Chapter 9

"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."

"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

End of Project Gutenberg's Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, by Howard R. Garis