_Billy As a Performer in the Circus_
One day when all the goats were grazing in the pasture, Billylooked up and saw coming toward them the farmer and a large, fatman.
"What can they want?" thought Billy. "I guess I will walk out andmeet them and hear what they are talking about."
As he came within hearing distance, he heard the farmer say:"Here he comes now, the one I was telling you about and I don'tthink you will have any trouble in teaching him anything you wantto, for he seems very smart and not afraid of 'Old Nick'himself."
"That is good," said the circus-man, "for a timid goat is no goodin a circus where they have to be with all the other animals."
"So," thought Billy, "this is a man from the circus up in townand he is thinking of buying me and making me perform in hiscircus. Well, I guess not," and he kicked up his heels in theirfaces and skipped off to the other side of the stream where theycould not get him.
"It takes three to make a bargain where there is a goat in thecase," said Billy to himself, "and I will give them a good chaseif they try to catch me. And should they catch me, I pity the menand animals at the circus when I get there for I shall use mysharp horns to advantage and split a hole in their old tent andcome back to Nanny. Now they are looking at Satan, maybe the manwill buy him. No, I am afraid he won't for he is shaking his headand pointing at me and here they come. The farmer is holding outhis hand as if he had something in it for me to eat. Oh, no, Mr.Farmer, I am too old a goat to be caught with chaff. However, Iwill stand still on this side of the stream and see what theywill do."
And there Billy stood with his head raised waiting for them andhe made as fine a picture of a goat as you ever saw, standing ona little green knoll with the silvery stream running at his feet.
The circus-man was delighted with him for he was almost twicethe size of any other goat he had ever seen, and he thought howfine he would look dressed up as a professor with his long, silkybeard.
By this time the men were directly opposite Billy and he noticedthat the circus-man kept his hands behind him all the time, butpresently he drew them forward and in one he held a rope with along loop in it.
"So, ho," thought Billy, "he expects to tie that rope around myneck, does he? Well, let him cross the stream and catch mefirst."
But while Billy was thinking this the circus-man was making therope fly round and round his head in a long circle, and soon witha quick twist, the rope straightened out and the loop fell overBilly's head and settled on his neck while he stood looking atthem.
Billy was the most surprised goat you ever saw, for it was thefirst time he had ever seen a lasso thrown and had he only knownit, the circus-man had been a cowboy in his younger days andlassoed many head of cattle. When Billy found he was fairlycaught, his pride had a fall, for he had thought himself toosmart to be caught, and instead of him leading the men a chaseand making them cross the brook to get him, they were pullinghim off the bank and through the water, making him follow them.
At first he tried to pull back and get away, but he had to givethat up, for the rope tightened round his neck and shut off hisbreath and he was glad enough to follow where they led.
When Nanny saw what had happened she ran up to Billy bleating asif her heart would break for she was very fond of him, and shewas afraid they were going to kill him or take him away forever.
"Don't cry, Nanny. I will get loose and come back to-night, orto-morrow night sure, if I can't get loose to-night; so don'ttake on so. I know my way back and a circus tent is not a hardthing to get out of."
"But, Billy dear, they may tie you as they have now, and then youcan't get loose," said Nanny.
"Oh, yes I can, when they leave me alone, I can chew the rope intwo."
"But can't I go with you, Billy? I feel so terribly at being leftalone and, think of it, we have not been married two weeks."
"What a pretty face that little Nanny goat has," said thecircus-man.
"Yes," answered the farmer, "they both came to the pasture oneday and joined my goats and have been here ever since. I neverknew where they came from, or whom they belonged to."
"Well, here we are at the barn, you must run back, little Nanny;I can't take you with me to-day, though it does seem a shame toseparate you two lovers," said the circus-man.
As Billy went through the bars he halted a second to give Nanny alast good-bye kiss; and with the tears streaming down her face,Nanny stood and watched him until they were out of sight.
The circus-man tied Billy to the back of his buggy and whippingup his horse he started for town. Billy had to run fast to keepup and though he got out of breath, he could not stop unless thehorse did. The worst of it was the horse kicked up such adreadful dust that it nearly blinded Billy as it flew up in hisface from under the buggy. At last they came to the outskirts ofthe town, where the circus tents were pitched, and Billy wasuntied from the buggy and led inside a large tent where cages ofwild animals were arranged around the outer edge, while in thecenter two elephants and four camels were tethered. When he gotinside, the circus-man called to one of the men to bring him astrong peg. This he drove into the ground and tethered Billy toit, like all the other animals were fastened. Then he told theman to bring him a bunch of straw for the goat to lie on, and abundle of hay for him to eat.
