CHAPTER VIIIOFF AGAIN
Trouble Martinwas not given to calling out alarms like this; so, at first thought, his mother imagined he was playing some sort of joke.
“William, you mustn’t say such things!” she exclaimed, with a little laugh, giving him a playful shake. “There aren’t any monkeys in these woods.” Just then they were slowly passing along a road over which the branches of big trees arched.
“You didn’t see any monkey!” cried Ted. “If you saw anything it was one of your ‘nellifunts,’ Trouble.”
“I did see a monkey!” insisted the little fellow. “There he is now. He’s swinging in a tree!” and he pointed ahead.
Mr. Martin was now running the auto very slowly, for there was a bad place in the road where it had been dug up. So therewas plenty of time for them all to look where Trouble pointed with his chubby finger. Jan, the first to see something, cried:
“It is a monkey! Oh, look! He’s hanging by his tail from a tree!”
Then they all saw it, and as Mr. Martin stopped the machine just beneath the swaying monkey, Mrs. Martin exclaimed:
“What in the world does it mean? Trouble, I beg your pardon! You were right, after all! I thought you were fooling.”
“He’s my monkey!” declared the little fellow. “I saw him first! He’s mine!”
“If you can get him!” chuckled Ted. “But I guess he’s going to stay up there out of reach.”
“How do you suppose a monkey comes to be in these woods?” asked Mrs. Martin of her husband. “Could it have escaped from a circus?”
“There’s nellifunts in a circus,” announced Trouble, getting back to his favorite subject.
“Yes, this little chap might have come from a circus,” said Mr. Martin, with a smile, as he looked up at the monkey, now swinging above his head. “Or from somehouse. Some people have monkeys for pets.”
“Maybe it belongs to the moving pictures!” exclaimed Ted. “They have a lot of animals in the pictures.”
“I don’t believe it was with Mr. Portnay’s company,” Mrs. Martin remarked. “We didn’t see any such animals there. But what are we going to do about this one?”
“Guess we’ll have to leave him where he is—up in the tree,” answered her husband. “He can’t do much harm, and since it is summer, he won’t suffer from the cold. If winter was coming on he’d be a pretty sick monkey—out in the open like this.”
“I wish I could have this monkey!” pleaded Trouble. “I like a monkey better’n I do a nellifunt, I guess!”
“Well, that’s quite a thing for you to say!” laughed the little fellow’s father. “But I’m afraid we can’t get you this for a playmate. Hold fast, children, I’m going to start.”
As he was about to let in the clutch and send the car ahead, there appeared, running around the bend in the road, an excited Italian organ grinder with his music box. Hewas running fast, and when he caught sight of the auto he cried:
“You seena da monk? You seena da monk?”
At this moment the monkey in the tree, still swinging by his tail, began to chatter shrilly. Doubtless he had caught sight of his master and the organ to which tunes the monkey danced. And as the monkey chattered the Italian looked up, catching sight of his pet.
“Ah, da monk! My leetle monk!” he exclaimed, and then he talked in his own language. After which he again spoke English, saying: “Come down, Mickey! Come down to papa!”
The children laughed at this, and the Italian joined them in the mirth.
“He gooda da monk, but he run away,” explained the man. “Da string, she break, Mickey go ’way. Come down! Come down!” he begged, holding out his cap. “Come to papa!”
But the monkey did not appear to want to come down. It turned right side up, no longer swinging by its tail, but sitting on a branch.
“If you had some peanuts he’d come downfor those,” suggested Ted, searching through his pockets, hoping to find a stray “goober.”
“Mickey lika da peanut, but Mickey lika da banan mooch better,” said the Italian. “If I hada da banan, down queek he come.”
“I have a banana,” said Mrs. Martin. “I bought some after we left the moving picture place, and the children didn’t eat all of them. Here’s a banana for Mickey,” she added, handing to the Italian organ grinder one of the yellow fruits.
“T’ank you,” murmured the man. Then, peeling the banana, he bit off a little end of it and held the remainder out so the monkey could see it. “I no fool you,” the man murmured to his pet. “Dese banana, he good! See, I eat some of heem!”
Again he took a nibble as if to prove to the watching monkey that the fruit was real and good. And, seeing this, the monkey gave another chatter and then began to climb down the tree. Once he had made up his mind to descend, he lost little time, and he was soon perched on the organ eating the banana while his master fastened to the collar the little animal wore, the end of thestring from which Mickey had broken loose.
“Now you be da good monk and come weeth papa!” said the organ grinder, at which the Curlytops laughed again, the Italian joining in.
“Mother, isn’t it funny for him to call himself the monkey’s papa?” whispered Jan.
“Rather funny, yes,” admitted her mother. “But the Italians are like that.”
“I t’ank you for catcha da monk,” said the Italian, taking off his hat and bowing to Mrs. Martin, as Mickey finished the banana. “Mebby I never no get heem if so dat he not smell da banana.”
“I’m glad I had one to tempt him down with,” replied the mother of the Curlytops, with a smile.
“Does your monkey act in moving pictures?” asked Ted, as the traveler got ready to move along.
“Da movie pitcher—no—no!” cried the Italian. “Mickey he only hand-organ monk—no movie da pitcher monk! Goo’-by! T’ank you!”
“Good-by!” echoed the Curlytops and the others.
Then Mr. Martin started his car along the road while the Italian, glad that he had recovered his pet which had run away from him, went in the other direction.
“Well, another adventure on our tour,” laughed Mrs. Martin. “I couldn’t imagine what Trouble meant when he called out about a monkey in the tree.”
“Neither could I,” said the little fellow’s father. “I thought he was fooling.”
“We’ll have to pay more attention to Trouble after this,” said Ted.
“Next time he may see a bear!” laughed Jan.
“Don’t like bears!” murmured the little fellow, who was getting sleepy. “Like nellifunts an’ monkeys, but not bears.”
“Well, I don’t believe we are likely to meet any bears,” said Mr. Martin. “What I would like to meet, though, is that moving picture actor with the Cardwell albums.”
“We’ll find him at the hotel in Midvale and get the albums back,” said his wife.
“I hope so,” her husband answered.
They were now on their way again. Since Mr. Martin had made no special plans for their touring vacation, he and his wife decided that it would be as well to stop in Midvalefor the night, and go on in the morning, as it would be to try to reach some more distant place.
“Will we sleep in the tent at Midvale?” asked Ted, when signs along the road showed the Curlytops that they were entering that small city.
“No, I think we’ll go to the hotel,” replied Mr. Martin. “We have to stop at the hotel, anyhow, to catch this movie actor, so we may as well stay all night.”
“It would be more fun in the tent,” urged Ted.
“Heaps more fun,” agreed his sister.
“Oh, we’ll have enough of tent life before we finish this tour, children,” laughed Mrs. Martin.
They reached the Midvale hotel about five o’clock that afternoon. Mr. Martin told his family to remain in the car until he went in to make sure they could get rooms. He came out a little later and there was a look of disappointment on his face.
“Can’t they take us in for the night?” asked his wife.
“Yes, we can stay here. But Mr. Portnay isn’t here. I can’t get the albums from him.”
“Not here? Then, where is he?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“He stopped here, but has gone on,” her husband answered. “He has gone on to Cub Mountain, and, I suppose, has the box of albums in his car with him. Perhaps he doesn’t know about them, and they may get lost. I wish he had stayed here until I came!”