DON RUNS AWAY
Don, who had been barking and growling to make Squinty, the comical
pig, go back to his pen, stopped suddenly, and grew very quiet when he
saw the funny, hairy, four-handed animal, and also the one that seemed
to have two tails. Don crouched down in the bushes to hide away, for,
though he had not been afraid of the big, black bull, this queer beast
was much larger, and so different.
“Don’t be afraid,” said Squinty, again. “That is only Tum Tum.”
“What do you mean――Tum Tum?” asked Don. “That sounds like the name of
a drum. And why shouldn’t I be afraid of an animal with two tails?
especially when he is so big,” asked Don.
“He hasn’t two tails,” grunted Squinty, the comical pig. “I thought the
same thing at first, until Mappo told me different.”
“Who is Mappo?” asked Don.
“Mappo is this chap――a merry monkey,” answered the little pig, as
he pointed with one paw toward the queer, furry, four-handed and
long-tailed animal.
“Oh, so your name is Mappo, is it?” asked Don, for he found that he
could talk to the other animals, as well as understand them.
“Yes, I am Mappo,” the monkey said. “But please don’t speak my name so
loudly.”
“Why not?” Don wanted to know.
“Because I have run away from a circus,” answered Mappo. And then Don
saw that what he had thought were hands were only paws, but they were
almost like hands, and the monkey’s tail was almost like a fifth hand
to him.
“Run away from a circus?” barked Don. “What’s a circus?”
“That’s it, out there,” Squinty said, as he nodded his head toward the
big red, green and golden wagons that were rumbling along the country
road. “Mappo and Tum Tum belong to the circus, but Mappo has run away,
just as I ran from the pen. Tum Tum is after him.”
“Who is Tum Tum?” asked Don again.
“He’s that big elephant,” answered Mappo, as he pointed toward the
creature.
“Oh ho!” barked Don, and he was not so frightened now. “So that is what
you call an animal with two tails; an elephant?”
“He hasn’t two tails, I tell you,” answered Squinty, with a pig-laugh.
“One is his tail――that’s the short one, and the other is his trunk.”
“It doesn’t look like a trunk,” said Don. “I know what a trunk is.
There are some in the attic of the house where I live, and Bob’s mother
keeps her clothes in them. I don’t see how Tum Tum could keep any
clothes in that trunk that hangs down from his mouth.”
“It isn’t that kind of a trunk,” said the big elephant with a deep,
jolly laugh. “My trunk is just a long nose, to breathe through, and
squirt water through, and I can curl it around and pick up things with
it.”
And to prove how easy it was he just picked up Mappo, the merry monkey,
in his trunk, Tum Tum did, and set him on his back.
“Oh ho! So that’s what a trunk is for!” exclaimed Don. “Well, I am glad
to know, and I am glad I met you, Mappo and Tum Tum. But now, Squinty,
you must come back to your pen with me.”
“I don’t want to go!” squealed the little pig.
“But you must come!” Don said. “I was sent after you and I am going to
take you home, even if I have to lead you all the way by the ear.”
“Yes, you had better go,” said Tum Tum. “I have been sent from the
circus to bring back Mappo, the merry monkey.”
“But I am not coming,” Mappo said. “I have run away, and I am not going
to run back again until after I have some fun.”
And if you want to read all the things the monkey and the elephant did,
you may do so in the special books about them, just as you may read
about Squinty, the comical pig.
One book is called, “Mappo, the Merry Monkey,” and the other “Tum Tum,
the Jolly Elephant.” I have not room in this book to set down all their
wonderful adventures.
“Aren’t you coming back with me?” asked Tum Tum of Mappo.
“No, I am going to run away some more,” Mappo chattered, in monkey
fashion, and off through the bushes he slipped, to have some fun.
“I am sorry about that,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, as he
crashed through the underbrush. “I shall have to go back to the circus
without Mappo.”
“But I am not going back to the farm without you, Squinty,” said Don,
the dog, and with that he took hold of the comical little pig, and led
him through the woods to his pen.
“The monkey and the elephant can do as they like,” said Don, “but my
master told me to fetch back any runaway pigs I saw, and I am going to
do it.”
“I don’t like you,” said Squinty, rather crossly to Don, as they went
along through the woods.
“Well, I am sorry about that,” barked Don, “for I do not mean to be
unkind to you. Still I must take you back where you belong.”
“And just when I was having such fun, running away!” went on Squinty,
disappointed.
“It isn’t any fun to run away,” spoke Don, as he took hold of Squinty’s
ear in a new place, so as not to hurt the comical little pig with the
queer, squinty eye.
