Mappo, the Merry Monkey | Page 4

to say for sure, before I let you go!"
Jacko pulled pretty hard on Mappo's tail.
"Oh! let go! Yes, I'll be good! I won't tickle you any more!" cried Mappo.
Then Jacko let go, and started to climb down the tree to the little platform in front of the monkey house. But Mappo was not done with his jokes. He scrambled down faster than did Jacko, and finally, when Jacko was not looking, Mappo grasped the end of his brother's tail, and gave it a hard pinch.
"Ouch! Oh dear! Mamma, the tiger's got me!" cried Jacko.
"Ha! Ha! That's the time I fooled you!" laughed Mappo in his chattering way.
Then Jacko gave chase after Mappo again, and the two monkey boys were having lots of fun in the trees, when Mrs. Monkey called to them:
"Jacko! Mappo! Come down here. It is time for your new lesson. And you, too, Choo and Chaa! You'll have time to practice a little bit before your father comes home," and she looked down to see if the tiger were there.
But the bad animal had gone away. He had heard the monkeys talking about him, and sending a warning all through the jungle where they lived. A jungle, you know, is a great big woods.
"What lesson is it going to be, Mamma?" asked Mappo.
"You'll soon see," she said.
And Mrs. Monkey went into the tree-house, came out with a brown, shaggy thing, about as big as a small football. Have you ever seen one of those? Only, of course, it was not a football.
"Oh, what is it, Mamma?" asked Chaa.
"I know!" exclaimed Bumpo, as he tried to climb under a branch, and bumped his head.
"Ouch!" he cried.
That was why he was called Bumpo--he was always bumping his head, though it did not hurt him very much, for he was covered with a heavy growth of hair.
"Well, what is it, if you know?" asked Mappo, for he was looking at the big, round, brown thing, and trying to guess what it was.
"It's--it's a new kind of banana," said Bumpo, for he and his brothers and sisters were very fond of the soft red and yellow fruit.
"No, it isn't a banana," said Mrs. Monkey. "It's a cocoanut."
"I never saw a cocoanut as big as that," spoke Mappo, for his papa had brought some smaller, round nuts to the tree-house, and had said they were cocoanuts. The little monkeys had not been allowed to eat any of the white meat inside the cocoanut though, for they were too small for it then.
"Yes, this is a cocoanut," went on Mrs. Monkey. "You are now getting large enough to have some for your meals, and so I am going to give you a lesson in how to open a cocoanut."
"I thought cocoanut was white," said Choo.
"It is, inside," said Mrs. Monkey. "This cocoanut I now have has the outer shell still on it. That is why it is not round, like some you may have seen. Inside this soft covering is the round nut, and inside that round nut is the white meat. Now, Mappo, you are a smart little monkey, let me see if you will know how to open the cocoanut. And, when you do, you may all have some to eat."
Mappo took the cocoanut and looked at it. He turned it over and over in his paws. Then, with his fingers, he tried to pull it apart. But he could not do it. The nut was too hard for him. Next he tried to bite it open, but he could not.
"Let me try. I can open it!" exclaimed Jacko.
"No, I'll do it," said Mappo.
"If you can't, I can," spoke Bumpo, and he gave a jump over toward Mappo, and once more he hit his head on a branch, Bumpo did.
"Ouch!" he chattered, rubbing the sore place with his paw.
Mappo turned the cocoanut over and over again. He was looking for some hole in it through which he could put his paw and get out the white meat. But he saw none.
"Maybe 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