Billy Whiskers' Adventures Part 14

"Oh, don't take the trouble! Saying it once is enough. But allow me to inform you that the odor of a goat is as sweet to the nostrils as roses and lilies compared to the odor from an elephant. That resembles the smell from a garbage pile!"

Now Billy Junior had done it! The elephant became enraged and tried to break down the fence between them. When he found he could not do this, he trumpeted and pawed the earth, throwing great clods of dirt all over them.

"Come out of there! Come out of there!" called Daisy to the kids. "He will kill you!"

But the Twins could not get out as the elephant was between them and the hole through which they had crawled. Seeing them, he charged but he was so big and they so small that they simply ran between his legs when he tried to catch them up with his trunk.

Daisy, Nannie and Billy Junior all stood panic-stricken at the chances the kids took. First they would run under his body from side to side, then between his hind legs. Had he moved a foot, they would have been crushed between his great legs. There being two of them and both so small and frisky, they confused the beast so he did not think as quickly as usual. He had been out of the jungle for years where he had had to think fast, and now he found himself rusty and unable to cope with frisky little pests like these two kids.

"I'll fix them," he said to himself, and he walked over to where his tub of drinking water stood, and filled his trunk. Then he charged down on the Twins where they stood in one corner, waiting to see what he would do next. The little rascals were enjoying the rage of the elephant very much and were not afraid of him at all as they thought they could trust to their wits to save themselves.

The elephant walked up to within five feet of them. Then he stopped and squirted the water at them with such force that it knocked one of them over when it hit him broadside. The other kid it blinded so he could not see where to run. Then they heard a bellow of rage and pain.

Shaking the water from their eyes, they saw a big white goat run under the elephant's stomach and scratch the skin with his short horns so badly that it made the monster cry out with pain and turn to see what had attacked him so suddenly. When he faced about whom should he see but old Billy Whiskers himself in front of him. At the same moment he felt a cat on his back and a dog snapping at his heels.

But what had changed the enraged elephant so quickly? For now he was as docile as a lamb, and the kids saw him go up to Billy and wind his trunk around Billy's beard and playfully pull it, at the same time saying,

"Billy Whiskers! My old friend Billy Whiskers of the circus! Where by all that is wonderful did you come from? I supposed you were dead long ago."

Elephants live to be over a hundred years old, but goats not so long, and as it had been many years since these two had traveled and performed in the same circus, the elephant had taken it for granted that Billy was dead.

"Excuse me a minute until I throw out these smelly young kids. I can't stand their odor," said the elephant.

"If you don't mind, I will put them out myself, as I think I can do it more gently than you could, and I happen to have an interest in those particular kids as they are my well beloved grandchildren whom I have not seen for two years," replied Billy.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Your grandchildren!" exclaimed the elephant. "I beg your pardon. Had I known they were related to you in the most distant manner, I would not have harmed a hair of their skin. I do hope you will forgive me!"

"Certainly I will forgive you. And perhaps they were annoying you and deserved being punished, for as I remember them they were pretty mischievous kids."

"Take after their grandfather, eh?" said the elephant.

"I guess so," said Billy.

"Baa, baa, baa!" came a voice as sweet as music to Billy's ears and turning he saw his darling wife looking through the fence.

"How did you get shut in there?" he asked. "I'll be with you in a minute!" But though he looked and looked he could find no opening leading into the yard where Nannie was confined. He had gotten into the elephant's yard by jumping through an open window in the elephant's house and running out the door that led to the yard, and Stubby and b.u.t.ton had followed him. Billy had recognized the kids, and seeing them in danger he had not stopped to figure how they got there, but had rushed to their rescue immediately. He and Stubby and b.u.t.ton had just arrived in the Park after their long journey from New York State, and were looking for the family when they chanced to turn a corner in the path and came upon this scene.

The kids slipped back into the goat yard the way they had left it, while Billy, Stubby and b.u.t.ton stood and talked to Nannie, the fence between them.

"Oh, if I could only find a way to get over into your yard," baaed Billy to Nannie.

"I have it!" said the elephant. "I can get you all over there if you don't mind being dropped a few feet."

"Certainly we don't, but how are you going to do it?"

"I'll just pick you up with my trunk and drop you on the other side of the fence."

"You can't do it," said Billy. "I am too heavy."

"Indeed, I _can_ do it! I guess you are no heavier than the mahogany logs I used to lift and put in high piles when I lived in Siam. Come here and let me try."

The elephant encircled Billy's body with his trunk and lifted him up from the ground and over the fence as easily as if he had been a feather. When he had raised Billy to the top of the fence, he unwound his trunk and dropped him over into the next yard where his family awaited him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When the elephant turned to get Stubby and b.u.t.ton to put them over the same way, he found they had crawled through the hole the kids had used.

Such a smelling of noses, and licking of faces you never saw as when the Billy Whiskers family and their friends were once again reunited after this long separation while Billy had been in the war in Europe.

"Isn't it too bad, my dear," said Nannie, "that we are all shut up in this yard with no hopes of getting out? And I was just saying to Daisy that if you were here, you would soon find a way to secure our freedom."

"And I shall, my dear. I shall just wait until the keeper comes in through the gate to look after the goats. Then I shall either b.u.t.t him over as he comes in or b.u.t.t down the gate when he takes the padlock and chain off. Anyhow, I shall find a way to get us out of here very soon, I am sure. Now we will think only of the present and enjoy every minute of being together. What fine kids the Twins have grown to be!

But I imagine they are just as mischievous as ever."

"Can you wonder at it when you stop to consider who their father and grandfather are?" said Nannie.

"Gracious! What can be causing all that commotion over in the farther corner of the yard, I wonder?" said Daisy.

"Where are the Twins?" asked Billy Junior.

"I don't know," answered their mother.

"Then I guess you will find that they are at the bottom of the fracas over there. I'll go see," said their father, and off he trotted to find out if the kids were in mischief.

Presently he came back, driving both kids before him. But what had happened to them? They were as dirty as dirty could be and both were crying.

"Oh, my precious darlings!" exclaimed Daisy. "Who has been hurting you?"

"No one has been hurting them. They need a good spanking! Where do you think I found them? In the middle of a ring of Angora goats, having a fight with two kids about their own size. It would have been all right to have had a boxing match, but they did not play fair. They lost their tempers and when they got the other kids down, they hooked and tramped them unmercifully. I don't like that! They must fight fair and keep to the rules of boxing, and not beat up their adversaries when they are down."

"Come here, kids," said their grandfather. "If you will promise to be good all the rest of the day, I will tell you a story of the Great War and of some of the things that happened to Uncle Stubby and Uncle b.u.t.ton and myself when fighting in the army."

CHAPTER XVI

A PANTHER ESCAPES FROM THE CAGE

The Billy Whiskers family as well as all the Angora goats were enjoying themselves listening to Billy, Stubby and b.u.t.ton tell war stories, when they noticed great excitement among the people in the Park, who began running in all directions, screaming as they ran.

"What can the matter be?" they asked one another. "I'll go over by the fence that leads along the walk," suggested Billy, "and listen and see if I cannot find out what is frightening the people so. Something important must have happened for they all look so scared and palefaced."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

All the larger goats went with Billy, while the mothers and young Nannies stayed behind.