"So Mr. Dorking sat down and waited. The sun set, and black clouds covered the sky, but, yet the ball did not shine. All the other chickens had gone to roost hours before; but Mr. Dorking kept on watching. It began to rain; the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. The rooster was wet to the skin, and terribly frightened.
"'I'll save the moon,' he cried, and picking up the ball in his beak, which wasn't an easy task, he ran as fast as he could to the hen-house; but when he got there the storm had cleared away. Looking up, Mr. Dorking saw the moon in the sky, and throwing the ball into the house, he cried out to his wife:
"'What kind of a thing is this, anyway? I've been lugging it around for an hour or more, and now there's another moon come to take its place.'
"'Come straight up here to your roost, you foolish old thing.' Mrs. Dorking said angrily. 'If you had half as much sense as Mr. Monkey, you could have taken the children and me on a picnic, instead of fooling your time away with a rubber ball.'
"What did she mean by 'having as much sense as Mr. Monkey,'" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Goose replied:
WHEN MRS. MONKEY WAS DISSATISFIED.
"Oh, it was an idea she got from some of Mr. Crow's poetry. All the fowls on our farm have laughed at it time and time again. This is the way it goes:
Said old Mrs. Monk one morning, "Look at me.
I am tired of living in this cocoa tree,
You have got to go to work and rent a flat,
For I'll not live in this manner, mind you that."
Then when Mister Monkey heard all that she said,
He thought of many trades, and scratched his head
What on earth could monkeys do to bring in gold
So a loving monkey wifey wouldn't scold?
Now what do you suppose the Monkey did?
Do you think he climbed the cocoa tree and hid?
No; upon a jungle trolley he is there
Hanging by his legs and tail collecting fare."