Laura Lee Hope - The Story of a Candy Rabbit
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Story of a Candy Rabbit
For that is what really had happened--the Candy Rabbit had been
kidnapped by Rosa, the organ girl, though, really, she did not mean to
do wrong in taking him.
But when the Bunny was taken out of Rosa's pocket and set on the supper
table in the light, he looked around him. It was quite a different home
from Madeline's--not nearly so nice, the Candy Rabbit thought, but of
course he dared say nothing.
"Ah, what a fine Rabbit! Where did you get him?" asked Rosa's father.
"He was thrown away on a veranda of a house where I got no pennies," she
answered. "No one wanted him, so I took him."
"He is a fine Candy Rabbit," said Joe, the peddler, looking at the
Bunny. "He is almost new. I guess he came from an Easter novelty
counter. Once I sold Easter toys, but now I sell only pins and needles.
Yes, he is a fine Rabbit, Rosa. Are you going to eat him? He is made of
candy."
"Eat him! Oh, no! I am going to keep him, always!" said the little girl,
hugging the Rabbit in her arms.
The Bunny liked to be hugged and petted, and, though he would rather
have been in Madeline's house, still he was glad the little organ girl
liked him.
"Nobody wanted the Rabbit, so I took him," said Rosa, and she really
thought this was so.
But of course Madeline wanted her Candy Rabbit very much. And when she
and Dorothy and Mirabell came back to the veranda after their play in
the sand pile and found the Sawdust Doll there and the Bunny gone, poor
Madeline felt very bad indeed. She cried, and she looked all over for
her Easter toy, but he was not to be found.
At first Madeline thought perhaps her brother or one of the other boys
had taken the Bunny to tie to the kite again, but Herbert said that he
and his chums had not seen the toy.
Then Madeline thought perhaps Carlo, the little dog, had carried the
Bunny away, as once he carried off the Sawdust Doll, but this could not
have happened, as Carlo had been kept chained in his kennel all that
day.
"Well, my Candy Rabbit is gone, and I wish I could find him, and I'm
awful lonesome without him," sobbed Madeline, and she was not happy even
when her mother said she or Aunt Emma would buy her another.
And all the while the organ grinder's little girl had the Candy Rabbit.
And that night, when the time came for Rosa to go to bed, she looked for
a safe place to put the Easter toy. The little girl saw the big basket
of the peddler in a corner of the room.
"I'll put the Candy Rabbit on one of the pin cushions in Uncle Joe's
basket," said Rosa to herself. "He can sleep there all night. To-morrow
I will make a little nest for him."
And the Candy Rabbit was so tired after all the adventures he had met
with that day that he fell asleep almost at once, and passed a very
pleasant night in the basket on the pin cushion, which was stuffed with
sawdust, just like Dorothy's doll.
Peddler Joe was up early the next morning. He was up before either his
brother, Tony, or the little girl, Rosa. Joe cooked himself some
breakfast on an old oil stove, and then, taking his basket, he went out.
He did not even turn back the oilcloth cover to see that his pins,
needles, cushions and other notions were all in place. He felt sure that
they were. And of course he did not know the Candy Rabbit was in his
basket.
But there the Candy Rabbit was, in the peddler's basket, on the
cushion.
"Dear me! what is happening now?" thought the Candy Rabbit, as he was
suddenly awakened by being jiggled and joggled about in the basket. "Am
I at sea? Have I been taken on a ship, and am I crossing the ocean?" For
that is what the motion was like--just the same as the Lamb of Wheels
felt when she was on the raft.
And Joe, the peddler, not knowing the Bunny was in the basket, carried
the sweet chap farther and farther away.
We must now see what happened to him.
CHAPTER VII
IN THE BATHTUB
Joe, the peddler, stopped at several houses with his big basket of
notions.
"Any pins? Any needles? Any court-plaster? Any pin cushions needed
to-day?" he would ask, as he went to door after door. He would lift back
half of the oilcloth cover of his basket to show his wares.
