LAURA LEE HOPE

HARRY L. SMITH

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 [Pg 2]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 [Pg 3]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 pushing 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 [Pg 4]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 [Pg 5]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 [Pg 6]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 glass 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 [Pg 7]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."[Pg 8]

"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.[Pg 9]

"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."[Pg 10]

"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——"

"Hush! 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."[Pg 11]

"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 Dick 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!"[Pg 12]

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.

"Oh, this is a dandy Monkey!" cried Herbert. "I can give a show with him!"

While the little boy was making the funny chap go up and down the stick, the door of the breakfast room opened and some one came in.[Pg 13]

CHAPTER II

THE MONKEY AT SCHOOL

"Well, children, why aren't you eating breakfast?" a voice asked, and Herbert, turning around, saw his mother. The Monkey on a Stick, who, if he could not talk or do any tricks just then, could use his eyes, saw a pleasant-faced lady entering the room. She was smiling at Madeline, who had her Candy Rabbit in her hands, and at Herbert.

"Oh, look, Mother, what I found at my plate!" exclaimed Herbert, and he pulled the string, and made the Monkey run up and down the stick. "It's my birthday present!"[Pg 14]

"Yes, Daddy said he was going to get you something," said Mother. "It came from the store late yesterday afternoon, and I put it away, and had it laid at your breakfast place this morning. Do you like it?"

"Oh, it's dandy!" exclaimed Herbert. "I love it!"

The children sat down and had an orange and some oatmeal and a glass of milk and a roll with golden yellow butter on it. But of course the Monkey and the Candy Rabbit had nothing to eat. They did not want anything. Being toys, you see, they did not have to eat. Though, at times, they could eat certain things if they wished.

Madeline kept her Candy Rabbit near her plate. All of a sudden, as the little girl was eating, she dropped her spoon in her oatmeal dish, and a drop of milk spat[Pg 15]tered into the glass eye of the Candy Rabbit.

"Oh, look what you did!" exclaimed Herbert, who saw what had happened. "You'll blind your Rabbit."

"Oh, my poor Rabbit!" said Madeline, and, with her napkin, she carefully wiped the drop of milk out of the Rabbit's eye. And the Bunny never even blinked. That's what it is to be a Candy Rabbit, and have glass eyes. Not all of us are as lucky as that, are we?

A little later Herbert dropped a piece of his buttered roll. It fell near the Monkey, who was lying on the table near the breakfast plate of the little boy. Some of the butter from the roll stuck to the stick which the Monkey climbed up and down.

"Now look what you did, Herbert!" said Madeline. "You'll make the stick so [Pg 16]slippery with butter that the Monkey may fall off."

"Come, children," called Mother, as she again entered the room. "You must finish your breakfast and go to school. Put your Monkey back in the box, Herbert. Don't be late for school."

"No'm, we won't!" promised the brother and sister.

A little later they were on their way, walking side by side on the path that led to the red school house down by the white bridge. Madeline looked at her brother curiously as they came near the building where they studied their lessons.

"Have you got your books under your coat, Herbert?" asked Madeline.

"No, I haven't my books," he said.

"Well, what have you?" asked Madeline. "You have something, for I can see a lump. What is it?"[Pg 17]

Before Herbert could answer, if he had wanted to, the bell rang and the two children, and some others who were straggling along, had to run so they would not be late. Then, for a time, Madeline forgot what it was her brother was bringing to school under his coat.

Just before recess, his teacher, looking down toward Herbert, sitting near Dick and Arnold, called out:

"What have you there, Herbert? What are you showing to the other boys under your desk?"

"It—it's a Monkey!" answered Madeline's brother.

"A monkey!" exclaimed the teacher.

"Yes. It's my birthday Monkey," went on the little boy.

"Oh! A birthday monkey!" the teacher said again. "I think I had better call the janitor and have him take care of your [Pg 18]monkey for you," and she started toward the door.

"Oh, no'm! He isn't a live monkey," said Herbert. "He's just a toy one, on a stick."

"Herbert, you may bring me that Monkey," the teacher said, and Herbert, very red in the face, walked up to the platform on which stood his teacher's desk. In his hand Herbert carried his Monkey on a Stick.

"Where did you get this?" his teacher asked, as she took the toy from Herbert and laid it on top of her desk.

"I got it for my birthday," he answered. "This morning."

"But why did you bring it to school?" went on the teacher. "You are nearly always a good boy. Why did you bring your Monkey to school, Herbert?"

"Oh, I—I just wanted to show him to[Pg 19] Arnold and Dick," was the answer. "We're going to have a show, and my Monkey is going to be in it. I brought him to school under my coat!"

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Madeline, before she thought what she was saying. "I saw something under his coat, and I thought it was his books. Oh! Oh! And it was his Monkey!"

All the children laughed when Madeline said this, and even the teacher could not help smiling. But she said:

"Silence, please, children. We must keep on with our lessons. And, Herbert, it was wrong of you to bring your Monkey to school and take him out to show to other boys. As a little punishment I shall keep your toy in my desk until after school to-night. Then you may have him back."

"Yes'm," returned Herbert, still rather [Pg 20]red in the face. He went back to his desk, and the other children went on with their lessons.

The teacher put the Monkey on a Stick inside a big drawer.

"Well, this is the first of my adventures since I went to sleep in the store and awakened in Herbert's house," thought the Monkey to himself, as he found that he was shut up inside the teacher's desk. "I wondered what Herbert was going to do with me when he slipped me under his coat at the breakfast table. Now I must see what we have here."

