e forced out a mechanical sort of
a sound, meant for a laugh, after which he felt considerably better,
because it made him imagine it was he who laughed but now, and that the
words he had heard were but the thoughts of his own heart.

Sprigg's mind was made up: He would go to grandpap's house that
self-same day. But he dared not put on the moccasins there in the house,
lest his mother should see him as he was making off and put her foot on
his little pet project. "I have it!" said he to the moccasins, for he
felt that they knew what was afloat, as well as himself. Pat to the
word, he slipped out to a bench in the yard, where Elster had set her
household vessels to sun. From these he took their large, oak-bound
cedar water bucket and brought it into the house. In this he concealed
the moccasins, and, with a cat-like step, stole out by the way of the
front porch. But just as he was climbing the yard fence, his mother, who
had left off her work at the loom for a few minutes, came to the door to
throw an old hen and her brood of young ones some dough, and seeing her
boy on the fence she called out:

"Where now, Sprigg, so brisk and spry, with my big cedar bucket?"

"I am going to our best spring, down yonder in the edge of the woods, to
fetch dear mam a good, cool drink of water."

"Our boy will be a credit and a blessing to us yet, let the wiseacres
predict as they will!" and Elster returned to her work with a glad
heart, that her son, for once, of his own accord, had bethought him of
doing a kind turn for his mother.

Sprigg sped down the hill till he reached the hollow in the edge of the
woods, where their favorite spring, screened from the rays of the
noon-day sun by thick, overhanging trees, came bubbling up from under a
mossy ledge of rock. Here, in the dark, cool shade, he sat down on the
ground to put on his moccasins. But why so trembled his hands? Why
trembled he so all over? And why did he fumble so long at the moccasin
latches? It was the guilt of that ugly lie, which he had sent back to
his mother, and with which his mouth and heart were now all hot and
foul.

"Quick! Quick!" There it was again at his side. That sound so like a
voice. "Right and tight! Brave! Brave! Who said our Sprigg was not a
brave boy? He-he-he!" And, while the voice was yet speaking, the
moccasins seemed to adjust themselves, to his feet of their own accord.
Now he was up, and now he was speeding away through the forest; his
road, o