another boy's sled, and
not once this winter. He heard no more shouts; the frosty air was
very still. He thought to himself that the other boys had gone home,
but he did not care.

However, when he reached the top of the hill there was another boy
with his sled. He had been all ready to coast down, but had seen
Ephraim coming, and waited.

"Hullo!" he called.

"Hullo!" returned Ephraim, panting.

Then the boy stared. "It ain't you, Ephraim Thayer!" he demanded.

"Why ain't it me?" returned Ephraim, with a manful air, swaggering
back his shoulders at the other boy, who was Ezra Ray.

"Why, I didn't know your mother ever let you out," said Ezra, in a
bewildered fashion. In fact, the vision of Ephraim Thayer out with a
sled, coasting, at eleven o'clock at night, was startling. Ezra
remembered dazedly how he had heard his mother say that very
afternoon that Ephraim was worse, that the doctor had been there last
Saturday, and she didn't believe he would live long. He looked at
Ephraim standing there in the moonlight almost as if he were a
spirit.

"She ain't let me for some time; I've been sick," admitted Ephraim,
yet with defiance.

"I heard you was awful sick," said Ezra.

"I was; but the doctor give me some medicine that cured me."

Ephraim placed his sled in position and got on stiffly. The other boy
still watched. "She know you're out to-night?" he inquired, abruptly.

Ephraim looked up at him. "S'pose you think you'll go an' tell her,
if she don't," said he.

"No, I won't, honest."

"Hope to die if you do?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I run out of the side door."

"Both on 'em asleep?"

Ephraim nodded.

Ezra Ray whistled. "You'll get a whippin' when your mother finds it
out."

"No, I sha'n't. Mother can't whip me, because the doctor says it
ain't good for me. You goin' down?"

"Can't go down but once. I've got to go home, or mother 'll give it
to me."

"Does she ever whip you?"

"Sometimes."

"Mine don't," said Ephraim, and he felt a superiority over Ezra Ray.
He thought, too, that his sled was a better one. It was not painted,
nor was it as new as Ezra's, but it had a reputation. Barney had won
many coasting laurels with it in his boyhood, and his little brother,
who had never used it himself, had always looked upon it with
unbounded faith and admiration.

He gathered up his sled-rope, spurred himself into a start with his
heels, and went swiftly down the long hill, gathering speed as he