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.
She laughed, and stooped to untie the slippers. “That's too much for
me.”
“Let me untie 'em, Clem,” said the big girl. “It's a shame for you eva
to take 'em off.”
“That's right, lady,” said the shoeman. “And you don't eva need to,” he
added, to Clementina, “unless you object to sleepin' in 'em. You pay me
what you want to now, and the rest when I come around the latta paht of
August.”
“Oh keep 'em, Clem!” the big girl urged, passionately, and the rest
joined her with their entreaties.
“I guess I betta not,” said Clementina, and she completed the work of
taking off the slippers in which the big girl could lend her no further
aid, such was her affliction of spirit.
“All right, lady,” said the shoeman. “Them's youa slippas, and I'll just
keep 'em for you till the latta paht of August.”
He drove away, and in the woods which he had to pass through on the
road to another hotel he overtook the figure of a man pacing rapidly. He
easily recognized Gregory, but he bore him no malice. “Like a lift?” he
asked, slowing up beside him.
“No, thank you,” said Gregory. “I'm out for the walk.” He looked round
furtively, and then put his hand on the side of the wagon, mechanically,
as if to detain it, while he walked on.
“Did you sell the slippers to the young lady?”
“Well, not as you may say sell, exactly,” returned the shoeman,
cautiously.
“Have you--got them yet?” asked the student.
“Guess so,” said the man. “Like to see 'em?”
He pulled up his horse.
Gregory faltered a moment. Then he said, “I'd like to buy them. Quick!”
He looked guiltily about, while the shoeman alertly obeyed, with some
delay for a box to put them in. “How much are they?”
“Well, that's a custom made slipper, and the price to the lady that
oddid'em was seven dollas. But I'll let you have 'em for three--if you
want 'em for a present.”--The shoeman was far too discreet to permit
himself anything so overt as a smile; he merely let a light of
intelligence come into his face.
Gregory paid the money. “Please consider this as confidential,” he said,
and he made swiftly away. Before the shoeman could lock the drawer that
had held the slippers, and clamber to his perch under the buggy-hood,
Gregory was running back to him again.
“Stop!” he called, and as he came up panting in an excitement which the
shoeman might well have mistaken for indignation attending the discovery
of some blemish in his purchase. “Do you regard this as in any manner a
deception?” he palpitated.
“Why,” the shoeman began cautiously, “it wa'n't what you may call a
promise, exactly. More of a joke than anything else, I looked on it. I
just said I'd keep 'em for her; but--”
“You don't understand. If I seemed to disapprove--if I led any one to
suppose, by my manner, or by--anything--that I thought it unwise or
unbecoming to buy the shoes, and then bought them myself, do you think
it is in the nature of an acted falsehood?”
“Lo'd no!” said the shoeman, and he caught up the slack of his reins to
drive on, as if he thought this amusing maniac might also be dangerous.
Gregory stopped him with another question. “And shall--will you--think
it necessary to speak of--of this transaction? I leave you free!”
“Well,” said the shoeman. “I don't know what you're after, exactly, but
if you think I'm so shot on for subjects that I've got to tell the folks
at the next stop that I sold a fellar a pair of slippas for his gul--Go
'long!” he called to his horse, and left Gregory standing in the middle
of the road.