Summer of the Monkeys (4 page)

“Right now I don’t know,” Grandpa said, “but we’re going to catch them just the same. There never was an animal that couldn’t be caught. All we have to do is figure out a way.”

Grandpa put his thinking cap on and started mumbling and grumbling. I couldn’t understand one word he was saying.

It always tickled me when Grandpa got something heavy like that on his mind. He did all sorts of things. Sometimes he’d start walking up and back, then again he might start shuffling around in a little circle. He had a habit of pulling at the lobe of his right ear, rubbing his nose, or digging at the wiry whiskers on his chin.

I had learned a long time ago that when my grandpa had his thinking cap on, the best thing for me to do was to be patient, and above all, not to say anything. So I just stood there with monkeys, dollars, ponies, and .22s running around in my head, and waited while Grandpa cut all kinds of didos.

I could almost feel the idea when it hit Grandpa. Looking very pleased with himself, he smiled and said, “I think I’ve got it figured out. You know you can always figure things out if you use your head a little bit.”

I didn’t like the way Grandpa looked at me when he said “use your head a little bit” but I didn’t say anything.

Walking over to the hardware part of the store, Grandpa picked up six small steel traps and a piece of baling wire.

Coming back, he looked at me and said, “I’ve got some old meal sacks in the storeroom. Go back there and get one of them.”

I flew to the storeroom and got the sack, wondering what in the world Grandpa was going to do. Spreading the sack out on the counter, Grandpa took a pair of scissors and started cutting long strips, about two inches wide, from the soft material. Taking one of the traps, he mashed the spring down with his hands.

“Now take that wire and wrap it around the spring, good and tight, so it’ll hold the spring down,” he said.

Taking the wire in both hands, I started wrapping the spring as Grandpa had told me. I was so excited and nervous I couldn’t do anything right. Once I almost wrapped one of Grandpa’s fingers to the spring.

“Take it easy,” Grandpa barked. “I don’t want my fingers cut off with that wire. We’ve got plenty of time. Those monkeys won’t run away.”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa,” I said, rubbing his work-callused finger with my hand. “Thinking about all those monkeys, and all that money, has got me so worked up I can’t do anything right. Why, if I could catch all of them, I’d have more money than that Rockerfellow man.”

Grandpa laughed and said, “I don’t know about that. I understand he has an awful lot of money.”

Once the spring was securely wired, the jaws of the trap were free and useless. Taking one of the cloth strips, Grandpa started wrapping the jaws.

I saw right away what his idea was. With all that soft padding on the jaws of the trap, it probably wouldn’t hurt a monkey’s paw at all.

Just to let Grandpa know that I was using my head a little bit, I said, “Boy, Grandpa, that sure is a good idea. Why, with the jaws of the trap wrapped like that, a monkey wouldn’t even know it was on his foot.”

“I think he’d know it was on his foot all right,” Grandpa said, “but once he gets in it, I don’t think there’s much he can do about it.”

After the jaws of the trap had been wrapped, Grandpa unwound the wire from the spring and released it.

Holding the trap in his hands and inspecting his work, he grunted and said, “It looks like a pretty good job to me. What do you think about it?”

“It looks all right to me, Grandpa,” I said. “I don’t see how it could ever hurt a monkey’s foot.”

Laying the trap down on the floor, Grandpa mashed the spring down with his foot and set the trigger.

Stepping back, he stood for several seconds looking at it; then he grinned and said, “Just to be sure that it won’t hurt a monkey’s paw, I think it should be tested out, don’t you?”

“Tested out?” I said. “How are we going to do that, Grandpa?”

With a twinkle in his eyes and a silly little grin on his face, Grandpa said, “The only way I can think of is for you to poke your finger in it.”

I didn’t even answer Grandpa. I didn’t have to. My actions spoke for me. Closing both hands, I put them behind me and stepped back.

Grandpa grunted and said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you think I know what I’m doing?”

“Sure, Grandpa,” I said, “I think you know what you’re doing all right; but I had my finger in a trap once, and believe me, it hurt. Why couldn’t we just poke a stick in it?”

