He Goes to Learn a Trade, 51

 

“What is my business, Willie? Why, to keep
people out of the dirt, of course.”

“How?” asked Willie again.

“By making and mending their shoes. Mr Dick,
now, when he goes out to look at the stars through
his telescope, might get his death of cold if his shoe-
maker did not know his business. Of the general
business, it’s a part God keeps to Himself to see
that the stars go all right, and that the sun rises
and sets at the proper times, For the time’s not
the same any two mornings running, you see, and
he might make a mistake if he wasn’t looked after,
and that would beserious, But I told you I don’t
understand about astronomy, because it’s not my
business. I’m set to keep folk’s feet off the cold
and wet earth, and stones and broken glass; for
however much a man may be an astronomer and look
up at the sky, he must touch the earth with some
part of him, and generally does so with his feet.”

“ And God sets you to do it, Hector?”

“Yes, It’s the way He looks after people’s feet.
He’s got to look after everything, you know, or
everything would go wrong. So He gives me the
leather and the tools and the hands—and I must
say the head, for it wants no little head to make a
good shoe to measure—and it is as if He said to me
—‘ There! you make shoes, while I keep the stars
right.’ Isn't it a fine thing to have a hand in the
general business ?”