Mother saw her, and was so frightened she could hardly stand, for she thought the baby would be trampled down by the pony.  She started to run, but of course she could not run as fast as Fanny, and besides, she was much further away.

Fanny rushed on until she was within a few feet of the baby.  Then she saw him!  She tried to stop, but was moving too rapidly.  Being a wise little pony, she saw there was but one thing to do, and she did it.  She jumped and landed on the other side of the baby without touching him, though her foot just did miss his head.

Mother caught Little Brother up in her arms, and examined him carefully.  She could scarcely believe he had escaped without any injury, and was very happy indeed, when she found that such was the case.

“I don’t believe any other pony would have had so much sense,” she said.

That evening, when Father had heard of Little Brother’s narrow escape, he told Mother and Johnnie Jones about an experience he had had when a baby.

His father had owned a wise old horse whose name was Charley.  One day Charley was eating the grass in the yard, and Johnnie Jones’s father, who was then only a baby three years old, was lying on the ground, playing with the leaves After a while old Charley had eaten all the grass near by, except the very long delicious blades underneath the baby.  He couldn’t ask the little boy to move away, because he couldn’t talk.  So, very carefully, he took hold of the baby’s dress with his teeth, lifted him up, and set him down on the other side of the yard.  He did not even frighten him, but the mother, who was looking out of the window, was very much frightened, until she saw that the baby had not been harmed.

Mother and Johnnie Jones agreed that Charley had shown almost as much sense as Fanny, but that it wasn’t very safe to leave little children alone when there were horses and ponies about.

* * * * *

When Johnnie Jones Learned to Swim

One summer, when Johnnie Jones was six, he and the other members of the family spent a month in the woods.  They lived in a small log house which was close to a beautiful lake, and almost completely surrounded by trees.  Johnnie Jones enjoyed the life there immensely.  He learned to row a light boat on the water, and every day he went for a long walk through the woods, meeting many birds and small wild animals on the way.  Sometimes, in the distance, he caught a glimpse of the beautiful, graceful deer, which were too timid to permit him to come very near them.

Just in front of the house was a wooden dock where Johnnie Jones liked to play, but where he was never allowed to go alone as the water about it was very deep.  “Teach me to swim,” he said to his father.  “Then I shall be able to play wherever I please.”