One day the shoeman stopped his wagon at the door of the helps' house,
and called up at its windows, "Well, guls, any of you want to git a numba
foua foot into a numba two shoe, to-day? Now's youa chance, but you got
to be quick abort it. The'e ha'r't but just so many numba two shoes made,
and the wohld's full o' numba foua feet."
The windows filled with laughing faces at the first sound of the
shoeman's ironical voice; and at sight of his neat wagon, with its
drawers at the rear and sides, and its buggy-hood over the seat where the
shoeman lounged lazily holding the reins, the girls flocked down the
stairs, and out upon the piazza where the shoe man had handily ranged his
vehicle.
They began to ask him if he had not this thing and that, but he said with
firmness, "Nothin' but shoes, guls. I did carry a gen'l line, one while,
of what you may call ankle-wea', such as spats, and stockin's, and
gaitas, but I nova did like to speak of such things befoa ladies, and now
I stick ex-elusively to shoes. You know that well enough, guls; what's
the use?"
He kept a sober face amidst the giggling that his words aroused,--and let
his voice sink into a final note of injury.
"Well, if you don't want any shoes, to-day, I guess I must be goin'." He
made a feint of jerking his horse's reins, but forebore at the entreaties
that went up from the group of girls.
"Yes, we do!" "Let's see them!" "Oh, don't go!" they chorused in an
equally histrionic alarm, and the shoeman got down from his perch to show
his wares.
"Now, the'a, ladies," he said, pulling out one of the drawers, and
dangling a pair of shoes from it by the string that joined their heels,
"the'e's a shoe that looks as good as any Sat'd'y-night shoe you eva see.
Looks as han'some as if it had a pasteboa'd sole and was split stock all
through, like the kind you buy for a dollar at the store, and kick out in
the fust walk you take with your fella--'r some other gul's fella, I
don't ca'e which. And yet that's an honest shoe, made of the best of
material all the way through, and in the best manna. Just look at that
shoe, ladies; ex-amine it; sha'n't cost you a cent, and I'll pay for youa
lost time myself, if any complaint is made." He began to toss pairs of
the shoes into the crowd of girls, who caught them from each other before
they fell, with hysterical laughter, and ran away with them in-doors to
try them on. "This is a shoe that I'm intaducin'," the shoeman went on,
"and every pair is warranted--warranted numba two; don't make any otha
size, because we want to cata to a strictly numba two custom. If any lady
doos feel 'em a little mite too snug, I'm sorry for her, but I can't do
anything to help her in this shoe."
"Too snug!" came a gay voice from in-doors. "Why my foot feels puffectly
lost in this one."
"All right," the shoeman shouted back. "Call it a numba one shoe and then
see if you can't find that lost foot in it, some'eres. Or try a little
flour, and see if it won't feel more at home. I've hea'd of a shoe that
give that sensation of looseness by not goin' on at all."
The girls exulted joyfully together at the defeat of their companion, but
the shoeman kept a grave face, while he searched out other sorts of shoes
and slippers, and offered them, or responded to some definite demand with
something as near like as he could hope to make serve. The tumult of talk
and laughter grew till the chef put his head out of the kitchen door, and
then came sauntering across the grass to the helps' piazza. At the same
time the clerk suffered himself to be lured from his post by the
excitement. He came and stood beside the chef, who listened to the
shoeman's flow of banter with a longing to take his chances with him.
"That's a nice hawss," he said. "What'll you take for him?"
"Why, hello!" said the shoeman, with an eye that dwelt upon the chef's
official white cap and apron, "You talk English, don't you? Fust off, I
didn't know but it was one of them foreign dukes come ova he'a to marry
some oua poor millionai'es daughtas." The girls cried out for joy, and
the chef bore their mirth stoically, but not without a personal relish of
the shoeman's up-and-comingness. "Want a hawss?" asked the shoeman with
an air of business. "What'll you give?"
"I'll give you thutty-seven dollas and a half," said the chef.
"Sorry I can't take it. That hawss is sellin' at present for just one
hundred and fifty dollas."
"Well," said the chef, "I'll raise you a dolla and a quahta. Say
thutty-eight and seventy-five."
"W-ell now, you're gittin' up among the figgas where you're liable to own
a hawss. You just keep right on a raisin' me, while I sell these ladies
some shoes, and maybe you'll hit it yit, 'fo'e night."
The girls were trying on shoes on every side now, and they had dispensed
with the formality of going in-doors for the purpose. More than one put
out her foot to the clerk for his opinion of the fit, and the shoeman was
mingling with the crowd, testing with his hand, advising from his
professional knowledge, suggesting, urging, and in some cases artfully
agreeing with the reluctance shown.
"This man," said the chef, indicating Fane, "says you can tell moa lies
to the square inch than any man out o' Boston."
"Doos he?" asked the shoeman, turning with a pair of high-heeled bronze
slippers in his hand from the wagon. "Well, now, if I stood as nea' to
him as you do, I believe I sh'd hit him."
"Why, man, I can't dispute him!" said the chef, and as if he had now at
last scored a point, he threw back his head and laughed. When he brought
down his head again, it was to perceive the approach of Clementina.
