THE MONKEY AT SCHOOL

“Well, children, why aren’t you eating breakfast?” a voice asked, and Herbert, turning around, saw his mother.  The Monkey on a Stick, who, if he could not talk or do any tricks just then, could use his eyes, saw a pleasant-faced lady entering the room.  She was smiling at Madeline, who had her Candy Rabbit in her hands, and at Herbert.

“Oh, look, Mother, what I found at my plate!” exclaimed Herbert, and he pulled the string, and made the Monkey run up and down the stick.  “It’s my birthday present!”

“Yes, Daddy said he was going to get you something,” said Mother.  “It came from the store late yesterday afternoon, and I put it away, and had it laid at your breakfast place this morning.  Do you like it?”

“Oh, it’s dandy!” exclaimed Herbert.  “I love it!”

The children sat down and had an orange and some oatmeal and a glass of milk and a roll with golden yellow butter on it.  But of course the Monkey and the Candy Rabbit had nothing to eat.  They did not want anything.  Being toys, you see, they did not have to eat.  Though, at times, they could eat certain things if they wished.

Madeline kept her Candy Rabbit near her plate.  All of a sudden, as the little girl was eating, she dropped her spoon in her oatmeal dish, and a drop of milk spattered into the glass eye of the Candy Rabbit.

“Oh, look what you did!” exclaimed Herbert, who saw what had happened.  “You’ll blind your Rabbit.”

“Oh, my poor Rabbit!” said Madeline, and, with her napkin, she carefully wiped the drop of milk out of the Rabbit’s eye.  And the Bunny never even blinked.  That’s what it is to be a Candy Rabbit, and have glass eyes.  Not all of us are as lucky as that, are we?

A little later Herbert dropped a piece of his buttered roll.  It fell near the Monkey, who was lying on the table near the breakfast plate of the little boy.  Some of the butter from the roll stuck to the stick which the Monkey climbed up and down.

“Now look what you did, Herbert!” said Madeline.  “You’ll make the stick so slippery with butter that the Monkey may fall off.”

“Come, children,” called Mother, as she again entered the room.  “You must finish your breakfast and go to school.  Put your Monkey back in the box, Herbert.  Don’t be late for school.”

“No’m, we won’t!” promised the brother and sister.

A little later they were on their way, walking side by side on the path that led to the red school house down by the white bridge.  Madeline looked at her brother curiously as they came near the building where they studied their lessons.

“Have you got your books under your coat, Herbert?” asked Madeline.

“No, I haven’t my books,” he said.

“Well, what have you?” asked Madeline.  “You have something, for I can see a lump.  What is it?”

Before Herbert could answer, if he had wanted to, the bell rang and the two children, and some others who were straggling along, had to run so they would not be late.  Then, for a time, Madeline forgot what it was her brother was bringing to school under his coat.