CHAPTER XI
THREATENED WITH LOCKJAW
YOU know how time flies between the moment you open your sleepy eyes at six o’clock and the warning the first school bell gives at eight, which finds you just up from the breakfast table, with school togs yet to don and hair to give a final smoothing? Well, the minutes had fluttered by just as rapidly as that for Billy on this eventful morning. To be sure, he had spent needless time in prosecuting the search for Toppy. And before that, he had dallied long enough over his encounter with the lank lad he had left in such a muddy, muddy plight.
It was eight o’clock and after before he was aware, and booths were being opened by their owners, and their stock in trade arranged to best possible advantage to increase the sales of the day. Fakirs were already in evidence, choosing shady spots from which to hawk their wares.
Guards were on duty even this early, but now gathered in little social groups for a bit of gossip before their more arduous tasks of handling the great crowds should begin in real earnest.
Billy fully realized the risk he was running in being abroad on the nearly deserted grounds, for it made his presence uncomfortably conspicuous—and men are not disposed to view a goat with any too much favor. They know far too well the mischief of which they are capable.
“It will be by far the wisest thing for me to do to lay low,” cogitated Billy. “But I shall take care to find a more comfortable place than that low coop I occupied yesterday afternoon. Ugh!” and he fetched a shiver at the recollection, “I can feel the splinters pulling my coat even now.”
Shaking himself vigorously and pricking up his ears, he chose his way with care, proceeding down the street lined with exhibition halls, tents and booths.
“Appears to me I smell pop-corn! Just freshly popped, and with lots of sweet, rich butter, too! I can fairly taste it. Pop-corn! How I do like the snowy kernels!”
Following the appetizing odor, he soon found himself in front of a tiny booth, all gay with red and white bunting and flaunting flags at its four corners. Just outside stood the popper, the escaping steam singing its merry little song.
Billy eyed it a moment, sniffed the air, and then circled about the building to spy out the situation carefully.
“Abandoned, as I had hoped. The keeper must be away at breakfast, and while he is gone, I’ll have mine. At least, just the finishing bites. I began my breakfast a couple of hours ago, but that rude boy interrupted the operation. I know I should starve without anything until noon.”
Billy hesitated no longer, but marched boldly in and back of the counter.
Have you ever wished you could be in that wonderful place—back of the counter in a candy store? Back where all the cases are standing open inviting you to come and take and eat to your heart’s content, instead of in front where the glass is between you and all the goodies so temptingly spread out? There were piles of chocolate creams, peppermint chews, peanut brittle, caramels, shining jars of sunshine sticks, and pan upon pan heaped high with taffy, that favorite confection of all fair-goers.
All this sweet array was spread there before Billy’s greedy gaze, and when he realized the feast that was before him, he closed one eye with that provoking wink all his own, licked his chops with a peculiar circular motion of the tongue that was one of his very naughtiest tricks, according to his good mother’s judgment, and paraded up and down, wondering just where to begin.
Did he like chocolates better than butterscotch? Or was the crisp brittle his favorite? There was the pinch.
Passing along the counter in this undecided state, he chanced to peep underneath, and there, luck of all lucks! was a great pail heaping full of pop-corn, with a generous coating of molasses, all waiting to be packed into the small cartons that later in the day every boy and every girl would be holding and declaring with each generous mouthful that “Chew ’em” was by all odds quite the best pop-corn confection ever made and sold over the counter.
Billy had never lost his youthful liking for corn, and now wasted not another minute debating where he should begin—he knew. Nothing could possibly tempt him from the spot until he was fully satisfied.
I am sorry to say it, but I must if I wish to be honest, Billy forgot his manners, and in his eagerness, got into the pail with his feet! He gulped the corn down so fast and buried his nose so deep that he lost his breath, and one stubborn kernel scooted down his Sunday throat. Billy choked, and with one mighty cough up came the offending thing. Never an animal with a great amount of patience, Billy grew angry at even this very brief interruption, though it was not a minute until his head was down as deep as ever.
The nearer he approached the bottom, the stickier grew the corn, and the better Billy liked it. Evidently the molasses had been poured over the corn not long before Billy’s entrance, and the whole pailful left to harden and crystallize. That on top had been just right for packing, but down in the pail, where the air could not get in its work, the syrup was thick and still warm.
Billy gorged himself, with never a thought of the possible ruin it would work to his stomach, but, fortunately, goats’ stomachs are not the delicate organs that boys and girls have to take care of, and he had never been taught how wrong it is to eat too much of rich things that injure the busy, hard working servant that gives us strength.
Down, down went his nose, and then, with a sigh that the very last of the brown, sweet stuff had disappeared, he stepped back, and took a deep breath of satisfaction.
