“Why, yes, maybe,” answered Mr. Farley. “Why?”
“I’m not going to look at them,” said Mabel.
“Nor I,” added George. “They’d make me think too much of our Tinkle.”
On the way to the circus with their father, Mabel and George passed through a part of the city where there were not many houses, and in what few homes there were poor people lived.
Many of them owned goats, some for the milk they gave, for the milk of goats is almost as good as that of cows.
“Oh, see that big goat!” cried George as they passed a small house, on the rocks behind which a goat was jumping about. “Look how easy he jumps!”
“You may well say that!” exclaimed a pleasant-faced Irish woman at the front gate. “Sure, Lightfoot is the most illigint goat that ever was.”
“Is Lightfoot his name?” asked Mr. Farley.
“Sure an’ it is, for it fits him well. He’s that light on his feet you’d never know he was jumpin’ at all. Ah, he’s a fine goat.”
“I had a fine pony once,” said George, “but somebody took him away.”