Billy Whiskers Out for Fun by Frances Trego Montgomery - HTML preview

CHAPTER XVI
 THE ESCAPE FROM THE CIRCUS

THE next morning the circus arrived in Duluth. The tents were pitched and then hurry and confusion began as everyone was getting ready for the usual morning parade through the down-town streets of the city. This was just what Billy had been waiting for, as he intended to watch his chance and run away from the circus while it was on parade. But imagine his disgust when one of the circus men brought a little flat saddle and strapped it on his back and then put a fancy headpiece on his head and brought the monkey that had had the fight with Polly and tied it to one of his horns with a rope just long enough for it to reach the saddle, where the monkey was supposed to dance as the procession moved through the streets.

“I’ll run away even if I have to drag the monkey with me, for I shan’t stay with the circus another day!” thought Billy. “I am so sick and tired of it. Besides, all the time we are here Stubby and Button are going farther and farther West away from us.”

At exactly half past ten the circus procession filed out of the main tent headed by a band of twenty pieces following which came the bareback riders on snow white horses or jet black ones, with horses and riders all fixed exactly as they would be seen in the circus ring that afternoon, the women riders in their short tulle skirts with bare necks and arms and the men in their tights. Behind them came the performing animals and gilded chariots drawn by tiny Shetland ponies driven by little girls dressed as fairies or little boys dressed as princes. After them came the elephants, camels, sacred bull, zebras and so on, led by their keepers dressed in uniforms of black pants and red coats trimmed with gold lace and cords. Following all this were the cages with the animals in them, and one could see the giraffe sticking his head out of the hole in the roof so he could rest his long neck, and the tigers and lions pacing up and down their cages trying to get out.

All the time the procession was making its way slowly through the streets the clown walked beside it talking to the crowds on the sidewalk. Oh, it was most exciting to the small boys and girls who never had seen a circus procession go by.

But oh my, how deadly tiresome it was to the poor performers and animals that had to take part! Billy and Nannie happened to be about the middle of the procession and as bad luck would have it, one of the clowns had selected just that place to walk. Billy was growing more desperate every block they went at not seeing a single good chance to escape. For should he start to run away the clown would give the alarm and one of the guards of the procession in policeman’s uniform and mounted on horseback would give chase and capture him. Besides, he would have to butt his way through the crowds of people who were lining the sidewalks so closely it would be like butting through a stone wall.

“Oh! What shall I do?” and Billy had dropped his head in disappointment and was paying no attention to the monkey on his back who kept on dancing and hitting his head with the little tambourine he had in his hand. All of a sudden he heard a great clattering of wheels and tooting of horns coming down a side street and just as his part of the procession got to the corner it parted so the fire engine and hook-and-ladder could go across the street.

Now was their chance. “Follow me, Nannie!” called Billy and with a bound forward he reached the middle of the street and ran under the hook-and-ladder auto, though it was going at breakneck speed and he ran the chance of being killed instantly. So did Nannie. Still it was Billy’s way to take a chance every time, no matter how dangerous it was. Once under the machine, they ran for all they were worth to keep covered by its long ladders so no one could see them. Their escape had been so sudden and just at a time when all eyes were on the fire engine and hook-and-ladder, that no one belonging to the circus saw them.

The poor little monkey on Billy’s back was nearly scared to death so when he saw the ladders over his head he jumped from the little saddle on Billy’s back up on them. Luck was with him for the sudden jerk on the rope untied the loose knot and he found himself free, much to his delight as well as Billy’s.

Presently the hook-and-ladder stopped and Billy could smell smoke and see fire ahead of them. But what made his heart bound with delight was that it had stopped directly opposite the opening into an alley. With a squeal of delight Billy and Nannie darted from under the machine and ran down the alley, never stopping until they were many blocks away.

Now the question was, how was he to get the saddle from his back? Should anyone see him with it they would know he had run away from the circus. He would have to stay hid in the alley and not show himself on the streets until after dark. Seeing a packing box leaning against a fence, Billy nosed around until he found it was empty. Then they squeezed themselves between the fence and the box and lay down to rest and try to think out some way to free him from the saddle.

While turning his head to look at it he found that by stretching his neck he could just get hold of the edge of the girth that strapped it to his back. Consequently he began squirming and twisting until he got a good hold with his teeth. Then with a mighty tug he pulled it toward his head, and joy of joys! in three long strong pulls he had it up to his neck. So all he had to do was to duck his head and the saddle fell over his head and neck to the floor of the box.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Billy to himself. “I think I am pretty smart to rid myself of that saddle. Now I can go wherever I wish and no one will suspect that I am not just an ordinary goat out looking for something to eat. Speaking of eats, I believe I’m hungry. Aren’t you, Nannie? Now that we are rested, I think we had better go in search of food.” So they squeezed themselves out of the box and went trotting down the alley as independently as you please.

