The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Dago, by Annie Fellows-Johnston This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Story of Dago Author: Annie Fellows-Johnston Illustrator: Etheldred B. Barry Release Date: December 31, 2005 [EBook #17429] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF DAGO *** Produced by David Garcia, Richard J. Shiffer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library.) THE STORY OF DAGO "IT WAS HER SWINGING AND JERKING ON THE ROPE THAT RANG THE BELL." THE STORY OF DAGO BY ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE COLONEL," "BIG BROTHER," "OLE MAMMY'S TORMENT," "THE GATE OF THE GIANT SCISSORS," "TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY," ETC. Illustrated by ETHELDRED B. BARRY BOSTON L.C. PAGE & COMPANY 1900 Copyright, 1900 BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY (Incorporated) to "Gin the Monk" whose pranks are linked with the boyhood memories of dr. gavin fulton, one of the best of physicians and friends, this story of dago is respectfully inscribed I. This Is the Story that Dago Told to the Mirror-monkey on Monday II. What Dago Said to the Mirror-monkey on Tuesday 1 16 THE STORY OF DAGO. CHAPTER I. THIS IS THE STORY THAT DAGO TOLD TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON MONDAY. Return to Table of Contents Here I am at last, Ring-tail! The boys have gone to school, thank fortune, and little Elsie has been taken to kindergarten. Everybody in the house thinks that I am safe up-stairs in the little prison of a room that they made for me in the attic. I suppose they never thought how easy it would be for me to swing out of the open window and climb down the lightning-rod. Wouldn't Miss Patricia be surprised if she knew that I am down here now in the parlour, talking to you, and sitting up here among all these costly, breakable things! I have been wanting to get back into this room ever since that first morning that I slipped in and found you sitting here in the looking-glass, but the door has been shut every time that I have tried to come in. Do you remember that morning? You were the first ring-tail monkey that I had seen since I left the Zoo, and you looked so much like my twin brother, who used to swing with me in the tangled vines of my native forests, and pelt me with cocoanut-shells, and chatter to me all day long under those hot, bright skies, that I wanted to put my arms around you and hug you; but the looking-glass was between us. Some day I shall break that glass, and crawl back behind there with you. It is a pity that you are dumb and do not seem to be able to answer me, for if you could talk to me about the old jungle days I would not be so homesick. Still, it is some comfort to know that you are not deaf, and I intend to come in here every morning after the children go to school; that is, every morning that I find the door open. I've had a very exciting life in the past, and I think that you'll find my experiences interesting. Of course I'll not begin at the beginning, for, being a ring-tail monkey yourself, you know what life is like in the great tropical forests. Perhaps it would be better to skip the circus part, too, for it was a very unhappy time that followed, after I was stolen from home by some men who came on a big ship, and carried me away to be sold to a travelling showman. It makes my back ache to this day to think of the ring-master's whip. I was as quick to learn as any of the III. What the Mirror-monkey Heard on Wednesday IV. The Tale the Mirror-monkey Heard on Thursday V. What Dago Told on Friday VI. What Dago Said to the Mirror-monkey on Saturday VII. What Dago Told the Mirror-monkey on Sunday VIII. Dago Bids Farewell to the Mirror-monkey 32 46 60 72 92 102 "It was her swinging and jerking on the rope that rang the bell" "The gardener fished her out of the fountain" "Her hands were folded in her lap" Matches's Funeral "She fairly stiffened with horror" "At last the blue cushion was empty, and I sat down on it" "'Oh, you little torment!' she cried" "Their voices rang out lustily" "All went well until we reached an alley crossing" "Good-bye! old fellow!" PAGE FRONTISPIECE 9 19 25 43 48 63 73 81 103 [Pg 2] [Pg 3] other monkeys who were in training, but an animal who has done nothing all his life but climb and play can't learn the ways of a human being all in one week. I was taught to ride a pony and drive a team of greyhounds, and to sit at a table and feed myself with a silver folk. One half-hour I was made to be a gentleman, and wear a dress suit, and tip my hat to the ladies, and the next I would be expected to do something entirely different; be a policeman, maybe, and arrest a rowdy dog in boxing-gloves. Oh, I couldn't begin to tell you the things I was expected to do, from drilling like a soldier to wheeling a doll carriage and smoking a pipe. Sometimes when I grew confused, and misunderstood the signals and did things all wrong, the ring-master would swing his whip until it cracked like a pistol, and shout out, in a terrible voice, "Oh, you stupid little beast! What's the matter with you?" That always frightened me so that it gave me the shivers, and then he would shout at me again until I was still more confused and terrified, and couldn't do anything to please him. Stupid little beast indeed! I wished sometimes that I could have had him captive, back in the jungles of the old home forest, just to have seen which would have been the stupid one there. How long would it have taken him to have learned an entirely different way of living, I wonder. How many moons before he could swing by his hands and hunt for his food in the tree-tops? He might have learned after awhile where the wild paw-paws hang thickest, and where the sweetest, plumpest bananas grow; but when would he ever have mastered all the wood-lore of the forest folk,—or gained the quickness of eye and ear and nose that belongs to all the wise, wild creatures? Oh, how I longed to see him at the mercy of our old enemies, the Snake-people! One of those pythons, for instance, "who could slip along the branches as quietly as moss grows." That would have given him a worse fit of shivers