This great big dirigible, the first of its size to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was landing right before their eyes.
And sure enough they did. This great big dirigible, the first of its size to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was landing right before their eyes.
"Let us run over and get as near it as we can," Billy said.
When the monster airship landed, the Chums were not fifty feet away, and stood taking in everything as it slowly settled to earth.
Presently little windows and doors were seen to open in its sides and people came walking out. The Chums went nearer and found out by the conversation they overheard that they were forced to land as something was the matter with the machinery. The longer Billy looked, the more he wanted to see what the dirigible was like on the inside, until at last his curiosity got the better of him and he walked boldly up to the balloon and poked his head in one of the doors and gazed in. Not being driven away, or seeing any one, he stepped in and soon was exploring the balloon from one end to the other, with both Stubby and Button at his heels.
...he walked boldly up to the balloon and poked his head in one of the doors and gazed in.
"Isn't it wonderful?" said Billy. "Just as cozy and nice as a shipthat sails the sea. Staterooms, lounge, dining saloon, kitchen and storerooms galore! Let's hide and be carried off with her when she starts. It is worth being delayed on our journey to have such an experience."
"Indeed it is!" replied Button.
"Quick, get under that table! I hear some one coming," warned Stubby.
Billy dodged under the table in the dining saloon while Stubby hid under a chair and Button ran up a curtain and settled himself on the curtain pole near the ceiling. The person they had heard coming soon passed through the room, and they came out of their hiding places and continued their explorations.
Presently they found it difficult to stand on their feet, and looking from a window they discovered they were slowly rising from the ground. At the same time they found it was exceedingly hard to stand still and keep their balance. Before it should grow any worse, they ran back and hid where they had before, to await further developments.
"I hope if they find us they don't pitch us overboard when they get up two or three thousand feet," said Stubby.
Help! Oh, help! I must have some air," whined Stubby. "I am getting seasick!" But neither Billy nor Button heard him as the noise of the engine and propellers drowned all other sounds in the balloon.
"If there was only a deck I could get out on! I wish I had not come! I just hate this way of traveling! It is worse than being in an elevator in a high building and having the car shoot from the bottom floor to the top in one bound. This thing is worse for it decides to stop, dropping and then shooting up again without warning, and it runs upside down and every other way but straight ahead. Oh, oh, oh! I can't stand it another minute. I must have air!"
So Stubby crawled out from under his chair and climbed up on a long, narrow window seat directly under an open window and hung out his head. He could only just reach the window by standing on his hind legs as he was so short and the window ledge was so far above the seat. As he looked out he could see the earth fast receding from him. He felt as if it were the dirigible that was standing still and the earth that was dropping from them. By this time they wereso high in the air that the fields and forests looked like squares on a checkerboard and the broad rivers were mere silver threads across it. As for the churches and houses, they looked like card houses or toy paper villages. People he could see none; they were too small to be seen from this height. He became so interested looking that he forgot his seasickness, and he was very much surprised when they ran into a raincloud and he felt the raindrops on his face. But what surprised him most was to see lightning darting all around him and so near it seemed to go through the dirigible and come out the opposite side. As for the thunder, youpeople who have never been up in the clouds and heard it close at hand have no idea of the terrific noise and of the terror it causes one.
By this time they were so high in the air that the fields and forests looked like squares on a checkerboard
By this time the big dirigible was floundering in the stormclouds as a ship does in a heavy sea, only ten times more so. A dirigible is lighter than a ship and the wind at this altitude much stronger. It would catch the balloon up and carry it for miles out of its course on one of its fierce currents. Then without warning it would suddenly die down and the big balloon would drop hundreds of feet only to be caught up by another blast and twirled around or carried up again as the case might be, while constantly the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled and our Chums thought the very next gale would double them up and dash them to their death.
While Stubby was at the window, Billy was having his own troubles. He had tried to find a better place to hide than under the table and had come out to do so when an extra hard lurch of the balloon had sent him headlong the entire length of the dining saloon. He hit his head against the partition at one end of the room and then was flung back to the other end again. As the balloon was changing its course every minute, he could not regain his bearings. One minute the balloon would be standing almost perpendicularly, climbing to higher altitudes to try to get above the stormclouds. The next a heavy gust of wind would drive it back, or the gale would die down altogether and the dirigible would drop into a pocket of theatmosphere, or, worse yet, would be twirled around and around like a ship in a whirlpool of water.
