The Red Moccasins: A Story

by Morrison Heady

"Pat to the point!" quoth Nick of the Woods. "The very thing I was coming to next—the main thing, indeed, which has led me to seek this interview with Sprigg's father. I should hardly have come a thousand miles out of my way, since set of sun, had it been merely to gratify Manitou-Echo in an elfish whim. In brief, then, and in sweet earnest, too, the object we have in view is intended mainly for Sprigg's own good; and, as the means to this end, my son Manitou-Echo has sent, as a present to your son Sprigg, a pair of red moccasins, to put him, as I have just said, on an equal footing in the trial of speed between them. Refuse the gift, and nothing shall follow therefrom, be it for good or for evil. Accept the gift, and good—nothing but good—shall come of it, sooner or later."

Here, with the air of one who has had his say, and now but awaits your final answer to take fair leave of you, the Manitou paused. Jervis Whitney did the like, remaining silent for many moments, half in doubt, half in debate, his eyes bent fixedly the while upon his companion. At length, very dubiously, indeed, he answered:

"I must confess, were we to drop the matter just here, I should be left as much in the mist as if you had kept your mist-cap on your head and allowed me only the use of my ears. Will you please enlighten me, sir, with a few more gleams of your moonshine?"

"Certainly, sir; certainly!" rejoined Nick of the Woods, with an obliging smile and a courteous wave of the hand. "I perceive you are something of a philosopher, by wishing to view the subject in that light. Know, then, that Sprigg's fancy for red moccasins has grown to be the one idea of his mind—a hankering, so to speak; and the best cure in the world for a hankering, as everybody knows, is a strong, sudden, overwhelming dose of the thing so hankered after. Sprigg's case is like that of a man's case, whose heart is dead set on matrimony—a little experience, tough and lively, being all that is needed to cure him of the hankering and restore him to a healthy condition of mind. As with matrimony, so with moccasins."

"I am glad that Elster is not present to hear that speech; else should I feel constrained to send a bullet through your bearskin, just by way of giving you the lie, and of satisfying her that I am the truest of husbands, as she is the best of wives, although I am perfectly aware that it would be a waste of powder and lead, having once or twice in my time sent my bullet after a bear, and found that, without missing my mark, I had shot nothing."

"And I should esteem you all the more highly for doing so much to please your wife," rejoined Nick of the Woods, with increased complacency; "and my wife, Meg of the Hills, were she present, also, at the time, would cordially join in my expression of commendation. When I say, 'as with matrimony, so with moccasins,' it is merely by way of illustration, and is not to be understood as an expression of my private sentiments. Our married life—Meg's and mine—began with that of Adam and Eve, and our honeymoon is not yet on the wane. Just here, I should be tempted to go off at a tangent into wide digression, had long observation not taught me that there is nothing so galling to a hunter's patience as a hang-fire gun. As with a gun, so with a speaker. Then, in fine, I will say, 'trust me, and to the latest day of your life you never shall rue it, though you should live until the Indian, the Jeer and the Manitou cease to exist.'"

Then, as if he had, indeed, made an end of his say, the Manitou king picked up his crown of plumes and placed it upon his head, when straight he was no more to be seen than the transparent air around him. The next instant, with a magnificent somerset curve, full ten feet aloft in the air, a pair of red moccasins plumped themselves, as if firm little feet were in them, square in front of the hunter, where he stood—with his chin still propped on the muzzle of his gun and his legs still crossed? I rather think not! "Leave, and lose! Take, and gain! But leave or take, it is all one to Nick of the Woods!" And hardly were the words spoken, just there in the empty moonlight, when a whirr in the leaves and flutter in the air announced that the elf was gone.

For many moments Jervis Whitney stood there gazing down on the moccasins, debating within himself, with a look of great perplexity, whether to take them or to leave them. He went over, in his mind, all that had been said by the elf, and so well said, too, it needs must be as well meant, odd and fantastic though it might seem. He recalled the Manitou's aspect—so clear and bright, so free from disguise; and, withal, as beautiful, while so Indian-like—as well could be the eyes of a white man, who, for some years past, had had a hard scuffle to keep his scalp.

Then, too, there was Pow-wow's behavior on the occasion to be taken into consideration. There was not a dog west or east of the Alleghany Mountains who had a sharper nose than Pow-wow for detecting an ill wind; yet, all this while, he had set there on his haunches, without betraying the least sign of uneasiness or distrust, nor even of curiosity, as if a Manitou to him were a sight as familiar as a jay-bird, and no more to be barked at. Now, the real state of the case was this: Foreseeing that the dog, dog-like, would be for putting in his jaw to help his master out, the prudent elf had thrown a spell or charm upon him, hoodwinking not his eyes only, but also his ears and nose, thus making one side, at least, of the interview as blank to him as the middle of next week. Therefore, not a glimpse nor a sniff of the elf had Pow-wow caught; nor had he heard a word of what the elf had said from "Will-o'-the-Wisp" to "Nick of the Woods." His master, he could see and hear, and doubtless marveled much that a husband and father, who had traveled hundreds of miles to be with his wife and child again, should thus hang fire within dinner-horn call of home, merely to hold a pow-wow with a rotten log. As Jervis could no more see the charm on the dog than the dog the charmer on the log, he must needs regard the orderly deportment of his dumb companion—in whose sagacity he had unbounded confidence—as the strongest additional evidence he could wish for confirming him in the favorable view; his own senses had already inclined him to take off the Manitou and the matter between them. At length his thoughts shaped themselves into a conclusion, which he thus expressed aloud:

"I have never known a dog of Pow-wow's blood whose instinct did not tell him when there was an enemy near his master. I have never known that man to deceive me, nor try to deceive me, whose eye spoke with his tongue, and before it and after it, as did the eye of the strange being here but now. To doubt the word of such a one, were to do him a wrong. To refuse the gift of such a one, might be to withhold a blessing from me and mine. I will take the moccasins and trust this Nick of the Woods."