Children -- Fiction; Elves -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Fiction; Magic -- Fiction; Pride and vanity -- Fiction
"Yes, pap, get him the red moccasins--do, by all means!" here put in
Elster, who had a vein of mocking pleasantry, in which she was wont to
indulge, especially whenever, as now, her fingers were busy with yarn
and knitting needles. "With a little practice he could play Indian every
whit as well as Jack Monkey, if not better; and we ought to do all we
can to bring out his talent, so that he may make a monkey of himself,
and, as he says, 'be somebody, and so happy.' So you furnish the
moccasins and the tomahawk and I will get up the rest of the rigging. I
will trim his new buckskin breeches and hunting shirt with bearskin, and
take those plumes from over the looking-glass up there, and make him as
fine a feathered hat as ever grandmother Pocahontas fixed up for
brothers. Nor shall the war paint be forgotten. I will streak and stripe
and spot his face till he looks as savage and fierce as Big Foot, the
Wyandot giant--scary enough to scare a scare-crow. Then, having so
bedaubed and bedizened him that his own looking-glass couldn't tell him
whose son he was, we will take him out, and, mounting him upon old Blue
Blaze, witness him make his maiden effort. To be sure, old Blue Blaze is
not exactly what you might call a Shetland pony, but by that time she
will have a colt a month or two old, so that while our monkey is up
there, playing Big Injun on the old mare's back, coltie can trot along
behind and play Little Shetland. Meanwhile, we must be making all the
noise we can, clapping our hands and shouting: 'Hurrah! hurrah!
splendid! splendid!' Should our demonstrations fall short of the desired
effect, and we should happen to hear some of our red neighbors shouting
and yelling over there in the woods, we will call them in to help us
out. They will make noise enough to slack his thirst for applause, I
warrant you. They will be so delighted with his performance that nothing
will satisfy them short of taking him home with them--Blue Blaze, coltie
and all--to old Chillicothe, where he shall be kept all his days to play
Big Paleface for the reds, just as Jack Monkey is kept in the Old
Dominion to play Dandy Nigger for the whites.
"Yes, pap, get him the red moccasins. Let him make a monkey of himself,
and 'be somebody and so happy.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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