Poor Billy went slipping head foremost from one end of the saloon to the other, sometimes sitting on his tail, at others rolling over and over until he felt like a jellyfish. But still the storm continued, and he could not find a place of safety.
As for Button, he had the best of it for when the balloon rolled or dove, he simply dug his claws further into the curtain pole and hung on for dear life. Once the dirigible sailed for hundreds of feet upside down. Button simply dug in deeper and hung upside down too.
The jerking of the dirigible knocked Stubby off the window seat and for many minutes he had been rolling from one end of the saloon to the other on one side of the table while Billy took the same journeys on the other side of the table, only it was not hurting Stubby so much as it was Billy. He had curled himself into a tight ball which made him roll easily. He looked like a ball of scraggly worsted. As for Billy, try as he would he could not curl up in a tight ball as his legs were too long and his horns much too sharp.
"Oh, my, will this storm ever be over? Why did we ever let our curiosity get the better of us and entice us to try a ride in this dangerous thing? No more dirigibles for me if I live to get out of this one, which I am very much afraid I won't!"
In less than five minutes from the time Billy thus spoke thedirigible had weathered the storm and was flying in clear blue sky a thousand feet above the still raging storm. They could still hear the thunder and see the vivid flashes of lightning.
"Gee! What a place to see the moon and stars," thought Billy. "Now the danger seems to be over, I wish we would stay away up here until dark so I could see what the moon and the stars look like when we are so near them. If we get near enough the moon, I should like to jump off and make a visit there."
Poor stupid Billy! He knew nothing of the thousands and thousands of miles between him and the moon, though it might look so very near.
When the dirigible was sailing quietly along, a waiter came in and began setting the table. He did not see our friends, and went whistling about his task. What most aroused the Chums' curiosity were the funny little fences he fastened on the table. Then when everything was ready, he sprinkled water on the tablecloth until it was quite wet.
"What in the world is he wetting that perfectly clean cloth for? I should like to know that," mused Billy. "I'll just watch and see."
Then before the waiter put down his sprinkling can, he took a plate and set it on the cloth to see if it was wet enough to keep the plate from slipping if the dirigible tipped or rolled to one side. Finding it was wet enough, he left the saloon and came back with a tray ofgoblets. These he fitted in holes made for them in the little railing that ran around the whole table.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Billy. "Did you ever see anything as slick as that? Now the people won't have their plates or goblets slip into their laps as they eat. I wonder who ever thought of that scheme first. I should like to see how the kitchen looks. It must be as tiny as those on the Pullman cars. And I bet they have some new fandangled contraptions to keep the boilers of hot stuff and the frying pans from slipping off the stove when cooking. I'd go and try to get a peek at it but I'm afraid of being discovered and thrown overboard."
At this moment the waiter returned with a tray of spoons, knives and forks. As the swinging door closed behind him, he found himself facing a rolling ball of string coming straight toward him. As it reached his feet, he stepped to one side and the ball hit the door with such force that it flew open and the ball of string rolled through.
The waiter was so astonished that he braced himself against the partition while trying to catch his breath. As he stood there staring, he happened to glance up and there clinging to the curtain pole he saw a big, black cat staring back at him with wide open yellow eyes. This was too much for that waiter. He dropped the tray of silver and fled to the kitchen, but as the swinging door flew open to let him through, he bumped into the cook, who was in turn fleeing from theball of string or worsted that was rolling around his kitchen floor, giving forth yelps like a dog. The two men clung to each other, their hair standing straight on end, and their knees knocking together.
Just then the craft gave a lurch which sent the folds of the tablecloth swinging out so that it disclosed Billy hiding underneath.
As they stood thus, one of the officers of the dirigible having heard the racket as the silver fell to the floor, came in the saloon from the other end to discover what the trouble might be. Just then the craft gave a lurch which sent the folds of the tablecloth swinging out so that it disclosed Billy hiding underneath. The officer stared, wiped his eyes, and then stared some more. At this moment Billy decided to come out and go through the door the officer was holding open.
When the officer saw a big, white goat rising from under the table he was so frightened that his legs shook together and he pulled the door shut. By this time Billy had up too much speed to slow down, so when his head hit the door he simply went through it as if it had been made of paper.
The noise of the splintering door brought the officer to his senses, and he called for help, but no one heard him. He was about to go to see where everybody was when the swinging door to the kitchen flew open and in rolled a yelping ball of string. At the same moment he spied Button staring down at him. He simply turned and fled to his berth, where he covered up his head so he could not see things, for he was fully convinced he was seeing things not of flesh and blood.
When Stubby in his mad rolling came to the door Billy had butted through, he bounded through the hole as a rubber ball might, and went bounding down the long narrow passage until he came up against a wall in a dark closet, as he supposed. But in reality he had rolled through an open door into the stateroom of the officer who had fled from Button and Billy, and had Stubby only known it at that very moment he was under his berth.
While all this had been taking place, the dirigible was fast descending toward its home hangar and in a few minutes they would be down to the earth again. And it was a good thing for the Chums that they were for when Billy was discovered by the Captain he ordered him thrown overboard with the dog and the cat. But if you think it an easy matter to catch as big and strong a goat as Billy with the fighting propensities he had and two lively animals like Stubby and Button, you are badly mistaken.
...they upset things generally as the aviators tried to hit them with brooms, mops and whatever came handy.
Two or three aviators tried to corner him and tie him up so theycould pitch him overboard, but he butted and kicked so they could not lay hands on him. No more hands could be spared from the crew to help, as it required all the rest to manage the ship. Stubby and Button also put up a stiff fight as the men chased them all over the dirigible from under chairs and tables in this stateroom and that, where they upset things generally as the aviators tried to hit them with brooms, mops and whatever came handy.
While this was going on, the dirigible had quietly glided into its hangar and was quickly being tied up. An aviator was chasing Stubby with a long-handled brush when a man on the outside opened a door in the side of the dirigible just as Stubby was passing and quick as a wink he took advantage of it and jumped out, much to the surprise of the man who had opened it. After him came Button and Billy, and when the Chums' feet touched terra firma again they lost no time in leaving that aviation field.When they had found a nice, quiet, safe place to rest and were reviewing this last adventure, Billy said, "No more dirigibles for me! I never want even to see one again!"
"Nor I!" said Stubby. "I am one mass of black and blue bruises from hitting the furniture and door jambs as I rolled from one end of that long saloon to the other."
"And I still feel sick from hanging with my head down so long when that old dirigible traveled upside down," declared Button.
After the Chums had rested and had a bath in a nearby lake, they lay down in a nice shady place to plan what they would do next.
"I think the first thing I should do," said Billy, "is to send a message to Nannie that the three of us are alive and well and are on our way to the old farm, and to ask her, Billy Junior, Daisy and the Twins to start for Chicago, where we will meet them in Lincoln Park as soon as we get there. It will take them as long to come the short distance from Fon du Lac to Chicago as it will take us to travel all the way from New York State, as they will have to travel slower, having the Twins with them. Besides, Nannie is not so young as she was and cannot stand the hardships of a hurried trip. I don't believe there is a carrier pigeon within a hundred miles of here to take my message, so I think I shall have to entrust it to the crows. There are crows in every State, and they are very reliable messengers and travel fast. One crow need not go all the way. One can carry it to the border of New York State, say, and there give it to another crow in Pennsylvania, and so on until it reaches my peoplein Fon du Lac, Wisconsin. If they get to Lincoln Park before we do, it is a fine place to wait as they can visit with the wild animals and get all the grass they want to eat in the Park, and all the water they want to drink and bathing too in Lake Michigan, which is on the east side of the Park. Now you fellows keep your eyes open for crows."
...the first thing they saw was a big, black crow sitting on a scarecrow as unafraid as if it had been a tree.
"I don't think we will see any around here," said Stubby, "as there is nothing they like to eat on the shores of this lake. We better find some cornfield, as we shall be sure to find plenty of crows there."