"No, nothing to-day! We have all the pins we need," was all the answer
he received in many places.
"Well, I do not seem to be going to have very good luck to-day," thought
Joe, as he tramped on. "I hope Rosa and her father do better with the
hand organ. I have sold nothing yet."
And, all this while, Joe didn't know anything of the Candy Rabbit in his
basket. But the Rabbit was there, just the same.
He had awakened when Peddler Joe picked up the basket. The Candy Rabbit
found himself lying on the new pin cushion, where Rosa had placed him.
But as the basket was lifted up and swung on Joe's shoulder by means of
a strap, it was so tilted that the Candy Rabbit slipped off the cushion
and fell down in among a pile of papers of pins.
"Oh, dear!" thought the sugary chap. "Now I'll be all stuck up!"
But he was not, I am glad to say. The pins were fastened on papers,
which were then folded together, so that the points did not stick out,
and the candy fellow was not even scratched.
Up and down the street went Joe the peddler, trying to sell his notions.
Finally he came to the very house where Madeline lived, and where Rosa
had taken the Candy Rabbit from the veranda the day before.
"Maybe I shall sell something here," thought Joe. He went up the steps
and rang the bell. As it happened, Madeline's mother was in the hall and
she opened the door. Madeline was also in the hall, just getting ready
to go to see some little friends.
"Any pins? Any needles? Any notions to-day?" asked Joe, as he held his
basket out for Madeline's mother to see. And this time, and for the
first time that morning, Joe pulled back the oilcloth cover from the
other side. That was the reason he had not yet seen the Rabbit.
But now, as the oilcloth was rolled back, the sweet chap, lying on his
side among the papers of pins, was shown. Madeline's mother was just
going to say she did not care for any needles or sticking-plaster when
the little girl, looking into the basket, spied the Bunny.
"Oh, look!" cried Madeline! "There he is--my Candy Rabbit! How did he
get in the basket? Oh, Mother, my Candy Rabbit has come home to me!"
Madeline's mother was just as astonished as was the little girl; and
Peddler Joe was surprised also.
"How did my little girl's Candy Rabbit get in your basket?" asked
Madeline's mother.
"I don't know," Joe answered. "I did not know he was here. He is a
surprise to me. If he is yours, take him."
He handed the Candy Rabbit to Madeline, who was overjoyed to get her
Easter toy back again. Eagerly she looked at him, to make sure he was
not hurt or damaged.
"Are you sure he is the same Rabbit--your Candy Rabbit?" asked Mother.
"Oh, yes, very sure," answered Madeline. "Look, here is the green spot
on his ear, where he fell in the grass the day the boys tied him to the
kite tail. And, see! one ear is bent a little. It happened when he was
too near the heat, the day I was eating chocolate from the cake dishes.
He's my Candy Rabbit, all right!"
"Then I am glad you have him back, little girl," said Peddler Joe. "Rosa
must have take him by mistook, you know--she pick him up when she go
around with the organ."
Then he told how his little niece had found the Rabbit, and, thinking
the toy belonged to no one, had brought it home.
"I buy her another Rabbit so she not be feeling bad," said Joe, with a
smile. "She did not mean to take yours, little girl. And now maybe you
want some needles or pins?" he said to Madeline's mother.
"Yes, I think I will buy a few, because you were so good as to bring
back my little girl's Easter present that was given her by her aunt,"
Mother said. And Joe was glad because he had sold something from his
basket.
Madeline was glad to get back her Candy Rabbit, and she stayed so long
looking at him that her mother said:
"You had better run on, or your little friends will grow impatient
waiting for you, my dear. Put your Rabbit away, and hurry along now."
So Madeline put her Rabbit on a shelf in the playroom, and went out to
play, and her mother gave Joe money for pins, needles and some
court-plaster.
"Maybe I have good luck and make a lot of money to-day, and then I buy
Rosa a nice Candy Rabbit for herself," the peddler said to himself, as
he went down the street.
