Billy Whiskers at Home by Frances Trego Montgomery - HTML preview

CHAPTER XIX
 BILLY BECOMES A MOVIE ACTOR

BILLY was close beside Mr. Watson’s chair, that gentleman sitting under a big elm, his chair tipped back against its trunk, a newspaper in his hands, when a stranger drove into the yard in a high-powered, bright red roadster. He stopped the car and coming up to Mr. Watson, said:

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Watson?”

“You have,” Mr. Watson replied. “What can I do for you?”

“I have come to see if I can buy that fine looking goat beside you.”

“I fear you cannot. We are very fond of this goat, and he has been a great pet with us for years. He has been away from us for three years but has just returned. Where he was and with whom I have no way of finding out. All I know is that one day he disappeared and three years after that returned. He is a most surprisingly smart goat.”

“If you do not know where he has been all that time, I think I know about part of those three years.”

“You mean to tell me you think you have seen this goat before—while he was away from my farm?”

“I certainly do, and what is more, I think I can prove it. Have you ever felt deep down his hair, around his neck?”

“Why, no, I never had any occasion to do that.”

“With your permission, I believe I can find something that will prove to you that I have seen this goat before and, in fact, owned him for several months.”

“You surprise me! Certainly I give you permission to feel around his neck if you wish to do so.”

In less than a minute, the man had run his fingers through Billy’s hair and had brought to view a small but strongly linked gold chain with a round flat disk of gold hanging from it, which bore some engraving.

“Will you kindly read what it says on the disk?” he asked.

Mr. Watson took it and adjusting his glasses on his nose leaned over Billy and read:

This badge was presented
 to
 BILLY WHISKERS
 for his bravery in saving the life of a child
 from a burning building
 in the
 town of Plumbville
 on May sixth, in the year 1921

“This is most astonishing news! But I can well believe it. Billy is so smart and so brave. He is absolutely fearless,” said Mr. Watson.

“I suppose you would want quite a high price for him if you sold him,” responded the man.

“Yes, I should, but I haven’t the least idea of selling him. We are all too fond of him for that.”

“I am very much disappointed. But could I not induce you to change your mind, if I offered you the largest sum that has ever been given for a goat?”

“No. Money cannot buy Billy Whiskers. I shall keep him until he dies of old age, or I do,” said Mr. Watson.

“I am more sorry than I can tell you, as I wanted particularly to have him act in a high-class movie I am putting on the screen. You see when I owned him, or thought I owned him, he was my best drawing card in the movies.”

Mr. Watson began to laugh. It struck him as funny that Billy, who had done nearly everything, to be sure, had also been in the movies. “But when I think of it, I don’t know why he should not be a success in the movies, for he was a first-class actor in the circus for two or three years,” he said.

“Mr. Watson, if you could only see the pleasure he gives to little children when he is acting in the movies, I am sure you would let me have him. The films he is in are shown at orphan asylums, reform schools, charity fairs and so on.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, I certainly like to give pleasure to poor little orphans. Tell you what I will do. I’ll loan him to you, but I won’t sell him to anyone.”

“You are just the big-hearted man I thought you were, Mr. Watson!” exclaimed the caller. “And I thank you for the loan of him. We will take the best of care of him. In fact, he will have a caretaker who does nothing but look after his health and comfort. Why, when I had him before, I had his life insured and a veterinary to look after his health and to oversee his food. He was bathed and his hair combed and perfumed as if he was a human being, while he had a big ten by ten foot box stall all to himself, and rode in a limousine to and from the studio. Oh, I can tell you he was treated like a king, and he will have the same treatment again.

“If you would like to hear, I will tell you the special stunt we want him to do now. Picture to yourself a mountain fastness with two high peaks, between them a deep cleft or cut thousands of feet deep. On one side stands Billy with a young baby strapped to his back, the mother standing beside him wringing her hands in agony as she is about to make him leap across the chasm. She has been kidnaped by bandits and carried into the mountains. They did not know she had a baby under her shawl when they kidnaped her, and when they made the discovery they were going to kill the child, but she thought of this way of saving the baby’s life. You see the goat belonged to her next-door neighbor in the village at the foot of the mountain, and the mother was sure the goat would take it home.”

