,
paddling through the marshy meadows and contriving to get over the ditch
would more than overbalance the few steps he saved.

When he reached the Kingsbury orchard, where all the apple boughs were
trained in horizontal lines, with a view to making them bear well, his
head seemed to swim with suggestions of tight ropes. Around and above
the air was filled with golden opportunities as near to tight ropes as
Paradise is near to Heaven itself. These precious opportunities
whispered to Benny, the charming visions beckoned, and Benny felt that
if it cost him two and sixpence, he _must_ have a walk on some of those
enchanting boughs.

Everything was just as it had been left when Mr. Kingsbury died. Against
one of the trees stood a ladder, and scattered all about under the trees
were the limbs that had been lopped off, under his direction, the very
day when he fell with apoplexy. Here and there they had been gathered up
in bristling piles.

Benny ascended into one after another of these blissful trees. At first
he walked on the lowest boughs, but gradually went higher and higher,
until he promenaded fearlessly on the very topmost. He bowed, he kissed
his hand, he turned and returned, he was happy and time sped swiftly by.
He was so absorbed in his delight, that he heard, as one who hears not,
a wagon go rattling along the road, and the shouting, whistling and
singing of boys. It was past noon before he recalled the object with
which he had left home that morning. He sat upon the very pinnacle of
achievement--that is to say, he sat upon the very highest point in the
orchard, his head up, his spirits up, with such a decidedly upward
tendency that it was hard for him to make up his mind to descend to the
plane of common life. However, he thought it must be something past ten
o'clock, so he slipped himself off his pinnacle, or was in the act of
doing so, when he missed his hold and went off with a sudden jerk.
Something scraped the whole length of his back, and seemed to hold him
in a relentless grip. It was the stump of a small branch, which had
caught him by the bottom of his loose jacket, and slipped up under it
quicker than a wink, as Benny slid down. It was one of those things of
which we say, "You couldn't do it again to save your life."

And there Benny, exalted, hung. The tips of his toes just touched a
bough below; with the tips of his fingers and thumb he could reach and
pick at the end of a branch above. He tried t