Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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But, in time, one of those boots ripped. The side seam gaped near the ankle. The Indian had been walking through wet grass when he came to the shop to get the rip sewed up. He tried to pull his boot off. It stuck tight. My father did not have a bootjack. He always said he did not like to have his perfectly fashioned boot-counters ruined by the use of a boot-jack. He had a better way.

My father turned his back to the Indian, and told Eagle Eye to stick his boot between his—the shoemaker’s—legs and push with the other foot. “Harder, push harder!” cried the human boot-jack. When the boot finally came off, a first-class shoemaker took a header into a pile of lasts and other rubbish in the corner of the room. He came up with a skinned nose.

The Indian—who had now come to call himself Eagle Eye when in the presence of my father—did not, of course get any kick out of hurting his “paleface” friend, but it was plain to be seen that pleasant thoughts were engaging him. An Indian laughs rarely, if ever—not the old Indians two generations back, anyway. But he had his moments of extreme pleasure.