Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat

CHAPTER II LIGHTFOOT IS HURT

Mr. Sharp-horn, the man-goat, was so surprised at what Lightfoot had done in leaping over the edge of the cliff that, for a second, he did not know what to do. Indeed Sharp-horn, who was running very fast, could hardly stop in time to save himself from sliding over.

“Look out there, Lightfoot!” he called. “I didn’t mean to make you do that. I wouldn’t have hurt you very much. Why did you jump?”

But Lightfoot could not answer now. He was falling down through the air. Indeed he, himself, hardly knew why he had jumped. He almost wished he had not.

Far down below he saw the shanty of the Widow Malony, and he saw the hard rocks and ground all around it. Somewhere down there Lightfoot would land, and he might be badly hurt. For he was not one of the kind of goats that are said to turn somersaults in the air, when they leap, and land on their big, curved horns.

“What’s the matter?” called Grandpa Bumper, as he heard Mr. Sharp-horn shouting in his bleating voice.

“Lightfoot has jumped over the edge!” called the other goat.

“Oh, my! He’ll be killed!” cried Mrs. Sharp-horn. “You shouldn’t have chased him, Sharpy,” for sometimes she called her goat-husband that.

“I—I didn’t mean to make him jump,” went on Mr. Sharp-horn. “I was only trying to scare him away from our feeding place. He is too young to come up here. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, what a big jump he made!” cried Grandpa Bumper, for he knew it was about twenty-five feet from the rocky edge down to the ground below. “If he isn’t killed or hurt it will be a wonder.”

Of course all this took place much more quickly than I can tell it. It was only a few seconds. Lightfoot was falling down and down, or, rather, he had jumped down.

And as he left the edge of the rocks, and looked below, he wished he had taken the butting from Mr. Sharp-horn. But it was too late now. And then, all of a sudden, Lightfoot did that which gained him the name of being a very wise young goat.

Lightfoot was falling down and down.

Below he saw the tin and board roof of the Malony shanty. It stood about fifteen feet high, and Lightfoot thought if he could land on that it would shorten his big jump. He would not have to go so far, and then he could leap down that much more easily.

So he gave himself a shake and a twist in the air, as some acrobats do in the circus, and as cats and goats do when they jump, and, instead of heading straight for the hard ground, Lightfoot aimed his four feet at the roof of the shanty.

Just then Mrs. Malony came to the door to watch her son going down the street with the basket of clothes on his wagon.

“Look! Look, Mike!” called the widow. “Sure it’s a flyin’ goat Lightfoot is now. He’s fallin’ down out of the sky!”

And indeed it did look so. But before Mike could answer, Lightfoot had landed on the roof of the shanty amid a great clattering of the boards and tin that kept out the rain. The roof was flat, and the boards were springy, so the goat sort of bounced up and down, like the man when he falls into the circus net, though, of course, to a less degree.

And it was this that saved the goat from being hurt. He was shaken up a bit and jarred, but he had safely jumped from the top of the rocks to the roof of the shanty. From there it was easy to get down, for at one side was a shed, with a little lower roof, and when Lightfoot had leaped to this he had no trouble in jumping to a soft place on the ground just outside the kitchen door.

“Well, of all things!” exclaimed the Widow Malony. “You’re th’ jumpinest goat I ever had! You’re that light on your feet a clog-dancer would admire you. Sure it’s a fine goat you are!”

“We never had any goat to jump the likes of Lightfoot!” cried Mike, running back to see if his pet were hurt, for he loved Lightfoot better than any of the others. He patted the shaggy coat of the animal, and, looking at him, saw that he was not in the least harmed. Lightfoot felt a little pain, but he could not tell Mike about it.

“Oh, how did you ever dare do it?” asked Blackie, running up to Lightfoot with a piece of paste-paper in her mouth. “Weren’t you afraid?”

“I—I guess I didn’t have time to be,” answered Lightfoot. “I didn’t think they’d drive me away from up there.”

Mike went on with the washing when he found Lightfoot was not hurt, and Mrs. Malony went back in the shanty. From the edge of the rocks above the other goats looked down.

“Say, youngster,” called Mr. Sharp-horn to Lightfoot, “I didn’t mean to make you do that. Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit,” answered Lightfoot, who was beginning to feel a bit proud of himself now.

“That was a wonderful leap,” said Mrs. Sharp-horn.

“Indeed it was!” added Grandpa Bumper. “Of course I have made such leaps as that when I was younger, but I can’t any more. For a kid that was very good, Lightfoot.”

“He won’t be a kid much longer,” said Mrs. Sharp-horn. Then she said something in a low baa-a to her goat-husband.

“Why, yes,” answered Mr. Sharp-horn, “I guess, after this big leap he did to-day, Lightfoot can come up among us other goats now. You may come up to the top of the rocks whenever you like,” he went on to Lightfoot. “We won’t chase you away any more.”

“And may Blackie come up with me and eat the sweet grass?” asked Lightfoot, having a kind thought for his little friend.

“Can she climb that far?” asked Grandpa Bumper.

“I’ll help her,” offered Lightfoot.

“Then you may both come,” went on the old grandfather goat who ruled over the rest. “Your grass down there is getting pretty dry,” he went on. “Come up whenever you want to. And, Lightfoot, don’t try any more such risky jumps as that. You might break a leg.”

So, after all, you see, Lightfoot’s big jump turned out to be a good thing for him and Blackie. After Lightfoot had rested a bit he and Blackie went up to the top of the rocks, Lightfoot helping the girl-goat over the rough places, and soon all the Widow Malony’s animals were cropping the sweet grass on top of the high rocks.

Lightfoot’s leap was talked about among the goats for many a day after that. The goat grew bigger and stronger, and every chance he found he practiced jumping until he could do almost as well as Mr. Sharp-horn, who was the best leaper of all the goats in Shanty-town, as the place of the squatters was called.

Day after day Lightfoot would practice jumping and climbing among the rocks, sometimes alone and sometimes with Blackie. One day, when he had made a very hard jump from one rock to another, he heard some boy-and-girl-talk in the road in front of the widow’s shanty. Looking down, Lightfoot saw a small cart drawn by a pony, and seated in the cart was a man, and with him were his two children.

“Oh, look, George!” called the little girl, “there’s that nice goat we saw when we were going to the circus, the day we got back Tinkle, our pony.”

“So it is, Mabel,” answered the boy. “Could we ever have a goat, Daddy?” he asked his father as the pony cart stopped.

“Oh, I guess not,” said the man. “Tinkle is enough for you.” Then to Mrs. Malony, who came to the front gate, he said: “That’s a fine goat you have.”

“Sure an’ you may well say that. You’re the gintleman who went past here a few days ago, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I was on my way to the circus, and it was there we got back my children’s pony which had been stolen.”

“Well, I’m glad you have him back,” said the Widow Malony, with a twinkle in her kind, Irish-blue eyes. “You should have seen Lightfoot leap from the top of the rocks to the roof of me shanty one day.”

“Did he really do that?” asked George.

“He did,” and Mrs. Malony told about it.

Meanwhile Tinkle, the trick pony, of whom I have told you in the book of that name, was having a little talk with Lightfoot.

“Were you really stolen?” asked Lightfoot, when Tinkle told some of his adventures.

“Indeed I was. And did you really jump from the top of those rocks?”

“I did,” answered the leaping goat, holding his head high and feeling very proud.

“That’s more than I could do, though I can do circus tricks,” said Tinkle. “There’s been a book written about me and my tricks and adventures.”

“You don’t tell me!” cried Lightfoot. “But what’s a book?”

Before Tinkle could answer Mr. Farley, the father of George and Mabel, called good-by to the Widow Malony and drove on with the children in the pony cart.

“Good-by!” called Tinkle to Lightfoot. “If ever you get to the circus ask Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, or Mappo, the merry monkey, about me.”

“I will,” promised Lightfoot, “though I never expect to go to a circus.”

“Sure they were nice little children,” said Mrs. Malony, “and it was a fine pony cart they had. How would you like to pull a stylish cart like that, Lightfoot?” she asked as she went back in the shanty to finish her washing.

For many days after this Lightfoot lived around the squatter’s shanty learning to leap and do other things that goats have to do in this world. And one day he had an adventure that was not exactly pleasant.

Lightfoot was getting to be quite a big goat now, and sometimes he wandered away farther than he had ever gone before. Two or three streets from where the Malony shanty was built ran an electric car line. At first Lightfoot did not know what it was, but the other goats told him that people rode in the queer, yellow cars which went rolling along in such a queer way on the shiny rails, a bell clanging in front.

One afternoon Lightfoot wandered down to the trolley tracks. An ash wagon had passed a little while before, and the goat had seen fall from it a tin can with a big, red, tomato-paper pasted on it.

“I’ll get that paper and eat off the paste,” thought Lightfoot.

The can was in the middle of the tracks. Lightfoot began nosing it, tearing off the paper and eating small pieces. It tasted very good to him.

Suddenly there was the clanging of a bell, and along came a car, headed straight for Lightfoot. The goat looked up.

“Bother!” he exclaimed to himself. “You’ll have to wait until I finish my lunch,” he went on. “I’m not going to hurry out of the way for you. I’m as good as you!” Lightfoot wanted his own way, you see.

But goats have no rights on a trolley track, though Lightfoot did not know this. The motorman clanged his bell, and cried:

“Get off the tracks, you goat, or I’ll bump into you!”

Now Lightfoot knew very little indeed about trolley cars. He did not know how strong they were. And so, as he stood between the rails, chewing the paper from the can, and saw the big yellow car clanging its way toward him, Lightfoot stamped his hoofs, shook his horns and said to himself:

“Well, do as you please, but I’m not going to move until I finish eating. I guess I can butt as hard as you!”

“Get out of there!” called the motorman again. But Lightfoot did not understand. The car slowed up a little, but still came on.

“Bump into him, Bill!” called the conductor to the motorman, and the next instant the fender of the street car struck Lightfoot’s lowered horns, and tossed him to one side over into a ditch full of weeds.

“Oh, dear! I’m hurt this time, sure!” thought poor Lightfoot. “I thought I could knock that car off the track, but, instead, it knocked me off! Oh, dear!”

CHAPTER III LIGHTFOOT SAVES A GIRL

For a few seconds after Lightfoot had been tossed into the ditch full of weeds the goat could not get up or even move. The trolley car clanged on its way down the tracks.

“What happened?” asked some of the passengers.

“Oh, a goat got on the track and the motorman had to knock him off,” explained the conductor.

“I hope you didn’t hurt him,” said a little girl sitting in a front seat to the motorman.

“No, I didn’t hit him very hard,” answered the motorman. “But I just had to get him out of the way. I’d never hurt any animal, for my children have a dog and a cat, and I love them as much as they do. The goat really butted into me as much as I did into him.”

And this, in a way, was true. If Lightfoot had stood still, and had not tried to hit the fender of the car with his horns, he would have been easily pushed to one side. But he had to learn his lesson, and, like the lessons boys and girls have to learn, all are not easy or pleasant ones.

So poor Lightfoot lay groaning in the ditch among the weeds as the trolley car went on. At least he groaned as much as a goat can groan, making a sort of bleating noise.

“Oh, dear!” he thought. “Never again will I do such a thing as this! I will stick to jumping, for I can do that and not be hurt. I wonder if any of my legs or my horns are broken?”

Lightfoot, lying on his side in the ditch, shook his head. His horns seemed to be all right. Then he tried to scramble to his feet. He felt several pains and aches, but, to his delight, he found that he could get up, though he was a bit shaky.

“Well, none of my legs is broken, anyhow,” said Lightfoot to himself. “But I ache all over. I guess I’ll go home.” Home, to Lightfoot, meant the rocks around the shanty of the widow and her son.

As Lightfoot limped from the ditch to the road he passed a puddle of water. He could see himself in this, as you boys and girls can see yourselves in a looking glass. The sight that met his eyes made Lightfoot gasp.