“Oh, isn’t it?” squealed Squinty. “That’s because you never tried
it――you don’t know. Now if you were to run away once, you’d have so
much fun you’d like it, I’m sure.”
“Did you have any fun when you ran away?” asked Don.
“Lots of fun,” answered Squinty. “That is, I did have until you came
along and spoiled it all.”
“Well, I’m sorry I spoiled it, but I had to bring you home,” spoke Don.
“You belong at the farm you know――not in a circus with monkeys and
elephants.”
“But it’s lots of fun in a circus,” went on Squinty. “I say, Don,” he
went on eagerly, “let’s run away together and join the circus. We could
learn to do tricks, and have lots of fun. Come on!”
“No indeed!” growled Don. “I’m not going to run away.”
“But think of the fun you’d have,” Squinty went on. “At the farm
nothing ever happens.”
“There doesn’t, eh?” asked Don. “I suppose you call the bad, black bull
breaking out of his pasture, and Bob and me driving him back――I suppose
you call that nothing!”
“Oh, well, that, of course,” admitted Squinty.
“And then running after you――is that nothing?” Don wanted to know.
“Well, I wish _that_ hadn’t happened,” Squinty said. “But I mean lots
more happens if you run away than if you stay at home. Just think!
Everything is the same every day when you’re on the farm. You get your
meals just so often, and you always have to come when Bob calls you.”
“Yes, but I like that, for I love my little master Bob,” said Don. “And
I like my three meals a day.”
“But if you ran away you could eat as often as you pleased,” said
Squinty.
“Do you really think so?” asked Don, doubtfully.
“I’m sure of it,” Squinty said.
“Well,” spoke Don, “I never thought of that. Maybe there is something
in this running away after all.”
And, for the first time since he had come to live with Bob on the farm,
Don began to think of running away. He had never thought of such a
thing before, and he wouldn’t have done so then, only Squinty put it
into his head, you see.
Don kept hold of Squinty’s ear all the way back to the farm and led the
comical little pig right up to the pen from which he had broken out.
“There you are!” growled Don, but his voice was quite friendly.
“Yes, here I am, back again,” sighed Squinty, sorrowfully. “I wish you
had let me run farther away.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t think of it,” barked Don.
“Never mind. Maybe some day you’ll run away yourself,” went on Squinty,
“and then you’ll be sorry if some one makes you come back home.”
“No, I never will,” Don said.
The farmer, who owned the pigs, came running out of the barn.
“Well, I declare!” he cried. “If Don hasn’t brought back that rascal
Squinty, who ran away! Good dog, Don!”
Then Don felt very proud and happy, and wagged his tail so hard that it
is a wonder it did not fall off. But then a dog’s tail is made quite
tightly fast to him, you see, so it cannot wag off.
“No,” said Don, as he went to his kennel to dig up a nice, juicy bone
he had buried near it, “no, I’ll never run away――never!”
But you just wait and see what Don did.
For several days after he had brought back Squinty, the comical pig,
nothing much happened to Don. He played about with Bob, his little
master, chased the chickens out of the garden, and did some of his
tricks. One day Tabby, the cat, came out to talk to him.
Don and Tabby were good friends. The dog had always been kind to cats,
since his mother had told him to be, and Tabby was not afraid of Don,
though she would fluff up her tail, and round up her back, when she saw
some dogs that were not friends of hers.
“Don’t you ever get tired of staying here all the while, Don?” asked
Tabby, as she sat in the sunshine, washing her face with her velvety
paw. Dogs and cats can talk to each other you know, though we cannot
understand them.
“Why, no, I don’t know as I get tired,” Don answered. “What makes you
ask that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” meowed Tabby. “Sometimes I feel as if I should like
to run away, and see how the world looks away from this farm. I have
been here all my life.”
“So have I――nearly,” Don went on. “But I like it here.”
Still, what Tabby had said to him, and what Squinty, the comical pig,
had said to him, stayed in Don’s mind. As the days passed, and the
warm, beautiful summer weather came, Don said:
“I wonder how it would seem to run away? I’ve a good notion to try it,
just once. Then I could come back, and tell Tabby and Squinty and the
other farm animals that there is really no fun in running away. That
would make them contented, and they would be glad to stay here.
“Yes, I think I’ll run away, but only just to tell the others how it
seems, so they won’t want to do it. In that way I would be doing Bob
and his father a favor. Yes, I shall run away.”
So Don ran away, and then began some wonderful adventures for him.