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

85 страница из 136

Thus it was, I herded the cattle that produced the hides that made the leather which I helped make into shoes—all while still in my teens. My apprenticeship as a shoemaker began by holding a candle for my father to work by, at night. And if you could think it was not a wearying task for a sleepy boy, you can think again. The light would have to be shifted from side to side with each stitch as he sewed the soles on shoes. By midnight he usually ran out of “endearing” terms by which to bring me to attention—and he was willing to call it a day. Sometimes my mother would relieve me of this chore, but too often at such times she would be engaged in sewing up the side seams of a new boot, with awl and waxed thread. While I did a lot of repair work satisfactorily, I made out and out only three pairs of shoes. And though always behind with his orders, my father very wisely demanded that I make them all to my own measures.

Might add that we boys, sons of the tanner, and other rough and ready town boys—just to be doing something of our very own—tanned, in the big leather vats, squirrel hides, coon skins, and, of all things, two rattlesnake skins. Wes Shuemaker proudly wore the belt made of those rattlesnake skins for a long time.