“I’d never know myself!” he said sadly. Well might he say that. One of his legs was cut, and some blood had run from it. His side was scratched and bruised and some skin was scraped from his black nose. “I’m a terrible looking sight,” he said.

He walked along, limping, until he came within sight of the shanty. From behind it came Blackie.

“Why Lightfoot!” she cried in surprise. “Where in the world have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why! what has happened to you?”

“I—I tried to butt a trolley car off the tracks,” said the boy-goat. “I was eating some pasty paper off a tomato can that fell from an ash wagon, when the car came along. I wouldn’t get out of the way and—well, it knocked me into the ditch. Oh, dear!”

“I’m so sorry,” said Blackie sympathetically. “Come on up to the top of the rocks and you can roll in the soft grass. Maybe that will make you feel better.”

“No, I don’t believe I could climb to the top of the rocks now,” said Lightfoot. “I am too sore and stiff. I’ll just lie down here in the shade.”

“Do,” said the kind Blackie, “and I’ll bring you some nice brown paper I found.”

Goats love brown paper almost as much as they do the kind that has paste on it and that comes off cans. For brown paper is made from things that goats like to eat, though of course it is not good for girls and boys any more than is hay or grass.

“Well, what’s the matter with you, Lightfoot?” asked Grandpa Bumper, the old goat, as he came scrambling down the rocks a little later to get a drink of water from the pail near the kitchen door of the Widow Malony’s shanty. “What happened to you?”

“I got in the way of a trolley car,” said Lightfoot, and he told what had happened.

“Well, let that be a lesson to you,” said the old goat-man. “You are a strong goat-boy, and a fine jumper, but the strongest goat amongst us is not able to butt against a trolley car. I once heard of an elephant butting a locomotive with his head but he was killed. His name was Jumbo.”

“I wonder if he was any relation to Tum Tum,” said Lightfoot, who was beginning to feel a little better now.

“Who is Tum Tum?” asked Grandpa Bumper.

“Oh, he is a jolly elephant who lives in a circus. I met a trick pony named Tinkle, who once was in the circus, and Tinkle told me about Tum Tum.”

“I’m sure I don’t know about Tum Tum,” went on the old goat. “And I never saw a circus, though I have heard of them.”

“Maybe I’ll be in one some day,” murmured Lightfoot.

“Well, whatever you do, never again try to butt a trolley car,” advised the old goat, and Lightfoot said he never would.

In a few days he felt better, though his bruises and cuts still hurt a little. But, with Blackie, he managed to get to the top of the rocks, and there, eating the sweet grass and lying stretched out in the sun, he was soon himself again and could jump as well as ever. He told the other goats about his adventure with the trolley car, and they all said he was brave, if he was foolish.

It was more than a month after he had been butted into the ditch by the trolley car that Lightfoot once more wandered down that same street. He felt hungry for some pasty paper from a tomato can, and he wanted to see if any had fallen from an ash wagon.

Lightfoot looked up and down the street. He did not see a can but he did see a little girl, and she was standing in the middle of the trolley track, almost in the spot where Lightfoot had stood when he was hurt.

“I wonder if she is going to try to knock a car off the track,” thought Lightfoot. And just then, the little girl, who was about four years old, turned her back and stooped to pick up her doll, which had dropped from her arms to the ground.

As she did so, around the corner of the street, came a trolley car, just like the one that had hit Lightfoot. The motorman happened to be looking the other way, and did not see the little girl. She was so taken up with her doll that she did not hear the rumble of the car, and the motorman, still looking the other way, did not ring his bell.

“That little girl will be hurt!” cried Lightfoot “She can never knock the car off the track if I couldn’t. I must save her! I must push her off the rails.”

Then, with a loud “Baa-a-a-a!” Lightfoot trotted on to the tracks in front of the car, and, as the little girl straightened up he gently put his head against her back and slowly pushed her from the tracks, leaping away himself just in time, as the car rolled right over the place where the little girl had been standing.

CHAPTER IV LIGHTFOOT AND THE WAGON

With a clang of the bell the trolley car came to a stop, the motorman putting the brakes on hard. Then he jumped off the front platform and ran to where the little girl had sat down in the grass at the side of the tracks. She had sat down rather hard, for Lightfoot had pushed her with more force than he intended. He was so anxious to get her out of the way of one of those clanging cars that once upon a time had hurt him so.

“What is it?”

“What’s the matter?”

“What happened?”

The passengers in the trolley car, surprised by the sudden way it stopped, called thus to one another as they hurried out. They saw the little girl sitting in the grass, holding her doll by one leg. They saw Lightfoot, the goat, standing near by as though keeping guard over the little girl, and they saw the motorman holding the shiny handle, by which he turned on and off the electricity that made the car go.

“Oh, what’s the matter?” asked a small boy who had gotten off the car with his mother. “Did the goat bite the little girl?”

“No, my dear. Goats don’t bite. They butt you with their horns.”

“I don’t want any goat to butt me!” and the little boy hid behind his mother’s skirts.

Then the little girl, sitting on the grass, made up her mind to cry. Up to now she had not quite known whether to laugh or to cry, but suddenly she felt that she had been hurt, or scared, or something, and the next thing, of course, was to cry.

Tears came into her pretty blue eyes, she wiped them away with the dress of her doll and then she sobbed:

“Go away you bad goat you! Go ’way! I don’t like you! You—you tried to bite me!”

She had heard the little boy say that. But the little boy, getting brave as he saw that Lightfoot did not seem to want to bite, or butt either, any one, came from behind his mother’s skirts and said:

“Goats don’t bite, little girl; they butt. My mamma says so, and if you is hurted she’ll kiss you and make you all well.”

Some of the passengers laughed on hearing this, and the lady with the little boy went to where the little girl was sitting on the grass, picked her up in her arms and wiped away her tears.

“There, my dear,” she said. “You’re not hurt. See the pretty goat. He won’t hurt you.”

“You’re right there!” exclaimed the motorman. “He saved her from being hurt by my car, that’s what he did.”

“What do you mean?” asked the conductor.

“I mean the goat butted the little girl off the tracks, just as the lady said goats do. She was standing on the tracks, picking up her doll, when my car came along. I wasn’t paying much attention, and I was almost on her when the goat saw what the trouble was and pushed her off the tracks with his head. He didn’t really butt her, but he got her out of the way just in time.”

“He’s a smart goat,” said one of the men who had been riding in the trolley car.

“He is that!” exclaimed the motorman. “And now that I look at him I remember him. He’s the goat we knocked off the track about two months ago. Don’t you remember?” he asked, turning to the conductor.

“Sure enough he is,” agreed the conductor, and he explained to the passengers the accident, or adventure, that had happened to Lightfoot, as I told it to you before.

“He must have remembered how the car hurt him,” said the lady with the little boy, “and he didn’t want the child to be hurt. He is a smart goat!

“Does any one know where the little girl lives?” asked the lady. “She ought not be allowed to stay here near the tracks.”

None of the passengers knew the child, nor did the motorman or conductor. As they were wondering what to do along came Mike Malony.

“Hello, Lightfoot!” called Mike as he saw his goat. And then, as he noticed the crowd, the stopped trolley car and the little girl, he asked:

“What’s the matter? Is Tessie hurt?”

“No one is hurt, I’m thankful to say,” replied the motorman; “but the little girl might have been only for the goat. Do you know her?”

“Sure, she’s Tessie Rooney. She lives near me,” explained Mike. “I’ll take her home if you like.”

“I wish you would,” said the lady who had given Tessie a five cent piece, which to Tessie was almost as much as a dollar. The child forgot all about her tears and what had happened to her.

“Sure I’ll take her home,” said Mike, kindly.

“Do you know whose goat that is?” asked the lady, as her little boy whispered something to her.

“That’s mine,” said Mike proudly. “And there’s no better jumping goat in these parts.”

“Nor smarter goat either,” said the motorman, and Mike, to his surprise, learned what his pet had done.

“Do you want to sell the goat?” asked the lady. “My little boy would like him. I have an idea that I could hitch him to a cart and have him draw my boy about. Some neighbor’s children have a little pony named Tinkle, and they have great fun riding around with him. My boy is too small for a pony, but a goat might be good for him. Will you sell him to me—Lightfoot I think you said his name was?”

“Well, ma’am, not wishing to be impolite to you, but I can’t sell Lightfoot,” said Mike slowly, and he put his hand on the goat’s head. “You see I’ve had him ever since he was a little kid, and I like him too much to sell him.”

The lady saw how Mike felt about it, so she said kindly:

“Well, never mind, my boy. I wouldn’t want to take your pet away from you, any more than I’d want my little boy to lose his, if he had one. It’s all right. But you are lucky to have so good a goat.”

Lightfoot, coming up to get some of the salt which he licked from Mike’s hand, did not know what his master was saying.

“Yes’m; I think so myself. Come on now, Tessie. I’ll take you home, and if ever you come by yourself on the trolley tracks again I’ll never give you another pickaback ride.”

“Oh, then I won’t ever come,” lisped Tessie, her hand in Mike’s. “And will you give me a piggy back ride now?”

“Yes,” promised Mike; and amid the laughter of the trolley car passengers Mike took the little girl up on his back and trotted off, making believe he was a horse. Lightfoot ran alongside, and, seeing him, Tessie said:

“Lightfoot pushed me so hard I sat down in the grass, Mike.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he did, Tessie, else you might have been harder hit by the car. Now you take my advice and keep away from the tracks or, mind—no more pickaback rides!”

A day or so after that Mike, going up to the top of the rocks to take some salt to his mother’s goats, saw Lightfoot leaping about, kicking up his heels and shaking his horns.

“Sure it’s a fine goat you are intirely, as my dear mother would say,” said Mike softly. “And I wish I could do it.”

Lightfoot, coming up to get some of the salt, which he licked from Mike’s hand, did not know what his master was saying. Even if he had understood the words he would not have known what they referred to.

Mike went on, talking to himself.

“If I only could do it,” he said, “it would be great! I could drive home with the washings, and then, maybe, I could earn money with you. I wonder if I could make it myself? I could get the wheels, and a big soap box—

“No,” went on Mike, after a moment of thought, “that wouldn’t do. It would be all right for taking home the washings, but not to give rides for money. I’ve got to get a regular goat harness and a wagon. How can I do it?”

Now you know what Mike was thinking of. He had heard the lady speak of a pony cart, and he wanted a goat wagon for Lightfoot. If he had that he could, as he said, drive home with the big baskets of clean clothes to his mother’s customers. Then Mike had an idea he could give rides to children in the goat wagon, and so earn money.

“But where can I get the wagon and harness?” he asked himself over and over again.

At last, when he had talked the matter over with his friend Timothy Muldoon, the railroad gate-tender, in his little shanty at the foot of the street, Mike got the idea.

“Sure why don’t ye advertise in the papers?” asked Tim, as Mike called him. “That’s what everybody does that has anything to sell or wants to buy. Advertise for a goat wagon and harness. Sometimes goats dies, and the folks that owns them don’t get another, but sells the outfit.”

“But it costs money to advertise,” objected Mike.

“Sure and won’t the paper you work for trust you?” asked the gateman.

“The paper I work for?” repeated Mike, wonderingly.

“I mean the one you delivers for, nights,” for Mike had a paper route for an evening paper, the Journal.

“They ought to know you there,” went on Tim. “Tell the advertising man what you want, and that you’ll pay him when you can.”

“I’ll do it!” cried Mike, and he did. When, rather timidly, he explained to the man at the desk in the office what he wanted, and told him that he had delivered the Journal for several years, a bargain was made.

The man would put the advertisement in the paper for Mike, saying he wanted to buy a second-hand goat wagon and harness. He was to pay for the advertisement at the rate of two cents each day, for the Widow Malony and her son were so poor that even two cents counted.

“And you can easy make up that two cents by getting two new customers for the paper,” said Tim, when Mike told him what had happened.

