The problem of the rights of the soil of the old earth was upon the boy, but he could not solve it--only scowl and grieve over it.
Past the length of the shining fields, well back from the road, with a fine curve of avenue between lofty pine-trees leading up to it, stood Doctor Prescott's house.

It was much the finest one in the village, massively built of gray stone in large irregular blocks, veined at the junctions with white stucco; a great white pillared piazza stretched across the front, and three flights of stone steps led over smooth terraces to it; for it was raised on an artificial elevation above the road-level.

Jerome, having passed the last field, reached the avenue leading to the doctor's house, and stopped a moment.

His hands and feet were cold; there was a nervous trembling all over his little body.

He remembered how once, when he was much younger, his mother had sent him to the doctor's to have a tooth pulled, how he stood there trembling and hesitating as now, and how he finally took matters into his own hands.