CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I | Billy Whiskers Grows Homesick | [ 7] |
| II | Billy Unexpectedly Meets a Friend | [ 15] |
| III | An Inopportune Sneeze | [ 23] |
| IV | The General Recaptures Billy | [ 35] |
| V | Billy Nearly Kills the Cook | [ 47] |
| VI | Billy Relates Some of His Adventures | [ 59] |
| VII | Button Frightens Two Nurses | [ 75] |
| VIII | Billy Makes Plans to Leave France | [ 83] |
| IX | Button Discovers Spies in the Haymow | [ 95] |
| X | Button Makes the Farmer Fighting Mad | [ 109] |
| XI | The Chums on a Canal Boat | [ 123] |
| XII | Button has a Fight with a Wharf Rat | [ 135] |
| XIII | A Dog Cemetery in Paris | [ 143] |
| XIV | What the Chums Did in Paris | [ 153] |
| XV | Blown Up by a Submarine | [ 165] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| “I ran straight on, regardless of bombs dropping all around me” | [ Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| Every man of them jumped as if shot | [ 30] |
| Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big, bare room | [ 66] |
| Away went Billy, jerking the cook around trees, over stumps and beehives | [ 92] |
| One thing Billy butted was a basket full of clothes | [ 118] |
| The first thing Billy knew, he was rolling over something soft that squealed like a stuck pig and that kicked like a calf | [ 148] |
Billy Whiskers in France
CHAPTER I
BILLY WHISKERS GROWS HOMESICK
AS Billy Whiskers lay in an American camp somewhere over in France, he became very restless and soon had the blues from thinking of his dear Nannie so far away—away over in America, with that deep, deep, wide, blue ocean between them, infested not only with huge sea monsters belonging to the finny tribe, but also with death-dealing, quickly moving submarines and torpedo boats belonging to the German Kaiser.
“I want dreadfully to go home! Still I hate to risk my life on any ship that sails the seas these days, for it may be blown sky high at any moment, or sunk to the nethermost depths of the ocean. There is no way to walk around, and I don’t suppose I could get any one to let me go with them in an airship. So here I must remain, or trust my life to some troop ship returning to America for more soldiers. I just believe I will do it! I have lost all interest in the War over here since my master was wounded and was invalided home. Home! The very word makes me so homesick I can’t see for tears. Well, I’ll just fix this homesickness, so I will! I start for there this very minute. It is a good dark night and I think I can slip out of camp easily as they have not been watching me so closely since my master was sent away.”
Suiting the action to the words, Billy jumped up, shook himself, took a long breath and said to himself, “Here’s luck to you, old fellow, on your long, long, perilous journey! And may you reach the other side and once more see your loving little wife Nannie and all your children and grandchildren!”