So the three got up and trotted along until they came to a cornfield. And sure enough, the first thing they saw was a big, black crow sitting on a scarecrow as unafraid as if it had been a tree. On seeing this, Billy exclaimed,
"That is the crow for me! He has no fear andwill let nothing turn him from his way. I am going to ask him to carry the message."
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself to take the baby's bottle away from it!" reproved Nannie"Aren't you ashamed of yourself to take the baby's bottle away from it!" reproved NannieToList(Page 128)
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself to take the baby's bottle away from it!" reproved NannieToList
(Page 128)
Saying this, Billy jumped the fence that encircled the cornfield, and approached the crow.
Crows not being afraid of animals, the old fellow on the scarecrow did not stir as Billy approached, but when he was within twenty feet of him, the crow cawed out:
"Well, I never! If this isn't my old friend Billy Whiskers! And how do you come to be away down East, when I met you away out West years ago?"
"You don't mean to tell me that you are Black Wings, that saucy dandy who carried a message for me once from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Fon du Lac, Wisconsin?" gasped Billy.
"I surely do! I am that very crow, only no longer young or dandified."
"From your looks I should say the world had treated you fine," said Billy.
"Look who is here—Stubby and Button, the same traveling companions you had with you in the West!" exclaimed the crow in astonishment.
"Fellows, hurry your bones and see who is here," baaed Billy to Stubby and Button.
"Don't tell me it is Black Wings!" barked Stubby, while Buttonmeowed, "You have grown portly since I saw you last, and are much more eatable looking than you were then, though you looked very good to me that day I was starving and tried to catch you to eat." And they all laughed, for once Button had nearly caught Black Wings, but he proved too quick for the half starved cat and flew up in a cactus plant and cawed and scolded Button. Afterwards they became good friends, and Black Wings carried a message to Nannie telling her that Billy, Stubby and Button would be back at the old farm on Billy's birthday. They had met the crow on the desert near Salt Lake City, and he had flown over them and showed them where there was an oasis on the desert, affording food and water that was not alkaline. After which he carried the message straight to Nannie without a relay as he was going East and said he would as soon go to the old farm as anywhere else.
"I should be delighted to carry another message for you. I always like to do a friend a favor when I can. Besides, I should enjoy seeing your sweet wife, handsome son and cunning grandchildren again. I shall never forget the rousing party they gave me, and the amount of corn I ate that night. I really ate so much I thought my skin would burst. Now what is the message you wish me to take this time? And I suppose you are in a tearing hurry as you usually are?"
"No; this time I am in no hurry at all, as there will be plenty of time for you to go there and get back before we can possibly reachChicago. All I wish you to do is to go to the farm you went to before and tell Nannie that we three Chums have returned from the War safe and sound and without losing an eye or a leg, and for her to meet us in Chicago. Ask her too to bring as many of the family with her as she can induce to come, and for them to meet us in Lincoln Park as it is the safest and most comfortable place I can think of for them to wait for us. And also tell her to allow a month for us to get there as we might be captured and shut up somewhere for a time. But it will be only for a time; no one could keep us long."
"Now if you fellows would like, I can show you an easy road to travel that will take you to Chicago by the shortest and quickest route. Do you see that line of telegraph poles the other side of this field? Well, just follow them until you come to the first town. When you get there, leave them and follow the railroad. It will take you straight into Chicago, but be careful you don't get on a side track when going through some of the cities and towns where many railroads meet. All the way along you will find good friends and farmhouses where you can rest and get something to eat. I see a man with a gun coming this way. He has not seen us yet, but he soon will, so I guess we better say good-by and separate."
Bing, bing, bang! and a shot went clear through the crown of the old straw hat on the scarecrow where the crow had just been sitting.
Two weeks from the time the old crow took the message from Billy, he delivered it to Nannie early one morning when she had just awakened from a sound sleep on the top of a straw stack. It was her usual resting place, for from this vantage point she could get a view of all the country roundabout as the stack stood on the top of a high hill. Here she spent most of her time night and day when Billy was away, looking for him to return. From here she could see not only the country roads, but also the railroad as well as the meadows and woodland. Consequently from whichever direction Billy might come she would be the first to see him. It was from this very lookout she had seen him when he returned from his western trip, from his Panama expedition and from across the ocean and far-away Constantinople. You must not forget that Billy was a traveled goat.
