“So you’re tired of that gun, already, are you, Neddie?” remarked his mother, quietly.
“My, no!” denied Ned, in alarm. “But the hill’s splendid, anyway. It’s almost slick as glass.”
“The whole town will be there, this afternoon,” he added, poising a generous mouthful of apple pie.
“I won’t be there,” said his mother.
“Nor I,” said his father.
“Well, all the kids and girls will,” explained Ned; and the chunk of pie disappeared, to fill some mysterious crevice inside. “Shoveling in fuel,” his father termed Ned’s eating during the cold weather; but whether the statement was true or a joke, the reader must judge according to his own experience.
That afternoon it really did seem that Ned had not exaggerated. Breede’s Hill was in its glory, and “the whole town” was on hand, with sleds of all descriptions.
The track had been packed solid, and glistened in the glancing rays of the sun. Downward sped, with shrill shrieks from the girls and wild halloos of warning from the boys, a torrent of figures showing black against the white background; and upward toiled, along either side of the torrent, a swarm of other black figures, to halt, and gather, and turn at the crest.
Bob was there, a privileged character. Not a dog in Beaufort was so widely or favorably known. What fun he found here at a place where he was almost the only one whose legs had to take him down hill as well as up, is a problem. Like a flash Ned on his clipper shot from top to bottom—and skirting the track, with tongue out and with excited yelps, falling farther and farther behind, after him raced Bob, not to catch him until the sled had stopped. Up trudged Ned, hauling his sled, with Bob at last by his heels; and the performance was repeated.