Billy Whiskers at the Circus

by Frances Trego Montgomery

The manager, having satisfied himself with the way things were going in the ring, hustled back to make suitable preparations to receive Billy and his followers when they had finished their performance and came out, for he had no doubt but that they would withdraw in the same manner as regular actors; and in this, as we already know, he was quite right.

The keepers and handy men were summoned from all sides to be ready to assist if any attempt at escape should be made. The best meal obtainable was hastily collected and temptingly spread out, and everything possible done to provide for the comfort of the new performers and to show how greatly pleased the manager was at their most successful efforts to entertain his audience. He very shrewdly thought that by this means he could induce them to repeat their act the next day and for many succeeding days.

It is a question whether or not Billy Whiskers and the monkeys would have peaceably accepted these terms, but when they finally got outside the ring they were all so tired from their unusual exertions that they had no spunk left to go on of themselves, much less to resist the inviting conditions which they found waiting for them.

As the goat and monkeys had put in their unexpected appearance at the beginning of the last act of the afternoon’s performance, when they withdrew from the ring, the audience, after a great deal of cheering and repeated bursts of hand-clapping, began to slowly disperse.

The Treat family then held a council of war to decide how they could best lay hold of their property, Billy Whiskers, and get him safely back to Cloverleaf Farm. Though not one of them said so, there was fear in the heart of each that this would be no easy job.

While they felt sure of Billy’s love for them, especially for little Dick, they had just seen him in a new and most unexpected role, and the older members of the family now more than suspected that there were incidents in Billy’s earlier history that they had not even guessed at. They now knew, in fact, that sometime, somewhere, he had been accustomed to a prominent and public position, that he must have seen a very great deal of the world for otherwise he could not possibly have fallen so naturally and gracefully into the trying position of clown and trick performer when so many thousands of eyes were looking right at him.

More than that, there was the unspoken fear that the Circus people might be unwilling to give up a goat who had proven himself such a wonder and had been the means of making the audience the most enthusiastic which had ever been in the great tent. They might hide him and claim that he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come, or they might say that he was not Mr. Treat’s property and refuse to give him up, or they might try to buy him.

Finally the monkeys had to be considered. It was evident they regarded Billy Whiskers, whether he liked it or not, as their leader, and there was no telling what sort of trouble they might make if an attempt was made to take him away from them.

It was finally decided that the best thing to do, and in fact the only course open, was for the family to stick together and go in pursuit of Billy by way of the exit through which he had disappeared on the back of the great black horse.