“Mappo, the merry monkey, told me,” said the little squirrel girl. “And Mappo told me I was to tell you I was not a mouse or a rat. I won’t run up your trunk, and scare you.”
“That’s good,” said Tum Tum. “Now I can see clearly that you are a little squirrel. I like you! But what about that little rascal, Mappo? Where is he? I came out to look for him. They want him back in his cage to ride around the circus ring on the back of a pony, and do other tricks to make the children laugh.”
“Oh, he ran away,” said Slicko. “He thought he heard some men coming after him. He said he did not want to go back to the cage just yet. He wants to have some fun in the woods.”
“Well, well! He is a funny monkey,” said Tum Tum. “And I came all the way from the circus grounds to find him. But if he is gone, I won’t look any farther. I’ll go back to my tent, for the men may be coming after me.”
“Oh, can’t you stay here with me a little while? I am so lonesome!” spoke Slicko.
“Well, I might stay a short time,” Tum Tum said. “But what are you doing in the woods all alone, little Slicko?”
Then the little squirrel girl told how she had had to run away from her own nest, and how she had not been able to find her aunt, and how she was now living all by herself in the woods.
“Well, I wish I could stay with you, and keep you company, Slicko,” said Tum Tum. “But I belong back in the circus, and I guess you would rather jump through the tree branches, and skip about in them, than go as slowly as I have to go, crashing through the bushes. And I certainly never could climb a tree, and sleep in a nest, as you do,” went on Tum Tum, with a jolly laugh.
“No, I suppose not,” said Slicko. “You are too big for a nest. Well, if you see Mappo, please send him back to me. I am so lonesome.”