Laura Lee Hope - The Story of a Monkey on a Stick
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Story of a Monkey on a Stick
[Illustration: Monkey Shook Paws With Candy Rabbit.
_Frontispiece_--(Page 6)]
_MAKE BELIEVE STORIES_
(Trademark Registered)
THE STORY OF A MONKEY ON A STICK
BY LAURA LEE HOPE
Author of "The Story of a Sawdust Doll," "The Story
of a White Rocking Horse," "The Bobbsey Twins
Series," "The Bunny Brown Series," "The
Six Little Bunkers Series," Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
HARRY L. SMITH
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE
Durably bound. Illustrated.
=MAKE BELIEVE STORIES=
THE STORY OF A SAWDUST DOLL
THE STORY OF A WHITE ROCKING HORSE
THE STORY OF A LAMB ON WHEELS
THE STORY OF A BOLD TIN SOLDIER
THE STORY OF A CANDY RABBIT
THE STORY OF A MONKEY ON A STICK
THE STORY OF A CALICO CLOWN
=THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES=
THE BOBBSEY TWINS
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN WASHINGTON
THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST
=THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES=
=THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES=
=THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES=
GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GROSSET & DUNLAP
THE STORY OF A MONKEY ON A STICK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A STRANGE AWAKENING 1
II. THE MONKEY AT SCHOOL 13
III. THE JANITOR'S HOUSE 25
IV. A QUEER RIDE 38
V. MONKEYSHINES 50
VI. IN A CAVE 60
VII. OUT IN THE RAIN 73
VIII. HERBERT FINDS THE MONKEY 85
IX. MONKEY IN A TENT 95
X. MONKEY IN A SHOW 107
THE STORY OF A MONKEY ON A STICK
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE AWAKENING
The Monkey on a Stick opened his eyes and looked around. That is he
tried to look around; but all he could see, on all sides of him, was
pasteboard box. He was lying on his back, with his hands and feet
clasped around the stick, up which he had climbed so often.
"Well, this is very strange," said the Monkey on a Stick, as he rubbed
his nose with one hand, "very strange indeed! Why should I wake up here,
when last night I went to sleep in the toy store? I can't understand
this at all!"
Once more he looked about him. He surely was inside a pasteboard box. He
could see the cover of it over his head as he lay on his back, and he
could see one side of the box toward his left hand, while another side
of the box was at his right hand.
"And," said the Monkey on a Stick, speaking to himself, as he often did,
"I suppose the bottom of the pasteboard box is under me. I must be lying
on that."
He unclasped the toes of his left foot from the stick and banged his
foot down two or three times.
"Yes, there's pasteboard all around me," said the Monkey. "This surely
is very strange! I wonder if the Calico Clown has been up to any of his
tricks? Maybe he thinks I'm a riddle, and he's going to tell it to the
Elephant from the Noah's Ark, or else make a joke of me to the Jumping
Jack. I haven't been shut up in a box before--not since the time Santa
Claus brought me from his workshop at the North Pole. I wonder what this
means?"
The Monkey raised his head and banged it on the box cover.
"Oh, my cocoanut!" cried the Monkey, for that is what he sometimes
called his head. "My poor cocoanut!" he went on, as he put up his hand.
"I wonder if I raised a big lump on my cocoanut!"
But his head seemed to be all right, and, taking care not to bang
himself again, the Monkey began pushing on the box cover. It was not
heavy, and he slowly raised it until he could look out.
As I have told you in the other books of this series, the Monkey on a
Stick, and the other toys as well, could move about and talk, when they
kept to certain rules. You may find out what those rules were by looking
in the other books.
The Monkey on a Stick looked out from beneath the cover of the box, and
what he saw surprised him almost as much as he had been startled when he
found pasteboard on all sides of him. For the Monkey saw that he was in
the room of a strange house, and not in the big toy department of the
store where he had lived for so long a time.
"I say!" chattered the Monkey to himself, "there is something wrong
here. They must have given me paregoric to make me sleep, and then have
put me in a box and carted me down to some other part of the store. I'm
sure the Calico Clown must have had a hand in this. He and his jokes and
riddles about what makes more noise than a pig under a gate! I'll fix
him when I get out of here!"
The Monkey raised the box cover higher and began to call:
"Hi there, Calico Clown! what do you mean by shutting me up in a
pasteboard box? What's the joke? Come on, Mr. Elephant from Noah's Ark!
Come and help me out! Ho, Jack-Jump! Hi, Jack-Box! Where are you all? I
don't see any of you!"
