"Bless a body!" exclaimed the bear, "but that was well turned. Now, sir, as you are getting a little glib, will you go still further and tell us how old you are?" "Twelve years old, sir, next June-day come a year," replied the boy, in the peculiar sing-song way in which old-fashioned children were wont to answer the question. "Why, that's to-day, you young gump!" cried the bear, "and your answer still leaves me in the fog as to your age--whether it's eleven or twelve.' "I was eleven years old the last time, and I was to be twelve years old the next time, whenever that might be." "Better and better," quoth the bear, with an approving nod, "and now I shouldn't be surprised if he were prepared to tell us whose son he is. Can you tell us that?" "Oh, yes, sir, very easily!" "Then why don't you, and prove it?" "My pap's name is Jervis Whitney, and my mam's name is Elster Whitney;" and the poor little runaway choked as he pronounced the dear names. Whereupon, as if musing on what he had just heard, the bear made that peculiar sound, which, uttered through the nose, with the lips closed, amounts to a doubtful, undecided yes: "Oo-hooh"--then a pause--"he says his pap's name is Jervis Whitney." "Yes, sir, and my grandpap's name is Jervis Whitney, too," added Sprigg, thinking that the fuller he gave his pedigree, the more satisfactory might prove his information, "and I have an uncle who goes by the name of Benjamin Whitney, who was shot through the knees at the battle of Brandywine, so that he now goes about on wooden legs." "And the better husband for his pegs, too, I warrant you," quoth the bear, "for he will stick by his wife so long as she will stick to him." "Yes, sir, and I have another uncle, who goes by the name of----" "Ooh-hooh," said the bear, relapsing into his musing mood, "he has another uncle. But, Jervis Whitney--now, where did I ever hear that name? It sounds as familiar to my ear as the hum of a bee. Ooh-hooh--Jervis Whitney. Yes, yes! Now I have it! I know the man; know him like a book! It's the white hunter, whom Will-o'-the-Wisp and I fell in with one moonshiny night last week; and a very pleasant sort of a fellow we found him, too. Yes, and I gave him a pair of red moccasins for his little son. Yes, and he told me his son's name was Sprigg. All as clear as moonshine now. Sprigg!" "Sir!" The urchin would have said "what" to pap and mam. "A particular friend of yours sent you a pair of red moccasins one night last week--did your father deliver them to you?" "Yes, sir." "Have you worn them yet?" "Yes, sir." "Have you worn them to-day?" To which, after a pause, Sprigg owned that he had. "Did you have them on when you left home?" "Well, no, sir; not exactly." "But I want it exactly--yes or no." "Well, I was barefooted when I left the house, and wasn't barefooted when I left the spring." "What particular place did you have in your mind, as your journey's end, when you set out from home?" "Grandpap's house, sir."