"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 p.r.o.nounced 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."
"And did you ask permission of your father or mother, sir?"
"Yes, sir."
"And did you obtain their permission?" The bear"s eyes, by this time, as sharp as gimblets; as piercing as sprig-awls. Sprigg made a long pause before answering this question; and when, at last, he did do so, he pulled out the words, as a dentist pulls out teeth--with a twist and a wince--"No, sir, I didn"t."
"Did any one see you as you were taking your departure?"
"Yes, sir; mam saw me as I was climbing the fence."
"And what did your mam say to you, as you were climbing the fence?"
"She asked me where I was going with the big cedar bucket."
"And what did you tell her? Now, have a care, Sprigg! Be certain you come square up!" and the bear raised his right fore-foot paw with a warning gesture, awful to see, at the same time showing a double row of teeth, which gleamed like crooked little dirks in the moonshine.
"Oh! Please, sir, don"t look at me so with your teeth! I don"t like to see you look that way!" and our hero mashed up his face for a cry.
"Oh, you don"t like my looks, hey! Hold your brine! You don"t like my looks! Aye, and bad boys never do! Never did! So, when bad boys find fault with my looks, I just say: "If you don"t like "em, you can lump "em." That"s what I say. "It"s your own fault, if my looks don"t please your fancy." I say that, too. "You see right, and I"ll look right,"
that"s something more I say. Now, sir, out with it--straight as an arrow, plump as a bullet--what did you tell your mother, as you were climbing the fence?" And the bear again raised his right fore paw, and showed the double row of crooked little dirks.
"Oh! if you please, sir, don"t look that way," said our hero, still with his face mashed up for a cry. "Please don"t look at me so with your long, sharp teeth! It scares me all but into fits! My name"s Sprigg!"
"And who said it wasn"t?" growled the bear; and then in a mocking tone added: "Oh, he is trying to dodge me, is he? His name"s Sprigg, is it?
With this for a fresh start, we"ll pa.s.s on again to his age, and from that to his pedigree; when he will tell us how his Brandywine uncle took to preaching, because of his wooden legs. Speaking of preachers, up comes his catechism, which, when well said, good little boys get the pat on the head and go out to play. Thus, he was going to lead us by the nose from point to point, till the point in point was clean lost sight of. No, no, my sly cub; you don"t bamboozle an old bear so easily as all that. Then out with it at once, and mind how you blink it again! What did you tell your mother?"
Sprigg would have blinked it still, but when he had looked this way and that way at the bear, and down at the moccasins and up at the man in the moon, he saw that to dodge the question longer were but to hide his head, so to speak, under a fence rail, like a goose, or a pig, and fool himself into thinking he was safe. So, with a great gulp, to keep his heart down, which would come heaving up to his throat, he at last cried out:
"Oh, I told her a lie! I told her a lie!" and bursting into tears, he hid his face in his c.o.o.nskin cap for shame.
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 n.o.body for company, n.o.body to give me my supper, n.o.body to put me to bed, n.o.body to--to--"
"And n.o.body 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.
"It is true, Sprigg," resumed the bear, with a look of bland self-satisfaction, "quite true that I have a rough coat and a rough voice, and, it may be, a rough way with me sometimes, but they who know me best can and do testify that my heart is in the right place, for all that; and that it is a truer and kinder heart than many a one that beats under wool, or fur, or even buckskin. But I am deviating and bearing rather too near upon the unpardonable. A person may sooner hope to find forgiveness for speaking ill of his neighbor than well of himself. Vice versa, he who speaks to his own discredit, as you, Sprigg, have just been doing, gains more credit thereby than were he to speak in the highest praise of another. And why? Because those who listen to such a person are sure to begin thinking of their own merits, while he is confessing his demerits; and to think of them is to discover how immense they are. This is a fact, for which we need not go one step out of our way to find an example. We have it right here. The bad account you have given of yourself had set me to thinking the better of myself. Your confession of fault, putting me in a good humor with myself, puts me also in a good humor with you. My merits, then, and your demerits are on the best of terms. In short, Sprigg, to sum it all up in a nutsh.e.l.l, I am not only one of the best fellows in the world, but one of the best friends you ever had, or ever shall have; which a.s.surance, though you may doubt it now, I will prove to your entire satisfaction, even while yet the month of June is young and rosy."
"Sprigg!" The boy said, "Sir," and the bear went on: "You have been a bad boy to-day; indeed, you have been a bad boy all the days of your life. You have never yet seen that day, Sprigg--neither winter nor summer--when, eating a Christmas pie, you could put in your thumb and pull out a plum and say: "What a good boy am I!" Yet, to be just, you are a boy of excellent parts in many ways, which encourages us to hope that we may yet be able to bring out the good that is in you, and, at the same time, bring out the evil; at any rate, crumple it up where it is, which amounts to the same. How this desirable end is to be attained is not yet quite clear to my own mind. So you will have to go home with us to-night, where you shall make the acquaintance of our cubs, who will gladly share their bed with you. And pleasant bed-fellows shall you find them, too--so soft and warm! So affectionate, too! Only you mustn"t let them hug you too hard. Meanwhile, I shall consider your case, which, being a peculiar one, I shall lay before my wife, that I may have the benefit of her good advice. This she will gladly give, believe me; for there is nothing in the world that pleases a wife more than for her husband to beg the benefit of her good advice. Though I fear it is the misfortune with some husbands--I won"t say how many--to have wives so overstocked with the treasure in question that they can not wait to be called on, but must give it gratis, whether anybody wants it or not.
Like giving a man a bottle of bear"s grease for his hair, when his scalp is already sufficiently oily by nature; or by giving a boy a bearskin cap, when he has already a c.o.o.nskin one of his own, which answers every purpose, especially if the tail is left on. These are the wives who save their husbands" grindstones from being eaten by the cows, and thereby keep their scissors sharp, to say nothing of their tongues."
CHAPTER XII.
Will-o"-the-Wisp.