cried Violet.

"No, it isn't!" Russ exclaimed. "It's a monkey! That's what it is! A
monkey!"

"A monkey!" repeated Mrs. Bunker. "Why, so it is. Oh, Laddie boy! where
did you get a monkey?"

Laddie put up his hand to stroke the funny little creature, which seemed
to like it, crouching down on Laddie's shoulder and nestling close to
him. The monkey was not much larger than a cat.

"Where'd you get it?" repeated the children's mother.

"Have they got any more? Can I get one?" cried Russ. "I'll go and find
some peanuts!"

"Don't let him wind his tail on me!" begged Mun Bun, hiding behind his
mother's skirts.

"Can he play a hand-organ?" asked Violet.

The children were laughing so hard, and asking so many questions as they
crowded around Laddie, that their mother exclaimed:

"Oh, my dear six little Bunkers! please be quiet a minute until I can
hear what Laddie has to say. Tell us where you got such a cute little
riddle!"

"I got him with peanuts," Laddie said. "He was up in a tree and I saw
him, and I held out some peanuts in my hand and he came down and sat on
my shoulder and ate 'em and then I put him under my coat and he liked it
and I brought him home."

"But where did you find him?" asked Aunt Jo. "In what tree?"

"Oh, just down by the corner at the end of this street," answered Laddie
with a wave of his hand.

"Mercy," gasped Aunt Jo, "are monkeys beginning to make their homes in
the trees of the Boston streets?" and she and Mother Bunker laughed.

"But was he up a tree?" asked Russ.

"Yes, he was," Laddie went on. "First I thought it was a cat, but when I
saw him hang by his tail I knew it wasn't a cat."

"Oh, we're finding lots of things!" cried Rose. "I found a pocketbook,
and now Laddie finds a monkey."

"And I'm going to keep it and get a hand-organ and then I'm going around
and take in pennies," said the little boy, on whose shoulder the monkey
was still perched, looking here and there at the other children, and
wrinkling up his funny black face.

"I know where it came from," said Russ, after thinking a moment.

"Where?" asked Vi. "Do you mean out of a circus?"

"No," answered Russ. "But it must have got away from a hand-organ man."

"I think that's just what happened," said Aunt Jo. "Hand-organ men, with
monkeys fast to the ends of long strings, often come up this way, and
play what they call music, and they let the funny little animals go
after the pennies. One of these Italians must