than the ones he used to give me. I'll not talk about such a painful subject any longer, but you may be sure that I was glad when something happened to the show. The owner lost all his money, and had to sell his animals and go out of the business. After that I had a very comfortable winter in a zoological garden out West, near where we stranded. Then an old white-haired man from California bought me to add to his private collection of monkeys. He had half a dozen or so in his high-walled garden. It was a beautiful place, hot and sunny like my old home, and full of palm-trees and tangled vines and brilliant flowers. The most beautiful thing in it was a great rose-tree which he called Gold of Ophir. It shook its petals into a splashing fountain where goldfish were always swimming around and around, and it was hard to tell which was the brightest, the falling rose-leaves, or the tiny goldfish flashing by in the sun. There was a lady who used to lie in a hammock under the roses every day and smile at my antics. She was young, I remember, and very pretty, but her face was as white as the marble mermaid in the fountain. The old gentleman and his wife always sat beside her when she lay in the hammock. Sometimes he read aloud, sometimes they talked, and sometimes a long silence would fall upon them, when the splashing of the fountain and the droning of the bees would be the only sound anywhere in the garden. When they talked, it was always of the same thing: the children she had left at home,—Stuart and Phil and little Elsie. I did not listen as closely as I might have done had I known what a difference those children were to make in my life. I little thought that a day was coming when they were to carry me away from the beautiful garden that I had grown to love almost like my old home. But I heard enough to know that they were as mischievous as the day is long, and that they kept their poor old great-aunt Patricia in a woful state of nervous excitement from morning till night. I gathered, besides, that their father was a doctor, away from home much of the time. That was why their great-aunt had them in charge. Their mother had come out to her father's home in California to grow strong and well. The sun burned a pink into the blossoms of the oleander hedges, and the wind blew life into the swaying branches of the pepper-trees, but neither seemed to make her any better. After awhile she could not even be carried out to her place in the hammock. Then they sent for Doctor Tremont and the children. The first that I knew of their arrival, the two boys came whooping down the paths after the gardener, shouting, "Show us the monkeys, David! Show us the monkeys! Which one is Dago, and which one is Matches?" I did not want to come down for fear that Stuart might treat me as he had done Elsie's kitten. I had heard a letter read, which told how he had tried to cure it of fits. He gave it a shock with his father's electric battery, and turned the current on so strong that he killed it. Not knowing but that he might try some trick on me, I held back until I saw him feeding peanuts to Matches. I never could bear her. She is the only monkey in the garden that I have never been on friendly terms with, so I came down at once to get my share of peanuts, and hers, too, if possible. I must say that I took a great fancy to both the boys; they were so friendly and good-natured. They each had round chubby faces, and hard little fists. There was a wide-awake look in their big, honest, gray eyes, and their light hair curled over their heads in little tight rings. Elsie was only five,—a restless, dimpled little bunch of mischief, always getting into trouble, because she would try to do everything that her brothers [Pg 4] [Pg 5] [Pg 6] [Pg 7] [Pg 8] did. The gardener fished her out of the fountain twice in the week she was there. She was reaching for the goldfish with her fat little hands, and toppled in, head first. Phil began the week by getting a bee-sting on his lip, and a bite on the cheek from a parrot that he was teasing. As for Stuart, I think he had climbed every tree on the place before the first day was over, and torn his best clothes nearly off his back. The gardener had a sorry time of it while they stayed. He complained that "a herd of wild buffalo turned loose to rend and destroy" would not have done as much damage to his fruit and flowers as they. "Not as they means to do it, I don't think," he said. "But they're so chock-full of go that they fair runs away with their selves." The gardener's excitement did not long last, however. There came a day when there was no noise in the garden. The boys wandered around all morning without playing, now and then wiping their eyes on their jacket sleeves, and talking in low tones. Once they threw themselves down on the grass and hid their faces, and cried and sobbed, until their grandfather came out and led them away. The blinds were all drawn next morning, and the gardener came and cut down nearly all his lilies, and great armfuls of the Gold of Ophir roses to carry into the house. Another quiet day went by, and then there was such a rumbling of carriage wheels outside the garden, that I climbed up a tree and looked over the high walls. There was a long, slow procession winding up the white mountain road toward a far-away grove of pines. I knew then what had happened. They were taking the children's mother to the cemetery, and they would have to go home without her. "Poor children," I thought, "and poor old great-aunt Patricia." The next evening I heard the old gentleman tell David to bring Matches and me into the house. The next thing I knew I was dropped into a big bandbox with holes in the lid, and somebody was buckling a shawl- strap around it. Then I heard the old gentleman say to Doctor Tremont, "Tom, I don't want to add to the inconveniences of your journey, but I should like to send these monkeys along to help amuse the boys. Maybe they'll be some comfort to them. Dago is for Stuart, and Matches is for Phil. It would be a good idea to keep them in their boxes to-night on the sleeping-car. They are unusually well behaved little animals, but it would be safer to keep