Billy Whiskers, Frances Trego Montgomery [online e book reader .TXT] 📗

  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?"