Billy Whiskers at Home

by Frances Trego Montgomery

But his wife only saw a man climbing through her transom and thought it was one of the burglars she had heard downstairs, and leaned still further out of the window in an attempt to see someone coming along the street. She lost her balance and fell head first out of the window, but as luck would have it, she landed in a soft flower bed, and the window not being so very far from the ground, the fall did not injure her in the least.

At the moment she fell, Billy reached the head of the stairs. Seeing Mr. Robinson dangling there, half in and half out, he jumped on the stool and gave him a mighty butt that shoved him all the way through, and he landed on the floor of his wife’s room all in a heap. In a moment he was on his feet and rushed to the window to see if his wife had been killed by her fall, forgetting all about Billy in his anxiety about his wife.

Billy’s prey having thus escaped him, and hearing footsteps on the stairs, he knew somebody was answering Mrs. Robinson’s cries for help. He ran down the long hall, hoping to find a back stairway, for he well knew if he was caught by the police or whoever it was coming to the rescue, they would club him. He was in luck, for he came to a pair of stairs leading straight down to an outside back porch. And in a jiffy he was out in the alley, running for dear life, trying to put as much distance between himself and the Robinson house as he could.

All this time his tongue was half killing him with pain, and it was now so swollen he could not close his mouth. He was wild for a drink of water. He remembered he had seen a lovely sparkling fountain, and he was increasing his speed so he would reach it quickly when he heard a noise behind him that sounded like a patrol wagon coming lickety-split down the street. However, it proved to be just a truck full of men, and Billy thought, “I have no fear of them,” when suddenly the truck stopped as it was about to pass him, and one of the men exclaimed, “There he is now! The very goat we are looking for!” and two fellows leaped out after him.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” said Billy to himself, and he kicked up his heels and sped down the street and around the corner of the alley. The men ran after him as fast as ever they could and the truck followed but when they reached the corner, no goat was in sight.

“Drat that old rascal! He is hiding somewhere! But where I can’t imagine as all I see are high back yard walls and fences, with not an open gate any place,” said one of the men.

Just then three shrill screams rent the air about half way down the alley. The men knew immediately that Billy must have run into a yard and frightened some woman.

They were right in this surmise. Being a good jumper, Billy had leaped over a wall and landed in a beautiful garden where a hammock was swung between two trees. A lovely young lady lay in it, reading a book and eating fruit. On seeing a big, white goat leap over the fence and come straight towards her, she tried to get out of the hammock. But you know what a hammock is when you try to get out of one in a hurry? It simply turned upside down and she was in a heap on the grass, with fruit, pillows and book all about her, and she began to scream and call for help.

Billy grabbed a pear and trotted on through the yard. At that second a big touring car was backed out of the garage by a chauffeur, and being fond of riding in any kind of an automobile, Billy ran across the lawn and with one bound was in the tonneau. This so surprised the chauffeur that instead of stopping the car, he stepped on the accelerator and the car shot out to the street at forty miles an hour. The moment they were leaving in this manner, three men climbed over the back wall, one ran after the car and the goat and the other two went to the aid of the young woman who was still pleading for aid at the top of her voice. She had rolled around in trying to regain her feet so that instead of freeing herself, she had wound herself up in hammock and pillows until she was helpless. The men quickly had her on her feet and then they all ran to the front yard to discover what had become of the car and Billy.