them shut up until the boys are awake to look after them." You can imagine my feelings when I realised that I was to be sent away. I shrieked and chattered with rage, but no one paid any attention to me. I was obliged to settle down in my box in sulky silence. In a little while I could feel myself being carried down the porch steps. Then the carriage door slammed and we jolted along in the dark for a long time. I knew when we reached the depot by the bright light streaming through the holes in my box-lid. I was carried up the steps into the sleeping-car, and for the next quarter of an hour it seemed to me that my box changed position every two minutes. The porter was getting us settled for the night He was about to poke the box that held me under the berth where little Elsie and her nurse were to sleep, when Stuart called him from the berth above, into which he had just climbed. So I was tossed up as if I had been an ordinary piece of baggage, the porter little knowing what was strapped so carefully inside the bandbox. [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] Doctor Tremont and Phil had the section just across the aisle from ours, and Phil carried his box up the step-ladder himself, and stowed Matches carefully away in one corner before he began to take off his shoes. When the curtains were all drawn and the car-lights turned down low so that every one could sleep, Stuart sat up and began unbuckling the strap around my box. I knew enough to keep still when he took the lid off and gently stroked me. I had no intention of being sent back to the baggage-car, if keeping quiet would help me to escape the conductor's eyes. Stuart stroked me for a moment, and then, cautiously drawing aside his curtains, thrust his head out and looked up and down the aisle. Everything was quiet. Then he gave the softest kind of a whistle, so faint that it seemed little more than the echo of one; but Phil heard, and instantly his head was poked out between his curtains. Stuart held me up and grinned. Immediately Phil held up Matches and grinned. After a funny pantomime by which, with many laughable gestures, each boy made the other understand that he intended to allow his pet freedom all night, they drew in their heads and lay down. Stuart wanted me to sleep on the pillow beside him, but I was still sulky, and retired to my box at his feet. In spite of the jar and rumble of the train I slept soundly for a long time. It must have been somewhere about the middle of the night when I was awakened all of a sudden by a fearful crash and the feeling that I was pitching headlong down a frightful precipice. The next instant I struck the floor with a force that nearly stunned me. When I gathered my wits together I found myself in the middle of the aisle, bruised and sore, with the bandbox on top of me. We had been going with the usual terrific speed of a fast express, down steep mountain grades, sweeping around dizzy curves, and now we had come to a sudden stop without reason or warning. It gave the train such a tremendous jar that windows rattled, baggage lurched from the racks, the porter sprawled full- length on the floor as I had done, and more than one head was bumped unmercifully against the hard woodwork of the berths. Everybody sprang up to ask what was the matter. Babies cried and women scolded and men swore. All I could do was to whimper with pain and fright until Stuart came scrambling after me. My shoulder was bruised and my head aching, and no one can imagine my terrible fright at such a rude awakening. If I had not been in the box, I might have saved myself when the crash came, but I was powerless to catch at anything when it went bump over on to the floor. The brakeman and conductor came running in to see what was the matter. Nobody knew why the train had stopped. It was several minutes before they discovered the cause, but I had found out while Stuart was climbing back to bed with me. Swinging by her hands from the bell-rope which ran down the centre of the car, was that miserable little monkey, Matches, making a fool of herself and everybody else. Who but that little imp of mischief would have done such a thing as to get up in the middle of the night and go through a lot of gymnastic exercises on the bell-rope? It was her swinging and jerking on the rope that rang the bell and brought the engine to that sudden stop. I don't know how the doctor settled it with the conductor. I know that there was a great deal said, and Matches and I were both sent back to the baggage-car. All the rest of the journey I had an aching head and a bruised shoulder to keep me in mind of that hateful little Matches, and I resolved long before we reached home that I would do something to get even with her, before we had lived together a week. CHAPTER II. WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON TUESDAY. Return to Table of Contents Ring-tail, what do you think of Miss Patricia? I'm afraid of her. The night we came home she met us in the hall, looking so tall and severe in her black gown, with those prim little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face, that I went under a chair. Then I thought I must have misjudged her, for there were tears in her eyes when she kissed the children, and I heard her whisper as she turned away, "poor little motherless lambs!" Still I have seen so many people in the course of my travels that I rarely make a mistake in reading character. As soon as she caught sight of me I knew that my first thought had been right. Her thin Roman nose went up in the air, and her sharp eyes glared at me so savagely that I could think of nothing else but an old war eagle, with arrows in its talons. You may have seen them on silver dollars. "Tom Tremont," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you have brought home a monkey!" I wish you could have heard the disgust in her voice. "Of all the little pests in the world, they are certainly the worst!" "Yes, Aunt Patricia," he answered. "They've been a great pleasure to the boys." [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 17] "They!" she gasped. "You don't mean to say that there are two!" Then she saw Matches climbing