Billy Whiskers Part 8

When he had finished speaking, four men drew a platform in, on which Billy was seated in his chair at the table. But the strangest part of it all was, that when everything was still and the crowd were all watching him, he commenced to read and turn the pages of the book, and he spoke so plainly that everyone could understand and hear. This surely was wonderful, and the children could not make up their minds whether it was a man with goat's horns, for his long horns stuck out through two holes on either side of his cap, or a goat with a man's voice; and when the Ring Master told the children that the professor had just dropped from the sign of the Zodiac called Capricorn, which is represented in all the almanacs by a goat, they thought he must be telling the truth. He did not tell them that hidden under the platform was a man that did the talking, and when the leaves of the book turned, that he was pulling a string which made them turn over, but everyone thought the goat was doing it himself.

After the performance was over, all the children as they pa.s.sed fed Billy peanuts, candy, pop-corn and apples as he stood by the elephant.

Billy had behaved like a lamb for days and gone through all his performances without a hitch,--in fact he had become the pet of the circus, and allowed to roam about at will and was never tied not even at night. So this night after all had settled down and gone to bed, Billy, feeling wakeful, thought he would move around a little and take a peep into the other tents. First he stuck his nose into a little tent where they sold pop-corn, peanuts, lemonade etc., during the performances.

"Now is my chance," thought Billy, "to eat all the pop-corn I want, for I never have gotten enough to satisfy me at any one time, but how can I get it out of that gla.s.s case. It looks so easy to get at and smells so good, I must have some, even if I have to break the gla.s.s to get at it."

He stood licking the gla.s.s for a little while; then his greed getting the better of him, he backed off and gave the gla.s.s a quick hard knock with his horns. It broke and flew in all directions and let the pop-corn roll out in a perfect stream.

Billy stopped to listen a minute to see if the noise of the breaking gla.s.s had brought anyone to see what was the matter, and when no one came, he commenced to eat the salted and b.u.t.tered corn, and he ate until for once in his life he could say he had had enough. But, oh my! what a thirst it had given him, and he did not know where to get a drink unless he went and stole it out of the elephant's tub of water, but he did not like to go there as the elephant's keeper slept near his charge and he might catch him and tie him up.

Billy was just leaving the tent when he ran into a large tin water cooler. It took but a minute to push the top off with his nose and then he began to drink. But what was the matter with the water? It had turned sour and had round pieces of yellow, sour stuff floating in it; it was his first taste of lemonade, consequently he did not know what he was drinking.

In his disgust at finding no water, he revenged himself by upsetting the water cooler and spilling all the lemonade. Then he walked out and going into the first tent he came to, he found himself in the room of the leading lady who was fast asleep on a cot. At the end of the tent he saw a small table with a looking-gla.s.s hanging above it, but when Billy saw his reflection in it, he did not make the mistake of thinking it was another goat like he had once before. He walked up to the table and seeing a stick of red stuff that looked like candy, he ate it, but it turned out to be a stick of red paint that the leading lady used to paint her lips. After tasting her powder, and upsetting her bottle of perfumery, and chewing her blonde wig, thinking it some kind of yellow gra.s.s, he walked out without awakening her.

Next he went into a tent that had pictures of snakes of all kinds painted on it. This was the tent occupied by the snake charmers, but Billy knew nothing about large snakes, only little inoffensive garter snakes, so he went in and commenced nosing around in the baskets he saw setting there with blankets in them to see what was under the blankets.

In the first one, he felt something cold and slippery and not to his taste, so he let it alone, thinking it a piece of garden hose; but when he stuck his nose in the next basket something long and slim and pliable stuck its head out and wound itself around his body drawing itself tighter and tighter, until Billy found himself staggering for want of breath. When he was nearly squeezed to death he made a death-like groan which awoke the Indian snake charmer who was asleep in one corner of the tent on a pile of rugs. The man took in the situation at a glance, and came to Billy's rescue, making the snake uncoil itself by playing on a kind of bagpipe, a queer, weird, monotonous piece of music.