"Hay," thought Billy, "after nice tender young grass and turnips!Well, I won't stay here long, that is one sure thing. I wonder ifI can understand a word of what these heathen, foreign animalssay, but I expect I can read their minds, if I can't understandtheir tongues for most animals are mind readers and mind is thesame the world over, though their thoughts are not the same."
While Billy was thinking this, the circus-man and the other manleft the tent and Billy was startled by the elephant sticking histrunk up to Billy's mouth and asking him to speak through it, ashe was a little deaf and used his trunk as an ear trumpet. He wasjust going to introduce himself to the elephant and ask theelephant's name in return, when one of the camels in a weak,weary voice asked the same question he had been going to ask theelephant; so he introduced himself to the camel and she in returnpresented him to all the other animals that were within hearingdistance. She did not introduce him to any of the beasts in thecages, as she said the animals that were loose looked down uponthe caged ones and seldom spoke to them. The name of one of thecamels was Miss Nancy, and she was a regular old maid of a camel,who did nothing but gossip and ask questions.
"Have you ever performed in a circus or traveled with onebefore?" she asked Billy. When hearing that he had not, sherolled up her eyes, a habit she had, and exclaimed: "Pooruneducated beast, what you have missed, never to have been taughtto perform in a circus." This was a calamity in her eyes. Shecould not remember ever being anywhere else, as she had been bornin a circus in this country shortly after her mother had beenbrought here from Persia.
"I am so glad I was not born in Persia, for had I been I shouldhave had to carry heavy loads and cross the burning desert withvery little water to drink. While now, all I have to do is tomarch in the processions and then stand and look wise while theboys feed me peanuts as they walk into the circus to see theperformance. Oh, you will like being with us when you get used tothe confinement," she said.
"For mercy sakes! Nancy, do keep still and give some one else achance to talk," said her mother.
Just then the lion roared and when he roared, all the otheranimals stopped talking for he was still looked upon as king ofthe beasts although he was caged. They all stood a little in aweof him for fear he would break through his cage and chew them up,as he threatened to do so many times when they did not stoptalking immediately when he roared.
This time he roared to know who the new comer was and if he wasan American relative of his, for as Billy had a beard like thelion's, only much longer, the lion thought he must be an Americanlion.
"Come over here, near my cage, Mr. Beardy, where I can see you,"said the lion.
"I can't," said Billy, "my rope is too short."
"Oh, very well," he roared back, "I will see you in theprocession, to-morrow, for I hear you are to march back of mycage."
The lion's keeper came in to see what the lion was roaring aboutand in passing Billy he stopped to get a good look at him, andpresently he was joined by another man, who Billy found out tookthe part of the clown and who was expected to walk by Billy'sside in the procession while a monkey rode his back.
"You are a pretty fine looking goat, old fellow, and I expect wewill become great friends. Here is a lump of sugar to begin ourfriendship with, or do you prefer tobacco?" said the clown.
"He seems like a nice man," thought Billy, "but I never thoughtto see the day when I would march in a procession with a monkeyon my back and a clown at my side, and I don't know whether Iwill allow him to ride or not, but I guess I will behave forawhile and see what life is like under a circus tent."
The next day dawned bright and fair and there was great commotionthroughout the circus, getting ready for the eleven o'clockprocession that was to march through the streets. Early in themorning, Billy was led into the sawdust ring, and a peculiarsaddle like a little platform was strapped to his back. This themonkey was to dance on, dressed as a ballet girl, with yellow,spangled skirts, a satin bodice and a blue cap with a feather init on his head.
When Billy first saw the monkey in this dress walking on his hindlegs toward him to get on his back, he had a good mind to tosshim up to the top of the tent, he felt so disgusted; but hiscuriosity got the better of him and he decided to wait and seewhat they expected him to do next. He soon found out. Theywanted him to trot around the ring, and not jump when the ringmaster cracked his long lashed whip at him, while the monkeydanced on his back and jumped through paper rings, as the ladycircus riders do.
"This is very easy," thought Billy, "I don't mind this in theleast, only I don't want to go around too many times one way forit makes me dizzy."
"That will do for this morning, Billy, you are a good goat," saidthe man. Just then the monkey jumped off Billy's back, and as heran past him, he gave Billy's beard a pull. Like a shot Billy wasafter him and had the monkey not run up a pole, Billy would havekilled him. From that time on, Billy and the monkey, whose namewas Jocko, hated each other and an outward peace was only kept upwhen someone was around to keep them apart.
The monkey would climb a pole or sit on top of a wagon, oranything high that was handy, so Billy could not reach him andthen call him names and sauce him until Billy pawed the earthwith rage, which made the monkey laugh. The only one that couldget even with the monkey's tongue was the parrot, and she and themonkey would sit and sauce each other by the hour.
