The Red Moccasins. Morrison Heady
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 Little Shetland. Meanwhile, we must be making all the noise we can, clapping our hands and shouting: 'Hurrah! hurrah! splendid! splendid!' Should our demonstrations fall short of the desired effect, and we should happen to hear some of our red neighbors shouting and yelling over there in the woods, we will call them in to help us out. They will make noise enough to slack his thirst for applause, I warrant you. They will be so delighted with his performance that nothing will satisfy them short of taking him home with them—Blue Blaze, coltie and all—to old Chillicothe, where he shall be kept all his days to play Big Paleface for the reds, just as Jack Monkey is kept in the Old Dominion to play Dandy Nigger for the whites.
"Yes, pap, get him the red moccasins. Let him make a monkey of himself, and 'be somebody and so happy.'"
Now, you must know that our hero, though tough to reproof, was keenly sensitive to ridicule—a jimson weed to that, a snap dragon to this. Having discovered his weakness, his mother was much in the habit of playing upon it, as the only means of persuasion or dissuasion within her command which was likely to make any impression upon his knotty young rind. So, while she was spinning out her rigmarole, Sprigg was making a great show of amusing himself with Pow-wow, slapping him over the muzzle with his coonskin cap, or setting that ornament in divers ways on the old dog's head; now with the tail over the right ear, then over the left, or over the nose; the young sauce-box the while keeping up, in a confidential undertone to his four-footed chum, a running commentary on his mother's burlesque of himself, for every word of which he should have received a sounding spank.
"Some folks think they are monstrous smart, don't they, Pow-wow?"
"You could bark tip a tree and do better than that, couldn't you, Pow-wow?"
"Funny enough to make a dog laugh, isn't it, Pow-wow?"
"Some folks ought to be told what fools they are, oughtn't they, Pow-wow?"
"Ding-dong bell, when the fools are all dead,
Then we will have plenty of butter and bread,
won't we, Pow-wow?"
CHAPTER III.
Meets with the Object of His Love.
So, next Monday, Jervis Whitney set out on his long tramp, with Pow-wow for company, and with Black Bess, his rifle, to keep them supplied with game, their chief dependence for subsistence while traveling the five hundred miles of wilderness, which lay between them and their old home beyond the Alleghenies. While they were gone, Sprigg kept count of the months and weeks and days, and, as they went silently gliding by, he went silently dreaming on about the red moccasins. Silently, for never another word said he to his mother concerning the matter he had so near at