Shoestring

“ He takes the shoes off the last with as much difficulty as if he were skinning the lasts. The gallant seats himself upon a chair; the shoemaker kneels down, and takes possession of one foot, which he handles as if he were sent there to administer the torture. He puts one shoeing skin [1] in the heel of the shoe, fits the other upon the point of the foot, and then begins to guide the shoe over the shoeing skin. Scarcely has it got farther than the toes when it is found necessary to draw it on with pincers, and even then it is hard work. ”

“ When the shoemaker got back to the gate, the little devil of a guard wagged his head and blinked his eyes.
“Shoemaker,” he said, “those are fine clubs! You don’t know how fine they are! Why, they’ll do anything you tell them! If you point to a man and say to them: ‘Tickle that fellow!’ they’ll jump about and tickle him under the ribs. If you say: ‘Strike that fellow!’ they’ll hit him. And if you say: ‘Beat him!’ they’ll give him a terrible drubbing. Now I want you to try these clubs on that landlord and his wife for they have been playing tricks on you. ”

“ The gallant puts his foot to the ground, and remains looking at it. The shoemaker rises, wipes the sweat from his forehead with his fingers, and draws his breath like one who has been running. All this trouble might have been saved by making the shoe a little larger than the foot. ”

“ The subject treated of by Sömmering concerns only one half of mankind; and of this half, only those who are sufficiently foolish voluntarily to sacrifice comfort, health, and beauty to an absurd fashion
In the case of the shoe, however, all mankind are equally interested; and the ventilation of the subject is the more important that we submit in ignorance only, and do not voluntarily subject ourselves to those injuries to health, and, it may be added, to temper, directly and indirectly inflicted by badly-shaped shoes. ”

“ If no one happened to meet the desperate wretch before he had an opportunity to retie his shoe-laces, there will be little for you or even for the police to go upon but his wounded foot, his undoubtedly carefully prepared alibi, and later, a woman's confused description of a face seen but for a moment only and that under a personal excitement precluding minute attention. ”

“ You're famous now and the princess's father will probably hunt you out and beg you to cure his daughter, but you must excuse yourself. This is all I ask of you. If you allow yourself to be persuaded, I'll punish you by taking possession of your body. Don't forget!"
They bade each other good-bye and parted, the shoemaker going west and the devil east.
Soon word began to pass up and down the land that there was a great king toward the east who needed the services of the famous exorcist to restore his daughter. Emissaries of the king found the shoemaker and against his will dragged him to court. ”

“ Silkworms apart, it was quite imperative. The strain on my ankles! You, perhaps, do not know what it is to walk with a high heel on one shoe and none at all on the other. It gives one a curious gait, which is remarked and quite misunderstood by boys in the street, and it is painful as well. Uncertain though I was of the way Clara would take it, I felt I must borrow a pair of shoes from her. ”

“ We want to thank you for your kind invitation, but we think it would be much better for us to live in the old shoe house. Shoehurst is quite comfortable, and it is so pretty under the old rose bush we should hate to give it up. The big briars, with their sharp thorns, guard us like a sentinel and keep big feet from treading on our home, and in the summer the cool leaves shield us from the hot sun. ”

“ When the shoe thus described is set so as to secure frog-pressure, as hereinafter directed, a horse may be shod without violation of nature's laws; foot disease, under fair conditions, will become almost impossible, and the useless refuse-stock, broken down by the old method, may be restored to usefulness. ”

“ Contraction is the result of neglect, want of natural moisture, and tight shoeing. The result is lameness, if in one foot, and if in both feet, the loss of their free, natural use, causing short steps and stumbling. If the inner quarter is contracted, it is the cause, if not soon remedied, of quarter-crack. The practice of fitting a shoe so as to fit tighter on the inner than the outer quarter, to prevent interfering, renders it more liable to contraction. ”

“ I was often surprised at the dexterity with which we could join soles and uppers together, the shoe being reversed during the stitching, and when finished turned right side out again; and I smile even now when I remember how we used to hold our self-made shoes at arm’s length and say, as they were inspected: “What is the blockade to us, so far as shoes are concerned, when we can not only knit the uppers, but cut the soles and stitch them on? Each woman and girl her own shoemaker; away with bought shoes ”

“ I am all but dead, and the craving for that awful stuff is eating out my vitals. Quit! Quit! Don’t you see it is too late, too late!”
“Vy are you talking—it is only half-past eight. Look, mein poor vomans. Read you dot sign of mein.”
Saying these last words, the poor shoemaker pointed to an illuminated card hung against the [30] wall, and Helen slowly rose and looked at it, reading aloud:
“It is never too late to mend.”
“Dot’s right. It is nefer too late to mend an olt shoe, nor der human heart—neider von.”
“It’s never too late to mend”
“Do you think that is true, Mister? ”

“ He could not get up from the stool.
"Brother!" he cried in terror, "help me off this cursed stool and I'll give you seven more years—I swear I will!"
At that promise the shoemaker allowed the devil to stand up, and the devil scurried off as fast as he could.
He was true to his word. He didn't come back for seven years. When he did come he was too clever to risk sitting down again on the cobbler's stool. He didn't even venture inside the cottage door. Instead, he stood at the window and called out:
"Ho, shoemaker, here I am again! Your time has come! Are you ready?" ”

