CHAPTER III
WHAT BEFELL THE CHUMS WHILE IN TOWN
WHEN they did go in the town they found the inhabitants were just getting up to breakfast, for they could smell bacon and potatoes frying and coffee boiling as they passed the houses. There were few people on the streets as yet so the Chums could go wherever they wished without being molested. But the odor of bacon and fried potatoes was so tempting to Stubby and Button and made them so hungry that they declared their intention of having breakfast before they traveled further. This food did not appeal to Billy but fresh lettuce and carrots with dew on them did, so he proposed that Stubby and Button try to get some bacon and potatoes while he jumped some garden fence and feasted on fresh vegetables until Stubby barked the signal for them all to move on.
But alas, these plans were made only to be broken.
Billy soon came to a house with a beautiful garden in front in which were climbing roses and many other kinds of flowers, while at the back was a big vegetable garden. On the way to the garden he nibbled off the fragrant, sweet tasting, full blooming red roses, taking care not to let the thorns prick him.
“Well, I declare!” said Billy to himself, “I never knew roses were so deliciously sweet and tasty before. Why, they are better eating than carrots or lettuce! The only trouble is that I can’t get a big mouthful at a time on account of having to look out for the thorns. Gee, I am caught in the bush! Wish I hadn’t tried to reach that big red rose on the topmost branch. I have gotten myself all tangled up. I know that rosebud looks very pretty in my beard and the one behind my left ear is equally jaunty and fetching, but jumping cats! those old thorns do scratch my sides like the dickens.”
Just then “Bow-wow, Bow-wow, Bow-wow!” barked a big dog at his back. The dog had sneaked up so suddenly and quietly behind Billy that he had not heard a sound. The first “Bow-wow” startled him so that he gave a bound out of the rosebush, leaving bunches of hair pulled out of his sides and strands of long hair pulled out of his beard. Encouraged by his jump, the dog thought Billy was afraid, so ran after him. But by this time Billy had recovered from his surprise and instead of continuing to run he whirled quickly and faced the dog. This move was so unexpected to the dog that he ran full force into Billy before he could stop himself and there they stood for a second, nose against nose. Being quick-witted, Billy recovered from his surprise first and before you could say Jack Robinson he had butted the dog head over heels out into the middle of the road. He picked himself up and went yelping home with his tail between his legs. And Mister Billy proceeded on his way to the vegetable garden back of the house where he jumped the fence. Finding a nice bed of lettuce, he planted himself in the middle of it and began to eat as quietly and placidly as if he had never seen a dog in his life. And while he is eating lettuce, we will see what luck Stubby and Button had finding a breakfast.
As soon as Billy left them they separated, one going on one side of the railroad track, the other on the other side. Then they ran along in front of the houses, smelling to find a place where they were cooking meat or potatoes. Stubby had run around to the back of a house where he had thought he smelled fried potatoes but what was his joy as he passed the kitchen window to smell the delicious odor of fried beefsteak as well as potatoes.
“Here is the place for me,” thought Stubby to himself. “I’ll stay right here until someone opens the kitchen door, then I shall sneak in and grab some of that steak.”
He hid under the back porch, and as he impatiently waited, he could smell the steak and hear it sputtering in the frying-pan until he was so hungry and wanted a piece of it so badly that he felt he could eat the whole cow instead of one steak. He was losing hopes of anyone ever opening the kitchen door when the cook did so and left it open to let the smoke out, for while she was in the dining-room the potatoes had burned to a crisp and filled the kitchen with smoke. While she and her mistress were fussing over the burned potatoes, Stubby slipped in the door under cover of the smoke and jumped up on the table where the steak was on a platter ready to be served. With one grab he had it in his mouth and was running out the door before they saw him. Then with a scream of rage and surprise, the cook grabbed a broom and gave chase. Stubby ran down the railroad track and then dodged into a back yard and crawled under a fence into an alley and ran until he came to an empty packing box leaning on its side. Into this he dodged and dropped the meat to rest his jaws while he stuck his head around one side of the box to see if the cook was still pursuing him. Through a crack in the fence opposite the box he caught a glimpse of her still running down the railroad track with a broom waving in mid-air and crying, “Stop thief! Stop thief!” So he knew she had lost him for good, and with a sigh of relief and contentment he lay down by the steak and began to eat it hurriedly. It seemed to him he had never tasted anything so good in all his life.
He was just about gorged and feeling sorry he could not eat it all, it was so good, when who should stick his head around the box and peer in but Button.
“For mercy sakes! What are you doing here?” asked Button.
“Can’t you see?” replied Stubby.
“Looks to me as if you had been stuffing yourself on beefsteak.”
“I have, and you are just in time to save me from killing myself by over-eating. Come on and finish it for me.”
“Think I will, but I can’t eat much as I have just dined on roast goose.”
“Roast goose for breakfast! Who ever heard of goose for breakfast?”
“No one, I guess. This goose was not for breakfast. It was for dinner, but the cook had roasted it so she would not have to watch it so closely when all her other things were on the fire. Then just before they were done she had intended putting this back in the oven and finish browning it. They are having a birthday party there to-day. She had put this on the window sill to cool and I saw it so I just jumped up on the sill, ate my fill and escaped without being seen. Gee, won’t she be mad when she finds what has happened? She will think a rat ate it.”
“My, what Billy and Nannie miss in the way of eating by being vegetarians! I really can’t see how they stand it,” remarked Stubby.
“Well, I have eaten all I can. I wish we had pockets in our skins so we could carry what is left for future use when we have no way of getting a morsel of meat,” said Button. “But as we can’t, don’t you think we better be moving on to find Billy?”
So they left the remains of the steak and continued down the alley. As they emerged, they looked down the street which faced the yard where Billy had feasted in the garden and they saw him running out of the yard, chased by a big fat cook with a dipper of hot water, a gardener with a rope, and a coachman with a long whip. But the Chums could see that Billy had such a good start that there was no likelihood of their catching him.
Then things began to happen. The cook stubbed her toe and fell flat. The gardener ran into a clothes-line which caught him under the chin and threw him back ten or fifteen feet. The coachman on seeing this ran back toward the stable. Then Stubby looked for Billy to come to them in the alley. He saw the three men standing there laughing to see the fat cook try to get on her feet again and the gardener go reeling off, holding his hands to his neck. At this moment the coachman appeared on a bicycle and, spying them, he made straight for them. Before they could get out of his way he was slashing them right and left with his long lashed whip, calling to them in an angry voice: “Take that, will you, you old garden thief!”
But he had a chance to beat each only once for Stubby crawled under the alley fence and Button ran up the fence and jumped down the other side, while Billy ran on, then stopped suddenly so the man would hit him and he would pitch head foremost off his wheel. This is just what happened. The wheel struck Billy, who was braced for it, and over the handle bar flew the coachman.
While he was picking himself up, Billy ran out of the alley and baaed for Stubby and Button. They answered, and soon the Chums were together again, hurrying down the railroad track.