BILLY BECOMES A MOVIE ACTOR
Billy was close beside Mr. Watson’s chair, that gentleman sitting under
a big elm, his chair tipped back against its trunk, a newspaper in his
hands, when a stranger drove into the yard in a high-powered, bright
red roadster. He stopped the car and coming up to Mr. Watson, said:
“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Watson?”
“You have,” Mr. Watson replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I have come to see if I can buy that fine looking goat beside you.”
“I fear you cannot. We are very fond of this goat, and he has been a
great pet with us for years. He has been away from us for three years
but has just returned. Where he was and with whom I have no way of
finding out. All I know is that one day he disappeared and three years
after that returned. He is a most surprisingly smart goat.”
“If you do not know where he has been all that time, I think I know
about part of those three years.”
[Illustration]
“You mean to tell me you think you have seen this goat before--while he
was away from my farm?”
“I certainly do, and what is more, I think I can prove it. Have you
ever felt deep down his hair, around his neck?”
“Why, no, I never had any occasion to do that.”
“With your permission, I believe I can find something that will prove
to you that I have seen this goat before and, in fact, owned him for
several months.”
“You surprise me! Certainly I give you permission to feel around his
neck if you wish to do so.”
In less than a minute, the man had run his fingers through Billy’s hair
and had brought to view a small but strongly linked gold chain with a
round flat disk of gold hanging from it, which bore some engraving.
“Will you kindly read what it says on the disk?” he asked.
Mr. Watson took it and adjusting his glasses on his nose leaned over
Billy and read:
This badge was presented
to
BILLY WHISKERS
for his bravery in saving the life of a child
from a burning building
in the
town of Plumbville
on May sixth, in the year 1921
“This is most astonishing news! But I can well believe it. Billy is so
smart and so brave. He is absolutely fearless,” said Mr. Watson.
“I suppose you would want quite a high price for him if you sold him,”
responded the man.
“Yes, I should, but I haven’t the least idea of selling him. We are all
too fond of him for that.”
“I am very much disappointed. But could I not induce you to change your
mind, if I offered you the largest sum that has ever been given for a
goat?”
“No. Money cannot buy Billy Whiskers. I shall keep him until he dies of
old age, or I do,” said Mr. Watson.
“I am more sorry than I can tell you, as I wanted particularly to have
him act in a high-class movie I am putting on the screen. You see when
I owned him, or thought I owned him, he was my best drawing card in the
movies.”
Mr. Watson began to laugh. It struck him as funny that Billy, who had
done nearly everything, to be sure, had also been in the movies. “But
when I think of it, I don’t know why he should _not_ be a success in
the movies, for he was a first-class actor in the circus for two or
three years,” he said.
“Mr. Watson, if you could only see the pleasure he gives to little
children when he is acting in the movies, I am sure you would let
me have him. The films he is in are shown at orphan asylums, reform
schools, charity fairs and so on.”
“Oh, is that so? Well, I certainly like to give pleasure to poor little
orphans. Tell you what I will do. I’ll _loan_ him to you, but I won’t
sell him to anyone.”
“You are just the big-hearted man I thought you were, Mr. Watson!”
exclaimed the caller. “And I thank you for the loan of him. We will
take the best of care of him. In fact, he will have a caretaker who
does nothing but look after his health and comfort. Why, when I had
him before, I had his life insured and a veterinary to look after his
health and to oversee his food. He was bathed and his hair combed and
perfumed as if he was a human being, while he had a big ten by ten
foot box stall all to himself, and rode in a limousine to and from the
studio. Oh, I can tell you he was treated like a king, and he will have
the same treatment again.
