What was Raymond Hornton wearing in 1917?

I am working on a biography of my father and am puzzled by the outfit he is wearing in the earliest known photo of him. It was taken in 1917 when he was about 2 1/2 years old and living at his birthplace near Campton, in Wolfe County, Kentucky. I cannot figure out what he is wearing around his middle. It initially appeared to be a sort of holster, but the object inside the holster does not appear to be a toy gun. The object might be a toy dagger or it might be a kind of tool. And my father, as a toddler, is wearing some other garment or other item, in dark cloth that is trimmed in white, slung around his little hips below the belt of the holster. For a toddler in a poor Appalachian family, he also is quite dressed up, wearing a kind of smock over pantaloons and with stockings on his legs and shoes that most of us would consider little girls' shoes rather than little boys' shoes. Can anyone help me figure out what my dad is wearing in the photo?