Billy Whiskers Jr. by Frances Trego Montgomery - HTML preview

An Unexpected Trip.

AFTER an uneventful trip, they sailed one day into the beautiful harbor of San Francisco, called the Golden Gate, and Billy and Stubby were looking forward to a good time on shore, and planning what they would do, when, all unexpectedly, after landing, they got mixed up in a bunch of cattle, and were driven aboard a big boat that was being loaded with live cattle for Japan, and try as he would, Billy could not extricate himself from them or avoid the long whips of the men who were driving them. As for Stubby, he could easily have slipped away, but he preferred to follow Billy, and that is how our travelers found themselves bound for Japan without a day’s rest on shore after they came up the coast from Mexico to San Francisco.

This was not at all what they wanted, for they were tired of the ocean, but they were helpless, and what was worse, Billy stood in danger of being killed and sold for mutton chops, for goat chops are often sold for such. Stubby was afraid he, too, would be killed and made into sausage, for he had heard that the Chinese eat dog meat, and if they did, why not the Japanese? So with heavy hearts they saw the shore recede farther and farther from them and the Golden Gate sink into the blue waters of the Pacific, leaving them nothing to look at but water, water all around them.

The only thing that varied the monotony of the long trip to Japan was their short stop at the Sandwich Islands, where Billy and Stubby were taken ashore for a run by the cook and his assistant, who were both Japanese and were returning home to fight for their country against Russia.

Since starting they had made great pets of both Billy and Stubby and had often given them meat and apples, and got permission for them to run on deck once in a while. Otherwise they would have been shut below with the cattle and the trip would have been unendurable to the independent, free-roving Billy.

One dark night as the steamer was ploughing the waters and they were laying in a little sheltered nook on deck, they heard the captain say to the mate:

“We are getting pretty near Port Arthur now and it is going to be mighty ticklish sailing in these waters; with the two armies, the Russians and the Japanese, banging away at each other from their battleships and the waters under us filled with hidden mines and torpedo boats. I tell you, I don’t like these submarine things floating around. Who knows but one might get loose, float off and perhaps blow up the wrong boat.”

And that is just what did happen, for while the captain was talking, a terrific explosion was heard, louder than one hundred cannons going off at once, and for a second, the heavens were lit up with a weird light in which were seen huge pieces of debris flying in the air like the eruption from a volcano, while, almost in the same second, they began falling with a sissing sound into the waters beneath, and all that was left of the Russian’s battle ship was a few splinters of wood and the mangled bodies of her officers and men floating on top of the water.

It had all been so sudden and was over so quickly that it was hard to realize that such a terrible disaster could have occurred in so short a time.

“Now, what did I tell you about the danger of sailing along here? One of these submarine mines or torpedo boats caused the blowing up of that war-ship and I tell you what, we had better get out of here as fast as ever we can or we too may be blown sky high before we know it.”

Consequently, they cautiously and softly steamed away from Port Arthur and kept a sharp lookout for every Russian boat that might be sailing round looking for some boat of the enemies to capture, but they escaped them all.

When they landed, Billy’s and Stubby’s friends, the Japs, took them home with them where they were fed and nicely housed in their back yard, and while Billy and Stubby were making friends with the beautiful pheasants that were shut in the same yard, their Japanese friends went to military headquarters to join the army and when they came back they were dressed in their uniforms with orders in their pockets to report at headquarters the next morning.

For several days after this, Billy and Stubby saw nothing of them but they were fed and looked after by a pretty, rosy faced, little Jap girl who wore a pretty flowered kimona and wore her hair in funny looking, little, smooth puffs with toy fans sticking out of it.

They had been in the yard about a week and Billy was getting tired of such close quarters with nothing to see or do, when he heard a military band marching down the street on the other side of the high fence. The little Jap girl who had just brought them some water, when she heard this, dropped her pan and ran to the gate in the fence and looked out to see the soldiers go by. Of course Billy turned and was through the gate in a flash with Stubby close at his heels and down the street they ran in the direction the band had taken, while the poor little Jap girl ran after them wringing her hands in dismay and calling to them to come back, but they only ran the faster.

Billy was as bad as any little Irish Paddy about liking to follow a parade or a band and when he caught up to it he found it was leading a regiment that was marching to the front. When Billy and Stubby dropped back to the rear who should they see but their Japanese friends, the last men of the last ranks.

When Billy spied them he made up his mind in a twinkle to follow and go to the war with them. This he bleated to Stubby and of course Stubby thought it would be great fun and agreed to go, too.

When the regiment had left the city’s cheering crowds behind, Billy and Stubby crept up closer to the soldiers and trudged on quietly after them until Stubby gave a quick little bark which one of the Japs recognized and turning his head, he saw with surprise Billy and Stubby marching behind him.

He tried to drive them back by shooing them and scolding but what cared Billy and Stubby for a shoo or a scold when they were going to the war. As the Japs could not break ranks and go for the goat and the dog, they had to let them follow, which they did, mile after mile until the regiment broke ranks for the night and went into camp.

By that time, they had traveled too far to send them back, so that night when the Japs threw themselves down by their camp-fire, a large black goat and a little yellow dog lay down with them.

And for many days and weeks and months they did this, sticking to the regiment whether it chanced to be in the thick of the fight or waiting for marching orders, and strange as it may seem, whenever this regiment was in a fight, it always won and the two Japs had fought so bravely that they had been promoted until they were no longer privates but were colonel and captain, and their regiment was known as the “Black Goat and Yellow Dog Regiment,” while Billy and Stubby had become their mascots and here we will leave them to enjoy their honors.

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