The Story of a Candy Rabbit | Page 9

as no human eyes see me. Maybe I can get back in time to warn the goldfish of their danger."
The Rabbit tried to hop, but, being made of candy as he was, with rather stiff legs that were not very long, he could not go very fast. And when he had made a few hops he was very tired.
"Dear me! I shall have to stay here forever, perhaps," he sighed. "And, if it rains and I get wet, I'll melt and there will be nothing left of me! Oh, what trouble I am in!"
The Candy Rabbit crouched down in the grass, and pretty soon he heard some voices talking. He knew they were the voices of boys, and, in a little while, he heard one say:
"Now, Herbert, you hold the kite and I'll run with it."
"All right, Dick," said some one else. "I hope it flies away up high in the air."
"I'll keep the tail clear of the weeds," said another boy.
"That's the way, Dick," said the first boy.
The Candy Rabbit, down in the grass, heard this.
"They must be Dick, Herbert and Arnold," he thought. "They have come here to fly their kite. I hope they find me and take me home in time to save the goldfish from the cat."
There was more talk and laughter among the boys, but the Candy Rabbit could not see what they were doing. All at once, though, one boy said.
"The tail of the kite is not heavy enough. We've got to tie something to it. And, oh, here is the very thing!" he went on. "We'll give him a ride up in the air!"
"Give who a ride?" asked Dick, for it was Herbert who had spoken.
"Give Madeline's Candy Rabbit a ride on the end of the kite tail," went on Herbert. "Here's her Rabbit down in the grass."
"How did he get here?" asked Arnold.
"I don't know. Maybe my sister carried him over the fields to show to some girl and dropped him. But we'll give the Candy Rabbit a ride in the air. He will be just heavy enough for the kite tail. I'll tie him on."
And then, before the Candy Rabbit could hop away, even if he had been allowed to do so (which he was not) Herbert began tying him on the end of the kite tail by means of the pink ribbon.
A moment later the Rabbit felt himself sailing through the air.
CHAPTER V
THE ORGAN GRINDER
Since the Candy Rabbit had left the toy store, after having been put on the Easter novelty counter, so many things had happened that he was beginning to get used to them. But sailing through the air on the tail of a kite was something he had never done before.
Up he went, higher and higher, as the wind blew the kite. The Candy Rabbit looked down toward the ground. It seemed a long way off--very far from him.
"If I should fall now, as I fell when the lady dropped me in the toy store," thought the Candy Rabbit, "I think it would be the end of me. There is no soft rubber ball here on which to land."
Dick, Arnold and Herbert, the three boys who had been flying their kite when they found the Candy Rabbit in the grass, were laughing and shouting as they saw the tail switching to and fro, with the Easter Bunny tied on the end.
"That Rabbit was just the thing needed to make our kite go up," said Dick.
"Yes," agreed Arnold. "But it's funny the Rabbit was out in the grass here, wasn't it?"
"Oh, I guess my sister must have dropped him," remarked Herbert. "When we get through flying the kite I'll take the Rabbit off the tail and carry him back to Madeline."
Up and up, and to and fro, switched the Candy Rabbit on the kite tail. Of course a bunch of grass, a wad of paper, or even a stone would have been just as well for the boys to have used as a weight. But they had happened to see the Candy Rabbit, and had taken him. Boys are sometimes like that, you know.
How long Herbert, Dick and Arnold might have let the Candy Rabbit sail about on the end of the kite tail I cannot say, but when the three chums had been having this fun for about half an hour, all of a sudden Madeline and her two friends, Mirabell and Dorothy, came running across the field.
"Oh, Herbert! what do you think?" cried Madeline, when she saw her brother. "That bad old cat came into our house again, and tried to catch one of our goldfish!"
"Did he get any?" asked Herbert.
"No, but he almost did. Dorothy came over with her Sawdust Doll just as the cat was dipping his paw down into the bowl, and what