Produced by Kent Fielden
"Oh, let me get up. Let me ride him for two minutes, Walter."
Walter Perkins brought his pony to a slow stop and glanced downhesitatingly into the pleading blue eyes of the freckle-faced boy athis side.
"Please! I'll only ride him up to the end of the block and back, and Iwon't go fast, either. Let me show you how I can ride him," urged TadButler, with a note of insistence in his voice.
"If I thought you wouldn't fall off——"
"I fall off?" sniffed Tad, contemptuously. "I'd like to see the ponythat could bounce me off his back. Huh! Guess I know how to ridebetter than that. Say, Chunky, remember the time when the men fromTexas had those ponies here—brought them here to sell?"
Chunky—the third boy of the group—nodded vigorously.
"And didn't I ride a broncho that never had had a saddle on his backbut once in his life? Say, did I get thrown then?"
"He did that," endorsed Stacy Brown, who, because of his well-roundedcheeks and ample girth, was known familiarly among his companions as"Chunky." "I mean, he didn't. And he rode the pony three times aroundthe baseball field, too. That broncho's back was humped up like a madcat's all the way around. 'Course Tad can ride. Wish I could ride halfas well as he does. You needn't be afraid, Walter."
Thus reassured by Chunky's praise, Walter dropped the bridle rein overthe neck of his handsome new pony, and slid slowly to the ground.
"All right, Tad. Jump up! But don't hold him too tightly. He doesn'tlike it, and, besides, he has been trained to run when you tighten upon the rein, and father would not like it if we were to race him inthe village."
"I'll be careful."
Tad Butler needed no second invitation to try out his companion'spony. With the agility of a cowboy, he leaped into the saddle withoutso much as touching a foot to the stirrup. In another second, with aslight pressure on the rein, he had wheeled the animal sharply on itshaunches, and was jogging off up the street at an easy gallop, bothboy and pony rising and falling in graceful, rhythmic movements, as ifin reality each were a part of the other. Tad seemed born to stirrupand saddle.
Yet, true to his promise, the boy made no effort to increase the speedof his mount. Nor did he go beyoud the corner named. Instead, hecircled and came galloping back, one hand resting lightly on the rein,the other swinging easily at his side.
As he neared the two boys, Tad checked his pony, but Walter motionedto him to continue. With a smile of keen appreciation, Tad shook outthe reins, and pony and rider swung on down the village street.
The soft breeze bad by now fanned the bright color into the face ofThaddeus Butler, and his deep blue eyes glowed with excitement andpleasure; for, to him, there was no happiness so great as that to befound on the back of a swift-moving pony.
However, this was a pleasure that seldom came to Tad, for his lineshad not fallen altogether in pleasant places. The boy was nowseventeen, and from his twelfth birthday he had been almost the solesupport of his mother. His time, out of school hours, was spentlargely in doing odd jobs about the village where his services were indemand, and on Saturday afternoons and nights he delivered goods for agrocery store, for which latter