ose they'll have to do; but some
time, mammy, I'm going to bake him a big cake, so there!"

A THREATENED BLOW

One day, a few weeks after, Mrs. Pepper and Polly were busy in
the kitchen. Phronsie was out in the "orchard," as the one scraggy
apple-tree was called by courtesy, singing her rag doll to sleep under
its sheltering branches. But "Baby" was cross and wouldn't go to sleep,
and Phronsie was on the point of giving up, and returning to the house,
when a strain of music made her pause with dolly in her apron. There
she stood with her finger in her mouth, in utter astonishment, wondering
where the sweet sounds came from.

"Oh, Phronsie!" screamed Polly, from the back door, "where are--oh,
here, come quick! it's the beau-ti-fullest!"

"What is it?" eagerly asked the little one, hopping over the stubby
grass, leaving poor, discarded "Baby" on its snubby nose where it
dropped in her hurry.

"Oh, a monkey!" cried Polly; "do hurry! the sweetest little monkey you
ever saw!"

"What is a monkey?" asked Phronsie, skurrying after Polly to the gate
where her mother was waiting for them.

"Why, a monkey's--a--monkey," explained Polly, "I don't know any
better'n that. Here he is! Isn't he splendid!" and she lifted Phronsie
up to the big post where she could see finely.

"O-oh! ow!" screamed little Phronsie, "see him, Polly! just see him!"

A man with an organ was standing in the middle of the road playing away
with all his might, and at the end of a long rope was a lively little
monkey in a bright red coat and a smart cocked hat. The little creature
pulled off his hat, and with one long jump coming on the fence, he made
Phronsie a most magnificent bow. Strange to say, the child wasn't in the
least frightened, but put out her little fat hand, speaking in gentle
tones, "Poor little monkey! come here, poor little monkey!"

Turning up his little wrinkled face, and glancing fearfully at his
master, Jocko began to grimace and beg for something to eat. The man
pulled the string and struck up a merry tune, and in a minute the monkey
spun around and around at such a lively pace, and put in so many queer
antics that the little audience were fairly convulsed with laughter.

"I can't pay you," said Mrs. Pepper, wiping her eyes, when at last the
man pulled up the strap whistling to Jocko to jump up, "but I'll give
you something to eat; and the monkey, too, he shall have something for
his pains in amusing my children."