have
been promising him? Throw the moccasins into the fire and let us be rid
of the nuisance at once! If you won't, I will!"

"Mum, Elster! Mum! I neither bought them nor sought them. They were sent
as a present to our boy by some one, who said that he was one of
Sprigg's very best friends; and that he could not do a better part by
our boy and ourselves, too, than to let him have them and wear them, a
little experience being all that he needed to disenchant him of his
fancy. 'Our boy's case,' said he, 'was like a man's case, whose heart is
set on matrimony--a little lively experience being all that was needed
to cure him of his hankering and set him right with matrimony, so with
moccasins.' Quoting, Elster; understand me, now, only quoting: Thirteen
years of lively experience, and here am I, just as far from being cured
as I was the day we went to the show, and your case every whit as
desperate. But here stands the boy like one bewitched. Sprigg!"

The boy giving a big start, the spell, which the moccasins, or his own
fancy, or, it were hard to say what, had thrown upon him, was snapped in
a twinkle, and recovering the use of his tongue, he cried out: "Let me
try them on! Let me try them on!" and on they were in a trice. "Look,
look! Do but see how nicely they fit! Oh, what beautiful shoes!" And the
boy began dancing about the room in a fashion so fantastic as were
enough to make one fancy that what he had on his feet were medicine
moccasins, which could carry him whithersoever and in what manner soever
might please him, or might please them. In the extravagance of his
delight he ran up to Pow-wow, where he sat on the hearth, and gave him
an affectionate hug; then, taking the old dog's paws in his hand and
shaking it heartily, said: "How are you, old pard, and did you bring
your Sprigg the red moccasins? Yes, that you did, and you shall have a
good meat-bone for it, too; that you shall." And going to the cupboard,
like old Mother Hubbard, to get the poor dog a bone, Sprigg found there
three ribs of a bear, and so the poor dog had plenty.

"Sprigg," said Elster, in a grieved and reproachful voice, "are all your
thanks for the dog? Have you none for pap? Poor pap, who has been gone
so long and traveled so far, and has come home so weary, and has been so
kind to bring you the moccasins, which, of all things else, you have
most desired! Shame upon you! Who would have thought that our boy could
have shown himself so thankl