"No, he won't have any lasses after it," said Deborah. "I'm a-tendin'

to him, father. Now, Ephraim, you take this medicine this minute, or I shall give you somethin' worse than medicine. Open your mouth!" And Ephraim opened his mouth as if his mother's will were a veritable wedge between his teeth, swallowed the medicine with a miserable gulp, and made a grotesque face of wrath and disgust. Caleb, watching, swallowed and grimaced at the same instant that his son did. There were tears in his old eyes as he took up another apple to pare.

Deborah set the bottle on the shelf and laid the spoon beside it.

"You've got to take this every hour for a spell," said she, "an' I ain't goin' to have any such work, if you be sick; you can make up your mind to it."

And make up his mind to this unwelcome dose Ephraim did. Once an hour his mother stood over him with the spoon, and the fierce odor of the medicine came to his nostrils; he screwed his eyes tight, opened his mouth, and swallowed without a word. There were limits to his mother's patience which Ephraim dared not pass. He had only vague ideas of what might happen if he did, but he preferred to be on the safe side. So he took the medicine, and did not lift his voice against it, although he had his thoughts.

It did seem as if the medicine benefited him. He breathed more easily after a while, and his color was more natural. Deborah felt encouraged; she even went down upon her stiff knees after her family were in bed, and thanked the Lord from the depths of her sorely chastened but proud heart. She did not foresee what was to come of it; for that very night Ephraim, induced thereto by the salutary effect of the medicine, which removed somewhat the restriction of his laboring heart upon his boyish spirits, perpetrated the crowning act of revolt and rebellion of his short life.

The moon was bright that night. The snow was frozen hard. The long hills where the boys coasted looked like slopes of silver. Ephraim had to go to bed at eight. He lay, well propped up on pillows, in his little bedroom, and he could hear the shouts of the coasting boys.

Now that he could breathe more easily the superiority of his enforced deprivation of such joys no longer comforted him as much 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 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 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."