But quickly spoke up the bad voice in his heart and said: "Go, Sprigg! Go! By all means go, and a delightful time you shall have of it—be sure of that. The old folks won't care so much—not so very much! When did they care so very much for anything you had done, even though it might not have been exactly right. So up and away to grandpap's house! and never a fear that a pair of red moccasins could take you anywhere it pleased you not to go."
The good voice spoke soft and low; the bad voice loud and high. Sprigg heard the bad voice best, because he liked it best. Still, he could not fairly make up his mind. Perhaps the moccasins could help him to decide. He went to the chest and, for the eighth time, took them out, that the very thing that was tempting him to do wrong might tell him what were best to be done. As he stood there, holding up the red temptation in the fairest light before his eyes, he thought he heard a noise, coming, he could not tell whence, which caused him to set the moccasins hastily down on the chest lid and look about him. Nothing was there to be seen that he had not seen a thousand times before. In a little while the noise shaped itself into something almost like a voice, which seemed to come directly up from the moccasins, saying:
"Are we not beautiful things for the feet, Sprigg? Oh, but we are! You can't deny it! On with us, and away to grandpap's house!"
With startled eyes the boy looked all around him—not a living thing was to be seen in the room. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The Indian boy on the show bill was the nearest approach to a shape of life that met his gaze. He clapped his hands to his ears to make sure they had not played him a trick. His ears were all right; so was his coonskin cap, the rim before, the tail behind. What seemed a voice began again, and, for the life of him, Sprigg could not determine whether it came from the moccasins or from his own heart.
"Who plies her loom, with shuttle and beam, and sings at her work with so blithe a heart? Elster Whitney. And her shuttle shall fly, and her beam shall bang, from hour to hour, till the day is well nigh done. Who roams the forest, with dog and gun, and follows the chase with heart so bold? Jervis Whitney. And his dog shall bound, and his gun shall bang, from hour to hour, till the day is well nigh done. So, Sprigg, the day is clear, and you have the half of a long, bright, summer day before you. Make the most of it! There, near the fort, where grandpap lives, lives young Ben Logan. Ben, when he sees you coming, all by your own lone self, will shout: 'Hurrah! hurrah! what a brave boy is Sprigg!' Yet, let him admire your bravery ever so much, he will be ready to die of very envy, because of your beautiful moccasins. And there is little Bertha Bryant, too, at the fort; blue-eyed little Bertha, laughing little Bertha, dancing little Bertha! And Bertha will admire your bravery even more than Ben, and love you to very distraction, because of your beautiful moccasins. On with us, then, and away to grandpap's house. We know the road; we can take you there safely enough. Let us alone for that! and Sprigg is a brave boy! Who said our Sprigg was not a brave boy? He-he-he!"
Sprigg thought he heard a low laugh; the queerest little laugh he had ever heard. A laugh he did not exactly fancy, because it made the chills come creeping up his back and set his flesh to creeping, and caused the most peculiar sensations about the roots of the hair you can well imagine. So, to keep up his spirits, he 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?"