Temptation and Flight.
"It was the first of June, the day on which
It is as easy for the heart to be true,
As for grass to be green, or for skies to be blue."
But Sprigg's heart was too full of red moccasins for the laughing
gladness of the green fields, or the smiling delight of the blue sky, to
find any place there. What his mother had told him of the wild shapes
which haunted the forest had, for the time, caused his heart, bold as it
was for one of his years, to quake with a nameless dread, which seemed
to dog his shadow wherever he went. When the shades of night and the
hours of sleep were come, these wild remembrances took the form of
wilder dreams, which vexed and scared his slumbers till break of day.
But next day was the first of June; and the sun was too bright, and the
sky too blue, and the earth too green, for ugly dreams to linger long in
the mind, and by the time the shadows stood still at noon Nick of the
Woods, chasing Indians, hugging bears and the like terrors of the forest
were remembered only as frightful pictures seen in a book.
Sprigg had dined; and a healthy young cub of a bear never cleaned out a
hive of honey with a keener appetite than our hero his bowl of milk and
bread. For the seventh time that day he had looked at and tried on the
moccasins, just to reassure himself that they were made for his feet and
nobody else's, and to take a few quiet turns in them about the room,
just to see if they felt as easy as they fitted well. Now, with greater
liveliness and earnestness than ever, his thoughts returned to the
matter he had so near at heart; nor would they let him rest until he had
answered the question which, for the seventh time that day, he had put
to himself: "Shall I on with the moccasins and go to grandpap's house
to-day?"
The good voice in his heart said: "No, Sprigg! No! Don't you do it!
Don't even think of such a thing! It is not mam's wish; it is not pap's
wish, that you should venture so far away, through the wild and
dangerous woods all alone! It would vex and grieve them a thousand times
more than it could possibly gratify you. So stay at home, Sprigg; stay
at home, and have a care how you let red moccasins tempt you astray!
Wait, like a good boy, until you can go with pap and mam to grandmam's
quilting."
But quickly spoke up the bad voice in his heart and said: "Go, Sprigg!
Go! By all means go, and a delightful time you shall have of it--be sure
of that. The old folks won't care so much--not so very much! When did
they care so very much for anything you had done, even though it might
not have been exactly right. So up and away to grandpap's house! and
never a fear that a pair of red moccasins could take you anywhere it
pleased you not to go."
The good voice spoke soft and low; the bad voice loud and high. Sprigg
heard the bad voice best, because he liked it best. Still, he could not
fairly make up his mind. Perhaps the moccasins could help him to decide.
He went to the chest and, for the eighth time, took them out, that the
very thing that was tempting him to do wrong might tell him what were
best to be done. As he stood there, holding up the red temptation in the
fairest light before his eyes, he thought he heard a noise, coming, he
could not tell whence, which caused him to set the moccasins hastily
down on the chest lid and look about him. Nothing was there to be seen
that he had not seen a thousand times before. In a little while the
noise shaped itself into something almost like a voice, which seemed to
come directly up from the moccasins, saying:
"Are we not beautiful things for the feet, Sprigg? Oh, but we are! You
can't deny it! On with us, and away to grandpap's house!"
With startled eyes the boy looked all around him--not a living thing was
to be seen in the room. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The Indian
boy on the show bill was the nearest approach to a shape of life that
met his gaze. He clapped his hands to his ears to make sure they had not
played him a trick. His ears were all right; so was his coonskin cap,
the rim before, the tail behind. What seemed a voice began again, and,
for the life of him, Sprigg could not determine whether it came from the
moccasins or from his own heart.
"Who plies her loom, with shuttle and beam, and sings at her work with
so blithe a heart? Elster Whitney. And her shuttle shall fly, and her
beam shall bang, from hour to hour, till the day is well nigh done. Who
roams the forest, with dog and gun, and follows the chase with heart so
bold? Jervis Whitney. And his dog shall bound, and his gun shall bang,
from hour to hour, till the day is well nigh done. So, Sprigg, the day
is clear, and you have the half of a long, bright, summer day before
you. Make the most of it! There, near the fort, where grandpap lives,
lives young Ben Logan. Ben, when he sees you coming, all by your own
lone self, will shout: 'Hurrah! hurrah! what a brave boy is Sprigg!'
Yet, let him admire your bravery ever so much, he will be ready to die
of very envy, because of your beautiful moccasins. And there is little
Bertha Bryant, too, at the fort; blue-eyed little Bertha, laughing
little Bertha, dancing little Bertha! And Bertha will admire your
bravery even more than Ben, and love you to very distraction, because of
your beautiful moccasins. On with us, then, and away to grandpap's
house. We know the road; we can take you there safely enough. Let us
alone for that! and Sprigg is a brave boy! Who said our Sprigg was not a
brave boy? He-he-he!"
Sprigg thought he heard a low laugh; the queerest little laugh he had
ever heard. A laugh he did not exactly fancy, because it made the chills
come creeping up his back and set his flesh to creeping, and caused the
most peculiar sensations about the roots of the hair you can well
imagine. So, to keep up his spirits, he forced out a mechanical sort of
a sound, meant for a laugh, after which he felt considerably better,
because it made him imagine it was he who laughed but now, and that the
words he had heard were but the thoughts of his own heart.
