Summer of the Monkeys

Before Jay Berry leaves for home, Grandma gives him a piece of pie, which he finishes, and loaves of fresh-baked bread, which he takes with him for Mama. Grandma asks about Daisy, revealing that she worries about Daisy’s pain. She knows that Mama and Papa are saving up for a surgery that will correct Daisy’s leg, and she and Grandpa are saving some money to contribute. Jay Berry is glad that his parents and grandparents are saving for Daisy’s treatment, as he is busy trying to catch the monkeys. Before he leaves, Jay Berry thanks Grandma for the pie but not the bread, an error which he realizes when he arrives home, and Mama asks. Mama blames his distractedness on the monkeys. Jay Berry decides that he should practice how to operate the net, so he catches the meanest goose on the farm, Gandy, in it. Gandy panics, and Jay Berry cannot get him free once he becomes entangled. Daisy is very upset with Jay Berry; Mama rescues Gandy, but Gandy takes off for the river bottoms. Daisy cries, certain that Gandy is gone for good.

Papa arrives and reassures them that Gandy will return. Mama wants Jay Berry to go supperless and stay in his room, but he begs to go dig the hole for the butterfly net plan. Daisy teases Jay Berry: “If you dig that hole, those monkeys will push you in it and cover you up, sure as shootin’” (86). Jay Berry gets angry with Daisy. Papa supports Jay Berry’s desire to dig the hole at night and offers to come along to help. On the moonlit night, they return to the monkey’s tree and begin digging. After the hole is complete, they cover it with brush and leaves. Papa comments on the worthiness of the hole; they go home and sleep.

Jay Berry goes early the next morning with Rowdy to the hole, passing Gandy on his way back to the farm. Jay Berry hides the net in the undergrowth, and he and Rowdy climb down into the hole. While they wait for monkeys, a black snake discovers them; Jay Berry throws dirt near it, and it leaves. A wasp makes its way into the hole but leaves without stinging. Finally, Jay Berry hears a big squall. He peeks around until he spots the big monkey, who is sitting on a branch clearly coveting the apples but uncertain about climbing down to get them. Soon, his hunger wins out, and he cues the smaller monkeys to get the apples: “A whole passel of them dropped down from the branches and started grabbing apples” (97).

Jay Berry hauls the net up and closes it, popping up from the hole. He catches two monkeys this way. He is charmed with their expressions and cuteness and tries to pet one through the net, but it bites him. Rowdy tries to come to Jay Berry’s aid and nips a monkey through the net, but it bites him back. Rowdy cries and cowers some distance away. Jay Berry realizes he will never be able to get the monkeys into the gunny sack, so he plans to simply carry the monkeys in the net back home for help. He starts to leave, but the big monkey blocks his path, squalling, somersaulting, screaming, and charging. Jay Berry thinks he is bluffing and will not really attack. Then the big monkey grabs the net’s metal loop. They tug-of-war with the net briefly, then the big monkey runs down the trail. He returns, however, and they tug again. Then monkeys begin dropping all around Jay Berry and Rowdy; they form a circle and start to close in. Jay Berry yells at them but it does no good. He is ready to run when a small monkey drops directly on his head, pulling his hair and biting his ear. He drops the net.

Jay Berry cues Rowdy to get the monkeys. In seconds, Jay Berry manages to fling the monkey from his head, but when he looks at Rowdy, he gets another surprise: “It looked like every square inch of his hide had a monkey glued to it” (103). Jay Berry goes for a stick and monkeys attack him too. They bite and nip until the big monkey squalls a command to stop; then the little monkeys run away. Jay Berry sees that the net is empty. The big monkey jumps and hoots victoriously on a high branch. Jay Berry is furious and yells that the big monkey is too scared to do his own fighting. Rowdy licks his wounds and Jay Berry takes a handkerchief to his. Dreading Mama’s and Daisy’s reaction, he starts for home.

Daisy is the first to see Jay Berry and Rowdy as they return to the farm; she reacts dramatically, calling for Mama in a panic and insisting that Jay Berry should be chained—not tied—to a fence post in case he has contracted hydrophobia (rabies) from the bites of the monkeys. Mama worries over Jay Berry’s bites and scratches, but Papa arrives and calms her, saying they should put something on the bites to prevent infection. Daisy helps bandage Rowdy, as she trusts the dog to not lose his mind with hydrophobia more than she does Jay Berry.

The next morning, Jay Berry is sore and exhausted; he runs a low fever as well. Daisy nurses Jay Berry, putting on a nurse’s dress and apron she made a year before after reading a story to Jay Berry when he had the mumps. The story inspired her to pretend to be a Red Cross nurse. She ordered fabric and made the uniform with Mama’s help. Now, she attends to Jay Berry’s fever and wounds with a tray of bottles and dressings along with what is to him an annoyingly chipper attitude. Daisy even insists on wheelbarrowing Rowdy into Jay Berry’s room and providing him a sick bed on a pallet. Rowdy prefers the solitude of the crawlspace under the house and escapes by way of the window the next day. Jay Berry thinks Daisy is actually skilled at nursing but draws the line when, after he refuses a fifth glass of water following four in a row, she insists he is rabid.

On the morning of the fourth day, Jay Berry feels better and decides to return to Grandpa for more monkey ideas. He tells Grandpa everything that occurred in the bottoms with the net. Grandpa reveals that he wrote a letter to the circus people for ideas on how to catch the monkeys, and a trainer wrote back. The trainer’s advice for catching Jimbo—the chimpanzee who Jay Berry thinks of as the big monkey—is to make friends with him: “His trainer says he likes people—especially youngsters” (119). Grandpa cautions Jay Berry as he did previously, telling him that if making friends with Jimbo does not work, they will move on to another tactic. Jay Berry is willing to try, though he hopes no one sees him talking to Jimbo like he is a friend.