MAPPO MEETS TUM TUM

: Good Stories For Children

Mappo did not know what a ship was, nor how it floated over the ocean

from one country to another, blown by the wind or pushed by steam

engines. The little monkey could not see much except the other monkeys

in crates on the deck near him. Finally Mappo did hear a deep growl from

somewhere behind him.



"Ha!" snarled a voice. "There will be little chance to get away now! Why

didn't you let me out of my cage,
monkey?"



"I--I couldn't," said Mappo, and he looked around to see the tiger close

to him. Sharp-Tooth was in his own cage and could not reach Mappo. For

this the monkey was very glad.



All the black men who had carried the wild animals through the jungle

had gone now. In their places were white men, quite different. Mappo did

not know which he liked better, but the white men seemed to be kind, for

some of them brought food and water to the animals.



"Are we on the ship, or water-house, now?" asked Mappo, as he felt as

though he were being moved along.



"Yes, we are on a ship, and we'll never see the jungle any more," said

the tiger. "Oh wow!" and he roared very loudly.



"Quiet there!" called one of the white men, and he banged with his stick

on the tiger's cage. The tiger growled, and lay down.



Now it was quiet aboard the ship, which soon started away from the

shores of the hot, jungle country toward another land, where it is warm

part of the time and cold part of the time. Mappo was on his way to have

many new adventures.



For several days the little monkey boy did nothing but stay in his cage,

crouched in one corner, looking out between the slats. He could see

nothing, for, all around him, were other cages. But when he looked up,

through the top of his cage, he could see a little bit of blue sky.



It was the same kind of blue sky he had looked at from his tree-house in

the jungle, now so far away, and Mappo did not feel so lonesome, or

homesick, when he watched the white clouds sail over the little patch of

blue sky.



For you know animals do get homesick just as do boys and girls. Often,

in circuses and menageries, the animals become so homesick, and long so

for the land from which they have been taken, that they become ill and

die. When a keeper sees one of his pet animals getting homesick, he

tries to cure him.



He may put the homesick animal into another cage, or give him different

things to eat--things he had in his own country. Or the keeper may put

the homesick animal in with some different and new beasts, so the

homesick one may have something new to think about. Monkeys very often

become homesick, but so do elephants, tigers and lions. It is a sad

thing to be homesick, even for animals.



But Mappo was not very homesick. In the first place he was not a very

old monkey, and he had not lived in the jungle very long, though he had

been there all his life. Then, too, he was anxious to have some

adventures.



So, though when he looked at the bit of blue sky, and thought of his

home in the deep, green woods, he had a wish, only for a moment, to go

back there. He had enough to eat on the ship, plenty of cool water to

drink, and he knew he was in no danger from the tiger or other wild

beasts bigger than himself. For the tiger was fastened up in a big

strong cage, and could not get out.



Mappo, on board the ship, chattered and talked with the other monkeys in

cages all around him. He asked how they had been caught, and they told

him it was in the same way as he had been--by picking up good things to

eat on the ground, and so being tangled up in a net.



"And I don't know what is going to happen to me now," said a little girl

monkey, with a very sad face.



"Oh, cheer up!" cried Mappo, in his most jolly voice. "I am sure

something nice will happen to all of us. See, we are having a nice ride

in the water-house, and we have all we want to eat, without having to

hunt for it in the woods."



"Yes, but I want my papa and mamma!" cried the little girl monkey.



Mappo tried to make her feel happier, but it was hard work. As for

Mappo, himself, he was feeling pretty jolly, but then he was always a

merry monkey.



As the ship sailed on, over the ocean, it left behind the warm, jungle

country where Mappo had always lived. The weather grew more cool, and

though Polar Bears like cold weather, and are happy when they have a

cake of ice to sit on, monkeys do not. Monkeys must be kept very warm,

or they catch cold, just as boys and girls do.



So, as the ship sailed farther and farther north, on its way to a new

country, Mappo felt the change. Though he was covered with thick hair,

or fur, he could not help shivering, especially at night when the sun

had gone down.



The man in charge of the wild animals that were to go to the circus knew

how to look after them. He knew which ones had to be kept warm, and

which ones cold.



"You must cover up the monkeys' cages these nights," said the man to a

sailor one afternoon, as he saw Mappo and the others shivering. "Keep

them warm."



"Aye, aye, sir," answered the sailor, which was his way of saying,

"Yes, sir!"



Heavy coverings were spread over the monkeys' cages every night, but

even then Mappo shivered, and so did the others. It was quite different

from the warm jungle where he could sleep out of doors with only his own

fur for a bedquilt.



"I guess we'll have to move the monkeys down below, if it gets much

colder," said the animal man to the sailor. "They'll freeze up here."



"Free-e-e-e-eze! I-I-I-I--I g-g-g-g-guess we will!" chattered Mappo, and

he shivered so that he stuttered when he talked. Of course he spoke

monkey language, and the men could not understand him. But they could

understand his shivering, and soon they began to move the cages to a

warmer place.



Mappo and the other animals who need to be kept warm were lowered

through a hole down inside the ship. It was in a place called a "hold."

And it was called that, I suppose, because it was made to hold the cargo

of wild animals carried by the ship.



Mappo did not like it so well down in this part of the ship as he had

liked it on deck. But it was warmer, and that was a great deal. Still he

could not see the little patch of blue sky that had reminded him of his

jungle home.



"I wonder what has become of Sharp-Tooth, the big tiger?" asked Mappo,

of one of the other monkeys.



