CHAPTER XIV
THE CHUMS HAVE A DAY OFF
NO, Stubby and Button, come over here a minute!”
“All right,” answered Button. “I’ll be there as soon as I finish eating this fish head.”
“How in the world can you enjoy those nasty, smelly things?”
“Why, they are delicious! Don’t you know the old saying, ‘The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat’? Well, as these fish heads are all bone, that makes what little meat there is on them mighty sweet and toothsome.”
“Oh, you are a regular epicure, you are!” exclaimed Billy.
“What do you want of us?” asked Stubby, coming up to Billy Whiskers.
“It is this: what do you say to our going into town and spending a day? It is so quiet out here where nothing ever happens that I feel I shall explode unless I hear a little noise and see something going on with a little life in it.”
“Just the thing! Life out here is beginning to grow a little monotonous for me also after our exciting life of moving from one place to another almost every day.”
“Oh, Button, leave your smelly old fish head and come here! Billy has a dandy plan for us all,” called Stubby.
“Coming!” called the black cat. “I have just finished.”
“No need for you to come here. We will pass you on the way we are going to take,” said Billy.
“So you are going some place, are you? I was just thinking this morning that it was about time you were suggesting a trip somewhere, as you have remained here quite a while for you. And every so often the wanderlust strikes you and off you go. The only thing that would keep you here longer would be that you have been everywhere but to the North Pole and the South Pole. Each day I have been expecting you to propose a trip to the moon in an airship of some kind.”
“No, I am not weary of the farm yet, but I feel I should like a little excitement just for a day to give a little spice to life.”
“Well, what is the plan you have in mind?”
“Nothing much, only for us three to go into town and spend the day and return at nightfall.”
“As wild as that, is it? Very well, I am with you for that trip. But no more long trips, gallivanting all over the face of the globe for me for a year at least. I am tired seeing strange countries and foreign peoples for a while. I want to stay home and enjoy its quiet and comfort.”
“Ho, you must be feeling old, Button, to speak like that. You, the friskiest cat in the world, talking of settling down!”
Half an hour later the three Chums were trotting down the alley back of the main street in town. They were about to pass a movie theater when, hearing the music and seeing the rear doors open for ventilation, they thought they would go in and have a peep at the film being run off.
Button being black as ink ran down the middle aisle without being seen, but just then three or four people stepped into the aisle to go out and Button dodged under a lady’s seat. She did not see the cat but felt something soft rub across her legs. Immediately she thought it was a big rat and gave one blood-curdling scream that upset the entire audience for they did not know what had happened, and all rushed frantically from the theater. All because one unseen cat had rubbed against a woman!
The proprietor rushed out on the stage in front of the curtain to discover the cause of the panic but all he saw were empty seats and the crowd pushing and hurrying pell-mell out the doors. As he stood there trying to fathom the trouble, he saw in the darkness among the empty seats two bright yellow lights flash from aisle to aisle under the seats and then over them.
“Great Scott! What can that be? Whatever it is, it must be what frightened the people away. Ikey, come here quick, and tell me what it is I see!”
“Are you crazy? Can’t you tell what you see with your own eyes?” the boy asked.
“Look over in that dark corner, and tell me if you see two yellow balls of fire jumping here and there and everywhere.”
“Yes, I do. And I see nothing but just those two spots. What is more, I am going to get out, for now they are coming straight this way!”
Both man and boy hurried behind the screen and were beginning to tell the people working about the theater what they had seen when cool as you please out walked Button from behind the screen and stood gazing at them.
“Holy Moses, those lights we saw were only the yellow eyes of this cat! But look, Ikey, he is black all over. A black cat has walked across our stage. That means bad luck for us.”
“No, it doesn’t, you superstitious old man! Black cats or white cats can’t bring or take good luck or bad. In this age we don’t believe in such things.”
“Anyhow get him out of here! Get him out of here! For he has driven all our audience away.”
“Well, what do you care, Solomon? They have paid their money. What does it matter whether or not they see the picture? Their money is all you want. But I’ll drive him out for you anyway,” and a book was hurled at Button’s head by a man standing by an open window a few feet away from the cat.
Button dodged the book, then with a long leap went flying over the man’s head and through the open window out into the alley, where by chance he happened to alight on the back of a passing dog. Feeling Button’s claws dig into him, he set up a howl and ran down the alley lickety-split. He passed Billy and Stubby, who stood aside and laughed so heartily at the sight of Button clinging to the dog’s back that they nearly fell over in their merriment. But even as they looked, the dog ducked down and crawled under a fence, scraping Button off. Billy and Stubby ran down the alley where Button stood, too dazed and bruised to move for he had received a hard bump on his head when the dog crawled under the fence.
“For pity’s sake, how did you happen to be playing circus with that dog?” asked Billy.
“If you could only have seen yourself, you would have died with laughter. You looked so comical all hunched up riding on that dog’s back.”
“And so would you have been hunched up if you had been trying to stick on, not by the skin of your teeth but by your claws which kept slipping. I knew if I let go I should have a terrible tumble.”
“Here come the people out of the back of that theater, looking for you. We better be going,” said Billy. And so the three trotted down the alley until they came to a cross street. They had gone but a little way down this street when they came to a grocery store.
“I think I shall leave you fellows here and go on and see if I cannot find something to eat to my liking,” said Stubby. “Where shall we meet when it is time to go home, and at what time shall we meet?”
“At the crossroads at the edge of town, around six o’clock,” replied Billy. “What are you two going to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just walk along and see what turns up,” said Stubby.
“And you, Button?”
“Tag along with you, Billy, until I think of something I should like to do.”
