“Oh, he is a jolly elephant who lives in a circus. I met a trick pony named Tinkle, who once was in the circus, and Tinkle told me about Tum Tum.”
“I’m sure I don’t know about Tum Tum,” went on the old goat. “And I never saw a circus, though I have heard of them.”
“Maybe I’ll be in one some day,” murmured Lightfoot.
“Well, whatever you do, never again try to butt a trolley car,” advised the old goat, and Lightfoot said he never would.
In a few days he felt better, though his bruises and cuts still hurt a little. But, with Blackie, he managed to get to the top of the rocks, and there, eating the sweet grass and lying stretched out in the sun, he was soon himself again and could jump as well as ever. He told the other goats about his adventure with the trolley car, and they all said he was brave, if he was foolish.
It was more than a month after he had been butted into the ditch by the trolley car that Lightfoot once more wandered down that same street. He felt hungry for some pasty paper from a tomato can, and he wanted to see if any had fallen from an ash wagon.
Lightfoot looked up and down the street. He did not see a can but he did see a little girl, and she was standing in the middle of the trolley track, almost in the spot where Lightfoot had stood when he was hurt.
“I wonder if she is going to try to knock a car off the track,” thought Lightfoot. And just then, the little girl, who was about four years old, turned her back and stooped to pick up her doll, which had dropped from her arms to the ground.
As she did so, around the corner of the street, came a trolley car, just like the one that had hit Lightfoot. The motorman happened to be looking the other way, and did not see the little girl. She was so taken up with her doll that she did not hear the rumble of the car, and the motorman, still looking the other way, did not ring his bell.
“That little girl will be hurt!” cried Lightfoot “She can never knock the car off the track if I couldn’t. I must save her! I must push her off the rails.”