For, as he looked around the room, from under the cover of the box, the
Monkey saw not a sign of his former friends.
"This is stranger and stranger," he murmured. "I say!" he cried aloud
again, "isn't any one here?"
"Yes, I'm here," answered a voice which, the Monkey knew at once, came
from a toy like himself. "What's the trouble?" this voice went on. "Why
are you making such a fuss? Who are you, anyhow?"
"I'm a Monkey on a Stick," answered the toy chap in the box. "And who
are you? I seem to know your voice. Where are you?"
"Here I am," came the answer.
The Monkey raised the box cover higher, and then he cried:
"Why, bless my tail! The Candy Rabbit! Well, of all things! Oh, I'm so
glad to see you! How are you?" and the Monkey jumped out of his box,
and, laying down his stick, ran across the table and shook paws with a
beautiful Candy Rabbit, who had a pink nose and pink glass eyes. The
Rabbit was on the table, and the Monkey saw that his pasteboard box was
there likewise.
"I am quite well, thank you," answered the Candy Rabbit, as he waved his
big ears to and fro. "And I am glad to see you--very glad! I knew there
was some kind of toy in that box, but I did not know it was you. I
haven't seen you since we lived in the toy store together, with the
Sawdust Doll, the Lamb on Wheels, the Bold Tin Soldier, the Calico Clown
and the White Rocking Horse."
"Yes, and don't forget the two Jacks," went on the Monkey on a Stick,
"the Jumping Jack and the Jack in the Box. Then there was the Elephant
who tried to race on roller skates with the White Rocking Horse."
"I'm not forgetting them," answered the Rabbit.
"But listen!" exclaimed the Monkey. "Can you tell me this? I went to
sleep in the toy store, and I woke up here--in a house, I guess it
is--in a pasteboard box on a table set with dishes."
"Yes, this is a house," said the Candy Rabbit. "I live here with a
little girl named Madeline. There is also a boy named Herbert here. And
these really are dishes on the table. It is the breakfast table, and
soon the children will be down to eat."
"But what am I doing here?" asked the Monkey in great surprise. "I can't
understand it! Why am I here? I went to sleep in the store, and I woke
up on a breakfast table. Can this be a trick or a riddle of the Calico
Clown's? Is he going to ask what is more surprised than a Monkey on a
Stick at the breakfast table, as he asks what makes more noise than a
pig under a gate?"
"No, I think the Calico Clown had nothing to do with your being here,"
said the Candy Rabbit with a smile.
"Then who did?" asked the Monkey.
"Herbert. A boy who lives here with his sister Madeline," went on the
Rabbit.
"Dear me! this is getting more and more riddly-like and jokey," said the
Monkey. "I don't understand it at all! Why am I not in the store where I
belong?"
"Because you don't belong there any more," cried the Candy Rabbit. "You
were bought for the boy Herbert, and you are here at his breakfast plate
as a surprise."
"Well, he isn't going to be any more surprised than I am," chattered the
Monkey. "I don't seem to understand this at all. How did I get here?"
"I imagine that, after you went to sleep in the store last night, one of
the clerks at the toy counter put you in the pasteboard box, wrapped you
up and sent you here."
"I see how it happened," said the Monkey. "I went to sleep in the store
yesterday afternoon. I had been up late the night before, as we toys
were having some fun. I was trying to guess a riddle the Calico Clown
asked. It was how do the seeds get inside the apple when there aren't
any holes in the skin. I was thinking of that riddle, and it kept me up
quite late the night before."
"Did you think of the answer?"
"No, I didn't," said the Monkey; "any more than I can think of the
answer to the Clown's riddle of what makes more noise than a----"
"Hush! Here come Madeline and Herbert to breakfast!" suddenly whispered
the Rabbit. "Back to your box as quick as you can. We toys are not
allowed to move about by ourselves when any one sees us, you know."
"Yes, I know!" chattered the Monkey.
Nimbly he sprang back to his box, and clasped the stick, up and down
which he climbed when a string was pulled. As he pulled the box cover
down over his head he heard the joyous shouts and laughter of two
children as they ran into the room.
"Happy birthday, Herbert!" called Madeline. "Look and see what Daddy
bought for you yesterday!"
When Herbert had the cover off the box and had looked at the Monkey on a
Stick lying there with a funny grin on his face, the boy smiled and
cried:
"Oh, it's a Climbing Monkey! Oh, this is just what I wanted! Oh, now I
can have a show and a circus and I'll ask Dick to come and bring his
Rocking Horse, and Arnold can come and bring his Bold Tin Soldier, and
we'll have lots of fun. Oh, look at my Monkey climb his stick!"
