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.  As for the young woman, she just flopped over and went down in a faint on the floor.

As soon as I could do it I got myself free from the clothes-line and staggered out on the grass.  I was trembling so much I could scarcely walk, but when I saw that young woman looking as if she was dead on the ground I felt I must do something, and seeing a pail of water standing near by, I held it over her face and poured it down on her a little at a time, and it wasn’t long before she began to squirm, and then she opened her eyes and her mouth just at the same time, so that she must have swallowed about as much water as she would have taken at a meal.  This brought her to, and she began to cough and splutter and look around wildly, and then I took her by the arm and helped her up on the bench.