Part 1 (1/2)

The Red Moccasins.

by Morrison Heady.

CHAPTER I.

Portrait of Our Hero.

Once, in the spring-green years of the good old times, when our great-grandfathers were great-grandchildren themselves, there lived in the land of green Kentucky a sprout of a man, some dozen years old, who went by the name of Sprigg. And ”Sprigg,” for aught I know to the contrary, was his real name; though it has so little the sound of a name, I sometimes wonder his father and mother should ever have thought of giving it to him, when any grandmother of common capacity for naming babies could have suggested a better one. ”Jeems,” for example, or ”Weeliam.” Be this as it may, ”Sprigg” was the name to which our hero always answered, whenever addressed as cousin, or uncle, or friend; and which, before going the way of all good grandfathers, he left at the end of his will, where it was thought real enough, not only to make that instrument good in the eyes of the law, but his heirs highly respectable in the eyes of the world. We have no choice, then, but to call our hero ”Sprigg,” just as everybody else did; though were we allowed to christen him more to our liking, we should certainly call him Jack. Jack, in our humble opinion, being the fittingest name in the world for giving pointedge and moral force to a juvenile novel. Especially would we be allowed this liberty in the present instance, where the hero, whose fortune we propose to follow, is described as being of a wild and run-away turn, and, hence, well fitted to figure as a warning example to all dissatisfied youngsters, who not content to stay at home and do their sliding on dry ground, go seeking for ice on a summer day at imminent risk of getting drowned.

Now green Kentucky, in the days of Sprigg, was _green_ Kentucky, indeed!

Mrs. Daniel Boone and her daughters had not yet distinguished themselves by being the first white women who ever set foot upon the banks of the Kentucky River, when Sprigg was already a three-years' child, the joy and pride of a home in a hewn log house in western Virginia; as merry and saucy, and every whit as well pleased with himself as were he the rising hope and promise of one of the ”F. F. Vs.” The eight or nine years of pioneer activity which had followed the historical event just noticed, had made many a wide gap in the forest, yet had not changed the general aspect of the country so much but that the fields, as viewed by the eagle who sailed with the clouds, must have appeared no more than as the prints of man's feet, left impressed in the otherwise universal verdure. As you may well imagine, so wild and savage a region must still have been the home of a thousand wild and savage creatures, the like whereof we never dream of now-a-days, even in our loneliest woodland rambles. There, too, was the terrible red man, who, though he built not his wigwam in these wilds, made it his frequent custom of resorting thither, sometimes to follow the chase, but oftener to war with the whites, who lived in great terror of him the whole year round.

The Christian name of our hero's father, whom he called ”Pap,” was Jervis; the Christian name of his mother, whom he called ”Mam,” was Elster, and the surname was Whitney. They dwelt in a roomy cabin, rudely built of logs and boards, with a clay-topped chimney at each end, and a porch or shed on each side. Under the front porch Jervis hung his saddle, fis.h.i.+ng tackle, beaver traps and the like. Under the back porch Elster kept her spinning wheel, crockeryware, garden seed, a big cedar water bucket, with its crooked-handle gourd, and the like; while in there, on the earthen floor of the kitchen, stood her huge, unwieldly loom. The cabin was situated in the midst of a small patch of cultivated ground, hemmed in on every side by dense and lofty woods, which spread their waving shadows for miles and miles away to the north and south, to the east and west, with only here and there, at wide intervals, a similar clearing, or a natural glade to speck the boundless green.

