t did no good to command Rodolphus, the stern
expression of her face changed into a smile, and she said,

"Well, if you won't come, I shall have to catch you, that's all."

So saying, she ran round the table to catch him. Rodolphus ran too. His
mother turned first one way and then the other, but she could not get any
nearer to the fugitive. Rodolphus kept always on the farthest side of the
table from her. Presently Mr. Linn himself looked up and began to cheer
Rodolphus, and encourage him to run; and once when Mrs. Linn nearly caught
him and he yet escaped, Mr. Linn clapped his hands in token of his joy.

Mrs. Linn was now discouraged: so she stopped, and looking sternly at
Rodolphus again, she said,

"Now, Rodolphus, you _must_ come to me. Come this minute. If you don't
come, I shall certainly punish you." She spoke these words with a great
deal of force and emphasis, in order to make Rodolphus think that she was
really in earnest. But Rodolphus did not believe that she was in earnest,
and so it was evident that he had no intention to obey.

Mrs. Linn then thought of another plan for catching the fugitive, which
was to push the table along to one side of the room, or up into a corner,
and get Rodolphus out from behind it in that way. So she began to push.
Rodolphus immediately began to resist her attempt, by pushing against the
table himself, on the other side. His mother was the strongest, however,
and she succeeded in gradually working the table, with Rodolphus before
it, over to the further side of the room, notwithstanding all the efforts
that he made to prevent it. When he found at last that he was likely to be
caught, he left the table and ran behind the settle where his father was
reading. His mother ran after him and caught him in the corner.

She attempted to take him, but Rodolphus began to struggle and scream, and
to shake his shoulders when she took hold of them, evincing his
determination not to go with her. At the same time he called out, "Father!
father!"

His father looked around at the end of the settle to see what was the
matter.

"He won't let me put him to bed," said Mrs. Linn, "and it was time half an
hour ago."

"Oh, let him sit up a little while longer if he likes," said Mr. Linn.
"It's of no use to make him cry."

Mrs. Linn reluctantly left Rodolphus, murmuring to herself that he ought
to go to bed. Very soon, she said, he would be asleep upon the floor. "I
would _make_ him go," she a