. On one occasion Gypsy put in her head
and lapped up six custard pies that had been placed by the casement to
cool.
An account of my young lady's various pranks would fill a thick
volume. A favorite trick of hers, on being requested to "walk like Miss
Abigail," was to assume a little skittish gait so true to nature
that Miss Abigail herself was obliged to admit the cleverness of the
imitation.
The idea of putting Gypsy through a systematic course of instruction
was suggested to me by a visit to the circus which gave an annual
performance in Rivermouth. This show embraced among its attractions a
number of trained Shetland ponies, and I determined that Gypsy should
likewise have the benefit of a liberal education. I succeeded in
teaching her to waltz, to fire a pistol by tugging at a string tied
to the trigger, to lie down dead, to wink one eye, and to execute many
other feats of a difficult nature. She took to her studies admirably,
and enjoyed the whole thing as much as anyone.
The monkey was a perpetual marvel to Gypsy. They became bosom-friends
in an incredibly brief period, and were never easy out of each other's
sight. Prince Zany--that's what Pepper Whitcomb and I christened him one
day, much to the disgust of the monkey, who bit a piece out of Pepper's
nose--resided in the stable, and went to roost every night on the pony's
back, where I usually found him in the morning. Whenever I rode out, I
was obliged to secure his Highness the Prince with a stout cord to the
fence, he chattering all the time like a madman.
One afternoon as I was cantering through the crowded part of the town, I
noticed that the people in the street stopped, stared at me, and fell to
laughing. I turned round in the saddle, and there was Zany, with a great
burdock leaf in his paw, perched up behind me on the crupper, as solemn
as a judge.
After a few months, poor Zany sickened mysteriously, and died. The dark
thought occurred to me then, and comes back to me now with redoubled
force, that Miss Abigail must have given him some hot-drops. Zany left
a large circle of sorrowing friends, if not relatives. Gypsy, I think,
never entirely recovered from the shock occasioned by his early
demise. She became fonder of me, though; and one of her cunningest
demonstrations was to escape from the stable-yard, and trot up to the
door of the Temple Grammar School, where I would discover her at recess
patiently waiting for me, with her fore feet on t
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