"Hello," he said for her to hear, "he'e comes the Boss. Well, I guess I
must be goin'," he added, in mock anxiety. "I'm a goin', Boss, I'm a
goin'."
Clementina ignored him. "Mr. Atwell wants to see you a moment, Mr. Fane,"
she said to the clerk.
"All right, Miss Claxon," Fane answered, with the sorrowful respect which
he always showed Clementina, now, "I'll be right there." But he waited a
moment, either in expression of his personal independence, or from
curiosity to know what the shoeman was going to say of the bronze
slippers.
Clementina felt the fascination, too; she thought the slippers were
beautiful, and her foot thrilled with a mysterious prescience of its
fitness for them.
"Now, the'e, ladies, or as I may say guls, if you'll excuse it in one
that's moa like a fatha to you than anything else, in his feelings"--the
girls tittered, and some one shouted derisively--"It's true!"--"now there
is a shoe, or call it a slippa, that I've rutha hesitated about showin'
to you, because I know that you're all rutha serious-minded, I don't ca'e
how young ye be, or how good-lookin' ye be; and I don't presume the'e's
one among you that's eve' head o' dancin'." In the mirthful hooting and
mocking that followed, the shoeman hedged gravely from the extreme
position he had taken. "What? Well, maybe you have among some the summa
folks, but we all know what summa folks ah', and I don't expect you to
patte'n by them. But what I will say is that if any young lady within the
sound of my voice,"--he looked round for the applause which did not fail
him in his parody of the pulpit style--"should get an invitation to a
dance next winta, and should feel it a wo'k of a charity to the young man
to go, she'll be sorry--on his account, rememba--that she ha'n't got this
pair o' slippas.
"The'a! They're a numba two, and they'll fit any lady here, I don't ca'e
how small a foot she's got. Don't all speak at once, sistas! Ample time
allowed for meals. That's a custom-made shoe, and if it hadn't b'en too
small for the lady they was oddid foh, you couldn't-'a' got 'em for less
than seven dollas; but now I'm throwin' on 'em away for three."
A groan of dismay went up from the whole circle, and some who had pressed
forward for a sight of the slippers, shrank back again.
"Did I hea' just now," asked the shoeman, with a soft insinuation in his
voice, and in the glance he suddenly turned upon Clementina, "a party
addressed as Boss?" Clementina flushed, but she did not cower; the chef
walked away with a laugh, and the shoeman pursued him with his voice.
"Not that I am goin' to folla the wicked example of a man who tries to
make spot of young ladies; but if the young lady addressed as Boss--"
"Miss Claxon," said the clerk with ingratiating reverence.
"Miss Claxon--I Stan' corrected," pursued the shoeman. "If Miss Claxon
will do me the fava just to try on this slippa, I sh'd be able to tell at
the next place I stopped just how it looked on a lady's foot. I see you
a'n't any of you disposed to buy 'em this aftanoon, 'and I a'n't
complainin'; you done pootty well by me, already, and I don't want to
uhge you; but I do want to carry away the picture, in my mind's eye--what
you may call a mental photograph--of this slipper on the kind of a foot
it was made for, so't I can praise it truthfully to my next customer.
What do you say, ma'am?" he addressed himself with profound respect to
Clementina.
"Oh, do let him, Clem!" said one of the girls, and another pleaded, "Just
so he needn't tell a story to his next customa," and that made the rest
laugh.
Clementina's heart was throbbing, and joyous lights were dancing in her
eyes. "I don't care if I do," she said, and she stooped to unlace her
shoe, but one of the big girls threw herself on her knees at her feet to
prevent her. Clementina remembered too late that there was a hole in her
stocking and that her little toe came through it, but she now folded the
toe artfully down, and the big girl discovered the hole in time to abet
her attempt at concealment. She caught the slipper from the shoeman and
harried it on; she tied the ribbons across the instep, and then put on
the other. "Now put out youa foot, Clem! Fast dancin' position!" She
leaned back upon her own heels, and Clementina daintily lifted the edge
of her skirt a little, and peered over at her feet. The slippers might or
might not have been of an imperfect taste, in their imitation of the
prevalent fashion, but on Clementina's feet they had distinction.
"Them feet was made for them slippas," said the shoeman devoutly.
The clerk was silent; he put his hand helplessly to his mouth, and then
dropped it at his side again.
Gregory came round the corner of the building from the dining-room, and
the big girl who was crouching before Clementina, and who boasted that
she was not afraid of the student, called saucily to him, "Come here, a
minute, Mr. Gregory," and as he approached, she tilted aside, to let him
see Clementina's slippers.
Clementina beamed up at him with all her happiness in her eyes, but after
a faltering instant, his face reddened through its freckles, and he gave
her a rebuking frown and passed on.
"Well, I decla'e!" said the big girl. Fane turned uneasily, and said with
a sigh, he guessed he must be going, now.
A blight fell upon the gay spirits of the group, and the shoeman asked
with an ironical glance after Gregory's retreating figure, "Owna of this
propaty?"
"No, just the ea'th," said the big girl, angrily.
The voice of Clementina made itself heard with a cheerfulness which had
apparently suffered no chill, but was really a rising rebellion. "How
much ah' the slippas?"
"Three dollas," said the shoeman in a surprise which he could not conceal
at Clementina's courage.