as it had
done. His curtain was up, and the moonlight lay on his bed. The
mystic influence of that strange white orb which moves the soul of
the lover to dream of love and yearnings after it, which saddens with
sweet wounds the soul who has lost it forever, which increases the
terrible freedom of the maniac, and perhaps moves the tides,
apparently increased the longing in the heart of one poor boy for all
the innocent hilarity of his youth which he had missed.

Ephraim lay there in the moonlight, and longed as he had never longed
before to go forth and run and play and halloo, to career down those
wonderful shining slants of snow, to be free and equal with those
other boys, whose hearts told off their healthy lives after the
Creator's plan.

The clock in the kitchen struck nine, then ten. Caleb and Deborah
went to bed, and Ephraim could hear his father's snores and his
mother's heavy breathing from a distant room. Ephraim could not go to
sleep. He lay there and longed for the frosty night air, the sled,
and the swift flight down the white hill as never lover longed for
his mistress.

At half-past ten o'clock Ephraim rose up. He dressed himself in the
moonlight--all except his shoes; those he carried in his hand--and
stole out in his stocking-feet to the entryway, where his warm coat
and cap, which he so seldom wore, hung. Ephraim pulled the cap over
his ears, put on the coat, cautiously unbolted the door, and stepped
forth like a captive from prison.

He sat down on the doorstep and put on his shoes, tying them with
trembling, fumbling fingers. He expected every minute to hear his
mother's voice.

Then he ran down the yard to the wood shed. It was so intensely cold
that the snow did not yield to his tread, but gave out quick sibilant
sounds. It seemed to him like a whispering multitude called up by his
footsteps, and as if his mother must hear.

He knew where Barney's old sled hung in the woodshed, and the
woodshed door was unlocked.

Presently a boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard with a
bobbing sled in his wake. He expected every minute to hear the door
or window open; but he cleared the yard and dashed up the road, and
nobody arrested him.

[Illustration: "A boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard"]

Ephraim knew well the way to the coasting-hill, which was considered
the best in the village, although he had never coasted there himself,
except twice or thrice, surreptitiously, on