My hope had been that the people of the house would have understood my predicament and stopped the madman, but they evidently had not taken in the situation, or else he had been too quick for them, for from behind the barrel where I had concealed myself I could hear him come through the open doorway and search the yard for me.
And now I feared that my panting breath would betray me—and it did, for I heard his stealthy steps approach the spot where I lay quaking, and his ugly, leering face peered round at me, and he sprang forward and touched me, calling out, as I fell back almost fainting with terror: "Tag! You're it!"
In an instant the meaning of his words flashed over me, and I cursed myself for my foolish nervousness. The confounded fool had taken it for a game of tag!
By this time quite a little crowd of villagers had gathered around me, and the escaped lunatic was secured to wait for the arrival of his keeper, and I managed to reach my home, after being fortified by a glass of wine.
It was several days before my nerves recovered their usual steadiness, and it is perhaps needless to add that I did not accept the situation.
The Helping Hand.
The Lancelot Chapter, of Newtonville, Mass., has nine members, and each earned twenty-five cents. Then the Chapter added a little, and the secretary forwarded $3 with the best of Lancelot wishes Names of the contributors are Ella A. Gould, Marion Drew Bassett, Adella J. Saunderson, Ethel T. Gammons, Alice L. Harrison, Esther H. Dyson, Lulu Ulmer, Mabel Glazier, and Hazel L. Bobbins.
The Edison Chapter, of Bangor, Me., send $2 for the Fund. This Fund is, you know, to help build the Round Table Industrial School-house at Good Will Farm, where poor boys are educated. The Table is raising this Fund, and it asks contributions from all who want, first, to help chivalrous young persons who are trying to help others, and second, to help in the best possible way boys who need help.
Any sums, sent by anybody, will be thankfully received and acknowledged in the Table. Members of the Edison Chapter, which sent the $2 the other day, earned the money folding and carrying papers, getting out ashes, and washing dishes—truly practical methods of being truly generous.