The Story of Dago by Annie Fellows Johnston

Ring-tail, what do you think of Miss Patricia? I'm afraid of her. The night we came home she met us in the hall, looking so tall and severe in her black gown, with those prim little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face, that I went under a chair. Then I thought I must have misjudged her, for there were tears in her eyes when she kissed the children, and I heard her whisper as she turned away, "poor little motherless lambs!" Still I have seen so many people in the course of my travels that I rarely make a mistake in reading character. As soon as she caught sight of me I knew that my first thought had been right. Her thin Roman nose went up in the air, and her sharp eyes glared at me so savagely that I could think of nothing else but an old war eagle, with arrows in its talons. You may have seen them on silver dollars.

"Tom Tremont," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you have brought home a _monkey_!" I wish you could have heard the disgust in her voice. "Of all the little pests in the world, they are certainly the worst!"

"Yes, Aunt Patricia," he answered. "They've been a great pleasure to the boys."

"_They!_" she gasped. "You don't mean to say that there are _two_!" Then she saw Matches climbing up on Phil's shoulder, and words failed her.

"Yes; their grandfather gave each of the boys one of his pets. He said that they would be company for them on the way home, and would help divert their thoughts from their great loss. They grieved so, poor little lads."

That softened Miss Patricia again, and she said nothing more about our being pests. But when she passed me she drew her skirts aside as if she could not bear to so much as brush against me, and from that hour it has been war to the knife between us.

Matches and I were given a little room up in the attic under the eaves, but at first we were rarely there during the day. The boys took us with them wherever they went. We had been there some time before we were left alone long enough for me to do any exploring.

It was almost dark when that first chance came. I prowled around the attic awhile. Then I climbed out of the window and swung down by the vines that covered that side of the house, to the shutters of the room below. It happened to be Miss Patricia's room. As I perched on the top of the shutters, leaning over and craning my neck, I could see Miss Patricia sitting there in the dusk beside her open window. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was rocking gently back and forth in a high-backed rocking-chair, with her eyes closed.

I thought it would be a good chance for me to take a peep into her room, so I ventured to swing over and drop down on the window-sill beside her, on all fours. I did it very quietly, so quietly, in fact, that I do not see how she could possibly have been disturbed; yet I give you my word, Ring-tail, that woman shrieked until you could have heard her half a mile. I never was so terrified in all my life. It paralysed me for an instant, and then I sprang up by the vines to the lightning-rod, and streaked up it faster than any lightning ever came down. Once in my room, I shook all the rest of the evening.

Matches said that Miss Patricia was probably worse scared than I was, but that's impossible. I never made a sound, and as for her -- why, even the cook came running when Miss Patricia began to shriek, and she was in the coal-cellar at the time, and is deaf in one ear.

But Matches always disagreed with me in everything, and I was not sorry when we parted company. I'd better tell you about that next. It happened in this way. Stuart came into the room one day with Sim Williams, one of the boys who was always swarming up the stairs to see us. Sim was older than Stuart, and one of those restless, inquiring boys, never satisfied with letting well enough alone. He was always making experiments. This time he wanted to experiment on me with a handful of tobacco, -- coax me to eat it, you know, and see what effect it would have. But Stuart objected. He was afraid it might make me sick, and proposed trying it on Phil's monkey first. So they called Matches, and the silly little beast was so pleased and flattered by their attention that she stood up and ate all they gave her. She did not like it, I could see that, but they praised her and coaxed her, and it turned her head. Usually I received the most attention.

It did not seem to hurt her any, so Sim offered me some. But I would not take it. I folded my hands, first over my ears and then over my eyes. Then I held them over my mouth. Stuart thought it wonderfully smart of me, and so did Sim, when he found that it was a trick that Stuart's grandfather had taught me. The old man had an ebony paper-weight on his library table, which he called "the three wise monkeys of Japan." They were carved sitting back to back. The first one had its paws folded over its eyes in token that it must never see more than it ought to see, the second covered its ears that it might not hear more than it ought to hear, and the third solemnly held its paws over its mouth, in order that it might never say more than it ought to say.

Stuart thought that I had forgotten the trick. He told Sim that it was the only one I knew. I was glad that he had never discovered that I am a trained monkey. If he had known how many tricks I can perform life wouldn't have been worth living. It would have been like an endless circus, with me for the only performer. As it was, I was made to go through that one trick of the wise monkeys of Japan until I was heartily disgusted with it, or with anything else, in fact, that suggested the land of the Mikado.