“’Tis the richest meal I’ve had since—since—well, that I’ve ever had. I can’t begin to remember anything half so good in all my lifetime. But I wish that corn would drop off my whiskers and neck! It’s uncomfortable, though I did not notice it while I was eating. I’ll take a little of that pure white taffy all spread out on that enormous pan, and then be off to greener pastures.”
Putting the thought into action, he hopped up on the counter and walked along until that particular taffy tray was reached. He opened his mouth, took one generous bite, and began to chew.
What was the trouble? What had he done? Would it ever end? He’d starve to death if it didn’t, starve slowly, yet surely growing thinner and thinner, hungrier and hungrier minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and week by week. Perhaps he would live months and years and never be able to munch the sweet grass and fragrant clover again.
These were Billy’s sombre thoughts as he worked in vain to open his jaws. No use. They were held as in a vise, and no effort on his part would loosen the hold of the vile stuff on his teeth. It made his jaws ache, and his eyes began to bulge with a strange fear as his struggles proved so futile.
Thinking to flee from the danger that threatened him, he bounded out of the booth and sped on and on, quite without thought of his destination, his one aim being to rid himself of the terror. On and ever on he ran, taking long, easy leaps, until he brought up short at a high fence which bordered the grounds. This served to bring his flight to an end, and he disconsolately huddled down in the long grass.
“I’ve but one friend on the grounds, outside of the over-proud Duke, and I’d die before I’d show myself to him in this plight. Toppy must help me out, and I believe I can rely on her,” and no sooner had the thought popped into his head than he was up and off like a streak to hunt up the little hen.
It was no trouble at all to locate her particular box this time, and though it was not the haughty goat that had presented himself before her but a short two hours ago, he hastened along.
“Oh, Billy, Bill-ee!” with the accent strong on the last syllable, she cackled with much concern, for Toppy had been crouching down close to the screen ever since Billy had walked off in such high disdain.
“Billy!” she repeated, “Whatever is the matter?”
No reply.
Billy merely came up close, held up his head and wagged it to show he could not make answer.
“You’re all over pop-corn, and you’re a perfect sight! Let me out of this cage, and I’ll pick it off for you,” she bribed.
Remembering that she believed herself locked in, Billy reached up and pretended to turn the button, and, satisfied now that it was open, she gave a gentle push, back swung the wire door, and down she fluttered once more, but, cautious creature that she was, she curbed her delight and did not give so much as one victorious cackle at her release.
“Come along with me,” she commanded, assuming the leadership and strutting down the aisle. Billy, meek as a lamb, followed, and they brought up at the rear of the barn, otherwise known as the Poultry Show.
“Stand just here, Billy,” she ordered, “and I will hop up on this hay stack so that I’ll be more on your level.”
She found a secure foothold, while Billy, now ready to do anything to rid himself of the stick-tights in his whiskers, patiently stood near by.
Toppy proceeded to tidy the goat, picking off the corn with a right good will, and enjoying it as she did so, for it furnished a toothsome meal for her.
“This is really the first time I’ve dared to peck him,” she mused, “and now that I have so good an opportunity, I shall repay him for a few things he’s done to my kith and kin. He mustn’t think he can go scot-free for all his naughtiness. Don’t I remember the chase he used to give my poor mother and her flock of little downy children, and how tired our poor wobbly legs would be ere we could gain the shelter under the barn? All that saved us then was the fact that it was so low he could not crawl underneath. This is the first time I’ve ever really enjoyed my friendship with him, and I mean to make up for lost time,”—Toppy meditated.
“Here, you imp,” thought Billy, for she was giving him a peck here and a vicious dab there, and the henpecked goat was really getting much the worst of the bargain, for he could not make protest—his jaws were still out of commission. So he perforce swallowed his wrath and submitted meekly to the process.
“Billy,” commenced Toppy, “you are always and forever getting into some mix-up like this, and always appealing to your friends for aid. But you are such a close-mouthed creature no one ever knows the real truth about your mischief making. I think in slight return for this service of mine you really owe it to me to tell how this happened.”
Instead of replying, he shook his head, though not so much from a desire to keep his adventure a state secret as from the fact that that dreadful stuff wouldn’t let him speak. He hung his head, the while Toppy was busily engaged in cleaning his coat.
“I’m not quite so close-mouthed as some people think. If only I could talk, I’d surely do so, though there have been occasions when I’d not breathe a word of an escapade like this.”
He gave one appealing look at Toppy, and in his surprise to see her eating away as she worked, he gave a gasp and then a bigger one for to his inexpressible joy and relief he could open his mouth! The taffy had slowly but surely melted, and he was able to eat and talk and laugh once more.