And, while I am about it, I might as well tell you that Joe did buy Rosa
a nice Rabbit for herself. He took it home to her that night, lifting it
out of his basket and putting it into her hands.
When the organ grinder's little girl awakened and found that her peddler
uncle had gone, taking his basket and the Rabbit she had put to sleep in
it without his knowledge, Rosa felt very bad. She was sad as she
gathered pennies for her father that day.
But at night, when Uncle Joe came back with a new Candy Rabbit, Rosa was
happy again. And Madeline was happy with her own Easter toy.
Rosa's uncle and her father told her it was wrong to have taken another
little girl's toy without asking, and she was sorry when she understood
that, but she was happy with her new plaything.
In the afternoon Mirabell and Dorothy went home with Madeline.
"I want to show you my Candy Rabbit again," Madeline said to her little
girl chums.
And when Mirabell and Dorothy had looked at the Rabbit, seeing the speck
of green paint on one ear and the other ear that was a little bent from
the heat, Madeline said:
"I'm going to wash him!"
Without saying anything to her mother about it, Madeline took her Candy
Rabbit, and, with her two little friends, went up to the bathroom. She
drew the tub full of water, and while she was doing this she set the
Rabbit on a glass shelf near the towel rack.
"Are you going to let him swim in the bathtub?" asked Dorothy.
"Goodness me, I hope not!" thought the Candy Rabbit, who heard this
question. "I can't swim! I'll surely drown if she puts me in the
bathtub!"
And he was glad when he heard Madeline say:
"No, I'm not going to put him in the tub. But I want plenty of water,
for I must get him nice and clean. I'm going to have a party, and I want
my Candy Rabbit to look pretty. I'll dip my nail brush in the bathtub
and scrub him."
"And we'll help you," said Dorothy and Mirabell.
"There, I guess I have water enough," said Madeline, as she turned off
the tub faucet. There were some drops of water on her hands, and she
reached for a towel to dry them.
How it happened none of the little girls knew, but the towel on the rack
must have caught on the Candy Rabbit, sitting on the glass shelf. And
when Madeline pulled the towel she pulled her Easter toy off the shelf
and into the bathtub of water.
"Splish! Splash!" went the Candy Rabbit into the water.
"Oh, I'm going to drown! I know I'm going to drown!" thought the poor
sweet chap, as the water closed over his ears.
CHAPTER VIII
IN A WHEELBARROW
Madeline screamed, Mirabell screamed, and Dorothy screamed. The three
little girls screamed together when they saw the Candy Rabbit fall into
the bathtub. And, even under water as his ears were, the Candy Rabbit
heard them.
"Well, I hope they do something more than yell," thought the poor,
sugary chap. "If they don't pull me out pretty soon I'll melt, as well
as drown, and I dare not try to swim when they're looking at me!"
You know what the rule is in Make-Believe Toyland--none of the things
dare move when human eyes look at them. And the three little girls were
surely looking at the Candy Rabbit now, as he bobbed about in the
bathtub.
"Oh, look what happened!" cried Dorothy, pointing to the toy.
"Your Candy Rabbit is in the bathtub!" screamed Mirabell.
"Yes, and I'm going to get him out!" exclaimed Madeline.
She quickly stooped down, grasped the Candy Rabbit by his ears, and
lifted him, dripping wet, out of the bathtub of water.
"Oh, he's soaked through, poor thing!" murmured Dorothy.
"Do you s'pose he's spoiled?" asked Mirabell.
"I--I hope not," said Madeline with a catch in her voice, as if she were
going to cry. "I guess I got him out in time."
"I think so, too."
Madeline's mother, hearing the screams of the little girls in the
bathroom, ran to see what the matter was.
"Has anything happened, children?" she asked.
"My Candy Rabbit got caught on the towel and I pulled him into the
bathtub of water," Madeline explained. "Will he come all to pieces,
Mother?"
Mother looked at the Candy Rabbit carefully. He did not seem to be
harmed much. Inside of him his heart was beating very fast, because of
his adventure, but no one knew that.
