He Goes to Learn a Trade. . 41

 

 

merely a good sort of man, for such he had always -
been, but a religious man; not by saying much,
for he was modest even to shyness with grown
people, but by the solemnity of his look when a
great word was spoken, by his unblamable be-
haviour, and by the readiness with which he would
lend or give of his small earnings to his poor neigh-
bours. The only thing of which anybody could
complain was his temper; but it showed itself only
occasionally, and almost everybody made excuse
for it on the ground of his bodily ailments. He
gave it no quarter himself, however. He said once
to the clergyman, to whom he had been lamenting
the trouble he had with it, and who had sought to
comfort him by saying that it was caused by the
weakness of his health—

“No, sir—excuse me; nobody knows how much
Iam indebted to my crooked back. If it weren’t
for that I might have a bad temper and never
know it. But that drives it out of its hole, and
when I see the ugly head of it I know it’s there,
and try once more to starve it to death. But oh
dear! it’s such a creature to burrow! When I
think I’ve built it in all round, out comes its head
again at a place where I never looked to see it, and
it’s all to do over again!”

You will understand by this already that the
shoemaker thought after his own fashion, which is
the way everybody who can think does think.