"We must run, Ruthie!" Helen declared, instantly. "Now, there's no use
in our trying to face down that goat. Discretion is the better part of
valor---- Oh!"
The goat just then shook his horns and charged. Ruth was not much behind
her chum. She saw before Helen, however, that they were running right
away from the Steele premises.
"We're getting deeper and deeper into trouble, Helen," she panted.
"Don't you _see?_"
"I can't see much. Oh! there's a tree we can both climb, I am sure."
"But I don't want to climb a tree," objected Ruth.
"All right. You stay down and play tag with Mr. Billy Goat. Me for the
high and lofty!" and she sprang up as she spoke and clutched the low
limb of a widely branching cedar.
"I'll never leave my pal!" Ruth declared, giggling, and jumping for
another limb.
Both girls had practiced on the ladders in the school gymnasium and they
quickly swung themselves up into the tree. The goat arrived almost on
the instant, too. At once he leaped up with his fore-feet against the
bole of the tree.
"My goodness me!" gasped Helen. "He's going to climb it, too."
"You know goats _can_ climb. They're very sure-footed," said her chum.
"I know all that," admitted Helen. "But I didn't suppose they could
climb trees."
The goat gave up _that_ attempt, however, very soon. He had no idea, it
seemed, of going away and leaving his treed victims in peace.
He paced around and around the cedar, casting wicked glances at the
girls' dangling feet, and shaking his horns in a most threatening way.
What he would do to them if he got a chance would "be a-plenty," Helen
declared.
"Don't you suppose he'll get tired, bye and bye?" queried her chum,
despondently.
"He doesn't look as though he ever got wearied," returned Helen. "What a
savage looking beast he is! And such whiskers!"
"I wouldn't make fun of him," advised Ruth, timidly. "I believe he
understands--and it makes him madder! Oh! see him!"
Mr. Goat, impatient of the delay, suddenly charged the tree and banged
against it with his horns in a desperate attempt to jar down the girls
perched above.
"Oh, the foolish billy!" cooed Helen. "We're not ripe enough to drop off
so easily. But he thinks we are."
"You can laugh," complained Ruth. "But I don't think this is much fun."
"Not for the goat, anyway. He is getting so angry that he may have
apoplexy. Let's shout. Maybe the boys will hear us."
"Not 'way down here, I fear," returned Ruth. "We can't hear a sound from
_them_. But let's try."
They raised their voices in unison, again and again. But there came no
reply, save that a number of Mr. Billy Goat's lady friends came trooping
through the brush and looked up at the girls perched so high above them.
"Bla-a-a-t! bla-a-a-at!" quoth the chorus of nannies.
"The same to you, and many of them!" replied Helen, bowing politely.
"Look out! you'll fall from the limb," advised Ruth, much worried.
"And what a fall would then be there, my countrymen!" sighed Helen.
"Say, Ruth! did you ever notice before what an expressive countenance a
goat has? Now, Mr. Billy, here, looks just like a selectman of a country
school board--long whiskers and all."
"You stop making fun of him," declared Ruth, shaking her head. "I tell
you it makes him mad."
"Goaty, goaty, go away,
Come again some other day,
Ruthie and Helen want to get down and play!"
sang Helen Cameron, with a most ridiculous expression.
"We'll never get down unless somebody comes to drive that beast away,"
cried Ruth, in disgust.
"And I bet nobody comes over to this end of the farm for days at a
time."
"That's it! keep on! make it just as bad as you can," groaned Ruth. "Do
you know it will soon be luncheon time, Helen?"
"But that won't bother Mr. Goat. He hopes to lunch off us, I guess."
"But we can't stay here, Helen!" cried Ruth, in despair.
"You have my permission to hop right down, my dear, and make the closer
acquaintance of Sir Capricornus, and all the harem. Ex-cuse me! I think
after due consideration I will retain my lofty perch---- Ugh!"
"You came pretty near slipping off that time!" exclaimed Ruth. "I
wouldn't be too funny, if I were you."
