"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Jacko, and he felt a bit badly at having to go to the store. But then he soon became pleasant again, and said: "Never mind, it will be my turn next time."
"Of course," agreed Jumpo, "and if Uncle Wiggily gives me anything, I'll save you half, Jacko."
So off the two brothers started, one going one way to the grocery and the other in a different direction to the house of the old gentleman rabbit. And Jumpo carried the tarts very carefully, so as not to spill out a bit of the jam.
It didn't take Jacko long to get to the store and buy the butter. And on his way home a big wolf chased after him. But what do you s'pose the monkey boy did? Why, he just spread a little of the butter on the path behind him, and made it so slippery that the wolf slid all over as he ran, and so he couldn't catch Jacko.
But I must tell you what happened to Jumpo. The little monkey walked on and on through the woods, and he was thinking of how nice it was under the trees. Every once in a while he would pick up a chestnut to eat, and this took him so long that soon he noticed it was getting dark.
"Oh, I must hurry faster than this," he said, and then, holding the basket of jam tarts under his paw, he fairly ran on. And then, all of a sudden, he saw a big chestnut burr on the ground in front of him. The burr wasn't open yet, and it had a stem, like a handle to pick it up by, so the stickers wouldn't stick you.
"Oh, there must be at least three big chestnuts in that burr," thought Jumpo. "I'll pick that up, and then I won't stop a bit more." So he picked up the chestnut burr, and on he hurried to Uncle Wiggily's house. But he got a bit tired just as he was almost out of the woods, and he thought he'd sit down to rest for only a few seconds.
So Jumpo was sitting on a flat stone, looking at the chestnut burr and wondering if perhaps there might not be four brown, shining nuts inside, when, all at once, he heard a rustling in the leaves beside him.
"Hark! What's that?" he cried as he leaped up and looked at the basket of jam tarts which he had set down. "Perhaps that is some of the tarts trying to jump out," he said.
Then he looked again, and what he saw frightened him very much. For there was a big, fat, crawly snake on the ground moving toward the basket of jam tarts.