Arthur Scott Bailey

The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels Arthur Scott Bailey

When Johnnie Green sent him along the road at a trot, Twinkleheels' tiny feet moved so fast that you could scarcely have told one from another. Being a pony, and only half as big as a horse, he had to move his legs twice as quickly as a horse did in order to travel at a horse's speed. Twinkleheels' friends knew that he didn't care to be beaten by any horse, no matter how long-legged. "It's spirit, not size, that counts," Farmer Green often remarked as he watched Twinkleheels tripping out of the yard, sometimes with Johnnie on his back, sometimes drawing Johnnie in a little, red-wheeled buggy. Old dog Spot agreed with Farmer Green. When Twinkleheels first came to live on the farm Spot had thought him something of a joke. "Huh! This pony's nothing but a toy," he had told the farmyard folk. "He's a child's plaything-about as much use as the little wooly dog that lives down by the sawmill."