CHAPTER IV
AN UNEXPECTED SHOWER BATH
ust at dusk the next day Billy, Stubby and Button entered a small town to look for some nice quiet place for them to sleep, for they had traveled far that day and were tired of being chased by dogs and stoned by boys. So when they came to a small bungalow on the outskirts of the town with a cellar door open and no one around to drive them away, the three stepped in as noiselessly as possible and crept down the cellar stairs to find a place to hide until the family had gone to bed. Then they would begin to look about for something to eat for they expected to find potatoes and probably other vegetables there for Billy to eat and some kind of cold meat for Stubby and Button, and perhaps a pie or piece of cake, either of which would be very acceptable to all of them for they dearly loved sweets of all kinds.
The corners of the cellar were quite dark as by this time the sun had set, so Billy hid himself in one corner behind a pile of kindling, while Stubby crawled under the stationary wash tubs and Button curled himself up on top of a high pile of boxes, from which place he could see a swinging shelf with a plate of cold meat and boiled potatoes, as well as an uncut pie and some doughnuts on it. In the opposite corner of the cellar Billy spied a pile of potatoes and some cabbage and carrots.
"Well, I declare," exclaimed Button, "if we are not lucky! Here we find a good supper all laid out that will just suit our different tastes. Meat and potatoes for Stubby, as well as potatoes, cabbage and carrots for Billy."
"Hark! I hear some one coming!" warned Stubby. "I do hope whoever it is, they don't find us and drive us out just when a good supper is in sight, and also a nice quiet place to sleep."
Clumpety, clump, clumpety, clump, down the stairs came a stupid looking German girl with a plate of fried chicken in one hand and a dish of lovely crisp lettuce in the other. These she put on the shelf and then turned and stumped her way up the stairs again. Then they heard her locking up for the night, as they thought, but soon she appeared wearing her hat and went out the side door through which they had come into the cellar. They all kept very still for a little while, then Button meowed to Stubby to tell him what he could see on the shelf for them to eat, and where Billy could find some potatoes and other vegetables. Stubby crawled out from under the tubs and ran to where Button said the shelf was, but alas, alack! how was he to get at the things on the shelf? It was six feet above him and so hung from the ceiling that there was absolutely no way for him to climb up to it.
"Gee whiz! It makes me hungrier than ever to smell all those goodies and not be able to get at them!"
While Stubby was standing there trying to think out a way to reach them, Button cautiously climbed down from the boxes onto the shelf and with his nose and paw poked a big, round potato and a thick slice of meat off the plate to the floor. As they fell, they hit Stubby on the nose and made him jump, it was so unexpected, and at first he thought some one was throwing things at him. While he ate the meat, Button helped himself to fried chicken and Billy came over and baaed to him not to be so greedy but to throw him down some lettuce.
"Why don't you go over into that corner and eat those carrots and other vegetables?" meowed Button.
"Because I am not such a goose as to eat cold, dirty potatoes and cows' food when I can get my favorite nice, crisp lettuce."
The three ate and ate, for they were very hungry after their long tramp on the road all day. After Button had pushed all the food onto the floor he did not want for himself, and had licked the plate, he said, "I wish I had a nice drink of milk now, to quench my thirst. If I had that, I could go to sleep and sleep until daylight without waking, even if a rat chewed my tail and a mouse bit my ear."
"A pail of clean, cool water would please me better," said Billy.
"Me too," said Stubby. "Listen! I hear water running somewhere," he added.
"It sounds to me as if it were in the kitchen upstairs," said Billy. "I don't hear any one stirring around up there, so let us go and get a drink and then turn in for the night."
Billy walked to the cellar stairs and was half way up, while Stubby and Button were just behind him, when they heard some one exclaim, "Chester, come quick! Come quick! The water is running in the sink, and the cellar floor is flooded."
This was followed by the loud laughter of two people.
"Whatever shall we do?" said a girl's distressed voice.
"Get a mop and mop it up!" replied a boy.
"But the mop is in the cellar and I'll get my feet wet if I cross the floor to go to the cellar. Besides, I have on my best white shoes."
"Where do you keep the broom? That will do."
"Behind the kitchen door usually, but with the house all torn up with housecleaning, I don't know where it is."
"I'll find it. You stay out of the room so you won't get wet."
"Who ever would have thought that just because I happened to set that coffee pot over the hole in the sink that it would stop it up so tight that the water when it overflowed the coffee pot would fill the sink and make it overflow?"
"No one would," answered the boy. "And here is all this mess just because we hadn't any sense and tried to cool a bottle of ginger ale by setting it in the coffee pot and letting the water run on it."
The three listeners on the stairs heard the boy cross the kitchen and turn off the water. Then they heard him get the broom from behind the kitchen door.
"Where are you going to sweep the water?" asked the girl.
"Down the cellar stairs! It won't hurt anything down there," and before Billy, Stubby or Button could move, a deluge of water struck them full in the face, blinding them and sousing them from the tips of their noses to the ends of their tails.
This made Button sneeze, and he climbed back to the top of the boxes. Billy turned on the stairs, but before he could really face about, another sweep of the broom sent a second deluge on him, and blinded by water and mad with rage, he rushed up the stairs to escape it. Instead of getting out of the way, he ran straight into the boy who was sweeping, which surprised the boy so that he let go the broom handle and it too flew out of his hands and hit Billy on the head. This made Billy so angry that he jumped for the boy and butted him straight into the sink, where he sat down in the overflowing basin. The girl, too panic-stricken to move, stood in the doorway wringing her hands and crying, "Don't butt me, Mr. Billy Goat! I didn't do a thing!”
She looked so funny standing there wringing her hands and calling Billy Mr. Billy Goat that just for fun Billy thought he would give her a very little butt into the next room—not enough to hurt her, but just to frighten her a little. But when she saw him coming toward her, she screamed and ran. Billy pursued her into a bedroom, where he overtook her and gave her a gentle butt that landed her in the middle of a big four-poster bed, after which he turned and trotted off to see what the boy was doing. He found him floundering in the sink, trying to get out that he might go to the girl's rescue, but he could not as his feet would not reach the floor and he could get no grip on himself in the slippery sink. Just at this crisis the maid came home and unlocked the outside door at the head of the cellar stairs. With one bound Billy was at the door the minute it was opened. As he flew by her, he hit her, knocking her over against the young man who was seeing her home. He held a watermelon under his arm, on which they intended to feast, but when Billy struck the girl and she fell against him, it sent the watermelon flying from under his arm and the three of them, Billy, the maid and her beau, all fell on the melon. This squashed it flatter than a pancake and made it explode like a bomb. While all this was taking place, Stubby and Button made their escape through the open door and ran down the street to wait for Billy to join them.
When he came up, all he said was, "Just our luck, to have to lose a perfectly good lodging place just when we were almost ready to go to sleep for the night! And just because two young geese could not drink ginger ale warm instead of cold!"
"But I would not complain if I were you, Billy," said Button, "for we got a good supper before it happened."
"Sure enough! So we did. I guess I better not complain. One thing, it is a nice warm night, so it wouldn't be bad to sleep outdoors, and I see a clump of trees and bushes down by the lake. Let's go down there and see if we can't find a nice soft mossy bank to sleep on."
So the three trotted off and soon found a soft sandy bank under some sheltering trees and bushes where they curled themselves up and were soon fast asleep.