up on Phil's shoulder, and words failed her. "Yes; their grandfather gave each of the boys one of his pets. He said that they would be company for them on the way home, and would help divert their thoughts from their great loss. They grieved so, poor little lads." That softened Miss Patricia again, and she said nothing more about our being pests. But when she passed me she drew her skirts aside as if she could not bear to so much as brush against me, and from that hour it has been war to the knife between us. Matches and I were given a little room up in the attic under the eaves, but at first we were rarely there during the day. The boys took us with them wherever they went. We had been there some time before we were left alone long enough for me to do any exploring. It was almost dark when that first chance came. I prowled around the attic awhile. Then I climbed out of the window and swung down by the vines that covered that side of the house, to the shutters of the room below. It happened to be Miss Patricia's room. As I perched on the top of the shutters, leaning over and craning my neck, I could see Miss Patricia sitting there in the dusk beside her open window. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was rocking gently back and forth in a high-backed rocking-chair, with her eyes closed. I thought it would be a good chance for me to take a peep into her room, so I ventured to swing over and drop down on the window-sill beside her, on all fours. I did it very quietly, so quietly, in fact, that I do not see how she could possibly have been disturbed; yet I give you my word, Ring-tail, that woman shrieked until you could have heard her half a mile. I never was so terrified in all my life. It paralysed me for an instant, and then I sprang up by the vines to the lightning-rod, and streaked up it faster than any lightning ever came down. Once in my room, I shook all the rest of the evening. Matches said that Miss Patricia was probably worse scared than I was, but that's impossible. I never made a sound, and as for her—why, even the cook came running when Miss Patricia began to shriek, and she was in the coal-cellar at the time, and is deaf in one ear. But Matches always disagreed with me in everything, and I was not sorry when we parted company. I'd better tell you about that next. It happened in this way. Stuart came into the room one day with Sim Williams, one of the boys who was always swarming up the stairs to see us. Sim was older than Stuart, and one of those restless, inquiring boys, never satisfied with letting well enough alone. He was always making experiments. This time he wanted to experiment on me with a handful of tobacco,—coax me to eat it, you know, and see what effect it would have. But Stuart objected. He was afraid it might make me sick, and proposed trying it on Phil's monkey first. So they called Matches, and the silly little beast was so pleased and flattered by their attention that she stood up and ate all they gave her. She did not like it, I could see that, but they praised her and coaxed her, and it turned her head. Usually I received the most attention. It did not seem to hurt her any, so Sim offered me some. But I would not take it. I folded my hands, first over my ears and then over my eyes. Then I held them over my mouth. Stuart thought it wonderfully smart [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] [Pg 21] of me, and so did Sim, when he found that it was a trick that Stuart's grandfather had taught me. The old man had an ebony paper-weight on his library table, which he called "the three wise monkeys of Japan." They were carved sitting back to back. The first one had its paws folded over its eyes in token that it must never see more than it ought to see, the second covered its ears that it might not hear more than it ought to hear, and the third solemnly held its paws over its mouth, in order that it might never say more than it ought to say. Stuart thought that I had forgotten the trick. He told Sim that it was the only one I knew. I was glad that he had never discovered that I am a trained monkey. If he had known how many tricks I can perform life wouldn't have been worth living. It would have been like an endless circus, with me for the only performer. As it was, I was made to go through that one trick of the wise monkeys of Japan until I was heartily disgusted with it, or with anything else, in fact, that suggested the land of the Mikado. Stuart was in a hurry to show me off to the other fellows, so he caught me up under his arm, and started off to the ball-ground, where most of them were to be found. Matches tried to follow us, but Sim drove her back, and the last I saw of her she was under the table, whimpering. It was a soft little complaining cry she had, almost like the chirp of a sleepy bird, and when she made it her mouth drew up into a pitiful little pucker. I slept in the laundry that night, for it was after dark when we got home, and the boys were not allowed to carry a light up into the attic. Next day, when Stuart took me back to my room, there lay Matches, stretched out on the floor as dead as a mummy. The tobacco had poisoned her. Phil was crying over her as if his heart would break. He didn't know what had killed her, and the boys did not see fit to tell. As for me, I remembered my lesson, never to say any more than I ought to say, and discreetly folded my hands over my mouth whenever the subject was mentioned. I have no doubt but that I could have eaten as much tobacco as Matches did, and escaped with only a short illness, but the sickly little mossback didn't have the constitution that we ring-tails have. She was a poor delicate creature that the least thing affected. I couldn't help feeling sorry for her, and yet I was so glad to be rid of her that I capered around for sheer joy. When I realised that never again would I be kept awake by her snoring, never again would I be disturbed by her disagreeable ways, and that at last I was even with her for spilling me out of my berth on the sleeping-car, I swung on my turning-pole until I was dizzy. No one knew what a jubilee I had all alone that night in my little room under