An angry and excited voice rose in a familiar: “Bla-a-a-t! bla-a-a-t!”
“Oh, my! what’s that?” asked Dot, startled.
“It sounds just like Billy Bumps,” said Tess.
Again it sounded: “Ba-a-a! bla-a-a-t!” Tom Jonah barked. Sammy came running over to them.
“Hear that old Billy goat?” he shouted. “I bet Tom Jonah’s treed him!”
He dived through the break in the hedge and perforce, because of their curiosity, the little Corner House girls were drawn after him. There they found both Tom Jonah and the boy dancing about a rather savage-looking black-faced ram that had been tied to a stump and that was now so wound up in his rope that he could do little but stamp his hoofs and shake his horns at his tormentors.
“Oh, Sammy! don’t worry the poor goat,” begged Dot.
“Come here, Tom Jonah!” commanded Tess sternly, and the dog obeyed if the boy did not.
“Aw, what’s the odds? He can’t get at us,” said Sammy, careless of both his grammar and the ethics of the case. “And he’s only an old goat.”
“That is just horrid of you, Sammy Pinkney!” declared Tess. “Suppose it was our own poor Billy Bumps?”