“So long then, until we meet again!”
Stubby ran through the side door of the grocery and found himself in a kind of store room and shipping room combined, as there were shelves full of canned goods, boxes of crackers and breakfast foods, while on the floor were baskets of groceries ready to be delivered. All around the room next to the wall were ranged barrels of molasses, kerosene, vinegar and such things.
Just as Stubby entered, a boy came in to get a box of crackers from a high shelf and as he reached for it his foot slipped and in trying to save himself from falling, the box dropped out of his hands and went crashing to the floor, knocking off the lid and all the crackers spilling over the floor.
“Oh, see what I have done,” he grumbled. “Spilled all those crackers, and spoiled them too, for after being on the dirty floor they will have to be thrown away.”
At this moment he was called to the front of the store and the moment he left, Stubby came from behind the barrel where he had been hiding and ate the crackers. He ate every one and even licked up the crumbs, they were such good, fresh, crisp crackers. When the boy came back and saw they had disappeared he took it for granted that someone had swept them up. This time he had come for some molasses and while it was running into the quart measure, he took a handful of crackers and stuck them one by one under the molasses spigot, letting the molasses trickle all over them, and then putting the whole cracker in his mouth at once.
“Gee, but they do taste good! Almost as good as molasses candy!” he was saying when someone called him and he seized the quart measure and hurried away, forgetting to turn off the spigot.
Stubby had been watching all this and now ran over to the molasses barrel and let some of the sweet stuff drop into his mouth.
“My, oh my, that is almost as good as candy, just as the boy said! If I only had a cracker or two, I would be fixed. Why, there is the box now! I’ll just go over and get a mouthful of crackers and bring them back and hold them under the spigot until they are covered with molasses, the way the boy did, and eat them whole.”
All this time the molasses was running out on the floor, making a big puddle.
“Yum, yum! These crackers and molasses taste good! I just love molasses candy, and this is next thing to it. I must have another mouthful before someone comes and cleans up this mess,” but he had not the time for just then the owner of the grocery entered the side door and seeing a stray dog in his store raised his leg to kick him out. But alas, as he lifted his foot, the other slipped in the molasses and he sat down squarely in it all.
“Who left that spigot turned on?” he roared.
Stubby waited to hear no more for he knew the poor boy would be punished. Not wishing to pass the man, and there being no other way out, Stubby decided to jump up on a high box and from it take a flying leap over the man’s head out into the alley. This he did and landed safely. In a minute more there was no sight of a little stubby-tailed dog in that alley.
While Stubby was in the grocery store, Billy had wandered on a block or two when he heard a great hullabaloo in a back yard.
“I wonder what is going on there. I’ll just run along and peek in,” he thought.
Arrived at the yard where he heard all the whistling and laughter, he peeked through the half open gate and this is what he saw: four boys trying to hitch a big dog to a little express wagon. And they were having a most difficult time doing it for the dog would not stand up but insisted on crouching on the ground. Two boys tried to hold him up while the other two adjusted the harness. But no use; he would not stand up. At last the boys grew provoked and the boy on either side of him gave the dog a cruel blow with a whip and pushed him forward. In his surprise, the dog bounded forward. Once he was started the boys had no way of controlling him for the reins were dangling over his back. His starting had surprised the boys as much as their whipping had surprised the dog. Down the long back yard he went, dragging the little express wagon straight toward the gate through which Billy was peeping. When he dashed through it, the wheels on one side of the wagon collided with the gate post. This broke the traces, releasing the dog. Down the street he went like mad to escape his tormentors.
On reaching the gate the boys spied Billy. One lad, who had once owned a pair of goats and a little wagon, called out, “Come ahead, fellows! Let’s hitch up the goat! He is a big, fine creature and can pull the wagon easier than the dog.”
Almost before Billy knew what was happening, he found himself hitched to the little express wagon and being driven down the street. At first he enjoyed it, until too many boys got in the wagon at one time. This treatment made Billy angry and he decided to upset them the first opportunity he had. When he came to a place where the sidewalk was high from the street pavement, he ran off the walk, turning the little wagon completely upside down and spilling out all the boys. As Billy ran off, one boy caught hold of the reins that were dragging on the ground, jumped in the wagon which had righted itself by this time, and on down the street they went. When they came to a small bridge that spanned a wide ditch, Billy said to himself, “Here is where I lose the last boy!” and with extra exertion he ran faster than he had ever run in all his life. As he reached the bridge, instead of going over it he swerved and plunged down the bank right into the little stream which was narrow but deep. Here he spilled the boy out and while he was picking himself up, Billy climbed up the opposite bank and headed for the crossroads where he had agreed to meet Stubby and Button.
He reached this rendezvous about ten minutes before the others. When they came and saw him standing in the traces half asleep, they wanted to know where and how he had acquired the wagon. He told them and added that he was going to take it home with him, and the boys could find it as best they could.
When the Chums reached the farm, Mr. Watson was sitting on his front porch reading, but he glanced up at the sound of wheels turning into his driveway and he had to laugh for there was Billy pulling a very new looking little express wagon, with Stubby and Button sitting on the front seat. Indeed they had the appearance of driving the little turnout.
“Well, well, well! I wonder how Billy came by that wagon. Probably some little boy has hitched him to it and then hit him with a whip or done something to him he did not like and he has run off with the wagon. I expect in a short time someone will appear looking for it. In the meantime I will unhitch Billy and take care of the wagon.”
But it was not until the next morning that anyone came for it, as it took the boys all that time to discover where Billy had gone.
“SAVE ME QUICKLY, OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE!” GOBBLED THE TURKEY.