STORY II JUMPO AND THE COCOANUT

 Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, couldn't go to the owl¹ teacher's school and tell the children about his travels on the day he had promised to do so. It was because his rheumatism² was very bad, so the pupils, including Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the red and green monkeys, were allowed to play a game instead of hearing a story.

 

"Perhaps Uncle Wiggily will come tomorrow," said the teacher. And that is what the rabbit did, and he told how he had traveled many miles, and had had dozens and dozens of adventures, of which I have told you in the stories before this one. He also told how Jacko Kinkytail had been with him part of the time.

 

"Oh, my, I wish I had been along," said Sammie Littletail to Jacko after school was over.

 

"Yes, indeed, so do I," said Billy No-Tail, the frog, as he looked at his grandfather's tall hat which he was wearing, to see if it had any holes in the top; but it hadn't.

 

"Oh, I had lots of fun," said Jacko, the red monkey, "but I would have had more if my brother Jumpo, or some of you boys, had been with me. Uncle Wiggily was very nice."

 

"Come on, let's have a game of ball," suggested Jumpo, the green monkey. So the boy animals put their books on the grass, and they had a little ball game on their way home from school.

 

It was a fine game, too. Once when Billie Wagtail, the goat boy, knocked the ball away up in the air with his horns, Jumpo Kinkytail climbed up a tree, and, hanging to the top branch only by his tail, he reached up and caught the ball before it got to the ground.

 

"Fine! Fine!" cried all the other animal players as Jumpo came down.

 

Well, after the game was over, the boy animals started for home, and on the way a bad fox jumped out of the bushes and tried to grab the red monkey. But Jumpo, his green brother, made such a funny face, like an orange and a lemon twisted into an apple pie, with a stick of peppermint³ candy stuck through the middle, that the fox had to laugh, and of course when he laughed he couldn't chase the red and green monkeys, so they got safely home.

 

"You must be careful after this," said their mamma when Jacko and Jumpo had told her of the fox. "I will have your father speak to the policeman about it when he comes home from the hand organ factory where he works. And now you monkey boys please go out and cut some wood for me, for I must get supper. Then you can study your lessons. Hurry now, Jacko and Jumpo."

 

"What are we going to have for supper, mamma?" asked Jumpo.

 

"Well, for one thing, I am going to make a cocoanut cake," said the mamma monkey.

 

"Oh, goody!" cried Jacko and Jumpo as they danced around in the kitchen and hugged each other with their long tails. "That will be fine!"

 

"Come, now, get in the wood for the fire!" cried their mamma, so down the tall tree they scrambled⁴, and soon they were gathering⁵ up sticks in their four paws and their tails also.

 

"I guess I've got my share," said Jumpo at last. "I'm going in and study my lessons." So into the house he went, while Jacko went looking for hickory nuts. But Jumpo couldn't do much studying. He was thinking too much about the cocoanut cake that was to be for supper.

 

"I guess I'll just go into the kitchen and take a look at the cocoanut, to make sure it's there," said the little green monkey after a while. So, laying aside his spelling-book, Jumpo went to the kitchen. Mrs. Kinkytail wasn't there just then, having gone down cellar after some butter. But the cocoanut was on the table in its brown shell, all ready to be broken open and the white meat inside put in the cake.

 

"Oh, what an exceedingly large and fine cocoanut!" exclaimed Jumpo, speaking very correctly as he had been taught in school. "I will just lift it to see how heavy it is."

 

Now, Jumpo's mamma had told him never to meddle⁶ with the things in the kitchen, when she was baking, for once he had mixed the sugar and salt, and everything tasted dreadfully. But you see he forgot what his mamma had said, and almost before he knew what he was doing he had picked up the cocoanut.

 

"I'll just shake it, to see if there is any milk inside," he said, and he held it up to his ear, and wiggled it to and fro. Surely enough there was plenty of the milky⁷ white juice inside, and Jumpo could hear it splashing around.

 

"Oh, this is fine!" he cried as he shook the cocoanut harder than before, and then—alas and alack-a-day! The first thing he knew the cocoanut had slipped from his paws.

 

Down upon the floor it fell, away it rolled, and before Jumpo could stop it that cocoanut had fallen out of the kitchen door of the little house in the tree, right down to the ground below.

