Then Tinkle felt better, and Mr. Drake patted him and gave him a lump of sugar before Tinkle had done even one trick.
“We’ll begin with the easy one—make a bow,” said the trainer.
Tinkle bowed his prettiest, and some boys and girls in the front row of seats clapped their hands and laughed. This made Tinkle feel glad, and he looked around, thinking he might see George or Mabel. But neither was in the tent.
Then the pony went through all his tricks—he added and subtracted numbers, he brought letters from the post-office and then he picked out the differently colored flags or handkerchiefs that Mr. Drake called for.
“Now, Tinkle,” said the trainer, after the pony had done some jumping, “tell the people which flag you love the best.”
Tinkle trotted over to the box where a number of flags of different countries had been put. The United States banner was at the bottom, but Tinkle knew that. [He nosed around among all ] [the flags until he found the one he knew he wanted, and with that in his teeth he trotted over to Mr. Drake], while the band played “The Star Spangled Banner.”
My! I wish you could have heard the people clap then. And how the boys and girls shouted with joy! They thought Tinkle was just the finest pony they had ever seen. And Mr. Drake patted him and gave him an extra large lump of sugar for behaving so nicely when he first did his tricks in public.
“I told you he’d make a good trick pony,” said Mr. Drake, as Tom led the little animal back to the tent.
“Yes, he’s a dandy!” replied the man. “I’ll give him a good feed of oats for this.”
And when Tinkle was back in his stall Prancer and Tiny Tim talked to him and told him how glad they were that he had done his tricks so well. Tinkle felt happy, for a while.