This charmed the snake and it uncoiled itself from Billy and, swaying its body, crawled toward the snake charmer.

The second that Billy felt its coils slip from his body, he took a long breath and ran from the tent not even stopping to wiggle his head in thanks for his preservation. Once outside, he made his way back to his own tent where he lay down on his pile of straw to s.n.a.t.c.h a little sleep before daylight, as unconcerned as if nothing had happened.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Billy and the Snakes_

The next day after Billy's midnight prowl which was Sat.u.r.day, there was great commotion among the circus people, for the leading lady accused her rival, the brunette, of coming into her dressing room while she slept and destroying her blonde wig; while the pop-corn man said thieves had been at his stand and broken his gla.s.s case and eaten his pop-corn, beside they had spilled all his lemonade that he had intended using the next day; the night watchman was going to be discharged for not attending to his business; then the Indian snake charmer came along and told them the thief had visited his tent but his snakes had frightened him away.

"And he was a big fellow I can tell you. I did not dare tackle him."

"Oh my!" said the leading lady, "and to think he was in my tent and I slept through it all."

"There, I told you I did not touch your old straw colored wig!"

said the brunette.

And they all said, "Do tell us all about it, what time of the night did he come, and which way did he go when he ran away?"

"All right," said the snake charmer, with a twinkle in his eye the others did not see, "sit down and I will tell you all about it,--how I was awakened by a groan, and saw standing in the middle of my tent, a huge fellow, with a long, white beard and white, agonized face; for you must know that my boa-constrictor was squeezing him to death."

"Oh, how awful! Weren't you frightened?" said the leading-lady.

"No, because I knew he could not touch me while the snake was coiled around him. At first I thought I would let the boa kill him, but he looked so awful with his eyes sticking out of his head, as the snake squeezed him tighter and tighter, that I felt sorry for him; so I began to play the music I always play when I want the snakes to come to me, and the boa stopped squeezing the goat and came to me."

"Goat, did you say? You mean burglar."

"No, I mean goat, or _burglar_ if you would rather call him so, for your thief was nothing more or less than Billy Whiskers."

"You mean, horrid man to fool us so!" they all said.

And the snake charmer got up and hurried out of the tent for he saw blood in the eye of the champion boxer and he thought he had better get out before the man took hold of him.

Sat.u.r.day was to be the last day of the circus in Smithville and immediately after the evening performance they were to break camp and move in the night, and be on the road all day Sunday traveling to the next town, where they were booked to give a performance on Monday morning.

Now all this meant quick work and rapid travel, as they could not go by train, there being no railroad to this town, so they had to have their circus horses and wagons move them.

When Billy heard them talking about moving, he thought it would be great fun and looked forward to it with pleasure. But he little knew what was before him.

During the morning performance Billy behaved all right, but in the afternoon he was so excited and anxious to be off that he behaved very badly. He ran around the ring so fast that when the monkey jumped through the paper hoops expecting to land on Billy's back, he was beyond him and the monkey landed on the ground and had to run to catch up. This made the ring-master angry and he hit Billy a sharp cut with his whip, but instead of making him behave better he got worse and worse. He would stand still and shake himself until he nearly made the monkey's bones crack; and when the ring-master hit him, he stood on his hind legs and the monkey had to cling to his horns to keep from falling off. When Billy found he could not throw the monkey, he ran for the pole in the center of the ring that supported the tent, and tried to b.u.t.t him off but the monkey was too quick for him and dodged every time. At last Billy tried rolling with him, but this the ring-master could not allow as it would ruin the saddle strapped to his back. He gave him a few good cuts with the whip that stung like everything and this turned Billy's wrath from the monkey to him, and like a shot he was up and after the ring-master. He planted his horns in the middle of the ring-master's back and ran him to the edge of the ring where he gave him a b.u.t.t that sent him flying to the other tent.

Billy was punished for this and told he should have no supper, and he understood what they said although they did not suppose he did.