“No,” Grandpa said, eying the trap and rubbing his nose, “it wouldn’t do any good to poke a stick in it. We wouldn’t know any more then than we do now.”

For several seconds we both stood there in silence, looking at the trap. Rowdy knew that something was going on and got curious. He eased over and took a look at the trap himself. One look was all he wanted. He started backing up like a crawdad. Then,
sticking his tail between his legs, he disappeared behind some boxes.

I couldn’t help smiling at Old Rowdy’s actions. He had gotten a paw in a trap once, and had never forgotten it.

Grandpa broke the silence by saying, “Well, we’re not getting anywhere just standing here. It still has to be tested out. Now I’m going to poke my finger in it, but if that thing hurts, you might have to help me get it off my finger. Do you understand?”

I nodded my head to let him know that I understood, but I didn’t like it at all.

“Well, here goes,” Grandpa said.

Closing both eyes, he reached over and tripped the trigger with his finger. The trap snapped and Grandpa jumped. I closed both eyes and gritted my teeth. I didn’t open my eyes again until I heard Grandpa chuckling.

“That’s just about the best monkey-catching trap I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It didn’t hurt a bit. I hardly felt it.”

All excited, I helped Grandpa get the trap off his finger. Then, working together, we wrapped the jaws of the other five traps.

Handing the traps to me, Grandpa said, “Well, it looks like you’re in the monkey-catching business. Let me know how you come out.”

I told him I would, and thanked him with all my heart for helping me.

Calling to Rowdy, I started for home.

Just as I reached the door, Grandpa said, “Hey, are you sure your mother didn’t want something from the store?”

My heart almost stopped beating.

Digging Mama’s list from my pocket, I said, “Boy, Grandpa, I sure am glad you reminded me. If I had gone home without the things Mama wanted, she’d have made me wear a girl’s bonnet for a week. That’s what she usually does when I forget something.”

Taking the list, Grandpa smiled and said, “Well, that’s what grandpas are for, isn’t it; to look out for boys?”

I didn’t say anything—I didn’t have to—my old grandpa knew how I felt about him.

While Grandpa was putting the things Mama wanted into a gunny sack, I thought of something.

“Grandpa,” I asked, “where am I going to set my traps?”

“I believe I’d go right back to where you saw the monkey,” he said. “If they’re not in that bur oak tree, they’re around there somewhere. Rowdy will find them.”

On hearing Grandpa say his name, Rowdy whined and his tail started fanning the air.

Grandpa looked at him, grinned, and said, “Say that again, pardner, I didn’t understand you. Do you want something?”

Rowdy really told Grandpa that he wanted something. His deep voice made the tin cans dance on the shelves.

Grandpa grunted, and walked to the rear of the store. When he came back, he had a meat rind in his hand.

Handing it to Rowdy, he smiled and said, “Here you are, old fellow. That’ll be one monkey you owe me.”

Rowdy pranced out of the store, looking as proud as he did when he had treed a possum.

“Grandpa,” I asked, “do you think I should use bait when I set my traps?”

“Bait?” Grandpa said. “Now, I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, I believe I would.”

“I don’t know what monkeys like to eat,” I said. “What kind of bait would you use?”

“Well, let’s see,” Grandpa said. “I’m not much of an authority on monkeys, but I think I’ve read where they’ll eat most anything. Do you have any apples?”

“We have a whole barrel of apples,” I said. “Papa got them from an Arkansas peddler.”

“Fine,” Grandpa said. “Just set your traps in the dirt at the foot of the tree, and hang an apple above each one. I think that’ll do the job.”

Just before Grandpa handed me Mama’s groceries, I saw him slip something into the sack. I let on like I hadn’t seen this because I knew what it was. It was a sack of candy for Daisy and me; and was one item that would never find its way to Papa’s bill.

“Here you are,” Grandpa said, handing me the groceries. “The next time you’re up this way I hope to see a sack full of monkeys.”

Putting my traps in the gunny sack, I said, “You will, Grandpa, and one of them will be that hundred dollar monkey. He’s the jasper I want to catch.”

O
n my way home, I whistled and sang. I was so happy I made up a little song. It went something like this:

Rowdy didn’t seem to like my singing at all. He wouldn’t even look at me. He just jogged along with his head down as if I wasn’t even there.

