one day the wind blew through the town, and oh, how merry it was! it whistled down the chimneys, and scampered round the corners, and sang in the tree tops. "come and dance, come and dance, come and dance with me," that is what it seemed to say.

and what could keep from dancing to such a merry tune? the clothes danced on the clothes-line, the leaves danced on the branches of the trees, a bit of paper danced about the street, and a little boy's hat danced off of his head and down the sidewalk as fast as it could go.

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.

but as for the clothes on the clothes-line, and the leaves on the trees, and the bit of paper in the street, they danced on and on, till the wind blew away; and that is the end of the story.