However, I Steered My Tricycle Round At Just The Right
Instant, And Through The Front Gate I Went Like A Flash.
I was going so fast, and my mind was so wound up on account of the
necessity of steering straight, that I could not pay much attention to
things I passed.
But the scene that showed itself in front of me as I
went through that little garden gate I could not help seeing and
remembering. From the gate to the door of the house was a path paved
with flagstones; the door was open, and there must have been a low step
before it; back of the door was a hall which ran through the house, and
this was paved with flagstones; the back door of the hall was open, and
outside of it was a sort of arbor with vines, and on one side of this
arbor was a bench, with a young man and a young woman sitting on it,
holding each other by the hand, and looking into each other's eyes;
the arbor opened out on to a piece of green grass, with flowers of
mixed colors on the edges of it, and at the back of this bit of lawn
was a lot of clothes hung out on clothes-lines. Of course, I could not
have seen all those things at once, but they came upon me like a single
picture, for in one tick of a watch I went over that flagstone path and
into that front door and through that house and out of that back door,
and past that young man and that young woman, and head and heels both
foremost at once, dashed slam-bang into the midst of all that linen
hanging out on the lines.
[Illustration: "AT LAST I DID GET ON MY FEET"]
I heard the minglement of a groan and a scream, and in an instant I was
enveloped in a white, wet cloud of sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths,
and underwear. Some of the things stuck so close to me, and others I
grabbed with such a wild clutch, that nearly all the week's wash, lines
and all, came down on me, wrapping me up like an apple in a
dumpling - but I stopped. There was not anything in this world that
would have been better for me to run into than those lines full of wet
clothes.
Where the tricycle went to I didn't know, but I was lying on the grass
kicking, and trying to get up and to get my head free, so that I could
see and breathe. At last I did get on my feet, and throwing out my arms
so as to shake off the sheets and pillowcases that were clinging all
over me I shook some of the things partly off my face, and with one
eye I saw that couple on the bench, but only for a second. With a yell
of horror, and with a face whiter than the linen I was wrapped in, that
young man bounced from the bench, dashed past the house, made one clean
jump over the hedge into the road, and disappeared.
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