at, but those that Farmer Green feeds to
you and that pony."

"I've helped thrash many a time," Ebenezer declared.

"Well--I dare say you have," the bay admitted. "But what about that
pony? I never saw him do any work. I venture to say that he's never done
a day's work in his life."

Twinkleheels couldn't help feeling uncomfortable.

"I'd be glad to help with the thrashing," he said. "But what can I do if
Farmer Green won't _let_ me?"

The bays talked to each other in an undertone. Then one of them said:
"You might refuse to eat any more oats."

Somehow Twinkleheels did not care for that suggestion; and he said as
much.

"What's the matter with hay?" the other bay asked him. "If you have
plenty of hay you ought to be satisfied."

"No!" Twinkleheels told him. "I can't get along on hay alone. Johnnie
Green expects me to be spry and playful. And you know very well that a
horse or a pony can't be spirited without plenty of oats."

Once more the bays muttered to each other in a low tone. And at last
they told Twinkleheels that he was greedy.

"You don't need any oats," they said. "You have more to eat than we do,
all the time."

Twinkleheels was astonished.

"I don't know what you mean," he cried. "Johnnie Green feeds me only
oats and hay; and that's no more than you have."

"We don't agree with you," the bays retorted. "You have meal. And you
must eat a lot of it, too."

"Never!" Twinkleheels declared. "Why do you say that?"

"You have a mealy nose," they explained. "It always looks as if you'd
just eaten out of the meal bin."

XX

A MEALY NOSE

It was true, as the bays had said, that Twinkleheels had a mealy nose.
So perhaps it was only natural that they should think he had meal to eat
when they didn't. And he hastened to explain matters to them.

"My mealy nose," he said, "doesn't mean that I've been eating meal. My
nose happens to be the color of meal. All the brushing in the world
wouldn't change it."

The bay pair snorted. It was plain that they didn't believe what
Twinkleheels told them.

"You can ask Ebenezer," Twinkleheels advised them. "He'll tell you that
what I say is true."

"We don't want to ask him," said the bays. "Ask him yourself."

"Don't be rude to this pony!" the old horse Ebenezer chided them. "If
you had spent more of your time off the farm, and seen more horses,
you'd know that mealy noses like his are not uncommon. In my younger
days, when I went to the county