Billy Whiskers at Home

by Frances Trego Montgomery

Just as Stubby entered, a boy came in to get a box of crackers from a high shelf and as he reached for it his foot slipped and in trying to save himself from falling, the box dropped out of his hands and went crashing to the floor, knocking off the lid and all the crackers spilling over the floor.

“Oh, see what I have done,” he grumbled. “Spilled all those crackers, and spoiled them too, for after being on the dirty floor they will have to be thrown away.”

At this moment he was called to the front of the store and the moment he left, Stubby came from behind the barrel where he had been hiding and ate the crackers. He ate every one and even licked up the crumbs, they were such good, fresh, crisp crackers. When the boy came back and saw they had disappeared he took it for granted that someone had swept them up. This time he had come for some molasses and while it was running into the quart measure, he took a handful of crackers and stuck them one by one under the molasses spigot, letting the molasses trickle all over them, and then putting the whole cracker in his mouth at once.

“Gee, but they do taste good! Almost as good as molasses candy!” he was saying when someone called him and he seized the quart measure and hurried away, forgetting to turn off the spigot.

Stubby had been watching all this and now ran over to the molasses barrel and let some of the sweet stuff drop into his mouth.

“My, oh my, that is almost as good as candy, just as the boy said! If I only had a cracker or two, I would be fixed. Why, there is the box now! I’ll just go over and get a mouthful of crackers and bring them back and hold them under the spigot until they are covered with molasses, the way the boy did, and eat them whole.”

All this time the molasses was running out on the floor, making a big puddle.

“Yum, yum! These crackers and molasses taste good! I just love molasses candy, and this is next thing to it. I must have another mouthful before someone comes and cleans up this mess,” but he had not the time for just then the owner of the grocery entered the side door and seeing a stray dog in his store raised his leg to kick him out. But alas, as he lifted his foot, the other slipped in the molasses and he sat down squarely in it all.

“Who left that spigot turned on?” he roared.

Stubby waited to hear no more for he knew the poor boy would be punished. Not wishing to pass the man, and there being no other way out, Stubby decided to jump up on a high box and from it take a flying leap over the man’s head out into the alley. This he did and landed safely. In a minute more there was no sight of a little stubby-tailed dog in that alley.