He thought to himself that the other boys had gone home, but he did not care.
However, when he reached the top of the hill there was another boy with his sled.

He had been all ready to coast down, but had seen Ephraim coming, and waited.
"Hullo!" he called.
"Hullo!" returned Ephraim, panting.
Then the boy stared.

"It ain't you, Ephraim Thayer!" he demanded.
"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.