The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-03-31
WHY the Monkey Was Sold.

haven't any monkey now, and don't
care what becomes of me. His loss was
an awful blow, and never expect to re-
cover from it. am a crushed boy, and
when the grown folks find what their
conduct has done to me they will wish
they had done differently.
1t was on Tuesday that L got the
monkey, and by Thursday everybody
began to treat him coldly. 1t began
with my little sister. Jocko took her
doll away and climbed up to the top of
the door with it where he sat and pulled
it to pieces and tried its clothes on, only
they wouldn't fit him, while sister, who
is nothing but little girl, stood and
howled as if she was being killed. This
made mother begin to dislike the mon
key, and she said that if his conduct was
such he couldn't stay in her house. I
call this unkind, for the monkey was in
vited into the house, and I've been told
we must bear with visitors.
Alittle while afterward, while mother
was talking to Susan on the front piazza,
she heard the sewing machine upstairs,
and said: "Well, never; that cook has
the impudence to be sewing on my ma
chine without ever asking leave" So
she ran upstairs and found that Jocko
was working the machine like mad. He'd
taken Sues nightgown and fathers
black coat and lot of stockings, and
showed them all under the needle, and
was sewing them all together Mother
boxed his ears, and then she and Sue
sat down and worked all the morning
trying to unsew the things with the
scissors.
They had to give it up after awhile,
and the things are sewed together yet,
like man and wife, which no man can
put asunder.. All this made my mother
more cool toward the monkey than ever,
and 1 heard her call him little beast
The next day was Sunday, and as Sue
was sitting in the hall waiting for r,other
to go to church with her, Jocko gets up
on her chair and pulls the feathers out
of her bonnet. He thought he was do
ing right, for he had seen the cook pull
ing the feathers off the chickens, but
Sue called him dreadful names, and
said that when father came home either
she or that monkey would leave the
house.
Father came home early on Monday,
and seemed quite pleased with the mon
key. He said it was an interesting
study, and he told Susan that he hoped
that she would be contented with fewer
beauX now that there was monkey con-
stantly in the house. In little while
father caught Jocko lathering himself
with the mucilage brush, and with a
kitchen knife already to shave himself.
He just laughed at the monkey, and told
me to take good care of him and not let
him hurt himself. OF course, L was
dreadfully pleased to find that father
liked Jocko, and / knew it was because
he was man and had more sense than
girls. But l was only deceiying myself
and leaning on broken reed. That
very evening when father went into his
study after supper he found Jocko on
his desk. He had torn all his papers to
pieces, except a splendid new map, and
that he was covering with ink, and max,
ing believe he was writing Presidents
message about the Panama canal
Father was just raging. He took JockC
by the scruff of the neck, locked him in
the closet, and sent him away by express
the next morning to a man in the city,
with orders to sell him.
The expressman afterward told Mr.
Travers that the monkey pretty nearly
killed everybody on the train, for he got
hold of the signal cord and pulled it
and the engineer thought it was the
conductor and stopped the train, anG
another train just behind it came within
an inch of running into it and smashing
it to pieces. Jocko did the same thing
three times before they found out wha
was the matter, and tied him up SO tina
he couldn't reach the cord. Oh, he wa
Just beautiful! But 1 shall never Sc,
him again, and Mr.. Travers says that it,
all right, and that I'm monkey enough
for one house. That's because Sue ha
been saying things against the monke,
to him; but never mind.
First my dog went and now my mon
key has gone. 1t seems as if everything
that is beautiful must disappear. Yer,
likely shall go next, and when 1 an
gone let them find the dog and the mon
key and bury us together. -Hd,pss'
Young Peopls.-9.. 81 /: ~. - .ss..S