Billy was about cooled down from his fuss with the monkey, whenhe heard a bugle call and the elephant told him that it was thesignal for the procession to start. While Billy had been putthrough his paces in the circus ring, the elephants had beendecked out in scarlet blankets embroidered with gold and funnylittle summer houses, as Billy thought, strapped to their backs,in which ladies were to ride. The camels had also been fixed up,and from four to six horses, with waving plumes on their heads,had been hitched to each circus wagon.
At another signal from the bugle, they all started to move, led bythe men and women performers, dressed in their best spangledvelvet suits. Then came what Billy thought to be the best thing inthe procession, a golden chariot drawn by twelve Shetland ponies,each pony ridden by a little boy postilion, in scarlet velvet;while in the chariot sat a beautiful, little, golden-haired girl,dressed as a queen, with a diamond crown on her head.
It fairly took Billy's breath away, he thought it all sobeautiful, and he started to follow.
"All right, Jim, let him go there if he wants to. He probablythinks the ponies are goats and will behave better than if putwith the lions."
"What an idiot that man is!" thought Billy, "to think I don'tknow a pony from a goat."
It was a good thing they let him march there for he was so takenup with watching the ponies in front of him that he forgot to bemad at Jocko, who was going through all sorts of antics on hisback and swinging on Billy's horns. Everything was going smoothlywhen Billy saw Mike O'Hara coming out of the crowd; he came up tothe clown that was walking beside him and said: "Look here, thatis my goat!"
"Well, I guess not, you must be crazy."
"I'll prove it to you," said Mike. "Do you see that black spot onhis forehead and that he has one black hoof and all the othersare white?"
"That don't prove anything," said the clown. "You just noticedthat as we were walking along, and now you come up here and tryto claim our goat."
"I'll give you another proof," said Mike. "He will come when Icall him."
"All right, call him, and I bet he won't follow you," said theclown.
Mike held out his hand and called him by name, but Billy did notturn an inch though he knew he belonged to Mike. He did notpropose to go with him and be made to pull milk carts. Hepreferred to stay where he was as he liked the excitement of acircus life.
When Billy did not go to Mike, it made the clown laugh and hesaid: "There, I told you so. The goat never saw you before."
"Yes, he has," said Mike, "but it is just like his cussedness topretend he don't know me."
"Go along, I can't bother talking to you any more," said theclown, as all this time Mike had been walking beside the clown asthey marched.
"Well, you need not talk to me any more," said Mike, "but I amgoing to have my goat." And with that he caught hold of Billy'shorns and was going to lead him away.
"Here, take your hands off that goat, you are stopping theprocession!" But Mike held on and the clown gave him a hit in theribs. Mike struck back and a policeman, who was standing in thecrowd, ran out and arrested Mike for disorderly conduct and forstopping the procession. This was the second time that Mike hadbeen arrested on Billy's account.
When the procession returned to the tents, all the animals andhorses were fed and allowed to rest so as to be fresh for theafternoon's performance. Billy had been resting only a shorttime, when a couple of men came toward him, one carrying a tableand the other a long black gown of some kind.
"What in the world are they going to do now," thought Billy.
When they came up to him, the man that was carrying the table putit down and then brought a high backed arm chair and set it upclose to the table. Then the men came up to Billy and one of themsaid: "Now, old fellow, we are going to make a professor out ofyou," and with that they both took hold of him and made him standon his hind legs while they put the black gown on him and a blackskull cap on his head, and a pair of spectacles on his nose,--thelatter they had to tie on. Then a man got on each side of him andsupported him to the table where they made him sit in the chair.They put his forehoofs on the table and a large book before himand a pen behind his ears. When they had him all fixed, you neversaw such a wise looking professor in your life as he made, withhis long, white beard. The men were so delighted with hisappearance and the way he behaved when dressed up, that theycalled all the rest of the circus people to come and look. Ofcourse they laughed and praised and petted Billy, until he wasnearly bursting with conceit and they all agreed that it wouldtickle the children most to death to see how solemn and straighta goat could sit in a chair.
"Now Billy, we will take these things off and let you rest foryour back must be tired as you are not used to sitting up, butyou will get used to it and it won't make you tired after awhile.Come here, and I will give you this nice red apple for being sucha good goat. You behaved so nicely that I think we will ventureto show you off at the performance this afternoon."
