He Has Them--What Shall He Do With Them?
But the first broad stare of the day's bright eyes drove all these dark
dreams and wild shapes of the night from his mind; and nimble and fresh
as a jay-bird--nimbler and fresher, indeed, than was his wont--Sprigg
sprang from his bed and donned the red moccasins. Yes, shod his feet the
first thing; and, leaving his breeches to cover the naked legs of the
stool, he went out on the front porch, there to take his morning airing
and see what color red moccasins were by daylight. Here, at the end of
an hour, he was found by his mother, strutting to and fro like a young
peacock in the pride of his first tail feathers. The morning breezes
briskly fluttering his only garment and doing all they could for his
health. Provoked to find him at so late an hour, in such a guise, which
was full six inches too short for any guise at all, Elster gave the
"rising hope and promise" a spank, which would have done you good to see
and hear, and bade him go and finish his toilet and perform his morning
ablutions--all in a hurry, too, or she would give his bread and milk to
Pow-wow. Whereat the hopeful youngster kicked up his heels, and, as it
pleased him for once to be obedient, ran and did as he was bidden, and
in a trice was ready for his bread and milk, which, in the glee of the
moment, he shared with Pow-wow.
The day succeeding pap's return chanced to be Sunday, so Sprigg, as a
matter of course, was allowed to wear the red moccasins from morning
till night, just by way of making him sensible. How much better and more
dearly to be remembered that day was than Monday, or any other day of
the week. But a too full Sunday makes an empty Monday, as Mother Goose
herself has covertly hinted in the well known lines:
"As Tommie Snooks and Bessie Brooks
Were walking out on Sunday,
Says Tommie Snooks to Bessie Brooks:
'To-morrow will be Monday.'"
The next day, not being permitted to wear the red moccasins, our hero
grew tenderfooted and ill at ease with the ground he needs must walk on,
and more than once, with a moccasin in each hand, did he go to his
mother and lay before her his trouble of mind.
"Mam, I do wish that I could go to grandpap's house to-day."
"And why do you wish to go to grandpap's house?"
"To wear my red moccasins to church next Sunday."
"I have set my foot on your moccasins there, my boy!" and Elster, for
once, laid down the law, with a look and tone of decision which put it
in force right there on the spot. "To church your red tomfooleries never
shall go while I have a membership there!"
"Well, then, if not to church, to grandmam's quilting?"
"I rather think you will have to wait for the day. Grandmam will hardly
get up a quilting just to give you a chance of showing off your
moccasins."
"And how long shall I have to wait for the day?"
"Monday--Wednesday--eight--ten days," replied Elster, counting them off
on her fingers.
Giving a backward jerk of the heel, expressive of impatience, the spoilt
boy exclaimed: "Oh, how long a time to wait! Where's the use of a
feller's always waiting?"
"A kick in the ribs may make old Blue Blaze quicken her pace, but if you
want Old Time to quicken his you must neither kick him nor seize him by
the forelock, but catch him by the tail and do your best to hold him
back; then he'll go fast enough, I warrant you! So go along with your
moccasins and put them away in the chest, or the rats and mice will gnaw
them, as rats and mice are always sure to do with everything of the sort
we set our hearts too much on. Then go to the woods and play like a
bird. Pow-wow will go along with you and show you how--be glad to do
it."
Sprigg and Pow-wow went out to play, but the dog was more like a bird
than the boy. The glad light was gone from his heart. His heart was in
the chest with his treasures--his treasures denied him as too precious
for every day and Sunday too. Barefooted and out of sorts, he dragged
along through the idle hours. He should have been hoeing corn; and, when
the night was come and the jay-bird went to his nest with a thankful
heart, Sprigg went to his with nothing of the kind, and, therefore, had
no pleasant dreams. Nor was this all. That night, for the third time in
his life--the second being the night before, and the first the night
before that--Sprigg went to his rest without saying "Now I lay me down
to sleep," the sweet old words his mother had taught him to speak when
he could scarcely speak at all, and which he could never fitly and truly
speak again, so long as the red moccasins and the like vain fancies
filled his heart. The next day, iller at ease than ever--all but
desperate--he went to his mother, where, banging away at her ponderous
loom, she was just finishing a nice piece of flax linen for him and pap,
thus renewing the subject:
"Mam, wouldn't you like to know how the old folks are at the fort
to-day?"
