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 do you think
Dorothy did?" asked Madeline.
"I don't know. What did she do?" asked Herbert.
"I just threw my Sawdust Doll at the cat!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I knew it
couldn't hurt her, 'cause she's stuffed with sawdust."
"Did you hit him?" Dick asked.
"I almost did," answered Dorothy. "Anyhow, I scared him away, and he
didn't get any goldfish."
"That's good," said Arnold.
"I wish I'd been there!" said Dick.
Just then Madeline looked up and saw something dangling on the end of
the kite tail.
"Why, Herbert!" she cried, "what have you there? Oh, you have my Candy
Rabbit on your kite! I was looking all over for him. Where'd you get
him?"
"I found him here in the field where you dropped him," answered her
brother.
"I didn't drop my Candy Rabbit here," went on Madeline. "I wouldn't do
such a thing. I left him in the house, and then I couldn't find him, and
I was coming to ask if you had seen him. I thought maybe Carlo had
carried him off as he carried Dorothy's doll once."
"Well, if you didn't take your Candy Rabbit out and leave him here in
the field, maybe Carlo did," said Herbert. "Anyhow, we didn't hurt him
and you can have him back again. We can tie a bunch of weeds on the kite
tail. They'll be just as good as the Rabbit."
"Oh, the idea of saying my Candy Rabbit is like a bunch of weeds!" cried
Madeline. "Give him right back to me this minute, Herbert!" and she
shook her finger at her brother.
"All right," Herbert answered. "Pull the kite down, fellows."
"All right."
Down came the kite when the string was wound up, and slowly the Candy
Rabbit floated back to earth. Madeline stood under the tail with her
dress held out to catch the Bunny in it. And down he came, not being
hurt a bit. Quickly Madeline loosened her Easter toy from the kite tail,
and she nestled him in her arms.
"You poor little Bunny!" she murmured. "I guess he was scared half to
death away up there in the air."
She and the other girls looked at the toy. He did not seem to be harmed
in the least.
"But he's got a green grass stain on one ear," said Mirabell.
"That only makes him look more stylish," said Dorothy.
"And green goes well with the pink color of his ribbon," added Madeline.
"Oh, I'm so glad to get my Rabbit back."
Madeline took her Candy Rabbit back to the house. There she and the
girls had some fun, and the boys kept on flying the kite. They used a
bunch of weeds as a weight on the tail, instead of the Rabbit, as they
had done at first.
And of course neither Madeline nor any of the others knew that the cat
had carried the Bunny away and had dropped him in the grassy field. They
all thought Carlo had done it, but of course there was no way of finding
out for sure, except by reading this book. In this the true story of the
Candy Rabbit is told for the first time.
Madeline tried to get the green grass-stain off her Rabbit's ear, but
it would not come out.
"Why don't you scrape it off?" asked Herbert.
"Why, I might scrape off half his ear! No, indeed!" Madeline said.
"Well, wash it off," suggested Dick, who had come over to play with
Herbert. "Take him up to the bathroom and wash his ear. My mother washes
my ears."
"Pooh! your ears aren't made of candy," said Madeline.
"No. And I'm glad they're not, or the fellows would be biting pieces off
all the while," laughed Dick.
"Well, I guess I won't wash my Candy Rabbit--at least not just yet,"
said Madeline. "I'll wait until he gets a few more stains on him."
Several days passed. The bad cat did not again try to catch the
goldfish. He seemed to have been frightened away when Dorothy threw the
Sawdust Doll at him. And, I am glad to say, the Doll was not hurt in the
least. In fact, she rather liked scaring cats.
One day Madeline took her Candy Rabbit out into the kitchen where the
cook was making a cake. She had just put the cake into the oven to bake,
and there were several dishes on the table--dishes in which were dabs of
sweet, sugary icing and cake batter.
"Oh, may I please clean out some of the cake dishes?" asked Madeline.
"Yes," answered the cook kindly.