“Yes. But how am I going to pay for the goat wagon and harness in case some one has it to sell?” Mike questioned.

“Well, maybe I have a bit of a nest egg laid away,” said Tim, with a smile. “I might lend you the money, and when you get rich you can pay me. Or whoever sells the outfit might let your mother make up the amount by washing. We’ll see about that.”

To Mike’s delight he had two answers to his advertisement. One was for a very fine goat wagon and harness, but the price asked was more than even Tim would advise paying.

“You can get that, or one like it, when you’ve made a hundred dollars on the goat rides,” said the gate-man to Mike.

The other outfit was just about right, Tim and Mike thought, and the man who had the wagon and harness for sale said Mrs. Malony could pay for it by doing washing and ironing. So, after Mike had paid for the advertisement, no more money need be paid out.

“Sure, Lightfoot, now there’ll be grand times for you!” cried Mike as he came home one day with the wagon and harness.

CHAPTER V LIGHTFOOT IN THE PARK

Lightfoot, the leaping goat, who was cropping the sweet grass on top of the rocks from which he had once made his great jump, looked down in the yard near the shanty and saw his master Mike busy over something new.

“I wonder what that is?” thought Lightfoot to himself, for goats and other animals wonder and are curious about things, as you can tell by holding out something in your hand to your dog or cat. They will come up to it and smell it, to see if it is good to eat.

And so Lightfoot wondered. Mike was good to him, and often brought him some lumps of salt, or a bit of carrot or turnip, for though goats like to eat grass, and even bits of paper and other queer things, they like nice things too, like sweet vegetables.

“I guess I’ll go down and see what it is Mike has,” said Lightfoot to himself, and so he started down the rocky path. Though he was a good leaping goat he did not want again to try to jump on top of the widow’s shanty. That was too dangerous.

“Where are you going, Lightfoot?” asked Blackie, the girl-goat, who had been cropping grass near her friend, as she saw him start down the rocky path.

“The boy Mike is down there, and he may have something good to eat,” answered Lightfoot. “If he has I’ll give you some.”

“You are very kind,” said Blackie, and she followed down after Lightfoot, only more slowly, for she was not so good a jumper or rock-climber as was he.

Down near his mother’s shanty, Mike was looking at the goat wagon and harness he had just brought home.

“It’s almost as good as new, Mother!” cried the Irish boy. “Look at the wheels spin, would you!” and turning the wagon on one side he spun two wheels around until they went so fast he could not see the spokes.

“Be careful now and don’t break it,” cautioned the Widow Malony.

“Oh, sure ’tis a grand strong wagon!” cried Mike. “It would hold two baskets of clothes. And I can ride four boys or girls around in it at once, and get pennies.”

“Well, sure an’ it’s the pennies we need,” sighed Mrs. Malony, for she found it hard to get along on what she could earn. Mike was getting to be a bigger boy now, and he ate more, though his mother never told him this. She wanted him to grow strong.

“Give me a bit of salt, Mother,” said Mike. “I want to get Lightfoot friendly, so he’ll not be afraid of the harness or wagon, for I’m going to hitch him up soon.

“Here he comes now with Blackie,” went on Mike, as he saw the two goats coming down the rocky path. “You’re just in time, Lightfoot, though I don’t need Blackie to learn to pull the wagon. She wouldn’t be strong enough. But I’ll give her some salt.”

The two goats licked the salt from Mike’s hands, and liked it very much. Mike turned the wagon right side up, and then took up part of the harness.

“I wonder how Lightfoot will act when I put it on him,” thought Mike. “He’s never been harnessed.”

While the goat was chewing some sweet chopped carrots which Mrs. Malony spread out in front of him, Mike gently slipped a part of the harness over the goat’s back. At first Lightfoot jumped a little to one side. But, as he saw that there were still more carrots left, and as he felt Mike patting him, Lightfoot thought it was all right.

“I guess it’s just a new game that boy Mike is playing,” said the goat to himself. “Well, he’s always kind to me, so I’m sure it will be all right. Anyhow these carrots are good. Have some, Blackie.”

“I will,” said the other goat. “But what is that queer thing on your back, Lightfoot?”

“Oh, some game that boy is playing,” answered the goat. “It won’t hurt us, for Mike is always kind,” and he and Blackie went on eating the carrots.

“Well, so far so good,” said Mike to himself when he had most of the harness on his pet, and Lightfoot had stood still. “Now to get the bit in his mouth. That’s going to be harder.”

“Better get Jack Murphy to come over and help you,” said Mrs. Malony. “He used to keep goats in Ireland, and he knows a lot about ’em, though I don’t know if he ever harnessed ’em to a cart.”

But Mr. Murphy had, as it happened, and, being a neighbor of the Malonys, he soon came over when Mike called him and showed the boy how to put the iron bit in Lightfoot’s mouth, and run the reins back through rings fastened in a part of the harness that went around the middle of the goat’s back.

It was not easy to do, and, several times, Lightfoot tried to break away. But Mike and Mr. Murphy held him until the harness was in place and tightly strapped on.

“Now see if you can drive him about,” said Mr. Murphy, when Mike had hold of the reins and the bit was in Lightfoot’s mouth. The goat was shaking his head about, trying to get rid of the piece of iron between his teeth. It did not really hurt him. It just felt queer. But it was firmly held by straps, and Lightfoot could not shake it loose.

“I can’t drive him without first hitching him to the wagon,” said Mike, for as yet the goat had not been put between the shafts of the little cart.

“Don’t hitch him to that yet,” advised Mr. Murphy. “Sure he might run away and break it. Just drive him about the yard by the reins and run after him.”

“He may run away with me,” laughed Mike.

“Well, that can’t be helped. Maybe he will. But he’ll soon get used to the harness and behave. Lightfoot is a wise goat.”

But even wise goats don’t like it the first time they are put in harness, and Lightfoot was no different in this way from others, though he was such a good jumper. When Mike took hold of the reins and called to Lightfoot to “gid-dap,” the goat, who was now big and strong, started off with such force and suddenness that Mike was almost jerked from his feet.

“Run!” called Mr. Murphy. “Run with him, and along after him, Mike. Try to turn him to the right and the left so’s he’ll know how to mind the reins when he’s fast to the wagon. Run after him!”

Mike, holding fast to the reins, ran, and the goat ran too. And, being a good runner, Lightfoot easily kept ahead of Mike. It was all Mike could do not to let go the reins.

“Run!” called Mr. Murphy. “Run faster, Mike!”

Mike tried but he stumbled over a stone and fell. However, he kept hold of the reins, winding them around his wrists and as Lightfoot kept on going he pulled Mike all about the yard.

“Bless an’ save us!” cried Mrs. Malony coming to the door of her shanty. “What’s happenin’?”

“He’s teaching Lightfoot to pull to harness,” said Mr. Murphy.

“Hum! It looks more like Lightfoot was teachin’ Mike,” said the widow. “Won’t Mike be hurt?”

“Not a bit. Many a time in th’ old country I’ve been dragged by a goat. It’s good for one.”

Around and around the yard Lightfoot dragged Mike, the chickens and ducks scattering in all directions, the old rooster flying up on the fence and crowing with all his might.

At last Lightfoot, finding he could not get the iron bit out of his mouth, and could not shake off the harness, and looking back and seeing Mike being dragged about on the ground, thought:

“Well, I guess I’m tired. I seem to be held fast no matter what I do. I’ll quit.”

And that is just what Mike wanted, for he was tired of being pulled about in this fashion.

“Well, I guess he’s learned that part, anyhow,” said Mr. Murphy. “Now we’ll hitch him to the wagon.”

While Mr. Murphy was bringing up the wagon, and Mike was holding Lightfoot, Blackie came up and asked:

“What was all that for, Lightfoot?”

“Oh, I guess it was a new kind of game. I can’t say I like it though. I had rather jump on the rocks,” answered Lightfoot.

“No, it was not a game,” said Grandpa Bumper, coming up just then. “You are being taught to let yourself be harnessed up to draw a cart, Lightfoot, and here they come with the cart now.”

“What does that mean?” asked the leaping goat. “Will it hurt?”

“No, not if you behave yourself. Once I was a cart-drawing goat, and I worked in a nice park. I’ll tell you about it so you’ll know what to do.”

And when the cart was brought up, and the shafts, one on each side of Lightfoot, were being fastened with straps, the younger goat stood very still, listening to Grandpa Bumper tell, in goat language, just what it all meant.

“Why, he seems to like it,” said Mike as he fastened the last strap. “He didn’t try once to get away, Mr. Murphy.”

“I guess he’s getting used to it,” said the kind Irishman.

But if he and Mike had known, it was what Grandpa Bumper had said to Lightfoot that made the young goat stand so still and allow himself to be hitched to the cart.

“Well,” said Lightfoot to the old goat when the harnessing was finished, “it may not be so bad after all. I guess I’ll be good and not run away. I’ll pull the cart nicely.”

“It will be best, I think,” said the old goat.

So, when Mike took his seat in the cart, and pulled on the reins, calling to Lightfoot to “Gid-dap!” the goat started off, pulling the little wagon as though he had done it all his life.

“Oh, this is great!” cried Mike. “I never thought he would learn as easily as this.”

“He is a smart and sensible goat,” the Irishman said. “Now look out if he gets going too fast.”

But Lightfoot did not seem to want to run away. He trotted along up and down the street, soon learning to turn to the right or the left as Mike pulled the reins.

Once or twice Lightfoot started to run swiftly, but Mike pulled back on the reins, and the iron bit in his mouth, pressing on his tongue and teeth, told Lightfoot that he must go more slowly.

In a few days he had become used to the cart and harness and Mike could drive him anywhere. The other goats came to the top of the pile of rocks and looked down at Lightfoot. Many of them wished they could be harnessed up, for Lightfoot got many extra good things to eat from Mike, who liked his driving goat very much. Lightfoot was now a driving goat as well as a leaping one.

“And now it’s time, I guess,” said Mike one day, “to see if I can earn money with my goat and wagon.” He had taken a number of baskets of clean clothes home to his mother’s employers, and, no matter how heavy the basket was, Lightfoot had no trouble in pulling it, with Mike sitting on the front seat of the cart.

Mike made his wagon nice and clean, put a strip of old carpet in the bottom, and started one day for a part of the city where rich folks lived. Along the streets there, on pleasant afternoons, nurse maids would be out walking with the children of whom they took care. When he got to this place Mike drove his goat wagon slowly up and down.

It was not long before a little boy, well dressed, who was walking along with his nurse, cried:

“Oh, Marie! See the wonderful goat wagon! May I have a ride in it?”

“No, no, Master Peter. It is not to ride in.”

“Yes, it is! I want a ride! Will you give me a ride, boy?” he called to Mike.

“You must not ask for rides,” said Marie, the maid. “The boy sells rides—that is, I think he does,” and she looked at Mike and smiled.

“Yes,” answered Mike, “my goat wagon is for hire.”

“Then I want a ride!” cried little Peter. “I want a ride, Marie!”

“But we must ask your mamma,” said the maid. “Come, she is just going out in the car. We will ask her.”

Mike saw a richly dressed lady getting into a big automobile in front of a fine house. Peter ran to her and said something. The lady beckoned to Mike, who drove his wagon toward her.

“Do you hire out your goat wagon for rides?” asked the lady.

“Yes’m,” said Mike.

“And is he perfectly safe?”

“Yes’m. I drive him myself. I won’t let him run away.”

“Then I think you may have a ride up and down the block, Peter. Marie, here is money to pay the goat-boy. But be careful, won’t you?” she cautioned Mike.

“Oh, yes’m,” he promised. He helped Peter into the goat wagon, on to one of the three rear seats, Marie getting in also. Then Mike started Lightfoot off down the street at a gentle trot.

“Oh, I love this!” cried Peter. “When I grow up I’m going to drive a goat wagon!”

