STORY XVI THE KINKYTAILS MAKE MONEY

 "Mamma, would you please buy us an automobile²?" asked Jacko Kinkytail of his mother one Saturday morning when there wasn't any school.

 

"An automobile? Why, my dear boy, what would you do with an automobile?" asked Mrs. Kinkytail.

 

"Oh, yes; please do get us one, mother!" begged Jumpo.

 

"Oh, my! I never heard of such a thing!" cried the monkeys' mamma, as she trimmed the dough³ off the edge of an apple pie and put it in the oven to bake. "What could you possibly do with it—you two little boys?"

 

"Why, we could soon learn to run it," said Jacko. "Then we could go to school in it, and come home and take papa to the hand organ factory, and take you to the store, and we could even take out parties on excursion trips and make money that way."

 

 

"What would you do when your auto¹ wouldn't go?" asked Mrs. Kinkytail, as she got ready to bake a chocolate cocoanut cake with cherries on the top.

 

"Oh, we could take turns pulling it then," spoke⁴ Jumpo. "Uncle Wiggily has one, so why can't we?"

 

"Uncle Wiggily is rich, since he found his fortune," said Mrs. Kinkytail, "but your papa and I haven't money enough to buy even a set of tires for an auto. Still, if you boys could earn the money yourselves you might get one," she said. Of course, she was only joking, for she never thought the boys would take her in earnest. But they did.

 

"All right, then, we'll earn the money," said Jacko. "Come on, Jumpo."

 

"Don't stay away too long," cautioned their mamma, and she smiled as the two little monkey boys slid down the tree in which the house was built, and hurried away.

 

"How are we going to make money?" asked Jumpo, as he followed after his brother. "Are you going to gather up old rags, bones and bottles, and sell them?"

 

"Come on, I'll show you," spoke Jacko, as he tied his tail in a bow knot to keep it from dragging in the dust. "I'm going to the hand organ factory, where papa works, and I'm going to ask him to lend us an old organ. Then you and I will go around and play music and people will give us pennies. We'll soon have enough to buy an automobile."

 

"The very thing!" cried Jumpo in delight. "You can play the organ and I'll climb up to the windows where the children are and get the pennies. Then this afternoon we'll buy the auto, and go for a ride. Won't mamma be surprised?"

 

"I guess so," answered Jacko. "I hope we get enough money today. How much do you s'pose an auto costs, Jumpo?"

 

"Oh, I guess twenty-six or twenty-seven cents. I know they're very expensive. But we can easily earn the money, for if the children give single pennies to a man playing the organ, who has a monkey with him, they'll probably give us double five-cent pieces to see two monkeys, and we'll soon have the twenty-seven cents, or, maybe, even thirty—who knows."

 

Mr. Kinkytail was very busy in the factory when his two boys came in to see him, and he said they could have a second-hand⁶ hand organ that played sort of wheezy-eezy tunes⁷. He was so busy that he didn't even ask them what they wanted it for and they didn't tell him. They just took the organ and started off with it.

 

"Now we must play the very best tunes, and you must do some of your finest tricks," said Jacko, as they walked along until they came to a row of brick houses. "This will be a good place to begin," said the red monkey boy. "Rich people must live here."

 

Well, I just wish you could have heard Jacko play that hand organ. Really, he did as well as you could, turning the handle sometimes with his left paw, and sometimes with his right and sometimes with his tail.

 

"Oh, mamma!" cried a little girl at one window. "Come quick and see two monkeys with a hand organ! And one of them is coming up here. Oh, give me five cents for him!"

 

"Two monkeys!" exclaimed her mamma. "You must be mistaken. You mean a man with a monkey."

 

"No, really, mamma!" cried the little girl. "Come and see."

 

"Sure enough!" spoke her mamma. "Two monkeys. Two monkeys. How very odd. Here is ten cents for them. Aren't they cute?"

 

By this time Jumpo was climbing up the porch to where the little girl was holding out the money for him and Jacko was grinding the handle of the organ and playing a tune⁵ called: "If You Have Your Umbrella You Will Never Mind the Rain."

 

When the little girl handed Jumpo the money he took off his pink cap, made a low bow, and, then standing⁸ on the roof of the porch, he turned a somersault, stood on his tail and made a queer face like an ice cream cone⁹ inside of a watermelon.

 

"Oh, what a funny monkey!" cried the little girl in delight. "I wish I could keep him!"

 

"I guess it's time for me to be going," thought Jumpo. "She might want to keep me forever and then Jacko and I couldn't get the auto."

 

So he went on to the next house where there was a little boy, and Jumpo climbed up, and did some more tricks and Jacko kept on playing. By this time all the children in the block had heard about the two monkeys with the hand organ, and the boys and girls came with so many pennies that Jumpo's cap was hardly large enough to hold them.

 

"Oh, Jacko, we've got as much as fifty cents!" he cried as they went on to the next block, and there they got more money until they had over a dollar. And then a big dog chased them, and the two monkey boys hurried back home.

 

"But we've got enough to buy our auto," said[Pg 113] Jacko, "so it's all right. Oh, won't we have fun in it!"

 

"Indeed, we will!" cried Jumpo, as he wiggled both his ears and on the next page, in case the feather in the hat of the little girl next door doesn't tickle¹⁰ my puppy dog and make him sneeze, I'll tell you how the Kinkytails spent their money.[Pg 114]

 

1 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

2 automobile   

n.汽车，机动车

参考例句：

• He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
• The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。

3 dough   

n.生面团；钱，现款

参考例句：

• She formed the dough into squares.她把生面团捏成四方块。
• The baker is kneading dough.那位面包师在揉面。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

6 second-hand   

adj.用过的，旧的，二手的

参考例句：

• I got this book by chance at a second-hand bookshop.我赶巧在一家旧书店里买到这本书。
• They will put all these second-hand goods up for sale.他们将把这些旧货全部公开出售。

7 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

10 tickle   

v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒

参考例句：

• Wilson was feeling restless. There was a tickle in his throat.威尔逊只觉得心神不定。嗓子眼里有些发痒。
• I am tickle pink at the news.听到这消息我高兴得要命。