Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/35

 me, and had to walk the forty blocks to my room. Here I filled my old grip and the next morning "beat it" for Eaton, arriving there on the first of May, and a cold, bleak, spring morning it was. I found the shop without any trouble—a dingy little place with two chairs. The proprietor, a drawn, unhappy looking creature, and a hawkish looking German assistant welcomed me cordially. They seemed to need company. The proprietor led me upstairs to a room that I could have free with an oil stove and table where I could cook—so I made arrangements to "bach".

I received no wages, but was allowed to retain all I made "shining". I had acquired some experience shining shoes on the streets of M—pls with a home-made box getting on my knees whenever I got a customer. "Shining shoes" is not usually considered an advanced or technical occupation requiring skill. However, if properly conducted it can be the making of a good solicitor. While Eaton was a suburb it was also a country town and this shop was never patronized by any of the metropolitan class who made their homes there, but principally by the country class who do not evidence their city pride by the polish of their shoes. Few city people allow their shoes to go unpolished and I wasn't long in finding it out, and when I did I had something to say to the men who went by, well dressed but with dirty shoes. If I could argue them into stopping, if only for a moment, I could nearly always succeed in getting them into the chair.

Business, however, was dull and I began taking jobs in the country from the farmers, working