“Now, Tinkle, bring me the red flag,” Mr. Drake would say, when the blue one had been dropped at his feet from the pony’s teeth. And Tinkle would pick out the right color. In time he could pick out of the box, and bring to the trainer, any of the three colors, no matter which one was asked for first. Tinkle hardly ever made a mistake.
“Well, now that you know red, white and blue,” said Mr. Drake one day, “suppose we put all three together, and this is what we get, Tinkle,” and he held up the beautiful United States flag, with its stripes of red and white and the white stars on the blue field. “Now, Tinkle when I ask you what flag you love best I want you to bring me from the box this red, white and blue one,” said the trainer, shaking the flag in front of the pony.
It was several days before Tinkle learned to do this trick, but, after a while, he could go to the box, pick out the red, white and blue flags, and then, at the last when the trainer asked the question about loving the flag, Tinkle would trot over to him carrying in his teeth the stars and stripes. Then Mr. Drake petted him and gave him two lumps of sugar, for he had done the trick well.
Nor were these all the tricks Tinkle learned. Mr. Drake taught him how to add and subtract simple numbers that the trainer wrote on a blackboard with chalk. Tinkle could not really add the numbers in his head, but when the trainer wrote down say a 3 and a 4 and said: “Tell me how much that is, Tinkle,” Tinkle would nod his head seven times. He knew Mr. Drake wanted him to nod seven times by the way the trainer spoke and by the words he used. If the sum were eight, on ten or some other number, the trainer would ask the question in a different way. So that Tinkle got to know numbers by listening to the different ways his trainer spoke the words to him, and it really seemed as though the pony could do sums in arithmetic.
Another trick Tinkle learned to do was to get letters from the “post-office.” Mr. Drake had a box made with partitions in it so that it looked like part of a post-office. Into the little squares, into which the big box was divided, the trainer would put cards with the names of different persons written on them—such as “John Jones,” or “Peter Smith” or “Mary Black.”
Each card was always put in the same place, and Mr. Drake taught Tinkle to trot up to the make-believe post-office. Then when asked: “Is there a letter for John Jones,” the pony would take out the right card. Tinkle learned to do this by listening to the different sounds of Mr. Drake’s voice just as happened when the numbers were called. A pony knows the different sounds of words, else how could he know enough to stop when “whoa!” is called, or that he should go when told to “gid-dap!”
“Well, now you know so many tricks, I think I’ll show you off before the people in the big circus tent,” said Mr. Drake one day. And that afternoon Tinkle was led out all alone. A new white bridle was put on him, and around him was put a red strap, on top of which, in the middle of the pony’s back, was fastened a gay, red, white and blue plume.
Tinkle had looked in, but had never been in the big circus tent before, where all the people were seated, and where the band was playing jolly tunes, with funnily painted clowns jumping here and there making the boys and girls laugh. And at first Tinkle was a bit frightened. But he looked over to where Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, was turning a hand organ with his trunk, and Tum Tum called in his pleasant voice:
“Steady there, Tinkle. Don’t be afraid. You’ll do all right.”