The Story of a Monkey on a Stick | Page 5

was the answer. "She is stuffed with
sawdust, but I am stuffed with cotton."
"Then I will call you Miss Cotton Doll," went on the Monkey. "What
brought you here? Were you so bad in school that you had to be shut up
in a desk?"
"No, not exactly. But a little girl named Mary brought me in her school
bag yesterday, and she took me out in the study hour, and the teacher
said it was wrong. So she took me away from the little girl named
Mary."

"I thought Mary brought a lamb to school," said the Monkey on a Stick,
who, having lived in a toy store, of course knew all about toy books
and Mother Goose verses.
"That was another Mary," went on the Cotton Doll. "Besides Mary
didn't bring the lamb to school, it followed her one day."
"Oh, so it did--I had forgotten," went on the Monkey.
"But my Mary brought me to school," said the Cotton Doll, "and her
teacher took me away. She put me in this desk drawer; the teacher did."
"Well, now we're here, let's have some fun," said the Monkey to the
Cotton Doll after a bit. "We are all alone by ourselves, and we can do
as we please. Let's look around and play. We can't stand up, as the
drawer isn't high enough, but we can crawl on our knees. Let's see what
else is here."
"All right," agreed the Cotton Doll. So while the teacher was hearing
the lessons of Herbert, Madeline and the other boys and girls, the
Monkey (crawling off his stick for the time being) and the Cotton Doll
went creeping on their hands and knees around the drawer.
"Let's look in the bottle of ink," proposed the Monkey, as he crawled
near it, and began pulling at the cork.
"Oh, don't do that!" cried the Cotton Doll, in a whisper, of course.
"Don't open it! You'll get all black!"
"Oh, if it's black ink, I know what we can do!" said the Monkey. "We
can black up like colored minstrels, and have a little show in here by
ourselves. I'll black your face with the ink, and you can black mine,
though I am pretty brown now."
"But I don't want my face blacked with ink!" cried the Cotton Doll, as
the Monkey took the cork from the bottle. "I don't want to be a
minstrel!"

"Oh, but you must!" insisted the Monkey, laughing, and, catching hold
of the Cotton Doll in one hand, he tilted up the ink bottle in the other,
and dipped in the end of his tail.
"Now I'll paint you nice and black!" he laughed.
"Oh, don't! Please don't!" begged the Cotton Doll, as she tried to get
away from the Monkey. But she couldn't, for he held her tightly, and
the inky end of the tail was coming nearer and nearer to her face.
CHAPTER III
THE JANITOR'S HOUSE
"There you are! Oh, how funny you look!" chattered the Monkey on a
Stick in a whisper to the Cotton Doll, as they were both shut up
together in the teacher's desk. "You don't know how funny you look! If
I only had a looking-glass I'd show you!"
"I don't care! I think you're real mean!" said the Cotton Doll. "Don't
you dare put any more ink on me!"
"I guess I've got enough on you now!" laughed the Monkey. "There's a
spot on your nose, one on your chin, and one on each of your cheeks."
As he spoke the Monkey put the cork back in the ink bottle and wiped
the inky end of his tail off on a piece of blotting paper in the desk.
"What's that you say?" cried the Cotton Doll. "Did you dare put ink on
my nose, on my chin and my cheeks?"
"That's what I did, just for fun!" chattered the mischievous Monkey.
And, really, he had done just that. Oh, he was a regular "cut-up" when
he was by himself, that Monkey was.
"I must look terrible!" said the poor Cotton Doll, and, raising her hands,
she rubbed them over her face. She felt the wet spots where the
Monkey had daubed her with ink.

"Oh! aren't you mean?" cried the Cotton Doll. "My little girl mistress
will never like me again when the teacher gives me back to her. I'm all
spoiled!"
"No, you just look funny!" laughed the Monkey. "You looked funny
when I put ink spots on you, but now you look funnier than ever, 'cause
you've spread the ink all around, and made big splotches of it. Oh, my!
Excuse me while I laugh!" he cried, and he wiggled and twisted around
on the bottom of the drawer, laughing in whispers at the funny look on
the