how to find his friends.

"And it is getting late, too," said the Monkey to himself, as he looked
up at the sky. "Soon the sun will set, and it will be dark. And then it
will be so much the harder for me to find Dick and Herbert and Carlo, or
for them to find me. Well, I suppose I must make the best of it."

He was a plucky Monkey chap, almost as adventurous as the Bold Tin
Soldier, and he kept jumping on through the tall grass of the meadow.
All at once, as he skipped along, being able to move quite fast now that
he was off his stick, the Monkey stumbled over a stone and fell flat
down.

"Ouch!" he cried, as he picked himself up. "I hope I haven't broken
anything."

Very luckily he had not. He was as good as ever, except that his plush
fur was rumpled a bit. But he soon brushed himself smooth again, and he
was about to hop on, when, all at once, he felt a splash of water on his
head.

"Dear me! is some one squirting water at me from a toy rubber ball or a
water pistol?" exclaimed the Monkey.

More drops splashed down, dozens and dozens of them. Then the Monkey
looked up and cried:

"Oh, it's raining! It's pouring! I'll be soaking wet! I'll be drowned
out in the rain without an umbrella or rubbers! Oh, my!"

And the rain came down harder and harder and _harder_.

CHAPTER VIII

HERBERT FINDS THE MONKEY

Poor Monkey on a Stick! Oh, I forgot! He wasn't on a stick now, was he?
Herbert had the stick, and it was just as well he had, for the Monkey,
being rid of it, could hop around better.

"And I need to hop around a lot, to keep out of the wet," said the
Monkey to himself, after he had come from the Rabbit's cave and had been
caught in the rain.

Harder and harder the big drops came pelting down. At first the Monkey
tried to keep dry by crawling under the grass. But, thick and tall as it
was, it was not like an umbrella, and the drops came through. Soon the
Monkey was very wet.

"I know I'll catch cold!" he said sorrowfully. "I'll get the snuffles!
I'm not used to being soaked like this."

And, truly, he was not. Since he had been made at the workshop of Santa
Claus, the Monkey had never been out in a rain storm. He had always been
either in the toy factory, the department store, or in some house, and
when he was taken from one place to another he was always well wrapped
up, so it did not matter whether there was snow or rain.

But now it was different. The Monkey was getting wetter and wetter e