THE JUMPING KANGAROO AND THE APPLE BUTTER CAT

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[3]

“Read it to me, Carrier Pigeon.”

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The JUMPING KANGAROO and the APPLE BUTTER CAT

By JOHN W. HARRINGTON

Illustrated by J. W. CONDÉ

NEW YORK McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. M C M

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Copyright, 1900, by McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

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To His Daughter RUTH, For Whose Entertainment these pages were originally written, THE AUTHOR Dedicates this Book

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JUMPING JEHOSOPHAT

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[13]

I JUMPING JEHOSOPHAT

Kerchug, the leap frog, was all the time jumping. He stood every morning on the edge of the pond where he lived, and said to all the birds in the trees above him: “Isn’t it wonderful how I can jump?” Then all the birds would flap their wings and sing a song which began, “Isn’t it a treat to see our leap frog jump so far?”

One day Kerchug made a great big jump into the middle of the pool, and then swam back to the stone from which he always made his jumps. He waited for the birds to flap their wings and to sing about his jumping, but not one of them took any notice of him. Instead of that, he found Carrier Pigeon roosting on a log near the pool and looking very solemn.

“Wasn’t that a great jump?” asked Kerchug.

Carrier Pigeon shook his head, and took out from under his wing a little paper envelope, which he gave to Kerchug. Kerchug opened the letter and when he had looked at it he turned white under the chin.

“Read it to me, Carrier Pigeon,” he said, “I’ve just come out of the water, and my goggles are so damp that I can hardly see anything.”

[14]

Sly Fox stops Kerchug from running away.

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So Carrier Pigeon swelled out his chest and stood on one leg and held the paper in his right claw as he read:

“I can leap further and higher and better than anything which wears a speckled skin and goggles. If Kerchug is not a coward he will come away from the water and hop right out here in the wood and jump with me.

(Signed)

“Jumping Jehosophat.”

“Are his legs as long as mine?” asked Kerchug, looking very hard at Carrier Pigeon.

“He had them curled under him when I saw him sitting in the woods,” answered Carrier Pigeon, “and really I cannot say.”

Kerchug, the leap frog, heard all the birds twittering and whispering, up in the trees. He thought they were all laughing at him, so he gulped and swallowed and then said that he was very glad indeed to see Carrier Pigeon and that it was a very fine morning.

“You might say to your friend,” he added, “that I must have time to think this over, and you can come back in an hour.”

“Very well,” answered Carrier Pigeon, “I’ll go back and tell him.”

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Kerchug and Sly Fox come.

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When Carrier Pigeon had gone, Kerchug put everything which he had in a red bandana handkerchief and tied it up and put the bundle on the end of a stick, which he rested on his shoulder. Then he started for the bulrushes which grew along side of the pool. He had not gone very far before he met Sly Fox.

“Good morning, Kerchug, how is the jumping this morning?” asked Sly Fox.

“Not very good,” answered Kerchug, “besides, I have found that it is not a very healthy place to live around here. The pool is so very damp, and you know that I cannot stand malaria, so I have decided to move.”

“It seems to me,” said Sly Fox, “that you had better wait until you have finished this affair with Jumping Jehosophat. I am surprised that you should be afraid to jump with such an awkward looking creature as he is.”

“But I am afraid that he can go further than I can,” replied Kerchug.

“Don’t worry about that,” answered Sly Fox, “you just leave that to me. You tell him that you will meet him to-morrow morning.”

So Kerchug, the leap-frog, hid his bundle in the bulrushes and marched back to the stone in front of the pool and croaked for Carrier Pigeon to come back.

“Tell Jumping Jehosophat, whoever he is,” said he, “that I’ll meet him to-morrow morning at 9 o’clock under the old oak tree, and I will show him something about jumping.”

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Jumping Jehosophat leaps with the Big Stone.

[19]

All the birds in the woods went the next morning to the old oak tree. The branches of the tree were so full of birds that some of them sagged way down. Under the tree the ground was all hard and smooth. Jumping Jehosophat was there waiting. He was certainly a queer animal. He had a great big body and a little bit of a head. His hind legs were long and strong and his front legs were no bigger than a rabbit’s. As he stood up he was almost as tall as a man; his fur was gray and he had funny little eyes which twinkled as he talked. On his breast were at least a dozen medals for jumping. He folded his arms and hopped about on his hind legs.

“Birds in the tree,” he said, “in me you see the great Jumping Jehosophat, the bounding kangaroo. Because I jump so high I got away from the circus. Now, then, where is that miserable little speckled green thing that thinks it can jump?”

