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Title: Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail - The Funny Monkey Boys
Author: Garis, Howard Roger, 1873-1962
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail - The Funny Monkey Boys" ***
[Illustration: Bed Time Stories
Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail.
Howard R. Garis]
[Illustration]
_BED TIME STORIES_
Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail
(THE FUNNY MONKEY BOYS)
BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of "SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL," "THE UNCLE
WIGGILY SERIES," "THE DADDY SERIES," "CIRCUS ANIMAL
STORIES," "THE ISLAND BOYS," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS WISA_
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers · · · · New York
THE FAMOUS BED TIME STORIES
Books intended for reading aloud to the Little Folk each night. Each
volume contains 8 colored illustrations and 31 stories--one for each
night in the month. Handsomely bound in cloth. Size 6-1/2 by 8-1/4.
=Price 60 cents per volume, postpaid.=
HOWARD R. GARIS' BED TIME ANIMAL STORIES
No. 1. SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL
No. 2. JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL
No. 3. LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLE-WOBBLE
No. 5. JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW WOW
No. 7. BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG
No. 9. JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT
No. 10. CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK
No. 14. NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL
No. 16. BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL
No. 20. NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL
No. 28. JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL
No. 30. JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL
No. 32. CURLEY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL
UNCLE WIGGILY BED TIME STORIES
No. 4. UNCLE WIGGILY'S ADVENTURES
No. 6. UNCLE WIGGILY'S TRAVELS
No. 8. UNCLE WIGGILY'S FORTUNE
No. 11. UNCLE WIGGILY'S AUTOMOBILE
No. 19. UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
No. 21. UNCLE WIGGILY'S AIRSHIP
No. 27. UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY
No. 29. UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS
No. 31. UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM
For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by
the publishers.
* * * * *
A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23 Street New York
Copyright, 1917, by R. F. Fenno & Company
JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL
CONTENTS
STORY PAGE
I The Kinkytails Go To School 9
II Jumpo and the Cocoanut 16
III The Kinkytails Make a Pudding 23
IV Jacko and the Peanuts 29
V Jumpo and the Ice Cream 36
VI Jacko and the Paper Bag 42
VII Jumpo and the Green Parrot 48
VIII The Kinkytails and the Bear 55
IX The Kinkytails at Hide and Seek 62
X Jumpo and Uncle Wiggily 68
XI Jumpo and Susie Littletail 74
XII Jacko and the Little Mouse 81
XIII Papa Kinkytail and Mr. Gander 88
XIV Jumpo and the Chestnut Burr 95
XV Jacko and the Roast Chestnuts 102
XVI The Kinkytails Make Money 108
XVII The Kinkytails Spend Money 114
XVIII Jumpo and Jacko in the Auto 120
XIX Jumpo and the Roast Marshmallows 126
XX Jacko and the Busy Bee 133
XXI Jacko and the Grape Vine 139
XXII Jacko Does Some Tricks 146
XXIII Jumpo and the Paper Cup 153
XXIV The Kinkytails Blow Bubbles 160
XXV Jacko and the Paper Chain 167
XXVI The Kinkytails and the Cricket 174
XXVII The Kinkytails and the Doll's House 180
XXVIII Jacko and the Train of Cars 187
XXIX Jumpo and His Airship 194
XXX Jumpo and the Talcum Powder 200
XXXI How Jacko Washed the Dishes 207
JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL
STORY I
THE KINKYTAILS GO TO SCHOOL
Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, there were two little
monkey boys who lived with their papa and mamma off in the woods in a
funny house at the top of a tall tree. These little monkeys were the
cutest and most cunning chaps you would want to see, even if you went in
an airship to the circus.
I have already told you something about one of them--a red monkey--who
traveled with Uncle Wiggily Longears, when the old gentleman rabbit was
going about, seeking his fortune. Well, this red monkey's name was Jacko
Kinkytail; and his tail, as were the tails of all his family, was all
twisted up in kinks. That's how Jacko got his last name--Kinkytail. His
brother's name was Jumpo, and Jumpo was colored green. The reason for
that was this:
Once Jumpo's mamma bought him a green balloon at the circus. Jumpo was a
little baby then, and he didn't know any better than to try to eat the
green balloon. Perhaps he thought it was candy. At any rate, before his
mamma saw him he had chewed nearly half of the balloon, and he soon
turned a pretty green color like the leaves on the trees. Oh! his mamma
and papa felt dreadful about it, and they did everything they could to
get the color out of the little monkey, but they couldn't, and green he
stayed.
"But it doesn't much matter," said Jumpo's papa, "for as long as Jacko
is red I think it is nice to have his brother colored green. They look
so odd and queer when they go out walking together."
"Oh, but think of having one's children red and green, like some flag,"
cried Mamma Kinkytail. However, it couldn't be helped, so now I'll tell
you some stories of Jacko and Jumpo.
One morning when the two little monkey boys were eating their breakfast
in the funny house up in a tree, they suddenly heard a bell ringing.
"Ding dong! Dong ding! Ding-ding! Dong-dong!" rang the bell.
"My! I wonder what that can be?" exclaimed Jumpo, as he finished eating
some toasted peanuts with cocoanut on.
"Perhaps it's a fire," suggested Jacko, as he looked to see if any of
his red color had come off on his napkin, but it hadn't, I am glad to
say.
"Oh, if it's a fire, let's run and see it!" cried Jumpo, getting out of
his chair. "Maybe they'll let us squirt some water on the blaze."
"Silly monkey chaps!" cried Mamma Kinkytail, as she laughed at them,
"that is not a fire bell, that is the school bell, for school starts
to-day, and you must hurry or you will be late."
"Oh, dear! School!" cried Jacko, making a funny face.
"Oh, me! Oh, my!" said Jumpo. "Have we got to go to school?"
"To be sure," answered their mamma. "Vacation and play time is over, and
you must be at your lessons. Hurry now, there go Sammie and Susie
Littletail, and Sammie has on a new suit."
"Yes, and there go the Bushytail brothers," added Jumpo as he saw two
squirrel boys hurrying past while the school bell rang louder and
louder.
"Oh, come on, let's go. We'll have some fun!" cried Jacko, and before
you knew it he was hanging by his tail from the front door bell knob,
and the next moment he had scrambled down the tree trunk and was running
after the squirrels and rabbits.
"You've forgotten your books!" called his mamma.
"Never mind, I'll take them," said Jumpo, kindly, so, picking up his own
books and those of his brother, he wound his long tail about them, and
down he scrambled from the little house in the tree, and soon he, too,
was running to school, while the bell went on ringing.
"Ding-dong! Dong-ding!"
Now the school where the monkeys, and all the other animal children
studied, was a hollow stump in the woods, and a wise old owl bird was
the teacher. Soon all the pupils were in the room, and the teacher told
them how glad she was to see them back, and she said she hoped they had
all had nice vacations.
"And I have quite a treat for you," went on the teacher. "Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit, who has just returned from seeking his fortune all
over the world, is going to tell you a story this afternoon, if you all
have your lessons this morning. Now we will have the class in spelling.
Jacko Kinkytail, please spell me the word dog."
"I don't like to," said Jacko, waving his tail to and fro, bashful like.
"Why not?" asked the owl teacher, surprised like.
"I'm afraid if I spell the word a dog might come in through the window
and bite us."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the teacher. "Jumpo, you spell dog."
"D-o-g," spelled Jumpo, as nicely as could be.
"Very good," said the teacher. "Now, Jacko, you see no dog came in at
all, so you may go to the blackboard, Jumpo, and write the word dog."
Now Jumpo was a very mischievous little monkey--that is, he was always
doing something funny, and it was not always right and proper, either. I
forgot to tell you this at first, so I put it in here.
When Jumpo went to the blackboard he took a piece of chalk in one paw,
and, very nicely indeed, he wrote the word "dog." And then he did what
wasn't exactly right. With his long tail, which was almost like another
hand for him, he took a second piece of chalk, and, while he was once
more writing the word "dog," he drew a funny picture of an elephant
standing on his head. He did this with the chalk in his tail, and when
the other pupils saw the queer picture they laughed right out loud in
school. "Ha! ha!"
"Why, Jumpo!" exclaimed the teacher, sorrowful like. "I am surprised at
you! You are here to learn, and not to make funny pictures. There is
time enough at recess for that. I shall have to ask you to stay in after
school. Go to your seat."
Well, Jumpo felt badly. He hadn't meant to make trouble, but you see he
didn't think. All the rest of the morning he sat in his seat, feeling
sorry, and he didn't want to stay in after school, but he knew he had
to. And then something happened.
All of a sudden, just as Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, was reciting
in the number class, and telling how many lollypops two apples and two
pears made, a lean, hungry wolf looked in at the schoolroom window, and
growled:
"Oh, ho! What a fine meal I see before me! I'll eat you all, even the
owl teacher!"
Oh, my! How frightened every one was. That is, all but Jumpo Kinkytail.
Up he leaped and rushed to the blackboard. Then, using his two front
paws and his tail, he drew with the chalk a big picture of a man
shooting a bang-bang gun.
"Look at that, Mr. Wolf!" cried Jumpo, and when the wolf saw the picture
of the man with the gun he thought it was real, and wolf was so afraid
he would be shot that he ran off as fast as he could go, and he didn't
eat anybody for nearly two weeks.
"Oh, Jumpo!" exclaimed the owl teacher after she had gotten over being
frightened. "We can't thank you enough. I forgive you for being bad in
the spelling class, and you needn't stay in after school. But please be
good after this." So Jumpo said he would.
But I'm sorry to say he soon forgot, and did more mischief. I'll tell
you about it in the next story which will be about Jumpo Kinkytail and
the cocoanut--that is, if the chocolate cake doesn't fall off the table
and splash all over the lemon pie when it makes its bow to the spoon
holder.
STORY II
JUMPO AND THE COCOANUT
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, couldn't go to the owl
teacher's school and tell the children about his travels on the day he
had promised to do so. It was because his rheumatism was very bad, so
the pupils, including Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the red and green
monkeys, were allowed to play a game instead of hearing a story.
"Perhaps Uncle Wiggily will come tomorrow," said the teacher. And that
is what the rabbit did, and he told how he had traveled many miles, and
had had dozens and dozens of adventures, of which I have told you in the
stories before this one. He also told how Jacko Kinkytail had been with
him part of the time.
"Oh, my, I wish I had been along," said Sammie Littletail to Jacko after
school was over.
"Yes, indeed, so do I," said Billy No-Tail, the frog, as he looked at
his grandfather's tall hat which he was wearing, to see if it had any
holes in the top; but it hadn't.
"Oh, I had lots of fun," said Jacko, the red monkey, "but I would have
had more if my brother Jumpo, or some of you boys, had been with me.
Uncle Wiggily was very nice."
"Come on, let's have a game of ball," suggested Jumpo, the green monkey.
So the boy animals put their books on the grass, and they had a little
ball game on their way home from school.
It was a fine game, too. Once when Billie Wagtail, the goat boy, knocked
the ball away up in the air with his horns, Jumpo Kinkytail climbed up a
tree, and, hanging to the top branch only by his tail, he reached up and
caught the ball before it got to the ground.
"Fine! Fine!" cried all the other animal players as Jumpo came down.
Well, after the game was over, the boy animals started for home, and on
the way a bad fox jumped out of the bushes and tried to grab the red
monkey. But Jumpo, his green brother, made such a funny face, like an
orange and a lemon twisted into an apple pie, with a stick of peppermint
candy stuck through the middle, that the fox had to laugh, and of course
when he laughed he couldn't chase the red and green monkeys, so they got
safely home.
"You must be careful after this," said their mamma when Jacko and Jumpo
had told her of the fox. "I will have your father speak to the policeman
about it when he comes home from the hand organ factory where he works.
And now you monkey boys please go out and cut some wood for me, for I
must get supper. Then you can study your lessons. Hurry now, Jacko and
Jumpo."
"What are we going to have for supper, mamma?" asked Jumpo.
"Well, for one thing, I am going to make a cocoanut cake," said the
mamma monkey.
"Oh, goody!" cried Jacko and Jumpo as they danced around in the kitchen
and hugged each other with their long tails. "That will be fine!"
"Come, now, get in the wood for the fire!" cried their mamma, so down
the tall tree they scrambled, and soon they were gathering up sticks in
their four paws and their tails also.
"I guess I've got my share," said Jumpo at last. "I'm going in and study
my lessons." So into the house he went, while Jacko went looking for
hickory nuts. But Jumpo couldn't do much studying. He was thinking too
much about the cocoanut cake that was to be for supper.
"I guess I'll just go into the kitchen and take a look at the cocoanut,
to make sure it's there," said the little green monkey after a while.
So, laying aside his spelling-book, Jumpo went to the kitchen. Mrs.
Kinkytail wasn't there just then, having gone down cellar after some
butter. But the cocoanut was on the table in its brown shell, all ready
to be broken open and the white meat inside put in the cake.
"Oh, what an exceedingly large and fine cocoanut!" exclaimed Jumpo,
speaking very correctly as he had been taught in school. "I will just
lift it to see how heavy it is."
Now, Jumpo's mamma had told him never to meddle with the things in the
kitchen, when she was baking, for once he had mixed the sugar and salt,
and everything tasted dreadfully. But you see he forgot what his mamma
had said, and almost before he knew what he was doing he had picked up
the cocoanut.
"I'll just shake it, to see if there is any milk inside," he said, and
he held it up to his ear, and wiggled it to and fro. Surely enough there
was plenty of the milky white juice inside, and Jumpo could hear it
splashing around.
"Oh, this is fine!" he cried as he shook the cocoanut harder than
before, and then--alas and alack-a-day! The first thing he knew the
cocoanut had slipped from his paws.
Down upon the floor it fell, away it rolled, and before Jumpo could stop
it that cocoanut had fallen out of the kitchen door of the little house
in the tree, right down to the ground below.
"Oh, I must get it before mamma comes back!" exclaimed the green monkey.
Quickly he scrambled down the tree, winding his tail around the lowest
branch and leaping to the ground. But the cocoanut was nowhere to be
seen.
"I wonder if Jacko could have taken it to play a joke on me?" thought
Jumpo. Then he looked over toward the bushes, and he saw something
moving, and there was the cocoanut rolling along, faster than ever.
"My! It must be going down hill!" cried Jumpo, as he sprang after it.
Well, the cocoanut kept on going. Once Jumpo almost had it in his left
paw, but the cocoanut hit a stone and bounded away from him. Then he
almost had it in his right foot, but the cocoanut went splash into a
little brook of water and the green monkey couldn't see it. Then it
rolled out and he managed to get his tail around the nut, but it was so
slippery that it got away from him--the cocoanut got away, not Jumpo's
tail, you understand. No, that stayed fast on the monkey boy.
"Oh, I guess we won't have any cocoanut cake for supper to-night,"
thought the little green fellow. "I wish I had stayed out of the
kitchen, as mamma told me. But I'm not going to give up yet. I'll get
that cocoanut if it's possible!" So he ran on, faster than ever, but the
cocoanut rolled quicker and quicker. It was now getting late, and Jumpo
didn't know what to do. He could still see the cocoanut ahead of him,
but he couldn't catch up to it.
"Oh, whatever shall I do?" he cried. And just then he saw something like
a big red hole, with rows of sharp white teeth in it. At first he
thought it was his red brother Jacko, but when he looked again he saw
that it was the skillery-scalery alligator.
"Oh, I'm just waiting for you," said the 'gator with his mouth open real
wide.
"Oh, dear!" cried Jumpo, "this comes of not minding one's mother. The
cocoanut is gone and I'll soon be gone, too," for he surely thought the
alligator would get him.
In fact the alligator was just going to eat up the little green monkey
when the skillery-scalery creature gave his tail a big flop. Then
something round and brown sailed up into the air, came down ker-bunk,
right on the end of the 'gator's nose, and bounded off.
"Oh, my! Some one is shooting cannon balls at me!" cried the 'gator. "I
never can stand cannon balls." So away he went, as fast as he could,
taking his double-jointed tail with him. And listen, as the telephone
girl says, it wasn't a cannon ball at all, that had hit the 'gator, it
was the lost cocoanut.
Jumpo caught it as it came down, after the 'gator had accidentally
tossed it into the air with his tail, and then the green monkey hurried
home with it as fast as he could hurry, and so he had cocoanut cake for
supper after all.
Of course, Jumpo's mamma scolded him a little for what he had done, and
he said he was sorry, so she forgave him. And the monkeys had more
adventures. I'll tell you of one soon, and the next story will be about
the Kinkytails making a pudding--that is, if the elephant in the
picture-book doesn't take the baby's rattle-box and beat the drum with
it.
STORY III
THE KINKYTAILS MAKE A PUDDING
It happened, once upon a time, that Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the red
and green monkey boys, didn't have to go to school. This was because it
was Saturday, when there was no school; so now I've told you the true
reason.
"What shall we do?" asked Jumpo of his brother, as he wound the end of
his long tail around a tree branch and swung head downward while he ate
an apple as easily as you can shell a peanut.
"Do you want to play Indian and let me shoot you with my make-believe
gun?" asked Jacko, the red monkey.
"No, indeed! Thank you just the same," replied his green brother as he
unhooked his tail from the tree and stood on his head, getting ready to
turn a somersault. "The last time you shot at me while we were playing
Indian, you didn't remember that you had a cork in your pop-gun, and it
hit me on the end of the nose. I haven't forgotten that."
"I'm very sorry," spoke Jacko. "Then I'll tell you what let's do. We'll
go off in the woods, and maybe we can find the old monkey who has five
hand organs, one of which he plays with his tail. Perhaps he'll let us
play one."
"Fine!" cried Jumpo, so off they started for the woods.
Well, they looked and they looked some more, but they couldn't find the
monkey who had five hand organs, and pretty soon those two boys went
back home.
But when Jacko and Jumpo got to the little house in the tree, their
mamma wasn't there. Instead she had left a note on a plate of bread and
jam for them. The note said:
"Dear Jacko and Jumpo. I have gone to call on Aunt Lettie, the old lady
goat. I will be back in time to get your supper."
"Well!" said Jumpo, winding his tail around the leg of a chair, before
he sat down in it. "I hope she does come back in time for supper, for I
am hungry. However, she left some bread and jam for us. Let's eat that."
"She is the best mamma in all the world," said Jacko, as he took some of
the bread and jam, "and I think we ought to do something for her."
"What could we do?" asked Jumpo.
"Why, we could get something ready for supper, so she won't have to work
so hard when she comes in. Let's make a cake."
"No, let's make a pudding," suggested Jumpo. "A pudding is ever so much
easier, and besides it will be done quicker, and we can taste it to see
if it's good."
"Fine!" cried Jacko, "we'll make a pudding. But how do you do it?"
"It is easy," said his brother. "You take some milk and some sugar and
some eggs and cocoanut, and things like that, and mix them up in a pan.
Then you bake it in the oven."
"What, the pan or the pudding?" Jacko wanted to know.
"Both, I guess," answered Jumpo. "Anyhow I know mamma puts the pudding
in the pan, and then she puts both of them in the oven, so she must bake
both."
"Then we'll do it that way," decided Jacko. "Now here are some eggs, and
we can get the milk and sugar and other things. But, hold on, Jumpo; do
you put the eggs in just as they are, with the shells on, or do you
break them?"
"I don't know," spoke the green monkey, as he looked at his tail to see
if it had any hard knots in it, but it hadn't.
"Then we can't make a pudding if you don't know," said Jacko,
disappointed like.
"Oh, yes, we can, easily," went on his brother. "We can put in some eggs
without the shells, and some with the shells on."
"The very thing," cried Jacko. "I never would have thought of that. You
are very clever, Jumpo." So the two monkey boys took a pan, and into it
they broke some eggs, throwing the shells away, and into the pan they
also put some whole eggs with the shells on.
"Now for the milk," said Jumpo.
"Should we use sweet milk or sour milk?" asked his brother.
"There you go again!" exclaimed Jumpo. "You are always asking questions
to puzzle me. What do you think--sweet or sour milk?"
"Both!" cried Jacko, "then we'll be sure to be right."
"Of course!" agreed Jumpo; so into the pan they put some sweet and also
some sour milk.
"Now for some sugar and some raisins and grated cocoanut and the pudding
will be done!" called Jacko. So they put those things in the pan and
stirred them up with a big spoon.
"Now, should we bake this pudding in the oven or on top of the stove in
a frying pan?" asked Jacko.
"Oh, there you go again!" cried Jumpo. "Asking more puzzling questions!
Let's do both."
"We can't," decided his brother.
"Well, then, we'll fry this pudding in a pan on top of the stove, as
mamma does an omelet," said Jumpo. "It looks like an omelet, anyhow." So
into the frying pan they poured their pudding, set it on the stove, and
soon it began to cook.
"Now when it's brown on one side, I'll turn it over with the pancake
turner," said Jumpo, "and cook the other side."
"Good!" cried his brother. So they carefully watched the pudding,
waiting for it to be cooked on one side. And, just as Jumpo got ready to
turn it, there was a knocking on the door of the little house, and a
voice cried:
"I'm coming in to eat you monkeys up!" And with that in came a savage
wolf. Oh, how frightened Jacko and Jumpo were! But Jumpo knew just what
to do.
First he quickly tied his tail into a hard knot so it would be short,
and not in the way. Then he took up the soft pudding out of the frying
pan on the pancake turner and he threw it right in the face of that
wolf.
Oh! I wish you could have seen him! That wolf was all covered with
broken eggs, and whole eggs, and raisins and sweet milk, and sour milk,
and cocoanut, and sugar and everything like that. Oh! what a sight he
was! And as he was so frightened that he ran down the tree, up which he
had climbed by his sharp toenails, and he hid himself in the woods.
"Oh, but our pudding is spoiled!" cried Jacko, sad like.
"Never mind," said Mamma Kinkytail, who came in just then, having seen
the wolf run away. "Jumpo was a good boy." And when she heard how they
had made the pudding she said it was just as well, after all, that it
was thrown at the wolf, for it would not have been good to eat. So she
made a nice chocolate cake for supper, leaving out the egg shells and
sour milk, and the pudding was all eaten up, for the red and green
monkeys and their papa were very hungry.
Now the next story will be about Jacko and the peanuts--that is, if the
little girl across the street doesn't wheel her doll carriage into a mud
puddle and splash my new shoes that I want to dance in at the moving
pictures.
STORY IV
JACKO AND THE PEANUTS
One day Jumpo Kinkytail, the little green monkey, was ill with the
sniffle-snuffles and could not go to school. I don't know whether it was
because he had missed his lesson the day before, or because he waded
through a mud-puddle on his way home, and got his feet wet that made him
sniffle. Anyhow Dr. Possum came and gave him some bitter medicine.
It was so bitter that Jumpo made a funny face like two sour oranges and
a piece of lemon pie all rolled up together. And his brother Jacko
laughed, which didn't make Jumpo feel any better.
"Humph! I don't laugh when you are ill," said Jumpo, twisting up his
face like a crooked doughnut.
"I'm sorry, but really I couldn't help it," said Jacko, as he got ready
to go off to school. "You do make the funniest faces, Jumpo. But I'll
tell the teacher you can't come to class, and I'll ask her what lesson
you are to study. Then I'll bring home your books."
"Oh, you needn't bother," said Jumpo quickly. "I--I guess I'm not sick
enough for that. Just tell teacher that I can spell cow now. I know
better than to begin it with a 'K.'" For that is the lesson Jumpo had
missed the day before he was taken ill.
Well, Jacko started for school, and on the way all the other animal
children asked him where his little green brother was.
"I'm very sorry," said Bully No-Tail, the frog, when he had heard what
was the trouble. "I like Jumpo because he is the same color I am, and
tomorrow I'm going to bring him some green grapes so he can play marbles
with them in bed."
"That will be nice," said Jacko. Then he got to school and told the
teacher about Jumpo. Of course the owl lady was also sorry for the
little sick monkey, and she wrote him a nice note on a piece of white
cocoanut, so that after Jumpo had read it he could eat the
cocoanut--that is, when he was well enough.