I was the happiest boy in those Ozark hills; and I figured I was pretty close to being the richest boy, too. All I had to do was catch those monkeys. Right then that didn’t seem like any chore at all.

Several times I stopped and tried to do a little arithmetic in the
dust of the country road. Smoothing out a place with my hand, and using my finger as a pencil, I tried hard to figure out how much money the monkeys were worth. I didn’t have too much trouble adding up a column of two dollar monkeys. It was that hundred dollar monkey I had trouble with. Every time I added him to the pot, something went wrong. I’d get so rich and excited I couldn’t figure anything right.

Rowdy didn’t help the situation in the least. He couldn’t understand what I was doing down on my knees in the middle of the road, fiddling around in the dust. He would get curious and come sniffing around to see what was going on. All he did was walk around in my figures and mess things up until I couldn’t tell what the monkeys were worth. I finally gave up and decided I’d let Daisy figure it out for me. She was good with arithmetic.

The road from Grandpa’s store ran by our farm. As I came walking along, singing my head off, Papa called to me from the field where he was planting corn. I climbed the rail fence and walked over to him.

Papa smiled and said, “Say, it looks like you were right about those monkeys. Right after you left for the store, I went to get Sally Gooden, and I think I saw a monkey in every sycamore tree down there. I can’t understand it. As far as I know, we’ve never had any wild monkeys around here.”

“They’re not wild monkeys, Papa,” I said. “They got away from a circus train that was wrecked over on the railroad. Grandpa told me all about it. He said that there were about thirty of them. They’re worth a lot of money, too. The circus people are offering a reward for them.”

“So that’s where they came from,” Papa said, looking relieved. “I’m glad to hear that. I was beginning to wonder what was going on around here. Did you say they’re offering a reward for the monkeys?”

“They sure are,” I said, “and it’s more money than I ever heard
of. They’re willing to pay two dollars apiece for all of those monkeys but one; and they’ll pay a hundred dollars for that one.”

I really bore down on it when I told Papa about that hundred dollar monkey.

Papa just stood there for a second, staring at me; then, uttering a low whistle, he turned and looked toward the river bottoms.

“Say-y-y, that is a lot of money,” he said. “I didn’t know monkeys were worth that much money.”

“I didn’t either, Papa,” I said. “It beats anything I ever heard of. All of that money for a bunch of little old monkeys!”

Papa frowned and said, “There must be more to this than we know about. I can understand a fellow paying two dollars for a monkey, but whoever heard of anyone paying a hundred dollars for one.”

“Papa,” I said, “Grandpa says those monkeys have been trained for acts in the circus, and it takes a long time to train a monkey. That’s why they’re so valuable.”

Papa was like me. He couldn’t get that hundred dollar monkey off his mind.

“I don’t care how long it takes to train a monkey,” he said, “a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars. Why, you can buy a good mule for that much money, and if you talk just right, they might even throw in the harness.”

“There’s a catch to this reward business, Papa,” I said. “The monkeys have to be caught alive, and not harmed in any way.”

“I see,” Papa said, nodding his head. “I figured there was a catch somewhere. When it comes to making money like that, there’s always a catch. It would be simple to shoot those monkeys; but taking them alive, I don’t know about that. It could turn out to be a tough job.”

“I don’t care how tough it is, Papa,” I said. “If you’ll let me, I’d sure like to give it a try. I believe I can catch those monkeys—every last one of them.”

Papa thought a second, and said, “It may not be as easy as you think it is. How would you go about catching them?”

“With these,” I said, reaching in my gunny sack for the traps. “Grandpa fixed them for me. He thinks they’re the very thing for catching monkeys and not hurting them.”

Papa took one of the traps and looked it over. Then he laughed and said, “Leave it to your grandpa to figure out something like this; but, by golly, it does look like a good idea. Yes, sir, it sure does. It might work at that.”

Handing the trap back to me, Papa said, “You know, this time of the year there’s not much to do around the farm, just planting; and I can take care of that. You go right ahead and have a go at those monkeys. Maybe you can catch them; you’ve caught everything else in these hills.”