“He came straight toward me, holding out the carrot in one hand while he kept the other behind him. As he approached me he kept saying, ‘Nice little goatee! Nice little goatee! Have a carrot!’
“And I thought to myself, ‘You might as well try to catch a bird by putting salt on its tail as to try to catch me with a carrot in one hand and a rope hidden in the other behind your back, especially when that rope has a slip knot in it. Oh, no, Mr. Chinaman, I was not born yesterday or the day before! And unless you open that door quickly and let me out, you are going to be carried out of it on my horns. I am in no mood for play or jokes!’
“Just then another Chinaman came out of the laundry with a basket heaped up with clothes to hang on the line, and the Chinaman with the carrot said, ‘Yum, you watcha me catcha little goatee. Keep little goatee. Him bring heap money at butcher’s!’
Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big,
bare room.
(Page [49])
“‘So-ho! You would sell me for chops and roasts, would you? Well, just you come a little nearer and see what happens to one little Chinaman!’
“The Chinaman with the clothes began to hang them on the line, singing a queer, monotonous refrain in his cackling language. By this time the first Chinaman was within three feet of me, holding the carrot straight out before him and staring into my eyes. Evidently he was not used to goats, and felt a little uncertain as to what I would do. While I was watching him, expecting he would try to throw the rope over my head every minute, to surprise him I stretched my neck out quickly, grabbed the carrot out of his hand and ate it up. Then he came boldly up to me, as this gave him the assurance I was not going to butt him. But when he tried to put the rope around my neck, I simply lowered my head and butted him over flat on his back. This infuriated him, and he leaped up and grabbed a clothes pole to hit me with it. Then the chase began. Around and around that small back yard we went, upsetting everything, he trying to hit me all the while and I dodging him but trying to butt or hook him at every turn. Then I took to butting everything and anything that came in my way. One thing I butted was the basket full of clothes the second Chinaman had left, having sought a place of safety when first the chase began. Now he sat cross-legged on the low roof of the back porch grinning from ear to ear and watching the sport. When I butted the basket, it shot straight up in the air, spilling out the clothes as it soared, which the wind caught and carried over into the other yards.
“Presently from all the doors and windows of the adjacent buildings one could see grinning faces. But not one person came to help that Chinaman I was butting and chasing. He must have been thoroughly disliked by his neighbors for them to act as they did. Their jeers and calls made him madder and madder and every time he tried to hit me with the long pole and missed, they would call:
“‘Try it again! Try it again! Don’t give up!’