Pretty soon it was time for school to be out, and Jacko hurried home to
be with his sick brother.
"I'll just take the short path through the woods," thought the little
red monkey. "Then I'll be home quicker. And I wish I had a penny, or a
five-cent piece. Then I would buy Jumpo an ice cream cone. But I haven't
any money."
So of course when one has no money one can buy no ice cream cones, but
still Jacko wished it just the same, which shows that he had a kind
heart.
He was going through a dark part of the woods, when all of a sudden he
saw, just in front of him, some small, whitish looking things, like
little stones.
"Ha! I wonder what these are?" said Jacko, as he took hold of his books
in his tail and went carefully forward. "Perhaps that is a trap to catch
me."
Then he saw that the little things were a lot of peanuts, all strung out
in a row on the ground, like grains of corn, one after another. "Ah, ha!
I see!" exclaimed the Jack o'Lantern--oh, I beg your pardon, I mean the
red monkey. "These are peanuts. Some one has been along here with a bag
that had a hole in it, and the peanuts dropped out," went on Jacko.
"Well, if I knew to whom they belonged I'd give them back. But, as I
don't, I'll take them home to my sick brother, and later on, if some
one claims them, I'll save up my pennies and pay them back."
So with this kind thought in mind, Jacko set to work to gather up the
peanuts. There were quite a number of them, when they were all in one
pile--as many as two five-cent bags full.
"I think I will eat just one, to see if they will be good for Jumpo,"
said Jacko, after a while. So, with his strong, white teeth he cracked
the shell of one peanut and ate it--that is, he ate the peanut, not the
shell. Of course, you understand and I suppose I needn't have mentioned
it. But, anyhow, I did.
"Oh, my! Oh, dear! Oh, hum suz dud!" exclaimed Jacko, when he had eaten
the peanut. "This will never do at all. The peanuts are damp, and wet,
and not nice and brown and crisp as they ought to be." For you know
there is nothing more unpleasant than half-roasted and soft
peanuts--even onions aren't much worse, I think.
"I must build a fire and roast them nice and hot and fresh," said Jacko.
"Then they will be good for sick Jumpo." So then and there Jacko built a
little fire in the woods, and set to work to roast the peanuts over
again, first taking his books out of his tail and putting them safely
on a stump where they wouldn't burn.
When the fire was nice and hot, Jacko took a tin can, put the peanuts in
it, and set the can on the hot coals. Then he stirred the peanuts with a
long stick so they wouldn't burn.
He was doing this, and thinking how pleased his brother would be, when,
all of a sudden there was a noise up in a tree over Jacko's head, and
down climbed the black bear. He landed right near the red monkey and
that bear cried out:
"Oh, ho! Things are nice and warm and comfortable here. I have come just
in time. Now I will have a good supper. I was afraid I wasn't going to
have any."
"Were you--that is, were you thinking of eating the peanuts?" asked
Jacko. "Because if you were, they are my brother's."
"No. I wasn't thinking of eating the peanuts," growled the bear. "I was
thinking of eating you. And now I am done thinking, and I am going to
get busy. Here I come!"
Then, with a growl, he made a grab for Jacko, but the monkey jumped
back. He was thinking very hard, for he didn't want to be eaten up. Then
he said very quickly:
"Will you grant me one favor before you eat me, Mr. Bear?"
"What is it?" growled the shaggy creature.
"Please let me take the peanuts off the fire so they won't burn," spoke
Jacko.
"Go ahead," growled the bear. "That will be the last thing you do."
"We'll see about that," thought Jacko, as he tied a hard knot in his
tail. Then, taking a lot of damp leaves in his paws so he wouldn't get
burned, he lifted off the fire the can of hot peanuts. And then and
there, while the bear was still growling, the red monkey threw the hot
pan, hot peanuts and all, right on top of the bear's soft and tender
nose.
"Wow, Oh, wow! My! Oh, my!" howled the bear, and he felt so badly about
it that he ran off through the woods to find a spring of water where he
could cool his nose.
But Jacko didn't wait for the bear to come back. Instead, the red monkey
gathered up the hot peanuts from where they had fallen. Into his school
bag he packed them as fast as he could and then he set out for home on
the jump, and got there safely.
And oh! how glad Jumpo was to get the hot roasted peanuts. In fact they
made him well the next day. And he said Jacko was a brave monkey boy to
think of such a trick to play on the bear. And so did Mr. and Mrs.
Kinkytail. But you are sleepy now, so you must go to bed. Good night.
And the next story will be about Jumpo and the ice cream--that is, if
the bathroom looking-glass doesn't see the pussy cat standing on its
head under the stove and get so frightened it can't clean its teeth.
STORY V
JUMPO AND THE ICE CREAM
It was a few days after Jumpo Kinkytail, the little green monkey boy,
had been taken ill with the sniffle-snuffles, and now he was all better,
for the hot peanuts had made him well. He and his brother Jacko, the red
monkey, were hurrying along the road together to get to school before
the last bell rang.
"For we must not be late," said Jumpo.
"No, indeed," agreed Jacko. "Shall I carry your books for you, Jumpo?
You are not yet strong from having been ill."
"Thank you, I'll be glad to have you carry them," said Jumpo politely,
so Jacko put his brother's books in the loop of his tail together with
his own, and they got to school just as the doors were being closed.
"Now the class in number work will recite," said the owl teacher, as she
took a piece of blue chalk and went to the blackboard. "If I had two
apples, and Jacko Kinkytail gave me three more, how many would I have?"
asked the teacher, and she wrote a big figure 2 on the blackboard, and
under it a big 3. "You may answer, Jumpo," she said.
Jumpo thought for a few seconds.
"Well, can't you tell?" asked the owl kindly.
"If you please," said Jumpo, after a bit, "it can't be apples that Jacko
would give you, because it's pears that Jacko has in his pocket. Three
pears--I saw Mamma give them to him for recess. I can't add pears and
apples together."
Well, the whole class laughed at that, and the teacher said:
"I was only making believe, Jumpo, just as when Uncle Wiggily Longears
pretends as he tells you a story. However, we will say two pears and
three pears, if that will suit you better. You may come to the board and
add up this sum for me."
So Jumpo went to the board, and he took the piece of blue chalk in his
left paw. And then he couldn't seem to help doing a funny trick. When
the teacher wasn't looking he reached over, and with his tail he took an
eraser and erased the numbers from another part of the board where
Jennie Chipmunk was doing a sum in arithmetic, so Jennie didn't have
any numbers to add up, and she cried out:
"Oh, dear!"
"What's the matter?" asked the teacher quickly, and then, turning
around, she saw the mischief Jumpo had done.
"You may go to your seat," she said to the green monkey, sad like, "and
you must stay in after school. Sammie Littletail, you may finish the sum
on which Jumpo started. He is too playful today."
At first Jumpo thought it was fun to have rubbed out Jennie Chipmunk's
numbers with his tail, and then he felt sorry. He was more sorry as his
brother and all the other pupils went out when school was done, and he
had to stay in the room. He could hear the boys having a ball game, and
the girls were playing tag, and Jumpo wished he hadn't been bad. But
that's the way it is sometimes in this world.
After a bit the teacher said:
"You may go now, Jumpo. Tomorrow please try a little harder to be good.
I know you can if you will."
"Yes'm," was all Jumpo said.
It was quite late when he got out, and all the boys and girls had gone
home. Jumpo thought he might as well go home, too, but as it was
getting dark he didn't go through the woods. Instead he went around by
way of Grandfather Goosey Gander's home.
Now, not far from where the old gentleman gander lived there was a bad
fox who had built himself a bungalow. And he was a very rich fox, having
ice cream for supper nearly every night. Still he was never satisfied.
He wanted a goose, or a rabbit, or a squirrel, or a monkey, or something
like that. So when he looked out of his bungalow window, and saw Jumpo
Kinkytail coming along, this fox said to himself:
"Ah, ha! Perhaps I can have a monkey supper tonight. I must catch that
little green chap." Still the sly fox knew better than to rush out and
try to grab the monkey. "I must play a trick on him," he said to
himself. "What shall I do?"
Now, outside the fox's bungalow was a freezer full of ice cream ready
for his supper. Quickly taking out the can with the ice cream in it, the
fox left nothing there but the wooden tub filled with freezing ice and
salt. On this he put a sign which read: "Help yourself to ice cream."
Well, of course, when Jumpo saw that sign he thought he would take some
cream.
"I'll eat a bit," he said, "and bring some home to my mamma and papa and
Jacko. Oh, some one was very kind to leave this here for me." You see,
he didn't know the trick the fox had made up to catch him.
Into the freezing mixture of ice and salt poor Jumpo plunged his paw,
and in an instant it was frozen fast there, and he couldn't get it out,
as the late afternoon was cold. Pull and pull as he did, the little
green monkey was held fast, just as if he was in a trap.
"Oh, dear! This is terrible! Oh, it isn't ice cream at all. It's just
ice, and I'm frozen fast. Will no one help me?" cried Jumpo.
"No," said the fox, "no one will, and when it gets dark enough, so no
one can see me, I'm coming out and get you and eat you. I have you fast,
just where I want you."
And indeed it did seem so, for the harder Jumpo pulled the tighter he
was held. He begged and pleaded, but it was of no use. It got darker and
darker, and the fox was just coming out with a hatchet to chop Jumpo's
paw out of the ice, so he could take him inside the bungalow stump,
when, all of a sudden, Grandfather Goosey Gander heard the monkey boy's
cries.
"That is some one in trouble!" exclaimed the old gander gentleman, and
he put back on the stove the hot flatiron with which he was ironing his
silk hat ready for Sunday. So he opened the door and called: "What's the
trouble?"
"I'm frozen fast in the ice cream tub, and the fox is going to catch
me!" cried Jumpo.
"Ha! Hum! We'll see about that!" shouted Grandfather Goosey Gander. In
an instant he caught up the hot flatiron off the stove, and out he ran.
Then, before the fox could get at the monkey boy the goose gentleman had
put the hot flatiron on the ice in the tub, taking care not to burn
Jumpo. And there was a sizzling, hissing sound, and in another instant
the ice was melted because of the hot flatiron, and Jumpo was free. Then
he ran to Grandfather Goosey Gander's house with the old gentleman, and
the fox didn't get him, and pretty soon Jumpo went home to tell the
folks all about it. And for some time after that Jumpo was a good monkey
boy in school.
Now, in the next story I'm going to tell you about Jacko and the paper
bag--that is, if the sofa cushion doesn't get tangled up in the lamp
chimney and spoil the pudding for supper.
STORY VI
JACKO AND THE PAPER BAG
"Well, what shall we do today?" asked Jumpo of his brother, as the two
monkey boys slid down out of the tree-house one Saturday morning.
"We don't have to go to school," spoke Jacko, "and I'm glad of it.
Suppose we play soldier. I'll let you shoot me, if you don't do it too
hard."
"All right. Oh, I tell you what let's do!" and Jumpo was so excited that
he tied his tail in three hard knots and he could hardly get them out
again.
"What shall we do?" asked his brother, as he kindly helped untie the
knots in Jumpo's tail.
"We'll get a lot of the fellows, and have a regular battle," proposed
Jumpo. "We'll get Sammy Littletail and the two Bushytail brothers, and
Buddy Pigg, and Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, and Jimmy Wibblewobble and
Billie Wagtail, the goat, and all the others, including Munchie Trot,
and we'll choose sides and have a big fight. One side can be Indians,
and the other white men."
"Fine! Fine!" cried Jacko. "You go get the fellows, and I'll whittle out
the make-believe wooden guns."
Off Jumpo started, and it wasn't long before he had met a lot of his boy
friends. Of course they thought it was great fun to play soldier, and
they hurried back with him. By this time Jacko had a lot of guns made,
and then the boys divided into two parties.
Jacko was captain of one side, and he and his friends were to pretend to
be white soldiers, and the others, of which Jumpo was captain, were to
be the Indians.
"Now, we'll go off in the woods," said Jumpo, "and we Indians will wait
until you white fellows have built a cabin. Then we'll come in the
night--make-believe night, you know--and we'll shoot at you, and burn
the cabin down, and take you prisoners."
"No fair throwing stones!" cried Buddy Pigg, looking to see if any tail
had grown on him yet, but none had.
"No, there must be no stones," declared Jacko. "Now fellows, get to work
building our cabin. Billie Wagtail, you get some long sticks, and,
Buddy, you get some small ones." Buddy and Billie were on Jacko's side,
and Sammie Littletail was one of the Indians, and so was Johnny
Bushytail and Munchie Trot, the pony. In fact there were about seven
boys on each side.
Well, pretty soon the white soldiers had their cabin built, and then it
was time for the Indians to come and fight them. Jacko hollered when
they were ready, and then he and his friends went inside the little
cabin and made believe go to sleep.
"And, mind you," said Jacko, "when the Indians come you fellows must
shoot off your guns as hard as anything."
"Sure," said Billie Wagtail, shaking his horns.
Pretty soon there was a rustling in the bushes, and along crept the
make-believe Indians, softly and silently. Then, when they saw the
cabin, Jumpo cried:
"Fire! Fire! Shoot 'em! Bang! Bang! Capture 'em!"
Up jumped Jacko and his men.
"Bangity-bang-bang!" cried Jacko. "Shoot 'em fellows! Fire like
anything! Don't let 'em take us!"
Well, I just wish you could have heard that racket! No, on second
thought perhaps it's just as well you didn't, for it might have made
you deaf to hear so many guns going off at once. Oh, it was a fierce
fight! if you will excuse me saying so. And after a while the Indians
won, and into the cabin they rushed.
"Escape! Get away fellows," cried brave monkey boy Jacko. "I'll keep
them back until you get away."
"That's not fair!" shouted Sammie Littletail. "Yes it is," said Billie
Wagtail. Well, Billie and the other white soldiers ran out the back
door, while Jacko was shooting at the Indians at the front door, and so
all the white soldiers got away except little red monkey, and he was
caught.
"Now, we'll tie him to a tree, and we'll go off and try to catch the
others," said Jumpo. So, in fun, they tied Jacko fast to a tree, and
left him there in the woods by the make-believe cabin all alone, while
they ran off shouting.
"My! That was jolly sport," thought Jacko, and he was glad to rest for a
while. Then he began to feel a bit lonesome. "I wish I could get away,"
he said, and he found that he could wiggle his arms out of the ropes.
"But it wouldn't be fair to run off when they have captured me," he went
on. "Though I know what I can do. I'll play a trick on them when they
come back."
In his coat pocket he found an empty paper bag. This he blew up full of
wind, and he twisted the neck of it so the wind wouldn't get out.
"When they come back I'll crack the bag and make it burst. They will
think it's a cannon," he said with a laugh. Then he waited.
But all of a sudden, before he could count forty-'leven, along came the
skillery-scalery alligator. The creature with the double-jointed tail
saw the little red monkey tied fast to the tree with ropes.
"Ah, ha! Now I have you!" cried the 'gator, licking his chops. "You
can't get away from me this time."
And it didn't seem as if Jacko could. He tugged and strained at the
ropes, but they were too tight. It looked as if he were going to be
eaten up.
Nearer and nearer came the alligator. He opened his big mouth, full of
sharp, shining white teeth to bite Jacko, when, all of a sudden the
monkey boy thought of the blown-up paper bag.
"That's the thing," cried Jacko, and with that he clapped his paw down
hard on the bag.
"Bang!" it went, just like a cannon. My! how loud!
"Oh, I'm shot! I'm killed! My double-jointed tail is blown off!" cried
the alligator, and then, half frightened to death, he scurried off
through the woods, taking his tail with him, for of course it wasn't
blown off at all.
So that's how the paper bag saved Jacko, and pretty soon his brother and
the other Indians came back with their prisoners and the game was over.
Then they untied Jacko and they all went to the home of the red and
green monkeys, and Mrs. Kinkytail gave them all some bread and jam. She
spread thirty-three loaves of bread and used up seventeen pots of jam
before they had enough, and the alligator didn't have a smitch, I'm glad
to say.
And the next story will be about Jumpo and the green parrot--that is, if
the window pane doesn't get the toothache in the night and cry like a
baby so it wakes up the pussy cat.
STORY VII
JUMPO AND THE GREEN PARROT
It was about three days and a half after the adventure with the
alligator, when Jacko Kinkytail had scared the skillery-scalery creature
by bursting the paper bag, and the two monkey brothers were coming home
from school in the afternoon.
"Did you miss any of your lessons today?" asked Jacko, as he twined his
tail around a hickory nut on the ground, and picked it up so he could
eat it--eat the nut, not the ground, you understand, of course.
"I missed one example," answered Jumpo, "but it was very hard."
"What was it?" inquired Jacko, as he cracked the hickory nut in his
strong teeth.
"It was this," spoke his brother: "If a boy has a chocolate ice cream
cone, and his sister has two, how many oranges can you buy for a bag of
peanuts when a stick of peppermint candy breaks in three pieces and one
of them falls inside a lemon? Don't you think that's a hard example,
Jacko?"
[Illustration]
"Indeed it is. Let me see, I think the answer is a pound of chocolate
drops."
"I thought it was a piece of cherry pie," went on the little green
monkey, "but the teacher said it was a dozen of eggs, so I missed."
"Never mind, as long as you didn't have to stay in," said Jacko. "Now
let's hurry on and see who will get home first. You go one way and I'll
go the other, and we'll race."
This suited Jumpo all right, so off he started by the path that led
through the woods, while Jacko took the road that led past the house of
Grandfather Goosey Gander. And when Jacko reached there the old
gentleman was just looking for some one to go to the store for him to
get a pound of sugar. So Jacko went, and he earned a penny. Then he
hurried home. But Jumpo hadn't yet reached there, and I'll have to tell
you what happened to him.
For a while the little green monkey boy hurried on through the woods. He
was thinking how surprised Jacko would be to find his brother home ahead
of him, and Jumpo was even planning to hide behind the rain water barrel
and jump out to make-believe scare Jacko. Then, all of a sudden, as
Jumpo went past a big rock he saw a nice big yellow orange on the
ground.
"Oh, joy!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I'll take that home and give Jacko half of
it."
But as Jumpo reached for the orange it suddenly rolled a short distance
away from him, and he couldn't get it.
"Ho, ho!" exclaimed the little green monkey. "That is odd. That must be
one of those queer rolling oranges I have read about in fairy stories.
But I'll get it yet."
So he went forward very slowly and carefully, and, all of a sudden, he
made another grab for the orange, but it rolled still farther away.
"Hum!" exclaimed Jumpo. "This is strange. But I'll try again." So he
tried once more, and, all this while, as he was reaching for the orange,
he kept coming nearer and nearer to a big hollow stump. And Jumpo never
noticed that there was a string tied to the orange, and that the orange
was being pulled by a bad old wolf, who was hiding in the stump. You see
that the wolf was so old that he couldn't walk around and catch his
meals any more, so he took that plan of getting little animals to his
den.
Nearer and nearer rolled the orange to the stump, with Jumpo chasing it,
and almost getting it at times. But he never really got it, and finally
he was so close to the stump that the wicked wolf could reach out and
grab the green monkey in his claws.
"Oh, ho! Now I have you!" cried the bad wolf. "My orange trick was a
good one," and he carefully put the orange and the string away on a
shelf to use next time.
"Was that you making the orange roll?" asked Jumpo, as he tried to get
away, but couldn't.
"It was," said the wolf, showing his sharp teeth.
"Oh, please let me go!" begged Jumpo. "I was racing with my brother, to
see who would get home first. Please let me go!"
"No, indeed, I'll not," answered the wolf, "and if your brother ever
comes past here I'll catch him also. Now, I'm going to lock you up in a
dark closet until supper time."
"Do you mean my supper time, or yours?" asked Jumpo, hoping there might
be some mistake about it.
"My supper time, of course," growled the wolf, and he was just going to
shut Jumpo up in the dark closet, when he happened to look out, and he
saw something green in a tree near the stump. Jumpo saw it, too.
"Hum! That is queer," said the wolf. "There are no green leaves on the
trees now, as it is getting close to winter. I wonder what it can be?
But I have no time to bother with anything like that. I must make a hot
fire to cook my monkey supper."
Oh, how badly Jumpo felt at hearing that, and how hard he tried to get
away from the wolf, but it was of no use. Then the monkey looked, when
the wolf had his head turned to one side, and Jumpo saw that the green
thing was a big poll parrot.
"Save me! Save me!" cried Jumpo. The parrot just nodded his head, wise
like, and hid behind the tree trunk. Then, all of a sudden, a voice
cried:
"Hey, Mr. Wolf, you let that monkey go!"
"Was that you speaking?" asked the wolf, of Jumpo, for the wolf didn't
see the parrot.
"No," answered Jumpo, "I didn't speak," and the wolf thought it was very
queer. Then the voice cried again:
"Let that monkey go, or I'll shoot a lot of guns at you!"
"Pooh. I'm not afraid," said the wolf, for he could not see anyone.
Then, all of a sudden, the voice cried again: "Get ready now, fellows.
Aim your guns right at that wolf, but don't shoot Jumpo! Ready! Aim!
Fire! Bangity-bang-bang! Boom! Bang!"
And it sounded like forty-'leven guns going off. My! How that parrot did
yell!
"Oh, don't shoot me! Don't shoot! I'll be good! Honest I will! I'll let
the monkey go! Hurry, monkey, run along and tell them that I let you
go!" begged the wolf, letting go of Jumpo. And you can believe that
Jumpo hurried away from that stump.
Then the green parrot hopped into sight on the limb of a tree and cried:
"Ha! ha!! That's the time I fooled you, Mr. Wolf. It was I talking, and
there aren't any fellows here with guns at all. But I made you let Jumpo
go. Ha! Ha!"
Then that wolf was so angry that he almost bit his own tail, but he
couldn't catch Jumpo, and the green parrot went home with the monkey boy
to see that no one hurt him. Then the parrot, after Jumpo and his
brother and mother had thanked him, flew back to his cage, and that's
the end of this story, if you please.
The next one will be about the Kinkytails and the trained bear--that is,
if our canary bird doesn't drop his seed dish in the sewing machine and
break a needle.
STORY VIII
THE KINKYTAILS AND THE BEAR
One day when the owl school teacher had heard the lessons of all her
animal boy and girl pupils, she said:
"You have been so good today that I am going to give you a little treat.
Now, I will let Susie Littletail decide on what would be the nicest to
do, have Uncle Wiggily Longears come over and tell you a story about his
travels, or go for a walk in the woods and see if the chestnuts are
ripe? Which shall it be, Susie?"
"If you please," said the little rabbit girl. "I think it would be nice
to go in the woods. Uncle Wiggily can tell us a story any time after
dark, but we can't see to gather chestnuts at night. Let's go to the
woods."
"Very well," said the teacher. "Put away your books, pencils and papers
and we will take a walk."
So, in a little while, all the animal children were following the owl
teacher out into the woods, where the leaves were beginning to turn
brown and yellow and crimson, all ready to fall off, so the trees could
go to sleep during the long, cold winter. Johnny Bushytail felt so good
that he sang this song:
"Oh, it's fine to be in the woody woods,
When you're done with school and books.
When the brown leaves rustle overhead,
And kiss the babbling brooks.
"The spicy wind blows full and free,
And the nuts come rattling down
On green moss, where the great trees grow,
With their golden leaves and brown."
"Indeed, it is fine," said the owl teacher. "Now scatter about, and see
who can find the first nuts. But don't get lost."
Of course Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrels, at once scrambled
up the trees, and, naturally, they found the first nuts, but they kindly
shared them with the others. Then Sammie and Susie Littletail went off
one way, and Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg in another direction, and Lulu
and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, in still another.
And Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs, took a path right
through the bramble bushes, looking for butternuts to spread on their
bread, I guess.
"Come on," said Jacko to Jumpo, as the two monkey boys walked side by
side, "we'll go down by the little brook. I think there is a hickory nut
tree there."
"Are you sure there are no wolves or foxes there?" asked the green
monkey.
