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