Now Sprigg, you must know, happened to be an only child--a most uncommon circ.u.mstance in backwoods life--your backwoodsman, like your poor woodcutter, who makes such a figure in old-time story-books, rarely stopped short of a baker's dozen, as a replenisher of the earth. Such being the case, ”Pap” and ”Mam” must need, of course, do their very utmost to make their one chub as troublesome as six, in order to realize, so it would seem, how much kind Providence had done for them; _i. e._, by overdoing the thing to make him happy; underdoing the thing to make him good enough to be what they most desired. To exemplify: If there chanced to be a little bread in the cupboard and a little milk in the springhouse (these were luxuries then in the Hunter's Paradise), all of it, though there might be quite enough for two, was sure to find its way to Sprigg's tin cup and pewter spoon; and Sprigg's pewter plate always received the t.i.t-bits of venison and bear's meat. The best feather bed in the house was Sprigg's; so was the warmest place by the fire, which he would share with n.o.body, but Pow-wow, the dog--the only creature, four-footed or two-footed, with whom he could be in contact for a whole day without coming to hard rubs. If a deer-skin proved, upon dressing, an uncommonly nice piece of buckskin, fine, fair and soft, straight, it was cut up and made into moccasins, breeches and hunting s.h.i.+rt for Sprigg; and should a fat racc.o.o.n take a fancy to quarter himself for the night in ”Pap's” trap, its fresh, sleek skin would be seen in less than a fortnight thence on Sprigg's head, in the form of a cap, with the ringed tail left on behind, as ornamental there as a cue, if not more so. In short, there was nothing rare, or choice of its kind and within the bestowal of the Hunter's Paradise, which did not, sooner or later, find its way to the hands or feet, to the head or back, or to the selfish little belly of master Sprigg. But these were trifling indulgences compared with others, and would, in all likelihood, have left upon his disposition no other lasting evil effect than to render him overwatchful of his own ease and comfort. What was far worse, he was allowed to say, with his saucy young tongue, whatever he should choose to say; and to do, with his meddling young hands, whatever he should choose to do; and to go, with his wayward young feet, whithersoever his foolish young nose should choose to lead him; so that, by the time he had walked into his twelfth year, a worse spoilt boy, a vainer boy, a more self-conceited boy, a more self-willed boy than master Sprigg was not to be found in the land--ransack the Paradise from Big Bone Lick to the Mammoth Cave.

And yet, to put the question to such parents, as Jervis and Elster--though with little expectation of receiving an audible answer--what other result could reasonably have been looked for in a boy, brought up, like Sprigg, to know no will but his own? This was the very thing to render it next to impossible for him to know what his own will really was and how he should use it, not knowing that of his elders and wisers. This, in turn, was the very thing to keep him but ill at ease with himself, and iller at ease, if not at downright loggerheads, with everybody else.

Now, had Jervis and Elster been as wise as we are--you and I--they would, at the very outset of their son's existence, have laid their own will down, as the rule, whereby he should order his steps until the beard on his lip announced him qualified to follow his own nose, without too great danger of forgetting to allow that organ the help of his eyes and ears. But as it was, they would have done a wiser and more benevolent part by their boy had they given him a scalping knife, without sheath, for a plaything, or a young bear, without a muzzle and chain, for a pet. The knife might have cut off a few of his fingers, and the bear might have clawed off some of his flesh, but the mischief done would have been slight, compared to that of letting him have his will to play with.

So, it were hardly to be laid to poor Sprigg's charge that he was mad enough to figure as a warning example to juvenile evildoers; and it were but Christian in us to draw our sketch of him with a soft nib to our pen, softening down the lines with words from the law of love, which is, or ought to be, written on all our hearts. Had he been as wisely trained as he was affectionately cared for, there is no telling but that Sprigg, instead of being one of the worst boys in the world, he might have turned out to be one of the best--nearly as good, it may be, as a brave little George, the boy, you know, who cut his father's cherry tree with his little hatchet, and when the matter was inquired into, had the courage to own that he was the offender, even while fully expecting that his tender young legs would be made to smart for his adherence to principle. With so brave a start in life, our hero, when he and the time were ripe for it, might have figured as the hero of Mew Orleans, instead of General Jackson, and, qualified by that achievement, have made the American people just as good a President--kicking the national bank as unmercifully out of existence as ever Old Hickory did.

