Billy Whiskers Out for Fun

by Frances Trego Montgomery

Just as the farmer came around the corner and was looking wildly in all directions for the cat and dog that had eaten his squabs and hurt his bull, the bull spied him and being of a cross, disagreeable nature, he wished to vent his anger on someone. Here was a good chance, a man and a dog. He cared not that the man was his master and that the dog had never even so much as barked at him. They were something to hurt and he wished to make someone smart and burn as did the scratches that Button had inflicted on his back.

Consequently Farmer Stevenson was more than surprised when his own bull came toward him at full speed, bellowing as he came. And he had just enough time to turn and run for his life before the bull was upon him. Then the chase began. Mr. Stevenson headed for the house with the bull close at his heels. He would have caught him had the bull not spied the dog and ducked his head to toss the poor puppy up in the air to land on the shed roof. Then the bull continued the chase and he caught Mr. Stevenson’s coat tails which were flying out behind him in his mad flight and ripped the coat straight up the back from hem to shoulder. His long sharp horns did not touch Mr. Stevenson and luckily he escaped through an open gate into the yard of the farmhouse and slammed it in the bull’s face.

As it shut it hit the bull in the nose which hurt him considerably and made him madder than ever. Now he began to kick and paw the gate down. It held for awhile, but when he threw his big broad sides against the fence, it gave way and a whole section fell into the yard. The bull walked over it, bellowing and shaking his head as he made straight for the kitchen door, through which he had seen Mr. Stevenson disappear.

Now here was a pretty how-de-do—a wedding in preparation in the house with the guests about to come and a mad bull running wild on the premises. The maids preparing the wedding supper were scared nearly out of their lives and went fluttering and squealing around the kitchen like a flock of chickens. The mother of the bride and the bridesmaids looked out the upper story window in alarm while the bride fainted for fear the groom would arrive on the scene and the bull would kill him. Of course Mr. Stevenson would shoot him at any minute but he did not want to kill his prize full-blooded, pedigreed Durham bull and sell the carcass for beef, as this would make him lose three thousand dollars, the amount at which the bull was valued. He was hoping the bull would quiet down and go back into the pasture if he saw no one to infuriate him. But how was he to get out of the house and warn the guests, who would soon be coming? He could go out the opposite side of the house, but what good would that do, for he must shut the bull out of the barnyard and he could not do that without being seen.

“Milly,” he said to one of the maids, “peek out of the window and see what he is doing now.”

Milly looked out and saw the bull standing but a few feet from the window pawing the earth and throwing it over his shoulder in his mad rage, bellowing all the time so loudly you could have heard him a mile away.

“Oh, it is terrible the way he is pawing and hooking all the geraniums out of the bed!”

“I know why he is doing that,” spoke up another of the maids. “It is because they are red and they say a bull hates red. He thinks someone is waving a red flag at him. Look! Look! There go two plants he has uprooted flying up in the air! Let us beat on a tin pan and see if we can’t attract his attention before he uproots the whole bed.”

So they brought a tin pan and opening one of the windows began to pound on it. The bull heard, paused, listened, looked, and seeing two or three faces at the window stopped pawing and with a mighty roar he rushed for the window. It was too high and small for him to go through as it came half way up to his shoulder, but he raised himself on his hind legs and tried to get his head in just the same.