the eaves. Little did I dream of the humiliation in store for me. The next day I found that Matches was to have a funeral after school, and that I—I, who hated her—was to take the part of chief mourner. The boys took off my spangled jacket and dressed me up in some clothes that belonged to Elsie's big Paris doll. They left my own little cap on my head, but covered it and me all over with a long crape veil that dragged on the ground behind me and tripped me up in front when I tried to walk. It was pinned tightly over my face, and I nearly smothered, for it was a hot September afternoon. I sputtered and gasped under the nasty black thing until I was almost choked. It was so thick I could scarcely breathe through it, but the more I sputtered the more it pleased the children. They said I seemed to be really crying and sobbing under my veil, and that I was acting my part of chief mourner beautifully. All the children of the neighbourhood came to the funeral. There was a band to lead the procession; a band of three boys, playing on a French harp, a jew's-harp, and a drum. Johnny Grey's Newfoundland dog was hitched to the little wagon that held Matches's coffin. Phil drove, sitting up solemnly in his father's best high silk hat with its band of crape. It was much too large for his head, and slipped down over his curls until the brim rested on the tips of his ears. It was serious business for Phil. His eyes were red and his dirty face streaked with tears. He had grown to be very fond of Matches. Elsie and I followed on a tricycle. She had borrowed an old-fashioned scoop bonnet and a black silk apron from one of the neighbours. I sat beside her, feeling very hot and uncomfortable in the crape veil in which I was pinned. The others walked behind us, two by two, in a long procession. We went five times aroundthe circle, while Sim Williams, on the wood-shed roof, tolled a big auction bell, which he had borrowed for the occasion. [Pg 22] [Pg 23] [Pg 24] [Pg 27] MATCHES'S FUNERAL. When it was all over and the little mound over Matches's grave had been covered with sod, the children were loath to stop playing funeral. They had enjoyed it so much. Somebody said that we ought to march down the street so that people could see how funny I looked in my crape veil; but I could stand it no longer. When I saw that the band was really moving toward the gate, and that Stuart was about to lift me into the wagon that had carried Matches's coffin, I shrieked with rage and bit and tore at my veil until I was soon free. In about a minute it was nothing but a heap of rags and tatters, and Phil and Stuart were looking at it and then at each other with troubled faces. "It's Aunt Patricia's!" one of them gasped. "And it is all torn to bits! Oh, Dago, you little mischief, how could you? Now we'll catch it!" As if it were my fault. I don't know what happened when the veil was taken back. Luckily I had no share in that part of it, although Miss Patricia seemed to add that to the long list of grievances she had against me, and her manner toward me grew even more severe than before. The excitement of the funeral seemed to make Phil forget the loss of Matches that day, but he cried next morning when Stuart came down with me on his shoulder, and there was no frisky little pet for him to fondle and feed. How he could grieve for her is more than I could understand. I didn't miss her,—I was glad she was gone. Every day Phil put fresh flowers on her grave. Sometimes it was only a stiff red coxcomb or a little stemless geranium that had escaped the early frost. Sometimes it was only a handful of bright grasses gone to seed. The doctor's neglected garden flaunted few blooms this autumn, but the little fellow, grieving long and sorely, did all he could to show respect to Matches's memory. One day, nearly a month later, he went crying into his father's office, saying that Matches was gone. Stuart and Sim Williams had dug her up and sold her skeleton to a naturalist in the next block for fifty cents. He had just heard of it. I never saw a child so excited. He was sobbing so hard that he could not breathe except in great choking gasps, and it was some time before his father could quiet him enough to understand what he was talking about. Oh, but Doctor Tremont was angry! And yet it did not sound so bad when Stuart had explained it. He hadn't thought that he was doing anything dishonest or unkind to Phil. He only thought what an easy way it would be to make fifty cents. He didn't see how it could make any difference to Phil, so long as he never found it out, and Sim had sworn not to tell. The mound would still be there, and he could go on putting flowers on it just the same. Sim was the one who had first spoken of it, and Sim had half the money. I was not in the room all of the time, so I cannot tell what passed between Stuart and his father. I could hear the doctor's voice for a long time, talking in low, deep tones, very earnestly. I know he said something about Phil's being such a little fellow, and how the mother who had gone away would have been grieved to know that he was so unhappy. What he said must have hurt Stuart more than a whipping, for when he came out his eyes were red, and he looked as solemn as an owl. He had promised his father several things. One was that he would have nothing more to do with Sim Williams, who was always leading him into trouble, and another was that he would beg Phil's pardon, and do something to make up for the injury he had done him. Stuart thought and thought a long time what that should be. I know the doctor's talk must have gone deep, for by and by he took me,—Dago,—his best- beloved possession, and gave me to Phil. At first the little fellow couldn't believe it. "Oh, brother!" he cried. "Do you really mean it? Is it for keeps?" [Pg 28] [Pg 29] [Pg 30] "Yes, it's for keeps," said Stuart, grimly. Then he put his hands in his pockets and walked away, whistling, although there were tears in his eyes. But Phil ran after him with me in his arms. "Oh, I couldn't take all of him, Stuart," he said. "You are too good. That would be too much, when you are so fond of him. But I'd love to own half of him. Let's go