Chapter 2

"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?"

"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.