Mappo, the Merry Monkey | Page 5

I could open it," said Choo, gently.
"No, we must let Mappo have a good try," said Mrs. Monkey. "Then, if
he cannot do it, you may all have a turn. But it is a good lesson to know
how to open a cocoanut. When you get to be big monkeys, you will
have to open a great many of them."
Mappo was pulling and tearing at the hard husk of the cocoanut.
"If I had something sharp, I could tear it open," he said. Then he
happened to look up in the tree, and he saw where a branch had been
broken off, leaving a sharp point.
"Ha! I have it!" he cried.
He broke off the branch, and with the sharp point he soon had torn a
hole in the outer husk of the cocoanut. He pulled the round nut out.
"I have it!" he chattered.
"Yes, but it isn't good to eat yet," said Bumpo. "How are you going to
open the rest of it?"
Mappo did not know. Once more he tried to bite a hole, but he could
not. All of a sudden the nut slipped from his paws, and fell down
toward the ground.
"Oh!" cried Mappo, and he started to climb down after the nut. "My
cocoanut is lost!"
"Look out for the tiger!" cried Jacko. "Look out, Mappo!"
CHAPTER II
MAPPO PLAYS A TRICK

Mappo, who had started to climb down to the ground, to get the
cocoanut he had lost, stopped short when he heard his brother Jacko cry
out about the tiger.
"Don't be afraid," said Mrs. Monkey. "The tiger is not there now. He
has gone, or else I shouldn't have let you try to open the cocoanut,
Mappo. Go on and get it; don't be afraid."
So Mappo went on down to the ground. And, when he reached it, he
saw something that was very strange to him.
"Oh, Mamma!" cried Mappo. "The cocoanut is all broken to pieces. I
can pick out the white meat now. Oh, Mamma, it's all broken."
"Is it?" cried Bumpo, and he hurried down so fast that he hit his nose,
and sneezed.
"Yes, it's all cracked open," said Mappo. "Oh, goodie!"
Of course Mappo didn't just say that in so many words, but he talked, in
his monkey talk, just as you children would have done, had the same
thing happened to you.
"Maybe the tiger broke open the cocoanut for you," said Bumpo, as he
rubbed his hurt nose.
"No, the tiger is not there," said Mrs. Monkey. "You may all go down
and see how Mappo opened the cocoanut."
Down trooped all the five little monkeys, Mappo was the first to reach
his cocoanut.
"Why!" he cried. "It fell on a stone, and smashed open. That's what
cracked the shell, Mamma."
"Yes, I thought it would," said Mrs. Monkey. "And that is the lesson
you little ones are to learn. You cannot bite open a cocoanut. You must
crack it on a stone. Mappo dropped his by accident, but it can also be
dropped, or thrown, on purpose. So, when you get a cocoanut, the first

thing to do is to get a sharp stick, and take off the outer shell. Then, go
up in a tall tree, and drop the inside nut down on a stone. The fall will
break it, and you can then eat the white meat."
"Oh, isn't that a nice thing to know!" cried Choo.
"Yes, indeed," said her sister Chaa. "I wish we had a cocoanut to break
open."
"Come up in the tree and I'll give you each one," said Mrs. Monkey.
Up into the tree, where their house was, scrambled Mappo, and his
brothers and sisters. Mappo carried in his paws the pieces of white
cocoanut he had broken out of the round, brown shell. He nibbled at a
piece.
"Oh, doesn't that taste good!" he cried.
"Please give me some," begged Chaa, holding out one little, brown
paw.
"No, I want it all," said Mappo.
"Oh, you must not be selfish!" said Mrs. Monkey. "Give your brothers
and sisters some, Mappo, and when they open their nuts, they will give
you some."
Mappo was sorry he had been a little selfish. He gave each of the other
monkeys some cocoanut. Mrs. Monkey went into the tree-house and
came out with four other cocoanuts. She gave one each to the other
monkeys, and soon they had torn off the tough, outer husk, or covering,
with a sharp stick, the way Mappo did.
Then they threw the round brown nuts down on a flat stone under the
tree, cracking the shell so they could pick out the white meat.
"Oh, but this is good!" exclaimed Mappo, as he chewed some of the
pieces his