partnerships. You claim half, and I'll claim half." Well, they decided to settle it that way, after a great deal of talking. You can't imagine, Ring-tail, how queer it makes me feel to be divided up in such a fashion. Sometimes I puzzle over it until I am dizzy. Which of me belongs to Stuart, and which of me belongs to Phil? CHAPTER III. WHAT THE MIRROR-MONKEY HEARD ON WEDNESDAY. Return to Table of Contents Do you see any gray hairs in my fur, Ring-tail, or any new wrinkles in my face? Life in this family is such a wear and tear on the nerves that I feel that I am growing old fast. So much happens every day. Something is always happening here. Really, I have had more exciting experiences in one short forenoon, here in this house, than I used to have in a whole month in the Zoo. It is bad for me to be in such a state of constant fright. The day after I was divided between Phil and Stuart, the boys of the neighbourhood had a Cuban war in our back yard. At least they started to have one,—built a camp-fire and put up a tent and got their ammunition ready. Each side made a great pile of soft mud-balls, and it was agreed that as soon as a soldier was hit and spotted by the moist clinging stuff he was to be counted dead. You see the sport was not dangerous, only dirty. Stuart had his coat off, rolling mud-balls with all his might and main. He was plastered with mud to his elbows, and his face was a sight. Phil was busy sweeping up dead leaves for the camp-fire. Suddenly he dropped his old broom and went trotting off toward the house. "I am going to get something that will make it sound like a real war," he said to me as he left. The boys did not hear him, and he came back presently, with his little blue blouse all pouched out in front with the things he had stuffed inside of it. I followed him into the tent and watched him unload. First there was the old powder-horn that always hangs over the hall mantelpiece. Then there was a big, wide-necked bottle, a large, clean handkerchief, and a spool of thread. "You see this, Dago?" he said to me. "Now you watch and see what happens." He tore the hem off the handkerchief, poured a lot of powder into the middle of the square that was left, and then drew the corners together in one hand. With the other hand he squeezed the powder into a ball in the middle of the handkerchief, and wrapped the thread around and around above it to keep the wad in place. "Now I'll put the wad of powder into the bottle," he said, "and leave the ends of the cloth sticking out for a fuse. See?" I didn't know anything about gunpowder then, so I put my head close to his as he squatted there in the tent, talking as he worked. "Come on, Dago," he said, when it was ready, "I'll light this at the camp-fire and hold the bottle straight out in the air, so it won't hurt anything. It'll go off like a pistol—bim!—and make the boys jump out of their boots." I thought it would be better for me to get out of the way if a racket like that was coming, so I scuttled up to the top of the tent-pole. Phil stooped down by the bonfire, held the rag to the coals until it began to smoulder, and swung around to point it at the fence. There was no sound. Evidently the bottle did not make as good a pistol as he thought it would. "The light's gone out," he muttered, bringing the bottle cautiously around to look at it. Then he blew it, either to see if he could rekindle it, or to make sure that the last spark was out,—I could not tell. The next instant there was a puff, a flash, and then, jungles of my ancestors! such a noise and such screams and such a smell of burning powder! After that I could see nothing but a tangled mass of boys, all legs and elbows, crowding around poor little Phil to see what had happened. If war is like that, then my voice and vote are henceforth for peace, and peace alone. It's awful! They carried him up-stairs, and his father was sent for, and the neighbours came running in as soon as the boys had scampered home with the news. For awhile it seemed to me that the whole world was topsy- [Pg 31] [Pg 32] [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] turvy. Miss Patricia was so frightened she couldn't do a thing. I really pitied her, for her hands trembled and her voice shook, and even the little bunches of gray curls bobbed up and down against her pale cheeks. I have had the shivers so often that I can sympathise with any one whose nerves are unstrung from fright. The doctor turned us all out of the room, and I waited with the boys out by the alley-gate until he came down-stairs and told us how badly Phil was burned. His front hair and eyebrows and beautiful long curly lashes were singed off, and his face was so full of powder that it was as speckled as a turkey egg. The grains would have to be picked out one by one,—a slow and painful proceeding. The doctor could not tell how badly his eyes were hurt until next day, but thought he would have to lie in a dark room for a week at least, with his eyelids covered with cotton that had been dipped in some soothing kind of medicine. But that week went by, and many a long tiresome day besides, before Phil could use his eyes again. They would not let me go into the room that first day, but after Phil had gone to sleep I hid under a chair in the upper hall, where Miss Patricia and the doctor were talking. "Tom," said Miss Patricia, "what do you suppose made that child do such a reckless thing? Sometimes I think that boys are like monkeys, and are possessed by the same spirit of mischief. Neither seem satisfied unless they are playing tricks or making some kind of a disturbance. They are always getting into trouble." "Yes, it does seem so," answered the doctor, "but if we could look down to the bottom of a boy's heart, we would find that very little of the mischief that he gets into is planned for the purpose of making trouble. He does things from a pure love of fun, or from some sudden impulse, and because he never stops to think of what it may lead to. Phil never stopped to think any more than Dago would have done, what would be the result of setting fire to the powder. You must remember that he is a very little fellow, Aunt Patricia. He