Shoemaker

“ My poor shoulders!” the devil moaned. “If ever I get loose from this cursed pear-tree I’ll never come back here! I swear I won’t!”
The shoemaker, when he heard this, laughed in his sleeve and let the devil go.
The devil was true to his word. He never again returned. So the shoemaker lived, untroubled, to a ripe old age.
Just before he died he asked that his cobbler’s apron be buried with him and his sons carried out his wish.
As soon as he died the little shoemaker trudged up to heaven and knocked timidly at the golden gate. St. Peter opened the gate a little crack and peeped out. ”

“ The effect of these walks, and the shoemaker’s conversation on little Simon Deg, was such as never wore out of him through his whole life, and soon led him to astonish the shoemaker by his extraordinary conduct. He manifested the greatest uneasiness at their treading on the flowers in the grass; he would burst into tears if they persisted in it; and when asked why, he said they were so beautiful, and that they must enjoy the sunshine, and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but indulged the lad’s fancy. ”

“ A change has come over the craft of boot [iv] and shoe making. The use of machinery has effected nothing short of a revolution in the trade. The old-fashioned Shoemaker, with his leathern apron and hands redolent of wax, has almost disappeared from the workrooms and streets of such towns as Northampton and Stafford in Old England, or Lynn in New England. ”

“ So I was put to learn shoemaking, and a good trade it has been to me all my life. The shoemaker was a kind old man, who had known me from a baby, and he contrived to make my work easy for me,—seeing I took kindly to it,—and often let me have the afternoon to myself. My lungs were weak, or Abby thought they were, and the doctor had told her I must not sit too long over my bench, but must be out in the air as much as might be, though not at hard labour. Then,—those afternoons, I am saying,—I would be off like a flash with my fiddle,—off to the yellow sand beach where the round pebbles lay. ”

“ The shoemaker nodded.
“I’m sure he will,” the little devil said. “He seems to have taken quite a fancy to you. Now take my advice and ask him for the pair of clubs that are lying under the oven.”
So the shoemaker when, he was led again into Lucifer’s presence explained to the Prince that the red rooster no longer worked and please would His Highness give him something else instead. ”

“ TWO SHOEMAKER-BISHOPS—ANNIANUS OF ALEXANDRIA, AND ALEXANDER OF COMANA. If the shoemaker has found a place in classic history, it must not be forgotten that he has a place in ecclesiastical history also. In two instances a shoemaker is said to have been taken direct from the stall and elevated to the episcopal chair. No doubt many shoemakers have been endowed with sufficient piety and learning for this sacred and dignified office, and probably not a few have deemed themselves fit, whether they were so or not, to discharge its high functions ”

“ At our Whitechapel Factory there is one shoemaker whom we picked off the streets destitute and miserable. He is now saved, and happy, and cobbles away at the shoe leather of his mates. That shoemaker, I foresee, is but the pioneer of a whole army of shoemakers constantly at work in repairing the cast-off boots and shoes of London. Already in some provincial towns a great business is done by the conversion of old shoes into new. They call the men so employed translators. Boots and shoes, as every wearer of them knows, do not go to pieces all at once or in all parts at once. ”

“ If this were a history of the craft and trade of shoemaking, attention might be called to the genuinely illustrious shoemaker, Nicholas Lestage of Bordeaux. This clever artisan having made a remarkably fine pair of boots, presented them to the king, Louis XIV., on his visit to Bordeaux, shortly before his marriage to the Infanta of Spain. The fortunate son of Crispin was made shoemaker to his Majesty, and rose rapidly to wealth and favor at court. ”

“ In the early English translation of “Lazarillo de Tormes,” is this passage: “If you bid a shoemaker who has been thirty years at his trade make a new pair of shoes with broad toes, high in the instep, and tight about the heel, he must pare your feet before he pleases you”—a sly, but sarcastic allusion to the imperfect fitting of the shoemaker, and an admission of the pride of the wearer.
Ladies and gentlemen, and even children, should have their own lasts, and be sure they are carefully and correctly made to the feet. ”