"I don't believe there are any," said the red monkey. "We'll get a lot
of nuts and give the others some."
So away they went through the forest, sometimes hanging by their tails
from the low branches, sometimes turning somersaults and sometimes
swinging by their feet, for they could hold on by their toes as well as
you can by your fingers.
"Oh, there's a nut tree!" suddenly exclaimed Jacko, as they got down by
the little brook.
"And see all the nuts!" cried Jumpo, for the ground was just covered
with them. Then the monkey boys began filling their pockets.
They had almost as many nuts as they could carry, and they were thinking
of going back to join the others, for they could hear the teacher
calling to the pupils some distance off in the woods. And then, all of a
sudden, Jacko looked toward a big stump, and he exclaimed in a whisper
to Jumpo:
"Look at that big bear!"
"Where?" asked Jumpo, getting close to his red brother.
"There," whispered Jacko again, and he pointed toward the stump. Surely
enough, there was a bear, wearing a blue cap and a pink coat. And, oh,
what a big fellow he was!
"He hasn't seen us," said Jumpo, in a low voice. "Perhaps we can get
softly away before he does see us, and then we can tell the others to
hurry out of the woods. Move very softly, Jacko."
"I will," whispered the red monkey, and he tried to, but all at once
some hickory nuts fell out of his pocket and they made quite a noise as
they hit a flat stone.
"Ha! Who's there?" asked the bear quickly, and he looked up, straight at
the two monkeys. Then they could see that he had been reading a big
book. "Who's there?" cried the bear again, in a sort of savage voice.
"If--if you please, we are here," said Jacko. There was no use in saying
they weren't there, for the bear could see them perfectly plain.
"All right; I am coming over to you," went on the shaggy creature,
closing his book.
"Oh, oh, please don't come!" begged Jacko. "We can see you very well
from here."
"Oh! If he comes, he'll eat us, and then he'll hear the others shouting,
and he'll go over and eat them and our teacher also," whispered Jumpo.
"Oh, if we could only send them some word to warn them to run away!"
"Why shouldn't I come over to you?" asked the bear. "Of course, I'm
coming. Watch me."
And with that he stood up on his head, and walked on his front paws and
in that way he quickly came to where Jacko and Jumpo were standing.
"I never saw a bear walk that way before," said the red monkey,
surprised like.
"Perhaps he is a crazy bear?" suggested Jumpo. "That kind is very
savage. Oh, I know he'll eat us. Poor teacher, too!"
By this time the bear was close to the monkeys.
"I am very pleased to see you," he said in a growlery voice, and he
turned a somersault, and stood on his left hind leg. Then he took off
his blue cap in his claws, made a low bow, and began to dance around
Jacko and Jumpo, at the same time humming a tune.
"How's this?" asked the bear, as he stood on the end of his stubby tail,
and opened his mouth real wide. "I call that a right clever trick
myself, but what do you think of it?"
"It--it is very pretty," said Jumpo. "But when--when are you going to
eat us?"
"Eat you! Why, bless my huckleberry pie appetite!" cried the bear
kindly. "I never eat anything but popcorn balls. You haven't one about
you I suppose?" and he stood on one ear and made a funny face, by
twisting his tongue like a merry-go-round.
"No, we have no popcorn balls," spoke Jacko. "But aren't you a savage
bear?"
"Not a bit of it!" roared the bear in a laughing voice. "I'm the
jolliest trained bear you ever saw. I wouldn't hurt even a trolley car,"
and with that he did another dance, and sang such a funny song that
Jacko and Jumpo burst out laughing.
"Eat you!" cried the bear. "I never thought of such a thing. You see I
work for a man who makes me do tricks all day long. So I never get any
time for studying. But today I ran away and took my book with me. I'm
studying up to be a cook, you see, and I want to learn how to make
popcorn balls, so I won't have to buy any," and then he stood on one
toenail and cracked a nut in his teeth.
Well, of course, Jacko and Jumpo were glad they weren't going to be
eaten up, and when the trained bear heard there were other pupils in the
woods he went with the monkeys to where the rest of the animal children
were and did for them all his tricks, and some more besides. Then the
bear had to go back home, and so did the pupils and the owl teacher, and
I guess you have to go to bed.
Now I'm going to tell you next about the Kinkytails playing hide and go
seek--that is, if the postage stamp doesn't stick on my spectacles so I
can't see the gold fish jumping over the snail's back.
STORY IX
THE KINKYTAILS AT HIDE AND SEEK
It was a rainy Saturday, and if there is anything worse than that I'd
like to know it. You see you don't have to go to school, and you have
all day to play, but when it rains--why, what can you do? Just answer me
that, if you please. Ha! I knew you couldn't.
Well, that's exactly how it was with Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, as they
stood at the window of the little house up in the tree and looked at the
rain drops splashing against the glass.
"Oh, dear!" cried Jumpo.
"Oh, dear!" groaned Jacko.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed their mamma. "What poor, miserable little monkey
boys you are to be sure!"
"But there isn't anything to do," grumbled the red monkey.
"And we can't go out because it is raining too hard," added the green
monkey.
"Suppose you help me with the housework," suggested Mamma Kinkytail.
"After we get the breakfast dishes washed I'm going to make a cake and a
pudding, and you may help me. But mind!" she said, shaking her tail at
Jumpo, "you mustn't let the eggs or the sugar or the milk fall out of
the house, as you once did with the cocoanut."
"I won't," said Jumpo, and then he and his brother helped dry the dishes
and set back the chairs, and when their mamma had swept the bungalow
they dusted the piano. Then came the making of the cake and pudding. Of
course, there were some dishes with nice sweet batter, and sugar and
chocolate icing left in them, and Jacko and Jumpo cleaned these out so
clean that there was hardly any need of washing them. By this time it
was the dinner hour, and Mr. Kinkytail came home from the hand organ
factory where he worked at making music.
But in the afternoon it still rained harder than ever, and the monkey
brothers stood at the window and looked at the splashing drops, and
cried "Oh, Dear!" so often that finally their mamma said:
"I'm going to telephone over for the Wibblewobble children to come and
play with you. Those ducks won't mind the rain a bit, for it will run
right off their backs. You can play in the house, and I can have some
peace and quietness to get my mending done. I'll telephone right away."
So Mrs. Kinkytail telephoned, and Mrs. Wibblewobble said the duck
children could come right over. Jacko and Jumpo watched for them at the
window and soon they saw Jimmie and his two sisters paddling through the
mud puddles.
"What shall we play?" asked Jacko, when the visitors had shaken the
water off their feathers, after having flown up into the tree-bungalow.
"Tag," said Alice Wibblewobble, as she looked to see if her hair ribbon
was on straight.
"No, there isn't room for that," spoke Lulu. "I think hide-and-seek
would be better. We can play that, can't we, Mrs. Kinkytail?"
"Oh, yes," said the monkey mamma as she mended one of Jumpo's torn
stockings.
"A ball game would be lots of fun," said Jimmy, the boy duck, "but then
I s'pose we might break a window. It will have to be hide-and-seek." So
they got ready to play.
First Lulu covered her eyes and she called out: "Ready or not I'm
coming!" Then she went to find the others. She easily found Alice, who
was standing up behind the flour barrel.
"I might have crawled under the barrel, only I was afraid of spoiling my
new sky-blue-pink hair ribbon," said Alice.
Then Lulu found Jimmie hiding under the couch in the dining-room and
Jumpo she discovered as he was trying to wiggle farther in behind an old
looking-glass in the hall.
"Now if I find Jacko," said she, "I'll have everybody, and it will be
Alice's turn to hunt for us. I wonder where Jacko can be?" She looked
all over, taking care not to go too far away from "home," for if the red
monkey got a chance he could run in and touch the table, which was
"home," and then he would be "in free."
"I don't know where he is," said Jimmie. Neither did Alice or Jumpo.
Jacko had gone off by himself, and he was well hidden. Lulu looked
everywhere. She even looked inside the flour barrel, as if the red
monkey would hide in there and get all white. And she took the cork out
of the molasses jug, and tried to look down inside the sticky place, as
if Jacko would go down there and get all stuck up.
"Oh, I'm going to give up," said Lulu at last.
"Oh, no, we'll all help you look," said the other children, and they all
joined in. But what had happened to Jacko, I suppose you are wondering.
Well, I'll tell you. He had gone up to the attic and there he found a
big empty trunk.
"This will be a fine place to hide," he said, so in he crawled, and
closed down the lid. It snapped shut, but Jacko didn't mind. He thought
he could open it when he wanted to. However, after a while he got tired
of hiding, especially when Lulu couldn't find him, and he decided to
come out.
Only he couldn't. He tried to open the cover, but it was shut fast. Then
Jacko became scared. He pushed and he pushed, but the trunk cover held
tight. Then he called out as loud as he could, but the dust got up his
nose, and his voice was very faint and far away. He even tried to put
the end of his tail in the keyhole and open the lock of the trunk, but
he couldn't. He heard Lulu and the others come up in the attic to find
him, and he called: "Here I am!" But they were laughing and shouting and
making so much noise that they never heard him.
"Oh, I guess I'll have to stay here forever!" thought poor Jacko. "Oh,
if I could only get out!" Then he heard a little noise in one corner of
the trunk, and he thought at first it was a fox. Then he knew a fox
could never get in the trunk, and he looked and saw a little gray
animal.
"I'll help you out of the trunk," said the animal; and who was it but
Jillie Longtail, the girl mouse. Quickly Jillie gnawed a hole in the
trunk. At first it wasn't large enough for Jacko to get out, but the
mouse soon made it larger, and then the monkey boy could crawl out, and
after thanking Jillie, he hurried down the stairs, glad enough to be
free from the stuffy trunk.
My! How surprised the others were to see him, for they were becoming
much frightened, and Jacko's mamma said he must never do a thing like
that again. And he never did. Then they all had some bread and jam, and
pretty soon it stopped raining.
So that's all this story, but the next will be about Jumpo and Uncle
Wiggily--that is, if the fish peddler doesn't blow his horn loud enough
to wake up the kittie cat who goes to sleep in the doll's carriage every
day.
STORY X
JUMPO AND UNCLE WIGGILY
It was almost time for school to be out, and nearly all the pupils were
sitting quietly at their desks. The owl school teacher was just hearing
the geography class recite, and that was the last lesson of the day.
"Jacko Kinkytail," spoke the teacher, as she took up a piece of red
chalk, "where do cocoanuts grow?"
"In our house," said Jacko very quickly.
"Why, the idea!" exclaimed the teacher. "I mean in what _country_ do
cocoanuts grow?"
"Well, I'm sure they grow in our house," said the red monkey, "because I
saw one there to-day. My mamma is going to make a cake of it."
Of course all the children laughed at that, and the teacher had to laugh
also, though she didn't exactly want to.
"Well, Jacko, you may go home," she said suddenly, "and so may all of
you. School is out. Now be on time to-morrow, and, Jacko, you must take
your geography, when you get home, and find out where cocoanuts really
come from."
So when Jacko and Jumpo were walking home together the red monkey asked
his green brother where he thought cocoanuts came from.
"The grocery store, of course," said the green monkey, quickly. "I
should have thought you'd have known that. Didn't you go to the store
for some the other day, and didn't the grocery man have a lot of them in
a barrel? Cocoanuts grow in barrels in the store, of course."
"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" cried Jacko. "I'll tell the teacher
to-morrow. But now let's have a race, and we'll see who'll be the first
to get to the old black stump where the giant used to eat his dinner."
"All right," agreed Jumpo. So off they started. First Jacko was ahead,
and then he accidentally got a stone in his shoe and had to stop to take
it out, so Jumpo got ahead. And then, as the green monkey was going
through a dark part of the woods, he saw something crawling under the
leaves.
"Oh, maybe it's a snake!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I'm going to wait until
Jacko catches up to me." So he waited and waited, but no Jacko came. In
fact, Jacko had got tired of playing the racing game, and he had gone
home another way. Then Jumpo thought he would be brave, and go over by
himself to see what was moving under the leaves. And, if you will
believe me, it was nothing but a harmless snail, crawling along with his
shell house on his back.
"How silly of me to be frightened!" cried Jumpo, with a laugh. "After
this I'm first going to see what it is, and get frightened afterward;
that is, if there is anything to scare me." So he said "How-de-do" to
the snail, and then the monkey boy went on toward home.
Over the hills, up and down, among the trees, hopping across little
brooks he went, until pretty soon, just as he was coming out of the
woods he heard a loud, banging noise.
"That's a gun!" cried Jumpo. "A gun, and some one is out shooting. Oh, I
must be careful or I'll be shot."
So the poor monkey boy hid down behind a rock and waited. And then, all
of a sudden, there came another bangity-bang-bung noise and some one
shouted out loud:
"My, I nearly got it that time!"
"Worse and worse!" thought poor Jumpo, shivering. "They are coming after
me." Then he saw something moving behind a stump, and a big, ugly fox
looked out at him.
"Oh, this is terrible!" cried the green monkey. "I can't stay here or
the fox will get me, and if I go out of the woods the man with the gun
will shoot me. What shall I do? Perhaps the man may be kind, and let me
go. I think I'll go out so the fox won't eat me."
And Jumpo leaped out only just in time, for the fox saw him then, and
made a jump for him. And there came another bangity-bung-bang noise, and
Jumpo shivered again.
When he got out in the field, just beyond the woods, he looked for a man
with a gun, but he could see no one. Down the road, however, he did see
a friend he knew, and it was no one else than Uncle Wiggily Longears,
the old gentleman rabbit. And Uncle Wiggily was standing beside
something with four big wheels and a black front on it, and it had a
wheel up by the seat, and a lot of shiny things on it, and there was a
smell like gasoline coming from it.
"My! I wonder what it is that Uncle Wiggily has?" thought the green
monkey. "It looks like a carriage, but there is no horse to it. However,
I'm going to ask him to save me from the man with the gun."
And as Jumpo ran toward the old gentleman rabbit, once more there
sounded that banging noise, and the monkey saw Uncle Wiggily jump back
very quickly.
"Why, it's Uncle Wiggily who is shooting!" cried Jumpo. "Oh, you Uncle
Wiggily!" called the monkey. "Please don't shoot me!"
"Shoot! I'm not going to shoot anybody," said the rabbit. "I'd like to
shoot my automobile, though, for it won't go, and it is making those
banging noises like a gun. I never saw such a machine--never in all my
travels to seek my fortune. Here I am--stuck!"
"Oh, ho! An automobile, eh?" cried Jumpo.
"Yes," said the rabbit, "since I got so rich I bought one of them, and
now I wish I hadn't. Here I am, miles from home, and I can't get it to
go. I've twisted the thing-a-ma-bob, and poured oil down the what-is-it,
and squirted gasoline on the dingus-dingus, and wiggled the
touch-me-not, and jiggled the who-is-it and even tickled the
tinkerum-tankerum. Still it won't go, and it keeps making that bang-bang
noise like a gun whenever I turn the crank. Oh, and my rheumatism hurts
me so! And I'm so tired!"
"Perhaps I can help," said Jumpo. "Does that crank in front make music
like a hand organ?"
"I only wish it did," spoke the rabbit, as he gave it another twist. But
there was only another bang.
"I give up!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "That crank doesn't do anything."
"Never mind!" cried Jumpo. "I'll help you home. You sit up in the auto
and steer it, and I'll get a rope and pull you home along the road, and
you'll be there in time for supper."
Well, the rabbit gentleman didn't believe the green monkey was strong
enough to pull the heavy car, but Jumpo was, and soon the auto and Jumpo
and Uncle Wiggily were safe home, and the auto man soon had the machine
fixed, so it would run like an alarm clock.
And that night Uncle Wiggily came to the monkey boys' house, and gave
them each a peppermint candy and told them a story before they went to
bed. And, in case the man across the street, who has an auto, doesn't
put one of the big rubber tires on our front doorknob, to make it look
like a doughnut, I'll tell you another story on the next page. It will
be about Jumpo and Susie Littletail.
STORY XI
JUMPO AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL
It had rained quite hard in the night and when Jacko and Jumpo
Kinkytail, after they had gone to bed, suddenly woke up in the darkness
and heard the drops pattering on the roof, the little red monkey boy
said to his green brother:
"Oh, dear! Now we can't go off in the woods to-morrow and take our lunch
and play camping, as we were going to do."
"No; isn't it too bad?" agreed Jumpo. "It always seems to rain at the
wrong time, doesn't it?"
"Come, come!" exclaimed Mr. Kinkytail, who was in the next room. "You
boys must go to sleep. The sun may shine to-morrow. Don't grumble and
find fault ahead of time."
And surely enough, the sun was shining brightly the next morning, and as
it was Saturday the Kinkytails didn't have to go to school.
"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Jacko as he leaped out of bed and saw what a fine
day it was. The rain had washed everything nice and clean, and it was
just lovely out-of-doors.
"Now, let's hurry and get our breakfasts," said Jumpo. "Then we'll pack
up our lunch and stay all day in the woods."
"And gather chestnuts and bring them home and roast and boil them!"
exclaimed Jacko, for monkeys are very fond of chestnuts, you know. Oh,
my, yes! and some sweet potatoes also.
Pretty soon the two monkey boys started off for the woods, and each one
had a little package of lunch. On and on they went, and in a short time
they were quite a distance from home, but that didn't matter, as they
knew the way back. They looked at the different trees in search of
chestnuts, but for some time they didn't find any.
"I tell you what let's do," suggested Jacko. "I'll go off on this path
to the right, and you take the one to the left, and whoever finds a lot
of chestnuts first can holler. Then, if it's you, I'll come and help you
gather them, but if I find them, then you must come and help me."
"Good!" cried Jumpo. "We'll do it!" So Jumpo went to the left path and
Jacko took the one on the right. Well, Jacko hadn't gone very far before
he came to a tree, and under it was a whole pile of chestnuts, all
nicely gathered together.
"Oh, ho! This is fine!" cried the monkey boy. "Hello, Jumpo!" he called,
as loudly as he could. "Come here!"
"What do you want Jumpo for?" asked a voice in a tree overhead, and
there was an old gentleman squirrel with a small sack on his back.
"I want him to help me pick up these chestnuts," said Jacko.
"Oh, but those are _my_ chestnuts," said the squirrel. "I have gathered
them to eat during the winter. I'm sure you wouldn't want to take them
away from me."
"No, indeed," said the red monkey politely. "I didn't know they were
yours."
"Then I'll show you where there are a lot more," said the squirrel
gentleman, "and you can gather them for yourself." The squirrel took the
monkey boy to another place in the woods, and oh! what a pile of
chestnuts were there. Jacko called for Jumpo as hard as he could, but
the green monkey didn't come.
"Perhaps he has found some nuts for himself," thought Jacko. "Very well,
I'll gather these, and wait until he comes."
But Jumpo was having quite an adventure by himself, and I'll tell you
about it. He walked along and along, after Jacko had left him, but he
couldn't find even a last year's chestnut burr, and he felt quite badly
about it. Then, all of a sudden he heard a voice singing. And this was
the song:
"Dear little dollie go fast asleep,
Mamma is here, so don't cry or weep.
Stand on your toes--wiggle your nose,
Then I will dust all the rooms as I sweep.
"See the blue lion a-switching his tail,
Hear how he roars inside the milk pail.
The elephant, dear, will flap his big ear,
And then the old babboon will go for a sail."
"Well, did you ever hear the like of that!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I'd better
look out. There must be a whole circus over there. But I don't see how a
dollie can wiggle her nose, nor how a lion can roar inside a milk pail,
nor yet why the old babboon should want to go sailing. I'd better go
back home while I have the chance. That may be the burglar fox singing."
But the green monkey took one peep through the bushes, and there he saw
Susie Littletail, the little rabbit girl, rocking her dollie in a
hammock made from a grape vine, and it was Susie who had been singing
the funny song. Just as she started on the forty-'leventh verse Jumpo
came out from where he was hiding, and exclaimed:
"Why, Susie Littletail! How glad I am to see you! What are you doing
here?"
"Oh, I came out to give my dollie an airing in the woods," said the
little rabbit girl, as she hurried forward to speak to the green monkey.
And then, when she turned back again, to swing the hammock, lo and
behold! her dollie was nowhere to be seen.
"Why--why, that's queer," said Susie. "Did you take my dollie, Jumpo?"
"No, indeed," answered the green monkey. "Perhaps she has fallen out of
the hammock." So they looked under the hammock, but the doll wasn't
there. Then they looked all over, and in many other places, but that
dollie had disappeared, which means gone away.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Susie, beginning to cry. "She was my best dollie,
and now she is dead and I'll never see her again. Oh, boo-hoo, boo-hoo!
Why did I ever bring her here?"
"Don't cry," said Jumpo kindly, "I'll help you look for her." So he
looked in all the places he could think of but it was of no use.
"Oh, I just know a bad giant has taken her!" cried Susie. "Or else it
was an eagle."
"I didn't see anything like that," spoke Jumpo. "But maybe the burglar
fox came up softly when we weren't looking and took her." Then he called
out: "Say, Mr. Burglar Fox, if you don't give back Susie's doll I'll
have you arrested!"
There was no answer, but a moment later there was a rustling up in an
oak tree which had some brown leaves on it, and then Jumpo caught a
glimpse of the doll's blue dress, and he also saw a big crawly snake,
with his tail wound around a limb of the tree, and that snake was
holding the doll fast in his coils. He had reached down and taken the
doll when Susie wasn't looking.
"Oh, the snake has your doll!" cried Jumpo.
"And how shall I ever get her?" asked the rabbit girl.
"Leave it to me," said Jumpo.
"You'll never get this doll," hissed the snake, like a steam radiator.
But Jumpo knew a good trick. He went off in the woods until he met a
cow. And he asked the cow for some milk and the cow gave him a whole
pailful. Then Jumpo went back and put the pail of milk where the snake
could see it.
Now you know snakes like milk better than anything--better even than
boys and girls like ice cream cones. So as soon as the snake in the tree
saw the milk, he at once let go of the doll, uncoiled himself, and
hurried down for the milk, before the cow could take it away.
"Oh, now I have my dollie back!" cried Susie in delight, and she quickly
caught and hugged Clotilde Raspberry Shortcake, which was the doll's
name, and then Susie and Jumpo ran away before the snake could get them,
and they found Jacko, and each had a lot of chestnuts.
So that's how Jumpo helped Susie Littletail, and that's all there is to
this story. But the next one will be about Jacko and the little
mouse--that is, if the water pitcher doesn't turn over and go to sleep
in the baby's crib and scare the gold fish.
[Illustration]
STORY XII
JACKO AND THE LITTLE MOUSE
"Jacko, will you go to the store for me?" called Mamma Kinkytail to the
little red monkey one afternoon when he had come home from school.
"Yes, mother," he said. "What do you want?"
"Well, I need a dozen cocoanuts and two pounds of sugar, and some
chocolate and some flour."
"Oh, you must be going to make a cake!" cried the monkey boy, tying two
hard knots in his tail.
"You have guessed it," answered his mother. "Hurry now, and the cake
will be baked in time for supper."
"Oh, but I wish Jumpo was here to go with me," said Jacko, as he started
off.
"Why?" asked his mother.
"Because if I carry such nice things as cocoanuts and sugar and
chocolate, a burglar may take them away from me on my way home."
"Nonsense!" said his mother. "Burglars don't want such things as that.
Besides, it is daylight, and burglars don't come around then."
"I was thinking of the burglar fox," went on Jacko. "However, Jumpo
isn't here, as he went over to play ball with Bully No-Tail, the frog.
So I'll have to go alone."
Off he started, and of course, he wasn't a bit afraid going to the
store, for he had nothing with him but the money, and that was away down
at the bottom of his pocket, and Jacko held his little brown paw tightly
over the coins, so they couldn't jump out. Then he reached the store,
and gave the money to the grocery man.
"Now don't drop the cocoanuts," said the grocery man, as he made up a
package of the nice things Jacko had bought. "Can you carry all of
them?"
"Oh, yes," said the monkey boy, confident like, which means sure.
