“As if I haven’t had enough bother with Billy Whiskers!”
“Come in here, Tom,” called Mr. Treat, as the boys were making for the stables. “What’s this?”
“Why, they’re our new kids! Bought them from Mr. Finnegan. Billy’s been such a good investment, and three will earn just three times as much. We’ve one apiece now, and you needn’t worry any more about our educations.”
“Boys!” gasped their mother, throwing up her hands in amazement.
“Never mind, mother! This is their first business venture, and we must see what they make of it.”
“But—but, father, you can’t realize what it means. Three goats!”
“There, there, don’t fret! Billy Whiskers will likely take good care of them. Let the boys have a chance.”
When Mr. Treat allied himself with his sons in this way, their mother usually yielded, and so it happened that Tom and Harry led their purchases to the barn for safe keeping, and Billy introduced the kids as his “twins” to all the barnyard inhabitants. The title clung to them, for they were as like as two peas, and as long as they lived at Cloverleaf Farm they were known far and wide as the “twins.” Years afterwards, when Billy Whiskers was old and feeble, the children of the twins, and his grandchildren by adoption, would clamor for a story, and Billy would relate his adventures at the Fair just as you have read them, and would end by saying:
“But those experiences do not compare with the good times I had with the twins at Chautauqua the next summer,—not nearly. However, that is too long a tale for me to tell to-day, and besides, it is recounted in the book written about us, ‘Billy Whiskers’ Twins.’”
