XIV
THROWING STONES
MAJOR MONKEY never stopped
running until he had gone so far that the voices of the picnickers
reached him
only faintly.
Old Mr. Crow, who had
followed him closely, began to think that the Major was frightened. But
he knew
he must be mistaken when Major Monkey came to a halt and said:
"Now we
can talk without disturbing anybody."
So Mr. Crow repeated that in
his opinion the Major had insulted him.
"You've just the same
as said that I'm a poor soldier!" he declared.
Major Monkey told him that
it was not so.
"It's the generals
that I
can't trust," he
explained. "But you are different. You're the cook, you remember. In
the
midst of a fight, you wouldn't be expected to cook."
"Then my part would be
to do nothing at all?" Mr. Crow inquired.
"Exactly!" Major
Monkey cried. "And I've no doubt that you'd be a great success."
Old Mr. Crow always liked
praise. And of course the Major's remark pleased him. It made him all
the more
eager, too, to see the army attack Johnnie Green and his friends.
"Let's go back,"
said Mr. Crow, "and drive those boys out of the picnic grove!" But
Major Monkey shook his head.
"I don't want to lose
my army," he said. "And besides we haven't any guns."
"You can throw stones, can't
you?" Mr. Crow asked him.
"Oh, yes!" said
the Major.
"Well, then – if I were
you I'd get some stones down by the brook and go straight back to the
grove and
hurl them at the enemy."
He said so much more that at
last Major Monkey yielded. And a little later he crept back through the
tree-tops with all the stones he could carry.
Hidden high above the heads
of the picnic party, Major Monkey gave several short whistles.
"The attack!" he
whispered to old Mr. Crow, who had returned with him to see the
fun.
"Hullo!" Johnnie
Green shouted, stopping short in the midst of a game of
leapfrog. "Who's
up there?" And he peered into the greenery above.
Nobody seemed
to know the answer to his question. Certainly there
was nobody missing from the picnic party.
"I wonder if it's Red
Head!" said Johnnie. "You remember he said he couldn't come because
he had work today. But he must have sneaked over here ahead of us
and climbed
a tree."
The words were scarcely out
of Johnnie Green's mouth when a small stone plunged down from the trees
and
struck one of his great toes. Being barefooted, Johnnie Green let out a
yell.
"Ouch!" he cried.
"It's Red Head! There's no doubt about it."
If anybody else had any
doubts, they faded quickly when a small shower of stones descended.
"Stop that!" the
boys began to shout. "Come down!" And they threatened Red Head with
terrible punishments.
Of course, Major Monkey was
delighted. He knew that his army of generals could see – and
hear –
everything. And after he had thrown his last stone he felt so bold that
he
slipped down upon a lower limb, which gave him a better view of the
picnic
ground.
One of the boys caught a
glimpse of a queer figure above him. And with a shriek he turned and
fled.
His companions looked at him
in wonder. And Johnnie Green couldn't imagine what had
happened, when his
staring eyes beheld the Major hanging from a bough over his head.
"It's a monkey!"
Johnnie Green gasped. "Where in the world could he have come from?"
Click the
book image to turn
to the next Chapter. |