Giving a backward jerk of the heel, expressive of impatience, the spoilt boy exclaimed: "Oh, how long a time to wait! Where's the use of a feller's always waiting?" "A kick in the ribs may make old Blue Blaze quicken her pace, but if you want Old Time to quicken his you must neither kick him nor seize him by the forelock, but catch him by the tail and do your best to hold him back; then he'll go fast enough, I warrant you! So go along with your moccasins and put them away in the chest, or the rats and mice will gnaw them, as rats and mice are always sure to do with everything of the sort we set our hearts too much on. Then go to the woods and play like a bird. Pow-wow will go along with you and show you how--be glad to do it." Sprigg and Pow-wow went out to play, but the dog was more like a bird than the boy. The glad light was gone from his heart. His heart was in the chest with his treasures--his treasures denied him as too precious for every day and Sunday too. Barefooted and out of sorts, he dragged along through the idle hours. He should have been hoeing corn; and, when the night was come and the jay-bird went to his nest with a thankful heart, Sprigg went to his with nothing of the kind, and, therefore, had no pleasant dreams. Nor was this all. That night, for the third time in his life--the second being the night before, and the first the night before that--Sprigg went to his rest without saying "Now I lay me down to sleep," the sweet old words his mother had taught him to speak when he could scarcely speak at all, and which he could never fitly and truly speak again, so long as the red moccasins and the like vain fancies filled his heart. The next day, iller at ease than ever--all but desperate--he went to his mother, where, banging away at her ponderous loom, she was just finishing a nice piece of flax linen for him and pap, thus renewing the subject: "Mam, wouldn't you like to know how the old folks are at the fort to-day?" "Yes, indeed; that I would!" "And wouldn't you like for me to go and see how they are?" "And wear your red moccasins?" added his mother, with a mocking smile. "I could carry the moccasins in my hands." "And who would carry your feet?" "Shank's mare can carry my feet, for Shank's mare can carry double." "But Shank's mare is tenderfooted, and there are twenty miles of stony hills and shaggy woods between here and the fort. Besides, Shank's mare could never find the way." "Yes, but I can! You first go by the hunting camp, then by the Lick, then by the sugar camp, and the next thing you know you are there."