Nobody spoke for a long time and then Sly Fox came out from behind the bushes, carrying a bulrush for a cane.

“Birds in the tree,” said Sly Fox, “the great and only Kerchug, the only creature who is not afraid to leap both in the water and on the dry land, has just finished his test, and is now on his way to show how a truly great leap frog can jump.”

“There he is!” screamed all the birds up in the tree. And, sure enough, there came Kerchug, all dressed up in green tights, with spangles all over them. Sly Fox, who had gone into the bushes to bring him out, came up behind him, carrying a great, big stone.

“With this e-nor-mous stone,” said Sly Fox, “Kerchug has just leaped 100 times, so as to get ready for some real[20] jumping. He will now wait until this poor and awkward creature here has a chance to do the same, so that you will all say that he has been fair.”

“O, that is easy!” said Jumping Jehosophat.

So the bounding kangaroo took the big stone in his little arms and jumped up into the air 100 times.

“Now, then,” said Sly Fox, “we shall have the pleasure of seeing who is the better jumper, Jumping Jehosophat, the bounding kangaroo, or my little friend here, who leaps as well on the dry land as in the wettest pool.”

Then Kerchug made a great, big jump, and Sly Fox marked the place.

Jumping Jehosophat, who was all tired out and sore by leaping when he carried the big stone, could only make a little bit of a jump, and did not come within a foot of the place where Kerchug had leaped. He was so ashamed that he ran into the bushes and hid. So Kerchug, all covered with medals, went back to his pool, hand in hand with his friend, Sly Fox, and all the birds in the trees, as they flew away, cried out: “What a wonderful jumper is our little friend Kerchug, the leap-frog!”

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[22]

YELLOW LION AND HEDGEHOG’S SCRIBBLING

Yellow Lion finds Hedgehog’s scribbling.

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II YELLOW LION AND HEDGEHOG’S SCRIBBLING

Hedgehog was always scribbling. He sat at his desk in his house in the woods and wrote so much that he hardly stopped to eat his meals. He had quills stuck behind his ears, and whenever he thought of anything which would make any of the beasts angry, especially Yellow Lion, he wrote it down on a piece of birch bark. For ink he used pokeberry juice.

Yellow Lion awoke one morning and found a sign tacked to the door of his house with one of Hedgehog’s quills. On the sign was written:

“Lion, you are a big, yellow animal.”

“Who wrote that?” roared Yellow Lion. “I am no more of an animal than he is.”

Everybody knows that Yellow Lion is very proud, for he is the king of beasts. So Yellow Lion went out and sharpened his claws on the trunk of a tree and started to get revenge for the name that he had been called. He had not gone very far before he saw another piece of bark tacked up to a tree with one of Hedgehog’s quills. On it was written:

[24]

Little Monkey explains.

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“Lions, take notice. The quill is mightier than the claw.”

Yellow Lion picked off the sign and shook it between his paws.

“The idea,” he said. “This is an insult. Just let me find out who wrote that and there will be an awful time in this jungle.”

He had only gone half a mile before he met Big Elephant.

“Elephant,” he roared; “whose writing is this?”

Big Elephant put on his glasses and picked up the piece of bark and looked at it very carefully.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I write in my sleep. You know, I used to write visiting cards with my feet, and since I stand up when I am asleep maybe I write a little without knowing it. I don’t remember this.”

“You are a foolish, old elephant,” roared Yellow Lion, and he bounded away so angrily that he could hardly see. He almost ran into Striped Tiger.

“Pardon me,” said Yellow Lion, for he had a great respect for Striped Tiger.

“Don’t mention it,” answered Striped Tiger, showing his white teeth. “What is this I hear about your mane?”

“Name,” replied Yellow Lion.

“O, well, it’s much the same,” purred Striped Tiger. “The same letters. You come with me and I’ll show you something that will make you feel very glad.”

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Hedgehog writing at his desk.

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Striped Tiger winked at Big Elephant, who had just come up, and all three walked through the jungle. Striped Tiger led Yellow Lion to a large rock, on which was written:

“He has a mane which is rusty. He needs a haircut.”

“This is too much,” roared Yellow Lion.

“Ha! ha!” laughed somebody way up in the trees.

Yellow Lion looked up and saw Little Monkey swinging along the tree tops by his tail. Little Monkey had a cap on his head and a piece of birch bark and a quill under his arm.

“Come down!” roared Yellow Lion.

