Ragged Lady. William Dean Howells
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spats, and stockin's, and gaitas, but I nova did like to speak of such things befoa ladies, and now I stick ex-elusively to shoes. You know that well enough, guls; what's the use?”
He kept a sober face amidst the giggling that his words aroused,—and let his voice sink into a final note of injury.
“Well, if you don't want any shoes, to-day, I guess I must be goin'.” He made a feint of jerking his horse's reins, but forebore at the entreaties that went up from the group of girls.
“Yes, we do!” “Let's see them!” “Oh, don't go!” they chorused in an equally histrionic alarm, and the shoeman got down from his perch to show his wares.
“Now, the'a, ladies,” he said, pulling out one of the drawers, and dangling a pair of shoes from it by the string that joined their heels, “the'e's a shoe that looks as good as any Sat'd'y-night shoe you eva see. Looks as han'some as if it had a pasteboa'd sole and was split stock all through, like the kind you buy for a dollar at the store, and kick out in the fust walk you take with your fella—'r some other gul's fella, I don't ca'e which. And yet that's an honest shoe, made of the best of material all the way through, and in the best manna. Just look at that shoe, ladies; ex-amine it; sha'n't cost you a cent, and I'll pay for youa lost time myself, if any complaint is made.” He began to toss pairs of the shoes into the crowd of girls, who caught them from each other before they fell, with hysterical laughter, and ran away with them in-doors to try them on. “This is a shoe that I'm intaducin',” the shoeman went on, “and every pair is warranted—warranted numba two; don't make any otha size, because we want to cata to a strictly numba two custom. If any lady doos feel 'em a little mite too snug, I'm sorry for her, but I can't do anything to help her in this shoe.”
“Too snug!” came a gay voice from in-doors. “Why my foot feels puffectly lost in this one.”
“All right,” the shoeman shouted back. “Call it a numba one shoe and then see if you can't find that lost foot in it, some'eres. Or try a little flour, and see if it won't feel more at home. I've hea'd of a shoe that give that sensation of looseness by not goin' on at all.”
The girls exulted joyfully together at the defeat of their companion, but the shoeman kept a grave face, while he searched out other sorts of shoes and slippers, and offered them, or responded to some definite demand with something as near like as he could hope to make serve. The tumult of talk and laughter grew till the chef put his head out of the kitchen door, and then came sauntering across the grass to the helps' piazza. At the same time the clerk suffered himself to be lured from his post by the excitement. He came and stood beside the chef, who listened to the shoeman's flow of banter with a longing to take his chances with him.
“That's a nice hawss,” he said. “What'll you take for him?”
“Why, hello!” said the shoeman, with an eye that dwelt upon the chef's official white cap and apron, “You talk English, don't you? Fust off, I didn't know but it was one of them foreign dukes come ova he'a to marry some oua poor millionai'es daughtas.” The girls cried out for joy, and the chef bore their mirth stoically, but not without a personal relish of the shoeman's up-and-comingness. “Want a hawss?” asked the shoeman with an air of business. “What'll you give?”
“I'll give you thutty-seven dollas and a half,” said the chef.
“Sorry I can't take it. That hawss is sellin' at present for just one hundred and fifty dollas.”
“Well,” said the chef, “I'll raise you a dolla and a quahta. Say thutty-eight and seventy-five.”
“W-ell now, you're gittin' up among the figgas where you're liable to own a hawss. You just keep right on a raisin' me, while I sell these ladies some shoes, and maybe you'll hit it yit, 'fo'e night.”
The girls were trying on shoes on every side now, and they had dispensed with the formality of going in-doors for the purpose. More than one put out her foot to the clerk for his opinion of the fit, and the shoeman was mingling with the crowd, testing with his hand, advising from his professional knowledge, suggesting, urging, and in some cases artfully agreeing with the reluctance shown.
“This man,” said the chef, indicating Fane, “says you can tell moa lies to the square inch than any man out o' Boston.”
“Doos he?” asked the shoeman, turning with a pair of high-heeled bronze slippers in his hand from the wagon. “Well, now, if I stood as nea' to him as you do, I believe I sh'd hit him.”
“Why, man, I can't dispute him!” said the chef, and as if he had now at last scored a point, he threw back his head and laughed. When he brought down his head again, it was to perceive the approach of Clementina. “Hello,” he said for her to hear, “he'e comes the Boss. Well, I guess I must be goin',” he added, in mock anxiety. “I'm a goin', Boss, I'm a goin'.”
Clementina ignored him. “Mr. Atwell wants to see you a moment, Mr. Fane,” she said to the clerk.
“All right, Miss Claxon,” Fane answered, with the sorrowful respect which he always showed Clementina, now, “I'll be right there.” But he waited a moment, either in expression of his personal independence, or from curiosity to know what the shoeman was going to say of the bronze slippers.
Clementina felt the fascination, too; she thought the slippers were beautiful, and her foot thrilled with a mysterious prescience of its fitness for them.
“Now, the'e, ladies, or as I may say guls, if you'll excuse it in one that's moa like a fatha to you than anything else, in his feelings”—the girls tittered, and some one shouted derisively—“It's true!”—“now there is a shoe, or call it a slippa, that I've rutha hesitated about showin' to you, because I know that you're all rutha serious-minded, I don't ca'e how young ye be, or how good-lookin' ye be; and I don't presume the'e's one among you that's eve' head o' dancin'.” In the mirthful hooting and mocking that followed, the shoeman hedged gravely from the extreme position he had taken. “What? Well, maybe you have among some the summa folks, but we all know what summa folks ah', and I don't expect you to patte'n by them. But what I will say is that if any young lady within the sound of my voice,”—he looked round for the applause which did not fail him in his parody of the pulpit style—“should get an invitation to a dance next winta, and should feel it a wo'k of a charity to the young man to go, she'll be sorry—on his account, rememba—that she ha'n't got this pair o' slippas.
“The'a! They're a numba two, and they'll fit any lady here, I don't ca'e how small a foot she's got. Don't all speak at once, sistas! Ample time allowed for meals. That's a custom-made shoe, and if it hadn't b'en too small for the lady they was oddid foh, you couldn't-'a' got 'em for less than seven dollas; but now I'm throwin' on 'em away for three.”
A groan of dismay went up from the whole circle, and some who had pressed forward for a sight of the slippers, shrank back again.
“Did I hea' just now,” asked the shoeman, with a soft insinuation in his voice, and in the glance he suddenly turned upon Clementina, “a party addressed as Boss?” Clementina flushed, but she did not cower; the chef walked away with a laugh, and the shoeman pursued him with his voice. “Not that I am goin' to folla the wicked example of a man who tries to make spot of young ladies; but if the young lady addressed as Boss—”
“Miss Claxon,” said the clerk with ingratiating reverence.
“Miss Claxon—I Stan' corrected,” pursued the shoeman. “If Miss Claxon will do me the fava just to try on this slippa, I sh'd be able to tell at the next place I stopped just how it looked on a lady's foot. I see you a'n't any of you disposed to buy 'em this aftanoon, 'and I a'n't complainin'; you done pootty well by me, already, and I don't want to uhge you; but I do want to carry away the picture, in my mind's eye—what you may call a mental photograph—of this slipper on the kind of a foot it was made for, so't I can praise it truthfully to my next customer. What do you say, ma'am?” he addressed himself with profound respect to Clementina.
“Oh, do let him, Clem!” said one of the girls, and another pleaded, “Just so he needn't tell a story to his