"I think he is not much damaged, Madeline," said her mother, with a
smile. "He is made of very hard sugar--is your Candy Rabbit. It would
take more of a soaking than he got to melt him. What were you doing with
him in the bathroom?"
"I was going to wash him, Mother, 'cause maybe he got soiled in the
peddler's basket."
"Well, he has had his bath all right," said Mother, with a laugh. "And I
think he is pretty clean. He does not seem to be melting any, but it
would be well to let him dry. Here, I'll set him on the window sill and
open the window. The breeze will dry him off better than if you wiped
him with a towel. Then you will not wipe off any of his sugar."
"Oh, I'm so glad he is all right," said Madeline. "I thought he would
melt and run down the drain pipe from the bathtub."
"Drain pipe!" The Rabbit shivered.
Mother set the Candy Rabbit, which was quite wet, on a clean cloth on
the bathroom window sill, leaving the sash open.
"The cloth will soak up some of the water, and the gentle wind will blow
the rest off and dry him," said Madeline's mother.
The three little girls looked at the Candy Rabbit sitting on the sill of
the open window in the bathroom.
"Doesn't he look cute?" cried Madeline.
"Too sweet for anything!" said Dorothy.
"Of course he looks _sweet_!" said Mirabell. "He's made of sugar, you
know!"
Then the three little girls laughed and went downstairs to play with
Dorothy's Sawdust Doll and Mirabell's Lamb on Wheels.
Left to himself on the window sill, the Candy Rabbit took a long breath.
"That was a narrow escape I had," he said. "I was very nearly drowned
and melted in the water. I had better keep very still and quiet until I
am quite dry again, or I may come apart like the Jack in the Box who
jumped off his spring. Yes, I will sit here very quietly until I am dry.
I do feel so wet and sticky!"
The Candy Rabbit looked around the bathroom. There was no other toy
there with whom he could play, even if he had felt like moving around
just then, which he did not feel like doing.
"The Calico Clown and the Monkey on a Stick will think it quite
wonderful when I tell them what has happened to me," said the Candy
Rabbit to himself, as he sat there, drying. "I suppose they must have
had some adventures, also, but I don't believe either of them ever fell
into a bathtub of water."
Feeling rather lonesome, the Rabbit looked for some one to whom he might
talk. He saw cakes of soap, towels, and wash cloths. There was also a
large sponge in a wire basket hanging over the edge of the bathtub.
"I have heard that sponges are animals," said the Candy Rabbit. "I
wonder if this one is alive and will speak to me. I'll try. Hello there,
Mr. Sponge!" he called. "You must be quite a swimmer. Are you as good as
a goldfish--one of those the bad cat tried to get?"
But the sponge said never a word. Maybe it was too dry to speak, for it
had not been in the water since early morning.
The Candy Rabbit knew it was of no use to talk to a cake of soap or a
wash cloth, so he became quiet and sat on the window sill, drying off.
[Illustration: "Hello There, Mr. Sponge!" Said Candy Rabbit.
_Page_ 90]
At first the wind, which came in through the open bathroom window,
drying the Candy Rabbit, was a gentle breeze. Then it began to blow
harder, so hard, in fact, that Herbert, Dick and Arnold got out their
kites and began flying them.
"Dear me! this wind is blowing harder and harder," said the Candy Rabbit
to himself. "I hope I do not take cold here."
Stronger and stronger the wind blew. Part of the time it blew _in_
through the bathroom window, and part of the time it blew _out_. And
then, all of a sudden, there came a hard gust, and it toppled the Candy
Rabbit right off the sill.
"Dear me, I am falling!" exclaimed the Candy Rabbit. "Oh, I am falling
out of the window!"
And this was true. He had fallen _out_ instead of falling _in_, and, in
the end, this was a good thing for him. For if he had fallen inside the
bathroom he would have toppled down on the hard, tiled floor, and have
been broken to pieces. As it was, falling out of the window, he had a
better chance.