He talked so loud that Little Monkey was scared, and let go his tail and fell to the ground. Yellow Lion picked him up and shook him. On the piece of bark which Little Monkey had was written, “A poor, innocent goat was killed. Ask Yellow Lion.”

“Now I have you!” snarled Yellow Lion. “I’ll teach you to write such things and put them up on trees.”

“Please, I’m only a messenger boy,” whimpered Little Monkey. “Hedgehog wrote it.”

“I’ll not eat you up!” roared Yellow Lion, “if you will take me to your master.”

So Little Monkey led Yellow Lion to Hedgehog’s house. Yellow Lion went right into the room where Hedgehog was writing at his desk.

“Hedgehog,” said Yellow Lion, “you have been calling me names. You wrote that I had a mane—”

[28]

Hedgehog drives his quills.

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“I thought that you had,” answered Hedgehog, in a meek, little voice.

He was sitting on a barrel before his desk, and kept on writing as hard as he could. He had sheets of bark all around him, and his hands and face were all over pokeberry ink.

“That was all rusty. It is false,” continued Yellow Lion.

“Your mane looks as though it were real,” replied Hedgehog.

“You said I ought to have a haircut,” added Yellow Lion.

“Which one of your hairs,” sighed Hedgehog.

“Hedgehog,” roared Yellow Lion, “your time has come. You miserable, little—”

“What did you say?” asked Hedgehog. “I am hard of hearing.”

“Quill driver,” thundered Yellow Lion.

With that Hedgehog moved the back of his neck in such a way that all the quills which were sticking behind his ears came out like arrows shot from the bow. They stuck in the face of Yellow Lion and made him jump and squeal and beg for mercy. Yellow Lion ran out of the place with his paws all over his face and the tears running down his cheeks.

“I may be a quill driver,” said Hedgehog, as he dipped a quill in pokeberry juice, “but when I am writing I cannot afford to be annoyed by big, yellow animals.”

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[31]

THE ANT’S AUNT GIVES A PICNIC

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The Ant’s aunt scolds the Ant’s uncle.

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III THE ANT’S AUNT GIVES A PICNIC

The ant’s aunt had to give a picnic, because she had been invited to so many places by all her relatives, she thought it was time to pay back some of the invitations.

“But it will be such a bother,” said the ant’s uncle, when he heard about it.

“Don’t be foolish, now,” replied the ant’s aunt. “We cannot go in society without going to some trouble.”

So the ant’s uncle said that it would be all right, for he always said something of that kind when his wife talked about giving a party.

He was sleeping early the next morning, when his wife woke him and said: “Benjamin, Benjamin, did you remember to get the lemons and the sugar?”

“No,” replied the ant’s uncle, as he rolled over again in bed. “The grocery store was closed.”

“Then you will have to go into the kitchen of the man’s house and get as much as you can carry before the cook gets up.”

[34]

“Suppose you had a hundred toes!”

[35]

“The last time I was there,” muttered Benjamin, “I nearly got blown up with the kerosene can.”

By the time the ant’s uncle got back to his house he found more than a hundred ants of all kinds walking up and down and carrying all kinds of provisions.

“You are very late,” said the ant’s aunt. “What did you do about the swing, Benjamin? Did you stop and see the spider about it?”

Benjamin had forgotten all about the swing, so he had to go back to where the spider kept a shop, and he came back after a while with a wheelbarrow loaded down with rope. The ant’s aunt was lame, and she had to walk with a cane. She was at the head of the picnic party and Benjamin, the ant’s uncle, came last of all with his wheelbarrow filled with rope and baskets and sugar and lemons and tubs and glasses and everything which might be used on a picnic. The ants went to Deacon Jones’ woods, and as they got nearer, they heard all kinds of strange noises. All the animals and all the birds came out to see the picnic go by. The ants walked on until they came to a bare spot in the middle of the woods, and there they stopped and put down their bundles and baskets.

“This will be a nice place to set the table,” said the ant’s aunt. “Now, Benjamin, while I am doing all the work, suppose you go and put up the swing for the children.”

[36]

Uncle Ant and his wheelbarrow.

[37]

The ant’s uncle said something underneath his breath and then he took the rope and the boards and things and put up 153 swings. He hurt his knee and sprained his back and cut his fingers. He also stubbed his toes.

“You needn’t feel so badly about hurting your toes,” said a centipede, who stopped to look, “suppose you had toes on 100 feet to stub, then you could afford to talk.”

The ant’s uncle returned to the place where the table was being set. He threw his hat over on the grass and sat down, saying, “I am very tired and a little rest would do me a great deal of good.”