This they did and he got more encores and whistles and clappingof hands than anything else that was shown that afternoon, moreeven than the ponies. Before they brought him in, the Ring Mastercame in and said: "Now ladies and gentlemen, I am about tointroduce to you the oldest and most wonderful astrologer nowliving. He will read to you, from a mystic book, the fate of theworld and whether it is to be destroyed by fire or water."
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bsp; When he had finished speaking, four men drew a platform in, onwhich Billy was seated in his chair at the table. But thestrangest part of it all was, that when everything was still andthe crowd were all watching him, he commenced to read and turnthe pages of the book, and he spoke so plainly that everyonecould understand and hear. This surely was wonderful, and thechildren could not make up their minds whether it was a man withgoat's horns, for his long horns stuck out through two holes oneither side of his cap, or a goat with a man's voice; and whenthe Ring Master told the children that the professor had justdropped from the sign of the Zodiac called Capricorn, which isrepresented in all the almanacs by a goat, they thought he mustbe telling the truth. He did not tell them that hidden under theplatform was a man that did the talking, and when the leaves ofthe book turned, that he was pulling a string which made themturn over, but everyone thought the goat was doing it himself.
After the performance was over, all the children as they passedfed Billy peanuts, candy, pop-corn and apples as he stood by theelephant.
Billy had behaved like a lamb for days and gone through all hisperformances without a hitch,--in fact he had become the pet ofthe circus, and allowed to roam about at will and was never tiednot even at night. So this night after all had settled down andgone to bed, Billy, feeling wakeful, thought he would move arounda little and take a peep into the other tents. First he stuck hisnose into a little tent where they sold pop-corn, peanuts,lemonade etc., during the performances.
"Now is my chance," thought Billy, "to eat all the pop-corn Iwant, for I never have gotten enough to satisfy me at any onetime, but how can I get it out of that glass case. It looks soeasy to get at and smells so good, I must have some, even if Ihave to break the glass to get at it."
He stood licking the glass for a little while; then his greedgetting the better of him, he backed off and gave the glass aquick hard knock with his horns. It broke and flew in alldirections and let the pop-corn roll out in a perfect stream.Billy stopped to listen a minute to see if the noise of thebreaking glass had brought anyone to see what was the matter, andwhen no one came, he commenced to eat the salted and butteredcorn, and he ate until for once in his life he could say he hadhad enough. But, oh my! what a thirst it had given him, and hedid not know where to get a drink unless he went and stole it outof the elephant's tub of water, but he did not like to go thereas the elephant's keeper slept near his charge and he might catchhim and tie him up.
Billy was just leaving the tent when he ran into a large tinwater cooler. It took but a minute to push the top off with hisnose and then he began to drink. But what was the matter with thewater? It had turned sour and had round pieces of yellow, sourstuff floating in it; it was his first taste of lemonade,consequently he did not know what he was drinking.
In his disgust at finding no water, he revenged himself byupsetting the water cooler and spilling all the lemonade. Then hewalked out and going into the first tent he came to, he foundhimself in the room of the leading lady who was fast asleep on acot. At the end of the tent he saw a small table with alooking-glass hanging above it, but when Billy saw his reflectionin it, he did not make the mistake of thinking it was anothergoat like he had once before. He walked up to the table andseeing a stick of red stuff that looked like candy, he ate it,but it turned out to be a stick of red paint that the leadinglady used to paint her lips. After tasting her powder, andupsetting her bottle of perfumery, and chewing her blonde wig,thinking it some kind of yellow grass, he walked out withoutawakening her.
Next he went into a tent that had pictures of snakes of all kindspainted on it. This was the tent occupied by the snake charmers,but Billy knew nothing about large snakes, only little inoffensivegarter snakes, so he went in and commenced nosing around in thebaskets he saw setting there with blankets in them to see what wasunder the blankets.
In the first one, he felt something cold and slippery and not tohis taste, so he let it alone, thinking it a piece of gardenhose; but when he stuck his nose in the next basket somethinglong and slim and pliable stuck its head out and wound itselfaround his body drawing itself tighter and tighter, until Billyfound himself staggering for want of breath. When he was nearlysqueezed to death he made a death-like groan which awoke theIndian snake charmer who was asleep in one corner of the tent ona pile of rugs. The man took in the situation at a glance, andcame to Billy's rescue, making the snake uncoil itself by playingon a kind of bagpipe, a queer, weird, monotonous piece of music.This charmed the snake and it uncoiled itself from Billy and,swaying its body, crawled toward the snake charmer.
The second that Billy felt its coils slip from his body, he tooka long breath and ran from the tent not even stopping to wigglehis head in thanks for his preservation. Once outside, he madehis way back to his own tent where he lay down on his pile ofstraw to snatch a little sleep before daylight, as unconcerned asif nothing had happened.