"Oh, I'm not going to work to-day," said the papa monkey, as he slowly folded the news-paper inside out so that he might read about whether it was going to rain or snow.

 

"Why aren't you going to work?" asked the monkey mamma.

 

"Because," answered her husband, "something is the matter with one of the music machines, and the engineer has to fix it. So the factory is closed, and I have a vacation. And, as it is Saturday, I'll take the boys for a walk."

 

"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Jacko Kinkytail.

 

"That will be fine!" shouted Jumpo, and he tied his tail in such a hard knot in his excitement that his mamma almost had to cut the knot out with the scissors. But finally it was loosened with a knitting needle.

 

"Come on, boys," said their papa. "The paper says it will be a fair day, so we will go off in the woods. And, who knows? Perhaps we may have an adventure."

 

It was a fine, cool day, and the monkey boys and their papa hurried along. Soon they came to the woods, where the ground was all covered with leaves that rustled¹ under foot like tissue paper in a box of candy.

 

"Oh, look there!" suddenly exclaimed Jacko in a whisper. "There is a big elephant!"

 

"Where?" asked his brother, and the red monkey pointed² off through the woods. Surely enough, there was something that looked like an elephant with a bushel of peanuts on his back.

 

"Why, that's not an elephant," said Mr. Kinkytail, when he had looked most carefully, "that is only a stump³, though I admit there is something about it that seems like an elephant's trunk. Well, that was almost an adventure. Come along, and after a while we may have a real one."

 

On they walked a little farther, and, all of a sudden Jumpo stopped and grasped his brother by the paw.

 

"Look," whispered the green monkey. "Isn't that a big lion over there?"

 

"Sure enough it is!" exclaimed Jacko, as he looked toward where his brother pointed.

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