“Won’t mind. Well, I guess she will. Forty me’s can’t take the place of you in her mind; she is so proud of your strength and beauty. You needn’t get conceited, but you know you are very handsome with your silky black coat and long beard, almost as long as papa’s. Every young nanny in the pasture has been making eyes at you since you came back. Why can’t you fall in love with my chum, Belle? I am sure she is pretty enough for any goat to fall in love with. And then you could live here and not go away and leave us all again. I feel it in my bones if you go you will never come back again. Do try to live here, Night, won’t you?”
“I would do anything for you, Day, that I could, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t fall in love with that long-nosed, sheepish-looking Belle with washed-out blue eyes, even to please you.”
“Oh, Night, she hasn’t washed-out eyes and she is considered a beauty.”
“Well, I don’t admire your taste. Whoever wants her can have her, for all of me. Here comes mother and we must stop talking, for I don’t want her to know I am going away until my plans are complete.”
Night had grown so much like Billy since he had been away that he was no longer called Night but “Billy Whiskers Jr.”
Billy Jr. had taken to spending all his time by the fence that ran along the roadside, and he was getting thin from watching so much and eating so little. When his mother noticed this, she said:
“My dear son, why do you spend so much of your time down by the road where the grass is dusty and scarce instead of here by the stream where it is clean and fresh?”
“Oh, I don’t mind the dust,” he answered. “I stay there so that I can talk to the horses, cows, and sheep that pass by.”
“But you are getting thin, and your coat is dirty and shabby from want of care. And you act as if there was something on your mind. Can’t you tell your mother what it is that is worrying you?”
At this Billy Jr. broke down and told her all his plans; how he was longing to get away and go West; but he could find no one who could tell him how to get there. All the animals that passed along had been born and raised in the East and knew no more of the West than he did. Nannie answered: