He had gotten just this far in his musings when he turned the corner of the hospital and saw the black cat sitting on a packing box, looking up at the window from which he had been thrown. Billy knew in a second that the black cat was his old friend sure enough. On seeing Billy, the black cat made one spring and lit squarely on Billy’s back. Then he jumped off and ran up a tree, then down and over and under a wheelbarrow that was standing near, then in among the dogs that were surrounding Billy as if to try to save him from the onslaught of this crazy acting cat which they all thought was having a fit.
Yes, it was a fit, but not from sickness, but rather from joy at beholding Billy alive and in the flesh when he had been given up long ago for dead.
Presently the cat quieted down and came and stood before Billy, and gazed and gazed and gazed into his eyes without saying a word. And Billy gazed back, wondering in his own mind what on earth had made the dignified Button act so crazily. After this long scare, the cat meowed, “Well, Billy, old fellow, I see it is really you in the flesh and not some other goat that looks like you. But how you ever managed to keep from being killed is more than I know. All of us had given you up as dead and mourned for you for months. Nannie, your poor little wife, is still bewailing your loss. You see, we thought you were done for from an item in the newspaper, which I heard my master read aloud one morning. I can’t give it to you just as it was written, but the gist of the matter was that the —th Regiment with its celebrated white goat mascot, Billy Whiskers, had marched to the front on May twenty-first but that, sad to relate, few returned and those that did were badly wounded. A great many had been taken prisoners and whether their mascot had been killed or captured, those returning did not know. Stub and I did not feel you were killed, and that if you were captured you would find some way to escape. We then and there made up our minds to cross the ocean and look for you, for we were bound to find you if you still lived. And here we two have stumbled into you just when we had given up all hope of you being alive.” And off went Button, running up one tree and then another, around in circles and jumping over and through hedges and flower beds. Once he made the dogs all laugh for by mistake he ran up an old gardener’s back as he was stooping over digging away, thinking it was a stump, he was so nearly the color of the trees and grasses of the garden. The old fellow was so surprised that he fell headlong into the ditch he was digging.
“You see, Billy, I am so delighted to see you I can’t keep still.”
“I am just as glad to see you, but I can’t jump around like a crazy loon to show it. Come here until we rub noses in the place of a kiss!” said Billy.
“I must run and tell Stubby. He will be so delighted it will help him stand his pain and he will get well sooner. But how am I to get into this blooming building again? Aren’t there some back stairs, fire escapes or something of the like I could go up to get to his ward?”
“No, there are no fire escapes on any of these country buildings that have been turned into hospitals,” replied the Red Cross dog. “What we need more than fire escapes is a bomb proof cellar large enough to carry our patients into when we have an air raid.”
“I’ll tell you how you can get in,” spoke up Pinky. “Wait until the nurses begin to carry suppers up to their patients, and then you can creep along at their heels and, being black, you can hide in the shadows until they leave the ward. Only the night nurse will then be on duty and she will soon fall asleep. Then you can creep out and go to your friend’s cot and tell him all the news.”
“Splendid idea! Thank you very much! Won’t some one introduce me to this dog?”
“Goodness gracious me! Do excuse me, Button, for being so impolite, but joy at seeing you drove all my good manners out of my mind. It is not too late now, and I wish to introduce you to all my friends you see standing around us.”