"Oh, I saw them lower his cage down into another part of the ship," said

a big monkey. "I am glad of it, too, for I don't like him so near us. He

might break out some night, and bite us."



"He wanted me to let him out," said Mappo.



"Gracious! I hope you didn't think of such a thing!" cried a little girl

monkey.



"No, I didn't," Mappo said.



"How did you happen to know the tiger?" asked the big monkey.



"Oh, he tried to get me once," Mappo answered, "and I threw an empty

cocoanut shell in his face!"



"You did!" cried all the other monkeys.



"How brave you were!" said the little girl monkey.



Mappo was beginning to feel that way himself!



For several days nothing much happened to Mappo, after he and his monkey

friends had been moved to the warm part of the ship. They had things to

eat, and water to drink, and they slept a good deal of the time. One day

the sailor who always fed Mappo stood in front of the cage, and, looking

in, said:



"I wonder if you'd bite me if I petted you a bit? You look like a nice

chap, and I like monkeys. I wonder if I couldn't teach you some tricks.

Then you'd be worth more to the circus. You'll have to learn tricks in

the circus, anyhow, and you might as well begin now. I think I'll pet

you a bit."



"Chatter! Chatter! Chat! Bur-r-r-r! Snip!" went Mappo. That meant, in

his language, that he would not think of biting the kind sailor who had

fed and watered him. But the sailor was careful. Very slowly he put out

his hand, and, reaching through the bars, he stroked Mappo's soft fur.



"That's a good chap!" said the sailor. "I believe you are going to be

nice after all."



"Bur-r-r-r! Wopp!" said Mappo. That meant: "Of course I am!"



In a few days the sailor and Mappo were good friends, and one afternoon

the sailor opened the cage door and let the monkey out. Then Mappo grew

quite excited. It was the first time he had been loose since he had been

caught, and he was so glad to run about, and use his legs and tail,

that, before he knew what he was doing, he had jumped right over the

sailor's head, and had scrambled up on the ship's deck.



"Oh, a monkey's loose! One of the monkeys has gotten away!" cried the

sailors.



"Never mind! I'll catch him!" said the one who had been kind to Mappo.



Mappo ran and leaped. He saw something like a tall tree, only it had no

branches on it. But there were ropes and ladders fast to it, and, in an

instant, Mappo had scrambled up them to the top of the tall thing. It

was the mast of the ship, but Mappo did not know that.



Away up to the top he went, and, curling his tail around a rope, there

he sat.



"Make him come down!" cried the captain. "I can't have a monkey on top

of my ship's mast! Somebody climb up after him and bring him down."



"I'll go," said a sailor.



Now a sailor is a good climber, but not nearly so good as a monkey.

Mappo waited until the sailor was almost up to him, and then, quick as a

flash, Mappo swung himself out of the way by another rope, and, just as

he had done in the jungle, he went over to the top of another mast.



"There he goes!" cried the sailors on deck.



"Yes, I see he does," said the sailor who had tried to catch Mappo.



"You had better come down," spoke the man who had let Mappo out of the

cage. "I think he'll come down for me." In his hand he held some lumps

of sugar, of which Mappo was very fond.



"Come on down, old chap," called the sailor. "No one will hurt you. Come

and get the sugar."



Now whether Mappo had had enough of being loose, or whether it was too

cold for him up on the mast, I can't say. Perhaps he wanted the sugar,

and, again, he might not have wanted to make trouble for his kind

friend, the sailor, who had let him out.



Anyhow, Mappo came slowly down, and took some of the sugar from the

sailor's hand. The sailor took hold of the collar around Mappo's

neck.







"Now lock up that monkey!" cried the captain. "And if he runs away

again, we'll whip him."



"No, it was my fault," the sailor said. "And I'd like him to be loose.

I can teach him some tricks."



"All right, do as you like," the captain spoke. "Only keep him off the

mast."



"I'm not going up there again," thought Mappo to himself. "It is too

cold."



"Come along," said the sailor, giving him another lump of sugar, and

Mappo put one hairy little paw in the hand of the sailor, and walked

along the deck with him.



"I guess you were just scared, old fellow," the man said to the monkey.

"When you get quieted down, you and I shall have lots of fun. You are

almost as nice as my elephant, Tum Tum."



This was the first Mappo had heard of the elephant. He knew what they

were, for he had often seen the big creatures in the jungle, crashing

their way through the trees, even pulling some up by the roots, in their

strong trunks, to eat the tender green tops of the trees.



"I didn't know there was an elephant on this ship," thought Mappo. But

he was soon to find out there was.



Two or three days after this Mappo was let out of his cage once more.

This time he did not jump and run. He stayed quietly beside the sailor,

and put his paw into the man's hand.



"That's the way to do it," said the sailor. "Come now, we'll go below

and see Tum Tum."



Down into a deep part of the ship, near the bottom, the sailor took

Mappo. Then the monkey could see a number of elephants chained to the

walls. They were swaying their big bodies to and fro, and swinging their

trunks. The sailor went up to the biggest elephant of them all, and, so

Mappo thought, the most jolly-looking, and said:



"Tum Tum, I have brought some one to see you. Here is a little monkey."



Mappo looked up, and saw a jolly twinkle in the little eyes of Tum Tum.

Mappo knew elephants were never unkind to monkeys, and, a moment later,

Mappo had given a jump, up to the shoulder of the sailor, and then right

on the back of Tum Tum.



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