is only eight. We shouldn't expect him to have the reasoning powers of a man, and the caution and judgment that come with age." Now I thought that that was a very sensible speech. It seemed to excuse some of my own past mistakes. But Miss Patricia put on her old war-eagle look. "Really, Tom," she said, "that sounds very well, but it is not what was taught in my day. A wholesome use of the rod after the first act of disobedience helps boys to stop and think before committing the second. It is a great developer of judgment, in my opinion. If you had punished Phil the first time he took down his grandfather's powder-horn after you had forbidden him to touch it, he would never have taken it down the second time, and so would have been spared all this suffering to-day." "I know you are right, Aunt Patricia," said the doctor, "but I seem to remember my own boyhood so clearly, the way I thought and felt and looked at things, that I have a very warm sympathy for my little lads when they go wrong." Miss Patricia rose to go down and prepare the lemon jelly that Phil had asked for, saying, as she moved toward the stairs: "Well, I love Phil and Stuart dearly. I'm devoted to them, and willing to do anything in my power for their comfort, but I'm free to confess that I don't understand them. I never did understand boys." Then she tripped over me as I nearly upset us both in my frantic efforts to get out of her way. "Or monkeys either," she added, shaking her skirts at me with a displeased "Shoo," as if I had been a silly old hen. It was very quiet about the house for a few days, and then some jolly times began in Phil's room. As soon as the boys were allowed to visit him I showed them some of my tricks, and kept them in roars of laughter. I wheeled little Elsie's doll carriage around the room, and I sat up with the doctor's pipe in my mouth, I drilled and danced, and performed as if I had been on a stage. It was wonderful to them, for they had never guessed how much I knew. One day I sat down in a little rocking-chair with a kitten in my arms, and rocked and hugged it as if it had been a baby. It wasn't breathing when I stopped. The boys said I hugged it too hard, but they kept on bringing me something to rock every day, until five kittens and a rabbit had been put to sleep so soundly that they wouldn't wake up. One day Phil was moved into Miss Patricia's room while his own was being cleaned. Of course no boys were allowed to go in there with him except Stuart. They had a good time, for Miss Patricia told them stories and showed them the curious things in her cabinet and gave them sugar-plums out of the big, blue china dragon that always stands on top of it. But I could see that she was not enjoying their visit. She was afraid that Stuart's rockers would bump against her handsome old mahogany furniture, or that they would scratch it in some way, or break some of her fine vases and jardinières. After awhile she was called down to the parlour to receive a guest, and there was nothing to amuse the boys. Time dragged so heavily that Phil begged Stuart to bring his little rubber-gun—gumbo-shooter he called it. It was a wide rubber band fastened at each end to the tips of a forked stick shaped like a big Y. [Pg 36] [Pg 37] [Pg 38] [Pg 39] [Pg 40] They used buckshot to shoot with, nipping up a shot in the middle of the band with thumb and finger, and drawing it back as far as possible before letting it fly. There was a fire in the grate, so they were comfortably warm even when they opened the window to take turns in shooting at the red berries on the vine just outside. It was as much as Phil could do, lying on the sofa, to send a buckshot through the open window without hitting the panes above, but Stuart cut a berry neatly from the vine at each trial. Soon he began to boast of his skill, and aimed his sling at an ancient portrait over the mantel. It was of a dignified old gentleman in a black stock and powdered wig. He had keen, eagle eyes like Miss Patricia, which seemed to follow one all around the room. "I bet I could hit that picture square in the apple of its eye," he bragged, "right in its eye-ball,—bim!" "Oh, don't try!" begged Phil. "It's our great-great-grandfather, and Aunt Patricia thinks a lot of that picture." "'Course I wouldn't do it," answered Stuart, taking another aim, "but I could, just as easy as nothing." Still dallying with temptation, he pointed again at the frowning eye and drew the rubber slowly back. All of a sudden, zip! The buckshot seemed to leap from the rubber of its own accord, and Stuart fell back, frightened by what he had done. A round black hole the size of the buckshot gaped in the middle of the old-ancestor's eye-ball, as clean cut as if it had been made with a punch. It gave it the queerest, wickedest stare you can imagine. It was the first thing one would notice on looking about the room. Stuart was white about the mouth. "Oh, dear," sighed Phil, half crying, "if Aunt Patricia was only like the wise monkeys of Japan, then she wouldn't notice." "But she will," said Stuart; "she always sees everything." Phil had given me an idea. As soon as I heard Miss Patricia's silk skirts coming slowly through the hall with their soft swish, swish, I ran and sat in the doorway with my hands over my eyes, in token that there was something that she ought not to look at. It should have amused her, for she knew the story of the ebony paper-weight, but instead it seemed to arouse her suspicion that something was wrong. She looked at the boys' miserable faces and then all around the room, very slowly. It was so still that you could have heard a pin drop. At last she looked up at the picture. Then she fairly stiffened with horror. She couldn't find a word for a moment, and Stuart cried out, "Oh, Aunt Patricia, I'm so sorry. It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it, truly I didn't!" "SHE FAIRLY STIFFENED WITH HORROR." There's no use harrowing up your feelings, Ring-tail, repeating all that was said. Miss Patricia simply couldn't believe that the shot could have struck dead centre unless the eye had been deliberately aimed at, and she thought something was wrong with a boy who would