The Story of a Monkey on a Stick | Page 3

this at all. How did I get here?"
"I imagine that, after you went to sleep in the store last night, one of the clerks at the toy counter put you in the pasteboard box, wrapped you up and sent you here."
"I see how it happened," said the Monkey. "I went to sleep in the store yesterday afternoon. I had been up late the night before, as we toys were having some fun. I was trying to guess a riddle the Calico Clown asked. It was how do the seeds get inside the apple when there aren't any holes in the skin. I was thinking of that riddle, and it kept me up quite late the night before."
"Did you think of the answer?"
"No, I didn't," said the Monkey; "any more than I can think of the answer to the Clown's riddle of what makes more noise than a----"
"Hush! Here come Madeline and Herbert to breakfast!" suddenly whispered the Rabbit. "Back to your box as quick as you can. We toys are not allowed to move about by ourselves when any one sees us, you know."
"Yes, I know!" chattered the Monkey.
Nimbly he sprang back to his box, and clasped the stick, up and down which he climbed when a string was pulled. As he pulled the box cover down over his head he heard the joyous shouts and laughter of two children as they ran into the room.
"Happy birthday, Herbert!" called Madeline. "Look and see what Daddy bought for you yesterday!"
When Herbert had the cover off the box and had looked at the Monkey on a Stick lying there with a funny grin on his face, the boy smiled and cried:
"Oh, it's a Climbing Monkey! Oh, this is just what I wanted! Oh, now I can have a show and a circus and I'll ask Dick to come and bring his Rocking Horse, and Arnold can come and bring his Bold Tin Soldier, and we'll have lots of fun. Oh, look at my Monkey climb his stick!"
Herbert took his new birthday toy from the box, and, by pulling the string, made the Monkey go up and down as fast as anything. Madeline picked up her Candy Rabbit, and though that Bunny said nothing, he could see all that went on.
"Oh, this is a dandy Monkey!" cried Herbert. "I can give a show with him!"
While the little boy was making the funny chap go up and down the stick, the door of the breakfast room opened and some one came in.
CHAPTER II
THE MONKEY AT SCHOOL
"Well, children, why aren't you eating breakfast?" a voice asked, and Herbert, turning around, saw his mother. The Monkey on a Stick, who, if he could not talk or do any tricks just then, could use his eyes, saw a pleasant-faced lady entering the room. She was smiling at Madeline, who had her Candy Rabbit in her hands, and at Herbert.
"Oh, look, Mother, what I found at my plate!" exclaimed Herbert, and he pulled the string, and made the Monkey run up and down the stick. "It's my birthday present!"
"Yes, Daddy said he was going to get you something," said Mother. "It came from the store late yesterday afternoon, and I put it away, and had it laid at your breakfast place this morning. Do you like it?"
"Oh, it's dandy!" exclaimed Herbert. "I love it!"
The children sat down and had an orange and some oatmeal and a glass of milk and a roll with golden yellow butter on it. But of course the Monkey and the Candy Rabbit had nothing to eat. They did not want anything. Being toys, you see, they did not have to eat. Though, at times, they could eat certain things if they wished.
Madeline kept her Candy Rabbit near her plate. All of a sudden, as the little girl was eating, she dropped her spoon in her oatmeal dish, and a drop of milk spattered into the glass eye of the Candy Rabbit.
"Oh, look what you did!" exclaimed Herbert, who saw what had happened. "You'll blind your Rabbit."
"Oh, my poor Rabbit!" said Madeline, and, with her napkin, she carefully wiped the drop of milk out of the Rabbit's eye. And the Bunny never even blinked. That's what it is to be a Candy Rabbit, and have glass eyes. Not all of us are as lucky as that, are we?
A little later Herbert dropped a piece of his buttered roll. It fell near the Monkey, who was lying on the table near the breakfast plate of the little boy. Some of the butter from the roll stuck to the stick which the Monkey climbed up and down.
"Now look what you did, Herbert!" said Madeline. "You'll make the stick so slippery with butter that the Monkey may fall off."
"Come, children," called Mother, as she again entered the