“I can’t either!” Mollie interjected.

“Well, he had been lately shod, and our coachman thought that perhaps a nail from one of the shoes pricked his foot, so he started to take him to the blacksmith’s.  But don’t you think, as soon as Ned knew that William was driving, he started off at a brisk trot and wasn’t the least bit lame I but the next time mamma took him out, he began to limp directly, and kept looking round as much as to say:  ’How can you be so cruel as to make me go, when you must see every step I take hurts me?’ But when mamma came home with him again, William said:  ‘It’s chatin’ you he is, marm.’”

“And what did your mother do?”

“Well, as soon as she made up her mind that he was shamming, she took no notice of his little trick, but touched him up with the whip, and made him go right along.  He knew directly that she had found him out.  Oh, he is such a knowing horse!  The other day Alice was leading him through the big gate, to give him a mouthful of grass in the door-yard.  Alice likes to lead him about.  When he stepped on her gown, and she held it up to him all torn, and scolded him, she said:  ’O Ned! aren’t you ashamed of yourself? how could you be so clumsy and awkward?’ and she said he dropped his head and looked so sorry and ashamed, as if he wanted to say:  ‘Oh, I beg pardon!  I didn’t mean to do it,’ that she really pitied him, and answered as if he had spoken:  ’Well, don’t worry, Ned; it’s of no consequence,’ Ned is such a pet.  Papa got him in Canada, on purpose for mamma and Alice to drive; and it was so funny when he first came—­he didn’t understand a word of English, not even whoa.  He belonged to a Frenchman way up the country, and had never been in a large town, and acted so queer—­like a green countryman, you know, turning his head and staring at all the sights.  And it’s lovely to see him play in the snow.  He was brought up in the midst of it, you know.  When there’s a snow-storm he’s wild to be out of the stable, and the deeper the drifts, the better pleased he is.  He plunges in and rolls over and over, and rears and dances.  Oh, it is too funny to see him!  But I beg pardon, Miss Ruth!  I didn’t mean to talk so long about Ned.”

“We are all glad to hear about him,” she said, and Susie added that it was very interesting.

“My Uncle John owned a horse,” said Roy Tyler, “that opened a gate and a barn-door to get to the oat-bin, and he shut the barn-door after him too.  I guess you can’t any of you tell how he did that!”

“He jumped the gate, and shoved his nose in the crack of the door and pried it open,” said Sammy.

“No, he didn’t.  That wouldn’t be opening the gate, would it?” Roy retorted.  “And how did he shut it after him?”

“I think you had better tell us, Roy,” said Miss Ruth.

“Well, he reached over the fence, and lifted the latch with his teeth, that’s how he opened the gate; and he shut it by backing up against it till it latched itself.  Then he pulled out the wooden pin of the barn-door, and it swung open by its own weight—­see?”