The blue-grass pasture (was it not like unto the garden of Eden ?) lay right before him.

That box-elder stood just in sight.

To spring over the fence and take the path down the hill and over the brook was as quickly done as decided upon.

To stand again under the box-elder, to climb again over the farther fence, and to walk down the road toward the school-house was so easy and so delightful that it was done without thought.

For Ralph was an eager man--when he saw no wrong in anything that proposed itself, he was wont to follow his impulse without deliberation.