JACKO AND THE TRAIN OF CARS
"May we go over to Sammie Littletail's house and play this afternoon, mamma?" asked Jacko Kinkytail as he and his brother came home from school. It was about three days after the monkey boys had hidden from the fox in the doll's house.
"What about your school lessons and home work?" asked the monkey boys' mother.
"Oh, we both did fine to-day, and we both went to the head of the class," said Jumpo. "First I went up and then Jacko went, and we haven't much home work to do, only some spelling words to learn."
"Then you may go," said Mrs. Kinkytail, "but be sure to be home for supper." So they promised, and away they hopped through the woods toward the place where the Littletail rabbit family lived.
"What shall we play when we get there?" asked Jumpo, as he wound his tail around the low limb of a tree and swung himself across a little brook as nicely as you can fold your napkin.
"Oh, we'll play tag, and hide-and-go-seek, and maybe football," spoke Jacko. "Perhaps Susie Littletail has been helping her mother bake a cake or a pie, and she might give us some. I'm not saying for sure," said Jacko, as he winked both his eyes, "but she might."
"Oh, I wish she would!" cried Jumpo. "When we go in, we'll just sort of look hungry, and when they ask us what's the matter we'll say we haven't had any pie or cake in a long, long time. For you know mamma doesn't allow us to ask for things to eat when we go calling; but that wouldn't be asking, would it?"
"I guess not," said Jacko, slow and thoughtful like.
Well, they were soon at the rabbit children's house and they saw Sammie Littletail outside. He was playing with his football, and when he saw Jacko and Jumpo he cried:
"Oh, goody! Now we can have a game," and he kicked that ball away up in the air, so high that when it came down it stuck in the top of a tree.
"Now see what you did, Sammie!" cried his sister Susie, sorrowfully. "You can't get your ball," and there she stood in the door, with an apron on, and that apron was covered with flour dust, yes, really it was.
"Hey! What did I tell you?" whispered Jumpo to Jacko. "They're baking cake, all right. See the flour on Susie's apron. I'm going to look hungry."
"And I'm going to get the football," said Jacko. "Maybe that will surprise Susie, and she'll offer us some cake without us looking hungry. Here I go."
"Good!" cried Jumpo, and before he could say anything more up the tree scrambled the red monkey to where the football was caught on a crooked branch.
"Look out! Here it comes down!" cried Jacko, in about a minute, and, surely enough, down came the football bouncing up and down like a bowl full of jelly on Christmas morning.
"Oh, fine!" cried Sammie. "I thought I would never get it back again. Isn't there something I can give you and your brother, Jacko?"
"Well," said Jacko, slow and hungry like, "we might have—"
"I know the very thing!" cried Susie. "I have just baked some cherry pies for Uncle Wiggily Longears and I know he'd want you to have some. Come in and I'll cut one."
"Oh, if this isn't the best luck!" exclaimed Jacko. "We didn't have to ask, so it's all right; eh, Jumpo?"
"Sure," said Jumpo in a whisper.
I just wish you could have had some of that cherry pie, but of course you couldn't, for there wasn't any left. Then pretty soon the monkey boys and Sammie went outside to play football again. And, all of a sudden, as Jumpo kicked the ball, it bounced on Sammie's nose and made it bleed.
Oh, how that poor rabbit boy's nose did bleed. He cried and cried again, and Susie and his mamma, the muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, came running out. They did all they could for him, such as putting a cold key down his back and making him chew paper, and they even put some paper under his upper lip, but it did no good, for the nose still bled.
"We must send for Dr. Possum at once," said Mrs. Littletail. "He will have to come in a hurry to stop the bleeding."
"Oh, if we only had our automobile, we could go very quickly," said Jacko, but they didn't have it.
"Oh, I'm so sorry; it was my fault," exclaimed Jumpo. "I will run for Dr. Possum."
"You never can run fast enough," exclaimed Mrs. Littletail. "Why, even an airship wouldn't be quick enough. Oh! What shall I do? Sammie may bleed to death."
"Wait, I have an idea," cried Susie. "Why can't Jacko go for the doctor in Sammie's toy train of cars?"
"In a toy train of cars?" exclaimed Jacko.
"Yes, the engine is very big and strong, and it runs very fast. Just hitch one car to it and go for Dr. Possum."
"But doesn't that engine have to run on a track?" asked Jumpo.
"No, if you wind the spring up real tight it will run right over the ground without any track," said Susie, for Sammie couldn't talk on account of the nose bleed. "Hurry off, Jacko. You can ride in the cab and be the engineer and Dr. Possum can ride in the passenger coach."
Quickly Mrs. Littletail wheeled out the toy engine and one car. It was quite large, plenty big enough for Jacko to get in. He and Jumpo wound up the spring real tight and then Jacko got in the engine cab.
"Toot! Toot!" he blew the whistle and with a whizz and a rattle, away the engine went right along a smooth path in the woods toward Dr. Possum's house. Faster and faster rode Jacko, ringing the bell every once in a while. Faster and faster he went until he came to Dr. Possum's house.
"Oh, doctor, come quick!" he cried, stopping the engine by pulling on a handle. "Sammie Littletail has the nose bleed very bad!"
"I'll be with you at once," said Dr. Possum. So he took a big bottle of nose bleed medicine and into the coach he sprang. Jacko rolled the engine around and turned on the spring. Away it went back through the woods, pulling him and Dr. Possum as nicely as a stick of molasses candy.
All of a sudden out from the bushes sprang the burglar fox.
"Hi! Stop that train!" he cried. "I want to get on!"
"No! No! Never! Never!" shouted Jacko.
"Then I'll stop it!" said the bad fox. So he took a stone and put it in front of the engine but do you s'pose the engine minded that?
Not a bit of it! Why, with the cow-catcher the engine just pushed the stone out of the way so that it fell over and pinched the fox on the tail, and then the engine went on faster than ever.
And pretty soon they were back again at Sammie's house. Out jumped the doctor, out of his valise he took the bottle of nose-bleed medicine.
"Smell of that!" he said to Sammie. And smell of it Sammie did, and in a second and a half his nose stopped bleeding and he was all better.
So that's how Jacko went for the doctor in an engine and part of a toy train of cars, and that's all to this story, if you please, for then it was time for Jacko and Jumpo to go home to supper, and now it's time for you to go to bed.
But the next story, in case the wallpaper doesn't fall down and get tangled up in pussy cat's oatmeal dish, will be about Jumpo and his airship.