"Well, can't you tell?" asked the owl kindly.
"If you please," said Jumpo, after a bit, "it can't be apples that Jacko would give you, because it's pears that Jacko has in his pocket. Three pears--I saw Mamma give them to him for recess. I can't add pears and apples together."
Well, the whole class laughed at that, and the teacher said:
"I was only making believe, Jumpo, just as when Uncle Wiggily Longears pretends as he tells you a story. However, we will say two pears and three pears, if that will suit you better. You may come to the board and add up this sum for me."
So Jumpo went to the board, and he took the piece of blue chalk in his left paw. And then he couldn't seem to help doing a funny trick. When the teacher wasn't looking he reached over, and with his tail he took an eraser and erased the numbers from another part of the board where Jennie Chipmunk was doing a sum in arithmetic, so Jennie didn't have any numbers to add up, and she cried out:
"What's the matter?" asked the teacher quickly, and then, turning around, she saw the mischief Jumpo had done.
"You may go to your seat," she said to the green monkey, sad like, "and you must stay in after school. Sammie Littletail, you may finish the sum on which Jumpo started. He is too playful today."
At first Jumpo thought it was fun to have rubbed out Jennie Chipmunk's numbers with his tail, and then he felt sorry. He was more sorry as his brother and all the other pupils went out when school was done, and he had to stay in the room. He could hear the boys having a ball game, and the girls were playing tag, and Jumpo wished he hadn't been bad. But that's the way it is sometimes in this world.
"You may go now, Jumpo. Tomorrow please try a little harder to be good. I know you can if you will."
It was quite late when he got out, and all the boys and girls had gone home. Jumpo thought he might as well go home, too, but as it was getting dark he didn't go through the woods. Instead he went around by way of Grandfather Goosey Gander's home.
Now, not far from where the old gentleman gander lived there was a bad fox who had built himself a bungalow. And he was a very rich fox, having ice cream for supper nearly every night. Still he was never satisfied. He wanted a goose, or a rabbit, or a squirrel, or a monkey, or something like that. So when he looked out of his bungalow window, and saw Jumpo Kinkytail coming along, this fox said to himself: