Billy Whiskers Out for Fun

by Frances Trego Montgomery

Just then he spied a tub of water in which they washed the soda water glasses, and he hurried to it and began taking long gulps. But alas! the more he drank, the more foam came up into his mouth until he was nearly strangled and he felt quite ill.

“Oh! Oh! I must get outdoors immediately, I feel so sick.” And instead of running around the counter, he tried to jump over it, thinking it would be the shorter way. Alas, alack! His horns hit the spigot that turns the fizz into the soda water glasses and in a second Billy was blinded by the flying, sizzling fluid. It went in his ears, eyes, nose and mouth and for a minute or two he did not know which way to turn. In his blindness he turned the wrong way and instead of going toward the door, he landed behind the counter again, upsetting the ice-cream freezer and sending the ice and salt over the floor and knocking the lid off the can in which the ice-cream was packed.

At this critical moment the man came out from behind the partition to see what the racket was and the clerk who had served the sodas to the ladies came in also. As he went behind the counter he was met by a big billy goat foaming at the mouth. Of course he thought him a mad goat and he began to cry: “Mad goat! Mad goat! Look out, everybody!” and he ran out the door calling this as loudly as he could.

The ladies in the machine hearing the cry and seeing the man running from the store started the machine, but not before the man crying “Mad goat! Mad goat!” had had time to jump on their running board and tell them to “Drive on, drive on!”

Just as they started, Billy came running out of the drug store foaming at the mouth and close behind him the proprietor of the store, a broom held high over his head to chase Billy. But just as he reached the front door he stepped on a piece of ice from the ice-cream freezer and both feet slipped out from under him. He shot out the door and down the steps, landing beside Billy at the edge of the sidewalk, where poor Billy was coughing up great puffs of foam. At last up came what was left of the cake of soap and Billy soon felt relieved.

The proprietor of the store, on seeing this, knew that Billy was not mad but only sick and this provoked him so that he raised his broom to hit Billy. Now Billy was in no mood to be beaten, so when the broom came down on his back he turned to chase the man, who ran back into the store with Billy after him.

Back of the counter ran the man and when he rounded the corner he slipped again on the ice-cream that was now running out of the freezer. He slid along on the end of his backbone about five feet when he came up against the tub of water, upsetting it all over him, while Billy, who had jumped up on the counter, stood watching him.

“You squint-eyed, pig-tailed, crooked-legged old goat! I’ll break every bone in your body if I ever catch you, for causing all this mess!”

But while he was getting up Billy jumped from the counter and was about to run out the door when whom should he run into but a squad of policemen who had come in the ambulance to capture the mad goat the soda fountain man had reported was running wild.

Billy never faltered a minute. He and all policemen were sworn enemies, so before they knew what had happened to them, he had butted each one over on the grass or into the gutter and was off down the street. And when Billy turned to see if they were following, he saw them all piling into the ambulance preparatory to starting for him. But Billy had too much of a start for them to overtake him. He was just thinking of leaving the town to go to meet Nannie when he heard a terrible racket down an alley he was about to cross. Just before he reached it out ran Stubby with a tin can full of stones tied to his tail, chased by five or six hoodlums each with a stick in his hand.