This particular morning she awoke at sunrise, but seeing a heavy mist hid the sun, she tried to go to sleep again as it foretold a hot day. But just as she was dropping off to sleep, she heard a crow caw directly over her head, and she thought it queer that the crows wouldbe stirring so early. Again she closed her eyes to sleep, but the call was repeated and it sounded so much nearer than at first that she opened her eyes once more. Lo and behold! directly in front of her on a dead limb of a tree sat a big, black crow.
Lo and behold! directly in front of her on a dead limb of a tree sat a big, black crow.
"Don't you know me, Mrs. Billy Whiskers?" cawed he.
"It isn't—itcan'tbe our old friend and messenger Black Wings!"
"That is just who it is! You have good eyes, Mrs. Whiskers, to recognize me after all these years, especially as they say I have grown stouter."
"That you surely have, but any one having once seen your sharp, shrewd eyes would never forget them or the saucy turn of your head. You can't be here to give me another message from my beloved husband, can you?"
"That is just my business—to deliver a message from him, to tell you that he, Stubby and Button are all well and happy and, best of all, that none of them lost so much as an eye or a leg in the War. Which is quite remarkable, I think, as they were in the thick of the fight more than once, and were also torpedoed by a submarine. But just wait until you see them! They themselves will tell you about their war experiences."
"Oh, how happy you have made me, Mr. Black Wings, by bringing me the message that the husband I adore is safe and sound and in this country once again! I don't believe I can ever stand it to have him go away from me again. I have died a thousand deaths in imagining him wounded and left to die on the battlefield, or, worse yet, blown to atoms by a shell. Come with me while I tell Billy Junior and Daisy the good news."
And Nannie slipped off the straw stack and went to where Billy Junior, his wife Daisy, and their Twins were asleep at the foot of a haystack in the barnyard.
"Why, mother! Are you ill?" asked Billy Junior when he awoke and saw her standing over him.
"No, dear. But I have such good news for you that I could not wait for you to awaken, but had to come and tell you. Hurry and get your eyes open and see who is here!"
"Not father, surely?"
"No; but an old friend who has brought news of him."
Billy Junior rubbed his face against his fore leg to get the sleep out of his eyes, so he could see who was there. At first he looked and looked, but he saw no one. He was looking on the ground, and Black Wings was perched on the tongue of an old farm wagon not ten feet away. When he saw the blank expression on Billy Junior's face, he cawed to show him where he was.
"Black Wings!" Billy exclaimed when he saw him. "How glad I am to see you once again! You should be called White Wings instead of Black Wings as you always bring such bright, cheerful news. Mother says you have good news for us. I can guess that it must be from father."
"You are right; it is. He is sound and well, and is coming to see you just as fast as his four legs can carry him. And Stubby and Button are with him. He sent me on ahead to tell you that he would like to have you, your mother, wife and the Twins join him in Chicago. You will have plenty of time to get there as they are away down East yet, in the state of New York. But though they are farther away from Chicago than you are, they can travel faster than you can, having the Twins with you."
"But how shall we ever be able to find him in such a large city as Chicago?" asked Nannie.
"He has instructed me to tell you to meet him in Lincoln Park,for should you arrive first, that will be an interesting place to wait as there are all the wild animals to talk to and plenty of good green grass in the Park to eat, and cool, clear water to drink as it borders on Lake Michigan."
"What are you talking about?" asked one of the Twins. "Going on a journey? We want to go too!"
"We both want to go!" piped up the other Twin. "We haven't been off this old stupid farm for ages, and I am crazy to go on a journey and talk to all the little lambs and goats along the road."
"Keep still, children! Don't you see Mr. Black Wings is telling us what Grandfather wants us to do?"
"Oh, I bet it is something bully ifheis planning it," said one Twin.
"Bet your sweet life it is!" chimed in the other.
"Children, how many times must I tell you not to use such language?" said their mother. "If you don't behave, we will leave you at home."
