noon
But Sprigg 's heart was too full of red moccasins for the laughing gladness of the green fields , or the smiling delight of the blue sky , to find any place there . What his mother had told him of the wild shapes which haunted the forest had , for the time , caused his heart , bold as it was for one of his years , to quake with a nameless dread , which seemed to dog his shadow wherever he went . When the shades of night and the hours of sleep were come , these wild remembrances took the form of wilder dreams , which vexed and scared his slumbers till break of day . But next day was the first of June ; and the sun was too bright , and the sky too blue , and the earth too green , for ugly dreams to linger long in the mind , and by the time the shadows stood still at noon Nick of the Woods , chasing Indians , hugging bears and the like terrors of the forest were remembered only as frightful pictures seen in a book . Sprigg had dined ; and a healthy young cub of a bear never cleaned out a hive of honey with a keener appetite than our hero his bowl of milk and bread . For the seventh time that day he had looked at and tried on the moccasins , just to reassure himself that they were made for his feet and nobody else 's , and to take a few quiet turns in them about the room , just to see if they felt as easy as they fitted well . Now , with greater liveliness and earnestness than ever , his thoughts returned to the matter he had so near at heart ; nor would they let him rest until he had answered the question which , for the seventh time that day , he had put to himself : `` Shall I on with the moccasins and go to grandpap 's house to-day ? ''