Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail Part 5

JUMPO AND THE GREEN PARROT

It was about three days and a half after the adventure with the alligator, when Jacko Kinkytail had scared the skillery-scalery creature by bursting the paper bag, and the two monkey brothers were coming home from school in the afternoon.

"Did you miss any of your lessons today?" asked Jacko, as he twined his tail around a hickory nut on the ground, and picked it up so he could eat it--eat the nut, not the ground, you understand, of course.

"I missed one example," answered Jumpo, "but it was very hard."

"What was it?" inquired Jacko, as he cracked the hickory nut in his strong teeth.

"It was this," spoke his brother: "If a boy has a chocolate ice cream cone, and his sister has two, how many oranges can you buy for a bag of peanuts when a stick of peppermint candy breaks in three pieces and one of them falls inside a lemon? Don't you think that's a hard example, Jacko?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Indeed it is. Let me see, I think the answer is a pound of chocolate drops."

"I thought it was a piece of cherry pie," went on the little green monkey, "but the teacher said it was a dozen of eggs, so I missed."

"Never mind, as long as you didn't have to stay in," said Jacko. "Now let's hurry on and see who will get home first. You go one way and I'll go the other, and we'll race."

This suited Jumpo all right, so off he started by the path that led through the woods, while Jacko took the road that led past the house of Grandfather Goosey Gander. And when Jacko reached there the old gentleman was just looking for some one to go to the store for him to get a pound of sugar. So Jacko went, and he earned a penny. Then he hurried home. But Jumpo hadn't yet reached there, and I'll have to tell you what happened to him.

For a while the little green monkey boy hurried on through the woods. He was thinking how surprised Jacko would be to find his brother home ahead of him, and Jumpo was even planning to hide behind the rain water barrel and jump out to make-believe scare Jacko. Then, all of a sudden, as Jumpo went past a big rock he saw a nice big yellow orange on the ground.

"Oh, joy!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I'll take that home and give Jacko half of it."

But as Jumpo reached for the orange it suddenly rolled a short distance away from him, and he couldn't get it.

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed the little green monkey. "That is odd. That must be one of those queer rolling oranges I have read about in fairy stories.

But I'll get it yet."

So he went forward very slowly and carefully, and, all of a sudden, he made another grab for the orange, but it rolled still farther away.

"Hum!" exclaimed Jumpo. "This is strange. But I'll try again." So he tried once more, and, all this while, as he was reaching for the orange, he kept coming nearer and nearer to a big hollow stump. And Jumpo never noticed that there was a string tied to the orange, and that the orange was being pulled by a bad old wolf, who was hiding in the stump. You see that the wolf was so old that he couldn't walk around and catch his meals any more, so he took that plan of getting little animals to his den.

Nearer and nearer rolled the orange to the stump, with Jumpo chasing it, and almost getting it at times. But he never really got it, and finally he was so close to the stump that the wicked wolf could reach out and grab the green monkey in his claws.

"Oh, ho! Now I have you!" cried the bad wolf. "My orange trick was a good one," and he carefully put the orange and the string away on a shelf to use next time.

"Was that you making the orange roll?" asked Jumpo, as he tried to get away, but couldn't.

"It was," said the wolf, showing his sharp teeth.

"Oh, please let me go!" begged Jumpo. "I was racing with my brother, to see who would get home first. Please let me go!"

"No, indeed, I'll not," answered the wolf, "and if your brother ever comes past here I'll catch him also. Now, I'm going to lock you up in a dark closet until supper time."

"Do you mean my supper time, or yours?" asked Jumpo, hoping there might be some mistake about it.

"My supper time, of course," growled the wolf, and he was just going to shut Jumpo up in the dark closet, when he happened to look out, and he saw something green in a tree near the stump. Jumpo saw it, too.

"Hum! That is queer," said the wolf. "There are no green leaves on the trees now, as it is getting close to winter. I wonder what it can be?

But I have no time to bother with anything like that. I must make a hot fire to cook my monkey supper."

Oh, how badly Jumpo felt at hearing that, and how hard he tried to get away from the wolf, but it was of no use. Then the monkey looked, when the wolf had his head turned to one side, and Jumpo saw that the green thing was a big poll parrot.

"Save me! Save me!" cried Jumpo. The parrot just nodded his head, wise like, and hid behind the tree trunk. Then, all of a sudden, a voice cried:

"Hey, Mr. Wolf, you let that monkey go!"

"Was that you speaking?" asked the wolf, of Jumpo, for the wolf didn't see the parrot.

"No," answered Jumpo, "I didn't speak," and the wolf thought it was very queer. Then the voice cried again:

"Let that monkey go, or I'll shoot a lot of guns at you!"

"Pooh. I'm not afraid," said the wolf, for he could not see anyone.

Then, all of a sudden, the voice cried again: "Get ready now, fellows.

Aim your guns right at that wolf, but don't shoot Jumpo! Ready! Aim!

Fire! Bangity-bang-bang! Boom! Bang!"

And it sounded like forty-'leven guns going off. My! How that parrot did yell!

"Oh, don't shoot me! Don't shoot! I'll be good! Honest I will! I'll let the monkey go! Hurry, monkey, run along and tell them that I let you go!" begged the wolf, letting go of Jumpo. And you can believe that Jumpo hurried away from that stump.

Then the green parrot hopped into sight on the limb of a tree and cried:

"Ha! ha!! That's the time I fooled you, Mr. Wolf. It was I talking, and there aren't any fellows here with guns at all. But I made you let Jumpo go. Ha! Ha!"

Then that wolf was so angry that he almost bit his own tail, but he couldn't catch Jumpo, and the green parrot went home with the monkey boy to see that no one hurt him. Then the parrot, after Jumpo and his brother and mother had thanked him, flew back to his cage, and that's the end of this story, if you please.

The next one will be about the Kinkytails and the trained bear--that is, if our canary bird doesn't drop his seed dish in the sewing machine and break a needle.

STORY VIII

THE KINKYTAILS AND THE BEAR

One day when the owl school teacher had heard the lessons of all her animal boy and girl pupils, she said:

"You have been so good today that I am going to give you a little treat.

Now, I will let Susie Littletail decide on what would be the nicest to do, have Uncle Wiggily Longears come over and tell you a story about his travels, or go for a walk in the woods and see if the chestnuts are ripe? Which shall it be, Susie?"

"If you please," said the little rabbit girl. "I think it would be nice to go in the woods. Uncle Wiggily can tell us a story any time after dark, but we can't see to gather chestnuts at night. Let's go to the woods."