The Story of a Monkey on a Stick | Page 2

certain rules. You may find out what those rules were by looking in the other books.
The Monkey on a Stick looked out from beneath the cover of the box, and what he saw surprised him almost as much as he had been startled when he found pasteboard on all sides of him. For the Monkey saw that he was in the room of a strange house, and not in the big toy department of the store where he had lived for so long a time.
"I say!" chattered the Monkey to himself, "there is something wrong here. They must have given me paregoric to make me sleep, and then have put me in a box and carted me down to some other part of the store. I'm sure the Calico Clown must have had a hand in this. He and his jokes and riddles about what makes more noise than a pig under a gate! I'll fix him when I get out of here!"
The Monkey raised the box cover higher and began to call:
"Hi there, Calico Clown! what do you mean by shutting me up in a pasteboard box? What's the joke? Come on, Mr. Elephant from Noah's Ark! Come and help me out! Ho, Jack-Jump! Hi, Jack-Box! Where are you all? I don't see any of you!"
For, as he looked around the room, from under the cover of the box, the Monkey saw not a sign of his former friends.
"This is stranger and stranger," he murmured. "I say!" he cried aloud again, "isn't any one here?"
"Yes, I'm here," answered a voice which, the Monkey knew at once, came from a toy like himself. "What's the trouble?" this voice went on. "Why are you making such a fuss? Who are you, anyhow?"
"I'm a Monkey on a Stick," answered the toy chap in the box. "And who are you? I seem to know your voice. Where are you?"
"Here I am," came the answer.
The Monkey raised the box cover higher, and then he cried:
"Why, bless my tail! The Candy Rabbit! Well, of all things! Oh, I'm so glad to see you! How are you?" and the Monkey jumped out of his box, and, laying down his stick, ran across the table and shook paws with a beautiful Candy Rabbit, who had a pink nose and pink glass eyes. The Rabbit was on the table, and the Monkey saw that his pasteboard box was there likewise.
"I am quite well, thank you," answered the Candy Rabbit, as he waved his big ears to and fro. "And I am glad to see you--very glad! I knew there was some kind of toy in that box, but I did not know it was you. I haven't seen you since we lived in the toy store together, with the Sawdust Doll, the Lamb on Wheels, the Bold Tin Soldier, the Calico Clown and the White Rocking Horse."
"Yes, and don't forget the two Jacks," went on the Monkey on a Stick, "the Jumping Jack and the Jack in the Box. Then there was the Elephant who tried to race on roller skates with the White Rocking Horse."
"I'm not forgetting them," answered the Rabbit.
"But listen!" exclaimed the Monkey. "Can you tell me this? I went to sleep in the toy store, and I woke up here--in a house, I guess it is--in a pasteboard box on a table set with dishes."
"Yes, this is a house," said the Candy Rabbit. "I live here with a little girl named Madeline. There is also a boy named Herbert here. And these really are dishes on the table. It is the breakfast table, and soon the children will be down to eat."
"But what am I doing here?" asked the Monkey in great surprise. "I can't understand it! Why am I here? I went to sleep in the store, and I woke up on a breakfast table. Can this be a trick or a riddle of the Calico Clown's? Is he going to ask what is more surprised than a Monkey on a Stick at the breakfast table, as he asks what makes more noise than a pig under a gate?"
"No, I think the Calico Clown had nothing to do with your being here," said the Candy Rabbit with a smile.
"Then who did?" asked the Monkey.
"Herbert. A boy who lives here with his sister Madeline," went on the Rabbit.
"Dear me! this is getting more and more riddly-like and jokey," said the Monkey. "I don't understand it at all! Why am I not in the store where I belong?"
"Because you don't belong there any more," cried the Candy Rabbit. "You were bought for the boy Herbert, and you are here at his breakfast plate as a surprise."
"Well, he isn't going to be any more surprised than I am," chattered the Monkey. "I don't seem to understand