The Practical Joke by Anonymous

"Many years ago, when I was a slip of a lad like Tom there"--"Why, uncle," cried little Willy in amazement, "did you say you were no bigger than Tom? Were you ever as little as Tom, uncle?" --"Hush, Willy," said Tom, a well-grown boy of fourteen, "I'm sure you need not make such a wonderment at that; I am not so very small, and I expect to be as big as Uncle Ned when I'm a man. How naughty of you to interrupt the story!"

"Well, Willy," said Uncle Ned, "I don't suppose I look much now as if I had once been a slender lad, with a soft fair brow, and rosy cheeks; but I was as full of fun and frolic as the best of you. I will tell you how I once came near losing my own life and that of a friend and playmate, by my love of mischief. It was a Christmas night. We were gathered round the fire just as we now are, cracking nuts, eating apples, and telling stories, when I proposed to Jack Thornton, and his little brother, that we should go for a skating frolic to 'the pond,' a beautiful sheet of water about a quarter of a mile distant. Instantly we were in motion, looking up our skates and mittens. Off we started, in high glee, promising ourselves fine fun on the ice. The moon shone brilliantly--every object could be seen with perfect distinctness. The little pond, which was supplied with the purest spring water, looked like a sheet of silver, sparkling in the moonlight. I well remember looking down through the clear and beautifully transparent ice, and seeing the pond-lilies, with their broad leaves of tender green, mingled with rushes and long grass, while the little fish danced like beams of silver-light in the clear water. The pond was of no great extent, but toward the middle it was quite deep, and formed a fine broad sheet of ice for skating.