Sprigg's mind was made up: He would go to grandpap's house that
self-same day. But he dared not put on the moccasins there in the house,
lest his mother should see him as he was making off and put her foot on
his little pet project. "I have it!" said he to the moccasins, for he
felt that they knew what was afloat, as well as himself. Pat to the
word, he slipped out to a bench in the yard, where Elster had set her
household vessels to sun. From these he took their large, oak-bound
cedar water bucket and brought it into the house. In this he concealed
the moccasins, and, with a cat-like step, stole out by the way of the
front porch. But just as he was climbing the yard fence, his mother, who
had left off her work at the loom for a few minutes, came to the door to
throw an old hen and her brood of young ones some dough, and seeing her
boy on the fence she called out:
"Where now, Sprigg, so brisk and spry, with my big cedar bucket?"
"I am going to our best spring, down yonder in the edge of the woods, to
fetch dear mam a good, cool drink of water."
"Our boy will be a credit and a blessing to us yet, let the wiseacres
predict as they will!" and Elster returned to her work with a glad
heart, that her son, for once, of his own accord, had bethought him of
doing a kind turn for his mother.
Sprigg sped down the hill till he reached the hollow in the edge of the
woods, where their favorite spring, screened from the rays of the
noon-day sun by thick, overhanging trees, came bubbling up from under a
mossy ledge of rock. Here, in the dark, cool shade, he sat down on the
ground to put on his moccasins. But why so trembled his hands? Why
trembled he so all over? And why did he fumble so long at the moccasin
latches? It was the guilt of that ugly lie, which he had sent back to
his mother, and with which his mouth and heart were now all hot and
foul.
"Quick! Quick!" There it was again at his side. That sound so like a
voice. "Right and tight! Brave! Brave! Who said our Sprigg was not a
brave boy? He-he-he!" And, while the voice was yet speaking, the
moccasins seemed to adjust themselves, to his feet of their own accord.
Now he was up, and now he was speeding away through the forest; his
road, one of those buffalo-traces, which, in those days, formed the only
highways through the wilderness; the road of all others to lead a young
runaway wide and wild of his mark. Soon, too soon, was Sprigg--vain
Sprigg, bad Sprigg, poor Sprigg--far out of sight of home, the one place
under the pitiful heavens where the young and the aged, the weak and the
helpless, the untried and the overtried, should look for happiness and
peace and safety!
He fled with his face toward Sunset-land; but never once thought he of
Little Winged Moccasin. Elster had often told her son of the little
Indian boy, who ran to Sunset-land in quest of his shadow, which he had
lost at noon-day. The legend ran thus:
"There was a Cherokee boy, who discovered one morning at sunrise what a
long shadow he cast on the ground. Whereat, greatly delighted, he cried
out: 'Look! look! see what a shadow I make! See what a giant I am!' But
as the sun rose higher and higher his shadow grew shorter and shorter,
until, at noon, it had dwindled to scarcely a span's length. Whereupon,
he set up a loud lamentation, when suddenly a Manitou appeared before
him, who wore on his feet a pair of winged red moccasins.
"'What grieves you, boy?' said the Manitou.
"'I have lost my shadow!' cried the boy.
"'Wait until sunset, and you shall find it again,' said the Manitou.
"'But I have not the patience to wait so long!' whined the boy. 'Could
I but get there, I would go to Sunset-land, to live forever, where the
shadows are always long!'
"'Look!' said the Manitou, 'I have no shadow at all; never had, neither
in Sunset-land nor anywhere else. Yet am I perfectly satisfied.'
"'Maybe I would be satisfied, too, without one, had I never had one,'
put in the boy.
"'Well,' quoth the Manitou, 'since you are not willing to wait for your
shadow till sunset, and must need go to Sunset-land, where you think the
shadows are always long--here, I will lend you my moccasins, which,
being winged, will enable you to keep pace with the sun, and arrive at
Sunset-land as soon as he.'
"The boy put on the moccasins; and, in a trice, he was flitting away
over the face of the green earth at ten times the speed of a wild goose
chased by the winds. He ran and ran, nor ceased to run, even when come
to the land he was in quest of. All unwitting where he was, or whither
going, on--right through with might and main speed--on and on, until he
had put the Land of Sunrise as far behind him as the Land of Sunset was
before him; nor yet had found the object of his heart's desire. And why?
because he had gone the wrong course and the wrong speed to keep himself
in the right light for the long shadow. Suddenly, to his astonishment,
he found himself once more at the self-same spot whence, but the day
just gone, he had set out on his wilder than a wild goose chase; and
there was the Manitou waiting for him, who, with a twinkling smile,
said:
"'Boy, have you found your shadow?'
"The poor shadow-hunter pointed to the insignificant figure he still
made on the earth and remained silent.
"'Foolish youth!' exclaimed the Manitou, 'had you but been content to
remain where you were and abide your time, you would have found your
shadow, not only at sunset, but also at sunrise; and little enough worth
the seeking at that! Thus, have you cheated yourself of your happiness
twice from being unwilling to wait for it once!'"
No! Poor Sprigg never once thought of Little Winged Moccasin.