"Pippity, we have but few cocoa-nuts left. To-morrow I shall go down and get another supply; and who knows but I may meet our friend the monkey? Although he was at any time at liberty to leave us if he liked, yet I confess I have a desire to know what has become of him. Perhaps some accident has befallen him."
While I was yet speaking, a cocoa-nut rolled into our house.
"Why, what's that?" I exclaimed; and, looking out, there was the little monkey, just without the entrance, in the very act of throwing a cocoa-nut into the cavern! Going toward him, I saw him catch one thrown to him by another monkey.
Now, here was a most singular performance, and one which certainly demanded investigation. Where did the second monkey get his cocoa-nut? I went toward him, and found that he caught a cocoa-nut thrown to him by a third monkey about fifteen feet beyond him.
As the nuts kept coming all the time, the sight was highly interesting.
To ascertain the true state of the case I went farther; found a fourth monkey, then a fifth, then a sixth; and as I proceeded I left one monkey only to find another farther on, all about fifteen feet one from the other, some perched on rocks, some on trees, forming a zigzag line down the mountain, all busily catching and throwing the cocoa-nuts in the most remarkably systematic fashion, There must have been sixty monkeys or more engaged in this delightful occupation.
I went back and found a large pile of the fruit in our house; and thinking we had enough for a long time to come, I would have liked to be able to make our little monkey understand that we wanted no more. The parrot had learned to discover my wishes very well, but with the monkey I supposed it would be a matter of some difficulty to make him comprehend me. He seemed to divine my thoughts, however, or else his own good sense came to his aid, for, almost immediately, he gave a little shriek, which the next monkey took up, and which went along the line until the sounds died away in the distance. After this a few more nuts rolled into the house, then the throwing and catching ceased, and the monkeys which had been in sight disappeared, with the exception of our little friend, who sprang, all elasticity and animation, into our domicile.
"Now, come, my little friend, sit up and have something to eat," I said. "You must be hungry after the expenditure of so much energy. We had given you up for lost; but now, after this evidence of your good-will toward us, we are satisfied that you really intend to remain with us."
I wished the monkey was able to relate to us how he managed to assemble so many of his friends, and to get them to act with such perfect accord; and how, in the first place, he could make them understand what he wished them to do. Of course, not being able to talk, he could give us no explanation of how the thing was brought about. I could therefore only form an opinion in the matter, which was as follows:
Our little friend was undoubtedly a great favorite with his fellows, and although he was as gentle as a kitten he was not without power, and his companions were ever ready to serve him out of sheer good-will. When, therefore, after he had been rescued from the ferocious monkey, his appreciation of a kind action naturally enkindled in him a desire to return the favor in some way, he threw me the cocoa-nuts from the trees; and, although I believe that from the first he felt an ardent desire to be near his benefactor, his natural modesty prevented his thrusting himself upon me without considerable preliminary skirmishing. His fellow monkeys, keenly sensible of his noble qualities, and happy in having got rid of the odious despot who had so long oppressed them, were only too glad to aid him in any reasonable and honorable project which might benefit the hero who had slain their hated ruler. But by what queer signs and by what sort of jabbering our little monkey had made his wishes known to his companions, only he and they knew.