STORY VII JUMPO AND THE GREEN PARROT

 It was about three days and a half after the adventure with the alligator¹, when Jacko Kinkytail had scared the skillery-scalery creature by bursting the paper bag, and the two monkey brothers were coming home from school in the afternoon.

 

"Did you miss any of your lessons today?" asked Jacko, as he twined his tail around a hickory nut on the ground, and picked it up so he could eat it—eat the nut, not the ground, you understand, of course.

 

"I missed one example," answered Jumpo, "but it was very hard."

 

"What was it?" inquired Jacko, as he cracked the hickory nut in his strong teeth.

 

"It was this," spoke² his brother: "If a boy has a chocolate ice cream cone³, and his sister has two, how many oranges can you buy for a bag of peanuts when a stick of peppermint⁴ candy breaks in three pieces and one of them falls inside a lemon? Don't you think that's a hard example, Jacko?"

 

"Indeed it is. Let me see, I think the answer is a pound of chocolate drops."

 

"I thought it was a piece of cherry pie," went on the little green monkey, "but the teacher said it was a dozen of eggs, so I missed."

 

"Never mind, as long as you didn't have to stay in," said Jacko. "Now let's hurry on and see who will get home first. You go one way and I'll go the other, and we'll race."

 

This suited Jumpo all right, so off he started by the path that led through the woods, while Jacko took the road that led past the house of Grandfather Goosey Gander. And when Jacko reached there the old gentleman was just looking for some one to go to the store for him to get a pound of sugar. So Jacko went, and he earned a penny. Then he hurried home. But Jumpo hadn't yet reached there, and I'll have to tell you what happened to him.

 

For a while the little green monkey boy hurried on through the woods. He was thinking how surprised Jacko would be to find his brother home ahead of him, and Jumpo was even planning to hide behind the rain water barrel and jump out to make-believe scare Jacko. Then, all of a sudden, as Jumpo went past a big rock he saw a nice big yellow orange on the ground.

 

"Oh, joy!" exclaimed Jumpo. "I'll take that home and give Jacko half of it."

 

But as Jumpo reached for the orange it suddenly rolled a short distance away from him, and he couldn't get it.

 

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed the little green monkey. "That is odd. That must be one of those queer rolling oranges I have read about in fairy stories. But I'll get it yet."

 

So he went forward very slowly and carefully, and, all of a sudden, he made another grab for the orange, but it rolled still farther away.

 

"Hum!" exclaimed Jumpo. "This is strange. But I'll try again." So he tried once more, and, all this while, as he was reaching for the orange, he kept coming nearer and nearer to a big hollow stump⁶. And Jumpo never noticed that there was a string tied to the orange, and that the orange was being pulled by a bad old wolf, who was hiding in the stump. You see that the wolf was so old that he couldn't walk around and catch his meals any more, so he took that plan of getting little animals to his den⁵.

 

Nearer and nearer rolled the orange to the stump, with Jumpo chasing it, and almost getting it at times. But he never really got it, and finally he was so close to the stump that the wicked wolf could reach out and grab the green monkey in his claws.

 

"Oh, ho! Now I have you!" cried the bad wolf. "My orange trick was a good one," and he carefully put the orange and the string away on a shelf to use next time.

 

"Was that you making the orange roll?" asked Jumpo, as he tried to get away, but couldn't.

 

"It was," said the wolf, showing his sharp teeth.

 

"Oh, please let me go!" begged Jumpo. "I was racing⁷ with my brother, to see who would get home first. Please let me go!"

 

"No, indeed, I'll not," answered the wolf, "and if your brother ever comes past here I'll catch him also. Now, I'm going to lock you up in a dark closet until supper time."

 

"Do you mean my supper time, or yours?" asked Jumpo, hoping there might be some mistake about it.

 

"My supper time, of course," growled⁸ the wolf, and he was just going to shut Jumpo up in the dark closet, when he happened to look out, and he saw something green in a tree near the stump. Jumpo saw it, too.

 

"Hum! That is queer," said the wolf. "There are no green leaves on the trees now, as it is getting close to winter. I wonder what it can be? But I have no time to bother with anything like that. I must make a hot fire to cook my monkey supper."

 

Oh, how badly Jumpo felt at hearing that, and how hard he tried to get away from the wolf, but it was of no use. Then the monkey looked, when the wolf had his head turned to one side, and Jumpo saw that the green thing was a big poll parrot.

 

"Save me! Save me!" cried Jumpo. The parrot just nodded his head, wise like, and hid behind the tree trunk. Then, all of a sudden, a voice cried:

 

"Hey, Mr. Wolf, you let that monkey go!"

 

"Was that you speaking?" asked the wolf, of Jumpo, for the wolf didn't see the parrot.

 

"No," answered Jumpo, "I didn't speak," and the wolf thought it was very queer. Then the voice cried again:

 

"Let that monkey go, or I'll shoot a lot of guns at you!"

 

"Pooh. I'm not afraid," said the wolf, for he could not see anyone.

 

Then, all of a sudden, the voice cried again: "Get ready now, fellows. Aim your guns right at that wolf, but don't shoot Jumpo! Ready! Aim! Fire! Bangity-bang-bang! Boom! Bang!"

 

And it sounded like forty-'leven guns going off. My! How that parrot did yell!

 

"Oh, don't shoot me! Don't shoot! I'll be good! Honest I will! I'll let the monkey go! Hurry, monkey, run along and tell them that I let you go!" begged the wolf, letting go of Jumpo. And you can believe that Jumpo hurried away from that stump.

 

Then the green parrot hopped⁹ into sight on the limb of a tree and cried:

 

"Ha! ha!! That's the time I fooled you, Mr. Wolf. It was I talking, and there aren't any fellows here with guns at all. But I made you let Jumpo go. Ha! Ha!"

 

Then that wolf was so angry that he almost bit his own tail, but he couldn't catch Jumpo, and the green parrot went home with the monkey boy to see that no one hurt him. Then the parrot, after Jumpo and his brother and mother had thanked him, flew back to his cage, and that's the end of this story, if you please.

 

The next one will be about the Kinkytails and the trained bear—that is, if our canary bird[Pg 54] doesn't drop his seed dish in the sewing machine and break a needle.

1 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。

2 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。

3 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。

4 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。

5 den   

n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室

参考例句：

• There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
• The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。

6 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

7 racing   

n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的

参考例句：

• I was watching the racing on television last night.昨晚我在电视上看赛马。
• The two racing drivers fenced for a chance to gain the lead.两个赛车手伺机竞相领先。

8 growled   

v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说

参考例句：

• \"They ought to be birched, \" growled the old man. 老人咆哮道：“他们应受到鞭打。” 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He growled out an answer. 他低声威胁着回答。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。