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.