even take aim at his great-great- grandfather's eyeball. Stuart was sent from the room in disgrace to report to his father, and the last I saw of Miss Patricia that day, she was looking up at the portrait, and saying, with a mournful shake of her gray curls: "How can they do such things? I must confess that I don't understand boys!" [Pg 41] [Pg 42] [Pg 45] CHAPTER IV. THE TALE THE MIRROR-MONKEY HEARD ON THURSDAY. Return to Table of Contents The day that Phil was able to go back to school was an unlucky one for me. It was so dolefully quiet everywhere. After he had gone, I slipped down-stairs on the banister, but the blinds were drawn in the parlour and dining-room, and it was so still that the only sound to be heard was the slow ticking of the great clock in the hall. When it gave a loud br-r-r and began to strike, I was so startled by the sudden noise that I nearly lost my balance and turned a somersault over the railing. Then I saw Miss Patricia pass through the hall with her bonnet on, going out for a morning walk, and I thought it would be a fine time for me to explore her room. It is full of interesting things that I had never been permitted to touch, for when the boys were allowed to take me into Miss Patricia's room, it was always on condition that I should be made to play little Jack Horner and sit in some corner under a chair or table. So as soon as the door closed behind her I hurried up-stairs to her room. I had the best time that morning. There were all sorts of little bottles on her wash-stand with good-smelling stuff in them. I pulled out the corks and emptied some of the bottles into the bowl to make that smell good, too. Then I washed my teeth with her little silver-handled toothbrush, just as Phil does every morning, and put the sponges to soak in the water-pitcher. After awhile I found the cut-glass vinaigrette that Miss Patricia carries around with her. I have seen her use it a hundred times at least, tipping back the silver lid, taking out the little glass stopper, and holding it to her nose with the remark that she never smelled more refreshing salts. I have wanted very much to try it myself. So now that I had the chance I did just as she does,—tipped back the lid, pulled out the stopper, and took a long, deep smell. Whew! It almost upset me. I thought it must be fire and brimstone that she had bottled up in there. It brought the tears to my eyes, and took my breath for a minute so I had to sit and gasp. Then I dropped the vinaigrette in the slop-jar and jumped down from the wash-stand. Her high, old-fashioned bureau tempted me next. There were rows and rows of pins in a big blue pincushion, put in as evenly as if it had been done by a machine. I pulled them out, one by one, and dropped them down behind the bureau. It took some time to do that, but at last the blue cushion was empty, and I sat down on it to examine the jewel-case at my leisure. I found the prettiest things in it; an open-faced locket, set around with pearls, with the picture of a beautiful young girl in it; a string of bright coral beads, and a little carnelian ring, and a gold dollar hung on a faded ribbon. I forgot to tell you that Miss Patricia's bay window is full of flowers, and that she has a mocking-bird hanging in a cage above the wire stand that holds her ferns and foliage plants. The mocking-bird's name is Dick. Now Dick hadn't paid any attention to me until I opened the jewel-case. As I did so I knocked a hairbrush off the bureau to the floor, which must have frightened him, for he began to cry out as if something had caught hold of him. Then he whistled, as if he were calling a dog. You have no idea what a [Pg 46] [Pg 47] [Pg 48] [Pg 49] racket he made. I was afraid that some of the servants might hear him and come to see what was the matter. Then, of course, I would be turned out of the room before I had finished examining all the pretty things. I turned around and shook my fist at him and chattered at him as savagely as I knew how, but he kept on, first making that hoarse cry and then whistling as if calling to a dog. I determined to stop him in some way or another, so, not waiting to put down the gold dollar or the little carnelian ring, which were tightly clenched in one hand, I sprang down from the bureau. Running up the wire flower-stand below the cage, I shook my fist directly under his beak. It only made him noisier than ever, and he flew about the cage like something crazy. "Be still, won't you? you silly thing!" I shrieked, and in my desperation I made a grab through the bars at his tail-feathers. A whole handful came out, and that seemed to make him wilder than before. He beat himself against the top of the cage and screamed so loud that I thought it would be better to leave before any one heard him and came in. So I jumped across to the cabinet near the window, where the big blue dragon sat. Then I remembered the sugar-plums inside and stopped for just one taste. I lifted off the dragon's ugly head and was reaching my hand down inside for one of those delicious sweetmeats, when in walked Miss Patricia. My! I was scared! I hadn't expected her back so soon. I dropped the dragon's old blue head on the floor and was out of the window like a shot. There was a cedar-tree reaching up past the window, and I ran out on one of the limbs and hid myself among its thick branches. I could see her but she couldn't see me. She walked all around the room, and looked at the wash-stand and the bureau and at Dick's tail-feathers scattered among the window-plants and then at the blue dragon's head, smashed all to bits on the floor. Then she picked up the locket, lying face downwards on the rug, and began searching for the other things that had been in the jewel-case. I suppose it was the carnelian ring and the gold dollar with the hole in it that she missed. I opened my hand, remembering that I had had them when I went to hush up that noisy mocking-bird. I must have dropped them when I jumped from the window into the cedar-tree. While I was hanging over the limb, peering down to see if I could catch a glimpse of them on the ground below, the housemaid, Nora, came into the room in answer to Miss Pat...