"And do you think you could also carry two sticks of candy, one for
yourself and one for your brother Jumpo?" asked the grocery man, sort of
smiling.
"Well, I'll try--very hard," answered Jacko, and he wondered why the
grocery man laughed. Then the man took from a jar two red and white
striped sticks of candy. One of these sticks Jacko put safely in his
pocket for his green brother, and the other he ate slowly, as he started
for home. He was so interested in the stick of candy that he never even
thought of the burglar fox.
But all of a sudden Jacko looked around in surprise, and he found that
he had taken the wrong path home. It was one that led through the woods,
and right past the house of the burglar fox.
"But there is no use now in going back around the other way," thought
the red monkey; "it will take too long, and mamma won't get the cake
baked for supper. I'll keep on this way, and I'll run past the burglar
fox's house so fast that he can't see me. I guess it will be all right."
So, taking tight hold of his bundle of cocoanuts and sugar and chocolate
and flour, and holding fast to the candy stick, Jacko went on. Pretty
soon he came to the house where the fox lived, and then the monkey boy
got ready to run as fast as he could.
But, all of a sudden, when he was right in front of the house, he heard
a voice crying:
"Help! Help! Oh, will some one please help me?"
"Hark! I wonder who that can be?" thought Jacko. "It doesn't sound like
the voice of the fox, and yet he may be calling to play a trick and get
me in there so he can eat me. I guess I'd better run on."
So he started to run, but he heard the voice again, a sad, squeaky sort
of voice, and it cried:
"Oh, do please some one help me!"
"That isn't the fox," said Jacko bravely. "I'm going in to help whoever
it is. Perhaps it is one of the Bushytail brothers."
Into the house he went, and he saw no signs of the fox. Then Jacko,
standing in the front hall, called out:
"Who are you and what is the trouble?"
"Oh, I'm a poor little mouse," was the answer, "and I'm caught in a trap
in this fox's house. Please help me out."
"Is the fox home?" asked Jacko.
"No, he has gone out to get a friend of his, and then they are coming
back to eat me. Hurry and you can get me out before they come back, and
then we'll run away together."
"I will," said Jacko bravely, so he ran to where he could hear the
mousie scurrying around in the trap, which was in a room upstairs in
the house of the fox.
Well, it didn't take Jacko long, with his nimble fingers and toes, and
his long tail, to get the little mouse out of the trap. Then, when she
walked over toward a window, the monkey said:
"Why, I do believe you are little Squeaky-Eeky, the cousin mouse of
Jollie and Jillie Longtail."
"That's just who I am," said the mouse. "You see, I was going past this
house, and I smelled cheese. I didn't know the fox lived here, so I came
in, and then I was caught in the trap."
"But now you're free," said Jacko. "Come on, and we will hurry away
before the fox and his friend get back."
They started down the stairs, but just then there was a noise outside,
and Squeaky-Eeky, looking from the window, cried:
"Too late! Here come the two foxes."
Then Jacko heard a voice saying:
"Walk right upstairs, Mr. Robber Fox; I have a fine meal waiting for you
in my trap."
"Oh, what shall we do?" whispered Squeaky-Eeky.
"Leave it to me," spoke Jacko in a whisper. Then he quickly opened the
bag and took out two cocoanuts. He peered over the edge of the stairs
until he saw the two foxes coming up and then the brave monkey rolled
the cocoanuts down. Bumpity-bump-bump! they went, rolling right down the
stairs, and they hit the foxes and knocked them over backward.
"Oh, it's thundering, and the thunder is in the house!" cried the
burglar fox. "Come on, quick!" Then, as the burglar fox and the robber
fox ran away Jacko threw some flour and sugar after them. "Oh, it's
snowing and hailing!" cried the robber fox, as he jumped out of the
front door. "We'll freeze to death! Hurry! Hurry!"
Then Jacko tossed some brown chocolate at the bad foxes, out of the
window.
"Oh, it's raining mud!" they both cried, and away they ran faster than
ever, and then Jacko and Squeaky-Eeky could come safely down stairs,
Jacko picking up the two cocoanuts on the way.
So that's how Jacko saved the little mousie girl, and there were still
plenty of things left with which to make the cake. And Mamma Kinkytail
gave Squeaky-Eeky some, and Jumpo gave her some of his candy. So
everything came out all right, you see.
And if the lead pencil doesn't dance the fox trot on the bread board and
mark it all over with black ink I'll tell you next about Papa Kinkytail
and Grandpa Goosey Gander.
STORY XIII
PAPA KINKYTAIL AND GOOSEY GANDER
"Come, Mr. Kinkytail," said Mrs. Kinkytail to her husband one morning
after breakfast, "it is time for you to go to your work in the
hand-organ factory."
"Oh, I'm not going to work to-day," said the papa monkey, as he slowly
folded the news-paper inside out so that he might read about whether it
was going to rain or snow.
"Why aren't you going to work?" asked the monkey mamma.
"Because," answered her husband, "something is the matter with one of
the music machines, and the engineer has to fix it. So the factory is
closed, and I have a vacation. And, as it is Saturday, I'll take the
boys for a walk."
"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Jacko Kinkytail.
"That will be fine!" shouted Jumpo, and he tied his tail in such a hard
knot in his excitement that his mamma almost had to cut the knot out
with the scissors. But finally it was loosened with a knitting needle.
"Come on, boys," said their papa. "The paper says it will be a fair day,
so we will go off in the woods. And, who knows? Perhaps we may have an
adventure."
It was a fine, cool day, and the monkey boys and their papa hurried
along. Soon they came to the woods, where the ground was all covered
with leaves that rustled under foot like tissue paper in a box of candy.
"Oh, look there!" suddenly exclaimed Jacko in a whisper. "There is a big
elephant!"
"Where?" asked his brother, and the red monkey pointed off through the
woods. Surely enough, there was something that looked like an elephant
with a bushel of peanuts on his back.
"Why, that's not an elephant," said Mr. Kinkytail, when he had looked
most carefully, "that is only a stump, though I admit there is something
about it that seems like an elephant's trunk. Well, that was almost an
adventure. Come along, and after a while we may have a real one."
On they walked a little farther, and, all of a sudden Jumpo stopped and
grasped his brother by the paw.
"Look," whispered the green monkey. "Isn't that a big lion over there?"
"Sure enough it is!" exclaimed Jacko, as he looked toward where his
brother pointed.
"Nonsense!" cried Mr. Kinkytail, as he saw the object. "It is only a
pile of yellow leaves, though it is big enough for a lion, and the same
color. But soon we may have a real adventure."
So they went on some more--about as far as two oranges and half a
banana--and, all at once, all three saw something moving in the bushes,
and they knew that was real, for the bushes wiggled to and fro like a
rabbit's ears.
"Look out!" exclaimed Mr. Kinkytail, and the next instant they saw
Grandfather Goosey Gander come waddling out, with his shiny, tall, silk
hat on his head.
"Why, how do you do?" asked the old gentleman goose, as he walked toward
them. "I'm real glad to see you, as I am quite lonesome. I guess I'll--"
But Grandfather Goosey Gander didn't have time to say what he was going
to guess, for at that very particular instant a big, fat cow, with two
crumpled horns, stepped out from behind a tree, and with one swoop she
grabbed Grandfather Goosey Gander's tall hat in her mouth.
"Why, the very idea!" exclaimed Grandfather Goosey. "The very idea! To
take my hat! How dare you! What do you want with it?"
"I want it for a milk pail, to be sure," said the cow, as she stuck the
hat on one of her horns. "I want to take some milk to a sick cousin of
mine, and I need a pail in which to carry it. This tall hat will do very
nicely."
"Why, the very preposterous idea!" gasped the gander gentleman. "My fine
silk hat to be used as a milk pail! I'll never allow it--never!"
"Ah, but you see you can't help yourself," said the cow, as she hung the
tall hat on the branch of a tree, and sat down under it to rest. "I'm
going to walk away, directly, with your hat, and don't you dare come
here and get it, for I'll jiggle you with my crumpled horns if you do,"
went on the cow supercilious like which means sort of proud.
"That's right, she will," whispered Mr. Kinkytail. "You must let her
have her way, grandfather."
"But my nice, tall silk hat!" objected Grandfather Goosey Gander. "I
can't let her have it. I need it to wear to church, and also down to the
bank when I go to put in my money. Oh, this is terrible! I must get
it."
He started toward the tree, where his hat was hanging, but the cow got
up and shook her crumpled horns at him in such a savage way that he was
afraid to go any farther.
"Perhaps I can get it," whispered Jumpo. So he crept up behind the tree,
thinking he could grab the hat away, but the cow heard him, and almost
snitched him with one horn. Then Jacko tried, by climbing up one tree,
and getting ready to drop down into the other one where the hat was. But
the cow heard him and she almost kerfuddled him with her left crinkly
horn, so that plan failed.
"I think I know a way to get your hat," said Mr. Kinkytail at last.
"Oh, if you only can I will be so thankful!" cried Mr. Gander.
"You stay here with Jacko and Jumpo," said the monkey boys' father, "and
watch the cow so that she doesn't run away with the hat. Jacko, you and
your brother make some funny faces, and do some funny tricks so the cow
will be interested in watching you and will stay. I'll go off and get
something I need."
So the monkey boys did a lot of tricks for the cow. Jumpo made a face
like half a cherry pie, and Jacko did the trick of standing on his two
ears and making a noise like a trolley car. It was too funny for
anything, and the cow was real interested.
Then, all of a sudden, off in the woods there sounded the music of a
hand organ. And the tune it played was one called "I'm a Yellow-striped
Tiger and I'm Very Savage Now, So I Think I'll Make a Sandwich of a
Crinkled-crumpled Cow!"
Well, as soon as the cow heard that, up she jumped, crying out:
"No you don't, Mr. Tiger! You can't catch me!" And with that the cow
with the crimpled-crumpled horns ran off in the woods, leaving
Grandfather Goosey Gander's tall hat hanging on the tree.
And then, from the other side of the woods, came Mr. Kinkytail, and it
was he who had played the hand organ to scare the cow. He had hurried to
the factory to get the music machine just especially for that.
"Now your hat is safe, Mr. Gander," said the papa monkey, and soon Jacko
had scrambled up and got it, and then the goosey grandfather and the
monkey boys took turns playing the hand organ until it was time to go
home.
But I see it's your bedtime, so I can't tell any more stories for a
while. The one on the next page will be about Mrs. Kinkytail and Aunt
Lettie the lady goat--that is, if the dining-room table doesn't put its
legs down the back of the chair and tickle it so it sneezes its seat
off.
STORY XIV
JUMPO AND THE CHESTNUT BURR
"Who wants to do something for me?" called Mamma Kinkytail to her two
monkey boys as they came home from school one afternoon.
"I do!" chattered Jacko, the red chap.
"So do I," exclaimed Jumpo, the green chap.
"That's what I love to hear," said their mamma, real pleased like.
"Well, now, I have two things I want done. Some one has to go to the
store for a pound of butter, and the other one I would like to have take
some jam tarts over to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman. He
is not feeling so very well, and I thought the tarts would make him
better."
"Oh, I'll go to Uncle Wiggily's," cried both boys at once.
The reason for this was that the old gentleman rabbit always gave his
animal boy or girl visitors some chocolate peppermints, or marshmallow
candies, or something like that, and of course Jacko and Jumpo were
always glad to go to his house. That's why they both spoke at once.
"Now, that's too bad!" exclaimed Mamma Kinkytail. "Only one of you can
take the jam tarts over, because there won't be time, after you come
back, to go to the store for the pound of butter. So I guess you will
have to draw straws to see who goes to Uncle Wiggily's."
"Draw straws! What's that?" asked Jumpo, curious like.
"It's this way," his mamma explained. "I will hold two straws in my paw
so that you can only see the tip ends of them. One straw will be short,
and the other long. Then, Jumpo, you can draw one straw out of my paw,
and Jacko can take the other. Of course, you can't see which is the long
or which is the short one, and that will be perfectly fair, as the tip
ends look just alike. Then, whoever pulls out the long straw can take
the jam tarts to Uncle Wiggily."
Well, the monkey boys thought that would be nice, so they drew the
straws, one after the other, and Jumpo got the long one.
"Oh, goody!" he cried. "I'm to go to Uncle Wiggily's."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Jacko, and he felt a bit badly at having to go to
the store. But then he soon became pleasant again, and said: "Never
mind, it will be my turn next time."
"Of course," agreed Jumpo, "and if Uncle Wiggily gives me anything, I'll
save you half, Jacko."
So off the two brothers started, one going one way to the grocery and
the other in a different direction to the house of the old gentleman
rabbit. And Jumpo carried the tarts very carefully, so as not to spill
out a bit of the jam.
It didn't take Jacko long to get to the store and buy the butter. And on
his way home a big wolf chased after him. But what do you s'pose the
monkey boy did? Why, he just spread a little of the butter on the path
behind him, and made it so slippery that the wolf slid all over as he
ran, and so he couldn't catch Jacko.
But I must tell you what happened to Jumpo. The little monkey walked on
and on through the woods, and he was thinking of how nice it was under
the trees. Every once in a while he would pick up a chestnut to eat, and
this took him so long that soon he noticed it was getting dark.
"Oh, I must hurry faster than this," he said, and then, holding the
basket of jam tarts under his paw, he fairly ran on. And then, all of a
sudden, he saw a big chestnut burr on the ground in front of him. The
burr wasn't open yet, and it had a stem, like a handle to pick it up by,
so the stickers wouldn't stick you.
"Oh, there must be at least three big chestnuts in that burr," thought
Jumpo. "I'll pick that up, and then I won't stop a bit more." So he
picked up the chestnut burr, and on he hurried to Uncle Wiggily's house.
But he got a bit tired just as he was almost out of the woods, and he
thought he'd sit down to rest for only a few seconds.
So Jumpo was sitting on a flat stone, looking at the chestnut burr and
wondering if perhaps there might not be four brown, shining nuts inside,
when, all at once, he heard a rustling in the leaves beside him.
"Hark! What's that?" he cried as he leaped up and looked at the basket
of jam tarts which he had set down. "Perhaps that is some of the tarts
trying to jump out," he said.
Then he looked again, and what he saw frightened him very much. For
there was a big, fat, crawly snake on the ground moving toward the
basket of jam tarts.
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the snake, sticking out his tongue, which was like a
fork--in two parts. "I'm glad I happened to come this way." Then he
wound his pointed tail around the handle of the basket, and hissed: "I
am very fond of jam--especially in nice flaky tarts."
"Do you--do you happen to mean these tarts?" asked Jumpo, sort of
sad-like.
"Indeed, I do," answered the snake, and then he stood upon the end of
his tail on the cover of the basket and sang:
"Oh, I am happy, light and free,
Jam tarts are the things for me.
I eat them morning, noon and night,
For jam tarts, they are my delight."
Then that snake began to lift off the cover of the basket to get at the
tarts, and Jumpo cried:
"But those are for Uncle Wiggily, if you please, Mr. Snake."
"Oh, what do I care?" asked the snake, most impolitely. "I will eat
these tarts, and then I will eat you."
Well, of course Jumpo felt dreadfully on hearing that, and he was
wondering how Uncle Wiggily would feel not to get the tarts, when, all
of a sudden, the monkey boy thought of the sticky chestnut burr he still
held.
"I'll fix that snake!" he cried. And then, just as the snake was going
to eat the tarts Jumpo threw the sharp burr at the wiggly, crawly
creature. The prickly stickers went into his skin, next to his
forty-'leven ribs and land sakes goodness me and some roast peanuts!
That snake was so tickled that he laughed and he sneezed and he coughed
and splittered and spluttered, and he fell over backwards off the basket
of jam tarts, turning a somersault.
Then Jumpo saw his chance. He made a grab for the basket and ran off
with it before the snake had finished sneezing and laughing and
coughing, and so the crawly creature couldn't catch him.
Then the green monkey boy went on to Uncle Wiggily's house and gave him
the tarts. The old gentleman rabbit was very glad to get them, and after
thanking Jumpo gave him ten peppermint candies--five for himself and
five for Jacko.
And then Uncle Wiggily sent a policeman dog back with Jumpo, so the
snake wouldn't hurt him, but the crawly creature had to go to a dentist
to have the chestnut burr stickers pulled out of his ribs and so he
wasn't able to catch anybody that night.
And that will be all for this evening, if you don't mind. Now for the
next story how about Jacko and the roast chestnuts, eh? Well, that's
what it will be if the ashman doesn't take our door mat to make a pair
of roller skates for the pussy cat so she can play tag with the puppy
dog.
STORY XV
JACKO AND THE ROAST CHESTNUTS
"Who wants to stay in this afternoon, and help me clean the
blackboards?" asked the owl lady teacher one day as it was almost time
for the animal pupils to go home.
"I do!" cried Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail.
"I do!" cried Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow the puppy dog boys.
"So do I!" exclaimed Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels.
And all the other children, including the three Wibblewobbles, Dottie
and Munchie Trot, Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg--all of them--said they also
would be glad to help teacher.
"But I only need one," said the owl lady, "and as Jacko has been a very
good boy lately I'll let him stay."
Well, of course the others were somewhat disappointed, which means
sorry, but there was no help for it, and they always did as teacher
told them to, except sometimes, but this was not one of those times.
So they all went out, leaving Jacko the monkey boy and the teacher in
the schoolroom, with the blackboards all covered with words, and
sentences, and examples, and number work and maps of different
countries, including the one where cocoanuts grow.
Jacko took the erasers and a cloth and so did the teacher and they began
work. The red monkey boy could hear the other animal chaps playing ball
outside, and getting ready to fly their kites, and the girls were
shouting and giggling and screaming like anything, and they didn't know
why they did it, either, but girls most always scream, you know.
"They are having lots of fun," said the owl teacher to Jacko, "aren't
you sorry you stayed in to help me?"
"No'm," said Jacko, politely, and he brushed the chalk marks off the
blackboards harder than ever. Then, after a while, when there was only
one more board left to clean, the teacher said:
"Well, Jacko, thank you very much. You have been a great help to me. Run
along now and have a good time."
But it was getting late then, and the other animal boys and girls had
gone home. So Jacko, putting his books in a loop in his kinky tail,
also started for his house.
He had to go through rather a dark piece of woods, but he didn't mind
that, for he made up his mind to run as fast as he could, so the burglar
fox, or the wolf, wouldn't get him.
And pretty soon he came to the woods, so, holding his books tighter than
ever in his tail, away he started. And, just as he got to a hollow stump
a voice called to him:
"Hold on there, Jacko Kinkytail! Wait a minute!"
"Indeed, I will not!" cried Jacko, thinking it was the burglar fox, but
he happened to look back, and he saw that it was a kind old gentleman
squirrel, who was perched on the stump, eating a butternut.
"I just thought you might be hungry, and would like some chestnuts,"
went on the squirrel. "I have more than I need. Help yourself to a
handful."
"Thank you, I will," said Jacko, so he took some chestnuts for himself,
and some for his brother Jumpo. Then Jacko hurried on, as it was getting
darker, and on the way he ate some of the chestnuts. And, whether it was
because he was frightened, or because he was so busy eating the
chestnuts and throwing away the shells, I can't say for sure--at any
rate poor Jacko was soon lost in the woods, with night coming on, and he
couldn't find the right path.
It wasn't because Jacko didn't look for the path home that he couldn't
find it; no, indeed, for he searched as hard as ever a monkey boy could.
But that path stayed lost.
"Oh, dear! What shall I do?" said the red monkey finally. "I'm afraid
I'll have to stay in these woods forever, and never see my mamma or papa
or brother Jumpo again! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
Then he put his hand in his pocket, and he happened to feel a box of
matches. Finding them gave him an idea.
"I'll just make a little camp fire," he said. "Then, if I have to stay
in the woods all night I'll be warm. And perhaps my papa and brother
will come to search for me, and they can tell where I am by the light of
the fire. I'll build one."
It didn't take the monkey boy long to gather up some sticks and make a
fire, and soon it was blazing merrily, while he sat down in front of it,
on a flat stone, and looked at the flames. Then he thought of something
else.
"Roast chestnuts! Why not?" he exclaimed. "I'm hungry and they will be
just the thing for my supper."
So he took some of the chestnuts the squirrel had given him, and put
them in the hot ashes to roast. Well, the nuts were almost ready to eat,
after they had cooled a bit, when, all of a sudden, something reached
around Jacko's neck from the darkness behind him, and a voice cried out:
"Ah, ha! This time I've got you sure! I thought I'd find something for
my supper if I came out, and I have!"
Jacko turned around and saw that the savage wolf had hold of him.
"Oh, please let me go!" cried the poor monkey boy. He struggled to get
loose, but couldn't.
"Indeed I'll not let you go!" snarled the wolf. "I'm going to sit down
by your fire, and get warm, and then I'll carry you off to my den."
Well, Jacko felt dreadfully on hearing that. But just you wait and see
what happens, if you please.
All of a sudden, just as the wolf was getting ready to carry the monkey
boy off to his den, the chestnuts in the fire began bursting and popping
from the heat.
"Bang-bang!" they went, like fire-crackers. My! what a noise they made
as they exploded.
"Oh, I'm shot! I'm hit! Some one is shooting guns at me! Oh, please,
don't kill me! I'll be good! I won't eat Jacko! I was only fooling!"
cried the wolf, in a great fright.
"Bang-bang!" went more chestnuts, and some of them hit the wolf in the
eye. Then he gave three and a half howls, let go of Jacko and ran off in
the woods as fast as he could go.
Then Jacko heard a great shouting, and up rushed his papa and his
brother Jumpo, who had been looking all over for him. They heard the
bursting chestnuts and they hurried toward the sound, finding the lost
monkey boy just in time. They soon showed him the way home, and so the
wolf didn't have any supper that night, and everybody said Jacko was a
very brave little monkey chap, and I think so myself; don't you?
Now in case a little pig with a curly tail doesn't take my red necktie
to wear to the picnic and make the angle worm laugh and turn a
somersault, I'll tell you next about the Kinkytails making money.
STORY XVI
THE KINKYTAILS MAKE MONEY
"Mamma, would you please buy us an automobile?" asked Jacko Kinkytail of
his mother one Saturday morning when there wasn't any school.
"An automobile? Why, my dear boy, what would you do with an automobile?"
asked Mrs. Kinkytail.
"Oh, yes; please do get us one, mother!" begged Jumpo.
"Oh, my! I never heard of such a thing!" cried the monkeys' mamma, as
she trimmed the dough off the edge of an apple pie and put it in the
oven to bake. "What could you possibly do with it--you two little boys?"
"Why, we could soon learn to run it," said Jacko. "Then we could go to
school in it, and come home and take papa to the hand organ factory, and
take you to the store, and we could even take out parties on excursion
trips and make money that way."
[Illustration]
"What would you do when your auto wouldn't go?" asked Mrs. Kinkytail,
as she got ready to bake a chocolate cocoanut cake with cherries on the
top.
"Oh, we could take turns pulling it then," spoke Jumpo. "Uncle Wiggily
has one, so why can't we?"
"Uncle Wiggily is rich, since he found his fortune," said Mrs.
Kinkytail, "but your papa and I haven't money enough to buy even a set
of tires for an auto. Still, if you boys could earn the money yourselves
you might get one," she said. Of course, she was only joking, for she
never thought the boys would take her in earnest. But they did.
"All right, then, we'll earn the money," said Jacko. "Come on, Jumpo."
"Don't stay away too long," cautioned their mamma, and she smiled as the
two little monkey boys slid down the tree in which the house was built,
and hurried away.
"How are we going to make money?" asked Jumpo, as he followed after his
brother. "Are you going to gather up old rags, bones and bottles, and
sell them?"
"Come on, I'll show you," spoke Jacko, as he tied his tail in a bow knot
to keep it from dragging in the dust. "I'm going to the hand organ
factory, where papa works, and I'm going to ask him to lend us an old
organ. Then you and I will go around and play music and people will give
us pennies. We'll soon have enough to buy an automobile."