“If you would like to hear, I will tell you the special stunt we want
him to do now. Picture to yourself a mountain fastness with two high
peaks, between them a deep cleft or cut thousands of feet deep. On one
side stands Billy with a young baby strapped to his back, the mother
standing beside him wringing her hands in agony as she is about to
make him leap across the chasm. She has been kidnaped by bandits and
carried into the mountains. They did not know she had a baby under her
shawl when they kidnaped her, and when they made the discovery they
were going to kill the child, but she thought of this way of saving the
baby’s life. You see the goat belonged to her next-door neighbor in the
village at the foot of the mountain, and the mother was sure the goat
would take it home.”
“You don’t think Billy will take that part, now do you?” asked Mr.
Watson.
“I know he will, for I have seen him do much more difficult parts.”
“Well, if that is the kind of thing he does, I certainly want to see
him act for the movies,” said Mr. Watson.
“You certainly shall. When the first film is put on, I will send you a
pass book with enough tickets in it to take your family and intimate
friends. Now I must be going, or I shall be unable to reach Chicago by
nightfall. And if you have no objection, I will take Billy right along
with me in the car. There isn’t much room in this roadster, but I know
he has ridden in roadsters before and enjoys it and so I will have no
difficulty keeping him in the car. You may be interested to know we
make all our films at the Essenay Studios in Chicago.”
Billy had been listening to all the two men had said, but when he heard
he was to be taken away from his family then and there, he jumped to
his feet and went bounding to the stable yard to tell them. For how
awful it would be for him to be carried off and not have a chance to
tell them where he was going! He was glad he was not going to be sold,
though to be loaned was almost as bad as there was no knowing how long
the man would keep him.
“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Mr. Watson. “One would think he understood
what we were saying, for he lay there as quiet as a mouse until we
spoke of taking him away and then he fled.”
“I expect he is tired of being away from home as you say he has just
returned after nearly a three-year absence. He surely is smart and I
really believe he understands almost everything he hears. I know we all
thought so at the studio when he was with us.”
“I am afraid we will have a time to catch him,” said Mr. Watson. “There
he is in the barnyard in the midst of a crowd. I believe he is telling
them he is going to be taken away, for see how downhearted Nannie
looks, and the way she hangs her head shows she is unhappy. The minute
he sees us start for the barnyard he will run away and we will be
unable to capture him.”
“I have a plan. I will drive away, go to town and have my luncheon, and
he will think I have departed for good and all. Then while I am away,
you try to shut him in the barn and have him ready for me on my return,
which will be right after luncheon.”
“I am sorry you have to go, for I was thinking of having the pleasure
of your company at my own table and having you tell us what Billy did
in the movies.”
“I am very sorry I cannot accept your kind invitation, but I have a
little business in the town before I go back to Chicago.”
After Mr. Swan, the movie man, had gone, Mr. Watson went in the house
to tell his wife about Billy and how he had loaned him to Mr. Swan to
act in the movies for a little while. “But how to capture the foxy old
fellow is more than I know,” he concluded.
“You will have a difficult time of it, for he will be suspicious of you
for a few days now,” replied his wife.
“I have it!” exclaimed Mr. Watson. “I’ll pick a bushel of carrots that
he loves so dearly, and take them into the barn, where I shall leave
them and go on about my business, never so much as looking in his
direction. And I shall be greatly surprised and disappointed if when I
am out of sight, he does not go straight to the barn to get some. When
I know he is in the barn, I will slip around and shut the door, and
then I shall have him safe enough.”
[Illustration]
Everything proceeded splendidly up to closing the barn door. But
the minute Billy heard it slam he suspected foul play and without
a moment’s delay he rushed through the barn to an open door on the
opposite side, and through this he went like a shot, running to a
little shed that sheltered the mowing machine in winter. It was dark
as pitch in there, which he knew would aid him if no one saw him
enter. But alas for Billy! Mrs. Watson had been watching her husband’s
maneuvers from the sitting room window, and quickly came out to tell
her husband where Billy was hiding. Then Mr. and Mrs. Watson and their
hired man all crept up to the shed and had Billy cornered like a rat
in a trap before he was aware of it. Mr. Watson and his hired man soon
had a rope around his neck and were leading him out of the shed when
Mr. Swan returned. He drove right into the barnyard and Billy was
forced to jump into the car where he was securely tied. Then amidst the
fluttering of fowls and the distressed baaing of his family, handsome
Billy Whiskers was driven off to become a movie actor in Chicago.
