Four Cheerful Chums & a Falling Monkey

In "Four Cheerful Chums and a Falling Monkey", which is the third book in the rhyming children's series, "Chuck Chuck Chicky and Chums Travel and Adventure Series", the fantasy character Ring-a-Right has a dream that the chums are in Italy where they encounter an old time organ grinder and his monkey. In Ring's dream the four friends travel to Florence, Italy where they once again encounter new experiences and adventures. The story begins with the friends stepping from their plane into a puddle, and being helped my a mustachioed man with a music box and monkey. Although men with music boxes and monkeys would not be encountered in Italy these days, it is a nostalgic memory of an Italian music man, who would have been making a living in this profession primarily in large cities in the United States in the mid-1800's through the turn of that century. The man in Ring's dream is a smiling, gentle man and he treats his monkey and the chums well. The four chums are given colorful balloons and, along with the monkey, rise into the air and float above Florence and the beautiful Tuscan countryside. The little monkey is hanging on to the Ring-a-Right and tickling him under his fur. But giggling, the Ring-a-Right wiggles free and falls into a tree on top of the monkey. The other chums, Chuck Chuck Chicky, Chicky Cheruba and Bear, are concerned about their friends. So they let the air out of the their balloons, which sends the balloons shooting out in all directions with the friends holding on tight. Then they all land in a heap. Ring-a-Right is sad because he's afraid he has hurt the little monkey who was laying quiet and still, probably a bit stunned, underneath him. But the monkey surprises everyone as he jumps up and runs to a quaint Italian restaurant where there are spaghetti noodles bubbling in a pot and a pizza pie baking in the oven. The owner of the restaurant invites them all in to eat and the five characters break bread at his table. At the end, the monkey waves good-bye to the four chums and scurries back to his owner. The friends take off in a plane, and as three of them look down upon the peaceful Italian countryside, Bear daydreams of seeing polar bears and penguins living together in the Arctic. Bear's dream of these interesting creatures living together, which is not how they exist naturally, is the story behind book 4 of the series called, "A Muddle in the Huddle", which is Bear's dream of the cold, north country.