went. Poor Ephraim had an instinct for steering; he did not swerve
from the track. The frosty wind smote his face, his breath nearly
failed him, but half-way down he gave a triumphant whoop. When he
reached the foot of the hill he had barely wind enough to get off his
sled and drag it to one side, for Ezra Ray was coming down.

Ezra did not slide as far as Ephraim had done. Ephraim watched
anxiously lest he should. "That sled of yours ain't no good," he
panted, when Ezra had stopped several yards from where he stood.

"Guess it ain't quite so fast as yours," admitted Ezra. "That's your
brother's, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, that sled can't be beat in town. Mine's 'bout as good as any,
'cept that. I've always heard my brother say that your brother's sled
was the best one he ever see."

Ephraim stood looking at his brother's old battered but distinguished
sled as if it had been a blood-horse. "Guess it can't be beat," he
chuckled.

"No sir, it can't," said Ezra. He started off past Ephraim down the
road, with his sled trailing at his heels.

"Hullo!" called Ephraim, "ain't you goin' up again?"

"Can't, got to go home."

"Less try it jest once more, an' see if you can't go further."

"No, I can't, nohow. Mother won't like it as 'tis."

"Whip you?"

"'Spect so; don't mind it if she does." Ezra brought a great show of
courage to balance the other's immunity from danger. "Don't mind
nothin' 'bout a little whippin'," he added, with a brave and
contemptuous air. He whistled as he went on.

Ephraim stood watching him. He had enough brave blood in his veins to
feel that this contempt of a whipping was a greater thing than not
being whipped. He felt an envious admiration of Ezra Ray, but that
did not prevent his calling after him:

"Ezra!"

"What say?"

"You ain't goin' to tell my mother?"

"Didn't I say I wasn't? I don't tell fibs. Hope to die if I do."

Ezra's brave whistle, as cheerfully defiant of his mother's
prospective wrath as the note of a bugler advancing to the charge,
died away in the distance. For Ephraim now began the one unrestrained
hilarity of his whole life. All by himself in the white moonlight and
the keen night air he climbed the long hill, and slid down over and
over. He ignored his feeble and laboring breath of life. He trod
upon, he outspeeded all infirmities of the flesh in his wild triumph
of the spirit. He shouted and hallooed as he shot down the hill. His
mother could not have