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.