At length he heard the sound of the sweeping, and a few minutes afterward his mother appeared at the door, coming in. Rodolphus dropped his blocks, sprang to his feet, and ran round behind the table--a round table which stood out in the middle of the room.
"Now, Rodolphus," said his mother, in a tone of remonstrance, looking at the same time very seriously at him. "It is time for you to go to bed."
Rodolphus said nothing, but began to dance about, looking at his mother very intently all the time, and moving this way and that, as she moved, so as to keep himself exactly on the opposite side of the table from her.
"Rodolphus!" said his mother, in a very stern and commanding tone. "Come to me this minute."
Rodolphus's mother was a very beautiful young woman. Her dark glossy hair hung in curls upon her neck.
When she found that it 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.