"Hello There, Mr. Sponge!" Said Candy Rabbit.
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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.