Day after day Lightfoot would practice jumping and climbing among the rocks, sometimes alone and sometimes with Blackie. One day, when he had made a very hard jump from one rock to another, he heard some boy-and-girl-talk in the road in front of the widow’s shanty. Looking down, Lightfoot saw a small cart drawn by a pony, and seated in the cart was a man, and with him were his two children.
“Oh, look, George!” called the little girl, “there’s that nice goat we saw when we were going to the circus, the day we got back Tinkle, our pony.”
“So it is, Mabel,” answered the boy. “Could we ever have a goat, Daddy?” he asked his father as the pony cart stopped.
“Oh, I guess not,” said the man. “Tinkle is enough for you.” Then to Mrs. Malony, who came to the front gate, he said: “That’s a fine goat you have.”
“Sure an’ you may well say that. You’re the gintleman who went past here a few days ago, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I was on my way to the circus, and it was there we got back my children’s pony which had been stolen.”
“Well, I’m glad you have him back,” said the Widow Malony, with a twinkle in her kind, Irish-blue eyes. “You should have seen Lightfoot leap from the top of the rocks to the roof of me shanty one day.”
Meanwhile Tinkle, the trick pony, of whom I have told you in the book of that name, was having a little talk with Lightfoot.
“Were you really stolen?” asked Lightfoot, when Tinkle told some of his adventures.
“Indeed I was. And did you really jump from the top of those rocks?”
“I did,” answered the leaping goat, holding his head high and feeling very proud.
“That’s more than I could do, though I can do circus tricks,” said Tinkle. “There’s been a book written about me and my tricks and adventures.”
“You don’t tell me!” cried Lightfoot. “But what’s a book?”
Before Tinkle could answer Mr. Farley, the father of George and Mabel, called good-by to the Widow Malony and drove on with the children in the pony cart.
“Good-by!” called Tinkle to Lightfoot. “If ever you get to the circus ask Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, or Mappo, the merry monkey, about me.”
“I will,” promised Lightfoot, “though I never expect to go to a circus.”
“Sure they were nice little children,” said Mrs. Malony, “and it was a fine pony cart they had. How would you like to pull a stylish cart like that, Lightfoot?” she asked as she went back in the shanty to finish her washing.