. And
then he promptly thrust in a hand.

There was a good-sized lump of sugar inside. And Major Monkey's
fingers closed upon it greedily.

His queer face wrinkled with annoyance when he found that he could not
withdraw his hand. Empty, it could easily have slipped through the
mouth of the pitcher. But with the sugar clutched in it, his hand
stuck fast.

XXII

Caught!

Though Major Monkey tugged and tugged, he couldn't pull his hand out
of the pitcher.

To be sure, if he had let go of the lump of maple sugar he might have
withdrawn his hand easily enough.

But the Major loved sweets too dearly to loosen his hold on any such
toothsome morsel--except to pop it into his mouth.

So he struggled and fretted. He even tried to break the pitcher by
knocking it against the floor.

It might as well have been made of iron, it was so strong. And the
Major only succeeded in hurting his own hand.

Of course he made a great racket. And the hens, who had become used to
his more stealthy visits, began to flutter and squawk. They made such
an uproar at last that Major Monkey wanted to hurl the pitcher at
them. But he couldn't do that, with his hand stuck inside it. And
besides, the pitcher was chained fast to the wall of the henhouse.

And right there lay the Major's greatest trouble. If the pitcher
hadn't been fastened he would have run off on three legs, to the
woods, where he might have tried in peace and quiet to get at the
sugar inside it.

On the whole, Major Monkey spent a most unhappy quarter of an hour in
the henhouse. And the worst moment of all came when the window dropped
with a loud bang.

Then the sound of steps on the threshold made the Major turn his head.

There stood Farmer Green with a broad smile on his face, and Johnnie
Green with his mouth wide open and his eyes bulging.

And with them was a dark-skinned man, short, and with rings in his
ears, and a bright neckerchief tied about his throat.

"Aha-a!" cried the little man. "Look-a da monk! He greed-a boy!" And
picking Major Monkey up in his arms, jug and all, he patted him
fondly, saying, "Ah-a! Bad-a boy! He run-a da way from da ol' man,
no?"

Then--for a soldier--Major Monkey did a strange thing. He began to
whimper. But there is no doubt that he was weeping because he was
glad, and not because he was sorry.

The little, dark man was his master.

And the Major was very, very fond of him. He knew, suddenly, that he
had missed the