"Lydia," called Mrs. Blake one morning, from the lower porch where she
sat sewing, "what makes you walk on the side of your foot?"
Lydia was carrying the heavy watering-can round to her garden-bed. There
had been no rain for weeks, and the leaves and the grass and the flowers
all bore a coating of fine dust. Last night Lydia had forgotten to water
her garden, and now she was hurrying to do it before the sun crept round
the corner of the house.
But at the sound of her mother's voice, she set the can on the gravel
path and sat herself down beside it.
"Because, Mother, there's a hole in my shoe, and the pebbles get in,"
she answered. "Look," and she lifted her foot so that Mother could see
the sole of her little canvas shoe.
"Sure enough, I see it," said Mrs. Blake. "Go in and change your shoes,
Lydia, and then run up to the shoemaker's, and see whether he can mend
this old pair. But water your garden first, and be sure you put the can
away."
Lydia hurried through her task, and then, stealing softly behind Mrs.
Blake, put her arms about her mother's neck.
"Mother," she whispered, "may I wear my 'brown bettys'? I'll be so
careful of them."
"Brown bettys" was Lydia's affectionate name for her new bronze
slippers, slippers worn only on Sunday or upon special occasions, and
Mrs. Blake raised her eyebrows at this request.
"Your best slippers?" said she. "Why should you wear them to the
shoemaker's? No, Lydia, I couldn't consider it. It wouldn't be
suitable."
"It would suit me very much," pouted Lydia. "The shoemaker would like to
see them, and maybe I'll meet the minister. I want to wear them. I do."
And Lydia, with a frown on her face, stood kicking the piazza railing
and scowling at her mother.
Mrs. Blake sewed for a moment without speaking. Then she looked down the
path to the river.
"Here comes your father," she said quietly. "Don't let him see you with
such a look on your face. Go in at once, and put on your black
'criss-cross' shoes, and when you come out I will tell you how to go to
the shoemaker's."
As Lydia disappeared, Mr. Blake came slowly up the path, and threw
himself into a porch hammock.
"Hot work, painting a masterpiece," said he, with a yawn, and before
Lydia came out in her black "criss-cross" shoes, as she called her
strapped slippers, her father had fallen asleep.
Every morning, before the clock struck three, Mr. Blake was on his way
up the river, and by the time the sun rose he was already hard at work
upon his picture, for the subject of "the masterpiece" was Dawn on the
River, and must be painted at dawn and at no other time. Naps followed
such early rising as a matter of course, and Lydia, after a peep, came
tiptoeing out on the porch as softly as could be for fear of wakening
him. Her ill-humor had vanished, and she listened to her mother's
directions with not a cloud on her face.
"Go up the village road and take the first turn," said Mother in a
whisper. "Walk along until you come to something that doesn't look one
bit like a shoemaker's shop. You will know it by the flowers, and by the
trademark over the door. The shoemaker's name is Mr. Jolly."
So Lydia skipped up the road with her old shoes under her arm.
"Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe,
Have it done at half-past two,
Stitch it up and stitch it down,
And see if now my shoe is found,"
she sang over and over to herself as she went.
Up the side road the houses were few, and Lydia peered carefully at each
for special flowers and the shoemaker's trademark over the door. But
only the usual garden flowers nodded in the breeze, so Lydia kept on
until she saw a blaze of color down the road before her. She could see
the scarlet and white of flowers and the bright green of leaves, but
they seemed to be growing on top of the house instead of on the ground,
and it was not until she drew very near that she saw it was not a house
at all, but a carriage drawn up at the side of the road, an
old-fashioned black coach that had certainly been turned into a
shoemaker's shop, for out of the open window floated Rap-i-tap-tap!
Rap-i-tap-tap! Rap-i-tap-tap! that told of some one hard at work within.
Over the door on a nail hung a pair of baby's pale-blue kid shoes, the
cobbler's trademark, and as for the flowers--Lydia wished her own little
garden-bed looked one quarter as well. For gorgeous masses of scarlet
and white bloom covered the carriage roof, flowered in the coachman's
box, and grew in little window-boxes cunningly fastened on the doors.
[Illustration: _SUCH A COBBLER'S SHOP HAD NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE_]
Such a cobbler's shop had never been seen before, and Lydia was staring
at it in amazement when a head popped out of the doorway, and a voice
said:
"Flowers or shoes?"
"W-what?" stammered Lydia, taken by surprise.
"I said 'flowers or shoes'?" repeated the voice, that belonged to Mr.
Jolly, the cobbler, Lydia felt sure, for he wore a leather apron, and
held a small hammer in one hand and a shoe in the other. "Some folks
come to me for flowers, some folks come to me for shoes. Which are you?"
"Shoes," answered Lydia, taking them from under her arm and handing them
up to Mr. Jolly. "My mother wants to know whether you can mend them."
Mr. Jolly looked them over with his head on one side like a bird. Then
he nodded.
"Yes, I can," said he. "Done to-morrow this time. Don't you like
flowers?"
Lydia was no longer startled by his abrupt questions.
"Yes, I do," she answered, as sparing of words as he.
"Have you a garden?" he asked.
"Yes," said Lydia, "but not so nice as yours."
"Take good care of it?" inquired Mr. Jolly, with a keen look. "Ever
forget to water it? Dry weather we're having. Plenty of care, plenty of
water; that's what makes a good garden."
"I take pretty good care of it," answered Lydia truthfully. "Sometimes I
forget. I'll come to-morrow for my shoes." And she turned to go.
"Wait," called Mr. Jolly. "Don't you want to know why I have a shop like
this?"
