Mappo, the Merry Monkey by Richard Barnum
page 31 of 99 (31%)
page 31 of 99 (31%)
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these Mappo did not know so well. For, as yet, he had never seen a
man--a human being. Mappo had only lived in the jungle where men very seldom came, and those men were brown or black men. But men knew monkeys were in the woods, and men wanted the monkeys for circuses, for menageries and for hand-organs. That is the reason men try to catch monkeys. Mappo looked all around the forest from the top of the tree where he had come to rest. He saw no signs of danger. He saw only white pieces of cocoanut on the ground. "I'll go down and get some, and then I'll run on and find my papa and mamma and brothers and sisters," thought Mappo. "They will want some of this cocoanut." Down he went, and began picking up the bits of cocoanut. They were rather small pieces and Mappo had to eat a great many of them before he felt he had enough. Each piece was a little way beyond the next one, and Mappo kept on walking along slowly as he picked them up. Finally he saw a very large piece. He reached for it with his paw, and then, all at once something happened. Something like a big spider's web seemed to fall down out of a tree right over Mappo. In an instant he was all tangled up--his paws and tail were caught. He yelled and chattered in fright, and tried to get loose, but the more he tried, the tighter the meshes of the net fell about him. Poor Mappo was caught. He had been caught by a hunter's net in the |
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