“Oh, Master Peter!” cried Marie.

“Well, I am,” he said. “It’s ever so much more fun than making an automobile go. Anybody can do that.”

Up and down the block Mike drove Lightfoot, giving the little boy and his nurse a fine ride. Then the other children wanted rides, and their parents or nurses, seeing how gentle the goat was, and how well Mike managed him, let their boys and girls get in the cart. Mike was kept busy all the afternoon giving rides to the little tots, and when he had finished he had nearly two dollars, in ten- and five-cent pieces, for some children took more than one ride.

“Talk about your luck!” cried Mike as he drove toward his shanty, a happy smile on his freckled face. “I’ll soon be rich.”

“Look at that, Mother!” he cried, as he poured the money from his pocket on to the table. “That’s what Lightfoot earned for us to-day!”

“Thanks be!” exclaimed Mrs. Malony. “Sure an’ the money will come in handy, for I have the grocer to pay to-night. Tell me about it, Mike darlin’.”

And Mike told, while Lightfoot, unharnessed, ate a good supper, and then told the other goats of his new adventures.

For several weeks Mike went about the different streets of the city giving rides to children, and hardly a day passed that he did not make a dollar or a little more. Of course when it rained he could not do this. And then one day Mike came home with bright eyes and a laughing face.

“What do you think, Mother dear!” he cried. “I have a regular job with Lightfoot!”

“What is it, Mike?”

“I’m to drive him and the goat wagon in the park, and the man is to give me ten dollars a week. That’ll be better than going about the streets. I’ll get paid regular. Hurray!” and Mike hugged and kissed his mother.

CHAPTER VI LIGHTFOOT BUTTS A BOY

When Mike had quieted his joy and happiness down a bit, he explained to his mother how it had come about. It seemed that as he was driving Lightfoot about, hitched to the cart, and giving a number of children a ride on a quiet street, a man had come up to Mike.

“I have a goat stand in the park,” the man explained. “I own a number of goats and wagons, and hire boys to drive them. Would you like to sell me your goat and wagon? I need another.”

“But I told him I wouldn’t sell Lightfoot,” Mike explained. “Then he wanted me to hire my outfit to him at so much a week, but I wouldn’t do that, for I wouldn’t let anybody but myself drive my goat.”

“That’s right,” agreed Mrs. Malony, who was almost as fond of Lightfoot as was Mike himself. “What did the man say then?”

“Well, he wanted to know if I’d come to the park and drive the goat myself. He said he’d give me eight dollars a week, but I said I could earn more than that working for myself. Then he raised it to ten dollars and I took him up.”

“But how does he make any money out of it?” asked Mrs. Malony.

“Oh, he keeps all I take in over ten dollars, and I guess it will be more than that lots of times, for big crowds of children go to the park these Summer days. Then, too, we don’t give such long rides as I’ve been giving. They charge only five cents a ride in the park, and I charge ten sometimes, but then I go all around a big block.

“But I think it’ll be a good thing for us, Mother. Ten dollars a week is a lot of money. Of course I’ll have to buy the feed for Lightfoot out of that, and a bit of lunch for myself.”

“Sure, I can put that up for you in the morning,” said the widow with a smile. “It’s great, Mike my boy! Sure we’ve had good luck ever since we got Lightfoot.”

The next day, bright and early, Mike drove his goat and wagon to the big park which was in the upper part of the city, not far from where the squatters had built their shanties on the rocks.

“Well, I see you are on time,” said the man who had the privilege of managing the goat wagons in the park. No wagons other than those he permitted could come in to give the children rides, so if Mike had not accepted his offer the boy could not have done a park business on his own account.

“Yes, Lightfoot and I are all ready,” said Mike.

In a little while the other goats were brought from the stable in the park where they were kept, and harnessed to small wagons. The wagons were better painted than Mike’s, but were no cleaner nor larger. And as a friend of his mother’s had given her a strip of bright red carpet, Mike put this in the bottom of his goat cart, so that it looked gay and cheerful.

“Huh! Got a new boy, it seems,” said one of the small drivers, as he noticed Lightfoot and Mike.

“Yes, an’ if he tries to take away any of my customers he’ll get in trouble,” said another, shaking his fist at Mike.

“Here, you boys! No quarreling!” said the manager of the goat wagons, a Mr. Marshall. “You’ll all do as I say, and I won’t have any picking on this boy. Business isn’t any too good, and I want you all to do your best.”

Mike said nothing to the other boys, but he was not afraid to take his own part.

The other goats looked at Lightfoot, and one, hitched to the wagon driven by the boy who had spoken a bit crossly to Mike, said to Lightfoot:

“Where did you come from?”

“From the high rocks,” answered Lightfoot.

“Do you mean the mountains?” asked another goat.

“I don’t know, but it’s over that way,” said Lightfoot, and he pointed with his horns in the direction of Mike’s home.

“Oh, he means the rocks by the squatters’ shanties!” exclaimed the goat who had first spoken. “Why, we can’t have anything to do with goats like that! We give rides to well born children. This goat comes from a very poor home indeed.

“What right have you got to come here among us?” he asked Lightfoot.

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Lightfoot. “I was driven here, and I’ll do my best to give good rides to the children. I may not have come from the mountains, but the rocks where I live are very high and sweet grass grows on top. Can any of you jump from the high rocks down on top of the widow’s shanty?”

“Thank you, we don’t live near shanties,” said another goat. “We live in the park stable.”

“Just the same that was a good jump,” remarked a quiet goat, with short horns. “I was over that way once. I think I know the place you mean,” he went on to Lightfoot, and Mike’s goat was glad to know he had one friend.

“Well, he may be a good jumper but I don’t believe he can butt hard with his horns and head,” said the ill-tempered goat, who was called Snipper from the habit he had of snipping off leaves and flowers in the park.

“I once nearly butted a trolley car off the tracks,” said Lightfoot, “and I did shove a little girl out of the way of the car.”

“Pooh! That’s nothing,” sneered Snipper. “Let’s see how hard you can butt,” and he rose up on his hind legs and aimed his head and horns at Lightfoot.

“Look out, Lightfoot!” cried Mike. But the new goat was ready for Snipper. Rising on his own hind legs, Lightfoot butted the other goat so hard that he nearly fell over backward into the cart.

“Good! Well butted!” cried the kindly, short-horned goat. “That was fine!”

“You wouldn’t say so if you felt it,” bleated Snipper.

“Well, it was your own fault. You started the quarrel,” went on the friendly goat.

“I can butt better than he can, and I’ll show him too, next time,” grumbled Snipper, rubbing his head against a tree.

“Say!” cried the boy who had spoken roughly to Mike, “if your goat doesn’t leave mine alone I—I’ll do something to you!”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Mike. “I’m not afraid of the likes of you.”

“Here, boys, stop your quarreling,” said the man. “Get ready now, some children and their mothers are coming. Perhaps they may want rides.”

Along the path that led to the goat stand came a number of boys and girls. Seeing them, the boys in charge of the goats called:

“Here you are for a ride! This way for a ride! We’ve got the best goats in the park! Only five cents a ride!”

The children stopped. Some begged their fathers or mothers to let them have a ride. One man, with a boy and girl consented.

“Which wagon and goat do you want?” asked the father.

For a moment the tots were undecided.

“Here, take mine! It’s the best!” cried the boy whose goat had been butted by Lightfoot. For a moment the children seemed about to get into that wagon, then the little girl cried:

“Oh, see what a pretty red carpet is in this wagon!” and she ran over to Mike’s. “I want to ride in this!”

“So do I,” said her brother, and they got in. Mike was pleased and happy, but the other boy, whose name was Henry, scowled.

“I’ll fix you for that,” he muttered to Mike, but Mike did not care. He started Lightfoot down the park road and the goat drew the delighted children swiftly and carefully.

Thus it was that Mike and Lightfoot began their work in the park. From then on, for several weeks, Mike would take his goat and cart to the stand every morning, and all day long he would drive parties of children up and down. Lightfoot was growing stronger and more used to harness and cart, and he could soon pull as well as the best goat in the park.

Every Saturday night Mike took home ten dollars to his mother, and this was the best of all. Of course Mike took in more than this from the children who paid him for their rides, but all over ten dollars went to Mr. Marshall. Out of the ten dollars Mike paid for hay and oats for Lightfoot, for now that he had work to do, the goat could not live on grass alone.

The other goats accepted Lightfoot for a friend now, and even Snipper was on good terms with him, for they all saw that Lightfoot was as strong as any of them and could take his own part. But Henry, the boy who drove Snipper, did not make friends with Mike.

“I’ll get even with him some day,” he said.

“I want to ride in this!”

And this is how he did it—not a very fair way, I should say. One noon Mike took the harness off Lightfoot, and, putting a rope around the goat’s neck, tied the other end to a tree, so Lightfoot would not stray away, as he had once or twice, meaning nothing wrong. Mike’s mother had not had time to put up his lunch that morning, so Mike went down to a little restaurant in the park, intending to get a glass of milk and some sandwiches.

“Now behave yourself, Lightfoot, while I’m gone. I’ll soon be back,” said Mike.

Lightfoot wiggled his little stubby tail. Whether he understood or not I can not say. He went on cropping grass, after he had eaten his hay and other fodder.

In a little while Henry came along. He saw Lightfoot tethered all by himself, the other goats having been taken to the stable. Henry looked about, and, seeing no signs of Mike, took up a stick, and, going toward Lightfoot, said:

“I’ll teach you to butt my goat! You won’t do it after I am through with you!”

Then, with the stick, he fell to beating Lightfoot. At first Mike’s goat did not know what to make of this. He looked up and seeing that it was one of the goat-boys, but not Mike, thought maybe it was a new kind of game. But as the blows from the stick fell harder and harder Lightfoot knew that it was no game.

Whack! Bang! Whack! Henry beat the stick on Lightfoot’s back.

Lightfoot tried to get away, but the rope held him. Then, suddenly the goat became angry, and you can not blame him. He knew he had strong horns and a strong head, given him by nature to butt with and defend himself.

“And I’m going to butt that boy who is beating me with the stick!” thought Lightfoot. Before Henry knew what was happening Lightfoot rushed straight at him with lowered head, and the next thing Henry knew he found himself falling backward head over heels in the grass. The goat had butted him down good and hard.

For a moment Henry lay dazed, hardly knowing what had happened. Then, all of a sudden, Lightfoot felt sorry.

“My master would not want me to do this,” he said to himself. “Maybe he will punish me when he comes back. I know what I’ll do; I’ll run away.”

With a strong jump, and a leap, Lightfoot broke off, close to his neck, the rope that held him. And then, before Henry could get up, off through the bushes in the park bounded Lightfoot. He had run away.

CHAPTER VII LIGHTFOOT ON A BOAT

The park where Lightfoot, the leaping goat, had worked with Mike for several weeks, giving rides to children, was quite a large one. There were many paths in it, and driveways. There were also patches of woods, and places where the bushes grew in tangled clumps, making many hiding places.

“I’d better hide myself for a while,” thought Lightfoot, for, though he was a tame goat, he still had in him some of the wildness that is in all animals, even your pussy cat; and this wildness made him want to hide when he thought himself in danger. And the danger Lightfoot feared was that he would be beaten with a stick for knocking over the boy who had tormented him.

“I’ll hide under these thick bushes,” said the goat to himself, when he had run quite a distance from the stand in the park where the small wagons were kept.

The bushes were thick, but with his strong head and horns Lightfoot soon poked a way for himself into the very middle of them, and there he lay down upon the ground to rest. For he had run fast and was tired. His heart was beating very hard.

Though he did not know it, Lightfoot had done just as a wild goat would have done—one that lived in a far-off country who had never seen a wagon, a harness or a squatter’s shanty. He had hidden himself away from danger.

And, with beating heart, as he crouched under the bush, Lightfoot wondered what he would do next.

