s, that he could see nothing as it really was. Therefore, without
being aware of it, he passed on directly by his grandpap's house;
directly by young Ben Logan's house; directly by pretty little Bertha
Bryant's house--the very places whither he was so bent upon going when
he set out from home. Now, at any of these houses we should have been
perfectly willing to stop, at pretty little Bertha's in particular, only
he did not seem inclined to turn our toes that way, but went on, and
went on, and never stopped going, until the first thing he knew he found
himself lost. Whose fault? Sprigg's; nobody's but Sprigg's. Yet he
blamed us for it; blamed us for keeping along with his feet! What else
could we do? We can't walk backward; we can't walk sideways--never
could. We can only follow our toes, and their course is determined by
the feet that are in us. Right their course, right ours. Then to fling
us from him, like a pair of slip-shod shoes, when we had done our very
best to speed him on his way! Thus spiting his toes by biting his nose,
as the bull and the cat and the wolf soon showed him. Had he kept us
under him, we could have kept him at easy distance from the monsters and
made ourselves merry at their expense. But, as it was, we could only
stand by and kick them out of the way, whenever they came uncomfortably
near; and precious little thanks we got for it, too! But here we are,
ready and willing as ever to serve our young master, his whole-souled
friends to the last!

"Sprigg, this old hunting shanty, as you know, stands exactly midway
between your pap's house and your grandpap's house. There's the road
home; you know every crook and turn of it as well as we. You are free,
perfectly free, to go that way if you prefer it; we shall say nothing,
do nothing to hinder you; only, if you choose that road, you shall have
to travel it without our good help, without our pleasant company,
barefooted--ugly hills, cutting stones, scratching briars, piercing
thorns! There's the road to grandpap's house--level and smooth, shady
and pleasant! You may not know every crook and turn of it as well as you
do of the other, that is true; but we do, so what's the difference? We
can take you thither, be assured; and that, too, by set of sun, just at
the time when Ben Logan, the bold young hunter, shall be coming home
from the forest with the spoils of the chase; just as Bertha Bryant, the
pretty little milkmaid, shall be coming home from the blue