Within five minutes the boy had clambered out of the pit. Then Hubert began his struggle to follow, but Ted stopped him, insisting that both the sled and the Christmas tree be drawn out first. This having been accomplished with considerable difficulty, Hubert, with the rope tied round his waist, was assisted to the upper level after much effort and some strain on the part of both boys.
"I'll never slide down that hill again," vowed Hubert, as they neared the cheeringly lighted farm-house, dragging sled and tree.
But Ted only said:
"I'm glad we got out without help. I'm glad we fell in, too, because it was a little bit like being soldiers in the trenches."
Hubert Ridgway was the petted son of the house they were entering, while Theodore Carroll was but a semi-adopted orphan cousin who, though well cared for, had known no pampering. This accounted in part for the latter's greater energy and self-reliance, but perhaps there was something in this lean, dark, keen-eyed handsome boy from inheritance that the fair-haired, plump, ease-loving Hubert lacked. Ted knew little about his parents, and rarely asked questions because he observed a slight note of disapproval when his aunt and his uncles answered, but he had heard more than once that his father was "a poet who nearly died in the poor-house" and that his mother was "high-strung and artistic"—whatever that might mean. His parents had missed life's material prizes and come to early death, but they had lived intensely; and the son of their blood, alert, eager, fully alive in both body and brain, was likewise inclined to look beyond the mere pleasures of the senses toward the higher and more truly substantial values.
The difference between the two boys was indicated not only in their mishap of the afternoon but as they sat and talked in the warm, comfortable sitting-room after supper. Hubert could not spare a thought for anything but the coming Christmas presents which he hoped were many and varied, including heaps of good things to eat. Ted was happily expectant also, but he thought and spoke much more about the promised visit to Camp Hancock and the hunting trip to follow in the Okefinokee Swamp.
Ted usually spent part of the year with his uncle in North Carolina and the other part with his uncle in southern Georgia, attending school in both States. He knew that his Georgia uncle, who was his favorite, wanted him all the time, and he preferred the easy-going life on the big farm near the borders of the Okefinokee; but he traveled back and forth because his North Carolina uncle, though really indifferent, made a virtue of insisting on the arrangement entered into when the widow Carroll promptly followed her poet-husband to another world and her brothers recognized their duty to look after her son. This winter the Georgia uncle had invited both boys, proposing to take them on a hunting trip in the great swamp, and—to the delight of Ted—it was arranged for them to stop at Augusta and visit Camp Hancock on their way down.
"I can't wait till I see my Christmas presents," said Hubert as they were going to bed.
"I can hardly wait till I see Camp Hancock and thousands of soldiers," said Ted. "Camp Hancock and the Okefinokee are my two great Christmas presents."