BILLY WHISTERS' TRAVELS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. Billy Runs Away from Home

2. He Loses his Mother

3. Billy Sees his Mother Again

4. The Burgomaster is Bumped

5. The Wooden Goat

6. A Celebration with Fireworks

7. Billy Finds his Mother

8. An Encounter with the Tiger

9. Alone in an Ocean Storm

10. The Goats Become a Fiery Dragon

11. Billy Joins a Happy Family

12. Billy Earns his Name

13. A Happy Reunion

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Boat was lowered to rescue Billy. (missing from source book)

"Grab him, Caspar! Hold him!"

Billy saw him coming, and splashed around to the far side of the fountain.

Billy felt his courage coming back.

"Well, old fellow, if broken bones are all, we can fix those."

"Shake hands," said Bobby.

CHAPTER I

BILLY RUNS AWAY FROM HOME

he other kids of the big flock on the pretty Swiss farm thought that they were having a very nice time, but Billy did not like it very well. He could run faster, jump higher and butt harder than any of the other kids of his age, and he wanted more room. Nearly every day he stopped for a while beside the high fence and looked out through it at the green slopes that ran up to the mountains. The leaves looked so much fresher and more tender there, and the sun so much brighter; besides, there were rocky places—he could see them—which would make such fine playgrounds and jumping places. His wise old mother shook her head when he told her about these things.

"You are too little yet, Billy," she always said. "You are not yet strong enough to be out in the world alone, even if you could get away from here."

"Just wait till I get big," Billy would say, shaking his head, and then he would scamper away to slyly nip the whiskers of some sober old goat, or to romp or play fight with one of the other youngsters.

He was the most mischievous kid in the flock, and because of that his mother named him Billy Mischief. Farmer Klausen, who owned him, was nearly as proud of him as Billy's own mother could be.

"That's the smartest and strongest young goat I've got," he used to brag to his neighbor, fat Hans Zug, but for all that he kept a sharp eye on Billy and would not allow him to break away from the flock and escape, as he sometimes tried to do when they were being driven