Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1883 — A GooD SHOEMAKER. [ARTICLE]

A GooD SHOEMAKER.

How a Trade Well Learned Brought a Fortune. I was born in the Luxembourg just about fifty years ago. Goodness! how I used to work at the bench when I was a lad, sewing aud hammering, hammering and sewing on boots and shoes. There was that dear old father of mine, with his steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, who set me an example of thrift and honesty. “Above all," lie used to say to us, for a brother then worked with me, “tie a good shoemaker. Never scamp anything. Do the best you can, and do it all the time. ” •We would work from sunrise until far into the night. The pay we;got was little enough—son smp.ll: that, we used to watch -the candle that fluttered in the worry over its cost., If we worked very hard, an£ custom was good, 'dfe might count a gain of 2> sous each; but sometimes we would all stop pegging away, because the poor people in our village had no money to spend for shoes. Oh, how difficult it was to buy a sack of coarse flour or a little scrap of meat! We lived from hand to mouth. Poor old father! Do what we could to help him, he got into debt, and owed at one time as much as -80 francs. What a lmge sum that seemed to me to be! What a whole mountain of embarrassment! I starved, myself in order to put a little money aside. One day I said to father: “This thing don’t work. lam going to clear out, I can’t stand it.” “You will leave me, my son? Your old father is an incumbrance to you?” “No, not at all. But I must go away to work for him. ” “It is well,” replied my father. “You are a good shoemaker. Your stitches are strong and even. You shape well. Go see the world, and God’s blessing .accompany you. ” I went to Paris, and led a miserable /life there for a time. I hardly gained >my bread at first. The habits of the Parisian shoemaker horrified me, for I ihad been brought up by a pious father. T was a good workman, however, and : after a wliile found steady employment; <but I could help poor father but very little. Ob, it used to make my heart sore to think of him cramped up in his little dingy room, working away for dear life, with a meager reward of a crust of bread. The habits of economy he taught me helped*me then. I ■scraped together sou by sou, and at last sent him 10 francs. He wrote me that the sum had saved him from being turned out of his poor old chamber. ■“This will never do,” said I. “I must go somewhere else. lam a good shoemaker, and my experience in Paris has given me the finishing touch. I must go somewhere else, where the art of Crispin will be appreciated. ” One fine day in 1850 I took a place as landsman on an English bark, from Havre to Boston. I landed in the United States with just 40 cents (2 francs) in my pocket. I sought work at oace. I saw in a little shoemaker’s shop up a narr<yw street a sign written on paper and stuck on the glass with wafers. I could not read it. I did not kuow a single word of English then, but over the door there was a German name. I made bold to enter, and talked. German to the proprietor. “Sit down,” he said, “on that bench, ■and sew me on that sole.” “I am a ffir shoemaker, and you will see,” I replied. It was a pleasure to take hold of the tools once more; they seemed to know me. How I blessed my father then! My boss was satisfied, and I got a job right off at $1 a day and my food. This was a fortune to me then. I worked for six months steadily, and, save for a second-hand pair of trousers, bought by me at a bargain, I hoarded every penny. I sent the dear old father SSO, and back came his blessing. He wrote he had never seen so much money at one time in his life. But I was ambitious. Just then the California fever was raging. •Something told me to go to the Pacific coast. I took ship and crossed the isthmus. Just before arriving at San ’Francisco there was a heavy gale; we came near being shipwrecked, and I lost my hat. I remember that quite well. I landed with exactly sl. On

board there was a carousing shoemaker, who had been sent for from the East by a man who kept a shop in San Francisco. I heard him say that he had come before liis time, and that, anyhow, if he could do no better, he was going to work at cobbling. He mentioned the name of the man who was to hire him. and I had his consent to apply for the place. I went to the shoe shop at once and asked for the position. “It is given to another man, who ought to be here soon, and I can’t make use of you. Besides, you have no hat.” “That makes no difference,” I replied. “I see shoemakers’ wages are $6 a day (it was the flush times of Calilornia then); give me $3 and feed me, and only let me stay till the man you hired turns up, for I am indeed a shoemaker. " The boss gave a kind of grudging consent. Then I set to work, and slept