The next evening the Cub Bear and all the animals were sitting in the
cave, just before the little Cub Bear was to go to bed, and the little
Cub Bear teased his papa for a story, but his papa said he was too
tired to tell a story, for he had hunted all day, trying to find a
honey tree, and had not found one. The little Cub Bear kept on teasing
for a story, but his papa said he was so tired he could not think of a
story to tell.
Then the monkey said, "I will tell you a story, little Cub Bear, if you
wish me to."
And the Cub Bear said, "Yes, tell me a story of your most narrow escape
from death."
"Well," said the monkey, "I once belonged to a man who owned a drug
store, in a large city. He had another monkey, named Jim, and a parrot.
The parrot was a large, green bird, and he had learned to talk like a
man. He could say, 'Good-by,' 'Good-day,' 'Good-night,' 'Polly wants a
cracker,' and 'See what you did.'
"One day Jim and the parrot and I were all down in the cellar, and the
druggist forgot and shut the door, so that we had to stay down there.
But we had a fine time, running about and jumping over everything that
came in the way. We jumped up to the ceiling, and jumped from one beam
to another, and then down to the floor. I pulled Jim's tail and ran
away. He would run after me and pull mine, and jump away quickly. And
once or twice the parrot got hold of us, but he really hurt us with his
great bill and his claws, so that we kept out of his way most of the
time. In fact, he hurt me so badly once, that I pulled a couple of his
tail feathers out, just to show him how it felt.
"Jim and I were scampering across the floor, when we struck a great
carboy--a great bottle--larger than a pail, and knocked it over on the
cement floor, where it broke. The stuff that was in it ran out on the
floor. And the parrot said, 'See what you did! See what you did!'
"This big bottle had on it in large letters 'S-u-l-p-h-u-r-i-c
A-c-i-d.' We were sorry that we had tipped over the bottle, but we
didn't feel very bad until Jim found that he had some of the stuff on
the end of his tail, and it was burning him terribly. It burned so
much that he tried to run away from the end of his tail. But he was so
careless in jumping about, that he struck another big carboy sitting on
the floor, and he knocked that over, too, and spilled the stuff that
was in it.
"And the parrot said, 'See what you did! See what you did!'
"This bottle had on it in big letters, 'N-i-t-r-i-c A-c-i-d.' This
stuff ran out all over the floor, and ran into a hole in the center of
the floor, that was shaped something like a bowl. I got some of it on
my foot, and it didn't feel very good. So I commenced to run around,
too, and jump up to the ceiling, and thought I would keep off the floor.
"There we found a great big can filled with glycerine. Do you know what
glycerine is? It tastes sweet, like honey. I dipped my foot in the
glycerine, to see if it would stop the smarting, and Jim put the end of
his tail in it, too. But we were so excited, that the first thing we
knew, we tipped over the entire can of glycerine on the floor, and that
went into the same hole where the other stuff was.
"And the parrot said, 'See what you did! See what you did!!'
"After we tipped over the glycerine, we noticed a horrible smell, so
Jim and I and the parrot all went back in the corner, as far away as we
could get, and stayed there about two hours. But after a while, Jim's
tail hurt him so badly, and the smell was so awful, that he commenced
to run around in the most reckless way. He jumped all over the cellar,
and finally, just as he was over this hole, where all the stuff had
been spilled, he knocked down a great stone jug, and that dropped right
into the stuff, and there was the most awful explosion that you can
imagine. The drug store and everything in it was blown away up into
the air, and poor Jim flew up so high that we never saw him again.
"The parrot was terribly frightened, but when he looked up and saw Jim
go up out of sight in the air, he said, 'Good-by, good-by.' And then he
looked over at me, and saw that nearly all of my hair was burned off,
and he looked at himself, and saw that his feathers were nearly all
gone. He said: 'See what you did! See what you did! See what you did!'"
When the monkey had finished his story, the little Cub Bear said:
"Well, what was it that made such a terrible explosion?"
The monkey said, "I don't know; but afterward I saw some men walking
around the ruins of the drug store, and they saw a broken carboy and an
empty can of glycerine, and they said the stuff must have become mixed,
and made nitro-glycerine."
Then the little Cub Bear said, "That stuff must be a good deal like the
stuff we found in the box that opened the way into the beautiful cave
for us."
And the monkey said, "Yes, I heard one man say that nitro-glycerine and
dynamite were the same; that dynamite was just nitro-glycerine mixed
with a kind of clay."
The next night, just before bedtime, little Cub Bear said he wanted to
hear the story the little bird had promised to tell them. All of the
animals said they wanted to hear it, too, so the little bird began: