Billy Whiskers Jr‪.‬

NIGHT had not been home more than three weeks when he commenced to get restless and tired of the quiet life on the farm. It was such a change from the adventurous, exciting life he had been leading that he did not know what to do with himself. This going to bed with the chickens and getting up with the sun, with nothing to do all day long but graze in the pasture or sleep in the shade, did not suit him; so he whispered to Day one day:

“This life is driving me mad. I am going away the first chance I get. I have it all planned. Come over here by the stream and I will tell you all about it.”

“Oh, Night, don’t go away and leave us! It will be so lonely without you. Why! I think it is perfectly lovely here; it is so clean and quiet, and then we know we are not going to be hurt or starved one day and petted and stuffed the next, like we were when traveling.”

“I know, dear, but you are a girl and like the quiet, while I am a boy and like adventures. Why! I like to get into scrapes just for the fun of getting out of them. Besides, there is another reason why you like it here. You need not think I have not noticed how that handsome goat with the long hair and curved horns almost as long as my own, makes sheep’s eyes at you, for I have. And so, Miss Day, you are in love. I see you are blushing, for the inside of your ear is as red as blood, and that is a sure sign a goat is in love. Well, how do you like it? It is nicer than you thought when you took me away from Spotty, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Night! do forgive me. I never would have done it if I had thought you felt as I do now. But I did not know then; and I wanted you all to myself. I know I was selfish and jealous, but do forgive me, won’t you?”

“Yes, dear little sister, I will forgive you because I did not care so very much for Spotty. If I had, you could not have kept me from her. I would have found my way back to Madeira, if I had spent the rest of my life looking for it. But you see, don’t you? that now you will be happy and contented; father and mother don’t need me now that they have you, so I am going out to see some more of the world and try to find another goat as nice as you are to marry. If I do, I will bring her back here and we will always live happily forever afterward, as they say in the story books.”