houses, occupied by artisans and mechanics.

A few quarreling children paddled sticks, or sailed chip boats,
in the gutters.

"Come on, now! Get a move on you, Hi!" sounded the raucous voice
of Daniel Dwight the elder, behind him in the store.

Hiram went at his task with neither interest nor energy.

All about him the houses and the street were grimy and
depressing. It had been a gray and murky morning; but overhead
a patch of sky was as blue as June. He suddenly saw a flock of
pigeons wheeling above the tunnel of the street, and the boy's
heart leaped at the sight.

He longed for freedom. He wished he could fly, up, up, up above
the housetops and the streets, like those feathered fowl.

He knew he was stagnating here in this dingy store; the deadly
sameness of his life chafed him sorely.

"I'd take another job if I could find one," he muttered, stirring
up the bunches of yellowing radish leaves and trying to make them
look fresh. "And Old Daniel is likely to give me a chance to
hunt a job pretty sudden--the way he talks. But if Dan, Junior,
told him what happened yesterday, I wonder the old gentleman
hasn't been after me with a sharp stick."

From somewhere--out of the far-distant open country where it