“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 do you think Dorothy did?” asked Madeline.

“I don’t know.  What did she do?” asked Herbert.