"Yes, indeed; that I would!"
"And wouldn't you like for me to go and see how they are?"
"And wear your red moccasins?" added his mother, with a mocking smile.
"I could carry the moccasins in my hands."
"And who would carry your feet?"
"Shank's mare can carry my feet, for Shank's mare can carry double."
"But Shank's mare is tenderfooted, and there are twenty miles of stony
hills and shaggy woods between here and the fort. Besides, Shank's mare
could never find the way."
"Yes, but I can! You first go by the hunting camp, then by the Lick,
then by the sugar camp, and the next thing you know you are there."
"Now, what did I tell you? The Lick comes before the hunting camp, and
there is no sugar camp at all. So the next thing you know you are not
there, but lost. Besides all this, there are a thousand wild things in
the woods, which even a strong man without his gun and knife would not
be willing to run the risk of meeting. So just content yourself to stay
at home, my boy, until to-morrow week, when we shall all be going to
grandmam's quilting, and you will have somebody to keep you out of
harm's way."
"I could go now and get back in time to go then, too," urged Sprigg, who
was in a fair way of sliding off into one of his pets.
"But Sprigg, have you so soon forgotten what pap was telling us last
night of his adventures between here and our old home? Once he was by
three Indians chased far into the night, and pressed so closely that he
only saved himself by leaping from a high bank into a deep river, where,
as good luck would have it, a thick growth of rushes fringed the water's
edge, thus affording him a hiding place until the savages gave up the
pursuit. Then there was that other adventure with the two Indians, in
which he should certainly have lost his life but for the timely
assistance of brave Pow-wow. Now, Sprigg, what would you do miles and
miles away from home, in the dark and lonesome woods, were you to see
one of these terrible red men running to meet you, yelling like a
demon--all hideously painted, rifle in hand, belt stuck full of
tomahawks and scalping knives, eh?"
"I would scamper away as fast as Shank's mare could carry me," promptly
rejoined our hero, who, though vain as a young peacock, was as bold as a
young game-cock. Elster continued:
"And, Sprigg, there are bears in the woods, who have such a fancy for
little boys that, should they find one astray too close to their den,
they would hug him, and hug him, till there would not be enough breath
left in his body to carry him home. So he stays just there; and when he
is found, if ever he is found at all, the grass and the weeds and the
dead leaves of the trees have gathered about him and covered him
up--nothing left but his bones and his buttons to tell you whether his
name was John or Sprigg. And, Sprigg" here Elster lowered her voice as
if he of whom she would speak might hear her--"there is one bear in the
woods so large and strong and bold that five dogs as large and strong
and bold as Pow-wow would be no match for him in a fight. Hunters who
have lived much alone in the forest--red hunters, as well as white--say
that neither arrow nor bullet has power to kill him. Though the eye of
the marksman be as keen as that of a lynx, and his hand as steady and
firm as the limb of an oak, and his bullet as swift as the red bolt shot
from the edge of a storm cloud--all will avail him nothing; for, in a
flash of time, where but the moment before appeared a bear, the hunter
now sees nothing but a vine-clad rock, or a moss-grown stump, or a low,
thick bush, waving its green head to the forest winds. Sometimes no
shape whatever appears, and when this is the case, while yet the blue
rifle smoke is curling up over his head, the hunter will hear, just
there in the empty air so near that he could lay his hand on the spot, a
low laugh--He-he-he! A wild, low laugh of scorn and derision, which
causes the strong, bold man to quake and quail far more than were he to
hear the loud, fierce growl of a bear behind him. Saving the red man, no
one knows who or what this terrible shape of the wilderness is--where he
dwells, nor how he exists; whom he loves, nor whom he hates; but white
men call him 'Nick of the Woods.'"