Once Jumpo's mamma bought him a green balloon at the circus. Jumpo was a little baby then, and he didn't know any better than to try to eat the green balloon. Perhaps he thought it was candy. At any rate, before his mamma saw him he had chewed nearly half of the balloon, and he soon turned a pretty green color like the leaves on the trees. Oh! his mamma and papa felt dreadful about it, and they did everything they could to get the color out of the little monkey, but they couldn't, and green he stayed.
"But it doesn't much matter," said Jumpo's papa, "for as long as Jacko is red I think it is nice to have his brother colored green. They look so odd and queer when they go out walking together."
"Oh, but think of having one's children red and green, like some flag," cried Mamma Kinkytail. However, it couldn't be helped, so now I'll tell you some stories of Jacko and Jumpo.
One morning when the two little monkey boys were eating their breakfast in the funny house up in a tree, they suddenly heard a bell ringing.
"Ding dong! Dong ding! Ding-ding! Dong-dong!" rang the bell.
"My! I wonder what that can be?" exclaimed Jumpo, as he finished eating some toasted peanuts with cocoanut on.
"Perhaps it's a fire," suggested Jacko, as he looked to see if any of his red color had come off on his napkin, but it hadn't, I am glad to say.
"Oh, if it's a fire, let's run and see it!" cried Jumpo, getting out of his chair. "Maybe they'll let us squirt some water on the blaze."
"Silly monkey chaps!" cried Mamma Kinkytail, as she laughed at them, "that is not a fire bell, that is the school bell, for school starts to-day, and you must hurry or you will be late."
"Oh, dear! School!" cried Jacko, making a funny face.
"Oh, me! Oh, my!" said Jumpo. "Have we got to go to school?"
"To be sure," answered their mamma. "Vacation and play time is over, and you must be at your lessons. Hurry now, there go Sammie and Susie Littletail, and Sammie has on a new suit."
"Yes, and there go the Bushytail brothers," added Jumpo as he saw two squirrel boys hurrying past while the school bell rang louder and louder.
"Oh, come on, let's go. We'll have some fun!" cried Jacko, and before you knew it he was hanging by his tail from the front door bell knob, and the next moment he had scrambled down the tree trunk and was running after the squirrels and rabbits.