"The very thing!" cried Jumpo in delight. "You can play the organ and
I'll climb up to the windows where the children are and get the pennies.
Then this afternoon we'll buy the auto, and go for a ride. Won't mamma
be surprised?"
"I guess so," answered Jacko. "I hope we get enough money today. How
much do you s'pose an auto costs, Jumpo?"
"Oh, I guess twenty-six or twenty-seven cents. I know they're very
expensive. But we can easily earn the money, for if the children give
single pennies to a man playing the organ, who has a monkey with him,
they'll probably give us double five-cent pieces to see two monkeys, and
we'll soon have the twenty-seven cents, or, maybe, even thirty--who
knows."
Mr. Kinkytail was very busy in the factory when his two boys came in to
see him, and he said they could have a second-hand hand organ that
played sort of wheezy-eezy tunes. He was so busy that he didn't even ask
them what they wanted it for and they didn't tell him. They just took
the organ and started off with it.
"Now we must play the very best tunes, and you must do some of your
finest tricks," said Jacko, as they walked along until they came to a
row of brick houses. "This will be a good place to begin," said the red
monkey boy. "Rich people must live here."
Well, I just wish you could have heard Jacko play that hand organ.
Really, he did as well as you could, turning the handle sometimes with
his left paw, and sometimes with his right and sometimes with his tail.
"Oh, mamma!" cried a little girl at one window. "Come quick and see two
monkeys with a hand organ! And one of them is coming up here. Oh, give
me five cents for him!"
"Two monkeys!" exclaimed her mamma. "You must be mistaken. You mean a
man with a monkey."
"No, really, mamma!" cried the little girl. "Come and see."
"Sure enough!" spoke her mamma. "Two monkeys. Two monkeys. How very odd.
Here is ten cents for them. Aren't they cute?"
By this time Jumpo was climbing up the porch to where the little girl
was holding out the money for him and Jacko was grinding the handle of
the organ and playing a tune called: "If You Have Your Umbrella You Will
Never Mind the Rain."
When the little girl handed Jumpo the money he took off his pink cap,
made a low bow, and, then standing on the roof of the porch, he turned a
somersault, stood on his tail and made a queer face like an ice cream
cone inside of a watermelon.
"Oh, what a funny monkey!" cried the little girl in delight. "I wish I
could keep him!"
"I guess it's time for me to be going," thought Jumpo. "She might want
to keep me forever and then Jacko and I couldn't get the auto."
So he went on to the next house where there was a little boy, and Jumpo
climbed up, and did some more tricks and Jacko kept on playing. By this
time all the children in the block had heard about the two monkeys with
the hand organ, and the boys and girls came with so many pennies that
Jumpo's cap was hardly large enough to hold them.
"Oh, Jacko, we've got as much as fifty cents!" he cried as they went on
to the next block, and there they got more money until they had over a
dollar. And then a big dog chased them, and the two monkey boys hurried
back home.
"But we've got enough to buy our auto," said Jacko, "so it's all right.
Oh, won't we have fun in it!"
"Indeed, we will!" cried Jumpo, as he wiggled both his ears and on the
next page, in case the feather in the hat of the little girl next door
doesn't tickle my puppy dog and make him sneeze, I'll tell you how the
Kinkytails spent their money.
STORY XVII
THE KINKYTAILS SPEND MONEY
"Well, I must say I never thought you two monkey boys would go off and
earn money that way," said Mamma Kinkytail, as Jacko and Jumpo came in
with the second-hand hand organ, after having gone around and played
tunes, as I told you about in the story ahead of this.
"Neither did I know what they were up to," said their father, as he sat
reading the evening paper, after supper. "Why, when you boys came down
to the factory, and asked me to let you take a second-hand hand organ I
had no idea that you were going to do what you did."
"But you don't mind; do you?" asked Jumpo.
"Because we thought it was all right," spoke Jacko.
"Oh, bless you, no," said their mamma. "It _was_ all right." And then
Jacko told her how he and his brother had played the music and done the
tricks, and how the little girl had given them ten cents and the other
children pennies and five-cent pieces, and how delighted all the
children were to see them.
"It was clever of you," said Mrs. Kinkytail.
"How much money did you make?" asked their papa, laughing behind his
paper.
"We took in one dollar and seventeen cents," said Jacko, as he counted
it, "and we would have had eighteen cents, only I dropped one penny down
a crack in the board walk of a house. But maybe we can get it some day."
"And now may we go down town and buy our auto?" asked Jumpo eagerly.
"It's early yet and the stores will be open for some time. Please may
we, mother?"
"You can't get an automobile for a dollar and seventeen cents," said
their papa.
"Well, we can try, can't we?" asked Jacko.
"Oh, let them go," whispered their mamma to Mr. Kinkytail. "It will do
no harm, and they will very soon find out their mistake."
"I guess so," agreed their papa, as he looked in the paper to see if it
was going to be nice weather Sunday.
So Jacko and Jumpo having carefully wrapped their money in a piece of
paper, started down town. And on their way they met Sammie Littletail,
the boy rabbit, who wanted to know where they were going. So they told
him.
"Ha, ha! Ho, ho!" laughed Sammie. "You can't get an auto for that money.
Why an automobile costs as much as three dollars and fifteen cents, and
then there's the gasoline to make it go--that costs money, too."
"Don't mind him," spoke Jacko, pulling his brother by the sleeve. "We'll
get that auto anyhow."
So they kept on down town, and pretty soon they could see the lights in
the stores, and they hurried faster than ever, for they were very
anxious to get their auto.
"Have you got the money safe?" asked Jumpo.
"Yes," said Jacko, and just then, as they turned around a corner they
saw a poor little mousie girl. Oh, she was such a poor little girl, and
she had on such a ragged dress, and her shoes were so full of holes that
there was hardly room for her tiny feet in them. And she was crying and
shivering with the cold.
"Why, what is the matter?" asked Jacko, kindly.
"Oh, I'm so cold and miserable and hungry," said the mousie girl, wiping
away her tears.
"Then why don't you go home and get warm and have something to eat,"
said Jumpo. "That's what we do when we're cold and hungry, don't we,
Jacko?"
"Yes, but there is no fire in my house," said the poor little mousie
girl, "and there is nothing to eat."
"Why not?" asked Jacko, surprised like, and he felt in his pockets once
more, to see if he had his money safe.
"Because we are too poor," answered the mousie girl. "My papa is sick
with the epizootic, and my mamma has the rheumatism so bad that she
can't take in washing, and we are so cold and miserable! My little
brother sells papers, telling the mouse people about cheese and
crackers, and how to keep out of traps, but his toes got so cold,
because he had no shoes, that he can't sell papers any more.
"So I started out to sell matches, but I dropped them in a barrel of
water, and no one wants to buy wet matches, you know. Oh, hoo, boo! Boo,
hoo! How cold and miserable and hungry I am!" and she cried, oh so
sadly.
Jacko and Jumpo thought for a minute. Then Jacko pulled his brother to
one side.
"Look here," said Jacko, blinking his eyes, "we've got to do something
for that mousie girl."
"That's right," said Jumpo, sniffing his nose.
"I--I don't care much about an automobile, anyhow, do you?" asked Jacko.
"N--no--no--not--much," spoke Jumpo, slowly.
"They're always getting stuck, and won't go, and then you have to get
out and walk, and besides they use so much gasoline, and--and gasoline
smells so--so funny! Say, we don't need an auto. Let's give the mousie
girl this money."
"All right," said Jumpo, so Jacko handed the poor little girl the $1.17.
"There," said Jacko, "take it home and get some coal and something to
eat. We don't want an auto, anyway."
"Oh, thank you so much!" exclaimed the mousie girl, as she hurried away.
"Well, I--I guess we might as well go back home," said Jacko, sadly,
after a bit.
"Yes," agreed Jumpo, and they started off together. Well, they hadn't
gone very far before they heard a bangity-bang noise down the street,
and, running up, they saw Uncle Wiggily standing in front of his auto.
It was standing still and smoking and making a terrible racket and a
policeman dog was saying:
"Come, now, Mr. Wiggily, you'll have to move along."
"Move along! I only wish I could," cried the old gentleman rabbit. "I
never saw such a pesky automobile! It's always stopping. I've jiggled
and joggled and tickled everything from the whoop-de-doodle-do down to
the slam-bangity-what-is-it, but it won't go. I'm done with it. Whoever
wants it can have it!"
"Oh, may we have it?" cried Jacko, as Uncle Wiggily started toward the
sidewalk, leaving the auto in the street.
"To be sure you may, and I'll buy a gallon of gasoline into the
bargain!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"Come on, we'll pull it home, and then we'll fix it so that it will go!"
cried Jacko; so he and Jumpo pulled the auto home, and that's how they
got one after all, without any money. And the little mousie girl wasn't
cold or hungry any more.
And in case the ice box doesn't catch cold in the rice pudding and
freeze the potato salad so it can't go to moving pictures, I'll tell you
next about Jacko and Jumpo in their auto.
STORY XVIII
JUMPO AND JACKO IN THE AUTO
"Aren't you glad it's Saturday, when we don't have to go to school?"
asked Jacko Kinkytail of his brother Jumpo, the green monkey, when he
awoke one morning.
"Of course I'm glad," answered Jumpo. "But what are we going to do
today--go fishing?"
"No, indeed! Why, have you forgotten about the little automobile which
Uncle Wiggily gave us? It's down in the yard."
"Oh, of course! And we can go for a ride in it. Oh, how glad I am!"
And, would you believe me, Jumpo was so happy that he jumped out of bed
and hung by his tail from the back of the rocking chair.
And Jacko took up a ball and caught it, first in one foot and then in
the other, until it happened to slip away from him, striking Jumpo on
the nose.
"Ouch!" cried Jumpo, and he uncurled his tail from the chair and rubbed
his nose.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Jacko. "I didn't mean to do that. Wait.
I'll help you rub your nose."
Well, he started to rub poor Jumpo's sore nose, but Jacko made a little
mistake. He took up a piece of sticky fly paper instead of a
handkerchief, and the fly paper stuck to the nose of the green monkey so
that he could hardly breathe, and his mamma had to come running in the
bedroom to see what was the matter.
"Oh, you funny boys!" she exclaimed. "You are always up to some tricks.
You had better get dressed at once and go out to play. It is a fine
day."
"Of course we will!" cried Jacko. "Come on, Jumpo. We'll go for a long
automobile ride."
So after Mrs. Kinkytail had taken the fly paper off Jumpo's nose, the
monkey boys had breakfast and they got ready to go out. The automobile
which Uncle Wiggily had given the monkey boys, because it wouldn't go
for him, had been fixed by Mr. Kinkytail, so it was now as good as ever.
The tires were pumped full of wind and then Jumpo climbed up on the seat
and took hold of the steering wheel. Jacko twisted the crank in front,
and he did it very well, too, for, you know, he had plenty of practise
in twisting the cranks of hand-organs, so he knew just how to do it.
And then the auto started off. Whizz! Whazz! Whuzz! it went, down the
street, faster and faster, until it was out on a nice country road.
"My! Isn't this just fine!" cried Jumpo.
"It certainly is as delicious as two ice cream cones and part of another
one," replied his brother.
And they laughed and looked at each other and they nearly ran over a
rooster, and the rooster crowed as loud as he could and said:
"You monkey boys had better look out where you are going! You have me
all ruffled up."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Jumpo most politely. "We will go more
slowly."
So he twisted some of the shiny things on the steering wheel, and he
tickled the thing-a-ma-bob and pushed the tittle-cum-tattle-cum and the
auto went slower. But even then it was going pretty fast.
"Say, if a burglar fox chased us now, he couldn't catch us, could he?"
said Jacko.
"Never in the world," answered his brother.
And just then a big, black bear stuck his nose out of the bushes and
growled:
"Hold on there, I haven't had any dinner yet."
"Well, you can't eat us!" shouted Jumpo, so he turned the
what-you-may-call-it around backward and away they went faster than ever
and the bear couldn't catch them, not even if he had put on roller
skates to slide with.
Well, after a while, not so very long, all of a sudden, as the monkey
boys were riding along through the woods, all of a sudden, I say, their
auto stopped. It wouldn't go a bit farther.
"What's the matter?" asked Jacko.
"I don't know," said Jumpo, looking all around.
"Maybe the squee-gee is on crooked," said the red monkey.
"No, that's all straight," answered the green monkey, as he looked at it
to make sure.
"Then perhaps the busticated-what's-his-name needs oiling," suggested
Jacko.
So Jumpo put some oil on the busticated-what's-his-name, but still that
auto wouldn't go any more than a clock will if it isn't wound up.
"Maybe all the wheels are off," spoke Jacko.
So they got out to look, but the wheels were on all right and tight, and
the big tires were full of wind like a bologna sausage. Well, these
monkey boys didn't know what to do, and they were beginning to be
frightened, for they were in the deep woods, where there might be
wolves. They began to wish they hadn't come so far, or else that they
knew more about autos.
All of a sudden they heard a rustling in the bushes, and they looked
around, fearing they might see the burglar fox, perhaps, but whom do you
suppose it was? Why, no one else than Grandfather Goosey Gander.
"Oh, our auto is stuck!" cried Jacko.
"Yes, it won't go," said Jumpo.
Grandfather Goosey took one look at the machine, then he sniffed the air
and said:
"Why, of course, it won't go, you have no more gasoline. I know, for I
once had a motor-boat and the same thing happened to me. You need
gasoline, just as I did. Go buy some gasoline."
"Where can we get it; here in the woods?" asked Jacko.
Grandfather Goosey Gander sniffed the air again.
"I smell gasoline," he said, "and it's over this way. Come with me." So
he led the monkey boys through the woods toward a big stump, and there,
right behind it, was Aunt Lettie, the old lady goat. And what do you
s'pose she was doing? Why, she was cleaning the spots off the trousers
of Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck boy, with gasoline. She had a big can
full, for you know gasoline cleans spots off things very nicely.
"Oh, will you please give us some of your gasoline to make our auto go?"
asked Jacko politely of the old lady goat.
"Mercy sakes alive, child! Of course I will," said Aunt Lettie.
So she gave the monkey boys some, and Grandfather Goosey Gander showed
them how to pour it in the tank of their car. Then Jumpo twisted the
tinkerum-tankerum and away the auto went, whizz-whazz! and the boys had
a fine ride.
They went through the woods and up one hill and down another, and when
they were almost home a big savage wolf chased them, but he couldn't
catch up to that auto; no, sir, no matter how he tried, and he couldn't
bite any holes in the tires, either.
So Jacko and Jumpo got safely home, just in time for dinner, and they
had huckleberry pie and chocolate drops on it with their milk.
So that's all now, if you please, but in case the spoonholder doesn't
squeeze the salt-shaker and make the pepper box sneeze, I'll tell you on
the next page about Jumpo and the roast marshmallow candy.
STORY XIX
JUMPO AND THE ROAST MARSHMALLOWS
It was almost time for school to be out, and Jacko and Jumpo, the red
and green monkey boys, could hardly wait, as they wanted to run home and
go for another ride in their little auto. Of course, all the other
animal children also wished school was over, for Jacko and Jumpo had
promised to let all of them have turns riding in the gasoline car. But
just when it was almost time for school to be out the owl school teacher
said:
"Now, children, I am going to give you all some lessons to study at
home, and I want you all to do them as nicely as you can. Now pay
attention, please."
So she gave some of the pupils examples to do, and to others she gave
spelling, and to still others writing, while the bigger children, like
Sammie Littletail or Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, had geography to
study. And the little kindergarten children had to cut things out of
paper--horses and cows and houses and trees, and things like that.
"Now you may all go," said the teacher, "and bring your lessons in with
you to-morrow morning."
Well, the animal children marched out, but they weren't very happy. They
didn't think they ought to have to study at home, but it has to be done,
sometimes, you know. And really it isn't so hard if you don't think so.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Jacko to his brother, when they were outside the
school. "We can't go for an auto ride if we have to study our examples."
"No; isn't it mean?" exclaimed his brother. "But perhaps if we run along
quickly we'll have time for just a little ride before we have to do our
home work."
So they hurried as fast as they could and they soon reached home. Then
their mamma said they might ride around the block a couple of times in
their auto before doing any study.
"And then, after your lessons are done, you may ride some more," she
said; "that is if it isn't too dark."
Well, Jacko and Jumpo took their little ride, and they gave rides to as
many of their friends as they could. Then they went in the house to
study.
But alas and alack-a-day! You know how it happens sometimes. Jacko got
his example all twisted up, and the answer wouldn't come right. And
Jumpo's numbers got all snarled up, until the figure six looked like a
nine and the figure eight like a brown cruller which his mamma sometimes
made in the lard kettle.
"Oh, dear!" cried both the monkey boys. "We'll never get done in time to
go auto riding before dark."
"Never mind," spoke their mamma, "I'll help you." And she did; but even
then it was dark before they were finished, and quite too late to go out
in the auto, for they might have hit a lamp post and bent the rubber
tires into a figure forty-'leven.
"What can we do to have some fun?" asked Jumpo, as he untied two hard
knots in his tail.
"How would you like to roast some marshmallow candies?" asked his
mother, looking over the top of the piano.
"How do you do it?" inquired Jacko, who was still studying.
[Illustration]
"You build a little fire," said his mamma, "only you must be very
careful not to get too near it. Then you take a stick and sharpen the
end. Then you fasten a soft marshmallow candy on the pointed stick, and
hold it near the fire, but not too close, and pretty soon the
marshmallow candy puffs up and gets nice and brown and you eat it--only
you must wait until it is cool, or you might burn your tongue. Do you
want to do that?"
"Burn my tongue? No, indeed!" cried Jumpo, making a funny face and
wriggling his tail up and down like a fan.
"Oh, I didn't mean burn your tongue, you funny boy," spoke his mamma
with a laugh. "I meant do you want to build a fire and roast
marshmallows?"
"Surely," said Jumpo politely. "Don't you, Jacko?"
"No, I guess not," said the red monkey boy. "I think I'll read a little
after my lessons are done and then go to bed. To-morrow we may not have
to study at home, and we can take a longer auto ride."
So Jumpo went out alone in front of his house to roast the marshmallows.
His mamma gave him some of the candies in a tin box, and he sharpened
his own stick, and built a nice little fire, being careful not to make
it too large. And he was also careful not to get burned.
By this time it was quite dark, and the fire looked very pretty,
blazing just on the edge of the woods near where the monkey's tree-house
was built. When there were some nice, glowing, hot coals in the blaze
Jumpo got ready to roast the marshmallow candies. He stuck one on the
sharp stick, and held it close to the fire.
But, oh, dear me, hum suz dud! Jumpo held the candy too close, and the
first thing you know it caught fire and melted and fell off the stick
down into the blaze and was burned up! Wasn't that too bad?
"I'll not hold the next one so close," he said, and he was careful; so
the second candy turned a nice golden brown and puffed up nearly twice
as big as it had been before.
"Oh, I know what I'll do!" suddenly exclaimed Jumpo. "I'll toast a lot
of them and take them in the house for mamma and papa and Jacko."
So he roasted the candies as fast as he could until he had quite a pile
of them in a box. As they were very hot he pushed them off the end on
the pointed stick, using a piece of bark for a pusher.
Jumpo was so busy that he didn't look behind him. If he had done so he
would have been very much frightened. For there, creeping out of the
bushes, was the burglar fox, with his big tail and sharp teeth. And he
was creeping, creeping up toward Jumpo to eat him. But Jumpo didn't know
a thing about it. He was so busy roasting marshmallow candies.
All of a sudden the fox accidentally stepped on a stick, and it broke in
two pieces and made a loud noise. Jumpo heard it and turned around.
Then, by the light of the fire, he saw the fox coming toward him.
"Ah, ha! Now I have you!" cried the bad creature, and he made a spring
to catch the monkey boy. Jumpo didn't wait to be caught, you may be sure
of that. He jumped, too, and the green monkey happened to tip over the
box of toasted marshmallow candies as he leaped to one side. He upset
them all over the ground, and then what do you s'pose happened?
Why, that bad fox landed right in the midst of the hot, soft candies,
and they got all over his feet, like sticky flypaper, and they burned
him. Oh, how he howled! The more he tried to get the candies off, the
tighter they stuck. The fox turned a somersault, and then the candies
got all over his fur, until he looked like a marshmallow fox. And, of
course, he couldn't catch Jumpo then, for he was so stuck up.
The monkey boy ran in the house and told his papa about the fox, and Mr.
Kinkytail came out with his gun. But by that time the fox had run off
to find a puddle of water so that he could wash the candy out of his
fur, and he wasn't in sight for Papa Kinkytail to shoot.
"Oh, my poor marshmallows!" cried Jumpo, when he saw that they were all
spoiled by the fox rolling in them. "Oh, dear!"
"Never mind, I have another boxful," said his mother, kindly.
"And this time I'll help you roast them," said Jacko. So he did, and
there were enough candies for the whole family. Then they all went to
bed and the fox didn't bother them for a long time after that.
Now, if the egg beater doesn't knock all the dust out of the piano cover
when it dresses up like a rag doll, I'll tell you next about Jacko and
the busy bee.
STORY XX
JACKO AND THE BUSY BEE
"Boys, I wish you would go to the store for me," said Mrs. Kinkytail to
Jacko and Jumpo when they came home from school one afternoon.
"Of course we will," said the red monkey. "Do you want some sugar and
chocolate to make candy?"
"No, but I want a yeast cake and some flour to make bread with," said
the mamma monkey. "Bread is more important than candy," she went on,
"though candy is very good, if you don't eat too much. And I also want
some molasses, for I am going to make molasses cookies."
"Oh, goodie!" cried Jumpo. "Come on, Jacko, we'll go in our automobile
and it won't take us very long. Then we can go on another ride when we
come back, and have some fun with the other animal boys."
So their mamma gave them the money for the yeast cake, the flour and
molasses and away they started off in the auto, blowing the horn, to
kindly ask every one to look out so they wouldn't get run over.
Jacko was steering, and Jumpo was sitting beside him. They hadn't gone
very far before they met Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman
rabbit who had given them the auto.
"Hello, Uncle Wiggily!" called Jacko, "don't you want a ride?"
"I believe I will get in," spoke the gentleman rabbit. "As my rheumatism
hurts me to-day, I can't walk very well."
"Aren't you sorry you gave away this nice auto? Don't you want it back?"
asked Jumpo, though he hoped he and his brother could keep it.
"No," answered the old gentleman rabbit, shaking his head. "I never had
any luck with that auto. It wouldn't go for me, and I can't understand
how it goes for you. I'm afraid if I ride with you that you'll have bad
luck."
But the boys didn't think so, and the rabbit gentleman got in the back
seat. Away they went once more. Uncle Wiggily was just thinking what a
nice ride he was having, and he was wishing he could run the auto like
that, when, all of a sudden, there was a bangity-bang noise and the auto
stopped.
"There!" cried the rabbit. "What did I tell you? I knew I'd give you bad
luck. Let me get out and walk. Then it will go again," and before Jacko
and Jumpo could stop him, Uncle Wiggily hopped out.
"Wait, we'll soon get it fixed," said Jacko. "Then you can ride some
more."
"No, indeed!" answered Uncle Wiggily. "That auto will never go again.
I'm going to walk, I'm in a hurry."
So away he hopped through the woods, and Jacko and Jumpo tried to see
what was the matter with their car. But though they pushed and pulled
and twisted and turned everything they could see or think of, the auto
stood still just like a tree growing in the woods.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Jumpo, "we may have to stay here all night, and
the grocery store will close before we can get to it, and we can't have
any molasses cookies."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," spoke Jacko. "You skip off through the
woods to the store, and get the things, and I'll stay here and see if I
can fix the auto. By the time you get back with the yeast cake and flour
and molasses, I may have it running."
Well, Jumpo thought that was good advice, so he ran on through the woods
to the grocery store. And Jacko tried once more to make the auto go. He
shoved and he twisted and he turned, and he even put some fresh air in
the hollow tires, but the auto wouldn't move.
"I know what I'll do," he exclaimed, "I'll take out the toodle-oodle-um
and put it where the diddle-daddle-um belongs and I'll put the
snicky-snackum in the place of the mickie-mackie-um. That may be the
trouble."
So he did that and then he climbed up on the seat and sure enough the
auto went off as nicely as a piece of cherry pie, with the fizzle-fozzle
going flippity-flop.
"Oh, joy!" cried Jacko, when he saw that the car was all right. "Now
when Jumpo comes back with the groceries we can ride home and have some
fun." So he got out of the auto, after stopping it, of course, to wait
for his brother.
Jacko walked around in the woods and pretty soon he came up to a tree.
Inside of it he heard a funny buzzing sound, and then he heard a voice
singing this little song:
"I am a busy little bee,
I'm buzzing all the day.
I make so much sweet honey that
I have no time to play."
Then Jacko looked and he saw a little hole in the tree. He went close up
to it and said:
"Are you there in that hole, Mrs. Bee?"
"Yes," was the answer, "but please go away, little boy, as I am very
busy, I have to make enough honey to last all winter."
Well, Jacko was just going away when he saw a snake sneaking along on
the ground. And that bad snake took up some soft mud on the end of his
tail, and he plastered it over the hole in the tree where the bee was
making honey, so she couldn't get out when she wanted to.
"Now, when that bee is dead I'll come and get the honey," hissed the
snake, just like a steam radiator.
"No you won't!" cried Jacko, and then he blew the big auto horn so
loudly that the snake was frightened and crawled away as fast as he
could. Then the red monkey took a stick, and knocked the mud away from
the bee's hole so she could come out when she wanted to.
"Oh, thank you, so much!" buzzed the bee. "I'll give you some honey for
being kind to me." So she gave Jacko some, and also some for his
brother, and by that time Jumpo came back from the store with the
groceries and he was glad to find that Jacko had fixed the auto, though
he was a little frightened when he heard about the snake.
The two brothers were just going to ride home in their car, but before
they could get it started all of a sudden along came the savage wolf. He
was just going to grab Jumpo, and maybe Jacko also, for all I know, when
the busy bee just buzzed up and stung the wolf on the tip of his soft
and tender black nose so that he ran howling away to put some mud on the
sting. And so he didn't eat either of the monkey boys, and the bee was
glad she had helped them.
Then they hurried home in their automobile and their mamma made some
molasses cookies and they had them for supper with honey on, and Oh! how
delicious they were. And after supper Jacko and Jumpo played tag with
Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, until it was time to go to
bed. So now, good night, if you please.
And in the next story I'll tell you about the Kinkytails and the grape
vine--that is if the basket of peaches doesn't fall down the chimney and
scare the fire shovel so that it hides in the ash can.
STORY XXI
JACKO AND THE GRAPE VINE
Jacko Kinkytail had to go alone to school one day, and the reason for it
was because Jumpo had the toothache and could not go with his brother.
Oh, how poor Jumpo did suffer. His mamma did everything she could for
him, putting cloves on his tooth and bags of hot salt outside of his
funny, little, fuzzy, hairy face, but the tooth still ached.
"Oh, I never can recite my lessons today," said Jumpo, as he tied his
tail in two hard knots, thinking that would make him forget the pain.
"Then you needn't go to school," said his mother. "And pretty soon we'll
go down to the dentist's and have the tooth fixed."
Well, Jacko started off alone, and he felt quite sorry that his brother
wasn't with him. Pretty soon Jacko met Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy
duck. And Jimmie had a new football that his papa had given him.
"Let's see who can kick it the farthest," said the duck boy.
So he tried, and he kicked it about as far as from a stick of peppermint
candy to the place where the ice cream cones grew on the cocoanut tree.
Then it was Jacko's turn.
The red monkey put the football down on the ground. Then he took a
little run and he pushed the ball as hard as he could with one foot and
also with his tail. Away it sailed as far as from the ice cream soda
fountain store down to the place where the man sells hot peanuts at five
cents a bag.
"That was a fine kick!" cried Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, who
came along just then. "A most dandy kick."
"Yes, but Jacko used his tail besides his foot to kick with, and I can't
do that," said Jimmie, sort of sad-like.
"Perhaps what I did wasn't just fair," admitted Jacko. "Never mind,
after school we'll have a good football game. We'll go down by our house
and play, so that my brother, who is sick with the toothache, can look
out of the window and watch us. Then he won't think so much of his
pain."
Well, the boy animals thought this was a good plan, so when school was
out they hurried with Jacko to the monkey-house. Then they began to
play football. They kicked the ball all around, up one side, down the
other, through the middle, and sometimes even sideways. And the ball
never said a word, nor so much as winked its eyes.
"Now, for a big, long kick!" suddenly cried Jacko, when he got a chance.
"I believe I can almost kick that ball to the end of the rainbow." Of
course, there wasn't any rainbow there at the time, but Jacko just said
that for fun.
Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, suddenly rushed at Jacko, trying to
kick the ball before the monkey boy could do so, but Jacko was too quick
for Johnnie, and kicked it first. Away sailed the ball, farther than
ever, and then something happened. The football went right over a high,
steep, straight-up-and-down hill, and fell into a big hole on the other
side.
"Oh, there goes my ball!" cried Jimmie Wibblewobble, and he tried not to
cry, though he felt very much like it.
"Never mind, we can get it again," said Billie Bushytail. "You oughtn't
to kick so strong, Jacko."
"I s'pose I ought not to," agreed the monkey boy, sort of sad-like. "But
I will go down and get the ball. Then we can play another game."
And all this while Jumpo was watching the boys from out of the window.
And his tooth didn't ache quite so badly when he saw what fun they were
having. He wished he was with them.
"What's the matter?" Jumpo asked, when he saw the ball bounce out of
sight over the hill.
"It's fallen down in a big hole, and I'm going after it," said Jacko.
So the red monkey and his friends went to the edge of the hill and
looked over. Oh! it was a very steep, dark place, and when Jacko saw how
far down he'd have to go he was a bit afraid.
"I don't believe I can go down there," he said, wriggling his tail. "But
I will try, because it was my fault that the ball went over. I'll climb
down."
"No, don't do that," spoke Sammie Littletail. "You might fall and be
hurt. See, here is a long wild grapevine. The vine is just like a rope.
We can tie one end around you while we hold on the other end. Then we
can lower you down into the hole, just like on an elevator, and you can
get the football. Then we'll pull you up again."
Every one thought that was a good plan, so they took a long piece of
grapevine and tied it around Jacko.
"Careful now!" called Jacko, as they began lowering him over the edge
of the hill, down into the hole where the football was. "Don't let me
fall!"
They all had tight hold of the grapevine rope, and they promised they
wouldn't let go. And they lowered Jacko down, down, down; very slowly
and carefully, until he could pick up the lost football in his paws.
Then they began to pull him up.
But they didn't know that a savage hawk-bird had her nest in the side of
that hill. And Jacko was lowered right past where she lived. When he
went down the bird was asleep, but when his friends began pulling him up
the bad bird awakened. She looked out, and she saw Jacko, the red
monkey, swinging on the end of the grapevine near her nest of eggs.
"Now is my chance to pick his eyes out!" cried the hawk-bird. Right at
Jacko she flew, beating her big wings and gnashing her beak, and
wiggling her sharp claws. Jacko saw her coming, but he had the football
in one paw and he had to hold on the rope with the other, so he couldn't
do much except with his feet.
"Here's where I bite you!" cried the savage hawk, and really it did seem
as if she would. For the boy animals couldn't pull Jacko up fast enough
to get him out the way of the hawk. And there he was, dangling on the
end of the grapevine rope like an apple on a string.
Then Jumpo, sitting up in the window, saw what was happening. He wanted
to help his brother, so he cried:
"Some of you fellows come and get my bean shooter, and shoot the hawk
until she lets Jacko alone. Hurry and get my shooter."
So Sammie Littletail ran and got the shooter, and a lot of hard beans.
Then he leaned over the edge of the steep hill, and he blew beans at the
hawk that was flying around trying to pick out Jacko's eyes.
The beans hit the bird all over; on her tail and on her feathers and on
her claws and beak, and soon she was glad enough to fly back into her
nest and let the monkey boy alone, for she couldn't see Sammie blowing
the beans, as he was hidden behind a bush.
Then the boy animals hurried and pulled up Jacko and the football and he
was safe, and they had a lot more fun playing the game, and every one
said that Jumpo was very smart to think of the bean shooter. And the
green monkey boy was so excited that he forgot all about his toothache,
which was a good thing, and the next day the dentist fixed it so that it
never ached again.
I hope none of you ever have the toothache.
Now, if the ketchup bottle doesn't spill itself into the pitcher of
lemonade and make it look like a pink tomato, I'll tell you next about
Jacko doing a trick.
STORY XXII
JACKO DOES SOME TRICKS
Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, a very queer thing
happened to Jacko Kinkytail, the red monkey boy, and I'm going to tell
you all about it from the beginning down to the very end, and I hope
you'll like it. You see it started this way.
It was after school one day, when all the boy and girl animals were on
their way home with their books in straps, or else under their paws or
wings. Jacko and Jumpo were walking along, sometimes picking up things
in their front paws or their feet or their long tails, when, all of a
sudden Sammie Littletail, the boy rabbit, said:
"Let's have a race, and see who gets to the big black stump first."
Now this black stump was in the middle of the woods, through which the
children had to go on their way to and from school. The stump looked
like an elephant trying to catch his tail in his trunk, but of course it
wasn't really alive; only make-believe, you know.
"I think I can run faster than anybody," said Munchie Trot, the boy
pony.
"Oh, no; I'm the fastest," spoke Bully No-Tail, the frog.
"We'll see," whistled Dickie Chip-Chip, the sparrow.
Away they started for the big, black stump, girls and boys all together.
Some of them flew and some of them hopped and some ran, just as they
liked. But Dickie Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, got to the stump first,
because he could go through the air like a balloon or an airship. Then
they were all out of breath from the race as they came to the stump, one
after another, so they sat down to rest.
"Well, we're all ready now, let's run some more," said Lulu
Wibblewobble, the duck girl, after a while, as she looked to see if her
neck ribbon had come off. So they all started to run again, just as you
do when you come from school, only Jacko Kinkytail didn't race with the
others this time.
"What's the matter?" asked his brother, looking back. "Aren't you coming
with us?"
"No, I'm too tired," said the little red monkey boy. "I'm going to sit
here and rest a bit. I'll be home after a while, and you and I will have
an auto ride, Jumpo."
So Jacko stayed there by the big, black stump, while the others went on
to race again. And the first thing Jacko knew was that he heard
something moving in the bushes behind the stump.
"My goodness!" he exclaimed, jumping up. "I hope that isn't a bad fox or
a wolf." So he got ready to run, but before he could jump out of the
way, out came a big black bear. And, no sooner had the bear seen Jacko,
than the shaggy creature rushed up to the monkey, and tied a rope around
his neck.
"Now I have you!" growled the bear.
"Yes, I see you have," said Jacko, as he tried to get away, but
couldn't. "Please let me go. Are you going to eat me? Oh, dear, oh,
dear!" the monkey boy cried.
"No, I'm not going to eat you," said the bear. "I'll tell you that much,
anyhow. And I'm not going to let you go. I am going to take you all
around the country with me to do tricks."
"Do tricks?" cried Jacko, surprised like.
[Illustration]
"Yes, you see I used to be a performing bear, but I don't want to be
one any more. I used to ride a bicycle, climb up a tree, play that I was
a soldier and waltz around when my master sang a funny song. But I'm
tired of it, so I ran away, and now I want to make some money for myself
to buy a pair of spectacles, so I can read. So I'm going to have a trick
monkey of my own, and you'll have to be it.
"You and I will travel about, and you'll do the tricks, such as standing
on your head, making funny faces, turning somersaults, tying knots in
your tail, and swinging on a trapeze. You'll do the tricks and the
people will pay me the money for watching you. Then I'll be rich. Come
along now," and the bear pulled on the rope which he had fastened about
Jacko's neck.
Well, the red monkey didn't want to go with the bear, but he had to. And
oh! he felt dreadfully about leaving all his friends, and his brother
and mamma and papa, but there was no help for it. He thought, perhaps,
some of his friends might see him and make the bad bear run away, but
none of them did.
Away through the woods went Jacko with the trained bear leading him.
This wasn't the kind trained bear of whom I once told you. No, this was
another one, a bad, savage, unpleasant creature.
Pretty soon, after they had gone through the woods for quite a distance,
Jacko and the bear came to a place where there were a whole lot of
animal people. There were birds and cows and horses and dogs and cats
and all like that, only they were animal people, you see.
"Here will be a good place to show off some of your tricks," growled the
bear. "We will have time before supper, so you will do them now and I
will take up the collection. Lively! Dance and make funny faces. Stand
on your tail."
Then the bear pulled hard on the string about Jacko's neck and the poor
monkey had to do all sorts of tricks. He made believe he was a soldier
and marched around. He jumped over a stick of wood, pretended to beat a
drum and ring a bell, and then he turned two somersaults, one after the
other, as quick as a stick of lemon candy.
"You are doing very well," whispered the bear in Jacko's ear, after he
had taken up a collection. "Keep on and I will soon be rich. Now we will
go a long distance and do more tricks."
Well, Jacko didn't like that, and he didn't want to go so far away from
home, especially when it was getting dark. And he wondered how he could
get away. But he didn't see any chance, as the bear had tight hold of
the string around Jacko's neck.
Then Jacko thought of a plan. If he could only make some of the animal
people understand that he didn't want to go with the bear, but, instead,
wanted to go home, he felt sure they would help him. But he didn't quite
know how he could tell them, for he knew if he spoke to them the bear
might hear him and scratch him before he was half through telling every
one that he wanted to get away.
By this time there was quite a crowd watching the bear make the monkey
do tricks, when, all of a sudden, Jacko looked over the heads of the
audience and saw Uncle Wiggily Longears, the brave rabbit gentleman,
standing there with his crutch.
"Oh, if I could only make him see me and make him know who I am, he
would save me!" thought Jacko. So, without the bear telling him what to
do, the red monkey suddenly began to make believe he was an automobile.
He twisted the pinkum-pankum, tooted the horn, cranked the front part
and turned on the gasoline. For he knew Uncle Wiggily would be
interested in that sort of a trick and would help him.
And, surely enough, just as Jacko was pretending to turn around a curve
in a make-believe auto and run over a milk bottle, and the crowd was
laughing and clapping and yelling like anything, Uncle Wiggily saw the
monkey and cried out:
"Why, if there isn't Jacko Kinkytail! I wonder what that bear is doing
with him? I think he must have kidnapped him."
Then the old gentleman rabbit cried: "Hey! You let my friend Jacko go!"
And Uncle Wiggily rushed forward with his crutch and banged it on a
stone, making a noise like a gun, and he looked so angry that the bear
let go of the rope and quickly sneaked away where no one could find him.
So Jacko was free, and didn't have to do any tricks unless he wished to.
Then Uncle Wiggily took him home, and they arrived just as Mrs.
Kinkytail was sending out old dog Percival to look for her son and tell
him to come to supper.
So that's how Jacko escaped from the bad bear. And on the next page, in
case the stove lifter doesn't pull out the carpet tacks and feed them to
the gold fish, I'll tell you about Jumpo and the paper cup.
STORY XXIII
JUMPO AND THE PAPER CUP
One day, when Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the red and green monkey boys,
were coming home from school, Jacko said to Jumpo:
"I have five cents, that I have been saving up for a long while. Now I'm
going to buy a bag of hot roast peanuts, and I'll give you some."
"Oh, fine!" cried Jumpo. "But where can you buy any peanuts in these
woods?" for you see at that time the monkey boys were going home through
a place where the trees grew thick and tall, almost up to the sky, it
seemed.
"Oh, perhaps we will meet some one with a hot peanut wagon, or we may
come to a store where they sell them," said the red monkey. "You look on
that side of the path, Jumpo, and I'll look on this side."
So they did this, looking as hard as they could look, for they were
quite hungry for peanuts, but all they could see were the brown leaves
being blown about in the wind.
"I guess there are no peanuts here," said Jacko at length. "We will have
to wait until we get home."
"No!" exclaimed Jumpo, as he tied his tail in three hard knots and
untied it as quickly as you can watch the baby shake his rattlebox.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Jumpo. "You let me take the five
cents, and I'll go look for a peanut wagon in the woods. Then you stay
here and watch for one to come along. If one does come you kindly ask
the man to wait here until I get back with the money, for, of course, I
may not find anybody with peanuts."
"But how can I tell you to come back with the money, when you are away
off in the woods?" Jacko wanted to know.
"Why, you take two stones, and hit them together as hard as you can,"
explained the green monkey, "and it will sound like a drum. Then I'll
come back running, but if I should happen to find a peanut wagon before
you do, I'll come back anyhow."
Well, Jacko thought that was a good plan, so he gave his brother the
five-cent piece, and then he sat down on a stone under a tree to wait
while Jumpo went off in the woods. Then Jacko began to study his
spelling lesson. And he learned to spell cat, and rat, and dog, and boy,
and words like that.
But now we needn't think of Jacko for a little time, as I am going to
tell you what happened to Jumpo. On and on the green monkey boy went
through the woods, looking for a hot peanut wagon. Of course, I don't
mean that the wagon would be hot, no, indeed. I mean the peanuts would
be nice and warm after being roasted.
"Well, I guess I'm not going to find the peanut man," thought Jumpo, as
he looked all over, and in several other places. Then he listened to see
if he could hear the whistle of the hot peanut wagon, but he couldn't,
and he was just getting ready to turn around and go back where his
brother was, for it was getting late, and would soon be dark.
Then, all of a sudden, Jumpo heard a queer sound. It was like some one
talking, and the words were these:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I'll never get a drink, I'm afraid. And I'm so
thirsty, and I can't walk home. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?"
"Ha! I wonder who that can be?" thought the green monkey boy. "Perhaps
it is the peanut man, and he has eaten so many of his peanuts that he
needs a drink. I guess I had better help him."
So Jumpo started through the woods toward where he heard the voice
talking. Then, all at once he thought of something.
"That may be a bear, or a burglar fox talking that way just to catch
me," he whispered to himself. "I had better go slowly. I'll just peek
through the bushes, before I go any closer, and see who it is."
Then Jumpo looked through the bushes. And whom do you s'pose he saw,
sitting on a stump near a little spring of water? Well, I don't believe
you'd ever guess, so I'm going to tell you. It was Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, and Uncle Wiggily was looking at the
spring of water and saying: "Oh, dear!" so many times that Jumpo
couldn't count them.
"Ha! There is no danger for me now!" exclaimed the green monkey boy. "I
must go and help him. Why, what is the matter, Uncle Wiggily?" asked
Jumpo as he walked toward him.
"Oh, it is you; is it, Jumpo?" spoke the rabbit. "Well, I am very glad
to see you. But, oh dear! how thirsty I am. I ate some salted muskmelon
with pepper cabbage sauce on it for dinner, and I am so thirsty that I
don't know what to do."
"But why don't you drink, when you are so close to a spring of water?"
asked Jumpo.
"Ah, why indeed?" said Uncle Wiggily. "Well, the truth of the matter is
that I have no drinking cup; so how can I get a drink?"
"That is easy," said Jumpo. "Do as we boys do. Lie down flat on your
face, and sip up the water. Here, I'll show you," and Jumpo stretched
out on the ground, and took a long drink from the spring.
"Very fine--for you," said Uncle Wiggily. "I tried that way, but every
time I began to sip up the water it squirted up my nose, and that
tickles me, and I have to sneeze, and when I sneeze I can't drink. No
one could. You just try it. Sneeze, please."
So Jumpo did, and surely enough he couldn't drink and sneeze at the same
time.
"Did you try to dip up some in the top of your hat?" asked Jumpo.
"Yes," said Uncle Wiggily, "but my hat is a tall silk one, with holes in
to let out the hot air, and the water all runs out before I can drink
it."
"I'll try my cap," said the monkey boy, and he did but all the water ran
out of that as soon as it was dipped up.
"Oh, what shall I do?" said Uncle Wiggily. "I am afraid I shall die of
thirst, for my rheumatism hurts so that I can't walk very fast and it
will take me a week to get home."
Then Jumpo thought real hard, and he suddenly exclaimed:
"Oh, I know the very thing! I will make you a paper cup."
"A paper cup!" spoke the rabbit. "One cannot drink out of a paper cup."
"I will prove it to you," said Jumpo. "Our teacher showed us how to make
paper cups that would last long enough to get a good drink from."
Then the monkey boy took a piece of paper from his pad that was strapped
in with his schoolbooks and he folded it and creased it and folded it
again, doubling it over until he had a cute little paper cup. Then he
opened it out and dipped it into the water and held it up for Uncle
Wiggily to drink.
"Well, I do declare!" exclaimed the rabbit, as he drank the water.
"That's fine." Then he drank some more until he had enough, and by
leaning on Jumpo's shoulder he managed to walk along toward home.
Then, all of a sudden, a big black bear jumped out of the woods crying:
"I'm going to eat you both!" But what did Jumpo do? Why, he scooped up a
paper cupful of water and threw it in the bear's eyes and made him
sneeze, and the bear was so scared that he cried out, "Wow! Wow! Wow!"
three times and ran away.
Then Uncle Wiggily and Jumpo went to where Jacko was waiting for them,
and a hot peanut wagon came along and the old gentleman rabbit bought
each of the monkey boys a bag full, and they went home, helping Uncle
Wiggily all the way.
Now, that's all to-night, if you please; but the next story I'll tell
you will be about the Kinkytails blowing bubbles--that is, if the
soapdish doesn't jump up and bite the bathroom towel and make it cry.
STORY XXIV
THE KINKYTAILS BLOW BUBBLES
"Oh, dear, I wonder what we can do to-day?" exclaimed Jacko Kinkytail,
as he got up one Saturday morning and saw that it was raining quite
hard.
"Yes, isn't it too bad," said his brother, the green monkey. "Here it is
Saturday, when there is no school, and we can't go out and play. Oh,
dear!"
"Oh, my!" cried Mamma Kinkytail, as she came in to see if her boys were
ready for breakfast. "Why are you so sad?"
"I guess you'd be sad if you couldn't go out and play," answered Jacko,
as he parted his hair on the left side and took the kinky spots out of
his tail where he had slept on it in the night.
"We'll see if we can't have some fun in the house," his mamma said.
"Just you get your breakfasts and then you boys can help me dust a bit.
Then I'll think up some way so you may have some fun, even if it rains."
"Oh, goody!" cried Jacko and Jumpo together, and they jumped up and
down, and Jacko climbed on Jumpo's back and tried to touch the ceiling,
only Jumpo toppled over and they both fell right down on top of the bed,
so they weren't hurt.
"Now, if you'd only jump around, and help me dust, it would be better
than jumping on the bed," said their mamma with a laugh. So they got
some old rags, and soon all the furniture was polished so shiny that you
could see yourself standing upside down in it.
"Now for the fun!" said Mrs. Kinkytail. "Jacko, you get me some bowls
with warm water in them, and, Jumpo, you shave up some of that nice
smelling soap in the bathroom."
"Are you going to wash us, ma?" asked Jumpo, scared like.
"No, indeed. You will have your baths tonight. This is a little trick I
am going to do for you. While you are getting the soap and water and
bowls I will go to the telephone. But you mustn't listen to what I say."
Well, of course, the monkey boys promised, and they got the things their
mamma told them to, while she was telephoning. Then she showed them how
to mix up the soap and water in the bowls. Just as this was finished the
door bell rang.
"I wonder who that can be?" said Jacko, surprised like.
"Suppose you go and see," answered his mother with a smile.
Jacko went to the front door and looked down toward the ground, for you
know the monkeys' house was up in a high tree. In the rain he saw three
duck children standing there.
"Oh, it's Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble!" cried Jacko in
delight. "Oh, how did you happen to come in all the rain?"
"Why, your mamma telephoned for us," said Jimmie, as he wiggled his
wings to toss off some of the water, for you know the ducks didn't need
umbrellas.