“You don’t think Billy will take that part, now do you?” asked Mr. Watson.

“I know he will, for I have seen him do much more difficult parts.”

“Well, if that is the kind of thing he does, I certainly want to see him act for the movies,” said Mr. Watson.

“You certainly shall. When the first film is put on, I will send you a pass book with enough tickets in it to take your family and intimate friends. Now I must be going, or I shall be unable to reach Chicago by nightfall. And if you have no objection, I will take Billy right along with me in the car. There isn’t much room in this roadster, but I know he has ridden in roadsters before and enjoys it and so I will have no difficulty keeping him in the car. You may be interested to know we make all our films at the Essenay Studios in Chicago.”

Billy had been listening to all the two men had said, but when he heard he was to be taken away from his family then and there, he jumped to his feet and went bounding to the stable yard to tell them. For how awful it would be for him to be carried off and not have a chance to tell them where he was going! He was glad he was not going to be sold, though to be loaned was almost as bad as there was no knowing how long the man would keep him.

“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Mr. Watson. “One would think he understood what we were saying, for he lay there as quiet as a mouse until we spoke of taking him away and then he fled.”

“I expect he is tired of being away from home as you say he has just returned after nearly a three-year absence. He surely is smart and I really believe he understands almost everything he hears. I know we all thought so at the studio when he was with us.”

“I am afraid we will have a time to catch him,” said Mr. Watson. “There he is in the barnyard in the midst of a crowd. I believe he is telling them he is going to be taken away, for see how downhearted Nannie looks, and the way she hangs her head shows she is unhappy. The minute he sees us start for the barnyard he will run away and we will be unable to capture him.”

“I have a plan. I will drive away, go to town and have my luncheon, and he will think I have departed for good and all. Then while I am away, you try to shut him in the barn and have him ready for me on my return, which will be right after luncheon.”

“I am sorry you have to go, for I was thinking of having the pleasure of your company at my own table and having you tell us what Billy did in the movies.”

“I am very sorry I cannot accept your kind invitation, but I have a little business in the town before I go back to Chicago.”

After Mr. Swan, the movie man, had gone, Mr. Watson went in the house to tell his wife about Billy and how he had loaned him to Mr. Swan to act in the movies for a little while. “But how to capture the foxy old fellow is more than I know,” he concluded.

“You will have a difficult time of it, for he will be suspicious of you for a few days now,” replied his wife.

“I have it!” exclaimed Mr. Watson. “I’ll pick a bushel of carrots that he loves so dearly, and take them into the barn, where I shall leave them and go on about my business, never so much as looking in his direction. And I shall be greatly surprised and disappointed if when I am out of sight, he does not go straight to the barn to get some. When I know he is in the barn, I will slip around and shut the door, and then I shall have him safe enough.”

Everything proceeded splendidly up to closing the barn door. But the minute Billy heard it slam he suspected foul play and without a moment’s delay he rushed through the barn to an open door on the opposite side, and through this he went like a shot, running to a little shed that sheltered the mowing machine in winter. It was dark as pitch in there, which he knew would aid him if no one saw him enter. But alas for Billy! Mrs. Watson had been watching her husband’s maneuvers from the sitting room window, and quickly came out to tell her husband where Billy was hiding. Then Mr. and Mrs. Watson and their hired man all crept up to the shed and had Billy cornered like a rat in a trap before he was aware of it. Mr. Watson and his hired man soon had a rope around his neck and were leading him out of the shed when Mr. Swan returned. He drove right into the barnyard and Billy was forced to jump into the car where he was securely tied. Then amidst the fluttering of fowls and the distressed baaing of his family, handsome Billy Whiskers was driven off to become a movie actor in Chicago.

THE END