ing to see what was the matter.

"Help! Help!" the devil cried. "Make the shoemaker stop beating me!"

But all the people thought the shoemaker was doing just right to punish
the black fellow for shaking down all his pears and they urged the
shoemaker to beat him harder.

"My poor head! My poor shoulders!" the devil moaned. "If ever I get
loose from this cursed pear-tree I'll never come back here! I swear I
won't!"

The shoemaker, when he heard this, laughed in his sleeve and let the
devil go.

The devil was true to his word. He never again returned. So the
shoemaker lived, untroubled, to a ripe old age.

Just before he died he asked that his cobbler's apron be buried with him
and his sons carried out his wish.

As soon as he died the little shoemaker trudged up to heaven and knocked
timidly at the golden gate. St. Peter opened the gate a little crack and
peeped out. When he saw the shoemaker he shook his head and said:

"Little shoemaker, heaven is no place for you. While you were alive you
sold your soul to the ruler of the other place and now you must go
there."

With that St. Peter shut the golden gate and locked it.

The little shoemaker sighed and said to himself:

"Well, I suppose I must go where St. Peter says."

So he put on a bold front and tramped down to hell. When the devil who
knew him saw him coming, he shouted out to his fellow devils:

"Brothers, on guard! Here comes that terrible little shoemaker! Lock
every gate! Don't let him in or he'll drive us all out of hell!"

The devils in great fright scurried about and locked and barred all the
gates, and the little shoemaker when he arrived could not get in.

He knocked and knocked but no one would answer.

"They don't seem to want me here," he said to himself. "I suppose I'll
have to try heaven again."

So he trudged back to St. Peter and explained to him that hell was
locked up tight.

"No matter," St. Peter said. "As I told you before heaven is no place
for you."

The little shoemaker, tired and dejected, went back to hell but again
the devils, when they saw him coming, locked every gate and kept him
out.

In desperation the little shoemaker returned to heaven and pounded
loudly on the golden gate. Thinking from the noise that some very
important saint had arrived, St. Peter flung open the gate. Quick as a
flash the little shoemaker threw his leather apron inside, then hopped
in himself under St. Peter's elbow and squatted down o