The bear paused for a moment; then, in a voice quite soft and gentle for him, said:
"But you mourn in your heart for having done this thing?"
"Yes, indeed; that I do!" and the little prodigal shook from top to toe with the violence of his sobs.
"And for why?" asked the bear, in the same gentle way, only more so, almost fatherly.
"Because," sobbed the boy, "had I not done so, I should not be here now, in this dark and lonesome place, with nobody for company, nobody to give me my supper, nobody to put me to bed, nobody to—to—"
"And nobody to sing you to sleep with a hymn, hey!" put in the bear with a mocking grin, his fatherly manner gone In a twinkling. "No, no, my laddie! You are showing me the matter wrong side out, giving it to me wrong end foremost. You must mourn in your heart for the little lie you have told, before you put up such a pitiful mouth for the ills you have thereby brought upon yourself. Viewed in the right light, these ills are precisely what you deserve; precisely what you need for your own good. But come, quiet down and cheer up, and take a fresh start; go on and make a clean breast of it by telling us the whole story. You climbed the fence——"
Thus put to it, Sprigg fell to and told the whole thing, from beginning to end—all just as it had happened. Indeed, he made so clean a breast of it as to confess that he had cursed the moccasins on flinging them away in his pet of wrath. When he had ended, greatly surprised was that little sinner to find how much better he felt that, for once in his life, he had told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The grim confessor had kept his eyes the while fixed full and hard on those of the young delinquent, without saying a word. Now he turned his head to the right, with a look as were he inquiring of him who stood in the moccasins if what they had heard were true. This look must have been answered by an affirmative nod from the head in the air, which Sprigg could not see; for, with a soft "Ooh-hooh," long drawn out, the bear bent his eyes to the ground, as if he must needs meditate awhile on what he had heard before he could fairly make up his mind what to say or do next. Thus he remained for some moments, absorbed in thought; then, looking up at Sprigg, he gravely shook his head—took several little spells of shaking it before breaking the awful silence.
"It's a bad case, Sprigg; a mighty bad case, indeed. But before we proceed any further, you may as well tell me how you like the looks of the bull and the cat and the wolf—as well as do you mine?"
"Oh, no, indeed, sir! Not half so well!" And Sprigg was perfectly sincere in the compliment. The bear improved the looks so complimented by a beaming smile of gratified vanity; and the boy could perceive that the moccasins were again agitated, as if the imp, or elf, or whatever it was that stood in them, were laughing in his sleeves.