"Yes, sir, but I can't very well wait so long. Do you know of any shoemakers anywhere about?""Wall, ma'am, I do' know as I do. Folks is mostly farmers here. There's Fuller, just moved, though. Come up from Exton yesterday. P'r'aps he'll give you a lift. That's his house right down there. 'Taint more 'n half a mile.""Yes, sir, I see it. Thank you."
Individual descends from her precarious elevation, and marches to the attack of Fuller. A fresh-faced, good-natured-looking man is just coming out at the gate. His pleasant countenance captivates her at once, and, with a silent but intense hope that he may be the shoemaker, she asks if "Mr. Fuller lives here.""Well," replies the man, in an easy, drawling tone, that harmonizes admirably with his face, "when a fellow is moving, he can't be said to live anywhere. I guess he'll live here, though, as soon as the stove gets up."I reciprocated his frankness with an engaging smile, and asked, in a confidential tone, "Do you suppose he would mend a shoe for me?"I thought I would begin with a shoe, and, if I found him acquiescent, I would mount gradually to a boot, then to a pair.
But my little subterfuge was water spilled on the ground.
"I don't know whether he would or not, but I know one thing.""Well?"
"Couldn't if he wanted to. Ain't got his tools here. They ain't come up yet.""Oh! is that all?"
"ALL?"
"Yes; because, if you know how, I shouldn't think it would make so much difference about the tools. Couldn't you borrow a gimlet or something from the neighbors?""A GIMLET?"
"Yes, or whatever you want, to make shoes with.""An awl, you mean."
"Well, yes, an awl. Couldn't you borrow an awl?""Nary awl."
"When will your tools come?"
"Well, I don't know; you see I don't hurry 'em up, because it's haying, and I and my men, we'd just as lieves work out of doors a part of the time as not. We don't mend shoes much. We make 'em mostly.""Oh that's better still; would you make me a pair?""Well, we don't do that kind of work. We work for the dealers.
We make the shoes that they send down South for the niggers.
We ain't got the lasts that would do for you."Individual goes home, as Chaucer says, "in dumps," and determines to take the boots under her own supervision. First, she inks over all the gray parts. Then she takes some sealing-wax, and sticks down all the bits of cuticle torn up. Then, in lieu of anything better, she takes some white flannel-silk,--not embroidery-silk, you understand, but flannel-silk, harder twisted and stronger, such as is to be found, so far as I have tried, only in Boston,--and therewith endeavors to down the curled sole to its appropriate sphere, or rather plane. It is not the easiest or the most agreeable work in the world. How people manage to MAKE shoes I cannot divine, for of all awkward things to get hold of, and to handle and manage after you have hold, I think a shoe is the worst. The place where you put a needle in does not seem to hold the most distant relation to the place where it comes out. You set it where you wish it to go, and then proceed vi et armis et thimble, but it resists your armed intervention. Then you rest the head of the needle against the windowsill, and push. You feel something move.
Everything is going on and in delightfully. Mind asserts its control over matter. You pause to examine. In? Yes, head deep in the pine-wood, but the point not an inch further in the shoe.
You pull out. The shoe comes off the needle, but the needle does not come out of the windowsill. You pull the silk, and break it, and then work the needle out as well as you can, and then begin again,--destroying three needles, getting your fingers "exquisitely pricked," and keeping your temper--if you can.
By some such process did the Individual, a passage of whose biography I am now giving you, endeavor to repair the ravages of time and toil. In so far as she succeeded in making the crooked places straight and the rough places plain, her efforts may be said to have been crowned with success. It is but fair to add, however, that the result did not inspire her with so much confidence but that she determined to lay by the boots for a while, reserving them for such times as they should be most needed, with a vague hope also that rest might exercise some wonderful recuperative power.
About five days after this, they were again brought out, to do duty on a long walk. The event was most mournful. The flannel-silk gave at the first fire. The soles rolled themselves again in a most uncomfortable manner. At every step, the foot had to be put forward, placed on the ground, and then drawn back. The walk was an agony. It so happened that on our return, without any intention, we came out of woods in the immediate vicinity of the shoemaker's aforesaid, and the Individual was quite sure she heard the sound of his hammer.
She remembered that, when she was young and at school, she was familiar with a certain "wardrobe" which was generally so bulging-full of clothes that the doors could not, by any fair, straightforward means, be shut; but if you sprang upon them suddenly, taking them unawares, as it were, and when they were off their guard, you could sometimes effect a closure. She determined to try this plan on the shoemaker. So she bade the rest of the party go on, while she turned off in the direction of the hammering. She went straight into the shop, without knocking, the door being ajar. There he was at it, sure enough.
"Your tools have come!" she exclaimed, with ill-concealed exultation. "Now, will you mend my shoes?""Well, I don't know as I can, hardly. I'm pretty much in a hurry. What with moving and haying, I've got a little behindhand.""Oh! but you must mend them, because I am going up on the mountain tomorrow, and I have no others to wear, and I am afraid of the snakes; so you see, you must.""Got 'em here?"