"All right," he thought, "no supper, no performance, for I won't behave and take my part unless I am fed. But I will find something to eat even if they won't feed me, for a goat can eat almost anything from tin cans to apples."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The man who had tied Billy had scarcely gotten out of sight when he commenced to chew his rope in two and when it dropped apart, Billy walked over and commenced to eat the elephant's food. This the elephant did not like. He told Billy to stop and go eat his own supper, but Billy would not, neither would he take the trouble to explain to the elephant that he hadn't any supper and was expected to go supperless. Now if he had only told the elephant, who had always been a good friend of his, he would gladly have given him half of his supper; but Billy was in a contrary mood and would say nothing, but kept on eating. This provoked the elephant, so he quietly wound his trunk around Mr.

Billy and lifting him from the ground, set him on top of the lion's cage that was standing near. Billy was more surprised when he found himself standing on top of the lion's cage than he had ever been in his life, but only for a minute for he jumped down and disappeared through a tear in the canvas of the tent. As he ran away he heard all the animals laughing, though you might have called it the lion's roar and the hyena's call, and above all the racket he heard the head animal keeper asking what all this racket was about; and although they all tried to tell him by each giving his particular call, he was too stupid to understand animal talk, so lost all the fun of the joke.

When Billy came through the side of the tent, he found himself near the tent where the horses and ponies were kept. Smelling corn and oats, he walked in, and while talking to his particular friends, the Shetland ponies, he helped himself to their supper.

While in this tent he became acquainted with a little Mexican Burroetta that was destined to become his closest companion and friend in the future. The Burroetta was just his height, of a mouse color, with a white streak down its spine and four white stockinged feet, but the most peculiar thing about its looks was its exceedingly long ears,--ears that were as long as Billy's horns. It was the cutest, smartest little creature you ever saw, and had most beautiful, large, liquid eyes. It looked as mild as a dove, but was quite deceiving for it was as full of the "old scratch" as Billy himself. It must have been this kindred spirit that drew them together from the first.

That night the people had come to the circus; looked at the animals and pa.s.sed into the performing tent; several of the things on the programme had been gone through with and it was Billy's turn to perform next and still Billy had not been found.

Every man and woman on the place had been looking for him, but though they had hunted everywhere and inquired of every one if he had seen a large, white goat with long whiskers, no one had seen him and they were about to subst.i.tute something else for his performance when one of the men, coming into the ponies' tent for something, saw Billy lying down by the little Burroetta.

"Here Billy, you rascal, come along with me. We have been looking everywhere for you."

And Billy was led off and made to go through his performance. But to-night he was cross and still angry with the ring-master. So when about through with his imitation of the professor, he leaned over and took a mouthful of the leaves of the book and chewed them up. Then he stood up in his chair with his gown and spectacles on, and before anyone could stop him he had jumped down and ran out of the tent, with the spectacles still on his nose and his gown trailing after him.

The excitement and confusion this caused in the circus knew no bounds. And when the children discovered that the astrologer was nothing more or less than an ordinary goat, and that his voice had come from a man, who was a ventriloquist, hid under the platform, their disgust was complete and it broke up the circus performance for that night.

Billy chewed, wriggled and pulled at his gown until he tore it off and then he kicked up his heels and disappeared in the darkness outside; and he was careful to keep in the shadows away from the light, so no one could see him, for he had sense enough to know that he had done wrong and would be punished if caught.

_What Billy Did on Sunday_

Billy, after running out of the circus, stood in the shadow of a shed under a large tree. From his hiding place he could perceive all that was going on at the circus as it was bright moonlight, beside all the workmen had lights fastened in their caps so they could see without the bother of carrying a lantern around.

First Billy saw them hitch the draft-horses to the animal wagons and vehicles they had for carrying baggage. Then the big tent closed as if it were an umbrella, and it was rolled up and put in a wagon made purposely for hauling it; then all the riding horses with the men and women performers on their backs, started the procession. Next came the cages filled with animals and last the baggage vans and feed wagons.

After they were well on their way Billy trotted on behind keeping well in the shadows. They had been crawling silently along the highways like a huge snake for a long while when all of a sudden the long line came to a sudden halt.