“I can’t go back to the park and help Mike with the wagon, giving the children rides,” thought Lightfoot. “If I do that boy with the stick will be waiting for me. He’ll be angry at me for knocking him down. That little girl wasn’t mad at me for knocking her off the trolley tracks; but then that was different, I guess. And maybe Mike will be angry with me too. I’ll be sorry for that.

“He won’t give me any more lumps of salt, nor sweet carrots. I won’t see Blackie again, nor Grandpa Bumper. I’ll never jump around on the rocks any more and see the Sharp-horns. Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. I must do the best I can. I’ll stay here for a while and see what happens.”

So Lightfoot remained in hiding, and when Mike had finished getting his little lunch in the restaurant he came back to reharness his goat to the wagon, ready to give the children rides in the afternoon.

“Why, where’s Lightfoot?” asked Mike in surprise, as he came back and saw the broken rope where he had tied his pet. “Where’s my goat?”

“How should I know?” asked Henry in a cross sort of voice. “He butted me over on my back a little while ago.”

“You must have done something to make him do that,” quickly cried Mike. He looked at the end of the broken rope. At first he thought Henry might have cut it on purpose to let Lightfoot get away, but the ends of the rope, frayed and rough, showed that it had not been cut, but broken.

“Have any of you seen Lightfoot?” asked Mike of the other boys. But they had all been to dinner themselves and had not seen what had happened. The other goats, too, had been taken to the stable for the noon meal.

Only Henry had seen Lightfoot run away, and he felt so unkindly toward the goat and Mike that he would not tell. Mike ran here and there, asking the park policemen and other helpers if they had seen his goat, but none had. Lightfoot had taken just the best possible time to run away—noon, when every one was at dinner. And now the goat was safely hidden in the bushes.

“Well, I’ve just got to find him,” said Mike to himself, as he looked at the goat’s harness hanging on a tree, and at the wagon with its strip of bright red carpet. “I’ve just got to find Lightfoot!”

Telling Mr. Marshall what had happened, and promising to come back with Lightfoot as soon as he could find him, and take up again the work of giving children rides in the park, Mike set off to find his pet.

Along the paths, cutting across the grassy lawns, looking under clumps of bushes, asking those he met, Mike went on and on looking for Lightfoot. Now and then he stopped, to call the goat’s name. But though once Lightfoot, from where he was hiding, heard his master’s voice he did not bleat in answer, as he had always done before.

“He is looking for me to whip me,” thought Lightfoot, “and I am not going to be whipped!”

Poor Lightfoot! If he had known that Mike would not whip him, but would have petted him, and given him something nice to eat, the goat might have come out from the bush where he was hiding and have trotted up to Mike. Had Lightfoot done this he would have saved himself much trouble. But then, of course, he would not have had so many adventures about which I will tell you.

After calling and looking for Lightfoot, even very near the bush under which the goat was hidden, but never suspecting his pet was there, Mike walked farther on. He had not given up the search, but now he was far from the place where Lightfoot was hiding.

Lightfoot stayed under the bushes and listened. He did not hear any one coming toward him, and he began to think he was now safe. He was beginning to feel a bit hungry again, so he reached out and nibbled some of the leaves.

“My! That tastes good!” he said to himself. “It’s better even than the grass that grows on top of the rocks at home.”

Then, all of a sudden, Lightfoot felt homesick. He thought of the fun he had had with Blackie and the other goats, and he wanted to go back to them.

“I think I’ll do that,” he said. “Maybe, after all, Mike will not let that other boy beat me. But I’ll wait until after dark.”

The sun sank down in the west. The children and their nurses went home from the park. The goats and wagons were taken to the stable. Mike came back from his search.

“Well, did you find your goat?” asked Mr. Marshall.

Mike shook his head sadly.

“No, I didn’t,” he answered. “But I’ll look again to-morrow.”

“If you don’t find him pretty soon,” went on the man, “I’ll have to get another goat and wagon.”

Mike felt sadder than ever at this for he knew the money he had been able to earn with Lightfoot was much needed at home. And it was with a sorrowful heart that Mike told his mother what had happened.

“Never mind, Mike me darlin’,” said the good Irish woman. “Maybe Lightfoot will come back to us some day.”

At dark Lightfoot crept out from under the bush. The lights were sparkling in the park, and he thought he could easily find his way back to Shanty-town. Mike had driven him from there to the park and back many times.

But the darkness, even though there were lights here and there, bothered Lightfoot. He soon became lost. He did not know which way he was going. Once, as he crossed a green lawn in the park he saw, standing under a lamp, a policeman with a club. Lightfoot did not know what a policeman was but he knew what a club was used for—to beat goats.

“But he sha’n’t beat me,” thought Lightfoot, so he kept in the shadows and got safely past. On and on he wandered, trying to find his way back to the rocks where he had spent so many happy months. But he could not find them, and at last he became so tired that he crawled under some bushes and went to sleep.

It was morning when Lightfoot awakened. He found he was in a strange place. It was a place of many streets and with big cars running back and forth on shining rails. But they did not run as did trolley cars. Instead a big engine pushed them and pulled them. Though Lightfoot did not know it, he was near a railroad yard.

He came out from under the bush to look for something to eat. He saw an empty can with a piece of paper on it that he knew was covered with paste. He wanted that paper very much. But as he crept out to get it a boy picking up coal from the tracks saw him and cried:

“Oh, fellers! Look at de goat! Let’s chase him!”

And chase after Lightfoot they did, shouting and throwing lumps of coal. Lightfoot had no mind to be caught, so he ran across the tracks. The boys shouted at him, the men in the railroad yard yelled at him, and when he crossed the tracks the engines tooted their whistles at him. Altogether Lightfoot was very much frightened.

On and on he ran. Some of the boys were getting closer now, for Lightfoot could not run over the shiny rails as easily as they.

“I’m going to get that goat!” cried the boy who had first seen Lightfoot.

Lightfoot heard the boy’s shout, though he did not understand the words. The goat knew he must run faster and faster, and he did. He came to a place near the line of the railroad tracks where he could see some water. He knew what water was, for he drank it, and also, when it rained hard, there was a little pond and a stream that formed on top of the big rocks, so he was used to seeing large puddles.

Lightfoot ran close to this water. The boys, racing after him, saw, and one cried:

“Oh, de goat’s goin’ t’ swim!”

But Lightfoot was not going to do that. He was only looking for a good place to hide. Pretty soon he saw it. Floating on the water was something that looked like a little house. Smoke was coming from a stovepipe in the roof, and beyond the house, and seeming to be a part of it, were two big, long black holes.

“Those holes would make a good place to hide,” thought Lightfoot.

He ran up alongside of them and looked down. There was nothing in them, and no one was in sight. The boys chasing after him were behind some freight cars just then and could not see the goat.

“I’ll hide down there,” said Lightfoot to himself. “It isn’t as far to jump as it was from the top of the rocks to the roof of the shanty. I’ll hide there.”

Down into the dark hole, near the funny little house, leaped Lightfoot. And where do you suppose he was now?

He was down in the bottom of a canal boat, down in the big hole, in the hold, as it is called, next to the cabin, or little house. In the hold, though it was empty now, is loaded the cargo the boat carries—hay, grain or coal.

For the first time in his life Lightfoot was on a boat.

CHAPTER VIII LIGHTFOOT ON A VOYAGE

With a heart that beat hard and fast after his long run, Lightfoot, the goat, crouched down in a dark corner of the hold in the canal boat.

“My!” thought poor Lightfoot as he curled up in as small a space as he could. “I got away from them just in time. I hope they don’t find me.”

He listened with his ears pointed forward, just as a horse does when he hears or sees something strange. There was a sort of thumping noise somewhere in the canal boat, near the wooden wall or partition against which Lightfoot was resting himself.

There was a rattling of dishes and pans, and then Lightfoot heard the noise of coal being put in the stove. He knew that sound, for in the shanty of Widow Malony he had often heard it before, when Mike or his mother would make a fire to cook a meal.

And pretty soon Lightfoot smelled something cooking. He sniffed the air in the dark hold of the canal boat. It was not the smell of such food as Lightfoot cared to eat, for it was meat and potatoes being cooked. And though he did like a cold boiled potato once in a while, he did not want meat.

“I wonder what is going on here?” thought the goat.

If he had known, it was the noises in the cabin-kitchen of the canal boat—the captain’s wife was getting dinner. For on these canal boats, of which there are not so many now as there used to be, the captain and his family live in a little house, or cabin, where they eat and sleep just as if the house were on land. Instead it is on a boat, and the boat is pulled by horses and mules from one city to another, bringing to port coal, grain or whatever else they are loaded with.

Lightfoot remained hiding in the dark hold, listening to the noises in the kitchen cabin, and smelling the good smells. Then Lightfoot heard voices in the cabin. It was the captain of the boat speaking to his wife.

“We’ll soon pull out of here,” he said.

“Where are you going to voyage to now?” asked the captain’s wife.

“To Buffalo,” he answered. “I’m going there to get a load of grain and bring it back here.”

Lightfoot ran close to this water, the boys racing after him.

“Are you going to take the boat out empty?” asked the woman, as she set a dish of potatoes and meat on the little table in the cabin.

“No,” he answered, “we are going to travel a little way in the boat, then we will take on a load of coal. We will carry that a hundred miles or so, and then when we take that out the boat will be empty again, and, after it is cleaned, we will go on to Buffalo and get the grain. We will start soon.”

Lightfoot heard all this through the wooden wall, but he did not know what it meant. He looked about the hold as well as he could. He could see no one in it. It was like being in a big, empty barn.

Then Lightfoot heard the sound of some boys’ voices calling, and as he remembered the boys, with the lumps of coal, who had chased him he shrank farther back into a dark corner.

Lightfoot could hear the patter of running feet. He did not want the boys to find him. He heard them calling again.

“Say, Mister, did you see a goat around here?” asked one of the boys.

“Goat? No, I didn’t see a goat.” It was the canal boat captain talking. “Get away from here now! I’m going to start the boat soon, and if you don’t want to be taken away on her you’d better go ashore.”

“Come on, fellers!” cried the boy who had first seen Lightfoot. “That goat ain’t here. He must have run up along the canal,” and away ran the boys, which was just what Lightfoot wanted.

Up above him Lightfoot could see the glimmer of daylight, for the hatches, or covers of the hold, were off, now that it was empty. When the boat was loaded with grain the covers would be put on, but they were not needed for coal, since water does not harm that.

“Well, I seem to be down in a sort of big hole,” thought Lightfoot, as he looked up. “It was easy enough to jump down, but I don’t know that I can jump out again. However, I don’t want to do that now. I want to stay where I am so those boys can’t get me. But I wish Mike were here with me.”

Lightfoot was beginning to feel a little lonesome, but there was so much that was new and strange all about him that he did not feel homesick long. He kept on walking to the other end of the canal boat.

Then he sniffed the air. He heard noises which he knew were made by horses, and then he caught the smell of hay, oats and straw.

“I must be near a stable,” said Lightfoot. “But I don’t understand it. What does it mean?”

He walked on a little farther and soon he came to another wooden wall. Behind it he could hear horses, or mules, he did not know which, chewing their food and stamping about in their stalls. Lightfoot thought this was queer.

But those of you who have seen canal boats know what it was. Each boat has to carry on it several teams of horses or mules to pull the boat along, since one pair of horses would get tired if they pulled all the while.

A canal, you know, is a long ditch, or stream of water, going from one city to another. Men cut the ditch through the earth and then let the water flow in so boats will float.

Along the side of the ditch of water is a little road, called a “towpath,” and along this the horses walk, pulling, or towing, the canal boat by a rope that is fastened to the boat at one end and to the collars of the horses at the other end. In fact the horses pull the canal boat along the water much as Lightfoot pulled the goat wagon in which the children rode.

Years ago there were many canal boats, but now, since there are so many railroads, the canals are not so often used, for it is slower traveling on them than on the railroad trains, which go very fast.

