CHAPTER VIII
LIGHTFOOT ON A VOYAGE
With a heart that beat hard and fast after his long run, Lightfoot, the goat, crouched down in a dark corner of the hold in the canal boat.
“My!” thought poor Lightfoot as he curled up in as small a space as he could. “I got away from them just in time. I hope they don’t find me.”
He listened with his ears pointed forward, just as a horse does when he hears or sees something strange. There was a sort of thumping noise somewhere in the canal boat, near the wooden wall or partition against which Lightfoot was resting himself.
There was a rattling of dishes and pans, and then Lightfoot heard the noise of coal being put in the stove. He knew that sound, for in the shanty of Widow Malony he had often heard it before, when Mike or his mother would make a fire to cook a meal.
And pretty soon Lightfoot smelled something cooking. He sniffed the air in the dark hold of the canal boat. It was not the smell of such food as Lightfoot cared to eat, for it was meat and potatoes being cooked. And though he did like a cold boiled potato once in a while, he did not want meat.
“I wonder what is going on here?” thought the goat.
If he had known, it was the noises in the cabin-kitchen of the canal boat—the captain’s wife was getting dinner. For on these canal boats, of which there are not so many now as there used to be, the captain and his family live in a little house, or cabin, where they eat and sleep just as if the house were on land. Instead it is on a boat, and the boat is pulled by horses and mules from one city to another, bringing to port coal, grain or whatever else they are loaded with.
Lightfoot remained hiding in the dark hold, listening to the noises in the kitchen cabin, and smelling the good smells. Then Lightfoot heard voices in the cabin. It was the captain of the boat speaking to his wife.