ess!"

Sprigg stopped short in his capers; looked first at his mother and then
at his father, and, perceiving that pap also seemed hurt and grieved, he
hung his head, but not this time to look at the moccasins. It was to
hide the blush of shame, which, redder than they, burst up from his
heart and burned in his cheek--the first that had ever been seen there.
They had hardly observed the change and wondered thereat when the boy
burst into tears, and drawing off the moccasins crept back to bed. Nor
could they get another word out of him that night, though they tried
hard to do so--harder, indeed, than was wise. So, at last they gave it
up and allowed him to sob himself to sleep.

But all night long, to and fro and up and down, were the red moccasins
walking about in his dreams. Sometimes he felt as if they were treading
upon his naked heart and brain, as though feet were in them--cruel feet,
which took a delight in trampling upon him, and once or twice it seemed
to him as if some wild and fearful shape of the night were clutching at
his toes, when he had cried out in a fright: "Oh! the red moccasins! How
they hurt my feet!"

CHAPTER IV.

He Has Them--What Shall He Do With Them?

But the first broad stare of the day's bright eyes drove all these dark
dreams and wild shapes of the night from his mind; and nimble and fresh
as a jay-bird--nimbler and fresher, indeed, than was his wont--Sprigg
sprang from his bed and donned the red moccasins. Yes, shod his feet the
first thing; and, leaving his breeches to cover the naked legs of the
stool, he went out on the front porch, there to take his morning airing
and see what color red moccasins were by daylight. Here, at the end of
an hour, he was found by his mother, strutting to and fro like a young
peacock in the pride of his first tail feathers. The morning breezes
briskly fluttering his only garment and doing all they could for his
health. Provoked to find him at so late an hour, in such a guise, which
was full six inches too short for any guise at all, Elster gave the
"rising hope and promise" a spank, which would have done you good to see
and hear, and bade him go and finish his toilet and perform his morning
ablutions--all in a hurry, too, or she would give his bread and milk to
Pow-wow. Whereat the hopeful youngster kicked up his heels, and, as it
pleased him for once to be obedient, ran and did as he was bidden, and
in a trice was ready for his bread and milk, w