Billy Whiskers Out for Fun

by Frances Trego Montgomery

On seeing them Billy said: “So that is your game, is it? I’ll teach you not to tie a tin can on a dog’s tail and then chase him and beat him when he has done nothing to you. Well, I’ll show you how it feels to be hurt and, what is more, I will give you full measure, so you and the rest of your gang will never tie another can to a dog’s tail again.”

Then he baaed to Stubby: “I’ll take care of this gang. You go chew the rope off your tail and I will be back and help you the minute I have butted every one of those boys into the middle of next week.”

The largest and foremost of the boys was about to strike Billy when, my, Oh my! what was the matter with his back? It hurt him so he felt it must be broken and here he was flying skyward as fast as he could go! Had he been blown up by a bomb or was a mad bull trying to kick him over the moon? Surely a goat could not butt one like that.

And while he was thinking this, Billy was chasing the other boys down the alley as all had taken to their heels when they saw their leader going skyward after Billy butted him. One boy jumped over the fence into a yard and climbed a tree; another climbed up on the roof of a shed; a third jumped into a milk wagon that was standing in the alley, while a fourth ran through a yard and into a kitchen where he saw the door open. This one Billy followed straight into the kitchen and when the boy saw Billy still pursuing him, he ran upstairs and jumped in bed and pulled the covers over his head.

After butting the fat cook down the cellar stairs when she tried to stop him, Billy followed the boy upstairs and leaped on the bed, butting and kicking him until he cried for mercy. After a few minutes of this, thinking the boy had been punished enough, Billy jumped out the open window on to a low shed roof and from there to the ground. Then he hurried into the alley again to hunt up the other boys, for he had made up his mind he would punish them all. The next boy he saw was the one that had tried to get away from him by jumping into the milk wagon. All Billy had to do was to walk up to the horse and give him a slight hook in the stomach which startled him so he ran away. The boy was tossed around among the rattling milk cans like a pea in a pod, hurting his toes and giving him a bloody nose besides.

The next boy Billy came to was the boy in the tree. He tried to climb the tree but of course could not. So then he butted the tree until it shook so it knocked the boy out. When he tried to jump up and run away, Billy was after him and he chased him until he was within a few feet of his home. Billy spied a big hogshead of rainwater and into this he butted the boy and left him crying for help.

Now the only boy left was the one on the shed roof who had sat there and laughed as he watched Billy chasing the other boys. He had laughed until his sides ached and called to Billy to “give it to them, you old clummergudgen!”

“Oh! You can laugh at your chums’ misery, can you, you cowardly sneak,” baaed Billy, “because you think you are safe? Now let us see which side of your mouth you will laugh on when you find I too can climb up on a shed roof.”

Billy was right. This boy was the worst sneak and coward of the gang, so when he saw Billy coming up on the shed roof after him, his hair fairly stood on end and he yelled for help as if wild Indians were after him. But no one heard. The alley was deserted at this time of day. Billy chased him around and around the roof for some time, giving him little butts just to show him what a big butt would be like. Then when he got to the place on the roof where he wanted him, Billy gave him a mighty butt that sent the boy fifty feet off the roof out in a straight line over the cowyard fence where he dropped on a pile of manure. And here Billy left him and went to find Stubby.