I
TED and Hubert were proud of the commission and felt that much depended on them. Ted led the way, not merely because he was past fourteen and more than half a year older than his cousin, but because Hubert unconsciously yielded to the captaincy of a more venturesome and resolute spirit. Everything was ready for Christmas at home—mince pies, fruit cake, a fat turkey hanging out in the cold—and no doubt the as yet mysteriously reserved presents would be plentiful and satisfactory. Only a tree was still needed, and Ted and Hubert were to get it.
So now, in the early afternoon of December 24, 1917, they tramped up the long hill at the back of the Ridgway farm toward North Carolina woods of evergreens and leafless maples. The landscape as far as the eye went was white with snow, but its depth, except in drifts, was only about two inches. Ted dragged a sled with rope wherewith to strap the tree thereon. Hubert trudged beside him—always a little behind—carrying a heavy sharp hatchet.
"Aunt Mary said we must get a good one, small size, and I'm going to hunt till we do," said Ted.
"Papa says it isn't everybody who'll have all we'll have this Christmas," remarked Hubert. "He says it's great to have a farm as well as a town house and perduce your own food in war time."
"'Produce'—not 'perduce,'" corrected Ted.
About two-thirds of the way up the long white stretch of hillside the boys paused on the brink of a pit that had been dug years before by a thick-witted settler in a hopeless quest for the gold that was then profitably mined some ten miles away. The pit was about twenty-five feet deep at its middle and perhaps thirty-five in diameter—an excavation at once too large and too small to pay for the great labor of filling in. So it had been left as it was. The snows of the windy hillside had drifted into it until the bottom was deeply covered.
The boys paused only to take a look into the "big hole" and then went on their way up the remaining stretch of open hillside. They explored the woods for a quarter of a mile or more before they found just the sort of slenderly tapering and gracefully branching spruce that they wanted. In no great while this was cut down, the spreading branches were roped in, and the trunk tied on the sled, which was then dragged out into the open.
The long descent toward the distant farm-house was gradual enough to render sledding safe yet steep enough at points to make dragging burdensome. Ted declared that the easiest way to get down with their load was to slide down, and Hubert agreed.
"But we'd better look out for the pit," added Hubert.