“Benjamin, Benjamin,” cried the ant’s aunt, “how could you do such a thing?”

“Why, just you see what Uncle Benjamin did,” cried all the small ants at once.

“You ought not to be so careless,” replied Benjamin, “how was I to know that it was a custard pie? I thought it was a nice cushion you put there for me.”

The ant’s uncle started to get his hat and walk away. He had not gone very far before he became red in the face with anger.

“Get off my hat,” all the ants heard him say, “how dare you sit on a poor ant’s hat like that. Haven’t you any manners?”

“What is the matter, Benjamin?” asked the ant’s aunt, picking up her cane and hobbling toward her husband.

“This miserable man,” yelled the ant’s uncle, “has the impudence to sit down on my hat and he won’t get up.”

[38]

The Ant’s uncle thinks the custard pie is a cushion.

[39]

The man looked in the direction of Benjamin and then yawned and got up and walked away.

“Benjamin, Benjamin,” cried the ant’s aunt, a few minutes later, “little Betsy Ann has come back and she says that nearly a dozen of the children started to climb a mountain and the mountain got up and walked away. Won’t you please go and try and find them?”

The ant’s uncle jammed his crushed silk hat down over his eyes, picked up a big switch and went to find the children. He walked and walked until he came to a place where a whole lot of men and women were sitting in a circle while the mosquitos ate them. The men and women were eating pickles and dry sandwiches and trying to look happy. Uncle Benjamin hurried down the middle of the tablecloth, calling, “Children, children,” at the top of his voice. Everywhere he went he met some of those miserable little children who had run away from their own picnic. He found them sitting on the edge of a sponge cake dangling their feet and kicking holes in the icing. They were perched on loaves of bread and up on top of a plate of sliced ham, they were playing hide and seek. Some of them had climbed up into a great big tin reservoir. There were all their clothes on the edge and they were having a swim.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go near the water?” asked Uncle Benjamin, shaking his switch. “Now, where do I find you?”

“It isn’t water,” said all the children ants; “it’s lemonade.”

[40]

It took the ant’s uncle more than an hour to get all the children together.

“Why don’t you come away from here?” he said. “Don’t you hear all the men and women talking and saying that it would be such a delightful place here if it were not for those miserable ants?”

“They didn’t say a word,” replied the children, “until you came.”

This made Uncle Benjamin so angry that he swung his switch and chased all the children before him back to the place where the table of the ants’ picnic had been spread. Way over to one side was the ant’s aunt all alone. She had her handkerchief to her eyes, and was crying as though her heart would break.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Uncle Benjamin. “What in the world has happened?”

“Why, can’t you see?” replied the ant’s aunt. “A miserable man came this way and stepped right on the table, and when he lifted up his foot everything was ruined.”

“Come on, children,” said Uncle Benjamin, “Let us all go back to the men’s picnic. After he has treated us this way, he deserves that we should tease him and all his family.”

That is the reason that, when men and women give picnics all the ants in the neighborhood go and plague them.

[41]

[42]

THEIR FAT FRIEND

Small Dog chases Gray Mouse home.

[43]

IV THEIR FAT FRIEND

Gray Mouse and White Rabbit lived under the floor of the barn and were very happy. The only thing which ever bothered them was Small Dog. They hated Small Dog worse than poison.

“Poison always stays in one place,” said Gray Mouse, “but Small Dog is always jumping and digging. If he lives around this barn we might as well go away. Why, the other day he chased me right up to my front door, and if I had not been quick with my latch key, I am afraid that he would have jostled me very rudely!”

Then Gray Mouse stopped talking and nearly jumped out of his skin. White Rabbit raised his ears and made his whiskers tremble. Right over their heads they heard a noise like thunder. Gray Mouse and White Rabbit ran up under the manger and peeped out. There they saw something which looked like a big barrel placed on four piano legs. It had a long pipe in front of it, four or five times bigger than the garden hose, and this big pipe was swinging backward and forward.

“What’s that?” asked White Rabbit, resting his paw on Gray Mouse’s arm.

[44]

“Please, Mighty Mouse!”

[45]

“It looks to me,” answered Gray Mouse, “like an animal which the man has in the parlor of his house, at least his legs look like those of that poor beast. The man’s daughter boxes the creature’s ears for two hours every morning, and although he cries and cries she will not stop.”

“You do not know very much,” whispered White Rabbit. “I heard the man say one morning that his little girl was pounding the piano in the parlor, and this thing is not a piano at all.”

Just then the creature winked his little eyes and made its big ears go flop, flop.