In fact the alligator was just going to eat up the little green monkey when the skillery-scalery creature gave his tail a big flop. Then something round and brown sailed up into the air, came down ker-bunk, right on the end of the 'gator's nose, and bounded off.
"Oh, my! Some one is shooting cannon balls at me!" cried the 'gator. "I never can stand cannon balls." So away he went, as fast as he could, taking his double-jointed tail with him. And listen, as the telephone girl says, it wasn't a cannon ball at all, that had hit the 'gator, it was the lost cocoanut.
Jumpo caught it as it came down, after the 'gator had accidentally tossed it into the air with his tail, and then the green monkey hurried home with it as fast as he could hurry, and so he had cocoanut cake for supper after all.
Of course, Jumpo's mamma scolded him a little for what he had done, and he said he was sorry, so she forgave him. And the monkeys had more adventures. I'll tell you of one soon, and the next story will be about the Kinkytails making a pudding—that is, if the elephant in the picture-book doesn't take the baby's rattle-box and beat the drum with it.
STORY III
THE KINKYTAILS MAKE A PUDDING
It happened, once upon a time, that Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the red and green monkey boys, didn't have to go to school. This was because it was Saturday, when there was no school; so now I've told you the true reason.
"What shall we do?" asked Jumpo of his brother, as he wound the end of his long tail around a tree branch and swung head downward while he ate an apple as easily as you can shell a peanut.
"Do you want to play Indian and let me shoot you with my make-believe gun?" asked Jacko, the red monkey.