"Now, little Cub Bear, I am going to tell you about the time I went
to school, the only time in my whole life that I went to school." The
little Cub Bear said he had never been to school in his life, and he
would like to hear the story.
The monkey Jim said:
"Well, one night when we were riding on the train, going from one town
where the circus had been, to another where they were going to give a
show, I was riding in a wagon on one of the cars with a lot of other
monkeys. The man who took care of the monkeys forgot and left a door
open. A monkey named Joe and I climbed out through the open door and
got on top of the wagon, and we just had a lot of fun, jumping around
and playing with each other, and pulling each other's hair and climbing
down on the car.
"After we had played a long while, the train went into a covered
bridge, and I said to Joe, 'Let's jump up and see if we can catch hold
of one of those iron rods.' He said, 'All right,' and we gave a great
jump, and we caught hold of an iron rod overhead. The train was going
so fast that we almost missed the rod, but we hung on, and in a moment
when we looked down, what do you suppose had happened? The train
had run out from under us, and there was nothing under us except the
railway track and ties, and, away down below them a deep, dark river.
We were frightened, because it was very dark and very cold. We climbed
down as fast as we could, and walked across the ties, until we came to
the ground.
"There were a lot of trees near the track, and we ran over as quickly
as we could and climbed a tree, but it was very, very cold. We hugged
each other very tight and tried to keep warm, but it grew colder, and
colder, and colder, until it seemed as though we would freeze, for
you know we had always lived in a very warm country, until we came to
the circus. By and by, though, it commenced to get light, and when we
looked over in the woods a little farther, we saw a little red school
house. By and by a man, who took care of the little red school house,
came and opened the door and went inside. Pretty soon we saw the smoke
coming out of the chimney, for the man had built a fire.
"Joe said to me, 'Let's go down as quickly as we can and run over
there, and see if we can get warm by the fire.' So we climbed down the
tree, and ran as fast as we could to the little red school house. There
we found a window open a little way, and we climbed up and went inside
the school house. The man wasn't looking, so we hurried over near the
stove, and Joe climbed into one desk where a boy kept his books, and I
climbed into another desk where a girl kept her books. The man looked
around quickly, for he thought he heard something, but we kept so quiet
that he didn't see us. By and by he closed the window, went out and
shut the door, and there we were locked up in that little red school
house! But the fire was so nice and warm that we were glad to be there.
"Pretty soon Joe said, 'Let's go out and see if we can find something
to eat;' so we got out and looked all over the building. We opened the
drawer in the teacher's desk, and in it we found an apple that he had
taken away from a little boy in school the day before, for you know
that little boys are not allowed to have apples in school. I gave Joe
the biggest part of the apple, and we ate it all up; and just as we had
eaten it up, a great big boy came to the door and made such a noise
that we scampered back and got into the desks. We stayed there very
quietly.
"Pretty soon another boy came, and then another, and then another, and
then a girl came, and by and by all the scholars had come. Some of them
were playing in the yard, and some of them in the room, and just then
the teacher came. He rang the bell, 'Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong,'
and the pupils came into the school room and took their seats. Then
the teacher struck a small bell, and the pupils sat up very straight
and sang a song. Just then I reached out and grabbed the ear of the
boy who was sitting in my seat, and pulled it very hard. He screamed,
'Ouch, ouch!' And just then Joe reached out and pulled the hair of the
girl that was sitting in his seat, and she screamed, 'Ouch, ouch!' The
teacher pounded the desk and cried, 'Order, order!' The little boy
thought it was the boy behind him that pulled his ear, and the little
girl thought it was the girl behind her that pulled her hair.
"When everything was still again, the teacher told the boys and girls
to take out their books. The boy reached in to get his book and I bit
his finger, and he yelled 'Ouch!' just as loud as he could, and jumped
out of his seat. And the little girl reached in to get her book, and
Joe bit her finger, and she yelled 'Ouch!' just as loud as she could,
and jumped out. All the pupils looked over to see what was the trouble;
but we kept very still, and the teacher came down quickly to find out
what caused the trouble. He reached his hand into the desk quickly,
and I grabbed hold of his hand and hung on. Then he jerked his hand
out, and I came out with it, and I jumped on his shoulders and began
to pull his hair; and Joe jumped out of his desk, and he jumped on the
teacher's shoulders, and the teacher yelled and tried to hit us with a
stick, and we jumped over on to the teacher's desk, and then we jumped
over the pupils' heads. I jumped out of the window, and Joe ran out
of the door, and as he ran out he took one of the boys' dinner pails
with him. They all screamed and yelled and ran after us as fast as they
could.
"We ran over to a tree, and a couple of dogs saw us, and they barked
and barked, and ran after us. The boys threw stones, but none of them
could hit us, and pretty soon we got to a tree. We scampered up as
fast as we could, and all the pupils, and the teacher, and the dogs,
came to the foot of the tree, and the dogs barked, and the boys yelled
and threw stones, and the girls danced and shouted. The teacher had
something that looked like a gun, but I think it was only a stick,
because he didn't shoot at all. Just then Joe reached into the dinner
pail, and he found a soft boiled egg. He threw this down at the teacher
and hit him right on top of his bald head.
"Then we scampered out on the branches, and jumped into another tree,
and then into another tree, and then into another tree, and pretty
soon we had gone so far that they couldn't find us. Then we opened the
dinner pail, and we found a fine dinner, some apples, and nuts, and
bread and butter, and a piece of pie. When we had eaten everything
there was in the pail, we left the pail up in the tree, and climbed
down to the ground. Then we walked and we ran, until we came to a town,
and there was the circus tent. For this was the _very_ town where the
circus was going to show! We ran as fast as we could, and a lot of
dogs got after us. They barked and barked, but we got away from all
the dogs but one, because he could run faster than the others. He was
a very little dog, and when he came close to us, Joe ran to one side
of the road and I ran to the other, and just as he got between us, we
grabbed the dog by his tail and his ears, and pulled so hard that he
just yelled, 'Ki-yi, ki-yi, ki-yi!' and ran toward the tent as fast as
he could; so we both jumped on his back and rode until we came to the
tent. Then we jumped off and scampered into the tent under the canvas
and found our wagon. The door was still open, and we got into the
wagon, and there we went to sleep, for we had been up all night.
"That is the way I went to school," said the monkey.
And the little Cub Bear said, "I will be glad when I am big enough to
go to school."