He and Father sat on milking-stools in the cold barnyard by the corn-shocks. They pulled ears of corn from the stalks; they took the tips of the dry husks between thumb and husking pegs, and stripped the husks off the ear of corn. They tossed the bare ears into bushel baskets.
The stalks and rustling long dry leaves they laid in piles. The young stock would eat the leaves.
When they had husked all the corn they could reach, they hitched their stools forward, and slowly worked their way deeper into the tasseled shocks of corn. Husks and stalks piled up behind them. Father emptied the full baskets into the corn-bins, and the bins were filling up.
It was not very cold in the barnyard. The big barns broke the cold winds, and the dry snow shook off the cornstalks. Almanzo’s feet were aching, but he thought of his new boots. He could hardly wait till supper-time to see what the cobbler had done.
That day the cobbler had whittled out two wooden lasts, just the shape of Almanzo’s feet. They fitted upside-down over a tall peg on his bench, and they would come apart in halves.
Next morning the cobbler cut soles from the thick middle of the cowhide, and inner soles from the thinner leather near the edge. He cut uppers from the softest leather. Then he waxed his thread.
With his right hand he pulled a length of linen thread across the wad of black cobbler’s wax in his left palm, and he rolled the thread under his right palm, down the front of his leather apron. Then he pulled it and rolled it again. The wax made a crackling sound, and the cobbler’s arms went out and in, out and in, till the thread was shiny-black and stiff with wax.
Then he laid a stiff hog-bristle against each end of it, and he waxed and rolled, waxed and rolled, till the bristles were waxed fast to the thread. At last he was ready to sew. He laid the upper pieces of one boot together, and clamped them in a vise. The edges stuck up, even and firm. With his awl the cobbler punched a hole through them. He ran the two bristles through the hole, one from each side, and with his strong arms he pulled the thread tight. He bored another hole, ran the two bristles through it, and pulled till the waxed thread sank into the leather. That was one stitch.
“Now that’s a seam!” he said. “Your feet won’t get damp in my boots, even if you go wading in them. I never sewed a seam yet that wouldn’t hold water.”
Stitch by stitch he sewed the uppers. When they were done, he laid the soles to soak in water overnight.
Next morning he set one of the lasts on his peg, the sole up. He laid the leather inner-sole on it. He drew the upper part of a boot down over it, folding the edges over the inner sole. Then he laid the heavy sole on top, and there was the boot, upside-down on the last.
The cobbler bored holes with his awl, all around the edge of the sole. Into each hole he drove one of the short maple pegs. He made a heel of thick leather, and pegged it in place with the long maple pegs. The boot was done.
The damp soles had to dry overnight. In the morning the cobbler took out the lasts, and with a rasp he rubbed off the inside ends of the pegs.
Almanzo put on his boots. They fitted perfectly, and the heels thumped grandly on the kitchen floor.
Saturday morning Father drove to Malone to bring home Alice and Royal and Eliza Jane, to be measured for their new shoes. Mother was cooking a big dinner for them, and Almanzo hung around the gate, waiting to see Alice again.
She wasn’t a bit changed. Even before she jumped out of the buggy she cried:
“Oh, Almanzo, you’ve got new boots!” She was studying to be a fine lady; she told Almanzo all about her lessons in music and deportment, but she was glad to be at home again.
Eliza Jane was more bossy than ever. She said Almanzo’s boots made too much noise. She even told Mother that she was mortified because Father drank tea from his saucer.
“My land! how else would he cool it?” Mother asked.
“It isn’t the style to drink out of saucers any more,” Eliza Jane said. “Nice people drink out of the cup.”
“Eliza Jane!” Alice cried. “Be ashamed! I guess Father’s as nice as anybody!”
Mother actually stopped working. She took her hands out of the dishpan and turned round to face Eliza Jane.
“Young lady,” she said, “if you have to show off your fine education, you tell me where saucers come from.”
Eliza Jane opened her mouth, and shut it, and looked foolish.
“They come from China,” Mother said. “Dutch sailors brought them from China, two hundred years ago, the first time sailors ever sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and found China. Up to that time, people drank out of cups; they didn’t have saucers. Ever since they’ve had saucers, they’ve drunk out of them. I guess a thing that folks have done for two hundred years we can keep on doing. We’re not likely to change, for a new-fangled notion that you’ve got in Malone Academy.”
That shut up Eliza Jane.
Royal did not say much. He put on old clothes and did his share of the chores, but he did not seem interested. And that night in bed he told Almanzo he was going to be a storekeeper.
“You’re a bigger fool than I be, if you drudge all your days on a farm,” he said.
“I like horses,” said Almanzo.
“Huh! Storekeepers have horses,” Royal answered. “They dress up every day, and keep clean, and they ride around with a carriage and pair. There’s men in the cities have coachmen to drive them.”