The Story of a Monkey on a Stick | Page 6

and you know how hard it is to get dried ink off your fingers after you have written a letter. Well, it was this way with the Cotton Doll. The ink stayed on her face.
"Well, if you have ink on your face I've also got some on the end of my tail, where I dipped it into the bottle," said the Monkey chap, thinking to cheer up the Doll by this.
"Yes, but the ink doesn't show on your brown tail as it does on my white face," said the Doll. "However, there is no use crying over spilled milk, I suppose," she went on. "Only if you do such a thing again I'll never speak to you as long as I live!"
"I'll never do it again," said the Monkey in a sorrowful voice. "Now let's have some fun. You tell me some of your adventures and I'll tell you some of mine. Did you ever live in a store?"
"Oh, yes, that's where I came from," answered the Doll.
"And was there a Calico Clown in your store, who was always asking what it was that made more noise than a pig under a gate?" asked the Monkey.
"No. But there was a Jumping Jack who was always trying to see how high he could kick, and one day he nearly kicked my hat off," said the Cotton Doll. "But tell me, please, some of your adventures."
The Monkey was just starting to tell how the Calico Clown's red and yellow trousers were burned in the gas jet one day, when, all of a sudden, there was a great noise and commotion in the schoolroom. The Monkey and the Doll could not tell what had caused it, though the Monkey did try to look out through the keyhole.
"Can you see anything?" asked the Doll.
"I can see some water dripping down," answered the long-tailed chap, "and the teacher and the children are running around as fast as anything."
"Oh, I wonder what has happened!" exclaimed the Doll. And just then she and the Monkey on a Stick heard the teacher say:
"Run out quickly, children! Run out, all of you. A water pipe has burst and there's a regular rain storm inside our nice schoolroom."
"Please can't I have my Monkey on a Stick before I go out?" asked Herbert. "You put him in your desk, Teacher!"
"And I want my knife you took away, please!" called another boy.
"We have no time for those things, now," the teacher said. "The water is coming down fast, and we'll all be wet through if we stay. The Monkey, knife and other things will be all right in my desk. Get your hats, and pass out quickly. More pipes may burst and flood the school.
"Go home, children, all of you," said the teacher. "To-morrow the pipes will be mended, and, if the school is dry enough, we will go on with our lessons. But run home now."
You may well imagine that most of the boys and girls were glad of the holiday that had come to them so unexpectedly. But Herbert felt sorry; that he had to leave his Monkey on a Stick in school. When he reached home he acted so strangely that his mother wanted to know what the matter was.
Of course Herbert had to tell that he had taken his Monkey to school, and he also had to tell what had happened afterward.
"Of course you did wrong," said Herbert's mother, "and you must suffer a little punishment."
"What kind of punishment?" asked Herbert.
"The punishment of not having your Monkey," was the answer.
And now we must see what happened to the Monkey on a Stick.
"What do you imagine will happen next?" asked the Doll of the Monkey, for they had heard what had been said.
"I don't know," was the answer. "But if we are left alone here in the room we can get out of the desk and have some fun."
"Oh, so we can!" cried the Doll. "I'm tired of being shut up here. Can you open the desk, Mr. Monkey?"
"I think so," was the reply.
The Monkey was just going to raise the lid, by prying under it with the long stick up and down which he climbed, when, all of a sudden, there was a noise in the room.
"Some one is coming!" whispered the Doll.
"I hear them," said the Monkey. He looked out through the keyhole and saw a man wading through the water toward the desk. "I guess it's the night watchman," went on the Monkey in a whisper.
"We don't have a night watchman in school," whispered back the Doll. "But we have a janitor. Maybe it's the janitor coming."
And so it was. The janitor had shut off some of the water in the broken pipes, and he was going about from room to room to see how much