Down, down, down, out of the window fell the Candy Rabbit. He fell so
fast that his breath was taken away. He felt himself drying fast. The
last drops of water, caused by his topple into the bathtub, were blown
off by the breeze as he fell.
"Oh, when I hit the ground there is going to be a terrible smash!"
thought the poor Candy Rabbit. "This, surely, is the last of me!
Good-bye, everybody!"
But, as it happened, just then Patrick, the gardener, was passing along
with a wheelbarrow full of freshly cut grass. He had cut the lawn in
front of the house where Dorothy lived, and now Patrick was wheeling the
loose grass across Madeline's yard to give to a pony in a stable in the
house just beyond Madeline's.
And, all of a sudden, just as Patrick came along with the wheelbarrow
full of grass, the Candy Rabbit fell out of the bathroom window. And,
very, very luckily, the sweet chap, instead of hitting the ground, fell
into the soft grass on the wheelbarrow.
For a moment he could not get his breath, and he was buried deep in the
long, green spears and stems. And then, as he felt that he was not
broken to bits, the Candy Rabbit murmured:
"I am saved!"
CHAPTER IX
AT THE PARTY
Patrick, the gardener, had set his wheelbarrow down to rest just as he
came under the bathroom window of Madeline's house. And Patrick had his
back turned, and was looking at Carlo, the little dog, chasing his tail
just when the Candy Rabbit fell into the grass. So Patrick did not see
what had happened.
"But I know what has happened," said the sweet chap to himself. "Only
for the soft grass I would have broken all to pieces! I wish I dared
call out and tell Patrick I am here. But I dare not. I must keep still
and say nothing."
"Well, I must hurry along and give this grass to the pony," said the
gardener, after he had seen Calico catch his tail. "The pony must be
hungry."
Over across Madeline's yard, to the yard where the pony lived in a
little stable, went Patrick with the wheelbarrow full of grass and the
Candy Rabbit. Only, of course, Patrick did not know he had the sugary
fellow.
"Well, how are you, little pony?" cried the jolly Patrick, when he
reached the stable. The pony gave a soft little whinny in answer.
"I have some nice grass for you," went on Patrick. "Nice, sweet, green
grass that I, myself, cut off the lawn. You shall eat it all up."
Once again the little horse talked in the only way he could make Patrick
understand, which was by whinnying. He meant that he would be glad to
eat the grass.
"But I hope he doesn't eat me!" thought the Candy Rabbit. "It is lucky I
can speak and understand animal talk. When I get in the pony's stall
I'll call out and ask him not to chew me up with the grass."
But the Candy Rabbit did not have to do this. For when Patrick began to
take from the wheelbarrow the grass he had gathered for the pony, the
gardener saw something gleaming in the sunshine amid the green stems.
"Hello! what's this?" cried Patrick, leaning over to take a better look.
"What's this in my grass? Can it be a glass bottle? If it is it's a good
thing I didn't give it to the pony, or he might have cut himself on it."
Patrick took the shining object from the midst of the grass. In an
instant he saw what it was.
"A Candy Rabbit! Madeline's Candy Rabbit!" cried the gardener. He knew
it very well, just as he knew the Sawdust Doll, the Lamb on Wheels, and
the Bold Tin Soldier. Madeline had often showed Patrick her Candy
Rabbit.
The pony was soon fed, and then, with the Candy Rabbit in his pocket and
slowly wheeling the empty barrow, Patrick made his way to Madeline's
house. He knocked at the back door, and the cook, with a dab of flour on
her nose, answered.
"What have you been doing to yourself, Cook?" asked the gardener, with a
laugh.
"Why? Is anything wrong?" she asked, rather surprised.
"Your nose is dabbed with flour," went on Patrick.
"Oh, that!" laughed the cook. "You see, Madeline is going to have a
party, and I'm so busy making cookies and cakes that it's a wonder flour
isn't all over my face as well as on my nose. But what have you there?"
she asked, seeing the Bunny in Patrick's hand.
