The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, by Howard R. Garis.

Author of "Sammie and Susie Littletail," "The Uncle
Wiggily Series," "The Daddy Series," "Circus Animal
Stories," "The Island Boys," Etc.

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 6½ by 8¼.

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

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:[Pg 10]

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.

"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."

"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[Pg 12] 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.

"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.

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."[Pg 13]

"I'm afraid if I spell the word a dog might come in through the window and bite us."

"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[Pg 14] 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.[Pg 15]

"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.[Pg 16]

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[Pg 17] 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.

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.[Pg 18]

"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."

"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,"[Pg 19] 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.[Pg 20]

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.[Pg 21]

"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, 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.[Pg 22]

"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.[Pg 23]

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[Pg 24] 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."

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."[Pg 25]

"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."

"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."

"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.[Pg 26]

"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.

"There you go again!" exclaimed Jumpo. "You are always asking questions to puzzle me. What do you think—sweet or sour milk?"

"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.[Pg 27]

"Oh, there you go again!" cried Jumpo. "Asking more puzzling questions! Let's do both."

"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.[Pg 28]

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.

"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.[Pg 29]

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[Pg 30] 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.[Pg 31]

"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[Pg 32] 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[Pg 33] 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:

"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.[Pg 35] 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.[Pg 36]

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.

"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[Pg 37] 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.

"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."

"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[Pg 38] in arithmetic, so Jennie didn't have any numbers to add up, and she cried out:

"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.

"You may go now, Jumpo. Tomorrow please try a little harder to be good. I know you can if you will."

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[Pg 39] 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.[Pg 40]

"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.[Pg 41]

"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.[Pg 42]

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,[Pg 43] 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,[Pg 44] 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."

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:

"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[Pg 45] 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."[Pg 46]

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.

"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.

"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?"

"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.[Pg 50] Then, all of a sudden, as Jumpo went past a big rock he saw a nice big yellow orange on the ground.

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.[Pg 51]

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.

"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[Pg 52] 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:

"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:

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!"

"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.

"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[Pg 54] doesn't drop his seed dish in the sewing machine and break a needle.[Pg 55]

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[Pg 56] 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:

"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,[Pg 57] 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."

"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[Pg 58] toward a big stump, and he exclaimed in a whisper to Jumpo:

"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.[Pg 59]

"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.

"Perhaps he is a crazy bear?" suggested Jumpo. "That kind is very savage. Oh, I know he'll eat us. Poor teacher, too!"

"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.[Pg 60]

"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.

"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[Pg 61] 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.[Pg 62]

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, my!" exclaimed their mamma. "What poor, miserable little monkey boys you are to be sure!"

"And we can't go out because it is raining too hard," added the green monkey.[Pg 63]

"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[Pg 64] 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?"

"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.[Pg 65]

"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, 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.[Pg 66] 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.[Pg 67]

"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.[Pg 68]

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?"

"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.[Pg 69] 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[Pg 70] 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:

"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.[Pg 71]

"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[Pg 72] 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!"

"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?"[Pg 73]

"I only wish it did," spoke the rabbit, as he gave it another twist. But there was only another bang.

"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.[Pg 74]

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.[Pg 75]

"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[Pg 76] 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.

"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."

"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."[Pg 77]

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:

"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[Pg 78] 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:

"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.

"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?"[Pg 79]

"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.

"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.

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.

"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."

"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?"

"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.[Pg 83]

"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:[Pg 84]

"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:

"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:

"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."

"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[Pg 85] 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:

"Walk right upstairs, Mr. Robber Fox; I have a fine meal waiting for you in my trap."

"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!"

"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[Pg 87] 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.[Pg 88]

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.

"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."

"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[Pg 89] 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.[Pg 90]

"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.[Pg 91]

"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."[Pg 92]

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.

"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[Pg 93] 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!"

"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[Pg 94] 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.[Pg 95]

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.

"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."

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[Pg 96] 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."

"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, 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[Pg 98] 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.[Pg 99] "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."

"Indeed, I do," answered the snake, and then he stood upon the end of his tail on the cover of the basket and sang:

Then that snake began to lift off the cover of the basket to get at the tarts, and Jumpo cried:

"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.[Pg 100]

"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.[Pg 101]

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.[Pg 102]

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.

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[Pg 103] 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,[Pg 104] 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:

"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,[Pg 105] 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.[Pg 106] "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!"

"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.[Pg 107]

"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.[Pg 108]

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, 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."

"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.

"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[Pg 110] 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[Pg 111] 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."

"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[Pg 112] 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[Pg 113] 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.[Pg 114]

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."

"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[Pg 115] 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.

"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.

"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[Pg 116] 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.

"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.

"Oh, I'm so cold and miserable and hungry," said the mousie girl, wiping away her tears.[Pg 117]

"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,[Pg 118] "we've got to do something for that mousie girl."

"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."

"There," said Jacko, "take it home and get some coal and something to eat. We don't want an auto, anyway."

