The little girl then repeated what her mother had told her of the discipline among monkeys, at which he was greatly amused.
All this time, they were standing at the bottom of the hay mow, and supposed that Jacko was safe at the top; but the little fellow was more cunning than they thought. He found the window open near the roof, where hay was sometimes pitched in, and ran down into the yard as quick as lightning.
The first they knew of it was when John called out from the barnyard, “Jacko, Jacko! Soh, Jacko! Be quiet, sir!”
It was a wearisome chase they had for the next hour, and at the end they could not catch the runaway; but at last, when they sat down calmly in the house, he stole back to his cage, and lay there quiet as a lamb.
Minnie’s face was flushed with her unusual exercise, but in a few minutes she grew very pale, until her mother became alarmed. After a few drops of lavender, however, she said she felt better, and that if Frank would tell her a story she should be quite well.
“That I will,” exclaimed the boy, eagerly. “I know a real funny one; you like funny stories—don’t you?”
“Yes, when they’re true,” answered Minnie.
“Well, this is really true. A man was hunting, and he happened to kill a monkey that had a little baby on her back. The little one clung so close to her dead mother, that they could scarcely get it away. When they reached the gentleman’s house, the poor creature began to cry at finding itself alone. All at once it ran across the room to a block, where a wig belonging to the hunter’s father was placed, and thinking that was its mother, was so comforted that it lay down and went to sleep.
“They fed it with goat’s milk, and it grew quite contented, for three weeks clinging to the wig with great affection.
“The gentleman had a large and valuable collection of insects, which were dried upon pins, and placed in a room appropriated to such purposes.