“Bob,” said Billy, “what’s a circus?”
“I can’t tell much about it, Billy Whiskers. When I was living in the city, a circus came one day. There was immense excitement. I went early to see the parade. After long waiting, I heard someone say that the head of the procession was in sight and that the elephants were leading. I ran right out into the middle of the street to get a good look. One was enough. I turned and ran, never stopping until I was safe under the barn at my home. The head of that procession, the elephant, was the biggest, the most dangerous, the worst looking beast I ever laid my two eyes on. I hope, Billy, you may never see one for if you do, your rest will be broken for months you will have such dreadful nightmares.”
Bob fairly shivered as he recalled the elephant to mind.
Billy asked him no more questions for he saw that Bob had told him all he knew about the subject. He made up his mind that it would do no good to ask any more of his home friends about it, but then happened to think of his disreputable acquaintance, the old striped Coon who lived in the big chestnut tree down in the woods, so he went down to see him.
Mr. Coon was at home and a few knocks on the trunk of the tree with Billy’s horns brought him to the door.
“Hello, Billy Whiskers,” said the Coon. “What do you want? Don’t you know that this is my time for sleeping?”
Billy did know it for he was aware that Mr. Coon spent his nights, to a large extent at any rate, in robbing hen roosts. In fact, their first meeting had been late one evening when Billy had gone to the garden to select some choice lettuce heads for his own eating, a thing he wouldn’t have dared to do in the daylight. (This was before he had entirely reformed.) He was nibbling away at a great rate on the finest plant in the whole bed when he was startled not a little at seeing a strange thing creeping noiselessly along just inside the garden fence. It seemed to have fur and also feathers. Just as Billy decided that there was a spook after him and it was time for him to run for his life, the Coon, for he it was, dropped the white chicken he was carrying along in his mouth, and said:
“Good evening, Mr. Billy Whiskers. I have often seen you at a distance but have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance before. It seems that you, like me, get your living at night. I think that we ought to be friends.”
Poor Billy, what could he say? He did not want to associate as a general thing with the Coon who was known to be a thief, but at the same time he did not see how he could snub him under the circumstances. So he replied politely to the Coon’s greeting, and ever since they had been more or less friendly, though Billy never told anyone at Cloverleaf Farm that he knew the highwayman and robber who lived in the old chestnut.
Billy now answered the Coon’s question by asking another.