Herbert took his new birthday toy from the box, and, by pulling the
string, made the Monkey go up and down as fast as anything. Madeline
picked up her Candy Rabbit, and though that Bunny said nothing, he could
see all that went on.
"Oh, this is a dandy Monkey!" cried Herbert. "I can give a show with
him!"
While the little boy was making the funny chap go up and down the stick,
the door of the breakfast room opened and some one came in.
CHAPTER II
THE MONKEY AT SCHOOL
"Well, children, why aren't you eating breakfast?" a voice asked, and
Herbert, turning around, saw his mother. The Monkey on a Stick, who, if
he could not talk or do any tricks just then, could use his eyes, saw a
pleasant-faced lady entering the room. She was smiling at Madeline, who
had her Candy Rabbit in her hands, and at Herbert.
"Oh, look, Mother, what I found at my plate!" exclaimed Herbert, and he
pulled the string, and made the Monkey run up and down the stick. "It's
my birthday present!"
"Yes, Daddy said he was going to get you something," said Mother. "It
came from the store late yesterday afternoon, and I put it away, and had
it laid at your breakfast place this morning. Do you like it?"
"Oh, it's dandy!" exclaimed Herbert. "I love it!"
The children sat down and had an orange and some oatmeal and a glass of
milk and a roll with golden yellow butter on it. But of course the
Monkey and the Candy Rabbit had nothing to eat. They did not want
anything. Being toys, you see, they did not have to eat. Though, at
times, they could eat certain things if they wished.
Madeline kept her Candy Rabbit near her plate. All of a sudden, as the
little girl was eating, she dropped her spoon in her oatmeal dish, and a
drop of milk spattered into the glass eye of the Candy Rabbit.
"Oh, look what you did!" exclaimed Herbert, who saw what had happened.
"You'll blind your Rabbit."
"Oh, my poor Rabbit!" said Madeline, and, with her napkin, she carefully
wiped the drop of milk out of the Rabbit's eye. And the Bunny never even
blinked. That's what it is to be a Candy Rabbit, and have glass eyes.
Not all of us are as lucky as that, are we?
A little later Herbert dropped a piece of his buttered roll. It fell
near the Monkey, who was lying on the table near the breakfast plate of
the little boy. Some of the butter from the roll stuck to the stick
which the Monkey climbed up and down.
"Now look what you did, Herbert!" said Madeline. "You'll make the stick
so slippery with butter that the Monkey may fall off."
"Come, children," called Mother, as she again entered the room. "You
must finish your breakfast and go to school. Put your Monkey back in the
box, Herbert. Don't be late for school."
"No'm, we won't!" promised the brother and sister.
A little later they were on their way, walking side by side on the path
that led to the red school house down by the white bridge. Madeline
looked at her brother curiously as they came near the building where
they studied their lessons.
"Have you got your books under your coat, Herbert?" asked Madeline.
"No, I haven't my books," he said.
"Well, what have you?" asked Madeline. "You have _something_, for I can
see a lump. What is it?"
Before Herbert could answer, if he had wanted to, the bell rang and the
two children, and some others who were straggling along, had to run so
they would not be late. Then, for a time, Madeline forgot what it was
her brother was bringing to school under his coat.
Just before recess, his teacher, looking down toward Herbert, sitting
near Dick and Arnold, called out:
"What have you there, Herbert? What are you showing to the other boys
under your desk?"
"It--it's a Monkey!" answered Madeline's brother.
"A _monkey_!" exclaimed the teacher.
"Yes. It's my birthday Monkey," went on the little boy.
"Oh! A birthday monkey!" the teacher said again. "I think I had better
call the janitor and have him take care of your monkey for you," and
she started toward the door.
"Oh, no'm! He isn't a live monkey," said Herbert. "He's just a toy one,
on a stick."
"Herbert, you may bring me that Monkey," the teacher said, and Herbert,
very red in the face, walked up to the platform on which stood his
teacher's desk. In his hand Herbert carried his Monkey on a Stick.
"Where did you get this?" his teacher asked, as she took the toy from
Herbert and laid it on top of her desk.
"I got it for my birthday," he answered. "This morning."
"But why did you bring it to school?" went on the teacher. "You are
nearly always a good boy. Why did you bring your Monkey to school,
Herbert?"
"Oh, I--I just wanted to show him to Arnold and Dick," was the answer.
"We're going to have a show, and my Monkey is going to be in it. I
brought him to school under my coat!"
"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Madeline, before she thought what she was saying. "I
saw something under his coat, and I thought it was his books. Oh! Oh!
