“can you see?” asked hilda wells, as she tied the handkerchief over fred warren’s eyes.

“you might make it a little tighter,” answered fred.

so hilda tightened the blindfolder.

“now, we’ll turn you around three times, start you straight,—and you pin the tail on the donkey,” she said.

the “donkey” was a large picture of that animal fastened to the wall at the opposite side[37] of the room. it was minus its paper tail, which fred held in his hand.

“don’t you peep!” cried all the children.

“we’ll see if he can do better than i did!” declared frank bennett. so far the prize belonged to frank. fred’s turn came last.

after being turned around three times, fred walked straight up to the picture and pinned the tail exactly in place.

“oh, frank, that is better than you did by two inches!” said hilda.

“fred gets the prize!” cried the excited children, as fred pulled off the handkerchief.

then little marie, hilda’s sister, handed him a pearl-handled penknife.

fred made little of his prize, and as soon as the children stopped examining it, slipped it into his pocket.

after that, mrs. wells served ice-cream and cakes.

oh the way home frank asked fred to let him see the prize. “it is a beauty of a knife, fred,” said he. “until you tried, i thought i should be the winner.”

fred muttered something about having too many knives already.

frank opened his eyes wide in surprise. “too[38] many!” he exclaimed. “i wish i had too many! i’ve never had more than one, and that was father’s when he was a boy.”

“good night, frank,” said fred, suddenly swinging into a side street. “i am going to take a short cut home.”

“good night, fred,” called frank.

“that’s a queer way for a fellow to act,” he thought, as he walked on alone. “i wonder what is the matter with him.”

suddenly he heard footsteps, and in a moment fred had caught up with him. “here, take it, i don’t want another knife,” he said, thrusting the prize into frank’s hand.

“oh—oh, i don’t want your knife!” exclaimed frank.

“well, i don’t want it, either!” said fred. “it belongs to you, anyway; and i believe you know it! i am almost certain you could see me peeping from under that handkerchief!”

“i was not quite sure,” said frank; “not sure enough to say anything about it, anyway.”

“well, if you don’t keep the knife i’ll throw it into the river,” said fred, running away as fast as he could.