The Story of a Monkey on a Stick Part 1

The Story of a Monkey on a Stick.

by Laura Lee Hope.

CHAPTER I

A STRANGE AWAKENING

The Monkey on a Stick opened his eyes and looked around. That is he tried to look around; but all he could see, on all sides of him, was pasteboard box. He was lying on his back, with his hands and feet clasped around the stick, up which he had climbed so often.

"Well, this is very strange," said the Monkey on a Stick, as he rubbed his nose with one hand, "very strange indeed! Why should I wake up here, when last night I went to sleep in the toy store? I can't understand this at all!"

Once more he looked about him. He surely was inside a pasteboard box. He could see the cover of it over his head as he lay on his back, and he could see one side of the box toward his left hand, while another side of the box was at his right hand.

"And," said the Monkey on a Stick, speaking to himself, as he often did, "I suppose the bottom of the pasteboard box is under me. I must be lying on that."

He unclasped the toes of his left foot from the stick and banged his foot down two or three times.

"Yes, there's pasteboard all around me," said the Monkey. "This surely is very strange! I wonder if the Calico Clown has been up to any of his tricks? Maybe he thinks I'm a riddle, and he's going to tell it to the Elephant from the Noah's Ark, or else make a joke of me to the Jumping Jack. I haven't been shut up in a box before--not since the time Santa Claus brought me from his workshop at the North Pole. I wonder what this means?"

The Monkey raised his head and banged it on the box cover.

"Oh, my cocoanut!" cried the Monkey, for that is what he sometimes called his head. "My poor cocoanut!" he went on, as he put up his hand.

"I wonder if I raised a big lump on my cocoanut!"

But his head seemed to be all right, and, taking care not to bang himself again, the Monkey began pus.h.i.+ng on the box cover. It was not heavy, and he slowly raised it until he could look out.

As I have told you in the other books of this series, the Monkey on a Stick, and the other toys as well, could move about and talk, when they kept to certain rules. You may find out what those rules were by looking in the other books.

The Monkey on a Stick looked out from beneath the cover of the box, and what he saw surprised him almost as much as he had been startled when he found pasteboard on all sides of him. For the Monkey saw that he was in the room of a strange house, and not in the big toy department of the store where he had lived for so long a time.

"I say!" chattered the Monkey to himself, "there is something wrong here. They must have given me paregoric to make me sleep, and then have put me in a box and carted me down to some other part of the store. I'm sure the Calico Clown must have had a hand in this. He and his jokes and riddles about what makes more noise than a pig under a gate! I'll fix him when I get out of here!"

The Monkey raised the box cover higher and began to call:

"Hi there, Calico Clown! what do you mean by shutting me up in a pasteboard box? What's the joke? Come on, Mr. Elephant from Noah's Ark!

Come and help me out! Ho, Jack-Jump! Hi, Jack-Box! Where are you all? I don't see any of you!"

For, as he looked around the room, from under the cover of the box, the Monkey saw not a sign of his former friends.

"This is stranger and stranger," he murmured. "I say!" he cried aloud again, "isn't any one here?"

"Yes, I'm here," answered a voice which, the Monkey knew at once, came from a toy like himself. "What's the trouble?" this voice went on. "Why are you making such a fuss? Who are you, anyhow?"

"I'm a Monkey on a Stick," answered the toy chap in the box. "And who are you? I seem to know your voice. Where are you?"

"Here I am," came the answer.

The Monkey raised the box cover higher, and then he cried:

"Why, bless my tail! The Candy Rabbit! Well, of all things! Oh, I'm so glad to see you! How are you?" and the Monkey jumped out of his box, and, laying down his stick, ran across the table and shook paws with a beautiful Candy Rabbit, who had a pink nose and pink gla.s.s eyes. The Rabbit was on the table, and the Monkey saw that his pasteboard box was there likewise.

"I am quite well, thank you," answered the Candy Rabbit, as he waved his big ears to and fro. "And I am glad to see you--very glad! I knew there was some kind of toy in that box, but I did not know it was you. I haven't seen you since we lived in the toy store together, with the Sawdust Doll, the Lamb on Wheels, the Bold Tin Soldier, the Calico Clown and the White Rocking Horse."

"Yes, and don't forget the two Jacks," went on the Monkey on a Stick, "the Jumping Jack and the Jack in the Box. Then there was the Elephant who tried to race on roller skates with the White Rocking Horse."

"I'm not forgetting them," answered the Rabbit.

"But listen!" exclaimed the Monkey. "Can you tell me this? I went to sleep in the toy store, and I woke up here--in a house, I guess it is--in a pasteboard box on a table set with dishes."

"Yes, this is a house," said the Candy Rabbit. "I live here with a little girl named Madeline. There is also a boy named Herbert here. And these really are dishes on the table. It is the breakfast table, and soon the children will be down to eat."

"But what am I doing here?" asked the Monkey in great surprise. "I can't understand it! Why am I here? I went to sleep in the store, and I woke up on a breakfast table. Can this be a trick or a riddle of the Calico Clown's? Is he going to ask what is more surprised than a Monkey on a Stick at the breakfast table, as he asks what makes more noise than a pig under a gate?"

"No, I think the Calico Clown had nothing to do with your being here,"

said the Candy Rabbit with a smile.

"Then who did?" asked the Monkey.

"Herbert. A boy who lives here with his sister Madeline," went on the Rabbit.

"Dear me! this is getting more and more riddly-like and jokey," said the Monkey. "I don't understand it at all! Why am I not in the store where I belong?"

"Because you don't belong there any more," cried the Candy Rabbit. "You were bought for the boy Herbert, and you are here at his breakfast plate as a surprise."

"Well, he isn't going to be any more surprised than I am," chattered the Monkey. "I don't seem to understand this at all. How did I get here?"

"I imagine that, after you went to sleep in the store last night, one of the clerks at the toy counter put you in the pasteboard box, wrapped you up and sent you here."

"I see how it happened," said the Monkey. "I went to sleep in the store yesterday afternoon. I had been up late the night before, as we toys were having some fun. I was trying to guess a riddle the Calico Clown asked. It was how do the seeds get inside the apple when there aren't any holes in the skin. I was thinking of that riddle, and it kept me up quite late the night before."

"Did you think of the answer?"

"No, I didn't," said the Monkey; "any more than I can think of the answer to the Clown's riddle of what makes more noise than a----"

"Hus.h.!.+ Here come Madeline and Herbert to breakfast!" suddenly whispered the Rabbit. "Back to your box as quick as you can. We toys are not allowed to move about by ourselves when any one sees us, you know."

"Yes, I know!" chattered the Monkey.

Nimbly he sprang back to his box, and clasped the stick, up and down which he climbed when a string was pulled. As he pulled the box cover down over his head he heard the joyous shouts and laughter of two children as they ran into the room.

"Happy birthday, Herbert!" called Madeline. "Look and see what Daddy bought for you yesterday!"

When Herbert had the cover off the box and had looked at the Monkey on a Stick lying there with a funny grin on his face, the boy smiled and cried:

"Oh, it's a Climbing Monkey! Oh, this is just what I wanted! Oh, now I can have a show and a circus and I'll ask d.i.c.k to come and bring his Rocking Horse, and Arnold can come and bring his Bold Tin Soldier, and we'll have lots of fun. Oh, look at my Monkey climb his stick!"

Herbert took his new birthday toy from the box, and, by pulling the string, made the Monkey go up and down as fast as anything. Madeline picked up her Candy Rabbit, and though that Bunny said nothing, he could see all that went on.