“No, it isn’t a saw-horse,” said the Poet. “It moves. Did you see it?”
Galatea looked embarrassed.
“Galatea, the thing on our roof looks to me uncommonly like a billy-goat. Galatea, it is a billy-goat—I can make out his whiskers.”
“Yes,” Galatea admitted reluctantly, “it must be William.”
“Very well, I foresee trouble for William. I am quite willing to collaborate with the Professor and take William to my bosom on equal terms as a brother, but no billy-goat shall be the man higher up in my family. William has got to get down off that roof.”
Presently they turned in at the gate—and then the Poet doubled up like a jack-knife. Galatea plumped down on the grass and laughed till she cried. A nice clean fat pig, with a sort of Elizabethan ruffle about his neck, raised himself on his forelegs and sat at a little distance from Galatea, grunting mild inquiries respecting the object of her call. The ruffle was explained by the presence of several other articles of feminine wearing apparel scattered about on the grass, evidently undergoing the bleaching process. In making a selection for his own adornment, the pig had not been quite discreet. A sleek and motherly cow, with one crumpled horn, lay in the soft earth of a tulip-bed, chewing her cud. Her total lack of humor was manifest in the complacent glances which she bestowed upon her offspring, a reckless-looking bull-calf, which wore a peach-basket unnecessarily on one of his hind-legs. This scene of domestic contentment was further enhanced when a saucy yearling colt put his head out through the kitchen window and shook it knowingly at the intruders, as much as to say:—
“Go away, strangers. We are at home, and you ought to be.”
And then the colt, the cow, the bull-calf, the pig wearing the improvised ruffle, and the goat from his perch on the roof, united in a glance of intense astonishment at the girl seated on the grass. Why was she swaying her body up and down in that foolish fashion, while her hands beat the air aimlessly and her throat emitted incomprehensible gurgles, like the bull-calf with a turnip stuck in his gullet?
“Oh dear, oh dear!” choked Galatea. “Amanda’s stepped out somewhere, and Bos, Equus and Co. are in full charge. The cow chewing her cud in the tulip-bed—oh dear, oh dear! The bull-calf picking up stray peach-baskets, and the colt in the kitchen—oh dear, oh dear! The pig wearing one of Amanda’s—ha! ha! he! he!—one of Amanda’s newest aramatums for a collar! Slap me on the back, George; I shall die—oh dear, oh dear! And the goat overlooking things from the roof! Come and fan me, George. Oh dear, oh dear!”
But the Poet had recovered his accustomed solemnity of visage. He stood with arms folded, contemplating the goat.