When they reached the corner where the alley crossed the street, they found a grocery store with baskets of vegetables and fruit displayed outside. Billy took a peek and no one being in sight, he reached for a nice fresh cabbage and retired to the alley to eat it. Nannie did the same. Having finished the cabbage, they ate a bunch of carrots and were beginning on a head of lettuce when the grocery wagon drove into the alley and the driver chased them away with his long whip and then threw stones at them.

Billy was now feeling pretty fine, having had all he wanted to eat, so he thought, “Now is the time for us to find the depot, so I can see if we can’t steal a ride out of here back to Minneapolis. There we must change cars and get on a train going west, or we will never catch up with Stubby and Button.”

Had Billy only known it, he was at that minute within three blocks of the very depot he was looking for. He did not know this, but hearing a train whistle he thought he would follow the sound and see where it led him, in town or out. By jumping a fence or two and crossing a vacant lot, they soon came to a railroad track and looking down it what should he see but the very circus train they had come on!

“Hurrah! This is surely good luck for us for now I know we shall get on the right train to take us back. We’ll go over to the depot and watch for a chance to sneak into a freight car going in the right direction to carry us back to Minneapolis.”

Billy soon found a good place for them to hide from which they could watch all the incoming and outgoing trains, but he saw no freight cars with the doors open. What he did see when it grew dark and the lights were lighted was an express mail train all made up and ready to start. He could see men throwing on mail bags and storing away express packages while the engine blew off steam and waited for the signal. He was watching this intently when the audacious thought struck him, “Why not go on that train instead of waiting for some old slow freight? We will try it. They can but throw us off and I’ll put up such a fight they won’t dare do it after we have once started. But the hard part will be to get aboard without one or the other of us being seen. However, it is pretty dark, which will help some, and I am going to try it.”

So they trotted across the intervening tracks and jumped up on the platform. Now there were two platforms where this train stood and the doors of the car were open on each side so a person could board the train from either side. Billy noticed this, and while the man in charge of the mail car was standing at one door talking to the driver of a mail wagon that had just brought a big lot of mail bags, Billy and Nannie stepped in the opposite door and tiptoed into a dimly-lighted corner and hid behind a pile of mail bags. They had scarcely secreted themselves when the train gave a jerk and they were off.

“Pretty slick work I call that!” said Billy. “This surely has been our lucky day to run away from the circus and get started back to Minneapolis.”

This train was the fast night express and made but one stop between Duluth and Minneapolis, so when the train was out of the suburbs and rolling along through the quiet country, the mailman turned the lights down low and threw himself on a cot at the side of the car and was soon fast asleep. He never awoke until the train whistled for St. Paul. Then he was up and on his feet and ready to open the door the minute the train stopped. As he was removing the inner bar that fastened the door, he thought he heard a noise behind him, but he did not bother to look around to see what it was. Imagine his surprise when the door slipped open to see two big white goats leap past him and run down the platform and disappear in the crowd!

“Well, I’ll be hanged! How in the world did those goats get in my car and me not know it?”

As Billy and Nannie stood outside the station wondering what they would do next, who should they see coming down the street but Stubby and Button.

“Nannie, do my eyes deceive me, or is that really and truly Stubby and Button I see coming toward us?”

“It really is!”

“Well, well, well! Of all that is wonderful, where in the world did you come from? The last we saw of you, you were in the circus train bound for Bismarck, North Dakota, and at this minute we were wondering how we could get to you the quickest way.”

“Yes,” spoke up Nannie, “we were debating which would be the safest and easiest, to try stealing a ride on a train or foot it. But my, I am glad you are here! Come here until we rub noses!”

“This beats any luck we have had for some time,” answered Stubby.

“I should say so,” agreed Button, “as we left the circus on purpose to come back and look for you two! As you did not come on and we were to be carried further West the next morning which would separate us more and more every day they traveled, we determined to escape and come back to St. Paul in the hope of meeting your circus when it broke camp and came back here. But we expected to have the dickens’ own time to find you. Now we are all together again, I say we take a look at this city and try to get a little fun out of it, for so far our trip has had very little pleasure in it. Then after we have had all the hilarious times we care for, we can continue our journey west to the Pacific Coast.”

THE END