Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, couldn't go to the owl¹ teacher's school and tell the children about his travels on the day he had promised to do so. It was because his rheumatism² was very bad, so the pupils, including Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the red and green monkeys, were allowed to play a game instead of hearing a story.  
"Perhaps Uncle Wiggily will come tomorrow," said the teacher. And that is what the rabbit did, and he told how he had traveled many miles, and had had dozens and dozens of adventures, of which I have told you in the stories before this one. He also told how Jacko Kinkytail had been with him part of the time.
 
"Oh, my, I wish I had been along," said Sammie Littletail to Jacko after school was over.
 
"Yes, indeed, so do I," said Billy No-Tail, the frog, as he looked at his grandfather's tall hat which he was wearing, to see if it had any holes in the top; but it hadn't.
 
"Oh, I had lots of fun," said Jacko, the red monkey, "but I would have had more if my brother Jumpo, or some of you boys, had been with me. Uncle Wiggily was very nice."
 
"Come on, let's have a game of ball," suggested Jumpo, the green monkey. So the boy animals put their books on the grass, and they had a little ball game on their way home from school.
 
It was a fine game, too. Once when Billie Wagtail, the goat boy, knocked the ball away up in the air with his horns, Jumpo Kinkytail climbed up a tree, and, hanging to the top branch only by his tail, he reached up and caught the ball before it got to the ground.
 
"Fine! Fine!" cried all the other animal players as Jumpo came down.
 
Well, after the game was over, the boy animals started for home, and on the way a bad fox jumped out of the bushes and tried to grab the red monkey. But Jumpo, his green brother, made such a funny face, like an orange and a lemon twisted into an apple pie, with a stick of peppermint³ candy stuck through the middle, that the fox had to laugh, and of course when he laughed he couldn't chase the red and green monkeys, so they got safely home.
 
"You must be careful after this," said their mamma when Jacko and Jumpo had told her of the fox. "I will have your father speak to the policeman about it when he comes home from the hand organ factory where he works. And now you monkey boys please go out and cut some wood for me, for I must get supper. Then you can study your lessons. Hurry now, Jacko and Jumpo."
 
"What are we going to have for supper, mamma?" asked Jumpo.
 
"Well, for one thing, I am going to make a cocoanut cake," said the mamma monkey.
 
"Oh, goody!" cried Jacko and Jumpo as they danced around in the kitchen and hugged each other with their long tails. "That will be fine!"
 
"Come, now, get in the wood for the fire!" cried their mamma, so down the tall tree they scrambled⁴, and soon they were gathering⁵ up sticks in their four paws and their tails also.
 
"I guess I've got my share," said Jumpo at last. "I'm going in and study my lessons." So into the house he went, while Jacko went looking for hickory nuts. But Jumpo couldn't do much studying. He was thinking too much about the cocoanut cake that was to be for supper.
 
"I guess I'll just go into the kitchen and take a look at the cocoanut, to make sure it's there," said the little green monkey after a while. So, laying aside his spelling-book, Jumpo went to the kitchen. Mrs. Kinkytail wasn't there just then, having gone down cellar after some butter. But the cocoanut was on the table in its brown shell, all ready to be broken open and the white meat inside put in the cake.
 
"Oh, what an exceedingly large and fine cocoanut!" exclaimed Jumpo, speaking very correctly as he had been taught in school. "I will just lift it to see how heavy it is."
 
Now, Jumpo's mamma had told him never to meddle⁶ with the things in the kitchen, when she was baking, for once he had mixed the sugar............