“Not for the goat, anyway. He is getting so angry that he may have apoplexy. Let’s shout. Maybe the boys will hear us.”
“Not ‘way down here, I fear,” returned Ruth. “We can’t hear a sound from them. But let’s try.”
They raised their voices in unison, again and again. But there came no reply, save that a number of Mr. Billy Goat’s lady friends came trooping through the brush and looked up at the girls perched so high above them.
“Bla-a-a-t! bla-a-a-at!” quoth the chorus of nannies.
“The same to you, and many of them!” replied Helen, bowing politely.
“Look out! you’ll fall from the limb,” advised Ruth, much worried.
“And what a fall would then be there, my countrymen!” sighed Helen. “Say, Ruth! did you ever notice before what an expressive countenance a goat has? Now, Mr. Billy, here, looks just like a selectman of a country school board—long whiskers and all.”
“You stop making fun of him,” declared Ruth, shaking her head. “I tell you it makes him mad.”
“Goaty, goaty, go away,
Come again some other day,
Ruthie and Helen want to get down and play!”
sang Helen Cameron, with a most ridiculous expression.