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.
"Oh, my poor marshmallows!" cried Jumpo, when he saw that they were all spoiled by the fox rolling in them. "Oh, dear!"
"Never mind, I have another boxful," said his mother, kindly.
"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.
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 mola.s.ses, for I am going to make mola.s.ses 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 mola.s.ses and away they 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.
"h.e.l.lo, Uncle Wiggily!" called Jacko, "don"t you want a ride?"
"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.
"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.
"Wait, we"ll soon get it fixed," said Jacko. "Then you can ride some more."
"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 mola.s.ses 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 mola.s.ses, I may have it running."
Well, Jumpo thought that was good advice, so he ran on through the woods to the grocery 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-snack.u.m 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:
"I am a busy little bee, I"m buzzing all the day.
I make so much sweet honey that I have no time to play."
Then Jacko looked and he saw a little hole in the tree. He went close up to it and said:
"Are you there in that hole, Mrs. Bee?"
"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.