"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[Pg 119] racket and a policeman dog was saying:

"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.[Pg 120]

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."

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.[Pg 121]

"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[Pg 122] 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.

"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."

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.

And just then a big, black bear stuck his nose out of the bushes and growled:[Pg 123]

"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.

"No, that's all straight," answered the green monkey, as he looked at it to make sure.

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.

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[Pg 124] 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.

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."

"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[Pg 125] 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.

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.[Pg 126]

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[Pg 127] 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[Pg 128] 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.

"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?"

"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.[Pg 132]

"Oh, my poor marshmallows!" cried Jumpo, when he saw that they were all spoiled by the fox rolling in them. "Oh, dear!"

"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.[Pg 133]

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[Pg 134] 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.

"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.[Pg 135]

"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.

"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[Pg 136] 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:

Then Jacko looked and he saw a little hole in the tree. He went close up to it and said:

"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,[Pg 138] 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.[Pg 139]

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.[Pg 140]

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[Pg 141] 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."[Pg 142]

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.

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[Pg 143] 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.[Pg 144] 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.

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.[Pg 146]

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:

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[Pg 147] 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.

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[Pg 148] 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.

"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."

"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[Pg 152] 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."

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.[Pg 153]

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,[Pg 154] 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[Pg 155] 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[Pg 156] 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[Pg 157] 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."

"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.[Pg 158]

"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."

"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.

"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.[Pg 160]

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[Pg 161] 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."

"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[Pg 162] them how to mix up the soap and water in the bowls. Just as this was finished the door bell rang.

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."

"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.[Pg 163]

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?"

"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."

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[Pg 164] 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.[Pg 165] I'm glad I climbed up the tree to get you. All ready now, I'm coming in!"

"I'll go tell my mamma if you don't," said Jacko, for Mrs. Kinkytail wasn't in the kitchen just then.

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.[Pg 166]

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.[Pg 167]

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.[Pg 168]

"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[Pg 169] 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.

"Oh, I don't want to," answered Jacko. "But I'll wait here in the woods for you."

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,[Pg 170] 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[Pg 171] and the scissors. He was real scared.

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.

"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.

"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.

"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[Pg 173] 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.[Pg 174]

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[Pg 175] 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,"

"Oh, no; I am the most miserable creature in all the world," was the sorrowful answer from beneath the pile of stones.

"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[Pg 176] 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."

"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.[Pg 177]

"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.[Pg 178]

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:[Pg 179]

"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.[Pg 180]

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.

"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."

"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[Pg 182] to grind up his corn in to make cornmeal, the goose grandfather said:

"Where are such boys to be found?" asked Grandfather Goosey Gander, and he made-believe look all around over the top of his spectacles.

"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[Pg 183] runners, he was soon almost up to Jacko and Jumpo.

"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."

"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.

"Indeed, we will not!" answered Jacko and Jumpo most politely, holding tightly to the food[Pg 184] chopper. And just then they heard some one walking upstairs in the little house and a voice called down:

"Goodness me, sakes alive, and a sweet potato!" cried Jacko. "Some one lives in this little bit of a house! Think of it!"

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."

And just then the bad fox banged on the door of the doll's house again and cried out:[Pg 185]

"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."

"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."

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.

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,[Pg 186] 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.[Pg 187]

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.

"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[Pg 188] 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?"

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[Pg 189] 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?"

"I know the very thing!" cried Susie. "I have just baked some cherry pies for Uncle[Pg 190] 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?"

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.[Pg 191]

"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?"

"Yes, the engine is very big and strong, and it runs very fast. Just hitch one car to it and go for Dr. Possum."

"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.[Pg 192]

"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.

"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[Pg 193] 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.[Pg 194]

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?"

"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.[Pg 195]

"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?"[Pg 196] 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.[Pg 197]

"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.

My! How the pinwheel buzzer did whirl around! Faster and faster it went until you[Pg 198] could hardly see it. But alas and alack a-day! The airship didn't go up.

"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.

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.

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[Pg 199] 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.

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.[Pg 200]

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.[Pg 201]

"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[Pg 202] Buddy Pigg, the little guinea pig boy. And he was crying very hard.

"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."

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.

"Talcum powder," replied the guinea pig.[Pg 203] "It's a white, smooth powder, and it comes in a tin box and smells nice."

"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.

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[Pg 204] 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:

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.

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[Pg 205] even on the hair brush, just as if it had been painted white; what do you think of that?

"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."[Pg 206]

"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.[Pg 207]

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.[Pg 208]

"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.[Pg 210] 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.[Pg 211]

"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.

"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:

"Run quick!" cried Jacko to Mugsie Smugsie. So they ran out, and there was the burglar fox getting ready to jump at Susie. Somehow[Pg 212] 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.

"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[Pg 213] he said he would take the whole family to the moving pictures as a treat.

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.

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

Bed Time Stories

Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail.

Howard R. Garis

BED TIME STORIES

Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail

BY

HOWARD R. GARIS

THE FAMOUS BED TIME STORIES

CONTENTS