It was wrong to play truant, but still it was very tempting.
_Twir-r-r-r_, up to the sky flew the larks. Down in the marsh below
the king-cups blossomed, as shining as gold.
Once or twice Timothy stopped, but his shoes pinched him and he ran on
all the more willingly because a bright butterfly went before him. But
where the path ran on above the marsh, and he looked down and saw the
king-cups, he dismissed all thoughts of school. The bank was long and
steep, but that did not matter to him. King-cups he must have; no
other flowers would do. He threw his school bag on the grass, and
began to scramble down the bank.
Timothy turned his feet toward the king-cups, but his shoes seemed
resolved to go to school. As he persisted in going toward the marsh,
he had such twitches and twinges as the fairy shoes pinched him that
it seemed as if his feet would be wrenched off. But Timothy was a
resolute little fellow, and he managed to drag himself, shoes and all,
down to the marsh.
Then he could not find a king-cup within reach. Not one grew on the
safe edge, but, like so many Will-o'-the-wisps, they shone out of the
depths of the treacherous bogs. Timothy wandered round the marsh;
_pinch, jerk_, every step hurt more than the one before. At last,
desperate with pain and disappointment, he fairly jumped into a patch
of the flowers that looked fairly near, and was at once ankle deep in
water.
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