Title:  Monkey Jack and Other Stories

Editor:  Palmer Cox

Release Date:  April 3, 2004 [eBook #11877]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  Us-ASCII

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MONKEY JACK AND OTHER STORIES

Edited by Palmer Cox

MONKEY JACK.

  A lit-tle maid weeps pit-e-ous-ly,
    In dire dis-tress de-mand-ing aid;
  Her pre-cious ball is up a tree,
    And ev-ery boy shrinks back a-fraid.

  It hangs a-loft, a shin-ing thing,
    Caught by the ve-ry top-most spray,
  Where slen-der branch-es ta-per-ing
    ’Neath the light bur-den move and sway.

  Hur-rah! he comes whom all ad-mire,
    Whose nim-ble legs, and lis-som back,
  And read-y pluck, that naught can tire,
    Win him the name of “Mon-key Jack.”

  See how he leaps from bough to bough
    To gain that most be-lov’d of balls! 
  His out-stretch’d hand has caught it now;
    The branch gives way—­the he-ro falls!

  The fright-en’d chil-dren ut-ter cries,
    But e-ven yet he does his best;
  His vic-tor hand re-tains the prize,
    And clasps it to his faith-ful breast.

  Laid on his bed, com-pos’d, though sad,
    With bro-ken leg and in-jured back,
  We find a lit-tle pa-tient lad,
    A-las, no long-er “Mon-key Jack!”

[Illustration]

  With books and toys, what-e’er is best,
    His com-rades seek him, one and all,
  And shy-ly peep-ing through the rest,
    Poor lit-tle Ro-sa brings her ball.

  Placed at the win-dow, day by day,
    While pil-lows raise his wea-ry head,
  His wist-ful eyes be-hold the play
    Which once with joy-ous heart he led.

  And in his hand the ball is laid,
    And if to fling it is his whim,
  The sig-nal is at once obey’d,
    With ea-ger feet they run to him.

[Illustration]

  But more than this they glad-ly do—­
    Each coin they get they save with care,
  And Ro-sa brings her six-pence, too,
    To swell the splen-did treas-ure there.

  Mon-ey can pur-chase any-thing. 
    The hap-py chil-dren send to town,
  And to the crip-ple’s bed they bring
    A sur-geon of the first re-nown.