It was a sailor hat with a blue ribbon around it; and the ends of the ribbons flew out behind like little blue flags.
"Stop!" cried the little boy as it blew away; but the hat could not stop. The wind whirled it and twirled it, and landed it at last right in the middle of the street.
"Now I'll get it," said the child, and he was just reaching his hand out for it when off it went again, rolling over and over like a hoop.
"Nobody can catch me," thought the hat proudly; "and I do not know myself how far I shall go."
Just then the wind whisked it into an alley, and dropped it behind a barrel there. When the little boy looked into the alley, it was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is my new sailor hat?" he cried.
"Ho! ho! I know," laughed the wind, and it blew behind the barrel, and fluttered the ends of the blue ribbon till the little boy spied them.
"Hurrah!" said he; and he ran to pick up the hat in a hurry.
"The wind shall not get my new hat again," he said; and he put it on his head and held it with both hands all the way home.