Old Shoes

I HAVE some old shoes I am wearing to-day
That came from an ox, both aged and gray,
And if you have time, I will tell you the tale
Of the ox and the hide, and the shoes shall not fail;

Away down the years when the calf was still young,
And drank from the pail, by first sucking my -thumb,
It grew as all calves that were given the cream
With the milk, which a poet may spin as a dream.

It kicked up its heels like a schoolboy in youth
Who would sooner play ball than to Study the truth-
But soon it developed; supported great horns,
As pronounced in their beauty as the head they adorn.

But a man with a whip and a will too, severe,
Filled the head of this giant with submission and fear;
And he put on a yoke for the monster to bear
On its neck, and so heavy it wore off the hair.

It worked for long years, for this driver so cold,
Until it was seen it was growing quite old;
So he thought it much better the butcher to call
And sell the poor servant-the good-will and all.

The butcher came up, and bought him for beef,
"Of course it was fattened as if for a chief"
So the price was laid down, considered as pay,
While the man with his purchase, the ox, went away.

The poor ox looked back as it went down the road,
And for the home look it received the sharp goad;

So cruel are men, that we seldom may find
A man with a brute quite disposed to be kind.

He killed the great ox which had hauled all the wood
And did every act which in kindness it could,
And he took off its hide, while the carcass he sold
For a substance which glittered--he called it his gold.

But the hide let us study--its long tedious way
Ere it came as a shoe, to the sunlight of day;
It was placed in an acid, so strong and so dark
As to fill one with terror and sadden the heart.

This acid had toughened the hide, it is true,
But had loosened the hair, which the tanner well knew,
And the process completed, perhaps you may know
It was pure and as white as s mantle of snow.

In a substance quite strong again it was placed,
To toughen it further, and nothing to waste,
Until many weeks in this substance did lie,
When was taken therefrorn and was hung up to dry.

In the "loft," as they termed it, way up from the floor
Where hundreds and thousands were hanging before,
All deep in a color which appeals to the eye
And further along may explain to you why.

A shoemaker came to the tanner one day
And bought this great hide, and he bore it away
To his shop, as I learned, from a friend in the town
Who saw the old ox-skin through the gray and the brown.

The shoemaker came with his hammer and awls
And dealt out the blows, which come down with the mauls,
Till the hide was as soft as any could guess
One would think it was treated with naught but caress.

He sewed with great threads, made of flax I am told,
As strong as a lion, " yet hardly as bold,"
He drove in some nails in the portion below,
Which came close in contact with mud and with snow.

One day I dropped in, for a short friendly chat;
He talked first of one thing and then wisely of that;
And then he referred to the calf years ago,
And then to the ox, which I happened to know.

He spoke of the work which mankind brings about
And suggested new light, if the old one went out;
And finally referred to the shoes on the floor,
Just finished, " to order," which no one had wore.

I looked at the shoes, while he told me the tale,
Of the calf and the ox and the butcher's long trail,
The soles and the uppers, with eyes it is true,
And a " tongue " with the truth, for the perfect new shoe.