“ The shoemaker-artist had a great admiration for the shoemaker-philanthropist and painted a picture representing him in his humble workroom, engaged in his double occupation as shoemaker and schoolmaster, with a last between his knees and a number of children standing before him receiving instruction. ”

“ The shoemaker drew back. He had fitted on many a shoe for the dwellers of that neighborhood, and it never occurred to him to be afraid nor ashamed, but this was different. He put powder in the shoe, and all over the extended foot in his confusion, but at last the shoe was on. Muriel stamped the foot a couple of times and asked how much it was. The man stammered:
“Nodings, nodings. I put it down to profit und loss.”
“But I insist. You cannot make a living that way.” And she, quietly and unobserved, laid [26] some money on the bench as she started toward the cellar-steps, her head almost clear. ”

“ They make shoes of this pattern only in the mountains." At once an idea for gaining time came into her mind, and turning to the somewhat bewildered shoemaker, whose jolly face was clouded and anxious owing to his good fortune, she said to him in a voice which sounded hard and cold like the ring of steel upon an anvil, "Make me, without measure, another pair of shoes cunningly sewn, set with precious stones and glittering with diamonds. They must be ready for to-morrow, otherwise my servants will hale you to the gallows." ”

“ At the present time the genius of the American inventor has provided for every detail of shoemaking, even the smallest processes being performed by mechanical devices of some kind. This has naturally made the shoemaker of to-day a specialist, who very seldom knows anything of shoemaking apart from the particular process in the performance of shoemaking of which [269] he is an adept, and from which he earns a livelihood. ”

“ In Bristol, Exbridge, Bridgewater, Taunton, Wellington, and other places, I amused myself in calling on some of my masters, with whom I had, about twenty years before, worked as a journeyman shoemaker. I addressed each with, ‘Pray, sir, have you got any occasion?’ which is the term made use of by journeymen in that useful occupation when seeking employment. Most of those honest men had quite forgot my person, as many of them had not seen me since I worked for them, so that it is not easy for you to conceive with what surprise and astonishment they gazed on me. ”

“ William Carey. And surely no list of illustrious shoemakers would be complete that did not include the name of this good man. His experience of the “gentle craft” was somewhat extensive. He was bound apprentice to the trade, and afterward worked as,a journeyman for more than twelve years. When he became known to the world, he was often spoken of as “the learned shoemaker.” Indeed, he was not always honored with so respectful a title as this. More often than not he was alluded to as “the cobbler,” and his own strict honesty and modesty of spirit led him to prefer the latter epithet. ”

“ There was an arched entrance, archæologically interesting, by which she paused a moment, half inclined to go up and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who lived there had had them since Christmas, and all that wanted doing was a patch on one toe; they were always just going to be done, but never finished. She read the inscription over his door, "Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established 1697." A different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton awls; a man who has been in business two hundred years cannot be hurried. ”

“ The face of the shoemaker fell, and he went out into the street and walked a long, long way thinking very hard. “Well, well,” he said at last, “it is of no use mourning. To-day will be my last day, that is quite certain, and I may as well spend it in jollification. For though a shoemaker may by great industry make a wonderful pair of shoes, he cannot make a wonderful wedding robe for a beautiful Tsaritza without measurements, to say nothing of trying on.” Then he went off to the inn, where he found his companions, who seemed to live there. ”

“ Isaac Watts, the hymnist, has sometimes been set down in this category, on the authority of a line in Dr. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets.“ But Johnson speaks only of ”common report,” making the father of Isaac Watts a shoemaker. Johnson says he “kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen.” He may have done so and followed the gentle craft as well; there is no knowing to what occupation the shoemaker may aspire!
If we go far enough back, we may find a very striking example of ability displayed by a shoemaker’s son in military affairs. ”

“ The rolls move automatically back and forth and from side to side, doing the work that the shoemaker used to do on his lap with a hammer and stone, but doing it better and more quickly. It practically levels off the bottom of the soles. ”

