Visiting his grandfather's store, he learns that they have escaped from a traveling circus, which has offered a vast reward for their capture: $100 for the chief monkey, "Jimbo", and $2 each for the others.

Jay Berry makes multiple attempts to capture them using traps and a net borrowed from his grandfather, but he gains only scratches and bites from them, at one point even losing his britches in the process.

Jay Berry, despite an intense but unrealistic desire to own a horse and a .22 (because of the family's financial sitation, and the cunning ability of the monkeys to evade capture, secretly wishes that his sister's leg would be made well.

In the end, Daisy's surgery expenses were less than expected, and grandpa's negotiation skills, Jay Berry has enough money to get the .22 gun and pony he had long desired.

The movie also stars Michael Ontkean and Leslie Hope as Jay Berry's parents, as well as Katie Stuart, Don Francks, and Wilford Brimley.