"Yes, I do want to know," answered Lydia, wondering whether he read the
question in her eye.
"Too polite to ask, eh?" said Mr. Jolly. "Well, most folks ask, and I
tell them it's for 'hedloes to catch medloes.' You're Mr. Blake's little
girl, aren't you? He's a nice man. Well, I'll tell you because you
didn't ask. I have my shop out here because she can't stand the noise of
the hammer"--and Mr. Jolly nodded toward the nearest house. "Twenty
years she's been lying in that bed and never touched a foot to the
floor, and two years ago last spring she said to me, 'Jolly, I can't
bear another tap of that hammer.' And so I bought the old coach--springs
are gone--and moved out here. Gives the town something to talk about,
too. Everybody comfortable all round." And Mr. Jolly with a chuckle drew
in his head and fell to work again.
Above the taps of his hammer Lydia called out, "I'll come to-morrow for
my shoes. Good-bye!" and then home she ran as fast as she could go.
"Father!" she cried, climbing upon Mr. Blake's lap as, refreshed by his
nap, he sat reading the newspaper, "Mr. Jolly knows you. He says you are
nice. Who is 'she'?"
"She?" repeated the puzzled Mr. Blake. "You will have to tell me
something more about her before I can answer that question, I'm afraid.
Is it a puzzle?"
"She has been in bed for twenty years, and never touched a foot to the
floor, and she can't bear the sound of the hammer," explained Lydia in
an excited burst.
"Oh, that's Mrs. Jolly," said Mr. Blake. "She has something the matter
with her back and can't walk. Mr. Jolly and I are old friends. He's a
good fellow."
"He's going to mend my shoes for me," went on Lydia. "He told me to take
good care of my garden, and I must go to-morrow and get my shoes."
Lydia could talk of nothing for the rest of the day but Mr. Jolly and
his strange little shop.
The next morning she was impatient to be off on her errand, but Mrs.
Blake woke with a bad headache, and there were many odds and ends that
Lydia could do about the house to save her mother steps. At last Mrs.
Blake went to lie down, and Lydia, after spreading a shawl over the
invalid's feet, and pressing a kiss into the palm of the hand that lay
so limply on the bed, hurried up the road after her shoes.
The tap of Mr. Jolly's hammer reached her ears soon after she came in
sight of the flowery shop, but Lydia was intent upon a little figure
seated upon the step of the coach. It was that of a small boy, perhaps
four years old, whose hair was as black as Lydia's was golden, whose
face was streaked with the mark of tears and dirt, and who held in his
hand a slice of bread and butter.
"I wonder if it's Mr. Jolly's little boy?" thought Lydia.
But when Mr. Jolly looked up from his hammering, he gave a bird-like nod
at Lydia, and then one at the little boy.
"Look what I found in my shop this morning," said he.
The little boy's brown eyes filled with tears, and he put his slice of
bread and butter on the grass beside him.
"I won't go back," said he, his lip quivering. "I won't go back."
"No, sonny, that you won't, if I can help it," returned Mr. Jolly, with
an emphatic tap of his hammer. "They didn't serve you right, and that's
a fact. It's the little Bliss boy," he explained to Lydia. "What did you
say your name was?"
"Roger," murmured the child huskily.
"His father and mother just died, and there's no one to take care of
him, so Farmer Yetter said he'd take him and bring him up with his own
boy sooner than see him go to the poorhouse. But he says he didn't have
much to eat, and they worked him hard for such a little feller, and the
big boy plagued him. So last night he up and run away, and this morning
I found him asleep in my shop."
"I won't go back," insisted Roger, as Mr. Jolly paused for breath. "I
won't go back. He pinched me. He hit me with the harness." And pushing
back his sleeve, he showed great black-and-blue spots on his thin little
arm.
"No, sonny, you shan't go back," repeated Mr. Jolly soothingly. "I'll
take you to a nice place, Robin Hill. I guess they'll make room for you
somehow. This little girl will tell you how nice it is there. Won't
you?"
"Are there any boys?" asked Roger anxiously. "I won't go if there are."
"But they are nice boys," said Lydia, eager for the good name of her
special friends, Sammy and Tom. "They wouldn't hurt you for anything.
They are lots of fun to play with. And you will like Miss Martin, she is
so good to you."
Roger shook his head.
"I don't like boys," said he. "Do you live there?"
"I used to," answered Lydia, "but I don't now."
"Then I'll go with you," announced Roger, picking up his bread and
butter, and taking a firm hold on Lydia's dress.
"You stay here with me, sonny," said Mr. Jolly, nodding and winking in a
friendly way, "and long about evening when I get my work done I'll take
you up to Robin Hill. You heard the little girl tell it's a good place
to be."
"No, I'll go home with her," said Roger, his mind quite fixed. "I like
her. I want to live with her." And he held tighter than ever to Lydia.
Mr. Jolly and the little girl looked at one another a moment in silence.
Neither knew quite what to do or say. At last Lydia spoke.
"If you let him go home with me, I'll tell Father all about it, and he
will fix it for us somehow. I know he will."
"Maybe you're right," said Mr. Jolly, after a pause. "Mr. Blake's a good
man. You tell him if there's any trouble with Farmer Yetter that I'll
take the blame. And I'll step round to-night and see what he says."
Lydia and Roger started off together, and it was not until they were
nearly home that Lydia thought of her shoes. She had completely
forgotten them, and so had Mr. Jolly.
But once in sight of home, Lydia spied Father on the little front porch,
watching up the road for her. So, taking a fresh hold on the little
boy's hand, she hurried forward, forgetting everything in her eagerness
to tell Roger's story.