"Maybe you are right," agreed her friend, in a more subdued tone. "Dear
me! let us call again, Ruth!"
So both girls again raised their voices. This time there was a response,
but not from the direction of the stone wall they had crossed to reach
the spring.
"Hello!" called a jovial sounding voice. "Hello up there!"
"Hello yourself!" shouted Helen. "Oh, do, _do_ come and drive away these
awful goats."
There was a hearty laugh at this reply, and then a man appeared. Ruth
had guessed his identity before ever he came in view. It was the portly
Mr. Caslon.
"Well, well, my dears! how long have you been roosting up there?" he
demanded, laughing frankly at them. "Get out, you rascal!"
This he said to the big goat, who started for him with head lowered. Mr.
Caslon leaped nimbly to one side and whacked the goat savagely across
the back with his knobby stick. The goat kept right on down the
hillside, evidently having had enough of _that_ play, and the nannies
followed, bleating.
"You can come down now, young ladies," said the farmer. "But I wouldn't
come over into this pasture to play much. The goats don't like
strangers."
"We had no business to come here at all, but we forgot," explained Ruth,
when both she and her chum had descended from the tree. "We were warned
not to come over on this side of the line."
"Oh, indeed? you're from up on the hill-top?" he asked.
"We are visiting Madge Steele--yes," said Helen, looking at him
curiously.
"Ah! I saw all you young folk going by yesterday. You should have a fine
time about here," said the farmer, smiling broadly. "And, aside from the
temper of the goats, I don't mind you all coming over here on my land if
you like."
The girls thanked him warmly for rescuing them from their predicament,
and then ran up the hill to put the stone wall between them and the
goats before there was more trouble.
"I like him," said Helen, referring to Mr. Caslon.
"So do I," agreed Ruth. "And it's too bad that Mr. Steele and he do not
understand each other."
Although their escapade with the goats was a good joke--and a joke worth
telling to the crowd--Ruth decided that it would be just as well to say
nothing about it, and she told Helen so.
"I expect you are right," admitted her chum. "It will only cause comment
because we went out of bounds, and became acquainted with Mr. Caslon.
But I'm glad the old goat introduced us," and she laughed and tossed her
head.
So they joined their friends, who had gotten tired by this time of
tobogganing in June, and they all trooped up the hill again to the
house. It was growing warm, and the hammocks and lounging chairs in the
shade of the verandas attracted them until noon.
After luncheon there was tennis and croquet on the lawns, and toward
evening everybody went driving, although not in the yellow coach this
time.
The plans for the following day included a long drive by coach to a lake
beyond Darrowtown, where they had a picnic lunch, and boated and fished
and had a glorious time in general.
Bobbins drove as before, but there were two men with the party to do the
work and look after the horses, and Mrs. Steele herself was present to
have an oversight of the young folk.
Bob Steele was very proud of his ability to drive the four-in-hand, and
when they swung through Darrowtown on the return trip, with the whip
cracking and Tom tooting the horn, many people stopped to observe the
passing of the turnout.
Every other team got out of their way--even the few automobiles they
passed. But when they got over the first ridge beyond the town and the
four horses broke into a canter, Mrs. Steele, who sat up behind her son
on this journey, suddenly put a hand upon his shoulder and called his
attention to something ahead in the road.
"Do have a care, my son," she said. "There has been an accident
there--yes? Don't drive too fast----"
"By jiminy!" ejaculated Ralph Tingley. "That's a breakdown, sure
enough."
"A farm wagon. There's a wheel off," cried Ann Hicks, leaning out from
the other end of the seat the better to see.
"And who are all those children in blue?" demanded Mercy Curtis, looking
out from below. "There's such a lot of them! One, two, three, four,
five---- Goodness me! they jump about so like fleas that I can't count
them!"
"Why, I bet I know what it is," drawled Bobbins, at last. "It's old
Caslon and his load of fresh airs. He was going to town to meet them
to-day, I believe. And he's broken down before he's half way home with
them--and serves him good and right!"