And it was his Monkey!"
All the children laughed when Madeline said this, and even the teacher
could not help smiling. But she said:
"Silence, please, children. We must keep on with our lessons. And,
Herbert, it was wrong of you to bring your Monkey to school and take him
out to show to other boys. As a little punishment I shall keep your toy
in my desk until after school to-night. Then you may have him back."
"Yes'm," returned Herbert, still rather red in the face. He went back
to his desk, and the other children went on with their lessons.
The teacher put the Monkey on a Stick inside a big drawer.
"Well, this is the first of my adventures since I went to sleep in the
store and awakened in Herbert's house," thought the Monkey to himself,
as he found that he was shut up inside the teacher's desk. "I wondered
what Herbert was going to do with me when he slipped me under his coat
at the breakfast table. Now I must see what we have here."
It was not very dark inside the drawer of the teacher's desk. Enough
light came through the keyhole for the Monkey to see, and, among other
things, he noticed a bottle of ink and a small Doll. He was pleased to
see the Doll.
"Oh, here is a toy like myself!" said the Monkey, speaking in a
whisper. "How do you do?" he went on, sitting up and bowing to his new
acquaintance. "Are you any relation to the Sawdust Doll?" he asked
politely.
"I'm a second or third cousin," was the answer. "She is stuffed with
sawdust, but I am stuffed with cotton."
"Then I will call you Miss Cotton Doll," went on the Monkey. "What
brought you here? Were you so bad in school that you had to be shut up
in a desk?"
"No, not exactly. But a little girl named Mary brought me in her school
bag yesterday, and she took me out in the study hour, and the teacher
said it was wrong. So she took me away from the little girl named Mary."
"I thought Mary brought a lamb to school," said the Monkey on a Stick,
who, having lived in a toy store, of course knew all about toy books
and Mother Goose verses.
"That was another Mary," went on the Cotton Doll. "Besides Mary didn't
_bring_ the lamb to school, it _followed_ her one day."
"Oh, so it did--I had forgotten," went on the Monkey.
"But my Mary _brought_ me to school," said the Cotton Doll, "and her
teacher took me away. She put me in this desk drawer; the teacher did."
"Well, now we're here, let's have some fun," said the Monkey to the
Cotton Doll after a bit. "We are all alone by ourselves, and we can do
as we please. Let's look around and play. We can't stand up, as the
drawer isn't high enough, but we can crawl on our knees. Let's see what
else is here."
"All right," agreed the Cotton Doll. So while the teacher was hearing
the lessons of Herbert, Madeline and the other boys and girls, the
Monkey (crawling off his stick for the time being) and the Cotton Doll
went creeping on their hands and knees around the drawer.
"Let's look in the bottle of ink," proposed the Monkey, as he crawled
near it, and began pulling at the cork.
"Oh, don't do that!" cried the Cotton Doll, in a whisper, of course.
"Don't open it! You'll get all black!"
"Oh, if it's black ink, I know what we can do!" said the Monkey. "We can
black up like colored minstrels, and have a little show in here by
ourselves. I'll black your face with the ink, and you can black mine,
though I am pretty brown now."
"But I don't want my face blacked with ink!" cried the Cotton Doll, as
the Monkey took the cork from the bottle. "I don't want to be a
minstrel!"
"Oh, but you must!" insisted the Monkey, laughing, and, catching hold of
the Cotton Doll in one hand, he tilted up the ink bottle in the other,
and dipped in the end of his tail.
"Now I'll paint you nice and black!" he laughed.
"Oh, don't! Please don't!" begged the Cotton Doll, as she tried to get
away from the Monkey. But she couldn't, for he held her tightly, and the
inky end of the tail was coming nearer and nearer to her face.
CHAPTER III
THE JANITOR'S HOUSE
"There you are! Oh, how funny you look!" chattered the Monkey on a Stick
in a whisper to the Cotton Doll, as they were both shut up together in
the teacher's desk. "You don't know how funny you look! If I only had a
looking-glass I'd show you!"
"I don't care! I think you're real mean!" said the Cotton Doll. "Don't
you dare put any more ink on me!"
"I guess I've got enough on you now!" laughed the Monkey. "There's a
spot on your nose, one on your chin, and one on each of your cheeks." As
he spoke the Monkey put the cork back in the ink bottle and wiped the
inky end of his tail off on a piece of blotting paper in the desk.
"What's that you say?" cried the Cotton Doll. "Did you dare put ink on
my nose, on my chin and my cheeks?"
"That's what I did, just for fun!" chattered the mischievous Monkey.
