“You’re wrong there, Billy. I’ll go the same as I have for the past fifteen years. Be up bright and early to-morrow morning and you’ll see me on the way.”
“Perhaps, and again perhaps not.”
“Well, at any rate I’m not worrying. Why, this morning you saw our farmyard beauty, the Duke of Windham, along with Dick’s Plymouth Rock, Toppy, as they started for the exhibit. They’ll be prize winners, or I miss my guess. The Treat farm is always well represented. By the way, Billy, are you going? Lots of fun—such fun as you’ve never seen. Better come along,” cordially.
“Oh, I’ll be there. But be sure you are among those present, that is all,” retorted the goat, with a knowing wink.
“Going to walk, same as you did to get to the Circus?” prodded droll Browny.
“Not if I know it,” was Billy’s quick reply. Ambling up closer, he reached up and whispered confidentially:
“I’m going in the automobile, with the rest of the family. A goat of my experience and breeding goes with the best,” and with that Billy stalked off, head held high, well satisfied at having filled Browny as full of uncomfortable forebodings as he himself had been a short time before.
WHACK! RESOUNDED A BROOMSTICK ON
BILLY’S BROAD BACK.
“I surely smell doughnuts,” thought Billy as he sniffed the keen outside air, and he quickened his steps toward the kitchen, which had been the scene of unusual activity that day.