“ THE STORY OF THE MAN WHO SITS NEAR THE GOLDEN GATE
THE SHOEMAKER’S APRON
THERE was once a shoemaker who made so little at his trade that his wife suffered and his children went hungry. In desperation he offered to sell his soul to a devil.
“How much do you want for your soul?” the devil asked him.
“I want work enough to give me a good livelihood,” the shoemaker said, “so that my wife won’t suffer nor my children starve.”
The devil agreed to this and the shoemaker put his mark on the contract. After that trade improved and soon the little shoemaker was happy and prosperous. ”

“ The way to this lonely hamlet was long, and bordered by ranges and mines, and the men along the route had made him believe that unless he wished to be killed as a tenderfoot he must dress and act like a cowboy. At their last stopping-place the boys on a ranch joined in the fun, and fitted the poor shoemaker out with a pair of long-haired “chaps,” or leggings, and these they made him put on the wrong way. ”

“ Works upon Tanning have been published, covering many of the collateral branches of that science, and fugitive articles occasionally appear, giving accounts of new discoveries, or new applications of old methods, concerning the preparation of leather, &c.; but in the manufacture of boots and shoes, no work has ever appeared which would enable the shoemaker to make any advancement in his calling, other than that which his own observation or genius might suggest. ”

“ The expense of such lasts is not great, and the custom shoemaker can himself furnish those from his own stock for a large proportion of his customers, altering and fitting them up as may be necessary, and supplying their places with others from the last-maker. They will need to be so fitted up that they can be slightly raised or lessened in size for thick or thin stockings, or an increase or decrease of flesh. If a perfect fit is not made when they are used the second time, a further slight correction will insure it. ”

“ Fig. 199 introduces us to a shoemaker at his work; he is seated on a low stool in front of his work-table, and with one hand holds a piece of leather, stretched over a board of hard wood; he is just about to cut it out with the curved shoemaker’s knife; a second knife is suspended above near some shoes, a hammer, and some strips of leather on the wall. Fig. 200 also introduces us into a shoemaker’s workshop. Here a girl is being measured for a pair of shoes; for this purpose she has got{503}
Fig. ”

“ Such facts as these have been suggested, and not without reason, as helping us to account for the reputation which the sons of Crispin enjoy as an uncommonly clever class of men.
[191]
ANCIENT EXAMPLES IN ASIA AND AFRICA THE COBBLER AND THE ARTIST APELLES. “Let the cobbler stick to his last.”
The reputation of the shoemaker class is not confined to our own country or to modern times. It is pretty much the same in all countries, and reaches back to very ancient times. The proverb, “Ne Sutor ultra crepidam“—”Let the cobbler stick to his last”—is one of the oldest in existence. ”

“ I buy hides and skins and prepare them by art, and make of them shoes of various kinds, and none of you can winter without my craft. I make ankle leathers, shoes, and leather hose; bridle thongs, trappings, neck pieces, and halters; bottles, flasks, boiling vessels, wallets and pouches.”
So the Saxon shoemaker was a much more accomplished man than the shoemaker of the present day, for he combined the arts of the tanner, the currier, and the harness maker with that of shoemaking. The smith says ”

“ In 'The Fashionable Shoemaker' we are introduced to the sphere of a well-to-do shoemaker with no pretensions to any kind of culture. Having gotten on successfully in life, he is anxious to marry his daughter Breindele to Schlōme, the dandyish son of Sender{182} Liebersohn, the rich man of the town. ”

“ The shoemaker provides for this, first, by allowing sufficient length of sole to extend beyond the termination of the toe, and second, by the fit of the upper and the preparation of the sole. In this way, if the toe of the shoe strikes against a hard substance, the big toe of the foot will remain untouched.
Seventy-five per cent of the people have more or less trouble with their feet. Some of these troubles are caused by the manufacturer putting on the market shoes whose [82] lines look handsome and attractive to the eye, but are lacking in any other good features. ”