that night in the shop. "When the master came to the shop in the morning, he found everything in elegant order, and I had made $5 before breakfast by mending a boot. I suited him exactly, for I am a good shoemaker. I lived with that man for a year, and saved all my money. I sent the dear old fellow at home $100. If you could only have seen the letter that came back! The blessed old daddy wanted to know if I thought he was a spendthrift. That $100 he was going to make do for the next three years! There was a chance I heard of in Sacramento. I went there my master giving me some of his shopworn stock. I did a splendid business. In six months I had made for my share $3,000. My fortune was before me. Poor old daddy was not forgotten. I got a cross letter from him this time. The poor, simple soul wanted to know whether I thought he was going to the dogs. Did I want to make him a drunkard, a gourmand, and put all kinds of temptations in his way? Too much money was the source of all evil. I was robbing myself to pamper him. But for all that there was a lot of sweetness in the letter. Well, I thought that fortune was now mine. But one uight a bad fire broke out and I was burned out. Fires occurred in Sacramento every night, and were the work of thieves. I gathered together the few pairs of boots I could put my hands on, and placed them, with my money, all in gold, in a trunk, and I carried it out of the wooden shanty just as the roof fell in. For better security, I sat on my trunk, and gazed bewildered-like at the flames. “I have something- left,” I said, “after all, to begin tlhe world with.” Just then I was struck a heavy blow over the head with a club, and lost all consciousness. When J came to I found myself on the ground and my trunk gone. The thieves had done the business for me. Ah, then I gave myself just for a moment, to utter despair. “I am ruined, ruined forever; poor old daddy!” I thought. But I was not ruined, for that crack on the head was the means of making my fortune. I didn’t cry over things much, for I am a good shoemaker, and that is always a solid capital. I had a little money in my pocket, and I went to San Francisco. I knew my old master would take me back, and he did so. I resumed my old place. There was an auctioneer among his customers, with the tenderest feet I ever saw, and, as I am a good shoemaker, that explains all my good luck. This auctioneer had been grumbling ever since I left San Francisco. When he saw me, he was delighted. “At least now,” he said, “I am out of my great misery. I shall limp no longer.” At once I made him a pair of shoes, and he was delighted. One day he said to me: “I had au auction yesterday, and I put up, without getting a single bidder, a lot of very fine French boots. They won’t sell, because there is a glut of boots on the market. They were imported a year ago, but the shape is out of fashion now. It was a square one then; now it is a round one. Do you buy them ?” “How much?” I asked. “Make your own price. ” “But I have no money. ” “That makes no difference; you may have them on credit; pay me when you can. ” I went to look at those cases of boots. They were of the finest quality, and excellent as to make. Some of them were cavalry boots, but such as only dandy horsemen or general officers wear. Remember, I am a good shoemaker and know my trade. I bought those boots at $1 a pair. The leather alone was worth twice that. At night I used to work on them. I made the square toes pointed—for I am a good shoemaker. Some of' them I cut down into the bootees. Oh, I worked right after night on them, after hours. Then I hired a small shop, and hung up a few pairs in the window. A Mexican came first. “How much?” “Ten dollars” He took the boots. Then a miner passed. “Fifteen dollars.’’ Then a gentleman on a fine horse came by and looked from his horse at the boots, and he tied up his horse and asked: “How much?” “Twenty dollars.” He put down a double eagle. I must have made $2,500 clear on those boots, and I put in my pocket $6,000 in three weeks. I worked on for a year and made money in my trade steadily, for I am a good shoemaker. Then I got married in San Francisco to a woman I loved, and my married life has been a very happy one. It was with a pang that I said to to my wife, “I must leave you, my love, for a short time —only long enough to pay my dear old daddy a visit.” I left my business in her charge. It was a voyage of business and pleasure, for I went to Paris to buy goods. Poor old daddy! There was the same magpie in the wicker-work basket, and he saluted me, for he remembered me. When I was a little boy I stuck a tail of false feather’s on him with some cobbler’s wax. He never forgot me, and shuffled his feathers at me as soon as he saw me, as if my insult to him had been of recent date. There was hardly a change in the room.