"Oh, come right up!" cried Jumpo, who had also run to the door. "We're
going to have fun. Come up."
"But how can we, when there are no stairs?" asked Lulu.
"Wait, I'll let down the basket," spoke Jacko, and soon he lowered a
basket, fastened to a rope. This was always kept for visitors, but the
monkeys could climb up without it.
Into the basket Alice and Lulu and Jimmie stepped, and Jacko and Jumpo
pulled them up, for monkeys are very strong.
"Come right in, Jimmie, and your sisters, too," invited Mrs. Kinkytail.
"Did you bring the pipes, Jimmie?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the boy duck.
"What pipes?" Jumpo wanted to know.
"Some nice, new, clean clay pipes, that you are going to blow bubbles
with," explained his mamma. "That is the good time I have made for you.
You are going to have a soap-bubble party. Now, children, come right out
in the kitchen and the party will begin."
"Oh, how lovely!" cried Alice Wibblewobble, as she looked in a glass to
see if her hair ribbon was on straight. "I love soap bubbles."
"So do I," said Lulu, whistling just like a boy.
Out in the kitchen a soft cloth had been spread on the floor for the
bubbles to fall on, so they wouldn't get hurt. And Jimmie put the new
pipes on the table beside the bowls of soap and water.
"Now, begin," said Mamma Kinkytail. So each one dipped a pipe into the
soapy water and began to blow. Oh, what fine bubbles they made! Some
were white, and some blue, and some green, and some red--just like the
rainbow colors.
Lulu blew a very big bubble, almost as big as the moon looks, and all of
a sudden it burst, making her sneeze like the time when Uncle Wiggily
got the water up his nose.
Then Jacko blew a bubble and bounced it on the soft cloth until it
looked like a football rolling along.
"Oh, see mine!" cried Alice, as she shook one off her pipe. It floated
about the room. "It's on Jumpo's head!" said Alice. And, surely enough,
it was, only it didn't stay there very long, as it burst. And Jimmie
Wibblewobble blew one that almost reached the ceiling. Then Jumpo blew
two at once, like twins, and they stayed on the cloth a long time.
Oh! They were having such fun that they didn't even think of the rain.
They blew hundreds of bubbles, and laughed and shouted until you would
have thought there were a dozen children at the party. And then, all of
a sudden, something happened.
All at once there was a noise at the window, and a great big black bear
poked his head in. He gave a growl and cried:
"Ah, ha! Now I'll have plenty for my supper. I am very fond of monkeys
and ducks. I'm glad I climbed up the tree to get you. All ready now,
I'm coming in!"
"You get right out of here, you bad bear!" cried Lulu.
"No, I will not," said the bear, savage like.
"I'll go tell my mamma if you don't," said Jacko, for Mrs. Kinkytail
wasn't in the kitchen just then.
"I'm not afraid!" growled the bear. "Here I come in after you."
Well, he was just getting in through the window, when Lulu Wibblewobble
cried:
"Oh, let's blow a whole lot of bubbles at him and scare him!"
And that's what those brave animal children did. They dipped their pipes
in the soap and water and blew forty-'leven-sixteen-twenty-one bubbles
and shook them at the bear. And my! how frightened he was. He'd never
seen soap bubbles before, and he thought they were red and green and
yellow and blue cannon balls going to hit him on his nose and toes.
Quickly he turned around and crawled out of the window and down the pole
before any of the bubbles could burst and make him sneeze, and he ran
off to the woods, and so that's how he didn't eat anybody that night.
Then Mrs. Kinkytail came in and heard what happened, and she said Lulu
was a very bright little duck girl to think of it. Then the mamma monkey
called:
"Come into the dining-room now and have ice cream and cake." And, oh!
wasn't it good!
Then they blew more bubbles and soon the party was over, and Jacko and
Jumpo were glad it had rained. Now on the next page, if the boy who
lives in the corner house doesn't lose his roller skates down our
chimney and make it sneeze, you may read about Jacko and the paper
chain.
STORY XXV
JACKO AND THE PAPER CHAIN
"Now sit up nice and straight, children," said the owl school teacher
one day, "and pay close attention. I am going to show you how to make
paper chains, so you can decorate the Christmas trees with them when the
time comes. I have shown you how to make paper cups, and this time it
will be paper chains."
"And the paper cup was very useful," thought Jumpo, as he remembered the
time he had given Uncle Wiggily a drink from it.
"I don't see how you can make chains out of paper," said Jacko in a
whisper to his brother.
"Oh, you must not talk in school!" exclaimed the teacher quickly, "for
it takes your minds off your lessons. Now look at me and do as I do."
But even when the teacher took out some squares of prettily colored
paper and began cutting them in strips with her scissors, Jacko couldn't
understand how she was going to make a chain that way.
"For chains are made of iron or steel or silver or gold, and not paper,"
he thought. "But I'll wait and see."
The teacher took a narrow strip of red paper, and she pasted the two
ends together, making a little ring. Then she slipped another narrow
strip of paper, colored green, inside the first red ring and she
fastened the ends of the second strip together, making a second ring,
right inside the first, like a watch chain. And so she went on until she
had about forty-sixteen rings all fastened together, and that was a
paper chain.
"Now you try to make one," said the owl teacher, and all the animal
children did. Susie Littletail, the rabbit, made a very fine chain of
the most beautiful colors, and her brother Sammie made two paper chains,
while the Bushytail squirrel brothers made some yellow chains that
looked like gold.
"You may each take some paper with you," spoke the teacher when school
was nearly over, "and make some chains at home."
So they all went up to her desk to get the paper, but Jacko Kinkytail,
the red boy monkey, was a little late because he couldn't get his book
strap fastened. And all there was left for him was some black paper.
All the pretty colored pieces had been given away.
"Never mind," said the teacher, kindly, "I'm sure Jacko will make a very
good black paper chain. Now school is over. Run home."
So they all ran home. Suddenly Jumpo Kinkytail happened to think that
his mamma had told him to go to the store on his way from school, and
bring her a yeast cake.
"Will you come with me?" Jumpo asked his brother.
"Oh, I don't want to," answered Jacko. "But I'll wait here in the woods
for you."
"All right," said Jumpo, so off he started to the store.
Well, Jacko sat down on a hollow stump, taking good care not to fall in
it and get his long tail all tangled up. He had his squares of black
paper with him, and also a pair of scissors and some paste which the
teacher had given him.
"I think I will start to make my paper chain now," he said to himself
when he had been sitting there a little while. "Then I won't have to do
it at home, and Jumpo and I can go for a little ride in our auto."
So he cut the black paper into strips, and made rings of them, fastening
them together, one inside the other, until he had a nice long chain.
"Ha! That is very fine!" thought the monkey boy. "I will have it all
done when Jumpo comes back."
He was holding up the chain by the end, to see how long it was, when,
all of a sudden he heard a noise in the bushes. At first he thought it
was his brother, coming with the yeast cake, but, somehow it didn't
sound like the green monkey. It was a crashing-bashing-rashing-smashing
sort of a noise, and Jacko began to be afraid, thinking it might be the
burglar fox.
And then, before he could stand up and sing a song about four-and-twenty
blackbirds baked in a rice pudding, out from the bushes came the savage
skillery-scalery alligator with the double jointed tail. Oh, but that
alligator was savage! And how he glared at Jacko with his mean, green
eyes. Then the bad creature smacked his jaws together like an automobile
running over a pair of roller skates.
"Ah, ha!" cried the alligator. "At last I have a monkey for supper. I
would like two--a red one and a green one--but as long as there is only
a red one I'll eat him."
"Are you really going to eat me?" asked Jacko, dropping the paper chain
and the paste and the scissors. He was real scared.
"I am," said the alligator, "and if your brother was here I'd eat him
also."
Then Jacko was glad his brother hadn't come back. Nearer and nearer came
the alligator, with his mouth wide open. And, oh! how frightened Jacko
was. He didn't know what to do.
"Please, Mr. Alligator, don't eat me!" he cried.
"Yes, I must eat you," said the unpleasant creature with the
double-jointed tail. And he stood up on the end of it and waggled his
head up and down and sideways and opened his mouth still wider.
Well, of course, Jacko didn't want to be eaten up, but he didn't know
how to get out of it, until all of a sudden, he thought of a plan. His
paper chain! It was black, and looked just like one made of strong iron.
Perhaps he could fool the alligator.
All at once the red monkey boy caught up the rings of paper, all pasted
together. Very quickly he threw the chain around the alligator's neck,
and then he fastened both ends of the chain to the stump with strong
paste. And he had the alligator fast in the paper chain.
Then Jacko jumped to one side and cried out:
"Now you can't get me, bad Mr. Alligator, for I have you chained fast to
the stump! You can't get away, and you can't eat me!"
Well, that alligator looked at the paper links of the paper chain around
his neck and fast to the stump. And as the paper was black, and looked
like iron, the savage creature with the double-jointed tail really
thought it was iron. So he didn't try to get away, for he knew he
couldn't break iron, but if he had known that it was only paper he could
have broken away as easily as not, just by one flip-flop of his tail, or
by biting the paper with his strong teeth. But you see he didn't know.
"Now, I have you fast!" cried Jacko.
"Oh, please let me go," begged the alligator. He it was who was scared
now.
"Never!" exclaimed Jacko. "I am going to run and meet my brother and we
will go home. You can't catch us, for you are held fast."
So Jacko ran to meet Jumpo and told him how he had caught the alligator
with a paper chain, and Jumpo was very glad. Then the monkey brothers
went safely home, and the alligator stayed in the woods chained fast to
the stump.
But in the night it rained, and the water melted the paste so that paper
chain came all apart. Then the alligator was loose, and when he saw how
he had been fooled with just paper he was as mad as anything, yes,
really he was. But he couldn't catch Jacko and Jumpo.
So that's all now, but if the pretty little girl on our street doesn't
sweep the dried leaves up in a pile and cover up the pussy cat, so it
can't go to the moving pictures, I'll tell you next about the Kinkytails
and the chirping cricket.
STORY XXVI
THE KINKYTAILS AND THE CRICKET
One day, as Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail were coming home from school they
happened to go past a pile of stones in the woods. And just as they got
near to the stones they saw something black on top.
"Oh!" exclaimed Jacko, "perhaps that is one of the rings from my black
paper chain that I fastened the alligator with."
"Maybe it is," agreed Jumpo. "And if it is, why the alligator may be
around here. We had better be careful. Let's run home."
Well, they were just going to run, not knowing the alligator had gone
away as I told you in the previous story, when the black thing on the
pile of stones gave a jump and disappeared down in a crack between two
rocks.
"Ha! That is very funny!" said Jacko. "I didn't know that pieces of
paper could jump."
"Me either," said Jumpo. "Let's go up and take a look. Maybe it isn't a
piece of your paper chain after all; and the alligator may not be
there."
So they went closer to the pile of stones, and all at once, and as
quickly as you can eat a dish of ice cream on a hot day, they heard a
little voice singing. And this was the song, which goes to the tune of
"Rinky-tinky diddily-dum,"
"Let's be jolly, don't be sad,
Let's be good and not be bad.
If you fall and hurt your nose,
Dance upon your tippy-toes.
"Always try to sing or play,
Laughter drives dull care away.
Whistle with a happy shout,
Music turns the world about."
"My, you must be a jolly fellow, whoever you are!" said Jacko.
"Oh, no; I am the most miserable creature in all the world," was the
sorrowful answer from beneath the pile of stones.
"Then why do you sing about happiness; and who are you?" asked Jumpo.
"I am a chirping black cricket," was the answer. "I was sitting on this
stone pile when I happened to see you coming. I thought you were two
bears, so I jumped down in here and now I cannot get out again, for
every time I try to jump out I bump my nose. Are you really bears?"
"No, indeed; we're two monkey boys," spoke Jacko. "But we will help you
out of the stone pile. Come, Jumpo, let's toss the stones away, one by
one, and the cricket can get out."
So they did this, and pretty soon the little black creature could crawl
out.
"Well, are you happy now?" asked Jacko.
"Oh, no; I am very sad, for I know winter will soon be here and I will
freeze to death," said the cricket. "But still I sing my joyous song as
I want other people to be happy. I am much obliged for helping me out,
but I will soon be dead."
"Oh, nonsensicalness! Don't talk so!" exclaimed Jumpo. "Winter isn't at
all bad. Think of the skating, and the snow, and riding down hill on
your sled, and making forts and snow men and--"
"Yes, that's all right for any one who can keep warm, but I can't," said
the black cricket. "Oh, I am so miserable," and then he began to sing
again about always being happy and not sad.
"I think we can easily fix this," said Jacko. "We will take you home
with us, Mr. Cricket, and you can stay in the warm fireplace all winter.
Then you will keep warm until summer comes again, and you can sing to us
as we study our lessons, for some of them are so hard that they make us
sad."
"That will be lovely," spoke the cricket. "I'll come with you gladly.
But first throw away the rest of the pile of stones so no one else will
fall down among them as I did."
So the monkey boys did this, and just as Jacko tossed away the last
stone the big black bear popped out of the bushes most unexpectedly, and
the stone hit him on the nose.
"Oh! I'll eat you up for that," he cried, and he made a jump for the
monkey boys.
"Run! Run!" called the cricket, "and I'll bump into his eyes and blind
him so he can't see you."
So the monkey boys ran as fast as they could, and the black cricket gave
a big hop and hopped right up against the bear's eyes and for a minute
he couldn't see. That gave Jacko and Jumpo a chance to get away, and
they ran on and on and pretty soon the cricket caught up to them,
hopping away from the bear, and they all went home to the monkeys'
house.
Mrs. Kinkytail was very glad to see the cricket, who would have been
frozen if he had had to sleep outdoors many more cold nights. She made
him a warm bed near the fireplace by putting some cotton inside her
sewing thimble.
"Oh, this is most delightful," said the cricket as he snuggled down
inside the thimble under the warm cotton. "This is the nicest place I
ever slept in." Then he sang his jolly song again, and Jacko and Jumpo
did their lessons and soon the cricket sang himself to sleep and it was
time for everybody to go to bed.
But listen! Something happened in the middle of the night. That bad bear
was so mad that along about 12 o'clock, when all was still and quiet in
the monkeys' house, he sneaked up and climbed the tree until he was at
the front door.
"Now I will go in and eat them all up," thought the bear, smacking his
lips and gnashing his sharp teeth. So with his long toenails he unlocked
the door and went softly into the house, where Jacko and Jumpo and their
papa and mamma were fast asleep. No one heard the bear come in--that is,
no one but the little black cricket in the thimble near the fireplace.
He heard the shaggy, savage creature, and all at once that cricket
chirped and cried out:
"Wake up! Wake up, everybody! You'll all be eaten!" And the cricket sang
his happy song so loudly that Jacko and Jumpo and Mr. and Mrs. Kinkytail
awakened at once, just as though they had heard an alarm clock.
Then Mr. Kinkytail took a club and began beating on the bottom of the
dishpan, and the bear heard it and he thought it was the fire engines
coming after him, so he jumped out of the front door to get away. And he
jumped so hard that he fell to the ground and broke two of its toenails,
and it served him right, I think.
So that's how the cricket saved the Kinkytails from being robbed and
eaten up, and they were very thankful to him. And he stayed with them
all winter, and sometimes he had cherry pie for supper.
Now next I'm going to tell you about the Kinkytails and the doll's
house--that is, if the alarm clock will stop making figures all over my
paper so I can write the story, and if the coffee pot doesn't step on
the rolling pin's toes.
STORY XXVII
THE KINKYTAILS AND THE DOLL'S HOUSE
"Now, boys," said Mrs. Kinkytail to her two monkey sons one morning,
"this is Saturday, and there isn't any school, so I wish you would go on
an errand for me."
"Where is it, mamma?" asked Jacko. "Do you want us to go to the store to
get some molasses, so we can make candy?"
"No, indeed, I do not!" she exclaimed. "I have plenty of molasses in the
house, and I can't let you make candy today, though I may some other
time."
"Then do you want us to get some corn so we can pop it, and make popcorn
balls?" asked Jumpo, trying to stand up on the end of his tail. But he
couldn't do it very well, so he wound his tail around the gas fixture in
the ceiling and hung head downward.
[Illustration]
"Don't do that," said his mother. "All the blood may run to your head
and there won't be any in your feet, and you may get the epizootic. But
I don't want any popcorn from the store. What I want you to do is to go
over to Grandfather Goosey Gander's house and borrow the chopper machine
he grinds up things in. I am going to make some cabbage chow-chow and
some chew-chew and some tomato pickles and I want to grind up all the
things in the food chopper.
"So hurry off, and when you come back you may take turns grinding up the
things in the chopper, and here is a penny for each of you."
"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Jacko. "You are very kind, mother."
"She certainly is," agreed Jumpo. "And maybe Grandfather Goosey Gander
will give us some peppermint candies. Oh, I'm glad it's Saturday, and
I'm glad we're going after the chipper-chopper."
So they started off over the fields and through the woods together,
hopping and skipping and jumping. Sometimes they held each other's paws,
and sometimes they twined their tails together and went along that way.
Pretty soon they came to where Grandfather Goosey Gander lived. The old
gentleman was very glad to see them, and, after he had given them the
food chipper-chopper, which he used to grind up his corn in to make
cornmeal, the goose grandfather said:
"I wonder if you two chaps know anyone who likes peppermint candy?"
"Yes, sir!" exclaimed Jacko and Jumpo at once, very quickly.
"Where are such boys to be found?" asked Grandfather Goosey Gander, and
he made-believe look all around over the top of his spectacles.
"Right here!" exclaimed Jacko and Jumpo more quickly.
"Bless my gizzard!" cried the old goosey gentleman. "I never thought you
liked such things." But he gave them some, just the same, and they
started back home with the chipper-chopper.
But on the way something dreadful happened. Just as those two boys were
going through a dark place in the woods there was a rustling in the
bushes and out jumped the burglar fox.
"Ah, ha! Now I have you!" he cried. But he spoke too soon, for, just as
he made a grab for Jacko and Jumpo, they darted away and ran as fast as
anything, if not faster.
The foxy fox ran also, and as foxes are good runners, he was soon
almost up to Jacko and Jumpo.
"We never can get away from him," said Jacko.
"Never," agreed Jumpo, "and we haven't even one roller skate between us
now. Oh, what shall we do?"
Well, they didn't know, and that fox was coming closer and closer, and
he almost had them, when, just as the monkey boys turned around a hollow
stump corner they saw a little house. Oh, it was the cutest little
house, just about large enough for them to get in, and not much more.
"Quick!" cried Jacko. "Into that house with you, Jumpo, and we'll lock
the door."
"Whose house is it?" asked the green monkey.
"Never mind. Don't stop to ask questions. Skip in," cried Jacko. So in
Jumpo skipped and his brother was right after him, and they were only
just in time, for as they shut and locked the door the fox ran slam-bang
up against it, if you will pardon me saying so at such an exciting time.
"Come out of there!" called the fox, banging on the door with his paws.
"Indeed, we will not!" answered Jacko and Jumpo most politely, holding
tightly to the food chopper. And just then they heard some one walking
upstairs in the little house and a voice called down:
"Who is there? Who is knocking at my door?"
"Goodness me, sakes alive, and a sweet potato!" cried Jacko. "Some one
lives in this little bit of a house! Think of it!"
"It does seem so," spoke Jumpo. "I wonder who it can be?"
And just then some one came down stairs and into the front room, where
the monkey boys were hiding, and who should it be but a doll--yes, a
wonderfully nice lady doll in a blue dress--and when she was wound up by
a spring in her back she could walk and talk; and she was wound up now.
"Well, of all things!" exclaimed the doll, speaking in a squeaky sort of
voice. "What are you monkey boys doing here?"
"We are hiding from the fox," said Jacko. "He chased us on our way home
from Grandfather Goosey Gander's house and we ran in here. I hope you
are not angry."
"Indeed, I am not," said the doll, kindly. "Where is the fox now?"
And just then the bad fox banged on the door of the doll's house again
and cried out:
"Hey! I want you monkey boys!"
"Oh, the savage creature!" exclaimed the doll. "He'll be wanting to eat
me next. You see, I'm out here for my health. I belong to a little girl,
but she had my house brought out here so I could get the woodland air.
And I'm much stronger now. But I'll fix that fox."
"How?" asked Jacko.
"Why, you go close to the front door," said the doll, "and pretend that
you are coming out. Rattle the knob, you know. Then I'll go to an
upstairs window, right over the door, and when the fox is standing there
I'll pour molasses on him and he'll be so sticky that he can't even eat
a toothpick."
"Fine!" cried Jacko, so he and his brother rattled the door knob.
"Ah! Here comes my monkey dinner!" said the fox, smacking his lips
hungry like.
And just then that brave doll in the blue dress opened the window over
the fox's head and poured a whole dish pan of molasses on him.
"Wow! Oh, wow! Bow-wow!" cried that fox.
Oh, I wish you could have seen him. He was so stuck up from the tip of
his toes to the tip of his nose that he was all kerflumixed and
kerflimixed and he ran off in the woods taking his tail with him. So he
didn't eat Jacko or Jumpo, and soon they came out, and after thanking
the brave doll in the blue dress they went safely home and helped make
chow-chow-chew-chew pickles in the chipper-chopper.
Now, in case the tomato can doesn't roll over in bed and fall out on the
floor so it bumps the kitty cat's nose, I'll tell you next about Jacko
and the train of cars.
STORY XXVIII
JACKO AND THE TRAIN OF CARS
"May we go over to Sammie Littletail's house and play this afternoon,
mamma?" asked Jacko Kinkytail as he and his brother came home from
school. It was about three days after the monkey boys had hidden from
the fox in the doll's house.
"What about your school lessons and home work?" asked the monkey boys'
mother.
"Oh, we both did fine to-day, and we both went to the head of the
class," said Jumpo. "First I went up and then Jacko went, and we haven't
much home work to do, only some spelling words to learn."
"Then you may go," said Mrs. Kinkytail, "but be sure to be home for
supper." So they promised, and away they hopped through the woods toward
the place where the Littletail rabbit family lived.
"What shall we play when we get there?" asked Jumpo, as he wound his
tail around the low limb of a tree and swung himself across a little
brook as nicely as you can fold your napkin.
"Oh, we'll play tag, and hide-and-go-seek, and maybe football," spoke
Jacko. "Perhaps Susie Littletail has been helping her mother bake a cake
or a pie, and she might give us some. I'm not saying for sure," said
Jacko, as he winked both his eyes, "but she might."
"Oh, I wish she would!" cried Jumpo. "When we go in, we'll just sort of
look hungry, and when they ask us what's the matter we'll say we haven't
had any pie or cake in a long, long time. For you know mamma doesn't
allow us to ask for things to eat when we go calling; but that wouldn't
be asking, would it?"
"I guess not," said Jacko, slow and thoughtful like.
Well, they were soon at the rabbit children's house and they saw Sammie
Littletail outside. He was playing with his football, and when he saw
Jacko and Jumpo he cried:
"Oh, goody! Now we can have a game," and he kicked that ball away up in
the air, so high that when it came down it stuck in the top of a tree.
"Now see what you did, Sammie!" cried his sister Susie, sorrowfully.
"You can't get your ball," and there she stood in the door, with an
apron on, and that apron was covered with flour dust, yes, really it
was.
"Hey! What did I tell you?" whispered Jumpo to Jacko. "They're baking
cake, all right. See the flour on Susie's apron. I'm going to look
hungry."
"And I'm going to get the football," said Jacko. "Maybe that will
surprise Susie, and she'll offer us some cake without us looking hungry.
Here I go."
"Good!" cried Jumpo, and before he could say anything more up the tree
scrambled the red monkey to where the football was caught on a crooked
branch.
"Look out! Here it comes down!" cried Jacko, in about a minute, and,
surely enough, down came the football bouncing up and down like a bowl
full of jelly on Christmas morning.
"Oh, fine!" cried Sammie. "I thought I would never get it back again.