And, really, he had done just that. Oh, he was a regular "cut-up" when
he was by himself, that Monkey was.
"I must look terrible!" said the poor Cotton Doll, and, raising her
hands, she rubbed them over her face. She felt the wet spots where the
Monkey had daubed her with ink.
"Oh! aren't you mean?" cried the Cotton Doll. "My little girl mistress
will never like me again when the teacher gives me back to her. I'm all
spoiled!"
"No, you just look funny!" laughed the Monkey. "You looked funny when I
put ink spots on you, but now you look funnier than ever, 'cause you've
spread the ink all around, and made big splotches of it. Oh, my! Excuse
me while I laugh!" he cried, and he wiggled and twisted around on the
bottom of the drawer, laughing in whispers at the funny look on the face
of the Cotton Doll.
"You're too mean for anything!" said the Doll to the Monkey, and she was
almost ready to cry. But she happened to think that if she shed any
tears they would wash down through the ink on her cheeks and make her
look queerer than ever. So she did not cry.
"I'm never going to speak to you again, so there!" exclaimed the Cotton
Doll, and she would have stamped her foot if there had been room for her
to stand up in the desk drawer--which there wasn't. So she just banged
her heels on the bottom of it.
"Oh, I'll be good!" promised the Monkey. "I won't put any more ink on
you, and I'll see if I can get some of it off on this piece of blotting
paper. I blotted my tail on it."
He tried to clean the Doll's face, but, by this time, the ink had dried,
and you know how hard it is to get dried ink off your fingers after you
have written a letter. Well, it was this way with the Cotton Doll. The
ink stayed on her face.
"Well, if you have ink on your face I've also got some on the end of my
tail, where I dipped it into the bottle," said the Monkey chap, thinking
to cheer up the Doll by this.
"Yes, but the ink doesn't show on your brown tail as it does on my white
face," said the Doll. "However, there is no use crying over spilled
milk, I suppose," she went on. "Only if you do such a thing again I'll
never speak to you as long as I live!"
"I'll never do it again," said the Monkey in a sorrowful voice. "Now
let's have some fun. You tell me some of your adventures and I'll tell
you some of mine. Did you ever live in a store?"
"Oh, yes, that's where I came from," answered the Doll.
"And was there a Calico Clown in your store, who was always asking what
it was that made more noise than a pig under a gate?" asked the Monkey.
"No. But there was a Jumping Jack who was always trying to see how high
he could kick, and one day he nearly kicked my hat off," said the Cotton
Doll. "But tell me, please, some of your adventures."
The Monkey was just starting to tell how the Calico Clown's red and
yellow trousers were burned in the gas jet one day, when, all of a
sudden, there was a great noise and commotion in the schoolroom. The
Monkey and the Doll could not tell what had caused it, though the Monkey
did try to look out through the keyhole.
"Can you see anything?" asked the Doll.
"I can see some water dripping down," answered the long-tailed chap,
"and the teacher and the children are running around as fast as
anything."
"Oh, I wonder what has happened!" exclaimed the Doll. And just then she
and the Monkey on a Stick heard the teacher say:
"Run out quickly, children! Run out, all of you. A water pipe has burst
and there's a regular rain storm inside our nice schoolroom."
"Please can't I have my Monkey on a Stick before I go out?" asked
Herbert. "You put him in your desk, Teacher!"
"And I want my knife you took away, please!" called another boy.
"We have no time for those things, now," the teacher said. "The water is
coming down fast, and we'll all be wet through if we stay. The Monkey,
knife and other things will be all right in my desk. Get your hats, and
pass out quickly. More pipes may burst and flood the school.
"Go home, children, all of you," said the teacher. "To-morrow the pipes
will be mended, and, if the school is dry enough, we will go on with our
lessons. But run home now."
You may well imagine that most of the boys and girls were glad of the
holiday that had come to them so unexpectedly. But Herbert felt sorry;
that he had to leave his Monkey on a Stick in school. When he reached
home he acted so strangely that his mother wanted to know what the
matter was.
Of course Herbert had to tell that he had taken his Monkey to school,
and he also had to tell what had happened afterward.
"Of course you did wrong," said Herbert's mother, "and you must suffer a
little punishment."
"What kind of punishment?" asked Herbert.
"The punishment of not having your Monkey," was the answer.
And now we must see what happened to the Monkey on a Stick.
"What do you imagine will happen next?" asked the Doll of the Monkey,
for they had heard what had been said.
"I don't know," was the answer. "But if we are left alone here in the
room we can get out of the desk and have some fun."