This was one of the pleasures Madeline and Herbert enjoyed on baking
day, but Herbert was not on hand then, so Madeline had all the dishes to
herself. She set her Candy Rabbit on a shelf, got a spoon, and began to
clean the icing dish. Of course you know that means she scraped the
dish with the spoon and ate the icing she scraped up. Yes, and I think
she even licked the spoon. After she had finished the white icing dish
there was a chocolate one to start on.
"Oh, I'm going to have a dandy time!" laughed the little girl.
She forgot all about her Candy Rabbit. There he sat on a shelf near the
gas stove, and as the cakes in the oven began to bake, the fire grew
hotter and hotter and the Candy Rabbit began to feel very strange.
"Dear me, I am afraid I am going to melt!" he said to himself, not
daring to speak aloud when Madeline and the cook were there.
The kitchen grew warmer and warmer, the stove became hotter and hotter,
and, on the shelf where the Candy Rabbit sat, it was like a summer day
in the blazing sun.
"This is worse than anything that ever happened to me before," said the
Candy Rabbit. "I think I'll just melt down into a lump of sugar! That
would be dreadful!"
Of course it would, and Madeline would have been very sorry if anything
like that had happened. One of the ears of the Rabbit was just getting
soft and drooping over a little to one side, when the cook happened to
look toward the shelf.
"Oh, Madeline, my dear!" she cried. "Your Candy Rabbit!"
"What's the matter?" asked the little girl, looking up from the dish she
was scraping clean with a spoon, in order to eat the last of the
chocolate inside.
"He will melt if you leave him on that shelf near the hot stove," went
on the cook. "Look, one of his ears is drooping!"
"Oh, dear!" screamed Madeline, and, dropping the spoon, she caught her
Easter toy from the shelf.
It was only just in time, too, for the poor Rabbit was just beginning to
melt. In fact, one of his ears did soften and twist over to one side a
little. But Madeline quickly took him out on the cool porch, and the
Rabbit felt better. However, that queer twist, or droop, stayed in one
ear--not the one with the grass-stain on, but the other.
"I don't care," Madeline said, when her toy was cool and all right
again. "It makes him look different from the other Candy Rabbits to have
a twisted ear. It's so funny!"
Happy days followed for the Bunny. The children played sometimes in one
house and sometimes in another, taking their toys with them, and
sometimes the Rabbit had a chance to talk to the Sawdust Doll, the Bold
Tin Soldier, the White Rocking Horse or the Lamb on Wheels, for the
children would often leave their toys together, as the boys and girls
went out to play in the yards or on the verandas.
"I wonder how the Calico Clown is getting along," said the Candy Rabbit
to the Sawdust Doll on one of the days when they were together. They
were on the porch of Madeline's house, and Madeline, Mirabell and
Dorothy were around in the back yard playing in a sand pile.
"I should like to see him, and also the Monkey on a Stick," said the
Doll. "Hark! What's that?" she suddenly asked, as strains of music were
heard.
"It's a hand organ, and here comes a man playing it," said the Candy
Rabbit.
"Has he a monkey with him to gather pennies in his hat?" asked the
Sawdust Doll.
"No. But he has a little girl with him. She has a basket. I guess she
gathers pennies in that. Maybe the organ man had a monkey but it ran
away," suggested the Rabbit.
"Maybe," agreed the Doll. "Oh, isn't that nice music!" she cried. "It
makes me feel like dancing!"
The hand-organ man was, indeed, playing a nice tune. The girl who was
with him came into the yard and up the steps, holding out her basket
ready for pennies. The little girls being in the back yard, no one was
near the front of the house.
"Ah, a Candy Rabbit and a Sawdust Doll!" exclaimed the organ man's girl.
"Nobody seems to want them. I have a doll of my own, but I have no
Candy Rabbit. I think I will take this one. I would rather have him than
pennies!"
And, looking quickly here and there to see if any one was going to toss
her a penny, but seeing no one, the hand-organ man's little girl picked
up the Candy Rabbit, tucked it under her apron, and quickly went down
the steps again.
"Well, of all things!" thought the Candy Rabbit, as he felt himself
being taken away in this fashion. "Of all things! What is this
hand-organ girl going to do with me?"
And that is something we must find out.