frown and shake their heads at you! How the young people would titter and point at you; and some would say: 'Just look yonder at Sprigg, strutting about in a pair of red moccasins, as if he were thinking himself so much finer than our bare-footed boys—the young monkey!' And, Sprigg, would you like to be called a monkey? I rather think not. You'd rather take a whipping any day than to be laughed at and ridiculed."

"No, but they wouldn't laugh; nobody would think of laughing. The boys would envy me and the girls would admire me, and everybody would say: 'Just look yonder at Sprigg! But isn't he fine? Oh, how beautiful! So beautiful in his red moccasins.'"

And the vain boy would fall to dancing and skipping about the earthen floor of the kitchen, as if the very thought of the moccasins had made him tipsy.

"Dandy Jim, of Caroline, might say all that of dandy monkey at a show," would Elster answer, "and dandy Jim might say as much of dandy Sprigg at church, but nobody else would—count on that! So, just leave the red tomfooleries to Indians and monkeys, my boy; and just make up your mind to be satisfied, and more than satisfied, too, with the nice boots, which pap has promised to bring you when he goes to our old home next spring."

But, let his mother picture him in whatever color she might, the vain boy would go on hankering after the red moccasins all the same; till, by and by, they took such hold on his fancy that his thoughts by day and his dreams by night assumed the same complexion, and became, so to speak, as red as the reddest of leather. Indeed, there were moments when it did seem to Sprigg as if he would be willing to part with one of his legs for a pair of red moccasins.

Now, you are thinking such a whim, out of all nature and reason, absurd, and I fully agree with you; yet, have I known a few grown-up children in my day, of high reputation for judgment, who in some of the fancies they have cherished, and in some of the bargains they have made, have exhibited not a whit more judgment than poor Sprigg. Distinguished personages, who, from the solid and dignified outward appearance they showed to the eyes of the world, would give you the impression that they had never entertained a foolish fancy, or mistaken the shadow for the substance in all their lives, I have known women who have given their hands—sacrificed the best of their hearts—to put their heads in other women's bonnets; and I have known men who have sold their very souls to set their feet in other men's shoes.

So, time went lagging by; lagging, perhaps, because his feet were not shod with a pair of red moccasins; or, it may be, because he was not mounted on a Shetland pony. At last, one night in April, as they were all sitting around a roaring log fire, Sprigg's dreams took a definite shape, as well as color. Jervis had sat for some time smoking his pipe in thoughtful silence, when he turned to his wife and thus addressed her:

"So, Elster, I am to set out on my long tramp for the Old Dominion; and with what a light heart I could do it, too, could I but take you and our boy along with me. But, as it is, I am beginning to feel already quite out of sorts at the very thought of leaving you behind me for so long, and I would give up the trip altogether were it not for the business, which no one else can attend to but myself."

Sprigg was sitting directly in front of the fire, gazing with a fixed and dreamy look into the glowing embers before him; and, observing this, his father said to him:

"Come, Sprigg, let us have some of the pictures you are drawing there in the fire-coals! You can beat any boy of your size at that sort of headwork that ever I saw. What do you see in the coals?"

"I see," answered the boy, in a musing way, "I see an Indian boy standing tip-toe on the back of a Shetland pony, riding at full gallop, his head all waving with feathers, his feet so fine with red moccasins, and he is showing off before a great crowd of people, who seem to be waving their hats, as if they were shouting: 'Hurrah! Hurrah! Splendid! Splendid!' Oh, how I wish that I were an Indian boy, and had a Shetland pony; then might I travel from town to town and show off before the people, and be somebody, and so happy!"

Then, with a start, as if a bright thought had flashed out to him from the fire-coal, he exclaimed:

"Oh, pap! won't you get me a pair of red moccasins while you are gone, please?" And coming over and laying his hand on his father's shoulder, he repeated his request—all in the softest, winningest way you can well imagine. For, whenever he had an object near at heart, and knew he could gain it by a little palaver, Sprigg could appear as soft and winning as any young tom-cat you ever saw.

"But, Sprigg, why not the boots, which I have been promising you for a year or more? Black boots, with fair tops and brass heel-taps, that will make a gentleman of you as soon as you put them on."

"But I would not care for the boots half so much; and, if you will just only bring me the moccasins I won't say one word about anything else you have been promising me. I won't even ask you to get me the fur hat, nor the red waistcoat, nor the little hunting knife, nor the little tomahawk—nothing but the red moccasins."

The artful young rogue made this spreading display of self-denial merely to jog his father's memory, knowing perfectly well that he was running no risk of being taken at his word, and that by his offer of release he should be all the more certain of receiving what had been promised him.

"Then, red moccasins shall you have, my boy!" cried the fond father, giving his son a chum-like slap on the back. "Let me but find them in the Old Dominion, and the red moccasins shall you have—yes, and the boots to boot."

Of course, it never once entered Jervis Whitney's mind that so fantastic a thing as a pair of red moccasins was to be found in the Old Dominion, or anywhere else outside of a monkey show, though he might search the world, with a will-o'-the-wisp, from Big Bone Lick to the Land of Nod. So, in saying, "let me but find them, and you shall have them," he thought he was hazarding his word no more than were he to say: "Let the man in the moon but give me the moon, and the moon, my boy, is yours."

"Yes, pap, get him the red moccasins—do, by all means!" here put in Elster, who had a vein of mocking pleasantry, in which she was wont to indulge, especially whenever, as now, her fingers were busy with yarn and knitting needles. "With a little practice he could play Indian every whit as well as Jack Monkey, if not better; and we ought to do all we can to bring out his talent, so that he may make a monkey of himself, and, as he says, 'be somebody, and so happy.' So you furnish the moccasins and the tomahawk and I will get up the rest of the rigging. I will trim his new buckskin breeches and hunting shirt with bearskin, and take those plumes from over the looking-glass up there, and make him as fine a feathered hat as ever grandmother Pocahontas fixed up for brothers. Nor shall the war paint be forgotten. I will streak and stripe and spot his face till he looks as savage and fierce as Big Foot, the Wyandot giant—scary enough to scare a scare-crow. Then, having so bedaubed and bedizened him that his own looking-glass couldn't tell him whose son he was, we will take him out, and, mounting him upon old Blue Blaze, witness him make his maiden effort. To be sure, old Blue Blaze is not exactly what you might call a Shetland pony, but by that time she will have a colt a month or two old, so that while our monkey is up there, playing Big Injun on the old mare's back, coltie can trot along behind and play