CHAPTER III
BILLY WHISKERS DECIDES
BILLY awakened from a troubled sleep with doubts and misgivings in his mind. If the day hadn’t been fine with everything and everybody looking bright and cheerful, the chances are that he would have then and there dismissed all thought of the Circus and spent the balance of his days in happy though humdrum existence at Cloverleaf Farm. In that case this story would never have been told.
It so happened that Mrs. Treat, the mother of Tom, Dick and Harry, wanted some things that morning, and so, after breakfast, told Tom, who was the eldest of the three, to wash his face and hands clean, put on his shoes and stockings, and make himself neat and tidy generally, for she wanted him to go to The Corners to “transact some business” for her.
What she really wanted was a spool of thread, a dozen clothes-pins, some blueing and two yards of cheese cloth—just common “errands” as everybody can see. But Mrs. Treat knew how to manage boys and she was alive to the fact that her son Thomas had rather “transact business” than “do errands.” Even so, he made it a condition of his cheerful going that Harry and Dick be allowed to accompany him, the latter in his new express wagon drawn by Billy Whiskers.
“You may all go,” said Mrs. Treat, “but be very careful, and don’t stay too long. Keep a close eye on Billy Whiskers. We all love Billy, and he is certainly the handsomest goat in the county, but you mustn’t forget that we are not as well acquainted with his early history as I wish we were. I have never been able to dismiss the feeling that there are things in his past that are not to his credit. So you want to watch out.”
The boys promised, though they did not for one minute believe that Billy Whiskers had not always been the friendly, quiet, peaceable goat that he now appeared. Mrs. Treat, however, was wiser and spoke truer than she knew, as this story will show a little later, though she need not have given herself any anxiety on the present occasion for little Dick and his new, red wagon. Dick was the dearest, brown-eyed little chap in the world and everybody loved him, Billy Whiskers included, who wouldn’t for anything have any harm or hurt come to his little master when under his care.
Although they had been through breakfast by seven o’clock, or a little later, it was nine before the Treat boys were ready to start to The Corners.
THE PROCESSION FINALLY MOVED OFF.