THAT night after the performance the circus broke camp and the friends were separated, the elephant, camel, monkey and parrot going to Bismarck while the moose, zebra, giraffe and sacred bull went to Duluth. But this was not the worst division that was made. Billy was to be sent to Duluth and Stubby and Button to Bismarck. Now here was an unforeseen catastrophe and the circus people, having observed the close companionship of the four, took precaution to lock Billy and Nannie in a cage by themselves and Stubby and Button in another.
“Never mind,” counseled Billy. “You and Button go on with the circus for it is headed in the right direction for us and Nannie and I will run away from the circus and join you, never fear, just as soon as they let us out of this pesky cage.”
“I knew something like this would happen if we stayed with their poky old circus!” grumbled Stubby.
“I know you did, old fellow, but cheer up, we won’t be separated long.”
It was astonishing how quickly the circus people folded their tents, gathered up the long lines of seats, and started their wagon cages toward the circus train that lay in the yards with steam up, all ready to start at a moment’s notice. Everything about a circus is systematized so that the minute the evening performance is over, everybody jumps to his or her appointed task and works with a will, so that where there were tents with flags and banners flying at night, the next morning there is only a deserted sawdust ring. Circuses spring up over night like mushrooms and disappear as quickly as the dew on the grass when the sun comes up.
By midnight the circus train was well under way and Billy and Nannie found themselves in a cage between the zebra and giraffe. About two o’clock the train stopped at a siding to let a passenger train pass. It being very late they had to wait as all regular trains had the right of way over a special like a circus train.
As this siding was beside a stream on the outskirts of a sleeping little town, it was as still as death with the exception of the frogs in the pond and the katydids quarreling with each other in a tree beside the cage Billy and Nannie were in. Now if there was anything that made Billy nervous and depressed, it was hearing frogs and the hum of insects and katydids. It gave him the blues. At last he could stand it no longer and he baaed to the zebra and giraffe to see if they were awake. Both were and each declared himself wildly nervous and unable to sleep with the incessant repetition of “Katy did! She did! She didn’t! She did! She didn’t!” until Billy bawled out:
“Who cares a tinker’s dam whether she did or did not? Can’t you shut up and let some poor tired animals sleep?”
“Yes,” whinnied the zebra, “for mercy sakes give us a rest! I should think you would need one yourselves the way you have been calling out ‘She did! She didn’t!’ faster and faster until I thought your heads would fly off, and to tell you the truth I wish they had!”