fle Goes to Learn a Trade. 49

 

over between his hand and his leather apron, till it
seemed like a single dark-coloured cord,

“There, you see, is my needle and thread all in
one,”

“And what is the good of rubbing it so much
with the cobbler’s wax?”

“There are several good reasons for doing that.
In the first place, it makes all the threads into one
by sticking them together. Next it would be worn
out before I had drawn it many times through but
for the wax, which keeps the rubbing from wearing
it. The wax also protects it afterwards, and keeps
the wet from rotting it. The waxed thread fills
the hole better too, and what is of as much con-
sequence as anything, it sticks so that the last
stitch doesn’t slacken before the next comes, but
holds so tight that, although the leather is very
springy, it cannot make it slip. The two pieces are
thus got so close together that they are like one
piece, as you will see when I pare the joined
edges,”

I should tire my reader if I were to recount all
the professional talk that followed; for although
Willie found it most interesting, and began to feel
as if he should soon be able to make a shoe him-
self, it is a very different thing merely to read about
it—the man’s voice not in your ears, and the work
not going on before youreyes, But the shoemaker
cared for other things besides shoemaking, and