Isn't there something I can give you and your brother, Jacko?"
"Well," said Jacko, slow and hungry like, "we might have--"
"I know the very thing!" cried Susie. "I have just baked some cherry
pies for Uncle Wiggily Longears and I know he'd want you to have some.
Come in and I'll cut one."
"Oh, if this isn't the best luck!" exclaimed Jacko. "We didn't have to
ask, so it's all right; eh, Jumpo?"
"Sure," said Jumpo in a whisper.
I just wish _you_ could have had some of that cherry pie, but of course
you couldn't, for there wasn't any left. Then pretty soon the monkey boys
and Sammie went outside to play football again. And, all of a sudden, as
Jumpo kicked the ball, it bounced on Sammie's nose and made it bleed.
Oh, how that poor rabbit boy's nose did bleed. He cried and cried again,
and Susie and his mamma, the muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane
Fuzzy-Wuzzy, came running out. They did all they could for him, such as
putting a cold key down his back and making him chew paper, and they
even put some paper under his upper lip, but it did no good, for the
nose still bled.
"We must send for Dr. Possum at once," said Mrs. Littletail. "He will
have to come in a hurry to stop the bleeding."
"Oh, if we only had our automobile, we could go very quickly," said
Jacko, but they didn't have it.
"Oh, I'm so sorry; it was my fault," exclaimed Jumpo. "I will run for
Dr. Possum."
"You never can run fast enough," exclaimed Mrs. Littletail. "Why, even
an airship wouldn't be quick enough. Oh! What shall I do? Sammie may
bleed to death."
"Wait, I have an idea," cried Susie. "Why can't Jacko go for the doctor
in Sammie's toy train of cars?"
"In a toy train of cars?" exclaimed Jacko.
"Yes, the engine is very big and strong, and it runs very fast. Just
hitch one car to it and go for Dr. Possum."
"But doesn't that engine have to run on a track?" asked Jumpo.
"No, if you wind the spring up real tight it will run right over the
ground without any track," said Susie, for Sammie couldn't talk on
account of the nose bleed. "Hurry off, Jacko. You can ride in the cab
and be the engineer and Dr. Possum can ride in the passenger coach."
Quickly Mrs. Littletail wheeled out the toy engine and one car. It was
quite large, plenty big enough for Jacko to get in. He and Jumpo wound
up the spring real tight and then Jacko got in the engine cab.
"Toot! Toot!" he blew the whistle and with a whizz and a rattle, away
the engine went right along a smooth path in the woods toward Dr.
Possum's house. Faster and faster rode Jacko, ringing the bell every
once in a while. Faster and faster he went until he came to Dr. Possum's
house.
"Oh, doctor, come quick!" he cried, stopping the engine by pulling on a
handle. "Sammie Littletail has the nose bleed very bad!"
"I'll be with you at once," said Dr. Possum. So he took a big bottle of
nose bleed medicine and into the coach he sprang. Jacko rolled the
engine around and turned on the spring. Away it went back through the
woods, pulling him and Dr. Possum as nicely as a stick of molasses
candy.
All of a sudden out from the bushes sprang the burglar fox.
"Hi! Stop that train!" he cried. "I want to get on!"
"No! No! Never! Never!" shouted Jacko.
"Then I'll stop it!" said the bad fox. So he took a stone and put it in
front of the engine but do you s'pose the engine minded that?
Not a bit of it! Why, with the cow-catcher the engine just pushed the
stone out of the way so that it fell over and pinched the fox on the
tail, and then the engine went on faster than ever.
And pretty soon they were back again at Sammie's house. Out jumped the
doctor, out of his valise he took the bottle of nose-bleed medicine.
"Smell of that!" he said to Sammie. And smell of it Sammie did, and in a
second and a half his nose stopped bleeding and he was all better.
So that's how Jacko went for the doctor in an engine and part of a toy
train of cars, and that's all to this story, if you please, for then it
was time for Jacko and Jumpo to go home to supper, and now it's time for
you to go to bed.
But the next story, in case the wallpaper doesn't fall down and get
tangled up in pussy cat's oatmeal dish, will be about Jumpo and his
airship.
STORY XXIX
JUMPO AND HIS AIRSHIP
"Well, what in the world are you making now?" asked Mr. Kinkytail of his
little boy Jumpo one morning, just as the papa monkey was starting to
work in the hand organ factory. "Is that going to be a tent, Jumpo?"
Jumpo looked up from where he was making something down in the yard.
"No, papa, it isn't going to be a tent," he said.
"Then what is it?" asked Mr. Kinkytail.
"It's going to be an airship, to sail up in the air as the birds do,"
replied the little green monkey boy.
"Oh, my! You never can make that!" said his papa, and he went off
laughing. "Is Jacko helping you?" he asked.
"No, Jacko has gone off in the automobile to give Grandfather Goosey
Gander a ride," said Jumpo.
"That is very kind of Jacko," spoke Mr. Kinkytail, "but I hope he
doesn't upset and spill out the old gentleman duck. But you be careful
not to fall out of your airship, Jumpo."
So Jumpo said he would, and he went right on making it. I suppose you
know what an airship is? It's something like two tablecloths fastened
over some sticks, and one end is a thing like the tail of a goose, and
on the other end is something like the tail of a bird, and in the middle
there is a thing like a pinwheel, which goes around buzzity-buzz, and
there's an engine to make the buzzity-buzz thing go. Then there are
wheels like on a baby carriage, only they are blown up with air like a
big bologna sausage, and that's an airship.
And that is what Jumpo was making. He had two old umbrellas, and he had
fastened them together, one over the other, with some strings. He had a
big palm leaf fan for one tail and another fan for the other tail, and
four wheels he took off an old pair of roller skates. Then he had a
little toy locomotive, and he used that for the engine, and it was very
good, for it went whizzing around very fast when he wound up the spring.
And for the buzzity-buzz thing he had a green paper pinwheel.
"Do you think your airship will sail, Jumpo?" asked Jimmie
Wibblewobble, the duck boy, as he came along just then.
"I'm sure it will," said the green monkey boy. "You see I get in it and
sit on this seat. It's made from an old washboard that mamma didn't
want. Then I start the engine and I will go rolling along over the
ground. Pretty soon I will get going so fast that I'll sail up in the
air, and then I'll be like a bird. Don't you want to sail with me?"
"Are you going up pretty soon?" asked Jimmie, "because my dinner is
nearly ready and I don't want to miss it."
"Oh, I'm going up very shortly," said Jumpo. "All I've got to do is to
fasten some court plaster on the wheels so they won't drop off when
we're up in the air, and then I've got to take along a piece of string
to tie the engine fast with, and then we'll go up. I'll bring you back
in time for dinner, all right."
"Then I'll go," said Jimmie. "I never have been up in an airship, and it
must be fun."
"I'll be glad to have you along," spoke Jumpo, "because if anything
happens, you can fly down to the ground with me on your back and neither
of us will get hurt."
"Why, do you think anything may happen?" asked Jimmie, sort of scared
like.
"Well, you never can tell," answered Jumpo, as he fastened the roller
skate wheels on with sticking plaster. "Airships sometimes do fall," and
he whistled a funny little tune.
"Bur-r-r-r-r! Wow! Wow!" exclaimed Jimmie. "I guess my mamma is calling
me. I'll see you again, Jumpo. Goodbye!"
"Oh, don't go. I guess nothing will happen," called the green monkey,
and then Jimmie came back.
Well, pretty soon the airship was finished. Oh! I wish you could have
seen it, but of course you can't on account of what happened to it. I'll
tell you all about it, however.
"Come on, get aboard, Jimmie!" called Jumpo. "There's room for you
beside me on the washboard," and he got up and so did the duck boy, and
then they were ready to start. Jumpo had placed the airship on a smooth
place where the roller skate wheels could go around very easily. The two
umbrellas were hoisted to catch the air and the pinwheel buzzer was all
ready to go bizz-buzz.
"Here we go!" called Jumpo, and he started the engine.
My! How the pinwheel buzzer did whirl around! Faster and faster it went
until you could hardly see it. But alas and alack a-day! The airship
didn't go up.
"What's the matter?" asked Jimmie anxious like.
"Oh, I see!" cried Jumpo, looking over the side. "I put too much court
plaster on the roller skate wheels, and they're all stuck up. I'll soon
fix it."
Well, it didn't take him long, and once more he started the engine.
Faster and faster went the buzzer. The airship began to shiver and to
shake, and then all of a sudden it began rolling over the ground.
"Oh, we're moving! We're moving!" cried Jimmie.
"Of course we are," said Jumpo proudly. "I told you we'd fly like a
bird."
And then, would you believe me, that queer airship did go in the air a
little distance because the wind got under the umbrellas and lifted them
up. Up and up it went, with Jimmie and Jumpo in it.
"Wow! Isn't this great?" cried Jumpo.
"Yes, we're right over our duck pond," said Jimmie. "I hope we don't
fall."
But alas! Just as he said that, something happened. The engine went so
fast that the spring flew out of it. One umbrella turned inside out and
the other outside in. The sticking plaster fell off, and the roller
skate wheels dropped into the pond with a splash. Then the whole airship
began falling into the pond.
"Oh, save me! Save me!" cried Jumpo.
"I will!" cried Jimmie. "Get on my back."
So Jumpo did this and Jimmie spread out his strong wings and flew safely
to the ground with Jumpo, while the airship fell into the duck pond with
a big splash--splash--splash--and it was drowned, I believe, for no one
ever saw it again.
"Well," said Jumpo, as he got off Jimmie's back when they had landed, "I
guess I don't know how to make airships. But I'm much obliged to you.
I'm glad you came along."
"I don't know whether I am glad or not," answered Jimmie, as he looked
at a place where a stone had bruised his foot. "But anyhow I'm sure you
don't know how to build airships that will fly. I'll stick to my own
wings after this." And he did!
Now, next in case the man who cleans our windows doesn't put the soap in
the sugar bowl and make the gold fish sing like a canary bird, I'll tell
you about Jumpo and the talcum powder.
STORY XXX
JUMPO AND THE TALCUM POWDER
Jumpo Kinkytail was home all alone in the cute little monkey-house in
the top of the tree, so the mosquitoes couldn't get in unless they flew
very high. And I'm going to tell you the true and only reason why Jumpo
was home alone.
It was because his mamma had gone down to the five and ten-cent store to
get a new piano with a dishpan on top, so she could wash her dishes and
play the piano at the same time. And Jacko was at school, but Jumpo had
been kept home because he had a cold.
"So you will be in charge of the house while I am away," said his mamma,
as she started for the five and ten-cent store.
"All right, and I'll take good care of the house," said Jumpo. And he
felt quite pleased to think that he was old enough to take care of a
whole big house all by himself.
"I wonder what I can do to make the time pass quickly until Jacko comes
home from school," thought Jumpo as he looked out of the window. "It's a
bit lonesome, so I guess I'll dust some of the furniture for mamma."
He took a dust rag in each of his two front paws, and also one in his
kinkytail, making three in all, and he went about the rooms knocking the
dust off the furniture on to the floor, where no one would see it.
When Jumpo got tired of that he read a story book. He read about a big
giant with a blue nose and how one day a yellow dwarf saw the giant
asleep and painted his nose green and the birds used to think the nose
was grass and they would nestle down on the giant and tickle him so that
he sneezed like thunder booming in the sky.
"Well, it will be an hour yet before mamma or Jacko comes home," said
Jumpo, as he looked at the clock after finishing the story. "What can I
do next?" So he looked around but he couldn't see anything, and he was
just going to knock some more dust off the furniture, when he heard some
one crying out-of-doors.
"My! I wonder who that can be?" he thought. So he looked down from the
front porch, and there on the ground at the foot of the tree was Buddy
Pigg, the little guinea pig boy. And he was crying very hard.
"What's the matter?" asked Jumpo.
"Oh, a big mosquito has bitten me!" said Buddy, "and my leg is all
swelling up from it, so that I can hardly walk."
"Oh, that's too bad," said Jumpo. "Come up here and I will put some
stuff on to make it better."
"I can't climb that high tree," said Buddy, sad like.
"No more you can!" exclaimed Jumpo. "Wait a minute."
So Jumpo let down a basket fastened to a string and Buddy got in it--I
mean he got in the basket, not the string, you understand, of course.
Then Jumpo pulled him up.
"Now let's see where that mosquito bite is," said the monkey boy, and
Buddy showed him. "I should say it was a big one!" cried Jumpo. "That
needs some witch hazel on it right away."
Well, Jumpo put a lot of witch hazel on the bite, but that only seemed
to make it worse.
"I know what's good for it," said Buddy. "It's some stuff my mamma
uses."
"What is it?" asked Jumpo.
"Talcum powder," replied the guinea pig. "It's a white, smooth powder,
and it comes in a tin box and smells nice."
"What smells, the powder or the box?" asked Jumpo.
"The powder smells, of course," said Buddy. "Have you any?"
"Yes, I guess so," answered Jumpo. "Let's look in the bathroom. Mother
isn't home to-day," so into the bathroom those two animal boys went, and
they hunted all over for the talcum powder.
"There it is, up on that shelf!" said Buddy at last. "I can tell by the
cover of the box. You just get it down and smell of it."
So Jumpo curled up his tail, reached it up and wound it around the box
just as an elephant in the circus winds his trunk around a peanut, and
the monkey boy lifted down the talcum powder box.
"How does it smell?" asked Buddy.
"Fine!" said Jumpo. "Have a smell yourself. It's talcum powder, all
right."
So they decided that it was, but when Jumpo tried to get some powder out
none would come. There were little holes in the top of the box, but they
were stopped up somehow or other, and there poor Buddy was suffering
from the mosquito bite, and they couldn't get powder to put on it.
"I know what I'll do!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I'll just take off the whole
cover and then the powder will come out fine."
So he sat down on the bathroom floor beside Buddy, and they both tried
to get the cover off the box. But it was on very tight, and at last
Jumpo said:
"I'm going to knock it off with the hair brush!"
So he pounded on the top of the tin talcum powder box. Once, twice,
three times he pounded and then, all of a sudden--
"Piff! Paff! Poof!" The air was full of a fine, white powder just like
snow. It drifted and sifted all over the bathroom, and scattered itself
all over Buddy and Jumpo. Into their fur it went, all over Jumpo's fuzzy
little face, and even down to his hairy paws. And Buddy was just as bad.
You see the cover came off the box so quickly that they didn't either of
them have time to get out of the way.
But, oh, goodness! You should have seen that bathroom.
There was a pile of talcum powder on the floor, and some in the bathtub,
and some in the wash basin, and some on the towel rack, and even on the
hair brush, just as if it had been painted white; what do you think of
that?
"Oh, just look at yourself!" cried Buddy to Jumpo. "You look like a snow
man!"
"And look at yourself!" said Jumpo. "You look like a fuzzy, white,
woolly dog."
"But it smells good!" cried Buddy, "and my mosquito bite is all better."
"And I guess we'd better try to scoop up some of this powder before my
mother comes home," said Jumpo. So he and Buddy were brushing it up off
the floor when, all at once, the front door opened, and in came Mrs.
Kinkytail. She saw the two white, powder-covered little animal boys and
she screamed:
"Oh my! What has happened! Fire! Police! Burglars! Who are those two
queer white things in my bathroom? Where is my little boy Jumpo? Has
some one taken him?"
"Here I am!" cried Jumpo, with a laugh, for his mamma really didn't know
him, all white as he was. And she didn't know Buddy, either.
"Are you sure it's you, Jumpo, and not a white rabbit?" she asked, after
a while.
"Oh, yes, mamma," he said, "I was putting some talcum powder on Buddy's
mosquito bite and--and--and the cover came off all at once."
"Off the box, not off my bite," said Buddy, careful-like.
"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinkytail with a laugh. "Well, I hope the
bite is better? And now I must get the whisk broom, and dust the powder
off you boys! Oh, what sights you are!"
But they were soon clean and they smelled like perfume for a long time
after that, and the next time Jumpo wanted talcum powder he asked his
mamma for it, and he didn't try to open the box himself.
Now, if the bottle of perfume doesn't spill itself into the bathtub and
make a smell like a pocket handkerchief, I'll tell you next about Jacko
washing the dishes.
STORY XXXI
HOW JACKO WASHED THE DISHES
One morning, when Jacko Kinkytail, the red monkey boy, woke up, he heard
his papa rattling the pots and pans and dishes out in the kitchen.
"Ha! That's queer," said Jacko. "I wonder what papa is doing out there,
and I wonder why mother isn't up?" Then he looked over in the bed where
Jumpo slept, and Jumpo wasn't there.
"Why, where's Jumpo?" thought Jacko, and then he happened to remember
that Jumpo had gone on a visit to Buddy Pigg, and had stayed there all
night. So that's why he wasn't home. "But still I wonder what papa is
doing in the kitchen?" said Jacko to himself. "I guess I'll get up and
find out."
Then he smelled the coffee being made, and pretty soon he saw his papa
going upstairs with a hot cup of coffee in his hand.
"What is the matter, papa?" asked Jacko.
"Your mother has a headache," answered the monkey gentleman, "so I got
up to make her some coffee and get the breakfast. And you may help if
you like."
"Oh, I'm so sorry mamma has a headache," spoke Jacko, "but I am glad I
can help you get the breakfast." So Jacko and his papa had a pretty good
meal; of course, not as nice as when Mrs. Kinkytail got it, but pretty
nice, only Mr. Kinkytail put salt on the table instead of sugar, and he
put on the molasses pitcher instead of the cream jug. But still they got
along pretty well, though coffee with molasses and salt in it isn't very
good.
"Now Jacko," said Mr. Kinkytail, as he got ready to go down to the hand
organ factory, where he worked, "your mamma will not be able to get up
to-day, so I want you to stay home from school and help about the house
all you can."
"I will!" exclaimed Jacko, "and I'll even wash the dishes." Then he went
up very, very softly to the room were his mamma was lying down with a
headache, and he crept in, oh, so gently, so as not to make it ache any
worse, and he whispered: "I love you, mamma, and I'm going to wash the
dishes."
[Illustration]
"You are a dear, good monkey boy," she said, as she kissed him. Then he
went out softly and closed the door.
"Now to wash the dishes!" exclaimed the red monkey, as he got the soap
and hot water and a pan and a rag, and--well, whatever else you have to
have to wash dishes. It's been a long time since I washed any, but I
used to do it when I was a little boy and my mamma was sick, so I know
boys can do it.
Well, now, all of a sudden, as Jacko was washing away at the dishes,
and, maybe, splashing a little sudsy water on the floor (mind I'm not
saying that last part for sure, but maybe), all of a sudden, I say, he
heard some one down on the ground calling at him:
"Sissy boy! Sissy boy! Has to wash the dishes! Girly boy! Has to wear an
apron! Oh, what do I know about you!"
And, looking out of a window, Jacko saw Mugsie Smugsie, another monkey
boy, peeking in at him. Mugsie Smugsie was a bad sort of a monkey boy.
He didn't mean to be bad, but he just couldn't help it, and very often
he called the other animal children names, and threw stones at them and
did such like things.
"Sissy boy! Sissy boy!" cried Mugsie Smugsie again, and he made a face
at Jacko. Jacko was just going to call something back at Mugsie
Smugsie, when all at once along came Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl.
She heard what Mugsie Smugsie was saying.
"Shame on you!" cried Susie, pointing her paw at Mugsie Smugsie. "Shame
on you to make fun of Jacko. Jacko is a good boy and he stayed home from
school today to wash the dishes for his mamma because she had a
headache. I know, for I met Mr. Kinkytail as he was on his way to work,
and he told me. So I asked my mamma if I couldn't come over to help Mrs.
Kinkytail do the work. Shame on you for making fun of Jacko. Some day
you may have to wash the dishes yourself."
Say, I just wish you could have seen Mugsie Smugsie when Susie got
through talking to him. His fuzzy face flushed all red and he dug his
paw down in the dirt bashful like and then he felt very much ashamed for
having made fun of Jacko when his mamma was sick.
"I--I didn't know all that," stammered Mugsie Smugsie. "I'd like to help
you wash those dishes myself, Jacko, if you'll let me."
So this shows that Mugsie wasn't bad all the way through, you see.
Nobody is, I guess; there are good spots in everybody, only some folks
have more spots than others.
"Sure I'll let you help me wash the dishes," said Jacko. "It's lots of
fun, and it makes your hands real clean. Come on up." So he let down the
basket on a rope and pulled Mugsie Smugsie up to the house on top of the
pole.
"Can't I come up, too?" asked Susie.
"Sure!" cried Jacko, and then he and Mugsie pulled up the rabbit girl.
"Now we all three can help wash the dishes," said Susie. And, surely
enough, those three animal children began to wash the dishes. But Jacko
and Mugsie Smugsie splashed the sudsy water about so that Susie said:
"Oh, you had better let me finish, boys, and you can set the house to
rights and dust and sweep." Now, of course, girls can wash dishes better
than can boys, I know that very well, and Susie had them all washed and
dried while Jacko and Mugsie were sweeping and dusting the dining-room.
And very nicely they did it, too.
And then, all of a sudden, there was a noise out in the kitchen. Susie
screamed and cried:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! He'll get me! He'll get me!"
"Run quick!" cried Jacko to Mugsie Smugsie. So they ran out, and there
was the burglar fox getting ready to jump at Susie. Somehow or other
the fox had managed to pull himself up the tree in the basket, the rope
of which Jacko had forgotten to take in after Susie was raised up by it.
"Now I'm going to have a good dinner!" cried the fox, smacking his lips.
"No, you're not, either!" yelled Jacko, and then and there he caught up
the big dishpan full of water and threw it at the fox--threw the water,
not the dishpan, you understand. And that fox in an instant was as wet
as if he'd fallen into a mill pond, and he was so scared and frightened
and alarmed and astonished and ker-slostered that he slid down the rope
so fast that he burned his tongue.
Then the fox ran away, taking his tail with him, and that's how he
didn't hurt Susie, and I think Jacko and Mugsie Smugsie were very brave
to drive him away.
And pretty soon all the housework was done and the children could go
down and play, and in a little while Mrs. Kinkytail's headache was all
better, and she got up.
Mrs. Kinkytail was very thankful to Jacko when she found what he had
done, and this teaches us that monkey boys are sometimes as good as
girls about doing housework. Mr. Kinkytail, too, was proud of his little
son, and he said he would take the whole family to the moving pictures
as a treat.
"Oh, that will be jolly!" cried Jacko, and Jumpo said the same thing.
Then they all went to the show, and in the next story, if the--. Oh!
there I go again! I forgot that I have in this book all the stories it
will hold, so if I make any more I'll have to put them in another.
And the next Bed Time book will be called "Curley and Floppy
Twistytail," and the stories will be about some cute little pigs. Curley
is the name of one and Floppy of the other. And they did the funniest
things you ever heard about!
So just please wait for that book, which will be ready for you before
very long. I hope you will like it. And now I'll say good-bye for a
time.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes
page 9 corrected age to ago in "not so many years ago"
page 33 corrected wan't to wasn't in "I wasn't thinking of eating"
page 96 full stop added after "asked Jumpo, curious like"
page 110 comma added after "easily earn the money"
page 110 ' moved from 'spose to s'pose in "How much do you s'pose an auto
costs,"
page 125 question mark changed to full stop after "asked Jacko politely
of the lady goat"
page 143 corrected birl to bird in "that a savage hawk-bird had her nest"
page 144 full stop added after "apple on a string"
page 158 missing closing " added after "That's fine."
page 172 changed comma to fullstop after "and we will go home"
page 177 corrected anl to and in "bump into his eyes and blind him"
page 185 poor changed to pour in "I'll pour mollases on him"
Page 190 Added comma after you couldn't, in you couldn't, for there
wasn't any left.
page 197 changed Goodby to Goodbye "I'll see you again, Jumpo. Goodbye!"
page 207 " inserted after "said Jacko" before "I wonder"
page 210 corrected Muggsie to Mugsie in "call something back at Muggsie
Smugsie"
typographical inconsistencies retained
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