The comical little pig and the merry monkey hid under the bush and ate acorns as they watched the circus procession go past.  It was not a regular parade, as the show was going only from one town to-another.  Squinty looked at the beautiful wagons, and at the strange animals, some with big humps on their backs.  At last he saw some very big creatures, and he cried out: 

“Oh, Mappo!  What are those animals?  They have a tail at each end!”

“Those are elephants,” said Mappo, “and they do not have two tails.  One is a tail, and the other is their trunk, or long nose, by which they pick up peanuts, and other things to eat, and they can drink water through it, too.”

“Oh, elephants, eh!” exclaimed Squinty.  “But who is that big, fierce-looking one, with two long teeth sticking out.  I would be afraid of him.”

“Ha!  Ha!  You wouldn’t need to be,” said Mappo, with a merry laugh.  “That is Tum-Tum, the jolliest elephant in the whole circus.  Why, he is so kind he wouldn’t hurt a fly, and he is so happy that every one loves him.  He is always playing jokes.”

“Well, I’m glad he is so jolly,” spoke Squinty, as he watched Tum-Tum and the other elephants march slowly along the road on their big feet, like wash tubs, swinging their long trunks.

Then Mappo the monkey, and Squinty, the comical pig, started off through the woods.

CHAPTER XII

SQUINTY GETS HOME AGAIN

“Squinty, I don’t believe we’re going to find any cocoanut trees in this woods,” said Mappo, the monkey, after he and the little pig had wandered on for some time.

“It doesn’t seem so, does it?” spoke Squinty, looking all around, first with his wide-open eye, and then with his queer, droopy one.

The monkey ran along, now on the ground, and now and then swinging himself up in the branches of trees, by his long legs, each one of which had a sort of hand on the end.  Sometimes he hung by his tail, for monkeys are made to do that.

“My, I wish I could get up in the trees the way you do,” said Squinty.  “Do you think I could hang by my tail, Mappo?”

“I don’t know,” answered the monkey, scratching his head.  “Your tail has a nice little curl in it, almost like mine.  Did you ever try to hang by your tail?”

“No, I never did.”

“Well, you don’t know what you can do until you try,” said Mappo.

The two animal friends soon came to where some of the acorn nuts had fallen off a tree, and they ate as many as they wanted.  Mappo said they were not as good as cocoanuts, but he liked them pretty well, because he was hungry.  And Squinty thought acorns were just the best things he had ever tasted, except apples, and potatoes or perhaps sour milk.

By this time it was getting dark, and Squinty said: 

“Oh dear, I wonder where we can sleep tonight?”

“Oh, do not let that worry you,” said Mappo.  “I am used to living in the woods.  When I was little, before I was caught and put in the circus, I lived in the woods all the while.  See, here is a nice hollow stump, filled with leaves, for you to sleep in, and I will climb a tree, and sleep in that.”