“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.”