in all directions to see where Billy was but he could not see
him, until Billy told him where to look.
"Goodness gracious me! Is that you, Mr. Billy, shut up in that
cage? I never expected to see you in a place like that."
"Neither did I ever expect to find myself in one like this,"
Billy answered, "and what is more, I would rather be dead than
stay here. But I will get out yet, don't you fear."
"I bet you do, Mr. Whiskers, for you are a good one at getting
out of scrapes as well as getting into them. Let me introduce you
to my friend and chum, Prince Nan-ka-poo, as he is called on the
show bill."
After the introduction Billy's friend said: "Don't look so down
hearted. I will get the Prince to tell us one of his funny
stories so we can have a good laugh. He has just been telling me
a capital one."
But before he had time to tell it a man came along with a hose
and began to wash out Billy's cage and souse him with water,
squirting it in his eyes just to tease him, which Billy thought
was a little too much as it was like kicking a fellow when he was
down and could not help himself.
"Just wait, Mr. Man with the hose, until I meet you when I get
out of here, and if I don't make your body ache, then my name is
not Billy Whiskers. I am going to give you a butt and hook that
will send you half way up a telegraph pole!"
While he was fuming about this, another man came along and gave
him a nice, cool drink, and as he saw he had not eaten any of the
hay he gave him a bunch of carrots and a bundle of nice grass.
This Billy appreciated and said to himself: "That's a nice man.
I'll do him a favor some time if I ever get the chance."
Billy had not stopped eating when a man came along with a bucket
in his hand with something black in it and a large flat brush.
When he got to Billy's cage he commenced to unlock the door and
to Billy's surprise he climbed in and shut the door after him.
"Well, I wonder what is up now," thought Billy.
"I don't want to interrupt your breakfast, Master Billy, but this
job has to be done before the circus begins this morning. Just
go on eating while I turn you from an ordinary white goat into a
black one. Hereafter you are to be known as the wild goat with
three horns from Guinea. If you don't believe me, read the
printed sign outside tacked to your cage, but do not be alarmed,
this black stuff is not paint and it will wash off easily, for it
is only charcoal and some other mixture. You see our black goat
died and as we have it advertised, we are going to fix you up to
represent it and the people won't know the difference for the
public are easily fooled. And for your third horn--this came off
of a Mexican steer."
The man took from his pocket a long horn and glued it onto
Billy's head between his other horns, only with the curved point
forward instead of backward. How Billy wished for a mirror to see
himself when the man had finished!
"I must look like Satan, Mr. Windlass's goat," thought Billy.
Billy did not get fixed any too soon for the people now began to
crowd into the circus to see the animals before the performances
commenced and they passed around the ring before the animals'
cages, talking and giving them peanuts, pop-corn and apples. He
heard some one say when in front of his cage:
"Oh, my! Look at this queer looking goat with three horns--don't
he look fierce?"
[Illustration: "OH, MY! LOOK AT THIS QUEER-LOOKING GOAT WITH
THREE HORNS. DON'T HE LOOK FIERCE?"]
"Let's read the card on his cage and see what it says about him.
It says he was caught in the mountains of Guinea and that he is
very ferocious. He looks it, doesn't he? How would you like to
have him hook you?" Billy heard one little boy say to another.
"Isn't this funny, the card says he kills his prey with his two
sharp pointed horns and then hooks the other one into his prey
and carries it off."
"Is that what the card says? Well, if that isn't the biggest lie
I ever heard!" thought Billy. "I'll bet the ring-master made that
up, like the one about my being an astrologer. Oh, he is a dandy,
he is! But when I come to think of it, I don't mind if they do
fool the people, if they are so easily gulled as that; and I
guess I will help them carry it out by behaving fierce and
kicking around when anyone looks into my cage."
After the people had all passed into the main tent, the wind
began to blow a perfect hurricane and the rain came down in
sheets while one peal of thunder followed another in such quick
succession that one would hardly have time to die away before
another was upon it; rolling and booming like heavy pieces of
artillery. The lightning was so vivid and bright that it made
Billy wink at every flash.
Presently a fiercer, stronger volume of wind hit the big tent and
it collapsed burying all the people under it, while the same gust
swept on and picked up the tent Billy was sheltered in and
carried it off, upsetting cage after cage of animals as it flew
up and soared over their heads.
Billy's cage was among those upset, but before it went over the
wind picked it up, carried it a few feet and then dropped it,
smashing in the wooden side and setting Billy free. For once the
old saying came true: "That it is an ill wind that blows nobody
any good." With a swish of his stubby tail Billy was off down a
side street, and as he ran he could hear above the peals of the
thunder and the rushing of the wind, the lions roaring and the
elephants trumpeting for fear amid the confusion and excitement
of the collapsed tents,--the circus that Billy had escaped from
for good.
_Billy Finds Nanny_
As Billy trotted down the side street, the cyclone still raged
and blew loose boards and papers in every direction, but he kept
on until he found himself out of the town and on the high road.
"Why, how good it seems to get away from the smelly old circus
and be free again. Who cares for the wind and weather when one is
free? This rain will wash the black stuff off my coat that circus
fellow put on; and now I think of it, I'll just walk up to that
board fence and butt off this old horn that they glued to my
head: that will be the end of the Wild Goat from Guinea."
Suiting the action to the words, he walked up to the fence and
hooked the curved part of the horn over the rail, pulled back,
and the horn came off easily without pulling out any hair as the
rain had softened the glue. As it fell inside the fence, Billy
kicked up his heels, whisked his stubby tail, and started down
the road at a fast trot. As he ran, he made up his mind he would
find Nanny once more, even if he had to spend the rest of his
life looking for her. You know from past experience that if Billy
made up his mind to do a thing, that he did it; for Billy's
strong points were bravery, perseverance and stick-to-ativeness.