"Madeline's Candy Rabbit," answered the gardener. "I don't know how it
got in my barrow of grass, but I brought him back. Is Madeline in?"
"Yes, I'll call her," said the cook.
And when the little girl came running out and saw her Bunny, she was
much surprised.
"Why! Why! How did you get him, Patrick?" she asked. "I left him up on
the bathroom window sill to dry, after he fell into the bathtub."
"Ah, that accounts for it then!" laughed the gardener. "The wind must
have blown him out of the window, and he fell into my barrow just as I
set it down to rest. Well, it's lucky I had grass in the barrow instead
of stones. If your rabbit had fallen on _them_ he might have broken off
his ears."
"That would have been dreadful!" exclaimed Madeline. "Oh, thank you, so
much, Patrick, for bringing my Bunny back to me."
"Well, keep him safe, now you have him," advised Patrick.
Then he went off whistling and trundling his empty wheelbarrow, and once
more the Candy Rabbit was back with Madeline, where he belonged, and
thankful to be there.
"You are nice and dry now," said the little girl, as she looked over her
Easter toy. "And you didn't get any more grass stains on you when you
fell out of the window. Your ear it still a little bent, but that only
makes you look more stylish.
"Now I am going to put a new pink ribbon on your neck, 'cause the one I
took off when I was going to wash you is all soiled. I'll put a new
ribbon on you and then you may come to the party to-morrow."
Madeline told her mother how the Rabbit had fallen out of the window.
Then the little girl got a pretty pink ribbon, and, after tying it on
his neck, she again showed her Easter present to Mirabell and Dorothy.
"He looks as good as new," said Mirabell.
"Yes," agreed Dorothy. "I guess falling into the bathtub and the
wheelbarrow of grass did him good."
"And we'll have lots of fun at the party," said Madeline. "Now I will
put my Rabbit away, and we'll get ready for a good time."
The Rabbit was set on a shelf in a dark closet.
"Well, goodness knows I am glad to be by myself for a while and keep
quiet," thought the sugary chap, as he sat down on the shelf in the
dark. "I have had enough of adventures for a day or two. I wonder if
there is any one here to whom I can talk. I wish the Sawdust Doll or the
Bold Tin Soldier or the Calico Clown were here. They would love to hear
me tell of what has happened."
Madeline and her girl friends spent the rest of that day and part of the
next one getting ready for the party, and at last the time came to have
it. Madeline was all dressed up, and she brought her Candy Rabbit out of
the closet and smoothed the ribbon on his neck.
"Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!" rang the door bell.
"Oh, here come Dorothy and Dick to the party!" cried Madeline, running
to meet her friends.
She carried the Candy Rabbit with her. Dorothy had her Sawdust Doll, but
the White Rocking Horse was too large for Dick to bring over.
One after another more children came to the party, among them Mirabell
and Arnold. Mirabell did not bring her Lamb on Wheels for the same
reason that Dick left his Horse at home--the Lamb was a little too large
for a house party, though she would fit very well on the lawn.
But Arnold, who was Mirabell's brother, brought something to the party.
It was the Bold Tin Soldier--the Captain of the Tin Soldiers, of whom
Arnold had a whole box. And while the little girls who had come to
Madeline's party were smoothing out their dresses and looking at their
dolls and talking to one another, Arnold walked off with Dick to a
corner of the room.
"Look what I have!" whispered Arnold, showing the Bold Tin Soldier.
"Why did you bring him?" Dick wanted to know.
"So if we don't like the games the girls play we can go off in a room by
ourselves and have fun with my Soldier," was the answer. "But maybe
we'll have some fun, anyhow."
"Let me hold your Soldier for a while," begged Dick, and Arnold handed
over the Captain.
After a while the little boys went back to where the other children were
and all began to play games. Madeline set her Candy Rabbit on the table
near Dorothy's Sawdust Doll, and the two toys looked at each other.