Young horses frisked in the pastures or came whinnying to the fence as
she passed. Lazy cows cropped the grass at the sides of the road,
pushing their heads into the zigzag corners of the rail fence in
pursuit of the tender clover that had crept through from the thrifty
meadows.
The school was a little brick structure standing back a short distance
from the road, with a playground on each side as enchantingly beautiful
as it was novel to Alice Glenn, the little girl who had come from town
by invitation of the teacher to visit the school. Accustomed to the
severer discipline of the graded school of which she was a member, the
unconventional ways of these children amused the young visitor greatly.
But who could study on a morning like this, with the delicious warbling
of the birds sounding in one's ears?
Who could be expected to take an interest in nouns and adverbs while
his heart was out in the woods with the bugs and bees or with the sheep
over in yonder field, whose ba-a, ba-a, was borne in distinctly through
the open door?
"I'm sure I would never have my lessons if I went to school here in the
summer time," thought Alice as she glanced over the room. "The country
is too lovely to be spoiled by school books. Why, that boy has a
wounded bird in his desk! I wonder if Miss Harper knows?" And a
moment after, Alice met the bold, defiant look of the boy himself,
which seemed to say, "Well, what are you going to do about it? That
bird belongs to me.
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