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“The ink is almost washed off,” he said. “I am glad of that.”

Then he began to hop across the field, making his way through the tall grass. He thought he would know it when he came to the place where the string had come loose, and where he had fallen from Carlo’s back, but the grass looked so much alike all over that the Monkey was beginning to think he might be lost in it.

All at once, however, he heard a voice saying:

“Well, you’ve come back, have you?”

The Monkey looked around, and there sat his friend Mr. Grasshopper, and near him was Miss Cricket.

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” cried the Monkey. “I was looking for the place I first met you–the place where I fell off the dog’s back.”

“It is right here,” said the Grasshopper. “This is where I first noticed you. And there is the hummock of grass you sat on.”

Then the Monkey knew he was back at the place he wished to reach. He sat down and talked with the Grasshopper and the Cricket, telling them of his visit to Jack Hare’s cave, and also how he had slept all night under a leaf near Jack in the Pulpit.

“Hark!” suddenly called the Grasshopper.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Monkey.

“I think you are going to get your wish,” was the Grasshopper’s answer. “I hear boys talking and a dog barking. We had better be going, Miss Cricket. Good-bye, Mr. Monkey on a Stick!”

“Good-bye,” called the Cricket.

With that they hopped away. The Monkey listened, and, surely enough, he heard the barking of a dog and the talking of two boys.

“It was right about here he must have fallen off,” said one boy.

“It might have been farther on,” said another boy.

And just then the grass began to wave from side to side, and through it came bursting Carlo, the little dog! At once he saw the Monkey.

“Bow wow! Oh, here you are!” barked Carlo. “I thought I should find you.”

“I’m glad you did,” said the Monkey. Then the two friends had no further chance to talk, for Dick and his chum came running along when they heard the dog bark.

“Oh, here he is!” cried Herbert. “I’ve found my lost Monkey. Now I’m going to put him back on his stick!”

CHAPTER IX

MONKEY IN A TENT

Herbert and Dick, with Carlo the dog, had searched through the meadow all the afternoon, to find the Monkey, but they did not find him. At night the two boys had gone to their homes, and Herbert felt sad at losing his toy.

“Never mind,” said Madeline, as she let Herbert hold her Candy Rabbit, “to-morrow I’ll help you look for your Monkey. Maybe he’s hiding down in the tall grass, as Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll once did.”

“Maybe,” said Herbert hopefully. But still he felt sad.

The next day he and Dick and Carlo again went to the meadow. They looked all around, and at last they found the Monkey, as I have told you.

Of course neither of the boys knew what an adventure the Monkey had had, nor how he had gone to visit Jack Hare in the cave, and had seen the little Rabbits. Nor did they know how he had become dried out by sleeping under the fern leaf.

“Well, now we’ll have some fun, as long as I have my Monkey back,” said Herbert, and he and Dick, followed by the dog, went back across the meadow.

“What are you going to do?” asked Dick.

“Put up a tent and have a show,” Herbert answered. “You can bring your White Rocking Horse, and Arnold can bring his Bold Tin Soldier. If Dorothy wants to, she can bring her Sawdust Doll, Mirabell can bring her Lamb of Wheels, and my sister Madeline can bring her Candy Rabbit.”

“That’ll be a fine show!” cried Dick.

The two little boys hurried back to Herbert’s house, and told his mother what they were going to do. Herbert showed his mother the Monkey he had found in the meadow, and Dick hurried over to his house to get his Rocking Horse, and to tell his sister about the show.