Baby Monkey, Put On Your Hat

Winter Clothes
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by Richard Graham


Baby Monkey, put on your hat.
Baby Monkey, put on your scarf.
Baby Monkey, put on your coat.
Baby Monkey, put on your boots.
Put on, put on, put on, put on, put on your boots!
Baby Monkey, take off your hat.
Baby Monkey, take off your scarf.
Baby Monkey, take off your coat.
Baby Monkey, take off your boots.
Take off, take off, take off, take off, take off your boots!


I was going through the internet looking for funny kid songs, and when I came across this song, I thought of Mr. Britches (Junious). Mr. Britches is Miss Pettigrew’s pet monkey that she dresses in clothes. Miss Pettigrew dresses Junious in a sport coat, a porkpie hat, a shirt, and duck pants so that he could be sophisticated and presentable like the Pettigrews of the Pettigrew fortune. On the first day that he is clothed, Junious climbs the flag pole in the Pettigrew’s front lawn. When an audience gathers around him, he pees at the top of the flagpole which causes a huge commotion in their little own, Neely. Most people thought that Junious started peeing at the top of the flag pole to get rid of his horrible duck pants. After several accidents, Miss Pettigrew puts Junious in a diaper which makes him “an ammonia pocket with legs” (pg 104) She figures that there is no point in Junious wearing pants. “So he got shed of the underwear, got shed of trousers altogether, and anymore when Miss Pettigrew or the mayor turned him out the door and off the porch he arrived on the front lawn wearing a porkpie hat and a plaid sport coat and only nature’s gifts otherwise.”(pg 104) When Junious starts to go commando, Miss Pettigrew changes the monkey’s name to Mr. Britches. I thought that this song went along perfectly because in the beginning Miss Pettigrew puts Junious in clothes, and then she ends up taking some off of him.

The detailed telling of the monkey was my favorite part in this book. The chapter called “Junious” goes on from page 81 to 181. The whole chapter is not specifically about Junious but it mentions him quite often. Every single part that talked about Junious made me laugh because he did odd things and because the people would react to the monkey in the strangest manner. In the part where Junious pees on top of the flag pole, the town’s people form different philosophical groups. “Daddy said Junious Pettigrew’s accident atop the Pettigrew flagpole on the Pettigrew front lawn inspired considerable discussion and argument among the citizen’s of Neely. He said even folks who had not been there themselves and who had yet to get the story straight had a thing or two to say about the monkey and the monkey’s affliction, and according to Daddy it wasn’t until three or four days after the event that the general buzz and huzzah died down and the opinion began to solidify into several distinct philosophical camps, what Daddy called the various streams of thought on the urinary problem.” (pg 101)