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.
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!"
