gallop; to know that one might freely enter that
tented elysium--if it were possible he would run off with a circus though
it meant that he had the morals of a serpent!

Now, eastward from the big house lay the village and its churches: thither
was tame virtue. But westward lay a broad field stretching off to an
orchard, and beyond swelled a gentle hill, mellow in the distance. Still
more remotely far, at the hill's rim, was a blur of woods beyond which
the sun went down each night. This, in the little boy's mind, was the
highway to the glad free Life of Evil. Many days he looked to that western
wood when the sky was a gush of colour behind its furred edge, perceiving
all manner of allurements to beckon him, hearing them plead, feeling them
tug. Daily his spirit quickened within him to their solicitations, leaping
out and beyond him in some magic way to bring back veritable meanings and
values of the future.

Then a day came when the desire to be off was no longer resistible. There
was a month of school yet; an especially bitter thought, for had he not
lately been out of school a week with mumps; and during that very week had
not the teacher's father died, so that he was cheated out of the resulting
three-days' vacation, other children being free while he lay on a bed of
pain--if you tasted pickles or any sour thing? Not only was it useless to
try to learn to write "a good business hand," like Ralph Overton--he took
the phrase to mean one of those pictured hands that were always pointing
to things in the newspaper advertisements--but there was the circus and
other evil things--and he was getting on in years.

It was a Saturday afternoon. To-morrow would be too late. He knew he would
not be allowed to start on the Sabbath, even in a career that was to be
all wickedness. In the grape-arbour he massed certain articles necessary
for the expedition: a very small strip of carpet on which he meant to
sleep; a copy of "_Golden Days_," with an article giving elaborate
instructions for camping in the wilderness. He was compelled to disregard
all of them, but there was comfort and sustenance in the article itself.
Then there was the gun that came at Christmas. It shot a cork as far as
the string would let it go, with a fairly satisfying report (he would have
that string off, once he was in the woods!). Also there were three glass
alleys, two agate taws and thirty-eight commies. And to hold his outfit
there was a rather sizable bo