The Story of Dago

Excerpt

Here I am at last, Ring-tail! The boys have gone to school, thank fortune, and little Elsie has been taken to kindergarten. Everybody in the house thinks that I am safe up-stairs in the little prison of a room that they made for me in the attic. I suppose they never thought how easy it would be for me to swing out of the open window and climb down the lightning-rod. Wouldn't Miss Patricia be surprised if she knew that I am down here now in the parlour, talking to you, and sitting up here among all these costly, breakable things!

I have been wanting to get back into this room ever since that first morning that I slipped in and found you sitting here in the looking-glass, but the door has been shut every time that I have tried to come in. Do you remember that morning? You were the first ring-tail monkey that I had seen since I left the Zoo, and you looked so much like my twin brother, who used to swing with me in the tangled vines of my native forests, and pelt me with cocoanut-shells, and chatter to me all day long under those hot, bright skies, that I wanted to put my arms around you and hug you; but the looking-glass was between us. Some day I shall break that glass, and crawl back behind there with you.

It is a pity that you are dumb and do not seem to be able to answer me, for if you could talk to me about the old jungle days I would not be so homesick. Still, it is some comfort to know that you are not deaf, and I intend to come in here every morning after the children go to school; that is, every morning that I find the door open. I've had a very exciting life in the past, and I think that you'll find my experiences interesting.

Of course I'll not begin at the beginning, for, being a ring-tail monkey yourself, you know what life is like in the great tropical forests. Perhaps it would be better to skip the circus part, too, for it was a very unhappy time that followed, after I was stolen from home by some men who came on a big ship, and carried me away to be sold to a travelling showman.

It makes my back ache to this day to think of the ring-master's whip. I was as quick to learn as any of the other monkeys who were in training, but an animal who has done nothing all his life but climb and play can't learn the ways of a human being all in one week. I was taught to ride a pony and drive a team of greyhounds, and to sit at a table and feed myself with a silver folk. One half-hour I was made to be a gentleman, and wear a dress suit, and tip my hat to the ladies, and the next I would be expected to do something entirely different; be a policeman, maybe, and arrest a rowdy dog in boxing-gloves. Oh, I couldn't begin to tell you the things I was expected to do, from drilling like a soldier to wheeling a doll carriage and smoking a pipe. Sometimes when I grew confused, and misunderstood the signals and did things all wrong, the ring-master would swing his whip until it cracked like a pistol, and shout out, in a terrible voice, "Oh, you stupid little beast!...