led and glowed; he longed, as a prisoner, for freedom. As he
stood there he saw that a nail held down the lower sash, which he had so
often tried, but in vain, to lift. Putting his finger on this nail, he
felt it move. It had been placed loosely in a gimlet-hole, and could
be drawn out easily. For a little while he stood there, taking out and
putting in the nail. While doing this he thought he heard a sound below,
and instantly dropped noiselessly from the window. He had scarcely done
so when the door of his room opened and Mother Peter came in. She looked
at him sharply, and then retired without speaking.

All the next day Andy listened after Mother Peter, waiting to hear her
go out. But she did not leave the house until after he was asleep in the
evening.

On the next day, after waiting until almost noon, the child's impatience
of confinement grew so strong that he could no longer defer his
meditated escape from the window, for ever since he had looked over the
sash and discovered how it was fastened down, his mind had been running
on this thing. He had noticed that Mother Peter's visits to his room
were made after about equal intervals of time, and that after she gave
him his dinner she did not come up stairs again for at least an hour.
This had been brought, and he was again alone.

For nearly five minutes after the woman went out, he sat by the untasted
food, his head bent toward the door, listening. Then he got up quietly,
climbed upon the window-sill and pulled the nail out. Dropping back upon
the floor noiselessly, he pushed his hands upward against the sash, and
it rose easily. Like an animal held in unwilling confinement, he did
not stop to think of any danger that might lie in the way of escape
when opportunity for escape offered. The fear behind was worse than any
imagined fear that could lie beyond. Pushing up the sash, Andy, without
looking down from the window, threw himself across the sill and dropped
his body over, supporting himself with his hands on the snow-encrusted
ledge for a moment, and then letting himself fall to the ground, a
distance of nearly ten feet. He felt his breath go as he swept through
the air, and lost his senses for an instant or two.

Stunned by the fall, he did not rise for several minutes. Then he got
up with a slow, heavy motion and looked about him anxiously. He was in
a yard from which there was no egress except by way of the house. It
was bitter cold, and he had on nothin