“Well, I certainly am in a queer place,” thought Lightfoot. “I don’t know whether I am going to like it or not. Still it is better than being beaten with a stick, or having boys chase after you with lumps of coal.”

He listened to the horses stamping about in their stalls, and chewing their food. Then there were more noises, and the sound of men calling: “Gid-dap there!” Next came the pounding of horses’ hoofs on wooden planks, and the voices of men shouting.

“What in the world is going on?” thought Lightfoot.

“Hello, in there, you horses. What is going on, if you please?” he called.

He could hear that the horses stopped chewing their oats; and one said to another:

“What is that?”

“I don’t know,” was the answer. “It sounded as if somebody were in the hold.”

“That’s just where I am,” said Lightfoot.

“Who are you?” asked a horse.

“Lightfoot, the leaping goat,” was the answer. And then Lightfoot told something of himself and the adventures he had had so far—of why he ran away from the park, and, to get away from the boys, of having jumped down into the boat.

“Well, if you’re there,” said a horse on the other side of the wall, “you’re likely to stay for some time. It is too high for you to jump out.”

“I see it is,” answered Lightfoot, “even though I am called the leaping goat. But what will happen to me?”

“You are going on a voyage now,” was the answer of the horse. “That noise you heard was the captain leading some of the horses out of our stable, here on the boat, over a board, called a gangway, to the canal towpath. Very soon they will begin to pull the boat along the canal, and, after a while, it will be our turn. You are going on a voyage, Lightfoot.”

“Is a voyage nice?” asked the goat.

“You had better wait and see,” was the answer.

“I wish I could come in your stable,” said Lightfoot. “I would not take up much room.”

“You would be welcome,” said a horse, “but there is no way for you to get in unless you can get out of the hold, on to the towpath and come down the plank. Some day maybe you can do that.”

“I hope so,” said Lightfoot, who was now getting very hungry.

Just then the captain called:

“All aboard! Cast off the lines!”

And the next thing Lightfoot knew was that the boat began slowly to move. It had started up the canal. Lightfoot was on a voyage, though where he was going he did not know.

CHAPTER IX LIGHTFOOT GOES ASHORE

Lightfoot, down in the hold of the canal boat, felt the craft slipping through the water easily. He was being carried with it.

“Well, this is not so bad, for a start,” thought the goat. “It is much easier than riding in a wagon, as I once did.”

When Lightfoot was a small goat, before he had come to live with Mike and his mother, he remembered being taken from one place to another, shut up in a box and carried in a wagon. The wagon jolted over the rough road, tossing Lightfoot from side to side and hurting his side. The motion of the canal boat was much easier, for there were no waves in the canal, except at times when a steam canal boat might pass, and even then the waves were not large enough to make the Sallie Jane bob about. Sallie Jane was the name of the boat on which Lightfoot was riding.

“This is a nicer ride than I had in the wagon,” thought Lightfoot, “only I don’t know where I am going. But then,” he thought, “I didn’t know where I was going the other time. However, I came to a nice place—the shanty where Mike and his mother lived, and maybe I’ll go to a nice place now. Anything is better than being beaten with a stick and chased by boys with lumps of coal to throw at you.”

Then Lightfoot began to feel more hungry. From somewhere, though the exact place he did not know, he could smell hay and oats.

“I guess it must be from the stable where the horses are that I was talking to,” he said to himself. “I’m going to ask them if they can’t hand me out something to eat. It isn’t any fun to be hungry, even if you are on a canal boat voyage.”

So Lightfoot went to the end of the boat where the stable was, and, tapping on the wall with his horns, waited for an answer:

“What is it, Lightfoot?” asked one of the horses, for he had told them his name.

“If you please,” said the goat, “I am very hungry. Could you not kindly pass me out some of the hay or oats that I smell?”

“We would be glad to do so,” said a kind horse, “only we can not. There is no opening from our stable into the hold where you are. If you could jump out you could get right in where we are.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Lightfoot. “It is pretty high to jump. But I’ll try.”

Lightfoot did try to jump up, but he could not. It is easy to jump down, but not easy, even for a goat, to jump up.

“I can’t do it!” sighed the goat. “And the smell of your hay and oats makes me very hungry! Why is it I can smell it so plainly if there is no opening from your stable to where I am?”

“I don’t know,” answered one horse.

“No, but I do!” whinnied another. “Don’t you remember, Stamper,” he said to the horse in the stall next to him, “on the last voyage this boat was loaded with hay and grain? Some of that must be left around in the corners of the hold. That is what Lightfoot smells so plainly.”

“So it is,” said the first horse. Then he called: “Lightfoot, look and smell all around you. Maybe you will find some wisps of hay or some little piles of grain in the dark corners of the hold where you are. If you do find them, eat them.”

“Thank you, I will!” called Lightfoot.

Then he began to walk around in the big hollow part of the canal boat, sniffing here and there in corners and cracks for something to eat. He could smell hay very plainly, and as he went toward a corner, in which some boards were piled, the smell was very much stronger. Then, all of a sudden, Lightfoot found what he was looking for.

“Oh, here’s a nice pile of hay!” he called, and the horses in their stalls heard him.

“That’s good,” one of them said. “Now you will not be hungry any more, Lightfoot.”

“No, I guess I won’t,” said the goat. “At last, after I have had some bad luck, I am going to have some good.”

Then he began to eat the wisps of hay which had lodged in the corner of the canal boat when the cargo had been unloaded a few days before. There was hay enough for more goats than Lightfoot, but the men who unloaded the canal boat did not bother to sweep up the odds and ends, so the goat traveler had all he wanted.

After Lightfoot had eaten he felt sleepy, and, lulled by the pleasant and easy motion of the canal boat, he cuddled up in a corner near the horse-cabin, and, after telling his unseen friends what had happened to him, he went to sleep.

How long he slept Lightfoot did not know, but he was suddenly awakened by hearing a rumbling sound, like thunder.

“Hello! What’s this?” cried the goat, jumping up. “If it’s going to rain I had better look for some shelter.”

“Oh, it isn’t going to rain,” said a voice from the horse stable. “Those who have been pulling the boat are tired and are coming down the plank into their stalls. We are going out to take their places. It is our turn now.”

“Oh, I see,” returned Lightfoot. “But how do you horses get on shore? Do you swim across the canal?”

“No, though we could do that,” said Cruncher, a horse who was called that because he crushed his oats so finely. “You see,” he went on, “when the captain wants to change the teams on the towpath he steers the boat close to the shore. Then he puts a plank, with cross-pieces, or cleats, nailed on it, so we won’t slip, down to our stable, and we walk up, go ashore, and take our places at the end of the towline. The tired horses come in to rest and eat.”

“Then is the boat close to the shore now?” asked Lightfoot.

“Yes, right close up against the bank,” answered Cruncher as he made ready to go out on the towpath.

“Oh, I wish I could get ashore,” said Lightfoot. “I like you horses, and I like this boat, because it saved me from the boys who were chasing me, but still I had rather be out where I can see the sun.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Nibbler, who was called that because he used to nibble the edge of his manger. “Sometimes I get tired of this dark stable. But then, twice a day, we go out in the air to pull the boat.”

“Do you think I could get on shore?” asked Lightfoot.

“Well, if you could jump up out of the hold, where you are, you could,” said Cruncher, his hoofs making a noise like thunder on the planks as he walked up. “If you can do that you can go ashore.”

“I’m going to try,” said Lightfoot, and he began jumping up as high as he could to get out of the deep hole into which he had leaped.

But, jump as he did, Lightfoot could not get out of the hold. It was like being down in a deep well. If he had been a cat, with sharp claws to stick in the wooden sides of the boat, or a bear, like Dido, the dancing chap, Lightfoot might have got out. But as he was neither of these, he could not.

Again and again he tried, but it was of no use. Then he felt the boat moving again, and he knew it was being pulled along the canal by the horses.

“There is no use jumping any more,” thought Lightfoot. “If I did jump out now I would only land in the water. I must stay here until I can find some other way to get out.”

Lightfoot found more hay and a mouthful of grain in one of the corners of the boat, and after he had eaten he felt better. But still he was lonesome and homesick.

Pretty soon it grew dark, and Lightfoot could see the stars shining over head. He cuddled up in a corner, among some old bags, and went to sleep.

For three days Lightfoot traveled on in the canal boat. All he could see were the dark sides of the hole in which he was. He could talk to the horses through the wooden walls of their stable, but he could not see them.

Now and then the boat would pull up to shore, and the tired horses would come aboard while the others would take their turn at the towrope. All this while Lightfoot lived on the hay and grain he found in the cracks and corners of the canal boat. Had it not been for this the goat would have starved, for neither the captain nor his wife knew Lightfoot was on board, and the horses, much as they wished, could not pass the goat any of their food.

One day the boat was kept along the shore towpath for a long while. Lightfoot tried again to jump out but could not. Then, all at once he heard a very loud noise. It was louder than that made by the hoofs of the horses, and the goat cried:

“Surely that is thunder!”

He saw something black tumble down into the hold at the end farthest from him.

“No, it is not thunder,” said Cruncher. “The captain is loading the boat with coal. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Lightfoot. “Only coal is very black and dirty stuff.”

“Yes, it is,” agreed Nibbler. “But it may be a good thing for you, Lightfoot.”

“How?” asked the goat.

“In this way,” said Nibbler. “I have seen this boat loaded with coal before. They fill the hold as full as they can, and they don’t put the covers on.”

“But if they fill it full,” said Lightfoot, “they will cover me with the coal, and then how can I get out?”

“I’ll tell you,” answered Nibbler. “They will not fill all the boat at once. It takes about two days. And when half the boat is full the coal is in a pile in the middle, like a hill. You can climb up the side of the coal-hill, Lightfoot, and then you will be out of the hold. You can scramble up on top of our stable-cabin and from there you can easily jump to shore.”

“Oh, that will be fine!” cried the goat.

“Do you think you can walk up the hill of coal in this boat?” asked Cruncher.

“Surely I can,” Lightfoot said. “I could climb up the rocky, rocky path back of the cabin, and surely I can climb up the coal hill.”

All that day men with wheelbarrows dumped coal into the hold of the canal boat. It made a black dust, and Lightfoot kept as far away from it as he could.

“It is a good thing I am going to get out,” he said. “For the coal will soon cover up all my hay and grain and I would starve.”

Lightfoot waited until after dark, so no one would see him. Then he scrambled up the sloping sides of the pile of coal in the middle of the canal boat until he could jump to the edge and so to the roof of the stable cabin.

“Good-by, kind horses,” he called to Cruncher and the others. “I am sorry I can’t stop to see you, but I had better go ashore.”

“Yes, while you have the chance,” said Nibbler.

Then, with a nimble leap, Lightfoot jumped from the canal boat to the towpath. He had gone ashore.

“I wonder what adventures I’ll have next,” he said to himself as he wiggled his way into the bushes at the edge of the path.

CHAPTER X LIGHTFOOT IN THE WOODS

Without stopping to look back at the canal boat from which he had escaped, Lightfoot ran on through the bushes, and soon found himself in some woods. He was afraid some one from the boat might run after him, and take him back there.

“Not that it was such a bad place,” thought the goat, as he went in and out among the trees; “but it is no fun to be in a place from which you can’t get away when you want to. If it had not been that they made a little hill of coal in the boat maybe I’d never have gotten away.

“I liked those horses, though I never saw them, and the hay and grain in the cracks was good eating. Still I had rather be out here and free.”

No one except the canal horses knew Lightfoot had been on the boat. The captain and his wife had not seen him jump down into the hold, nor had the boys picking coal. They only imagined the goat might be somewhere near the boat when they asked about him, but they really had not seen him get aboard.

Lightfoot ran on a little farther and then, thinking he was safe, hidden behind a bush, turned and looked back. He was on a side hill that ran along the canal, and he could look down on the towpath. He saw a team of horses hitched to a long rope, which, in turn, was fast to the canal boat.

