Tinkle had heard stories of horses jumping fences so he thought he would try it; for he was not strong enough to push down the fence, as he had once heard of Bellow, the big black bull, doing.