OFF AGAIN
Trouble Martin was not given to calling out alarms like this; so, at
first thought, his mother imagined he was playing some sort of joke.
“William, you mustn’t say such things!” she exclaimed, with a little
laugh, giving him a playful shake. “There aren’t any monkeys in these
woods.” Just then they were slowly passing along a road over which the
branches of big trees arched.
“You didn’t see any monkey!” cried Ted. “If you saw anything it was one
of your ‘nellifunts,’ Trouble.”
“I did see a monkey!” insisted the little fellow. “There he is now.
He’s swinging in a tree!” and he pointed ahead.
Mr. Martin was now running the auto very slowly, for there was a bad
place in the road where it had been dug up. So there was plenty of
time for them all to look where Trouble pointed with his chubby finger.
Jan, the first to see something, cried:
“It is a monkey! Oh, look! He’s hanging by his tail from a tree!”
Then they all saw it, and as Mr. Martin stopped the machine just
beneath the swaying monkey, Mrs. Martin exclaimed:
“What in the world does it mean? Trouble, I beg your pardon! You were
right, after all! I thought you were fooling.”
“He’s my monkey!” declared the little fellow. “I saw him first! He’s
mine!”
“If you can get him!” chuckled Ted. “But I guess he’s going to stay up
there out of reach.”
“How do you suppose a monkey comes to be in these woods?” asked Mrs.
Martin of her husband. “Could it have escaped from a circus?”
“There’s nellifunts in a circus,” announced Trouble, getting back to
his favorite subject.
“Yes, this little chap might have come from a circus,” said Mr. Martin,
with a smile, as he looked up at the monkey, now swinging above his
head. “Or from some house. Some people have monkeys for pets.”
“Maybe it belongs to the moving pictures!” exclaimed Ted. “They have a
lot of animals in the pictures.”
“I don’t believe it was with Mr. Portnay’s company,” Mrs. Martin
remarked. “We didn’t see any such animals there. But what are we going
to do about this one?”
“Guess we’ll have to leave him where he is--up in the tree,” answered
her husband. “He can’t do much harm, and since it is summer, he won’t
suffer from the cold. If winter was coming on he’d be a pretty sick
monkey--out in the open like this.”
“I wish I could have this monkey!” pleaded Trouble. “I like a monkey
better’n I do a nellifunt, I guess!”
“Well, that’s quite a thing for you to say!” laughed the little
fellow’s father. “But I’m afraid we can’t get you this for a playmate.
Hold fast, children, I’m going to start.”
As he was about to let in the clutch and send the car ahead, there
appeared, running around the bend in the road, an excited Italian organ
grinder with his music box. He was running fast, and when he caught
sight of the auto he cried:
“You seena da monk? You seena da monk?”
At this moment the monkey in the tree, still swinging by his tail,
began to chatter shrilly. Doubtless he had caught sight of his master
and the organ to which tunes the monkey danced. And as the monkey
chattered the Italian looked up, catching sight of his pet.
“Ah, da monk! My leetle monk!” he exclaimed, and then he talked in his
own language. After which he again spoke English, saying: “Come down,
Mickey! Come down to papa!”
The children laughed at this, and the Italian joined them in the mirth.
“He gooda da monk, but he run away,” explained the man. “Da string, she
break, Mickey go ’way. Come down! Come down!” he begged, holding out
his cap. “Come to papa!”
But the monkey did not appear to want to come down. It turned right
side up, no longer swinging by its tail, but sitting on a branch.
“If you had some peanuts he’d come down for those,” suggested Ted,
searching through his pockets, hoping to find a stray “goober.”
“Mickey lika da peanut, but Mickey lika da banan mooch better,” said
the Italian. “If I hada da banan, down queek he come.”
“I have a banana,” said Mrs. Martin. “I bought some after we left the
moving picture place, and the children didn’t eat all of them. Here’s a
banana for Mickey,” she added, handing to the Italian organ grinder one
of the yellow fruits.
“T’ank you,” murmured the man. Then, peeling the banana, he bit off a
little end of it and held the remainder out so the monkey could see it.
“I no fool you,” the man murmured to his pet. “Dese banana, he good!
See, I eat some of heem!”
Again he took a nibble as if to prove to the watching monkey that the
fruit was real and good. And, seeing this, the monkey gave another
chatter and then began to climb down the tree. Once he had made up his
mind to descend, he lost little time, and he was soon perched on the
organ eating the banana while his master fastened to the collar the
little animal wore, the end of the string from which Mickey had broken
loose.
“Now you be da good monk and come weeth papa!” said the organ grinder,
at which the Curlytops laughed again, the Italian joining in.
“Mother, isn’t it funny for him to call himself the monkey’s papa?”
whispered Jan.
“Rather funny, yes,” admitted her mother. “But the Italians are like
that.”
“I t’ank you for catcha da monk,” said the Italian, taking off his hat
and bowing to Mrs. Martin, as Mickey finished the banana. “Mebby I
never no get heem if so dat he not smell da banana.”
“I’m glad I had one to tempt him down with,” replied the mother of the
Curlytops, with a smile.
“Does your monkey act in moving pictures?” asked Ted, as the traveler
got ready to move along.
“Da movie pitcher--no--no!” cried the Italian. “Mickey he only
hand-organ monk--no movie da pitcher monk! Goo’-by! T’ank you!”
“Good-by!” echoed the Curlytops and the others.
Then Mr. Martin started his car along the road while the Italian, glad
that he had recovered his pet which had run away from him, went in the
other direction.
“Well, another adventure on our tour,” laughed Mrs. Martin. “I couldn’t
imagine what Trouble meant when he called out about a monkey in the
tree.”
“Neither could I,” said the little fellow’s father. “I thought he was
fooling.”
“We’ll have to pay more attention to Trouble after this,” said Ted.
“Next time he may see a bear!” laughed Jan.
“Don’t like bears!” murmured the little fellow, who was getting sleepy.
“Like nellifunts an’ monkeys, but not bears.”
“Well, I don’t believe we are likely to meet any bears,” said Mr.
Martin. “What I would like to meet, though, is that moving picture
actor with the Cardwell albums.”
“We’ll find him at the hotel in Midvale and get the albums back,” said
his wife.
“I hope so,” her husband answered.
They were now on their way again. Since Mr. Martin had made no special
plans for their touring vacation, he and his wife decided that it would
be as well to stop in Midvale for the night, and go on in the morning,
as it would be to try to reach some more distant place.
“Will we sleep in the tent at Midvale?” asked Ted, when signs along the
road showed the Curlytops that they were entering that small city.
“No, I think we’ll go to the hotel,” replied Mr. Martin. “We have to
stop at the hotel, anyhow, to catch this movie actor, so we may as well
stay all night.”
“It would be more fun in the tent,” urged Ted.
“Heaps more fun,” agreed his sister.
“Oh, we’ll have enough of tent life before we finish this tour,
children,” laughed Mrs. Martin.
They reached the Midvale hotel about five o’clock that afternoon. Mr.
Martin told his family to remain in the car until he went in to make
sure they could get rooms. He came out a little later and there was a
look of disappointment on his face.
“Can’t they take us in for the night?” asked his wife.
“Yes, we can stay here. But Mr. Portnay isn’t here. I can’t get the
albums from him.”
“Not here? Then, where is he?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“He stopped here, but has gone on,” her husband answered. “He has gone
on to Cub Mountain, and, I suppose, has the box of albums in his car
with him. Perhaps he doesn’t know about them, and they may get lost. I
wish he had stayed here until I came!”