more like a bird
than the boy. The glad light was gone from his heart. His heart was in
the chest with his treasures--his treasures denied him as too precious
for every day and Sunday too. Barefooted and out of sorts, he dragged
along through the idle hours. He should have been hoeing corn; and, when
the night was come and the jay-bird went to his nest with a thankful
heart, Sprigg went to his with nothing of the kind, and, therefore, had
no pleasant dreams. Nor was this all. That night, for the third time in
his life--the second being the night before, and the first the night
before that--Sprigg went to his rest without saying "Now I lay me down
to sleep," the sweet old words his mother had taught him to speak when
he could scarcely speak at all, and which he could never fitly and truly
speak again, so long as the red moccasins and the like vain fancies
filled his heart. The next day, iller at ease than ever--all but
desperate--he went to his mother, where, banging away at her ponderous
loom, she was just finishing a nice piece of flax linen for him and pap,
thus renewing the subject:

"Mam, wouldn't you like to know how the old folks are at the fort
to-day?"

"Yes, indeed; that I would!"

"And wouldn't you like for me to go and see how they are?"

"And wear your red moccasins?" added his mother, with a mocking smile.

"I could carry the moccasins in my hands."

"And who would carry your feet?"

"Shank's mare can carry my feet, for Shank's mare can carry double."

"But Shank's mare is tenderfooted, and there are twenty miles of stony
hills and shaggy woods between here and the fort. Besides, Shank's mare
could never find the way."

"Yes, but I can! You first go by the hunting camp, then by the Lick,
then by the sugar camp, and the next thing you know you are there."

"Now, what did I tell you? The Lick comes before the hunting camp, and
there is no sugar camp at all. So the next thing you know you are not
there, but lost. Besides all this, there are a thousand wild things in
the woods, which even a strong man without his gun and knife would not
be willing to run the risk of meeting. So just content yourself to stay
at home, my boy, until to-morrow week, when we shall all be going to
grandmam's quilting, and you will have somebody to keep you out of
harm's way."

"I could go now and get back in time to go then, too," urged Sprigg, who
was in a fair way of sliding off into one of his pets.

"But Sprigg, ha