CHAPTER XIII

A MONKEY HUNT

"Daddy! Daddy!" cried Meg, tumbling out of bed and running into the hall. "There's the telephone."

Father Blossom came out of his room. He had been reading and was fully dressed, for it was not late for grown-up people, only about ten o'clock.

"I'm going, Daughter," he said. "Perhaps Mother has decided to come out on the late train."

Meg leaned over the banisters to listen, and Bobby joined her there.

The twins did not wake up, for they were sound sleepers.

Father Blossom took down the receiver and said "h.e.l.lo!" Then they heard him ask a quick, low question or two, and then he laughed. How he laughed! He threw back his head and fairly shouted. Meg and Bobby had to laugh, too, though they had not the faintest idea what the joke was about.

When Father Blossom hung the receiver up, he was still laughing. He glanced up and saw Meg and Bobby.

"You'll get cold. Run back to bed," he said. "That was Sam telephoning.

What do you suppose happened? The cage of monkeys upset in the ring and the door-catch broke and they're all loose! Sam said half the audience chased them around the tent and it broke up the show."

"Did they catch them?" asked Meg, her eyes big with interest.

"Not one," answered her father. "Get into bed immediately, children.

Perhaps you'll meet monkeys on your way to school to-morrow."

"I wish we could," murmured Meg, cuddling sleepily into her warm bed.

"Wouldn't that be fun!"

"I'd like to catch a monkey," said Bobby to himself, as he climbed into his bed in the next room. "Maybe he'd do tricks for me."

In the morning Meg and Bobby were out in the kitchen before breakfast, getting from Norah the details of the monkeys' escape.

"'Deed then, I hope they catch every one of 'em--bad 'cess to 'em,"

said Norah indignantly. "Thieving, sly, little torments! Didn't they claw Mrs. O'Toole's bonnet nigh off her head last night, to say nothing of scaring her into fits? Don't say monkey to me!"

On their way to school the children found that the news of the overturned monkey cage was known to the whole town. Not a boy who didn't hope to be able to catch a monkey or two.

"There's a reward offered--five dollars for each monkey," Palmer Davis reported when he met Meg and Bobby at the school door. "Yep--my cousin told me; and he's in the Oak Hill _Daily Advertiser_ office, and I guess he ought to know."

The majority of the children in Miss Mason's room stayed downstairs till the "warning bell" rang and then hurried to their room to put away their coats and hats in the cloak room. It was Miss Mason's rule that they must be quietly in their seats, ready for the march to the a.s.sembly hall, when the nine o'clock bell rang.

"It's too cold to hang around out here, so let's go up," suggested Palmer Davis on this morning. "The warning bell will ring in a minute, anyway."

Meg and Bobby were willing, especially as the air was sharp and chill, cold enough for snow Meg thought, though of course it never snowed so early in the fall, and they trooped happily upstairs. A number of boys and girls were already in the room and Miss Mason was working at her desk. Her hat was off and lay on one of the school desks, for she meant to carry it over to the teacher's room as soon as she had worked out an example for the little girl who had asked her help.

Nina Mills pushed her way into the cloak room ahead of Meg and Bobby, and as the latter grasped the swinging door they heard Nina give a loud yell.

"Look out! Get away!" She came tumbling out of the cloak room, her face white with terror. "There's a monkey in there!" she gasped.

Half of the pupils immediately scattered. Most of the girls fled screaming, and some of the boys followed them. Miss Mason stood up, undecided what to do.

"Get a pole and kill him!" shouted Tim Roon, from a safe position behind the bookcase. "Mash him 'fore he has a chance to fight."

"Don't be silly," snapped Bobby. "A monkey can't hurt you. Let's catch it."

Now, no one had any experience, in catching a monkey, and they were willing to let Bobby go about it as he saw fit.

"One of you hold open the door," he decided after a minute's thought.

"Meg, you stand there and hold out your dress. I'll go in and chase him out to you. Are you afraid? 'Cause I'll stand to catch him and you can chase him out if you'd rather. Only your dress will help."

Meg said she wasn't afraid and took her place in the doorway. Palmer Davis volunteered to hold the door back, and the others stood as far away as they could.

"Look out! Here he comes!" shouted Bobby suddenly.

Meg spread out her skirts. A small, black ball hurled itself through the door, rolled between Meg's feet and jumped to a desk. Like a flash the monkey ran lightly over the desk tops, down the aisle, reached the desk where Miss Mason's hat lay, and seized it in one paw. She made a frantic grab for it, but missed. With a derisive chuckle and some remark in monkey talk that no one could understand, the monkey gained the open window and scampered down the fire-escape.

"My best, new hat! Run after him!" wailed Miss Mason.

The nine o'clock bell had rung five minutes before, but no one thought of that. The entire school knew that one of the circus monkeys had been found in Miss Mason's room, and there was no question of holding a.s.sembly till it was driven out or captured.

Pell-mell down the stairs ran the children after the monkey. His quick eyes glanced about for a haven. A tall pine tree stood near the front gate, and toward this the monkey ran, a pack of screaming children after him. He had the best of them when it came to climbing, and before the first boy reached the tree he was half way to the top.

"We can't climb that," said a fourth-grade pupil disconsolately.

"All the branches have been cut to keep it off the ground. How'll we ever get that hat back?"

But Miss Mason had no intention of losing her best hat, and she was already telephoning for one of the town firemen to come and bring his longest ladder. When he heard that he was to rescue a monkey he was indignant; then when she reminded him of the reward, he thought that after all he might be able to do it. So the children had the fun of watching him come with his ladder and climb up to get, after some difficulty, both monkey and hat.

Dear knows when the children would have gone back to school after the monkey was brought down, for he proved to be a friendly animal and was evidently used to petting, and every one was eager to make his acquaintance, but Miss Wright finally came out and ordered them all into the building, and after that affairs gradually settled down. But many were the secret wishes that every school day could start with a monkey hunt.

At noon Meg and Bobby had so much to tell, and the twins were so interested and so full of self-pity to think that they couldn't go to school and find monkeys in the cloak room that Mother Blossom's piece of news was almost overlooked.

"I have something nice to tell you," she said at last, smiling mysteriously, as she helped them to pudding.

"Something nice?" puzzled Meg. "Can Annabel Lee sleep on my bed?"

Meg was sure that the comfortable kitchen was not comfortable enough for the cat, and she teased persistently to be allowed to have Annabel Lee sleep at the foot of her bed at night.

"Nothing at all to do with Annabel Lee," said Mother Blossom. "This is something that will please you all. Don't play with your spoon, Bobby--you'll be late going back to school."

"Company?" demanded Twaddles, who was very hospitable.

"You saw the letter come," laughed Mother Blossom. "Well, I'll have to help you this much--we _are_ going to have company."

"I know," cried Meg, almost choking over her pudding. "I know! Aunt Polly's coming! Oh, goody!"

"Is she, Mother?" asked Bobby delightedly. "Honest? When? Soon? Can we go to meet her?"

"Yes, she's coming," replied Mother Blossom. "Not right away. About a week before Thanksgiving, she says, and then she'll stay over the holiday."