Billy Whiskers Part 12

"Yes, you vicious beast, you, how do you like being shut up where you can't b.u.t.t and send people flying into mud-puddles and chew up their wigs, etc.?" asked the ring-master who had joined the animal keeper.

"Oh, it is you, is it? Well, you just wait until I get out of here and see where I will b.u.t.t you next time, and the animal keeper, too," bleated Billy, but neither of them understood what he said.

When they left him alone Billy tried every way he could think of to break out, but he could make no impression on the iron bars, chew as he would,--in fact, he broke one of his teeth trying.

Then he tried b.u.t.ting out the ends of the cage, but it was of no use. Next he stood on his hind legs and tried to push the roof off with his long horns, but to no effect; so he lay down tired and broken-hearted on the hard bottom of the cage and gave himself up to the blues.

He was lying there quietly, apparently asleep, when a man brought him a bundle of hay to eat, a bucket of water to drink and a pitch-fork of straw to lie on.

Billy did not move when they brought the things, pretending to be asleep, but he was rudely awakened out of his supposed sleep by the man sticking the p.r.o.ngs of the pitch-fork into him to make him get up so he could spread the straw on the bottom of the cage. He felt too disheartened to eat, especially food which he detested, but thought he would take a drink as he was very thirsty, but at one smell of the bucket he turned up his aristocratic nose for he detected the bucket had not been washed since it had been used by some of the other animals for he could smell and see their hairs on the rim; so he lay down more disgusted than ever. Poor Billy's confinement was going to be hard for him. He had roamed the fields and towns, master of himself, too long to take to being shut up easily.

At last Billy fell asleep and only awakened when they hitched the horses to the wagon-like cage he was in to draw it to the depot.

Just before they started he heard a man say: "Here, you forgot to put up the sides on that cage with the goat in."

Then the man brought wooden sides and fastened them onto the cage over the iron bars. This left Billy only a little iron barred opening near the top, at one side, to get air through.

"I shall surely smother," thought Billy. "Oh, this is horrible! I feel as if I were buried alive."

At that minute the horses started up and poor Billy went down on his knees with a sudden jerk.

"How I wish Nanny was here to comfort me," thought Billy. "She was always so patient and cheerful." How like a man that was for Billy to forget all about Nanny while he was free and having a good time, but the minute he was in trouble to think of her and be willing to have her shut up if he could only see her.

After several hours of hard traveling they stopped, and Billy knew they must be at the depot for he heard the engines whistling and the bells ringing, and he was very glad of it for his knees were all skinned from slipping on the floor from one end of the cage to the other when they went up or down hill, for it was impossible to stand, so he had to lay down and make the best of it.

"I never pitied caged animals before," thought Billy, "but I did not know what they had to endure or I should."

After a great deal of commotion, swearing and fussing on the part of the men outside, Billy's cage was at last on board and the train started.

"Mercy!" thought Billy, "aren't they going to give me a drink of water or something fresh and cool to eat? Do they expect me to eat that dried up, tasteless, weedy hay this hot day; and as for the water, that got upset the first hill we went up. Oh, dear!

and to add to the rest of my troubles I have got a cinder in my eye, along with this horrible dust that is blowing in that stuffy little window and I know I am going to be smothered to death. Oh, if Nanny were only here, to lick this cinder out of my eye! It smarts so I wish I had hands instead of feet for once in my life so I could get it out. I wonder if people ever think how inconvenient it is not to have hands sometimes."

And poor old Billy commenced to cry softly to himself. It was a good thing he did for he soon cried the cinder out and when his eye stopped hurting, he got some of his s.p.u.n.k back again and began to plan some way of getting out of his cage.

At twelve o'clock at night they reached the city and were driven through the silent streets to a vacant lot where all the circus bands were to meet. And here I will leave Billy until next morning.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_What Billy Did on Friday_

When Billy's little band of circus people joined the others they found everything in order as they were the last company of the six traveling bands to join the main one.

There was one huge tent with three rings in it where the performances would be given; opening into this was another large one where the animals were exhibited and branching out of this were three others,--one where the horses and ponies were kept; another used as the dressing room, and still another where the circus people took their meals, while scattered around were ten or a dozen side-shows.

The cage Billy was in had hardly been put in place when the sides were taken off and he found himself in the large animal tent with the cages arranged round the edge and his old friend the elephant tethered just outside with the other elephants from the different bands, and his elephant friend was talking to his chum, the elephant he had told Billy about, that told such good stories. Billy thought he must be telling one now for they were both laughing, but you might have thought they were trumpeting had you heard them.

Billy bleated to the elephant and he raised his head and looked 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 sc.r.a.pes 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 b.u.t.t 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 gra.s.s.

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. Windla.s.s'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 pa.s.sed 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?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 pa.s.sed 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, smas.h.i.+ng in the wooden side and setting Billy free. For once the old saying came true: "That it is an ill wind that blows n.o.body 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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.