Well, of course the others were somewhat disappointed, which means sorry, but there was no help for it, and they always did as teacher told them to, except sometimes, but this was not one of those times.

So they all went out, leaving Jacko the monkey boy and the teacher in the schoolroom, with the blackboards all covered with words, and sentences, and examples, and number work and maps of different countries, including the one where cocoanuts grow.

Jacko took the erasers and a cloth and so did the teacher and they began work. The red monkey boy could hear the other animal chaps playing ball outside, and getting ready to fly their kites, and the girls were shouting and giggling and screaming like anything, and they didn't know why they did it, either, but girls most always scream, you know.

"They are having lots of fun," said the owl teacher to Jacko, "aren't you sorry you stayed in to help me?"

"No'm," said Jacko, politely, and he brushed the chalk marks off the blackboards harder than ever. Then, after a while, when there was only one more board left to clean, the teacher said:

"Well, Jacko, thank you very much. You have been a great help to me. Run along now and have a good time."

But it was getting late then, and the other animal boys and girls had gone home. So Jacko, putting his books in a loop in his kinky tail, also started for his house.

He had to go through rather a dark piece of woods, but he didn't mind that, for he made up his mind to run as fast as he could, so the burglar fox, or the wolf, wouldn't get him.

And pretty soon he came to the woods, so, holding his books tighter than ever in his tail, away he started. And, just as he got to a hollow stump a voice called to him:

"Hold on there, Jacko Kinkytail! Wait a minute!"

"Indeed, I will not!" cried Jacko, thinking it was the burglar fox, but he happened to look back, and he saw that it was a kind old gentleman squirrel, who was perched on the stump, eating a b.u.t.ternut.

"I just thought you might be hungry, and would like some chestnuts,"

went on the squirrel. "I have more than I need. Help yourself to a handful."

"Thank you, I will," said Jacko, so he took some chestnuts for himself, and some for his brother Jumpo. Then Jacko hurried on, as it was getting darker, and on the way he ate some of the chestnuts. And, whether it was because he was frightened, or because he was so busy eating the chestnuts and throwing away the sh.e.l.ls, I can't say for sure--at any rate poor Jacko was soon lost in the woods, with night coming on, and he couldn't find the right path.

It wasn't because Jacko didn't look for the path home that he couldn't find it; no, indeed, for he searched as hard as ever a monkey boy could.

But that path stayed lost.

"Oh, dear! What shall I do?" said the red monkey finally. "I'm afraid I'll have to stay in these woods forever, and never see my mamma or papa or brother Jumpo again! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

Then he put his hand in his pocket, and he happened to feel a box of matches. Finding them gave him an idea.

"I'll just make a little camp fire," he said. "Then, if I have to stay in the woods all night I'll be warm. And perhaps my papa and brother will come to search for me, and they can tell where I am by the light of the fire. I'll build one."

It didn't take the monkey boy long to gather up some sticks and make a fire, and soon it was blazing merrily, while he sat down in front of it, on a flat stone, and looked at the flames. Then he thought of something else.

"Roast chestnuts! Why not?" he exclaimed. "I'm hungry and they will be just the thing for my supper."

So he took some of the chestnuts the squirrel had given him, and put them in the hot ashes to roast. Well, the nuts were almost ready to eat, after they had cooled a bit, when, all of a sudden, something reached around Jacko's neck from the darkness behind him, and a voice cried out:

"Ah, ha! This time I've got you sure! I thought I'd find something for my supper if I came out, and I have!"

Jacko turned around and saw that the savage wolf had hold of him.

"Oh, please let me go!" cried the poor monkey boy. He struggled to get loose, but couldn't.

"Indeed I'll not let you go!" snarled the wolf. "I'm going to sit down by your fire, and get warm, and then I'll carry you off to my den."

Well, Jacko felt dreadfully on hearing that. But just you wait and see what happens, if you please.

All of a sudden, just as the wolf was getting ready to carry the monkey boy off to his den, the chestnuts in the fire began bursting and popping from the heat.

"Bang-bang!" they went, like fire-crackers. My! what a noise they made as they exploded.

"Oh, I'm shot! I'm hit! Some one is shooting guns at me! Oh, please, don't kill me! I'll be good! I won't eat Jacko! I was only fooling!"

cried the wolf, in a great fright.

"Bang-bang!" went more chestnuts, and some of them hit the wolf in the eye. Then he gave three and a half howls, let go of Jacko and ran off in the woods as fast as he could go.

Then Jacko heard a great shouting, and up rushed his papa and his brother Jumpo, who had been looking all over for him. They heard the bursting chestnuts and they hurried toward the sound, finding the lost monkey boy just in time. They soon showed him the way home, and so the wolf didn't have any supper that night, and everybody said Jacko was a very brave little monkey chap, and I think so myself; don't you?

Now in case a little pig with a curly tail doesn't take my red necktie to wear to the picnic and make the angle worm laugh and turn a somersault, I'll tell you next about the Kinkytails making money.

STORY XVI

THE KINKYTAILS MAKE MONEY

"Mamma, would you please buy us an automobile?" asked Jacko Kinkytail of his mother one Sat.u.r.day morning when there wasn't any school.

"An automobile? Why, my dear boy, what would you do with an automobile?"

asked Mrs. Kinkytail.

"Oh, yes; please do get us one, mother!" begged Jumpo.

"Oh, my! I never heard of such a thing!" cried the monkeys' mamma, as she trimmed the dough off the edge of an apple pie and put it in the oven to bake. "What could you possibly do with it--you two little boys?"

"Why, we could soon learn to run it," said Jacko. "Then we could go to school in it, and come home and take papa to the hand organ factory, and take you to the store, and we could even take out parties on excursion trips and make money that way."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"What would you do when your auto wouldn't go?" asked Mrs. Kinkytail, as she got ready to bake a chocolate cocoanut cake with cherries on the top.

"Oh, we could take turns pulling it then," spoke Jumpo. "Uncle Wiggily has one, so why can't we?"

"Uncle Wiggily is rich, since he found his fortune," said Mrs.

Kinkytail, "but your papa and I haven't money enough to buy even a set of tires for an auto. Still, if you boys could earn the money yourselves you might get one," she said. Of course, she was only joking, for she never thought the boys would take her in earnest. But they did.

"All right, then, we'll earn the money," said Jacko. "Come on, Jumpo."

"Don't stay away too long," cautioned their mamma, and she smiled as the two little monkey boys slid down the tree in which the house was built, and hurried away.

"How are we going to make money?" asked Jumpo, as he followed after his brother. "Are you going to gather up old rags, bones and bottles, and sell them?"

"Come on, I'll show you," spoke Jacko, as he tied his tail in a bow knot to keep it from dragging in the dust. "I'm going to the hand organ factory, where papa works, and I'm going to ask him to lend us an old organ. Then you and I will go around and play music and people will give us pennies. We'll soon have enough to buy an automobile."