“There are my kind friends, the horses,” thought Lightfoot. “But I don’t know which ones they are. I wish I could stop and speak to them, but it would not be safe. Anyhow I said good-by to them, and thanked them.”

As Lightfoot looked, the team pulling the canal boat turned around a curve in the towpath and were soon out of sight. Then, once more, the goat turned and went on into the woods.

“Well, I shall not be hungry here, anyhow,” thought Lightfoot. “There are more bushes and trees here than in the park where Mike used to drive me about, hitched to the little wagon. I wonder if I am allowed to eat these leaves.”

Lightfoot looked around. He saw no policemen or park guards, such as he had seen when he was in the other place, and, as he felt a bit hungry after his run, he nibbled some of the green leaves. They had a good taste and he ate many of them. No one called to him to stop, and no one hit him with a stick.

“This is a good place,” thought Lightfoot.

As with most animals, when he had eaten well, the goat felt sleepy, and picking out a smooth grassy place beneath some trees he cuddled up, and was soon asleep.

How long he slept Lightfoot did not know, but when he awakened he had a feeling that he wished he was back with Mike again, drawing children about the park. Whether Lightfoot had dreamed about his shanty home amid the rocks I do not know. I do not know whether or not animals dream, but I think they do.

At any rate Lightfoot felt lonesome. He missed the cheerful whistle of the Irish boy, and he missed, too, the nice combing and rubbing-down that his master, Mike, used to give him every morning in order to keep his coat in good condition.

Some of the goats that lived on the rocks had coats very rough with tangled hairs, to say nothing of the burrs and thistles that clung to them. But Mike kept Lightfoot slick and neat, brushing him as a groom brushes his horses.

“But I don’t look very slick now,” thought Lightfoot, as he turned his head and saw a lot of burdock burrs on one side, while the other side carried a tangle of a piece of a briar brush. “I must clean myself up a bit,” thought the goat.

By twisting and turning about, using first one hind foot and then the other, as a cat scratches her ears, Lightfoot managed to get rid of most of the things that had clung to him as he tore his way through the bushes. Then he walked on again, until, feeling thirsty, he began to sniff the air for water. For goats and other animals can smell water before they can see it, though to us clean water has no smell at all.

Lightfoot soon found a little spring in the woods, and from it ran a brook of water, sparkling over the green, mossy stones.

As Lightfoot leaned over to get a drink from the spring he started back in surprise.

“Why!” he exclaimed to himself. “Why! There’s another goat down there under the water. He’s a black goat. I’m white.”

Lightfoot thought for a moment as he drew back from the edge of the spring. Then he said to himself:

“Well, if it’s only another goat I needn’t be afraid, for we will be friends.”

He went to the spring again and looked down into the clear water. Again he saw the black goat, and he was just going to speak, asking him how he felt, what his name was, where he came from and so on, when Lightfoot happened to notice that the black goat moved in exactly the same way, and did the same things that he, himself, did. Then he understood.

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Lightfoot to himself. “How silly I am! That is only my reflection in the spring, just as if it were a looking glass. But what makes me so black on my face, I wonder?”

Then he remembered.

“It’s the black coal dust, of course!” he cried. “It must have stuck to me all over, but I brushed some of it off when I went to sleep in the grass. Now I must wash my face.”

He glanced once more into the spring looking glass, and saw that indeed he was quite dirty from the coal dust. Taking a long drink of the cool water he went below the spring to the brook, and there he waded in and splashed around in the water until he was quite clean. This made him feel hungry again, and he ate more leaves and grass.

“And now,” said Lightfoot, as he noticed the sun going down in the west, and knew that it would soon be night, “it’s time for me to think of what I’m going to do.”

Lightfoot was not afraid to stay out alone in the woods all night. He had spent many a night on the rocks, though of course the other goats had been with him then. But he was a bigger and older goat now, and he was not afraid of being alone. Of course a little kid might have been, but Lightfoot was a kid no longer.

“I’ll stay here to-night, I think,” said the goat after a while. “It is good to be near water so you can drink when thirsty. I’ll stay here to-night and in the morning I’ll try to find my way back to Mike.”

Lightfoot slept well that night, for it was not cold, and in the morning, after he had eaten some leaves and grass and had drunk some water he started out to find the Malony shanty near the rocks.

But a goat is not like a dog or a cat, some of which can find their way home after having been taken many miles from it. So, after wandering about in the woods, and finding no place that looked like his former home, Lightfoot gave up.

“It’s of no use,” he said. “I guess I am lost. I must have come farther in that canal boat than I knew. Well, the woods are a good place to stay. I shall not be hungry here.”

Lightfoot wandered on and on for several days. Once some boys, who were in the woods gathering flowers, saw the goat behind some bushes.

“Oh, let’s chase after him!” called one, and they ran toward Lightfoot.

But the goat leaped away and soon left the boys far behind. If one of them had been Mike, Lightfoot would have gone to him, but Mike was not there.

One day as Lightfoot was wandering through the woods, wishing he were back in his home again, for he was lonesome, having no one to talk to but the birds, he heard a noise in the bushes.

It was a smashing, crashing sort of noise, as though made by some big animal.

“Maybe it is one of the canal horses,” thought Lightfoot. “I hope it is. They’ll be company for me. Maybe one of them ran away.”

He looked through the underbrush and saw a big, shaggy, brown animal, standing on its hind feet. With its front paws it was pulling berries from a bush and eating them.

“Excuse me,” said Lightfoot in animal language. “But could you tell me the way to the Widow Malony’s shanty?”

The big animal stopped eating berries, looked up at the goat in surprise and asked, in a sort of growly voice:

“Who are you?”

“I am Lightfoot, the leaping goat,” was the answer. “Who are you?”

“I am Dido, the dancing bear, I am glad to meet you. Come over and have some berries,” and Lightfoot went.

CHAPTER XI LIGHTFOOT MEETS SLICKO

Lightfoot and Dido stood looking at one another for a few seconds. It was the first time the goat had ever seen a bear, for though there were wild animals in the park where Mike used to drive him, Lightfoot had never been taken near the bear dens. But it was not the first time Dido had seen a goat.

“Do you like raspberries?” asked Dido, pulling a branch toward him with his big paw and stripping them off into his big red mouth.

“I don’t know,” answered the goat. “I never ate any.”

“Help yourself,” invited Dido. “Just reach out your paw and with your long claw-nails strip off the berries into your mouth.”

“But I haven’t any paw,” said Lightfoot.

“That’s right, you haven’t,” observed Dido reflectively, scratching his black nose. “Well, you have a mouth, anyhow, that’s one good thing. You’ll have to pick off the berries one by one in your lips. You can do that.”

“Yes, I think I can do that,” answered Lightfoot, and he did. At first the briars on the berry bush stuck him, but he soon found a way to keep clear of them. Dido did not seem to mind them in the least.

“Did you say you were a dancing bear?” asked Lightfoot of his new friend, when they had eaten as many berries as they wanted.

“Yes, I can dance. Wait, I’ll show you,” and in a little glade in the woods Dido began to dance slowly about.

“That’s fine!” said Lightfoot. “I wish I could dance.”

“Can you do any tricks?” asked Dido. “I can play soldier, turn somersaults and things like that.”

“I can draw children about the park in a little cart,” said the goat, “and I am a good jumper, I’ll show you,” and he gave a big jump from a log to a large, flat rock.

“You are a good jumper,” said Dido. “That is much farther than I could jump. Some of the men in the circus could jump farther than that, though.”

“What do you know about a circus?” asked Lightfoot.

“That’s fine!” said Lightfoot. “I wish I could dance.”

“I used to be in one,” answered Dido. “In fact I may go back again. I am out now, traveling around with my master who blows a brass horn to gather together the boys and girls. And when they stand in a circle around me I do my tricks and my master takes up the pennies in his hat. It’s lots of fun.”

“Where is your master now?” asked Lightfoot.

“He is asleep, not far away, under a tree. He lets me wander off by myself, for he knows I would not run away. I like him too much and I like the circus. I want to go back to it.”

“I met some one who was in a circus,” said Lightfoot.

“Who?” the dancing bear asked.

“Tinkle, a pony,” answered the goat.

“Why, I know him!” cried Dido. “He is a jolly pony chap. He draws a little boy and girl about in a cart.”

“That’s right,” said Lightfoot. “I did the same thing for the children in the park. Oh, how I wish I were back with my master, Mike,” and he told about his adventures, and the dancing bear told his, speaking of having been put in a book, like Tinkle.

“Do you think you could tell me the way back to the shanty at the foot of the rocks, where I made my first big jump?” asked Lightfoot of Dido, after a while.

The bear thought for a minute.

“No,” he answered slowly, in animal talk, “I don’t believe I could, I’m sorry to say. I have traveled about in many places, but if I have gone past the shanty where the Widow Malony lives, I do not remember it.”

Just then came through the woods a sound like:

“Ta-ra! Ta-ra! Ta-rattie tara!”

“What’s that?” asked Lightfoot, in surprise.

“That’s my master, blowing the brass horn to tell me to come back,” answered Dido. “I must go. Well, I’m glad to have met you. And if you ever get to the circus give my regards to Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, and Mappo, the merry monkey.”

“I will,” promised Lightfoot. “I have heard Tinkle, the trick pony, speak of both of them. Good-by!”

“Good-by!” called Dido, and, with a wave of his big paw, stained from the berries he had pulled off to eat, he lumbered away through the woods to his master who was blowing the horn for him.

“Well, I had a nice visit,” said Lightfoot to himself as he ate a few more berries. “Dido would be good company, but I can not travel with him, as I can do no tricks. I wonder if I shall ever find my own home again.”

On and on through the woods wandered Lightfoot. Now and then he would stop to nibble some grass or leaves, and again to get a drink from some spring or brook. When he was tired he would stretch out under a bush or a tree and go to sleep. Then he would wander on again.

The second night in the woods found him far from the canal, and much farther from the park and his home near the big rocks. He was completely lost now, and did not know where he was. But it was not so bad as if a boy or a girl were lost. For Lightfoot could find plenty to eat all around him. He had but to stop and nibble it. And, as it was Summer, it was warm enough to sleep out of doors without any shelter, such as a barn or a shed.

One day as Lightfoot was eating some blackberries in the way Dido, the dancing bear, had taught him, he heard a noise in the bushes as though some one were coming through.

“Oh, maybe that is the dancing bear!” exclaimed the lonesome goat. “I hope it is.”

An animal presently jumped through the bushes out on the path and stood looking at Lightfoot; but at first glance the leaping goat saw that it was not Dido. It was a small white animal, with very large ears, one of which drooped over, giving the animal a comical look.

“Hello!” exclaimed Lightfoot in a friendly voice. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”

“Maybe not,” was the answer. “But I’ve seen you, or some one like you. A boy, in whose woodshed I once lived, had a goat like you.”

“Was his name Mike?” asked Lightfoot eagerly. And then he knew it could not be, for he knew his Mike had no such animal as this.

“No, his name was not Mike,” was the answer. “But what is your name?”

“Lightfoot.”

“Mine’s Flop Ear, and I’m a rabbit. A funny rabbit some folks call me. I’m in a book.”

“This is queer,” said Lightfoot. “You speak about being in a book. So did Dido, the dancing bear.”

“Oh, did you meet Dido?” cried Flop Ear, looking at Lightfoot in a funny way. “Isn’t he the dearest old bear that ever was?”

“I liked him,” said Lightfoot.

“And he’s almost as jolly as Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. Tum Tum is in a book, too.”

“What’s all this about being in a book?” asked Lightfoot.

“Well, I don’t exactly understand it myself,” answered Flop Ear. “But I know children like to read the books about us. Tell me, have you had any adventures?”

“I should say I had!” cried Lightfoot. “I ran away, and I was on a canal boat, and I climbed a hill of coal and—”

“That’s enough!” cried Flop Ear, raising one paw. “You’ll find yourself in a book before you know it. Then you’ll understand without my telling you. Would you like to have a bit of cabbage?”

“I should say I would,” cried Lightfoot. “I’ve been living on grass, berries and leaves—”

“Well, I brought some cabbage leaves with me when I came for a walk this morning,” said Flop Ear, “and there’s more than I want, and you are welcome to them.” From the ground where he had dropped it Flop Ear picked up a cabbage leaf and hopped with it over to Lightfoot. The goat was glad to get it, and while he was chewing it he told the rabbit of running away from the park. In his turn Flop Ear told how he had been caught by a boy and how he had gnawed his way out with the mice, meeting Grandma Munch in the woods.

“And so I’ve lived in the woods ever since,” said Flop Ear.

“Could you tell me how to get out of the woods and back to my home with Mike, near the rocks?” asked Lightfoot.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” answered the rabbit.

The rabbit and the goat talked in animal language for some little time longer, then Flop Ear said he must go back to his burrow, or underground home.

“And I’ll travel on and see if I can find my home,” said Lightfoot. “I’ve been lost long enough.”

For two or three days more Lightfoot wandered about in the woods. He looked everywhere, but he could not find his home near the rocks. One afternoon, as he was asleep under a tree, he was suddenly awakened by feeling something hit him on the nose.

“I wonder if it’s going to rain?” said Lightfoot, jumping up suddenly. Then something hit him on his left horn and bounded off. Lightfoot saw that it was an acorn, many of which he had seen in the woods.

“I guess it fell off a tree,” he said.

“No, it didn’t. I dropped it,” said a chattering voice in the air. “I am lonesome and I wanted some one to talk to. So I awakened you by dropping an acorn on your pretty black nose. Excuse me.”

“But who are you and where are you?” asked Lightfoot.

“I am Slicko, the jumping squirrel,” was the answer, “and I’m perched on a limb right over your head.”

Lightfoot looked up, and there, surely enough, was a little gray animal with a very big tail, much larger than Lightfoot’s small one.

CHAPTER XII LIGHTFOOT’S NEW HOME

Leaving Lightfoot and Slicko talking together in the woods, we will go back a little while and see what is happening in the shanty near the rocks, where Mike Malony lived with his widowed mother. Mike came in one day, after a long search through the park. Though it was several weeks since Lightfoot had run away the boy never gave up hope that, some day, he would find his pet.

“Well, Mike me lad, did you hear anything of your goat?” asked Mrs. Malony.

“No, Mother,” was the answer, “and I don’t believe I ever shall. Lightfoot is gone forever.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Mike! He may come back. And if he doesn’t, can’t you take one of the other goats and train it to drag a cart?”

“No,” said Mike, with a shake of his head, “I couldn’t do that. The other goats are for giving milk, and the like of that, but they wouldn’t be like Lightfoot for drawing the children. No goat will be like Lightfoot to me. I’ll have to get work at something else, I guess, Mother.”

“I’m afraid you will, Mike me boy,” said his mother, and now as she was a bit sad, she was not smiling at her freckle-faced and red-haired son. “Our money is almost gone, and we need more to buy something to eat. Lucky it is we have no rent to pay. You had better look for a job, Mike.”

Mike did, but work was not to be had. Meanwhile the money which the Widow Malony had put away was getting less and less. Mike came in one day, tired, and feeling very unhappy, for he had walked far looking for work without finding it. He had even tried training one of the other goats to draw a cart, but they did not seem able to learn, being too old, I suppose. Blackie had been sold to bring in a little money.

“Well, maybe better luck will come to-morrow, lad. Don’t give up. Whist!” she cried. “There’s the letter man’s whistle. Sure he can’t be comin’ here!”

“But he is, Mother!” cried Mike. “Maybe it’s some of the men I gave me name to, sendin’ for me to give me work.”

With trembling hands Mrs. Malony opened the letter. When she had read it she cried:

“Th’ saints be praised, Mikey me lad. Our troubles are over now! Our troubles are over now!”

“How?” asked Mike.

“Sure I’ve been left a farm, Mike! A farm with green grass and a house, and cows and a place to raise hay and a horse to haul it to market. Read!”

Mike read the letter. It was true. A cousin of his mother, who had known her in Ireland, had died and left her his farm, as she was his nearest relative. The letter was from the lawyers saying she could claim the farm and live on it as soon as she pleased.

The troubles of the Widow Malony and her son were indeed over as far as money was concerned. They sold what few things they had, even the goats, for it would be hard to carry them along, and then, bidding good-by to the other squatters, they moved to the farm that had been left them. It was many miles from the big city, out in the country.

“Sure ’tis a grand farm!” cried Mike as he saw the snug house in which he and his mother were to live. “’Tis a grand farm entirely. And would ye look at the river right next door! I can go swimmin’ in that and sail a boat.”

“’Tis no river, Mike, me boy,” said his mother. “That’s a canal, same as the one that runs near the big city where we come from, though I guess you were never over that far.”

“No,” said Mike, “I was not. A canal; eh? Sure it’s a funny thing. A river made by men,” and he sat down to look at it.

But there were many things to do on the Malony farm, and Mike and his mother were happy in doing them, for now they saw better times ahead of them.

“Sure this would be a fine place for Lightfoot,” said Mike as he sat on the steps one day and looked across the green fields. “He’d be fair wild with th’ delight of it here,” and his face was a bit sad as he thought of his lost pet.

It was about the time that the farm had been left to the widow and her son that Lightfoot met Slicko the jumping squirrel in the woods as I have told you.

“And so you were lonesome! And that’s the reason you awakened me by dropping a nut on my nose?” asked Lightfoot of Slicko.

“Yes,” was the answer. “And I guess you are glad it wasn’t Mappo, the merry monkey, who tried to wake you up that way.”

“Why?” asked Lightfoot.

“Because Mappo would likely have dropped a cocoanut on your nose, and that’s bigger and heavier than an acorn.”

“Well, I guess it is,” laughed Lightfoot. “I’m glad you didn’t do that. But why are you lonesome?”

“I am looking for a rabbit named Flop Ear to play with,” answered Slicko. “He and I used to have jolly times together. We were both caught, but we were both let go again, and since then we have lived in these woods. But I haven’t seen him for some days.”

“I met him, not long ago,” said Lightfoot. “Did he have one ear that drooped over in a queer way?”

“Yes, that was Flop Ear,” answered the squirrel. “Please tell me where to find him. I want to have some fun. We have both had many adventures that have been put in books, and we like to talk about them.”

“So you have been put in a book, too,” said Lightfoot. “It is getting to be quite fashionable, as the ladies in the park used to say. I’d like to be in a book myself.”

“Perhaps you may be,” said Slicko. “I’ll tell you how I got in after I have some fun with Flop Ear. Please tell me where I can find him.”

“I left him over that way,” and Lightfoot pointed with his horns.

“Thank you. I’ll see you again, I hope,” and Slicko was scampering away with a nut in her mouth when Lightfoot called after her:

“Can you tell me where to find a canal? I was carried away on a canal boat, and I think now, if I can find the canal, I can walk along the path beside it and get to my own home. I am tired of wandering in the woods.”

“There is a large brook of water over that way,” said Slicko, pointing with her front paw from the tree. “I have heard them call it a canal. Maybe that is what you are looking for.”

“Oh, thank you. Maybe it is,” said Lightfoot. “I’ll know it as soon as I see it again.”

Leaving the jumping squirrel to frisk her way among the tree branches, Lightfoot set off to find the “brook” as Slicko had called the canal. It did not take him long to find it, for it curved around in a half circle to meet the very woods in which the leaping goat then was.

“Yes, it’s the same canal,” said Lightfoot, as he saw coming slowly along it a boat drawn by two big-eared mules. “Now all I have to do is to follow the towpath, and I’ll soon be at the big city again, and I can then find my way back to the shanty on the rocks, and Mike.”

Lightfoot might have reached the city had he walked the right way along the canal bank, but he hurried along away from the big city instead of toward it. Day after day he wandered on, and whenever he saw any men or boys he hid in the trees or bushes along the towpath.

“I wonder when I shall come to the city,” thought Lightfoot, who was getting tired.

On and on he went. He did not stop to speak to any of the canal horses or mules. When he was hungry he ate grass or leaves, and when he was thirsty he drank from woodland brooks or from the canal, where the banks were not too steep.

One day Lightfoot came to a place where the canal passed through a little village. The goat could see people moving about, some on the banks of the canal.

“This does not look like the big city,” said the goat. “I think I will ask one of the canal horses.”

He stepped from the bushes out on the path, and was just going to speak to a horse, one of a team that was hauling a boat loaded with sweet-smelling hay in bales, when a boy, who was driving the team, saw the goat and cried:

“Ha! There is a Billie! I’m going to get him!” and he raced after Lightfoot. But the goat was not going to be caught. Along the towpath he ran, the boy after him. Lightfoot knew he could easily get away, but then, right in front of him, came another boy with a long whip. This boy, too, was driving a team of horses hitched to another canal boat.

“Stop that goat!” cried the first boy.

“I will,” said the other, holding out his whip.

“Mother, Mother!” he cried. “Look! Look! It—it’s Lightfoot—come back to us!”

Lightfoot did not know what to do. He did not want to run into the woods on one side of the path, for fear he would be lost again. Nor could he swim if he jumped into the canal. And then he saw, right in front of him, a bridge over the water.

“That’s my chance,” thought the goat, and lightly he leaped to one side, getting away from both boys, and over the bridge he ran. The boys did not dare leave their horses long enough to follow.

Over the bridge and down a country road on the other side of the canal ran Lightfoot. He saw some cows and sheep in the fields on either side of the road. Then he saw a little white house with green shutters. In the front yard, picking some flowers, was a woman. Lightfoot looked at her.

“I wonder—I wonder,” said Lightfoot slowly to himself, “where I have seen that woman before, for I am sure I have.”

The woman kept on picking flowers. Lightfoot stood near the gate watching her, but she did not see him. Pretty soon she called:

“Mike, bring me the watering can. The flower beds are dry.”

“All right, Mother, I will. Sure if I had Lightfoot back again I’d make a little sprinkling cart and have him draw it. It’s a grand place for goats—the country farm.”

Lightfoot pricked up his ears. He could not understand it. But that name Mike—that voice—

He walked into the yard. The woman picking flowers looked up. Mike came along with the sprinkling can, and when he saw the goat he nearly dropped it.

“Mother, Mother!” he cried. “Look! Look! It—it’s Lightfoot—come back to us!”

“Lightfoot?”

“Sure! Look at the likes of him as fine as ever—finer! Oh, Lightfoot, I’m so glad!” And this time Mike did drop the watering pot, splashing the water all about as he ran forward to throw his arms around the goat’s neck while Mrs. Malony patted him.

And so Lightfoot came to his new home. By mistake he had gone the wrong way, but it turned out just right. He could not tell how glad he was to see Mike and his mother again, for he could not speak their language. But when Lightfoot met the horses, the cows and the pigs on the farm the widow and her son owned, the goat told them all his adventures, just as I have written them down in this book.

“Lightfoot has come back to me! Lightfoot has come back!” sang Mike. “I wonder how he found this place?”

But Lightfoot could not tell. All he knew was that he was with his friends again, and on a farm, which he thought much nicer than the park, pretty as that was.

The leaping goat soon made himself at home. He was given a little stall to himself in the stable with the horses, who grew to like him very much.

Mike had brought with him from the city the goat wagon, and many a fine ride he had in it, pulled along the country road by Lightfoot, who was bigger and stronger than before.

“I wonder what Blackie, Grandpa Bumper and the other goats would think of me now?” said Lightfoot one day as he rolled over and over in a green meadow where daisies and buttercups grew.

But as the other goats were not there they could say nothing. And so Lightfoot had his many adventures, and he was put in a book, just as he hoped to be, so I suppose he is happy now.

THE END