Mr. Jones said no more, but took his boy up gently, though firmly, and placed him beside his sister. Then he got in himself,—took hold of the reins,—spoke to his two fine horses, and at once the whole party began to move off; the sleigh bells jingling a merry tune.
Poor little William clung, frightened, to his sister; and it was a good while before he could get over the idea that the very next moment they would all be thrown over and dashed to pieces. After a while, however, he got used to the motion of the sleigh, and seeing that they passed on so smoothly, safely, and merrily, the idea of danger gradually faded from his mind; and long before he reached his uncle’s house, he was enjoying the ride as much as the rest.
William’s cousins were all delighted to see him, and he spent with them one of the happiest days in his life.
And when the time came for Mr. Jones and his family to return, William parted, with a feeling of reluctance, from his happy playmates. As he again stood by the sleigh, and looked at the two stout horses that were harnessed to it, he felt his old fear stealing over his mind. But he was not only now ashamed of that fear, but felt that to indulge in it was not right. So, with his best effort, he restrained it—stepping resolutely into the sleigh.
The last “good-byes” said, Mr. Jones gave the word, and off they went. When about half of the way home, and at a time when even the lingering remains of William’s timidity had passed away, two wild young men, half intoxicated, came dashing along in another sleigh, at a most furious rate. Bent on mischief, and thoughtless of the harm they might occasion, they appeared determined to frighten the horses attached to other sleighs, and thereby cause those who were in them to be thrown out into the snow-banks.
It so happened that the sleigh in which were Mr. Jones and his family, were passing near a steep declivity, at the time these young men came up to them, and ran their horses so close upon those of Mr. Jones, that he was compelled either to be rolled down the bank, or receive the shock of their sleigh against his own. He chose the latter alternative. As the two vehicles struck each other, that of Mr. Jones was nearly thrown over, and it so happened that Ellen, who was much alarmed, lost her balance, and but for the fact that William, himself dreadfully frightened, seized hold of, and clung to her with all his strength, she would have been thrown down a very steep hill, and, perhaps, have been killed. As it was, however, no one was injured.
“If it hadn’t been for me,” William said, while they were all talking over the matter, on arriving at home, “Ellen would have been pitched head foremost down that steep bank.”
“But if you had staid at home,” his father remarked, “it would not have been in your power thus to have saved, perhaps, your sister’s life. And now, an’t you glad, my son, you were with us?”
“Yes, father, I am very glad now.”
“Suppose, William,” Mr. Jones asked, in a serious tone, “that in the effort to save your sister, you had yourself been thrown out of the sleigh, and badly hurt, would you then have been sorry that you went with us?”