These are good qualities for boys and girls to have as well as
goats.
It was a good thing that Billy had these qualities, or he never
would have found Nanny again. For one whole month he hunted for
her, going up one road and down another, being stoned by boys and
chased by men as he tried to steal a meal out of their gardens.
Some times he wandered into a yard to get something to eat, and
they set the dogs on him, but this they always wished they had
not done, for he invariably turned and ripped the dogs open with
his long horns.
In this way he traveled, sleeping by the wayside in all kinds of
weather, until even he was beginning to get discouraged. When one
day he happened on a road that looked familiar to him, and the
further he traveled, the more familiar it became, until he came
to a bridge with a red house beside it. Then he knew where he
was for he recognized the house and the scenery around as the
place where the bridge had broken down when the elephant had
attempted to cross it. His joy knew no bounds for now all he had
to do to get to Nanny was to follow this road to the town and
then take another to the other side of town which would lead him
to his little wife Nanny.
When he thought of dear, patient, little Nanny, a tear rolled
down his cheek; but he shook it off in a hurry for the next
minute the thought came to him, what if Nanny had given him up as
lost and married another? The thought made him mad; and for three
or four miles he ran like a steam-engine, snorting with rage as
he went, and vowing to himself that if it were so, he would split
her new husband open with his long horns, as he had the dogs he
had met by the way.
In the meantime, while Billy had been away, poor, lonely, little
Nanny had never forgotten her old Billy, though all the young
Billy Goats in the herd tried to make her do so, and each and all
had wanted her to marry them, but she said "no" and remained
faithful to her Billy.
She had one thing to comfort her however, and that was two
beautiful little Kids that had been born to her some time after
the circus-man had taken Billy away. With these she spent all her
time, and they repaid it by being very fond of her; and it was a
beautiful sight to see the three playing together in the green
meadow down by the stream.
So Billy thought the next day, when, after traveling all night,
he at last came to the farm and looking through the fence saw
Nanny lying in the grass with the two little kids jumping over
her and kissing her nose.
"Two very fine looking kids," thought Billy. "I wonder whose they
are."
Then his old heart stood still for his next thought was: "She has
forgotten me, is married again and these are her children."
This thought made him feel sick and faint, and his knees shook
under him, so he dropped on the grass with his nose through the
rails of the fence, and there he lay for a long while, but he
never took his eyes off the three in the pasture.
"I will lie here and see if it is so," thought Billy, "and if it
is, I will go away and never let her know that I came back."
As he looked, old Satan, the minister that had married them, came
up to speak to Nanny, and Billy felt his blood beginning to boil
for he thought:
"If she is married to that old widower, and I am afraid she is,
for one of those kids is as black as Satan himself, I can't stand
it! I shall stay to make myself known just long enough to kill
him."
Soon, however, Satan walked off, as it was getting dark, and the
goats began to find cozy places for themselves for the night. But
Billy lay still and watched, though he was very thirsty and
hungry, not having eaten anything all day, as he had been too
anxious to get back to see if Nanny was married again.
He watched her wash the kids' little faces for the night with her
soft tongue and give them a good-night kiss on their little noses
before they cuddled down to sleep beside her. It made Billy groan
with lonesomeness to see it all, and he lay there broken in
spirit and wished he could die, and closed his eyes to shut out
the sight.
But he could not keep them closed. He had to open them to look
once more on Nanny's sweet, patient face. As he did so, he
noticed that the moon was just rising; and as it came up, Nanny
rose also and stepping carefully so as not to waken her babies,
she walked toward the fence where Billy was.
Closer and closer she came with her pretty, sweet face showing
plainly in the moonlight. Billy scarcely breathed, he was so
excited, wondering if she would recognize him, and what she would
say when she saw him.
She came straight to the fence and stuck her nose through the
rail just above Billy's head before she saw him.
When she did, her eyes dilated with surprise, and then with a
bleat of joy, she called:
"Billy! My Billy! Have you come back!" And she commenced to cry
as if her heart would break for joy.
No words can express Billy's joy when he felt her tears on his
face and her warm nose kissing his cold one, and all Billy could
say was, "My darling, you are not married to Satan after all, are
you?"
This made Nanny laugh and she called him a silly, old goose.
But what was the matter with Billy? He felt as strong and young
as Nanny herself, and had forgotten his thirst and weariness of a
few moments ago. Being only a goat, he did not know that
happiness is the greatest elixir of life yet discovered.
"Wait a second, Nanny. I can't have this old fence between us,"
and Billy backed off, gave a spring and was over the fence beside
Nanny in no time.
[Illustration]
"Oh! Billy, how good it seems to have you back again. Now I have
a great surprise for you. Come and see our two beautiful
children. One is as white as snow and her I call Day. The other
is as black as a coal, and him I call Night. They are twins, and
two smarter, healthier kids you never saw.
"Night is very mischievous and reminds me of you all the time.
Ever since you have been gone, I have walked to the fence every
night and looked and waited for you to come back and it nearly
broke my heart when night after night went by and you did not
come."
Billy and Nanny walked over to where their babies were, and Billy
assured her that they were the most beautiful kids his eyes had
ever rested on, and he felt himself swelling with pride as the
father of such handsome kids.
Nanny led Billy to the stream and while he was quenching his
thirst and eating a little of the sweet grass and mint that grew
on its bank, they told each other all that had happened since
they parted.
I will leave Billy and Nanny here, and my next book will be about
Day and Night, Billy and Nanny's kids.
THE END.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
End of Project Gutenberg's Billy Whiskers, by Frances Trego Montgomery