But leaving the might-have-been out of the question and taking things as we find them, Sprigg, by the time he had climbed to the top of his twelfth year, had more serious faults and more foolish ways than I feel willing to stop and take a list of, preferring to let them come out little by little of their own accord, which will seem less like telling tales away from home. One of his faults, however, the most conspicuous, though, by no means, the most grievous, I must mention here at the outset, it being that trait of his character which imparts to our story its particular color and drift. I allude to his vanity, which displayed itself in a ridiculous fondness for fine clothes, not to mention that he was, in every way, a very handsome boy; and the fools, as usual in such cases, had blabbed this into his ears, until he had grown to be as strutty and vain as a peac.o.c.k.

Now, you smile to think that a boy, who lived in a log cabin and ate his bread and milk with a pewter spoon, and dressed in buckskin breeches and a c.o.o.nskin cap, should fancy that he had anything to be vain of. But take the second thought; or, if you do not feel inclined to make the effort, I will, by a simple ill.u.s.tration of the point, save you the trouble. Is not turkey-c.o.c.k just as proud of his homely feathers as peac.o.c.k of his magnificent plumes? And after the battle fought, which leaves him but the tattered rag of a tail to display to the sun, will not turkey-c.o.c.k spread that tattered rag of a tail as self-complacently, and strut as grandly and gobble as obstreperously as ever? Aye, that will he! And why? Because his tail--tag-rag or not--is all his own and n.o.body else's; though almost anybody else may have one which the sun would rather s.h.i.+ne on. As with turkey-c.o.c.k, so with an overwhelming majority of mankind.

CHAPTER II.

Our Hero Falls in Love.

It had only been three or four years since Jervis Whitney and his wife, Elster, had left their old home beyond the Alleghenies to find a new home here in the perilous wilds of green Kentucky, where they had built the cabin they lived in, and cleared the ground they tilled. Among their household goods, they had brought along with them quite a curious medley of such little notions as fancy ribbons and kerchiefs, books, big wood engravings, odd pieces of ware--china, silver and gla.s.s--odd pieces of family jewels, strings of bright-colored beads, and the like. Among the rest, were several locks of hair, some of which were gray, the others black or brown, golden-yellow, or flaxen, or white, as the case might be; locks of hair in those simple times being viewed pretty much in the same light that photographs now-a-days are, and, perhaps, even more highly prized and tenderly preserved.

As you have already antic.i.p.ated, these little notions were gifts for dear remembrance sake from the loved ones they had left so far behind them and whom they were to meet no more for long, long years--perhaps, forever. Precious relics, which the lonely young pair took out, from time to time, to look at them; when, with a smile and a tear, they would tell of the sweet recollections, which this lock of hair, or that piece of chinaware, this book or that old picture was conjuring up from out the lights and shadows of such days as no land but brave old Virginia--happy old Virginia--ever knew.

Now, in this same pack, along with these odds and ends of dear remembrance, there chanced to be an old show bill, which Jervis and Elster had brought along with the rest just to keep them in mind of the happy, happy day, when they two had united their hearts and fortunes for life. On that self-same day they had gone to the show, which was blazed by this self-same show bill; and the occasion made their bridal tour as complete a thing of its kind as nothing short of a centennial could make in these latter days do for the like excursions. On the show bill, in a variety of fancy colors, such as we sometimes see in pictures of Daniel in the den of lions, and the like, were the representations of the animals which were to be seen at the show; and more, you may be sure, than were seen there on that day, or ever had been seen in the land, or ever shall be seen in the world, unless, indeed, what African travelers tell us, backed by Barnum and the man in the moon, should some day turn out to be true. To lend their rustic home a more genteel and civilized appearance, as well as to keep them in mind of the ever-to-be-remembered day just mentioned, Elster 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-gla.s.s, with a comb case on one side and Jervis' jolly-faced silver watch on the other; while crowning the gla.s.s 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 das.h.i.+ng 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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+rt 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.”