FullReads

“Boys, do you want some bread and jam?”

“Oh, I should say we did!” cried Herbert.

“We’re coming,” answered Sidney, for it was the jolly, good-natured cook who had called to them from her kitchen where she had just made some fresh raspberry jam.

Leaving the Monkey and the Clown on the porch, the boys ran around to the side door for their jam and bread.

“Now we have a chance to talk,” said the Monkey to the Clown.

“Yes, but it will not be for very long,” was the answer. “Those boys will soon be back here. They’ll not eat forever. I was just wondering- -“

“What?” asked the Monkey, for the Calico Clown suddenly stopped speaking and looked down the street. “What were you wondering?”

“Well, just NOW I am wondering if that is your brother,” went on the Clown, pointing toward the gate with one hand on which was fastened a clanging cymbal. “Look, here comes a chap who looks just like you, except that he has no stick, and his cap is blue, while yours is red. And hark! I hear music!”

“Oh, it’s a hand organ, and that’s a real, live monkey you see!” exclaimed the Monkey on a Stick. “It is true he looks like me, but we are no relation. He is a live monkey and I am a toy.”

“Here he comes now!” cried the Calico Clown, and, as he spoke, the hand-organ man, making music, came along, and the live monkey ran into the yard and up on the steps. And then a dreadful thing happened!

For the live monkey quickly caught up the Calico Clown, and, holding the red and yellow chap in his hands, the long-tailed creature climbed up into a tree. Yes, indeed, as true as I’m telling you, the live monkey carried the Calico Clown up into a tree!

CHAPTER V

TAKEN DOWN TOWN

The Calico Clown was so surprised at the quick action of the monkey in catching him by one leg and carrying him up into the tree, that, for a moment or two, the toy said nothing. But as the hand-organ monkey climbed higher and higher the Clown finally cried:

“Here! Hold on if you please! What are you going to do?”

“Oh, just have some fun!” answered the monkey in a laughing voice. You see, he could understand and speak toy talk, just as the Calico Clown knew how to talk and understand animal language.

“Well, it may be fun for you,” went on the Clown, “but I don’t like it! This is no fun for me! Ouch! Look out for my leg!” the Clown suddenly cried, as the monkey banged him against a branch of the tree.

“What about your leg?” asked the monkey, sitting down on a branch and winding his tail around it so he wouldn’t fall off. “I don’t see anything the matter.”

“I mean look out and don’t hurt my broken leg,” went on the Clown. “Sidney, the little boy who owns me, glued it, but if you bang it too hard it may break all over again and then I’ll be in a mighty bad fix.”

“Oh, excuse me. I’ll be careful,” said the monkey.

“Well, I wish you’d take me down out of this tree,” begged the Calico Clown. “I don’t see why you brought me up here, anyhow.”

“Oh, I just grabbed hold of you and brought you up here for fun,” said the monkey. “I felt like playing. And I had to do it quickly, or my master would have stopped me. Every time I grab up anything he doesn’t want me to take, I have to climb a tree. He can’t chase me up there, though he’d like to lots of times, I guess.”

“I thought hand-organ monkeys had collars around their necks, and a long rope fast to that which their masters held,” said the Clown.

“Well, I had that, too, but I took the rope off a little while ago, so I could run loose,” explained the live monkey. “I want to have some fun. Can you do anything to amuse me?” and he looked at the cymbals on the Calico Clown’s hands and at the strings which were fast to his legs and arms.