"You can't do that. Grandfather told you to bring us and he would be disappointed if you did not."
"Hush! Don't be impertinent!"
"You have all been to Chicago so will know the way," remarked Black Wings.
Just then a rooster flew up on the wagon to crow that it was daylight and time for all the barnyard animals and fowls to be up andlicking their coats or preening their feathers, which is what they do each morning instead of washing their faces as little boys and girls do.
Just then a rooster flew up on the wagon to crow that it was daylight...
"Mr. Chanticleer," called Nannie, "won't you crow out an invitation to all the animals and fowls to come to the spring at the foot of the barnyard as soon as they are up, to meet Mr. Black Wings? He has just come with a message from Billy, my husband, that he has landed in America safe and sound and is on his way here with our old friends Stubby and Button."
"With pleasure. Mrs. Whiskers! And I will crow my loudest and longest, for nothing in this world would give me more happiness than to welcome our old chum and friend back to the farm."
"Mother," said Mr. Winters, the owner of the farm, "that rooster will split his throat if he doesn't stop crowing so loud and long. He doesn't generally keep it up so long. If he continues to crow like thatin the mornings when I wish to sleep, we will roast him for Sunday dinner."
About an hour later when Mr. Winters went to the farmyard, as he did each morning, to take a look around before breakfast, he was surprised to see all the animals congregated around the spring. Even the pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys were there.
"Strange they should all be so thirsty this morning," he pondered. "If I had given them salt last night, I might have thought it was that but they haven't had any for days. Heigho! there goes an old crow, the first I have seen around here for ages."
When the animals saw Mr. Winters they all separated and wandered off in a careless manner. As soon as Mr. Winters had returned to the house, you could have seen, had you been looking, three big goats and two young ones hurrying down the lane that led from the barnyard to the main road to Chicago, with a big, black crow flying over them.
After numerous hardships and accidents of all kinds, the Billy Whiskers family arrived in Lincoln Park. The first thing they did was to go straight to the bathing beach to wash the stains of travel off their coats before visiting the animals.
They reached the Park three days before Billy could possibly have gotten there, and they were proposing to pass the time until his arrival by sightseeing and talking to the animals in the cages, but they came near being captured and shut up the very first day they were there. It happened in this way.
When they reached the beach there were only a few people in the water and lying on the sand, as it was too early in the day for the crowd, though those who were there made up in noise and fun for those who were not.
The lifeguards were lazily lounging in their boat away from shore when they heard an angry scream from some woman in the water. They thought some one must be annoying her, but on looking up they saw her swimming for shore as fast as she could go, while on the sandstood three black goats and two white ones beside a two-year-old baby lying on a shawl, kicking and screaming. Over it stood a small goat with the baby's bottle dangling from its mouth as it chewed the rubber tubing, while the other young goat was eating some sweet cakes it had found in a bag, and one of the old goats was licking the baby's forehead. That was Daisy, the Twins' mother. She meant no harm as this was her way of kissing the sweet little baby. Daisy loved babies and she thought this would quiet this little child. Billy Junior tried to get the bottle away from the Twin to give back to the baby so it would not cry.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself to take the baby's bottle away from it!" reproved Nannie.
"But I was thirsty and wanted a drink of milk!"
"Never mind if you did. You should not take it away from a tiny baby."
"He isn'tverytiny! Just hear how he yells!"
By this time the baby's mother had reached the spot and was throwing stones and sand at the goats while she tried to pacify the baby.
As the goats saw the lifeboat head for the shore, they thought they better disappear, knowing that the minute the men beached the boat they would be after them. So they raced into the Park and hid themselves behind some lilac bushes. Daisy said:
"I really don't see why you children don't behave. You have done nothing but get into mischief and cause us trouble ever since we left home. I wish we had not brought you! Any one would think you never had any bringing up. And now to try to take a sweet little baby's dinner away from it! I am ashamed of you! Besides, now none of us can take a bath on that nice sandy beach. We shall have to find another place, which won't be very easy since the lifeguards have seen us."
So the goats all trotted over to one of the lagoons in the Park which the Twins had called a lake, and they plunged into the water.