r There hung father’s old wateh, as big as a saucer, ticking away, with a ppray of boxwood over it lor luck. Then there was on the shelf the same old earthenware jug. The handle I broke one Unfortunate day, and a piece of leather was bound round it. He had the same awl in his hand—at least it was the same handle, for I onoe came near getting a thrashing for having whittled it. Even an old almanac of a year long gone past was there, tacked to the wall with shoe brads. He had on the same apron, only it was worn thinner The dear old father was bending ovei his work, pounding slowly on some bit of leather on a last. You could count one, two, three, four between the hammerings. In my time it was rat-tat-tat, like a drum beating, with no interval between the strokes. I strode in, and the old gentleman first looked at my feet. That was a way he had. At a glance—for he was the king of shoemakers—he could take in ajl the differences between your foot and the feet ot the rest of the world. He looked and looked again. He must have recognized a family foot, for I saw his hand tremble. Then he pushed up his steelrimmed spectacles, and the tears ran down his cheeks as he rose and tottered and then fell into my arms. How we kissed one another! “My son, my son, you never would have succeeded had you not been a good shoemaker; you never scamped anytLiug; you did the best you could all the time, ” was what fie said when I told him of my good luck. “Like my dear old daddy did beforg me,” I added. Then I kicked over his work-bench and said, “No more work for you, old pappy, for I am rich. ] have a wife; 1 have a baby—a boy baby, named after you—and you are to take the cars, first-class, to-morrow or the day afterward, and come post h'aste out of the old country to California, so that your grandchild may sit on your knee, and you shall teach him to be honest and pious and to love you.” “And may I not make him a good shoemaker?” he asked. “But you go too fast. Let me think over it. You ask me to leave this old Luxembourg, where I was born. I should never see again the grave where your mother, my good wife, has slept for this last thirty odd years. I don’t know. I am very old. I should be in the way. I love my old trade. Do they wear Bhoes in California? May I cobble there?, I assure you, though the hog-bristles bother me just a little at times, and my hammer moves just a trifle,slower, still I can turn out a very decent job. I wonder if I cannot beat you now. Come, let us try.” To please the old man I took up a bit of work and commenced on it. “It was well done,” said father, admiringly. “I see you have not forgotten my lessons. Perhaps that one stitch there is not quite—quite as even as it should be. My remarks don’t worry you? Still,” and he held out with his shaky hands the old boot near his eye, “it will pass muster.” At last the blessed old man consented to go with me. Next day we had a feast in the village. All the old cronies were invited—the cooper, the watchmaker, the butcher, the drover, the tailor and the tax collector. The curate gave the party his blessing. Oh, what a good time we had! The old man was introduced to every one as M., tlie American shoemaker, who had learned his trade in the Luxembourg.” We kept it up all that afternoon and late into tho evening. It was a feast as that sleepy old town will remember for many a day. Just occasionally I noticed that tbe old man weakened when some ancient chum took him by the hand to bid him good-by. Then I would say: “Dear daddy, it’s your grandchild that claims you. How the deuce do you ever expect that he will be a good shoemaker- without your teaching him ?” That was an all-pow-erful argument. The blessed old man made the trip with me across the ocean with much fatigue. How glad my wife was to see her husband and bis father, and, as to the baby, he went at once into his grandpapa’s arms. Of course, father was too old to go to work, but still he insisted on having his bench. As he grew feebler, the stitches became more uneven, and we were often alarmed about tbe awl slipping, which might have pricked him. He lived, though, happily with us for some years. He grew more unsteady day by day, and wandered a little; but still he would spend an hour or two every day at the bench. He made a goat harness for the little boy, and quite a number of pretty things in leather. One day I heard him in his room tapping, tapping away on his lap-stone with more than ordinary vigor. Then I listened to him. He said: “A good job—a very good job. Capital, though I ought not to praise myself. There never was bnt one man who could equal me, and that was my dear, dear son; and his son, my grandson, shall also be a first-class shoemaker, if the good God, whose -name be blessed, only lets me live a little, a very little longer. ” And then I heard the rattle of the hammer, as if it had dropped on the floor, and I went into his room, and there the dear old man had passed quietly away with a last prayer on his lips. There are no shoemakers nowadays like in the old times.