It was not very dark inside the drawer of the teacher's desk. Enough light came through the keyhole for the Monkey to see, and, among other things, he noticed a bottle of ink and a small Doll. He was pleased to see the Doll.

"Oh, here is a toy like myself!" said [Pg 21]the Monkey, speaking in a whisper. "How do you do?" he went on, sitting up and bowing to his new acquaintance. "Are you any relation to the Sawdust Doll?" he asked politely.

"I'm a second or third cousin," was the answer. "She is stuffed with sawdust, but I am stuffed with cotton."

"Then I will call you Miss Cotton Doll," went on the Monkey. "What brought you here? Were you so bad in school that you had to be shut up in a desk?"

"No, not exactly. But a little girl named Mary brought me in her school bag yesterday, and she took me out in the study hour, and the teacher said it was wrong. So she took me away from the little girl named Mary."

"I thought Mary brought a lamb to school," said the Monkey on a Stick, who, having lived in a toy store, of course knew [Pg 22]all about toy books and Mother Goose verses.

"That was another Mary," went on the Cotton Doll. "Besides Mary didn't bring the lamb to school, it followed her one day."

"Oh, so it did—I had forgotten," went on the Monkey.

"But my Mary brought me to school," said the Cotton Doll, "and her teacher took me away. She put me in this desk drawer; the teacher did."

"Well, now we're here, let's have some fun," said the Monkey to the Cotton Doll after a bit. "We are all alone by ourselves, and we can do as we please. Let's look around and play. We can't stand up, as the drawer isn't high enough, but we can crawl on our knees. Let's see what else is here."

"All right," agreed the Cotton Doll.[Pg 23] So while the teacher was hearing the lessons of Herbert, Madeline and the other boys and girls, the Monkey (crawling off his stick for the time being) and the Cotton Doll went creeping on their hands and knees around the drawer.

"Let's look in the bottle of ink," proposed the Monkey, as he crawled near it, and began pulling at the cork.

"Oh, don't do that!" cried the Cotton Doll, in a whisper, of course. "Don't open it! You'll get all black!"

"Oh, if it's black ink, I know what we can do!" said the Monkey. "We can black up like colored minstrels, and have a little show in here by ourselves. I'll black your face with the ink, and you can black mine, though I am pretty brown now."

"But I don't want my face blacked with ink!" cried the Cotton Doll, as the Monkey [Pg 24]took the cork from the bottle. "I don't want to be a minstrel!"

"Oh, but you must!" insisted the Monkey, laughing, and, catching hold of the Cotton Doll in one hand, he tilted up the ink bottle in the other, and dipped in the end of his tail.

"Now I'll paint you nice and black!" he laughed.

"Oh, don't! Please don't!" begged the Cotton Doll, as she tried to get away from the Monkey. But she couldn't, for he held her tightly, and the inky end of the tail was coming nearer and nearer to her face.[Pg 25]

CHAPTER III

THE JANITOR'S HOUSE

"There you are! Oh, how funny you look!" chattered the Monkey on a Stick in a whisper to the Cotton Doll, as they were both shut up together in the teacher's desk. "You don't know how funny you look! If I only had a looking-glass I'd show you!"

"I don't care! I think you're real mean!" said the Cotton Doll. "Don't you dare put any more ink on me!"

"I guess I've got enough on you now!" laughed the Monkey. "There's a spot on your nose, one on your chin, and one on each of your cheeks." As he spoke the[Pg 26] Monkey put the cork back in the ink bottle and wiped the inky end of his tail off on a piece of blotting paper in the desk.

"What's that you say?" cried the Cotton Doll. "Did you dare put ink on my nose, on my chin and my cheeks?"

"That's what I did, just for fun!" chattered the mischievous Monkey. And, really, he had done just that. Oh, he was a regular "cut-up" when he was by himself, that Monkey was.

"I must look terrible!" said the poor Cotton Doll, and, raising her hands, she rubbed them over her face. She felt the wet spots where the Monkey had daubed her with ink.

"Oh! aren't you mean?" cried the Cotton Doll. "My little girl mistress will never like me again when the teacher gives me back to her. I'm all spoiled!"

"No, you just look funny!" laughed [Pg 27]the Monkey. "You looked funny when I put ink spots on you, but now you look funnier than ever, 'cause you've spread the ink all around, and made big splotches of it. Oh, my! Excuse me while I laugh!" he cried, and he wiggled and twisted around on the bottom of the drawer, laughing in whispers at the funny look on the face of the Cotton Doll.

"You're too mean for anything!" said the Doll to the Monkey, and she was almost ready to cry. But she happened to think that if she shed any tears they would wash down through the ink on her cheeks and make her look queerer than ever. So she did not cry.

"I'm never going to speak to you again, so there!" exclaimed the Cotton Doll, and she would have stamped her foot if there had been room for her to stand up in the desk drawer—which there wasn't. So she [Pg 28]just banged her heels on the bottom of it.

"Oh, I'll be good!" promised the Monkey. "I won't put any more ink on you, and I'll see if I can get some of it off on this piece of blotting paper. I blotted my tail on it."

He tried to clean the Doll's face, but, by this time, the ink had dried, and you know how hard it is to get dried ink off your fingers after you have written a letter. Well, it was this way with the Cotton Doll. The ink stayed on her face.

"Well, if you have ink on your face I've also got some on the end of my tail, where I dipped it into the bottle," said the Monkey chap, thinking to cheer up the Doll by this.

"Yes, but the ink doesn't show on your brown tail as it does on my white face," said the Doll. "However, there is no use crying over spilled milk, I suppose," she [Pg 29]went on. "Only if you do such a thing again I'll never speak to you as long as I live!"