"I know where there is a nice little lake, mamma," piped up oneTwin. "I saw it as we came along—right over there where you see that high bridge."
"Very well. We will all go over there for I feel very dirty and tired. It will both clean us and rest us to have a nice cool bath."
So the goats all trotted over to one of the lagoons in the Park which the Twins had called a lake, and they plunged into the water. They had a fine time and enjoyed themselves, much to the discomfort of some stately swans that were greatly upset to have strange goats come dashing into their private place. They began to hiss, which set all the ducks to quacking and the sea lions to barking. This commotion soon brought a park guard to the spot to see what was the matter. When he discovered a lot of goats in the water he walked down to the edge of the pond and began to wave his club and shout at them.
"Hear the old goose!" said one of the Twins. "He is shooing at us! I guess he thinks we are a kind of duck!"
"Let's baa at him, and tell him what an old goose he is," said the other.
"Oh, oh! Where did you come from?" wailed one little girl when the kids jumped out of the shrubbery and grabbed her bag of popcornOh, oh! Where did you come from?" wailed one little girl when the kids jumped out of the shrubbery and grabbed her bag of popcornToList(Page 141)
Oh, oh! Where did you come from?" wailed one little girl when the kids jumped out of the shrubbery and grabbed her bag of popcornToList
(Page 141)
When the goats did not leave the water or pay any attention to him, the guard began throwing stones at them. At last one hit Billy Junior on the head. This was too much for him. The guard might throw stones all he wished, but hitting Billy Junior with them was quite another thing. He wheeled and swam for shore, going straightfor the guard, who stood still, not knowing Billy Junior was bent on butting him.
Indeed Billy Junior did butt the guard so hard he sent him flying over the high iron fence that surrounded the sea lions' pool and rock cave where they lived.
Indeed Billy Junior did butt the guard so hard he sent him flying over the high iron fence that surrounded the sea lions' pool and rock cave where they lived. He fell kersplash into the water, astride a papa sea lion as he went swimming round and round his rock home. When the lion felt something alight on his back, he dove to the bottom of the pool in a flash, taking the guard with him. But no human being could stick on the back of a slippery sea lion, and the guard soon came up to the surface of the water blowing and spouting like a porpoise.
The goats did not wait to see what became of the guard but ran and hid themselves under the approach of one of the Park bridges.
Early the next morning before the crowds of people began to come to the Park, the goats had a fine time visiting all the animals, going up one path and down another and in one animal house and out another until they came to the lions' cages. These roaring, ferocious beasts with their glaring yellow eyes, tawny manes, big red mouths and gleaming teeth frightened the Twins nearly into spasms and they ran away from the family so fast that their mother could not follow them. They dodged under this bush and that, around curves in the paths and behind the animal cages so quickly that she gave up the chase and came back to get their father to help her.
"They have gone and we can't catch up to them now," said he. "Stay here and go with us a bit and when we have seen all the animals we wish to see, I'll look for them. They will be frightened after a while when they find they are alone, and begin to hunt us," said their father.
So Billy Junior, Daisy and Nannie walked leisurely from cage to cage, saying a word here and a word there to all the animals andbirds they saw. And this is how it happened that the Twins found themselves alone in the Park.
"Gee! I hope those big beasts don't break out of their cage and come after us! We would only make one mouthful for them and I bet they like tender kid meat at that!" shuddered one Twin.
"Don't even mention it!" said the other. "I can feel my bones crunch in their big mouths and see them lick their chops after they have eaten us."
"Where shall we go now? We can do as we please all day if we just keep out of sight of the family."
"We'll keep our eyes open for them, never mind, and if we see them coming, we will hide. I wonder what is in that big cage over there? I see something flying from one side to the other but it doesn't look like a bird. Let's go see what it is."
So they trotted off and soon found themselves in front of the monkeys' cage.
"Oh, look, look! Aren't they the funniest looking things you ever saw? They have faces like a baby or an old man and tails like a cat!"
"See that big one away up in that perch holding a little teeny, tiny one in its arms just as a woman holds a baby!"
"One of them has its tail sticking out of the cage. Wait until I go pinch it with my teeth and see what it will do."