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Roy Haydon, how
you do wear out your shoes! Just look at that one!" Roy looked
obediently at the shoes he had just kicked off, preparatory to going
to bed, and laughed outright. Mamma laughed, too, in spite of her
vexation; there was such an air of good fellowship and hearty
openness about the shoe-rather too much openness, in fact. Right
across the toe was a hole that looked for all the world like a wide,
open mouth, laughing heartily back at you as if it would like to
tell. jolly tales of tramps over stubby fields, climbs over stone
walls, and up cherry trees, frantic rushes after balls, ending in
kicks and stumbles that opened that same mouth wider still, and no
end of fun and frolic. What wonder that Roy laughed as he looked at
it; but there was a sober side, too, for it was not the easiest
matter in the world for mamula to find money to buy the endless
number of new shoes required to keep Roy's feet properly covered.
"What are old shoes good for, mamma?" asked Roy, when he was nicely
tucked up in bed.
"Good to throw away," laughed mamma, as she stooped to kiss the rosy
lips.
But they must be good for something," insisted Roy. "Can't anything
be made out of old leather?"
"Yes," said mamma, "a good many things. Glue is made from leather,
and from horns and hoofs, as well. The gelatine you are so fond of,
is made entirely from leather, but I don't think your old shoes
would do for that, Roy; so you needn't look so disgusted. The
leather used in gelatine manufactories is carefully selected from
fresh hides, and if you could see all the purifying processes the
gelatine passes through before it is ready for sale, you would be
quite satisfied with it. Scraps of old leather are ground up and
formed into a paste by adding certain fluids. The paste is then
pressed into moulds in the shape of buttons, cups, door knobs,
combs, and a number of other useful things, and when it is dry it
becomes hard and tough. Besides all this, very beautiful embossed
and bronzed wall-paper is made from scraps of old leather. So you
see, Roy, your old shoes may not have outlived their usefulness
yet."
Roy went to sleep and dreamed of wonderful things that were done
with his shoes; but neither he nor his mamma dreamed what really
happened to them. They were thrown out into a field behind the house
and forgotten; but one day, late in the summer, Roy came upon one of
them, and clapped his hands in glee. There was a whole colony of
field mice, making themselves very much at home, using the hole in
the toe as a front door, and scampering up and down with stores of
wheat, which they were laying up for winter use. "Mamma," said Roy
that night, "you spoke of my shoes being turned into wall-paper, but
you never thought that one of them would make a whole house!"
What Happened to Roy's Shoes
A Fictional Short Story by
Agnes Taylor Ketchum & Ida M. Jorgensen
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