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Show "Dr. Babe." Miriam would have said that no pony anywhere could compare with Babe. Such a long mane and tall, su"h j-oft black eyes and dancing feet, and, beot of all, SJch a way of pretending that t-he wouldn't go where she was-tcld to, and then ofo-ing ofo-ing 01 a sudden, like a pony carved out of lightning. light-ning. Best of all, Babe cured her little mistress of being "afraid of the dark." Yes, Babe did just that. It all began with an automobile. When Babe . came to the farm she had never seen one before. She had spent all her life in a little clearing of the woods, where automobiles were unknown. So when she was brought to the farm on the brick road, which was the finest place imaginable to meet the motor cars, she must have felt thoroughly puzzled and frightened. ' When the first automobile came, Babe was ii the pasture by the side of the road, looking out into the world. She saw a cloud of dust in the distance; presently something came out of the dust-cloud, dust-cloud, and there, before her horrified eyes, was a carriage without any horses, coming straight toward her pasture! She looked once more, to make sure that it was not all a mistake, then turned with ears laid back and tail high in the air, and never stopped until she had reached the end of te pasture ,half a mile away. After that, she was very much afraid of automobiles. auto-mobiles. Whenever she saw one coming she bolted. One day a big touring car broke down just opposite op-posite th" farm. The man who ownaj it crawled underneath with some queer tools in his hand, and soon it began to roar and grunt and make really terrifying noises. Even the children became frightened. fright-ened. Miriam was riding Babe not far away, and at the first sound from the car she planted her feet more firmly in the stirrups, twisted the bridle around her wrist, and grasped the whip tightly, to be ready for a runaway. The pony's ears were laid back, and her pretty, . dark eyes looked twice as large as usual. She was badly frightened. Yet she held her ground, to Miriam's astonishment, and presently, instead of running away, she took a step toward the automobile. automo-bile. Another step another and then she quietly walked up to the great, roaring monster in the road, and pushed her delicate nose forward to smell it! She remained for quite a while, with neck outstretched, out-stretched, timidly sniffing. At length she tossed her head, with an air of relief, and'gave a little snort as if' to say, "Well! I'm acquainted with you now, and you're nothing to be afraid of, after all !" That cured Babe of her shyness for motor cars, and it also cured Miriam of her ovn pet bugaboo. For the little roughrider, although very bravo in other ways, was painfully afraid of dark rooms. She was' told, many times, that nothing in the darkness could hurt her, and that rooms are just the same at night as in the daylight. But still she was timid, and when the children played hide-and-seek through the house in the evening, Miriam was careful not to hide upstairs or in the shadowy hallway. hall-way. On this night, however, when the game was at its height, she surprised every one by marching into the darkest room of all to hide, and to their astonished as-tonished questions she' answered, laughingly: "I'm trying Babe's cure." Then they understood. She was forcing herself to go up to the thing that frightened her, just as Babe had done, and she had picked out the darkest room to prove that it wasn't such a terrible place as it seemed. It was a hard cure, but :i good one, and the first t'ling Miriam did next morning was to put her arm around the pyjy neck and say, "Thank y-;i. Doctor Babe." Paul Suter, in Sunday School Times. |