THE END
_The_
Billy Whiskers Series
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: SAALFIELD]
_By
Frances
Trego
Montgomery_
The antics of frolicsome Billy Whiskers, that adventuresome goat Mrs.
Montgomery writes about in these stories make all the boys and girls
chuckle--and every story that is issued about him is pronounced by them
“better than the last.”
TITLES IN SERIES
1. Billy Whiskers
2. Billy Whiskers’ Kids
3. Billy Whiskers, Junior
4. Billy Whiskers’ Travels
5. Billy Whiskers at the Circus
6. Billy Whiskers at the Fair
7. Billy Whiskers’ Friends
8. Billy Whiskers, Jr., and His Chums
9. Billy Whiskers’ Grandchildren
10. Billy Whiskers’ Vacation
11. Billy Whiskers Kidnaped
12. Billy Whiskers’ Twins
13. Billy Whiskers in an Aeroplane
14. Billy Whiskers in Town
15. Billy Whiskers in Panama
17. Billy Whiskers at the Exposition
18. Billy Whiskers Out West
19. Billy Whiskers in the South
20. Billy Whiskers in Camp
21. Billy Whiskers in France
22. Billy Whiskers’ Adventures
23. Billy Whiskers in the Movies
24. Billy Whiskers Out for Fun
25. Billy Whiskers’ Frolics
26. Billy Whiskers at Home
BOUND IN BOARDS
COVER IN COLORS
PROFUSE TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
FULL-PAGE DRAWINGS IN COLORS
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY--AKRON, OHIO
The Billy Whiskers Game
No. 280
[Illustration]
A million delighted youngsters have read the
BILLY WHISKERS BOOKS
THERE’S A LAUGH ON EVERY PAGE
The same delighted youngsters (and their parents too) will play the
new board game where Billy DOES all the things the stories tell.
THERE’S A LAUGH AT EVERY PLAY
The Billy Whiskers Game
“_The Game’s The Thing!_”
BOOKS BY FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY
The Wonderful Electric Elephant
[Illustration]
“A new and fascinating sort of fairy story.”--_Salt Lake Tribune._
“A book in which youth will take keen pleasure.”--_The Bookseller._
By a fortunate chance Harold Fredericks comes into possession of a
wonderful mechanical elephant so ingeniously contrived that it will
pass for a real animal under even the closest inspection. The interior
is fitted up luxuriously, affording the finest accommodations for
Harold and the traveling companion he secures by another lucky chance.
The boy or girl wanting something new in the story line is sure to find
it in this chronicle.
CLOTH BOUND, 12MO, PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED, WITH JACKET
On a Lark to the Planets
[Illustration]
“This sprightly author holds the record for
inventiveness.”--_Philadelphia Item._
“The colored illustrations are a feature of delight.”--_Grand Rapids
Herald._
“As a book for children, nothing could be more desirable. It is an
assurance of happiness for any young person to be the possessor of
this charming story.” That is the verdict of one critic passing on the
sequel of “The Wonderful Electric Elephant,” which follows the further
fortunes of Harold and Ione as they travel to the planets.
BOUND IN CLOTH, 12MO, HANDSOMELY ILLUSTRATED, WITH JACKET
Frances and the Irrepressibles at Buena Vista Farm
[Illustration]
“Told with a freshness and vivacity that never fails.”--_Charleston
News and Courier._
Seven boys and as many girls spend a long summer on a beautiful farm
and because of the pranks of those merry weeks they are dubbed “The
Irrepressibles.” And, best of all, the book is filled to brimming over
with pictures of these real boys and girls.
ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, CLOTH BOUND
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY · AKRON, OHIO
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.