ster had tacked the show
bill to the rough log wall of their best room, and against this, for a
background, had hung their only looking-glass, with a comb case on one
side and Jervis' jolly-faced silver watch on the other; while crowning
the glass was a bunch of magnificent eagle feathers--a trophy of her
husband's skill as a marksman.

Now, these pictures, flashy, extravagant and out of all nature, though
they might seem to our age of chromo, crayon, perfection, had for this
many a day been the delight of Sprigg's young eyes. But the one that
charmed his fancy more than all the others was that of an Indian boy,
apparently about his own age, riding a Shetland pony at a dashing
gallop, with the right foot tip-toe on his charger's back, the left
amusing itself in the air, the left hand holding the bridle-reins, the
right hand flourishing aloft a savage little tomahawk. In the browband
of the pony's bridle was stuck the staff of a small red flag, while the
gallant young horseman himself was rigged out in leggins and hunting
shirt of the fairest of buckskin, trimmed with the blackest of bearskin,
a hat of gay feathers upon his head, and upon his feet a magnificent
pair of red moccasins.

There was scarcely a day in the week, not even excepting Sunday, that
Sprigg did not go and, planting himself before the old show bill, take a
long look at the Indian boy and his Shetland pony. And more than a few
times, after thus feasting his eyes, had he gone to his mother, where
she would be plying her loom in the kitchen, when something like the
following confab would take place between them:

"Mam, I do wish that I had a pair of red moccasins, such as the Indian
boy in yonder has on!"

"And a red cap, too, such as Jack Monkey in yonder has on!" would his
mother rejoin, as she paused in her work. Then resting her arm on the
breast beam of the loom and regarding her rising hope with a half-fond,
half-ridiculous smile, she would add:

"Still harping on the same old tune! Still hankering after the red
tomfooleries! Well, suppose if a civilized white boy should happen to
have a pair of red moccasins, what could he do with them?"

"I could wear them to quiltings and to log-rollings and to
house-raisings and to shooting matches and to weddings--yes, and to
church, too."

"Why, Sprigg, a church is the last place in the world where so
outlandish a thing as a pair of red moccasins ought to be seen. How the
old people would frown and sh