The Red Moccasins: A Story

Once, in the spring-green years of the good old times, when our great-grandfathers were great-grandchildren themselves, there lived in the land of green Kentucky a sprout of a m...

It had only been three or four years since Jervis Whitney and his wife, Elster, had left their old home beyond the Alleghenies to find a new home here in the perilous wilds of g...

So, next Monday, Jervis Whitney set out on his long tramp, with Pow-wow for company, and with Black Bess, his rifle, to keep them supplied with game, their chief dependence for...

But the first broad stare of the day's bright eyes drove all these dark dreams and wild shapes of the night from his mind; and nimble and fresh as a jay-bird--nimbler and freshe...

"Will-o'-the-Wisp. Some would wear our moccasins red, Though the road should lead to the dead. Some would wear our coronals green, Who would keep themselves unseen! Jervis Whitn...

"It was the first of June, the day on which It is as easy for the heart to be true, As for grass to be green, or for skies to be blue."

Sprigg ran for more than a mile with all his might, and was astonished to find he was not in the least degree weary or short of breath. Then he thought it must be the moccasins...

Again the poor, vain boy was speeding him on his lone and perilous way. His flight was as swift as the wind, yet so smooth and lightsome that he could gaze upon his moccasins an...

"Are we not beautiful things for the feet, Sprigg? Oh, but we are! You can't deny it! On with us, then, and away to grandpap's house! Who said we couldn't take Sprigg to grandpa...

The roar of the bison bull was hardly out of his ears, when the boy heard another slight rustling in the leaves and grass near-by, and peeping out from behind his cap, he saw th...

So said the bear, in a nursery, sing-song tone of voice; then fetching a quick sniff at the air, began peering about him--first this way, then that way, then another way--every...

"Come, and try it now," said the bear encouragingly. But being by no means perfectly sure, even yet, of the burly monster, our hero was in no hurry to accept the invitation.

"Meg of the Hills! Meg of the Hills!" So called the bear in a loud voice; very loud, indeed, yet in the tone of the voice was something which Sprigg had not before observed ther...

It was the hour when good boys, with cheerful hearts and innocent thoughts, are wont to rise to the cheerful duties and innocent pleasures of the day, that Sprigg was awakened f...

The song had hardly begun when Sprigg could hear a huge stir in the cave, as if the call had awakened a multitude of living things from the slumber of the night. The hubbub was...

Sprigg awoke. Bolt upright, all unharmed he found himself standing in front of the old hunting shanty; in the self-same sun-spot where he had stood when his father and Pow-wow,...

With Pow-wow, now before him, now behind him, trotting out many a short, irrelevant digression from their general course, Jervis Whitney, rifle on shoulder, came trudging cheerf...

The gray dawn was beginning to take the sun-red glow of morning, when, quite worn out with so long a walk, the anxious parents arrived at the stockade station--the center and ra...

That morning, when the quest had begun, foremost of all the questers had gone forth young Ben Logan. Throughout the anxious day no one, saving the father of the lost boy, had sh...

Who, with pretty, young eyes overflowing with soft, sweet tears, stood gazing at Sprigg and his mother, where they lay side by side together? Little Bertha. Who, with pretty, yo...

On the evening of the seventh day, hardly had Bertha deflowered the bush, when suddenly it burst again into bloom more glorious than ever before. Hardly had the flowers unfolded...

Pow-wow had not barked within hearing of the fort since the evening he had found his little master down there at the foot of the precipice. He had gone and come, hastening back...

Pow-wow was still performing, Sprigg still laughing, the rest of the company still in a maze of delighted bewilderment, when, home from the forest, in came rolling young Ben Log...

Up to this moment Bertha had remained a delighted, though half-unconscious, spectator of what was passing. While Sprigg was unbosoming, all unwittingly, his Manitou experiences,...