 

"Oh, I must get it before mamma comes back!" exclaimed the green monkey. Quickly he scrambled down the tree, winding⁸ his tail around the lowest branch and leaping to the ground. But the cocoanut was nowhere to be seen.

 

"I wonder if Jacko could have taken it to play a joke on me?" thought Jumpo. Then he looked over toward the bushes, and he saw something moving, and there was the cocoanut rolling along, faster than ever.

 

"My! It must be going down hill!" cried Jumpo, as he sprang after it. Well, the cocoanut kept on going. Once Jumpo almost had it in his left paw, but the cocoanut hit a stone and bounded away from him. Then he almost had it in his right foot, but the cocoanut went splash into a little brook⁹ of water and the green monkey couldn't see it. Then it rolled out and he managed to get his tail around the nut, but it was so slippery that it got away from him—the cocoanut got away, not Jumpo's tail, you understand. No, that stayed fast on the monkey boy.

"Oh, I guess we won't have any cocoanut cake for supper to-night," thought the little green fellow. "I wish I had stayed out of the kitchen, as mamma told me. But I'm not going to give up yet. I'll get that cocoanut if it's possible!" So he ran on, faster than ever, but the cocoanut rolled quicker and quicker. It was now getting late, and Jumpo didn't know what to do. He could still see the cocoanut ahead of him, but he couldn't catch up to it.

 

"Oh, whatever shall I do?" he cried. And just then he saw something like a big red hole, with rows of sharp white teeth in it. At first he thought it was his red brother Jacko, but when he looked again he saw that it was the skillery-scalery alligator¹⁰.

 

"Oh, I'm just waiting for you," said the 'gator with his mouth open real wide.

 

"Oh, dear!" cried Jumpo, "this comes of not minding one's mother. The cocoanut is gone and I'll soon be gone, too," for he surely thought the alligator would get him.

 

In fact the alligator was just going to eat up the little green monkey when the skillery-scalery creature gave his tail a big flop¹¹. Then something round and brown sailed up into the air, came down ker-bunk, right on the end of the 'gator's nose, and bounded off.

 

"Oh, my! Some one is shooting cannon¹² balls at me!" cried the 'gator. "I never can stand cannon balls." So away he went, as fast as he could, taking his double-jointed tail with him. And listen, as the telephone girl says, it wasn't a cannon ball at all, that had hit the 'gator, it was the lost cocoanut.

 

Jumpo caught it as it came down, after the 'gator had accidentally tossed it into the air with his tail, and then the green monkey hurried home with it as fast as he could hurry, and so he had cocoanut cake for supper after all.

 

Of course, Jumpo's mamma scolded him a little for what he had done, and he said he was sorry, so she forgave him. And the monkeys had more adventures. I'll tell you of one soon, and the next story will be about the Kinkytails making a pudding—that is, if the elephant in the picture-book doesn't take the baby's rattle-box and beat the drum with it.[Pg 23]

 

1 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

2 rheumatism   

n.风湿病

参考例句：

• The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。

3 peppermint   

n.薄荷，薄荷油，薄荷糖

参考例句：

• Peppermint oil is very good for regulating digestive disorders.薄荷油能很有效地调节消化系统失调。
• He sat down,popped in a peppermint and promptly choked to death.他坐下来，突然往嘴里放了一颗薄荷糖，当即被噎死。

4 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

6 meddle   

v.干预，干涉，插手

参考例句：

• I hope he doesn't try to meddle in my affairs.我希望他不来干预我的事情。
• Do not meddle in things that do not concern you.别参与和自己无关的事。

7 milky   

adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的

参考例句：

• Alexander always has milky coffee at lunchtime.亚历山大总是在午餐时喝掺奶的咖啡。
• I like a hot milky drink at bedtime.我喜欢睡前喝杯热奶饮料。

8 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

9 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

10 alligator   

n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼)

参考例句：

• She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.她开始玩鳄鱼玩具。
• Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather.鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。

11 flop   

n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下

参考例句：

• The fish gave a flop and landed back in the water.鱼扑通一声又跳回水里。
• The marketing campaign was a flop.The product didn't sell.市场宣传彻底失败，产品卖不出去。

12 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。