He remembered seeing the wild deer bound past the cabin door, and one
day his father killed one. The big dog called "Bob," on account of the
shortness of his caudal appendage, on another occasion leaped on a wild
buck as he was passing the house, and seized the animal, holding it
until it was slain. Wild turkeys were common; he saw them in great
flocks in the woods, and did not suppose they could ever become extinct.
Fernando never forgot his first pair of shoes. He had grown to be quite
a lad, and his bare feet had trod the paths in the forest, and over the
prairies in summer and late in autumn, until they had become hardened.
In winter his mother had made him moccasins out of deer skins; but he
was at last informed that he was going to have a pair of shoes, such as
he had seen some children from the eastern States wear. His joy at this
intelligence knew no bounds. He dreamed of those shoes at night, and
they formed the theme of his conversation by day. His sister, who was
the oldest of the children, had been the happy possessor of three pairs
of shoes, and she often discussed knowingly the good qualities of pedal
coverings and of their advantages in travelling through brambles or over
stones. Often as he contemplated his scratched, chapped and bruised
feet, the child had asked himself if it were possible that he should
ever be able to afford such a luxury as a real pair of shoes.
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