“ There ain’t any man, black or white, in the Blue Ridge that can tote off a shoat as easy as I can without bein’ heard, seen, or cotched. I can lift a shoat,’ he goes on, ‘out of a pen, from under a porch, at the trough, in the woods, day or night, anywhere or anyhow, and I guarantee nobody won’t hear a squeal. It’s all in the way you grab hold of ’em and carry ’em atterwards. Some day,’ goes on this gentle despoiler of pig-pens, ‘I hope to become reckernized as the champion shoat-stealer of the world.’
“‘It’s proper to be ambitious,’ says I; ‘and hog-stealing will do very well for Mount Nebo ”

“ Horse Shoe sat quietly in the porch looking on with a professional unconcern, whilst his trusty Captain Peter, bearing a pair of saddle-bags, now stuffed with a plethora of provisions, slouched his head, in patient fixedness, waiting the order to move. A bevy of domestics hung around the scene of preparation, lost in conjectures as to the meaning of this strange array, and prosecuting an inquiry to satisfy themselves, with fruitless perseverance. ”

“ If they are embarrassed they turn the sole of their shoe slightly inwards and make small curves with the point on the ground. Impatience shows itself through alternating and swinging pressure of heel and toe, repeated with increasing rapidity; defiance and demand through raising the toes in such a way that the sole is directly forward and the foot rests only on the heel. ”

“ One night, while tramping along in Green’s Valley, he was startled by some one in the path ahead of him shouting out in Pennsylvania German, “Hands up!” He was on the point of dropping his rifle, when he heard the rattle of hoof beats back of him. The silent horseman in an instant was by his side, the dark horse pawing the earth with his giant hoofs. There was a crackling of brush in the path ahead, and no more threats of hend uff.
The ghostly rider followed Daniel to his barn yard gate, but was gone before he could utter a word of thanks. ”

“ It isn't often I have the pleasure of meeting people as avaricious, as greedy, as mean, as you two have been. In fact, both of you are such ornaments to hell that I think I'll just have to keep you here forever!"
So the rich farmer and his wife were never again seen on earth.
As for the shoemaker—he and his family lived long and merrily. They shared their good fortune with others, never forgetting the time when they, too, suffered from poverty. And because they were good and kind, the Devil's gifts brought them only happiness. ”

“ This annoyance is frequently caused by undue use of the toe, when the heel is lame and sore from contraction and corns. When the horse has the frog well on the ground and uses his heel without shrinking he is not apt to stumble.
TO INCREASE COMFORT.
In dry weather, or when a horse with a hard, lifeless hoof is shod with the Goodenough shoe, and shrinks from the unaccustomed pressure of the frog on the ground, nothing is so grateful to his feet as cold water. ”

“ Even with the most careful farrier injury may occur during shoeing, or may arise as the result of the operation. Sometimes the foot, from its condition or form, renders an accident possible, and it may be so diseased, or defective, as to render shoeing with safety very improbable. Sometimes the shoe is to blame, and sometimes the nail or clip. ”

“ Their feet rose and fell with clumsy irregularity and without the firmness of strength. Their weakness told upon them.
With the shock of the unexpected the feet of the man in front slipped. His ice-incrusted moccasins gave forth a rasping sound as he vainly fought for firmer footing; his arms, holding the burden of the shovel, wrenched wildly to and fro, and with strange sprawlings of awkwardness he fell off the apex of the ridge and slid from its meager flatness out upon the ice-clad declivity. ”

“ The consequences of wearing a shoe that is obviously too short for the foot are thus described by the above authority:—“In this case Nature gives us warning, by means of her agent, pain, that such a proceeding is contrary to her laws. ”

“ At another time the youth's "shoe-string" was observed without assistance of hands to come out of his shoe of its own accord and cast itself to the other side of the room, whereupon the other shoe-lace started crawling after its companion. ”

“ 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.
Now one night it happened that Christ and the blessed St. Peter, who were walking about on earth, stopped at the little shoemaker's cottage and asked for a night's lodging. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In practice, however, not only is the contrary the result, but, on nearly thirty years' experience, we are enabled to maintain the apparent paradox that in riding along or across any and every description of country, a shoe, when half-nailed, is more secure than when wholly nailed ”

“ The man lies face-downward. The edges of the jacket are brought as nearly together as possible along the center of the man's back. Then a rope, on the principle of a shoelace, is run through the eyelets, and on the principle of a shoelacing the man is laced in the canvas. Only he is laced more severely than any person ever laces his shoe. They call it "cinching" in prison lingo. ”

“ Also, a term of derision applied to workmen in woollen factories.—Yorkshire.
Shoddy, the plutocracy created out of bogus contracts during the civil [287] war in the United States. The SHODDYITES enriched themselves at the expense of their country in the most shameless manner, having most likely studied under those contractors who should have supplied our soldiers with necessaries during the Crimean War.
Shoe, to free or initiate a person,—a practice common in most trades to a new-comer. The SHOEING consists in paying for beer, or other liquor, which is drunk by the older hands. ”

“ One result of the practice is to make their heels come to the ground sooner than they were intended to do, and so give them a false ‘tread,’ thus using them up early, by making their legs perform unnatural functions which lead to fatigue and diseases. What is to hinder them from wearing tips, to begin with? The heavy shoeing, and the generally indefensible manner in which they are now shod, cause these hapless, light-limbed, and small-footed creatures, when at their trot, to swing their feet backwards and then upwards, in a manner that is most ridiculous to a person accustomed to mules ”

“ Let every one who can, strive to prevent the unscientific and ruinous mutilation of the hoofs by paring and rasping. It is a practice which is only worthy of a barbarous age, and was a fit accompaniment to the hideous fashion of cropping the horse's ears, amputating his tail, and curving the miserable stump remaining over the poor animal's back—a fashion which, though it made a burlesque of nature's handiwork, was yet far less injurious and torturing than a vicious system of shoeing. ”