“Dear me, dear me!” said Mother one night at bedtime when she looked at
Bobby’s shoes.
“What’s the matter, Mother?” asked Bobby.
“How do you wear out your shoes so fast?” asked Mother. “These shoes are
not fit to wear.”
“I’ll take them to the shoemaker,” said Bobby. “He’ll mend them.”
“They are past mending,” said Mother. “You must wear your other shoes
every day, and we will go to the shoe store and buy a new pair.”
“May I have a new pair?” asked Betty.
“Let me see your shoes,” said Mother.
Betty came up close to Mother.
“Why, Betty!” said Mother. “Your shoes are almost as badly worn as
Bobby’s.”
“May I have a new pair, Mother?” asked Betty.
“Yes, Betty,” answered Mother. “We will go to the shoe store tomorrow.”
The next day Bobby and Betty went with Mother to the shoe store.
“Shoes for children,” answered Mother when the salesman asked what he
could show her.
“What kind, Madam?” asked the salesman.
“Nice, soft shoes,” said Mother, “and shoes that will wear well.”
“Their last shoes were nice and soft; but they did not wear well.”
“Children are rough with their shoes, Madam,” said the salesman.
“Better get something heavier than they have been wearing.”
“I want heavy shoes,” said Bobby. “That’s the kind the big boys wear.”
“How do you like these, Madam?” asked the salesman.
“They seem heavy for a child,” said Mother.
“I like those shoes,” said Bobby.
“Let him try them on,” said the salesman. “Let’s see how they fit. And
let’s see how this shoe fits the little girl.”
The salesman then took off one of Bobby’s shoes and put a new shoe on his
foot.
He took off one of Betty’s shoes and put a new shoe on her foot.
“Be sure the shoes are long enough,” said Mother. “The children are
growing fast.”
[Illustration]
“These fit very well,” said the salesman. “See, Madam, there is plenty of
room.”
“How do they feel?” asked Mother.
“All right,” answered Bobby.
“These are nice shoes,” said Betty. “I like them.”
“I will take these shoes,” said Mother.
The salesman put the shoes in shoe boxes and Mother paid him for them.
Then they went into the dry-goods store, and Mother bought each of the
children two pairs of new stockings.
_For study and play_:
“Little Blue Apron,
How do you do?
Never a stocking
And never a shoe.”
Little Blue Apron
She answered me:
“You don’t wear stockings
And shoes by the sea.”
“Why, little Blue Apron,
It seems to me
Very delightful
To live by the sea.
“But what would hatters
And shoemakers do
If everyone lived
By the sea like you?”
—AN OLD STORY BOOK
Any shoes to buy? Any shoes to buy
Of Shoemaker John today?
Pretty shoes of red, pretty shoes of black,
Perhaps I’ll give them away!
With a rap, rap, rap, and a tap, tap, tap,
See the Shoemaker work away,
With a rap-a-tap and a rap-a-tap,
Now old Shoemaker John, good day!
—LAURA ROUNTREE-SMITH
There was a young lady of Ryde,
Whose shoestrings were seldom untied.
She purchased some clogs,
And some small spotted dogs,
And frequently walked about Ryde.
—EDWARD LEAR
_Riddles_:
I tie it up and it walks.
I unfasten it and it stops.
_A shoe_
What walks with its head downward?
_A nail in a shoe_
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