Jacko came from a very warm climate, and therefore often suffered from the cold in the northern latitude to which he had been brought.
Mrs. Lee could not endure to see a monkey dressed like a man, as they sometimes are in shows. She said they looked disgustingly; but she consented that the little fellow should have a tight red jacket, and some drawers, to keep him comfortable. Minnie, too, begged from her some old pieces of carpeting, to make him a bed, when Jacko seemed greatly delighted. He did not now, as before, often stand in the morning shaking, and blue with the cold, but laughed, and chattered, and showed his gratitude in every possible way.
Not many months after Jacko came, and when he had become well acquainted with all the family, Fidelle had a family of kittens, which she often carried in her mouth back and forth through the shed. The very sight of these little animals seemed to excite Jacko exceedingly. He would spring the entire length of his chain, trying to reach them.
One day, when the kittens had begun to run alone, and were getting to be very playful, the cook heard a great noise in the shed, and Fidelle crying with all her might. She ran to see what was the matter, and, to her surprise, found Jacko sitting up in the cage, grinning with delight, while he held one of the kittens in his arms, hugging it as if it had been a baby.
Cook knew the sight would please Minnie, and she ran to call her. But the child sympathized too deeply in Fidelle’s distress to enjoy it. She tried to get the kitten away from Jacko, but he had no idea of giving it up, until at last, when Mrs. Lee, who had come to the rescue, gave him a piece of cake, of which he was very fond, he relaxed his hold, and she instantly released the poor, frightened little animal.
Fidelle took warning by this occurrence, and never ventured through the shed again with her babies, though Jacko might seem to be sound asleep in his cage.
Jacko had been at Mr. Lee’s more than a year before they knew him to break his chain and run about by himself. The first visit he made was to Leo, in the barn, and he liked it so well that, somehow or other, he contrived to repeat the visit quite as often as it was agreeable to the dog, who never could endure him.
After this, he became very mischievous, so that every one of the servants, though they often had a great laugh at his tricks, would have been glad to have the little fellow carried back to his home in Africa.
I don’t think even Minnie loved her pet monkey as well as she did her other pets. She could not take him in her arms as she did Fidelle and Tiney, nor play with him as she did with Nannie and her lamb, and he could not carry her on his back, as Star did.
“Well,” she said, one day, after discussing the merits of her animals with her mamma, “Poll talks to me, and Jacko makes me laugh; but if I should have to give up one of my pets, I had rather it would be the monkey.”