ere. They ain't come
up yet."

"Oh! is that all?"

"ALL?"

"Yes; because, if you know how, I shouldn't think it would make so much
difference about the tools. Couldn't you borrow a gimlet or something
from the neighbors?"

"A GIMLET?"

"Yes, or whatever you want, to make shoes with."

"An awl, you mean."

"Well, yes, an awl. Couldn't you borrow an awl?"

"Nary awl."

"When will your tools come?"

"Well, I don't know; you see I don't hurry 'em up, because it's haying,
and I and my men, we'd just as lieves work out of doors a part of the
time as not. We don't mend shoes much. We make 'em mostly."

"Oh that's better still; would you make me a pair?"

"Well, we don't do that kind of work. We work for the dealers. We make
the shoes that they send down South for the niggers. We ain't got the
lasts that would do for you."

Individual goes home, as Chaucer says, "in dumps," and determines to
take the boots under her own supervision. First, she inks over all the
gray parts. Then she takes some sealing-wax, and sticks down all the
bits of cuticle torn up. Then, in lieu of anything better, she takes
some white flannel-silk,--not embroidery-silk, you understand, but
flannel-silk, harder twisted and stronger, such as is to be found, so
far as I have tried, only in Boston,--and therewith endeavors to down
the curled sole to its appropriate sphere, or rather plane. It is not
the easiest or the most agreeable work in the world. How people manage
to MAKE shoes I cannot divine, for of all awkward things to get hold
of, and to handle and manage after you have hold, I think a shoe is the
worst. The place where you put a needle in does not seem to hold the
most distant relation to the place where it comes out. You set it
where you wish it to go, and then proceed vi et armis et thimble, but
it resists your armed intervention. Then you rest the head of the
needle against the windowsill, and push. You feel something move.
Everything is going on and in delightfully. Mind asserts its control
over matter. You pause to examine. In? Yes, head deep in the
pine-wood, but the point not an inch further in the shoe. You pull out.
The shoe comes off the needle, but the needle does not come out of the
windowsill. You pull the silk, and break it, and then work the needle
out as well as you can, and then begin again,--destroying three
needles, getting your fingers "exquisitely pricked," and keeping your
temper--if you